Don't bother with this junk game.

[Jahckalope]

So like.... everything is broken, half of mechanics make no sense, or are broken, or half-way implemented in to the game. Cities make no sense, like you get flax as special feature in a province with no crop farms. Almost no skills for Diplomat or Merchant, Real famous historical regions are crap in the game. Battles are broken, with pathfinding so broken that I would be happy to vote it "Broken Path Finding of the Century". Not to mention the undecided AI. I just had a whole army, choke trough enemy gate (with whole enemy army outside letting me do it), while being under fire from the walls, just to kill one fellow that got stuck in between the buildings inside the keep, while the rest of the enemy army was outside the walls including the rest of that one fellow regiment. Regions rebel for no reason, even thou you should have positive rating with them etc. Not to mention the optimization, it works like a tractor does. Enemies declare war on you occasionally when you fight disorder in you own provinces etc. Overall, to be buyer be aware it's a hot mess with mods that pretends to be something elaborate, in between TW and CK but it isn't. Instead ATM it's just a badly scripted hot mess, maybe in two years... but I doubt it. It will get abandoned like everything these days, before its finished.

Kind Regards

[chompers]

The Royal Library in game is a wealth of information and a great way to learn about the many deep systems within the game that are tough to understand at a glance. It's a great reference and a very good learning tool. I would read a bit of that before dismissing the game outright it may surprise you.

[Iskar]

If your criticism was fair and well-founded everyone else should at least share some of your alleged bad experiences, and I don't so it isn't. I guess the game did not hand victory to you on a silver platter? A pity, truly.

[Jahckalope]

It's not a troll post it's a honest warning. Troll post is what Iskar wrote, trying to undermine my opinion. The game is wide as ocean, and shallow as a puddle. Just read some of the negative reviews on steam and there is quite a lot of them, they all confirm the same things that I didn't like about it. Consider myself a seasoned strategy gamer, and this game is not it. It feels like and EA. Performance is low, battles are broken, pathfinding in battles is broken, siege warfare comes down to destroying the gate, swords do the job. You can't zoom out enough in the campaign map, layout of resources on the map makes no sense - apart few accurate ones, no weather/seasons system, ridiculously low unit variety, (with eastern cav being the most op. with almost nothing to counter that on the west part of the map). AI is inexistent is just a patchwork of few basic scripts. There is almost no traits for the diplomat and very few for the cleric in the available skill tree. Diplomacy is bare bones when it works. You're limited to what 9 court members or so, that includes you, your generals. priests, merchants, spies, and diplomats. To have one of each you end up with 5 generals tops, it's real tedious to maintain a larger state with only 5 generals. Same to keep good trade relations with 1 merchant, and so on... Low general count is countered a little bit by the existence of mercenaries, but they are expensive to maintain and tend to accumulate on your enemies side in times of peace, not to mention their AI as you can't tell them where to go once you paid them. You only get a few bands of them no matter how large is your kingdom in times of peace, they tend to move in to your lands once you start some wars. Your court life is bare bones. The only well developed aspect of the game is the special resources trading which is required for higher tier buildings. but again being limited to one to three tops merchants make it real difficult and tedious to access all the stuff. Province management screen is decent but still lacks features like showing you what province has what basic resource or elite units available in them. The list goes on .... Overall 5/10 game at best.

[hellfusion]

Originally posted by Jahckalope:

Enemies declare war on you occasionally when you fight disorder in you own provinces etc.

Enemies occasionally declare war on you. Unplayable, really.

[Jahckalope]

Laughs on you. They declare war on you when you pacify your provinces. That makes no sense.

[Iskar]

Originally posted by Jahckalope:

Laughs on you. They declare war on you when you pacify your provinces. That makes no sense.

"Pacifying provinces" with marshals means slaughtering everyone openly disagreeing with your rule. Small wonder your neighbours don't appreciate that. Try using clerics instead.

[Brucato]

Its bound to happen when people dont bother looking up the rules. I choose to ignore OP's postings and enjoy the hell out of the game as I put forth the effort to learn it. Maybe the complexity of a game like.....Candyland......is more suited to the complexity the OP can handle.

