What's new versus KoH 1 ?

[Schwift Master]

I read reviews saying this is pretty much a remaster and didn't really add anything, is this true?

I really want to play, but for the price and already owning KoH .. I need to hear from others who played the first extensively. Is this more of a sequel with a lot of extra reasons to play it, or is it KoH with modern graphics?

[hellfusion]

All of the mechanics of KoH 1 are reworked and work much better now. Like previously to start economy you had to just hire a bunch of merchants, increase crown authority and that’s basically it. Now there is a Commerce stat which you can increase in several ways and it allows you things like upgrading your trade routes or exporting food to earn cash or making trade centers which are a thing-in-itself.

New stuff/differences from KoH 1 include:
1). All knights now have their own skills, so you decide what they’ll be specialized in. Sometimes they get to do unique actions according to their class.
2). No useless knight types. Spies that do their job, and not just wait for eternity for being hired etc.
3). Tradition mechanic which improves your whole kingdom.
4). Diplomatic defense/attack pacts.
5). Getting higher tier units is much more useful.
6). Province improving is better. Not just for getting all goods for kingdom advantages. Specialization according to province’s features actually makes sense.
7). Strategic AI is better. Can’t say that about rts-battles unfortunately.
8). Pagans are much more interesting, other religions got a bit of new stuff.

All in all stuff like music and graphics are subjective, but core gameplay is imo just better and more thought out.

[lorenzo_milan]

what he said

[Varainger]

It's not that far from KoH 1 to not recognise it anymore, but improved enough to be worth it in my opinion to be called a sucessor. I had to play one campaign and a bit to be sure about this, but now i am. One should not forget that the original got released twenty years ago, so it's quite logical to me to not make a different game regarding basic game structure. That then could naturally happen with DLCs or another third version coming out, assuming it happens at least inside the same decade. ;)

I suggested myself in the very early stages to not deviate too much from the original to not piss off old fans and instead add things and improve it to make it more than a remake, also so that new players would be happy enough about it, while still being a Knights of Honor game.
I think it worked.

Oh and to add to the question apart from what was already mentioned, there are actually events, many more options for actions for your knights/councilors, interesting traits system having an impact on your provinces and realm, more provinces,better balanced goods/ressources system, you don't need to conquer a province at the other end of the known world anymore to get your goods and advantages, the AI is better,there is an influence system for different diplomacy impacts and more.
The new music is great too and diverse, if not better, dare i say it.

The only thing i'm not fully happy with is the LIbary.
That needs a bit restructuring and a manual search system.
Looks poorer than in the first game.

A few things regarding the UI and one o two 'quality of life' features can still be improved (info in advantages, prov search etc), but so short after release i'm fine.

I'm looking forward to what the new patch will bring, apart from Steam Workshop support, that comes out in about a week or so.

[DNLH]

While it was already mentioned, I feel like it needs to be repeated, they really put the emphasis on 'Knights' part of the title with the skills, while Marshals got kinda nerfed, by being moved into this standarized system and in the process losing their large choice of skills or ability to improve naturally on the job, you can now build differently every single knight and even utilize them as emergency Marshals thanks to the skills.

Every Knight now has two or three tasks - their active job like in KoH (leading an army, trading, improving relations with a kingdom), passive bonus to a single province they're assigned to govern and finally some have actions and opportunities to use (Spies have a lot of those that crop up, bribing enemy knights, assassination plots, inciting rebelions, countering enemy spies, Clerics can convert populations and have different additional actions depending on religion, Merchants can leave on an expedition once you have a proper harbor). And all of that can be improved in different ways via different skills, so it's a balancing act between squeezing the most out of your provinces, improving them at their jobs and making the most out of opportunities that show up.

Honorary mention to the caps introduced, along with Books required to learn/improve skills of your Knights, there's Commerce (limiting the trade) and Food production (there's individual food storage for armies and cities like in KoH, but also a global Food production that limits how many units you can field). It makes the Kingdom actually grow and expand, imo, in KoH it felt like there was no difference between one-three provinces kingdom and one that is 10+, you had access to the same amount of trade and armies. Provinces without Governors also provide only tenth of their resources, so there's more of an equal playing field between kingdoms that reached this limit, too.

[RuneAldoo]

Originally posted by Schwift Master:

I read reviews saying this is pretty much a remaster and didn't really add anything, is this true?

No. You could perhaps call it a remake as it Honor the first game, but it is in all ways better than 1 and indeed a very good game. I bet people calling it a remaster never played KoH

[Johnny 5]

Originally posted by RuneAldoo:

Originally posted by Schwift Master:

I read reviews saying this is pretty much a remaster and didn't really add anything, is this true?

No. You could perhaps call it a remake as it Honor the first game, but it is in all ways better than 1 and indeed a very good game. I bet people calling it a remaster never played KoH

A remaster would probably have a functional zoom

The first game is for all intents and purposes the same game, maybe better

[RuneAldoo]

Well that will always be an personal opinion, but for me KoH2 is far better. Only thing I like better in KoH1 is battle map graphics

[DNLH]

Originally posted by Johnny 5:

The first game is for all intents and purposes the same game, maybe better

It's really not, tho, unless we're talking in really broad strokes.

[Spoonoop]

In my opinion, the only part of the game that lacks and was not expanded upon is sieges. The castle upgrades don't seem to transform town defenses much at all. KoH1 had gate tower upgrades that could be occupied by troops and equipped with boiling oil, drum tower upgrades that could be occupied by troops, ballista and catapult towers, and the castle in the center could be occupied by troops for a range advantage as well. All of these things are gone unfortunately. A town with full military upgrades doesn't look different or have more defenses on the battle map. Once two or three towers are destroyed it's easy enough to walk in and claim victory. Garrison troops from building upgrades, town guards, and even royal guards from the final palace upgrade are fairly weak troops. Unfortunately the cannon upgrade from lords castle is just a "good" and not an actual weapon that can be used for defense.

I do really love the game and put almost 100hrs into, but sieges are my biggest gripe. A town with full military upgrades should be more imposing and provide elite troop garrisons to make sieges more difficult and prevent easily sacking one town after another.

[Schwift Master]

Wow, thank you for all the great responses🤌

Seems the indeed the biggest negative of the game is the real time battles.

Hopefully they improve upon them soon, or perhaps maybe even some modders will. That may be only a quarter of the game.. but still, it was a big draw for me.

[Johnny 5]

Originally posted by Schwift Master:

Wow, thank you for all the great responses🤌

Seems the indeed the biggest negative of the game is the real time battles.

Hopefully they improve upon them soon, or perhaps maybe even some modders will. That may be only a quarter of the game.. but still, it was a big draw for me.

The real time battles are incredibly bad. I fought one, then immediately closed, uninstalled and refunded the game.

[DNLH]

I wouldn't call them negative, they're, IMO, perfectly fine at what they were supposed to be, that is a quick break from the gameloop rather than its integral part, and there are some tense and fun battles to be had, they're just very simple - though I think that's part of the fun, you catch the rules quickly and can have some fun with army composition then.

They need to keep tweaking the AI so it's harder to abuse, but they're already fun, I think, especially if you stop yourself from cheesing them.

[hellfusion]

Originally posted by DNLH:

I wouldn't call them negative, they're, IMO, perfectly fine at what they were supposed to be, that is a quick break from the gameloop rather than its integral part, and there are some tense and fun battles to be had, they're just very simple - though I think that's part of the fun, you catch the rules quickly and can have some fun with army composition then.

They need to keep tweaking the AI so it's harder to abuse, but they're already fun, I think, especially if you stop yourself from cheesing them.

This.