This or King Arthur 1?

[hooaht FOYAH]

?

[tor]

king arthur 1, for me. The second one is ok, i guess. But it's a totally linear story. And in the first one you could put together armies with more diverse spell combinations. KA2's Interface is clunky (mind you KA1's is not brilliant either), and the game is just not as fun. The whole 'magic shield' business is rubbish. Whoever thought that up needs their head examined. It sucks all the fun right out. It means the spellcasting side of the game (which was the most fun part in the first game for me) is 90% battering enemy shields, and boosting your own....instead of damage dealing. Which is what we want, right? KA2 has some nice units...like angels / dragons. But that's about it. And in terms of gameplay, that really becomes a very superficial bonus. KA1 was just way more fun as a game. Oh, and performance in KA2 is really bad. I have a good PC, but need to run everything on minimum to get half-decent performance. KA1 runs nice. And the druids DLC for KA1 is quite good (never bothered with the saxons DLC, as the christian path in the game is dull). I bought KA2 recently and had to wait over a week to even get it working (as did many people). It's just a buggy downgrade of the first game tbh. Shame. I feel they tried to make it better, but didn't realise what made the first one so good. And 'improved' the wrong things. Just my opinion.

[Nichtswisser]

The first is fun to play, the second...... just don't buy it. Even without the crappy performance and stability issues it would still be inferior to the first.

[Sergio Bigshot]

Not being able to assign calvary to heros is a huge negative for KA2. My heroes never make it into battle because they are either in the back of the map dealing with the spell shield or creeping along with the archers since they are so slow.

[Two Clicks]

This is more strategy lite in terms of realm management. Though its an unpdated engine with "better" gfx, KA1 is by far the better overall strategy game in terms of realm management, heroes and armies. This game plays okay, but KA1 is by far a better experience for me. More so because I connected with backstory alot quicker and more than in this one.

Suggest KA1 first. Get the expansions to expand the strategy elements too.

[raubrey]

About 17 hours into KA2 I'm about ready to give it up. KA1 was a lot better in terms of immersion, variety, and smooth gameplay....until mid/late game where there was a rebellion/mutiple Sidhe spawn bug I don't know if it ever got resovled. The first one was interesting enough I replayed it several times up until that point.

Magic was much more fun in KA1 too while it barely makes tactical sense in KA2 -- I agree about the magic shield as Tor mentioned, that it really takes away from the game and it's mechanics are not clear. I read something like it's not suppose to be a protective shield, well what sense is that? My spells don't work. Classify it how you will, but I consider it a bore.

In KA1 you didn't have to kill EVERYTHING to win. I'm sorry but it's not entertaining (in my opinion) chasing a couple archer groups AFTER a decisive victory (killing the leaders and 90%+ of troops) only to lose most your units to archers, more spawns from one remaining Famorian Gate and the Curse of Shadows spell attached to it. (*gives last objective of Chap 1 a dirty look*).

In the few strategies I read, it said it's best not to use your archers on theirs ...well that's fine until you can't get to theirs in time to kill before your archers and non-heavy infantry die. And don't think the calvary will save you as they will die to pikeman/arrows etc. until late battle. KA1 had great spells dealing with archers, early in the game.

Normally you wouldn't have so much heavy infantry in a forested/hilly area but that seems the best way to survive, and we know how slow they can be.

I'm fine with difficult strategy games and am a big fan of Paradox (who wasn't involved in KA1, to my knowledge) But this game tries to be both a strategy game and an RPG and does neither well, though I like the adventure quests and the Diplomacy is okay. It's really vague though early game whereas KA1 had a clear objective. I mean, do you you create an alliance with someone who might turn possessed? I dunno, I rather alliances be weighed on a little more concrete factors -- religion/nationality/army size etc.

And if you need to invest several hours learning how to win this game/battles I think this could be made more clear, interesting and progressive. In games like Crusader Kings or Shogun, battles make sense but it is clear from the start you need to invest considerable time to learn how to play.

I don't think KA2 is marketed that way, so buyers can be in for an unpleasant surprise.

It's too bad, as this franchise could be so much more.

If you do buy either or both of them I'd suggest doing so at a deep discount. GG runs great sales on Paradox quite often and they are seen somewhat regularly (but with less discount, often) enough here.

P.S. The game lags for me at time with an i7 860 and 460 v 2 which was (near) top of the line when this game came out.

P.S.S. I also have the same issues as Brannen with heroes. I don't know why they took hero unit assignment out of the game.

[KingCoward]

Didnt they improve the battles somewhat in 2 , i tried the demo from the first game and its terrible, units clip through eachother and dont even hit eachother properly while in a fight.