[chompers]

Originally posted by Jahckalope:

Laughs on you. They declare war on you when you pacify your provinces. That makes no sense.

As was stated above, if you use a marshal to "pacify" a province in reality what you're doing is murdering a great deal of people and that has a huge impact on the way kingdoms perceive you. The correct way to eliminate disorder is having a cleric "adopt the population" and the conversion will happen with no penalties.

[Emperor2000]

Originally posted by Jahckalope:

So like.... everything is broken, half of mechanics make no sense, or are broken, or half-way implemented in to the game. Cities make no sense, like you get flax as special feature in a province with no crop farms. Almost no skills for Diplomat or Merchant, Real famous historical regions are crap in the game. Battles are broken, with pathfinding so broken that I would be happy to vote it "Broken Path Finding of the Century". Not to mention the undecided AI. I just had a whole army, choke trough enemy gate (with whole enemy army outside letting me do it), while being under fire from the walls, just to kill one fellow that got stuck in between the buildings inside the keep, while the rest of the enemy army was outside the walls including the rest of that one fellow regiment. Regions rebel for no reason, even thou you should have positive rating with them etc. Not to mention the optimization, it works like a tractor does. Enemies declare war on you occasionally when you fight disorder in you own provinces etc. Overall, to be buyer be aware it's a hot mess with mods that pretends to be something elaborate, in between TW and CK but it isn't. Instead ATM it's just a badly scripted hot mess, maybe in two years... but I doubt it. It will get abandoned like everything these days, before its finished.

Kind Regards

KoH2 is 200% better than CK3, because it has nearly 0 Bugs and CK3 has over 10.000 Bug Reports in the Bug Section of the Paradox Forum.

And you can win KoH2 without ever declaring war against another Kingdom, by using Spies or/and Cultural Influence and this is not in CK3.

[Fistochat]

Originally posted by Jahckalope:

Just read some of the negative reviews on steam and there is quite a lot of them, they all confirm the same things that I didn't like about it.

The majority of the reviews are positive

Originally posted by Jahckalope:

[...] siege warfare comes down to destroying the gate, swords do the job.

Did you play until unlocking trebuchets ?

Originally posted by Jahckalope:

You can't zoom out enough in the campaign map

True

Originally posted by Jahckalope:

Diplomacy is bare bones when it works.

What ? Diplomacy doesn't work ? What are you suggesting, AI should accept every proposition or is diplomacy just bugged ? Never seen a single bug in an audience.

Originally posted by Jahckalope:

You're limited to what 9 court members or so, that includes you, your generals. priests, merchants, spies, and diplomats. To have one of each you end up with 5 generals tops, it's real tedious to maintain a larger state with only 5 generals. Same to keep good trade relations with 1 merchant, and so on...

That is you opinion, some adore this limit and others hate it. I personaly love the fact that you have to make a decision regarding your court. It also offers a large variety of gameplay from early to late game. I usually start with 3-4 merchants and 2 diplomats. When my kingdom is wealthy and stable, I play with 2 spies, 2 merchants, 3 marshalls, 1 cleric and 1 diplomat.

Originally posted by Jahckalope:

Your court life is bare bones.

This game never pretended to offer a court life experience, in the opposite of CK.

Originally posted by Jahckalope:

The only well developed aspect of the game is the special resources trading which is required for higher tier buildings. but again being limited to one to three tops merchants make it real difficult and tedious to access all the stuff.

I think you didn't get how to play the game then. Because again, you have to adapt your gameplay over time. It's not a game where you create 1 merchant that will trade with all the countries and gather all resources by himself and x marshals to paint the map. And god knows that painting the map is not historically accurate, to repeat your words.

Originally posted by Jahckalope:

Province management screen is decent but still lacks features like showing you what province has what basic resource [...]

That is just not true, click on the city and you will see all settlements and resources.

So yeah, I think you should try to play a bit more to make a proper review of the game. Most of what you say reveals that you didn't really try the game, or that you want to discredit it. Other things you say are factually wrong.

