Genre: Real-Time Strategy (RTS)
Publisher: Sunflowers/EA
Developer: Black Sea Studios
Release Date: October 26, 2004

Three years and three days in the making, Knights of Honor is Black Sea Studios first, very ambitious undertaking. With over 100 playable kingdoms in three historical periods, a powerful diplomatic system, more than 50 types of military units and multi-player support, Knights of Honor tries to do it all. But just how well does it fare?

The opening cinematic presents some wonderful visuals and introduces a sampling of some very impressive music, setting the mood for the experience to come. I jumped eagerly into the tutorial, expecting great things – but the sheer detail slowed me down quickly. The tutorial is very effective, but can be rather long. I recommend not attempting it all at once, although I wouldn’t at all advise playing the game without first going over at least the basics. After completing the tutorial, I started a new game on the “normal” difficulty level (there are three, ranging from “easy” to “hard”) and began experimenting.

The game looks turn-based at first glance, but in fact it takes place in “real” time. There is no End Turn button, and marching armies will plod slowly across the map towards their destinations (which will make you appreciate the time-acceleration feature). One of the first things I did was to spend some time in the Political Map area, looking for potential friends and planning on how best to reduce the threat of potential foes. I quickly decided to make trade agreements with my friendlier, like-minded neighbors, and in moments had several active non-aggression pacts giving me peace of mind regarding my many larger neighbors as I took command of Denmark.

In short order I was able to establish alliances with some of my friendly neighbors, but this is not to say that the diplomatic system is overly-easy. Some of the less-than-eager nations demanded tribute to enter a trade agreement, something I was not about to do at this stage, and one even demanded marriage to my daughter, my only princess! She deserved better. However, this brings a very important point to bear: while the game plays out in real time, you can pause and issue orders, negotiate treaties, build up armies and assign knights. While it may only be a minor issue to some gamers, this strange inconsistency doesn’t make a great deal of sense. In essence you can start a new game, pause, form alliances and trade agreements, build an “army” of peasants, declare war – all in the blink of an eye – and then hit pause again to watch your army trot across the map to slaughter your enemy.

There is another interesting feature of managing your growing empire, your dynasty. I started with a king, a queen, one prince and one princess. My prince was given a job as a merchant, which increased the gold production of the province he governed. Note that there are many occupations that your male heirs may be ordered into, from commanding an army in the field to being a spy; if you don’t want to risk your only heir to the thrown, you may pay one of your knights a substantial sum of money to do the same job. One risk with that provides an interesting twist to the game: the knight you promote may well be an enemy spy, and would then have access to information that he reasonably would in his new assigned occupation. This means he can sabotage certain areas of your empire, something that can become very annoying on the receiving end. A spying knight may, in the position of a marshal, cause your army to go into rebellion. That’s just one example of the fun to be had with espionage! Nevertheless, risking the only heir to the throne can be dangerous; but then, so can a skilled spy.

So how is the AI? It wasn’t long before some one of my rowdy neighbors declared war on one of my allies. I quickly received a request from the besieged ally, Sweden, to take up arms against the aggressors. Since I wanted to be an honorable leader, I agreed, and automatically was able to declare war against the evil Germany. Since my army at the time consisted of only peasants, I sent a marshal to a nearby camp of mercenaries and hired them all – my economy was doing very well, and I could afford it. With a few Vikings and axe-men in tow, I began marching towards Germany… just as I received an urgent-sounding voiceover telling me than enemy forces had invaded my lands! It appeared they had been waiting near the border, although I soon realized that they were only passing through on their way to Sweden, using my own docks to sail from. The indignity!

Seeing what may be a chance, I continued marching my small army into German territory and attacked an outlying farming village. My traveling soldiers had become somewhat low on food, and I reasoned that a farm would be a good target to pillage. I turned out to be correct, as my troops destroyed the village and plundered a full stock of rations. Deciding that the second army Germany was now sending against my invading forces was too large by far to defeat, I slipped back into my own lands with them in hot pursuit. Safe in my city walls, I thought them very foolish to lay siege, as I clearly had the upper hand with my reinforcements and palisades and large stores of food. Much to my chagrin, the army that Germany had sent to invade Sweden suddenly returned to my shores!

Without wasting any time, they joined the siege already in progress and I was suddenly very outnumbered, my food stores steadily draining. I decided to see if diplomacy could help me out, so returned to the political view to check on nearby allies. Norway liked me a great deal, so I invoked my alliance with Norway against Germany. Norway responded happily and confidently that they would honor the alliance, and in a few minutes I saw their friendly army appear in my territory, marching to drive off the invaders. The Germans decided that facing two determined foes in one land was a bit much to ask, and retreated. It wasn’t long before I returned to Germany with a fresh army and attacked a German province as my allies attacked adjacent areas… soon Germany had fallen, as I ignored pleas for mercy and crushed them completely, just in time to see the Pope declare a crusade against some unwitting nation in the south.

All in all, I was more than pleased by the depth this title offers. Battle can be resolved without your presence, or you can take command of the troops in the field. Commanding the units personally allows you to set formations, direct the troops and order charges. While the graphics in battle mode are not fully 3D, they do well enough to not get a complaint from me. You won’t get the same visual treat you might get from Rome: Total War, but it’s more than functional enough.

Graphically, the biggest lack of quality was taking command of troops in the field. Again, the visuals here are effective – just not what I would call stunning. The detailed and attractive map view is where you will probably spend most of your time; I found myself in the Political View most of the time, only using the other view to organize troop movements.

The interface does have a few issues in certain areas. While not difficult to learn, it can be cumbersome, blocking important information and generally being uncooperative. I found that using the hotkeys made life far easier, rather than closing unmovable information windows over and over again to access that one little button I needed to click in the corner.

As far as sounds go, this game has an interesting selection of voice talent. Some voices bring you right into the medieval, with powerful, rich quality. Other voices sound questionable at best, with curious, high pitched voices, and seem rather comedic. Your knights have voice sets based on their occupation, so a spy speaks darkly while a merchant will be spouting remarks about gold and self-importance. The music is excellent, very fitting with the theme and not grating or annoying.

The re-playability in this title is very high. With multiple time periods and 100+ kingdoms to rule, not to mention the well-supported multiplayer options, you will always something new to try. The experience of being a Catholic nation in the north is far different than being a Muslim nation in the south, as the different geography and new neighborhood can make for a fresh experience. Each time I played, I noticed that nations got along together differently. Generally, nations of the same religion will try to maintain at least lukewarm relations (believe me, there are exceptions), while those kingdoms with different beliefs tend to be more difficult to trust – this all makes sense. What is worth noting is that, while in one game, Denmark and Sweden were already very friendly at the start, in another game they were outright hostile, with Denmark declaring war in the opening 10 seconds. You can just never get too comfortable in Knights of Honor, you never know when greed or arrogance will convince a former friend to attack one of your less capable provinces. Then again, finding out that an ally has sent a spy into your kingdom can be gratifying as you get the option to torture him, ransom him, or just imprison him. Execution is a classic option as well! Always fun to see your ally, “shame facedly” admit that the spy is his, then offer you a huge sum for his safe return.

It’s unfortunate that this title will probably never receive the credit it deserves due to the variety of better-known, high quality titles in the genre. I recommend it any fan of medieval history or strategy without question, if they are prepared to spend the time playing – I spent a huge portion of the day on just one game, and that was using the time acceleration whenever possible. With a vibrant historical backdrop, involving gameplay, powerful diplomacy and interesting strategy, Knights of Honor will have a home on my hard drive for months to come.

Score: 7.9 /10