Knights and Merchants

Rating:
Summary: This game has incredible potential, but the combat is weak.
Review: This is a great game as far as village building. The economics are very realistic (unlike AOE, Warcraft, Starcraft, etc.), the graphics are good (although I don't think that's very important), but the combat is pretty bad. First of all, feeding the troops is a pain. Especially when there's a group with different hunger levels, and you have to break up the group to feed them at different times. This takes up a lot of time and is very annoying. The combat makes no sense - In many of the levels, the enemies just sit there and die... The strategy involved with combat isn't bad, but it's much more difficult to get single units of small groups of units to attack a specific group of units or unit. In most RTS games, you can just click on the unit(s) and right click on another, but not in this. Although, it is really fun to set up a big attack. Now, back to the village. The peasants are incredibly stupid. There are only two things to complain about in the villages - the peasants not building buildings that they are told to build and the time it takes to build roads (which need to connect every single building - you can't start another village far off without building a long road). Basically, the way the villages work is absolutely stupendous, but a few changes need to be made (roads and peasants' AI). If the way the villages work was combined with the combat of, say, Starcraft or AOE, the result would be the best RTS ever.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best games I've played
Review: This is one of the best games I've played. Besides the fact that it is very realistic when it comes to food production and building it is very funny just to see the small workers do thier job. Compared to Warcraft and Starcraft this is outstanding in this sector. When it comes to battle there are some thing that could be changed. The strategic is great, pikemen shuold only attack knights and so on, but feeding the troops not the better part of this game. If youre planning a big attack, which is very fun to plan, with 100 - 150 soldiers, it is hard, not to say impossible, to get food to the troops before the attack and run the village at the same time. But I can live with it. I have completed all the 20 missions twice, so it is possible to do attacks in spite of this. The key is just to fill your barrack with recruits and weapons and then train all the soldiers in a matter of minutes. Then you might not have to feed them at all before the attack. Now, back to the subjekt; This is a really good game and I'm looking for Knights and Merchants II. (If there already is such game please mail me and tell me where to find it)!!!

Rating:
Summary: Great simulation
Review: Well, I first found this game about 2 years ago, and it's such a fun and yet aggravating game to play. Be forewarned, do NOT attempt to play this game unless you have several hours of free time available, preferably multiple blocks of several hours of free time. The game is so completely absorbing that six hours can disappear without you ever realizing it. You play several scenarios, each one adding in new units and new buildings, so you can slowly develop your use of these items. Unfortunately, the opposition seems to have access to all of these items right from the start, so sometimes things feel a little lopsided. But if you're clever and pay attention, you can prevail.

My only complaint is that everything depends on your serfs doing what they're supposed to do, and they seem to have the collective IQ of a box of rocks. I don't know how many hours I've spent literally screaming at my computer (like they can hear me... duh!) because something is going wrong because the serfs are off doing something completely stupid instead of what I want them to be doing.

Altogether an incredible game, and I hope that eventually there will be a sequel.

Rating:
Summary: Great simulation
Review: Well, I first found this game about 2 years ago, and it's such a fun and yet aggravating game to play. Be forewarned, do NOT attempt to play this game unless you have several hours of free time available, preferably multiple blocks of several hours of free time. The game is so completely absorbing that six hours can disappear without you ever realizing it. You play several scenarios, each one adding in new units and new buildings, so you can slowly develop your use of these items. Unfortunately, the opposition seems to have access to all of these items right from the start, so sometimes things feel a little lopsided. But if you're clever and pay attention, you can prevail.

My only complaint is that everything depends on your serfs doing what they're supposed to do, and they seem to have the collective IQ of a box of rocks. I don't know how many hours I've spent literally screaming at my computer (like they can hear me... duh!) because something is going wrong because the serfs are off doing something completely stupid instead of what I want them to be doing.

Altogether an incredible game, and I hope that eventually there will be a sequel.