[Jahckalope]

Nahhh I stand by what I've wrote earlier, trying to break it apart with weak argument won't change my opinion. From the things you wrote Fistochat, clearly you're a fanboy of it and you'll defend it no matter what, mostly positive on steam is like 5/10 on real terms.

[Iskar]

Originally posted by Jahckalope:

Nahhh I stand by what I've wrote earlier, trying to break it apart with weak argument won't change my opinion. From the things you wrote Fistochat, clearly you're a fanboy of it and you'll defend it no matter what, mostly positive on steam is like 5/10 on real terms.

"I don't react to arguments and everyone who disagrees with me is a fanboy." Great way of responding to people who actually take the time to address every single point you made like fistochat did.

[Fistochat]

Originally posted by Jahckalope:

Nahhh I stand by what I've wrote earlier, trying to break it apart with weak argument won't change my opinion. From the things you wrote Fistochat, clearly you're a fanboy of it and you'll defend it no matter what, mostly positive on steam is like 5/10 on real terms.

I didn't contredict you on every argument. I even agreed on the camera issue. Anyway, it's your opinion and I accept it. Up to you to accept mine.

[frosti]

Most of the Jahckalope's points are true to some degree. If all those issues were solved though, it would be a 10/10 game. If you compare KoH 2 to vanilla Total War games, it clearly wins. Because most vanilla grand strategy games have very basic features, low difficulty and very bad AI. What makes them much better are mods. Rome 2 without Divide et Impera is not worth playing at all and the rating is 6/10 at best IMHO. Wait a couple of months/years and see how KoH 2 has improved.

[PetrolFace]

Originally posted by Fistochat:

Originally posted by Jahckalope:

Just read some of the negative reviews on steam and there is quite a lot of them, they all confirm the same things that I didn't like about it.

The majority of the reviews are positive

Originally posted by Jahckalope:

[...] siege warfare comes down to destroying the gate, swords do the job.

Did you play until unlocking trebuchets ?

Originally posted by Jahckalope:

You can't zoom out enough in the campaign map

True

Originally posted by Jahckalope:

Diplomacy is bare bones when it works.

What ? Diplomacy doesn't work ? What are you suggesting, AI should accept every proposition or is diplomacy just bugged ? Never seen a single bug in an audience.

Originally posted by Jahckalope:

You're limited to what 9 court members or so, that includes you, your generals. priests, merchants, spies, and diplomats. To have one of each you end up with 5 generals tops, it's real tedious to maintain a larger state with only 5 generals. Same to keep good trade relations with 1 merchant, and so on...

That is you opinion, some adore this limit and others hate it. I personaly love the fact that you have to make a decision regarding your court. It also offers a large variety of gameplay from early to late game. I usually start with 3-4 merchants and 2 diplomats. When my kingdom is wealthy and stable, I play with 2 spies, 2 merchants, 3 marshalls, 1 cleric and 1 diplomat.

Originally posted by Jahckalope:

Your court life is bare bones.

This game never pretended to offer a court life experience, in the opposite of CK.

Originally posted by Jahckalope:

The only well developed aspect of the game is the special resources trading which is required for higher tier buildings. but again being limited to one to three tops merchants make it real difficult and tedious to access all the stuff.

I think you didn't get how to play the game then. Because again, you have to adapt your gameplay over time. It's not a game where you create 1 merchant that will trade with all the countries and gather all resources by himself and x marshals to paint the map. And god knows that painting the map is not historically accurate, to repeat your words.

Originally posted by Jahckalope:

Province management screen is decent but still lacks features like showing you what province has what basic resource [...]

That is just not true, click on the city and you will see all settlements and resources.

So yeah, I think you should try to play a bit more to make a proper review of the game. Most of what you say reveals that you didn't really try the game, or that you want to discredit it. Other things you say are factually wrong.

Thanks for posting this. I basically had something similar typed out before my cat laid down on my keyboard and I couldn't be stuffed making it legible again.

Ignore the "fan boy" comment if you haven't already. You've made some critiques of the game which isn't what fanboys do. I think the individual that started this thread has watched a lot of Worth-a-Buy videos but doesn't form intelligible arguments like Mack would.