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Initial Impressions

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Storyteller

Peasant

Posts: 4

Joined: 19 Jan 2016, 08:17

KaM Skill Level: Fair

Post 19 Jan 2016, 13:13

Initial Impressions

So I picked KaM on GOG at some point and started playing recently. Ive been playing the standalone maps mostly.
Having browsed the board and read the Ideas and Suggestions thread (IaSt er, looks like 'last' thread, I'll call it that), I see a tremendous amount of potential and support for new improvements.

the primary thing I see, is that any addition, needs to add strategic value and new gameplay. Several ideas emerge repeatedly and I will address them first.

Town Hall
I think the town hall could be put to use. One idea I had was establishing it as your 'capital' and having only one of them. Certain functions could be tied to it, like a list of buildings and here, assigning an order to building priority or even just a general 'work on this next' function. This set of 'orders' coming from a town hall could be useful. As for its units, see below.

Another option for the townhall, be it singular, or in the case of multiple, it when you use a 'Settlement Cart' it establishes the road system for that group of serfs and laborers. Im not sure how hard this would be to code and control.

Town Hall Units
I think any unit should be allowed to be turned into a 'Militia' unit for a reasonable cost in resources. this fits the idea of a town taking up arms to defend itself and works both mechanically and thematically. You cannot spam cheap units but still have an option to defend yourself early on using townsfolk temporarily.

Other Units that may be of interest are the rogue, barbarian and vagabond, which I think should be recruited from the Inn (or town hall i guess) once you have access to Beer (see below). You would still pay for them with gold, but would still need a farm economy to make them available. Further, these should only be available intermittently. When you click on the Inn, you may see a few Units available for hire, but this should change every few minutes or so.

Monastery
the monastery should house the 5 Monks as suggested earlier, drawn for unfulfilled (idle/unemployed) towns people. Monks would take in Grain (corn) and make Beer. Beer would be a recolored wine icons. It serves a similar purpose, but can eschew the vineyards at an increased dependence on the Farms, further taking from Pigs and Bakers. It also requires a heavier investment of stone for the monastery and ferments slowly. However, Beer unlocks the 'barbarian' classes as mentioned above.

More monks, more casks of beer per cycle. Up to 5 per 'season' with 5 monks in your monastery. Beer should trade for less than Wine at the Market.

Siege Weapons
I think at least some of these should be implemented, though from what I hear, require attribute balancing. Catapult for buildings, ballista for troops. High power, low mobility, slow reloading.

Colony Carts/Remote Towns
I love this idea and see it as another great thing the Cartwright shop can offer.
Ideally, each town gets a town hall or storage to base its road system off of. If the roads are connected, the serfs and laborers still stay near their town center by choice, but if a Market is built in both places (or however many) idle serfs will attempt to balance goods between each town. This is another option that can be controlled in the now defunct Town Hall or Market.

Walls
I love the idea of Wooden Palisade Fences and Stone Masonry Walls. Building a town simple feels incomplete without it. Fences would be weak and simple, providing only a few hits worth of defense, easily toppled by a group of ransackers, but able to stop bowmen. A siege weapon should tear through like paper. they would however, offer a few seconds to properly collect and order your troops to that location (this in turn could be used strategically with feint rushes).

Stone walls on the other hand should require a decent investment of stone and protect your town from attack for a decent length of time. A qualified attack force on a wall should damage it much faster than it can be rebuilt, allowing a force to push through. It will however allow the Watchtowers to do their job, or become quick targets and give ample time to gather troops (or even train a few in a pinch). This allows more options for a push/retreat/attack again mechanic that is not onesided.

Given buildings, and especially mines can only be built on the south face of a mountain, this will allow them to be more properly protected. As for balance, if they are costly enough and slow enough to produce, then stone walls take a non-renewable resource from the rest of your town. This offers increased strategical options, that are costly enough to be used sparingly. Wooden fences however, can be cheap and easy to overtake, but offer the ability to construct more types of towns and varying levels of protection.

I will happily work on the Palisade Fences (wooden trunks sharpened on top). I can do some drawing and welcome a chance to further develop my spriting skills this spring.

While I have offered a few thoughts on ideas and how they might be implemented, I wish to stress that i am willing to contribute. If the developers are willing to put in the walls as described, I will draw and optimize until they are accepted, the Palisade Fence artwork, and if need be, the Masonry Walls.

I look forward to further discussion on this rare gem.
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Krom

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Knights Province Developer

Posts: 3280

Joined: 09 May 2006, 22:00

KaM Skill Level: Fair

Location: Russia

Post 19 Jan 2016, 13:23

Re: Initial Impressions

Hello and welcome to the forum!

KaM Remake is a remake of KaM TSK. Said that, most of the listed changes are not possible.

I'm working on a new game called Knights Provice, there I'm not tied with backwards compatibility and can add new features freely - see the site: http://knightsprovince.com
Knights Province at: http://www.knightsprovince.com
KaM Remake at: http://www.kamremake.com
Original MBWR/WR2/AFC/FVR tools at: http://krom.reveur.de
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Ben

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Former Site Admin

Posts: 3814

Joined: 08 Jan 2009, 23:00

Location: California - Pacific Time (UTC -8/-7 Summer Time)

Post 19 Jan 2016, 15:45

Re: Initial Impressions

I think you're looking for/ trying to make KaM a different game altogether. At its core, KaM is still am RTS, not a sandbox or sim.
I used to spam this forum so much...

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