Knights and Merchants Was Unique Response to Settlers and Forgotten Fruit of Love
Knights and Merchants is a strategy game that was undoubtedly modeled on Settlers but was definitely not a copy. See a game that holds a special place in my heart.
My heart has always been full of love for strategy games (and RPGs) – Age of Empires 2 and Warcraft 3 are some of the first titles I remember from my youth. However, I must admit that the cult series The Settlers passed under my radar and remained unnoticed by me for many years. That's probably why Knights and Merchants made such an impression on me. It was the first game I got to test with such elaborate village construction. And I just loved it. This love has remained with me to this day and manifests itself in my fascination with city builders.
Similarity to Settlers isn't accidental
Knights and Merchants was the first project of the young studio Joymania Entertainment. It was founded in 1997, and 12 months later, we had a finished game in our hands. How did it happen? Joymania Entertainment was the brainchild of Peter Ohlman and Adam Sprys. These two names probably mean nothing to you, but they are not coincidental. Both gentlemen had previously worked on another "niche" title – The Settlers 2. Furthermore, the developers weren't idle after releasing Knights and Merchants and were involved in developing the well-known Cultures series from Funatic Development, which also shared similarities with the cult series about settlers.
The developers had plans to expand the Knights and Merchants brand further, but in the end, players only got The Peasants Rebellion DLC. Work on a complete sequel was halted, likely because of the absence of a clear development direction and a concept for adapting to the world of three-dimensional gameplay.
Even though the ambitious plans didn't come to fruition, Peter Ohlman and Adam Sprys have significantly influenced my gaming tastes. For those interested, I will mention that the studio still exists, although its name has been changed to Joymania Development (although it seems that the company's glory days are already behind it).
Expanding the settlement is no small feat
The inspiration for Knights and Merchants by Settlers is obvious at first sight, and that's because of how important it is to expand the settlement and how we must be careful of the various chains of connections. To illustrate the situation, let's trace the journey that needs to be taken for a loaf of bread to reach a villager.
First, grain is harvested on the farm (after it has been sown and grown, of course). After that, it is carried to the mill and ground into flour. This, in turn, is sent to the bakery, where it is made into bread. The loaf is then taken to the granary, and from there straight to the house and into the stomach of a villager.
Of course, each of the buildings presented above requires an appropriate employee to function. For this, you also need roads to transport the goods you need. The helpers play a crucial role in our survival by handling the transportation of raw materials between workstations. However, we can't have too many of them, so that they don't remain idle and consume our valuable food.
Finally, it's worth adding that grain is not only used for baking bread. It can also be used to feed horses or pigs. It's worth experimenting with the sliders in the settings and customizing the proportions in which resources are delivered to various buildings.
Of course, man does not live by bread alone – in the brutal world of K&M weapons and soldiers are also needed. The economic chains in this case are equally complicated and differ depending on what kind of soldier you want to "produce" - lightly or heavily armed.
Bring food, give food, time to eat
The words in the headline are the soldiers' dialogue lines after they are told to bring food. For me and many other players, it was burned into their brains. Much like in real life, the economy in Knights and Merchants isn't just about producing weapons, food is just as important - everyone has to eat. Regardless of whether we are talking about soldiers or residents of your estate, everyone needs a solid meal, or they will die. I remember that my first villages collapsed not due to enemy attacks, but because I was expanding them unevenly and simply lacked food, resulting in the death of my people.
Today I am smarter and I know that it's better to start with two farms to produce valuable grain (you can add more later). It's also advisable to avoid recruiting in advance, as they consume more food than trained soldiers.
How one archer won the war
I'm sure I'll upset a lot of fans of the game, but I've always thought that Knights and Merchants would be a better game if the military aspect was either removed or marginalized, similar to games from the Impressions Games studio (such as Pharaoh or Zeus: Master of Olympus). I would have liked more focus on construction, but combat is still a crucial aspect of the game, and unfortunately, the title falls short in some areas due to the unit AI. For this reason, it's worth helping yourself and outsmarting your opponent a bit.
The biggest mistake a beginner Knights and Merchants player can make is accumulating troops and not using them. This is an easy way to economic disaster. At the beginning of many missions, we already received a fairly strong army. It should be used as early as possible.
I quickly learned that there was no point in attacking the enemy directly because they were well-fortified and there were more of them. Furthermore, such an attack often causes chaos that is difficult to cope with. We are unaware of what is happening behind the fog of war, and a cavalry charge against hidden polearm units in the darkness is a straightforward route to a massacre, not to mention the fire from towers and archers/crossbowmen. It's better to defend yourself.
How to attack defensively? There is a simple way to do this. We strategically position our units close to the enemy using a fairly enjoyable, albeit simple, system for organizing troops into lines and rows. Then we send out one shooting unit (archer or crossbowman) and lure the enemy troops unit by unit towards our lines. It may not be the most honorable behavior, but it is effective.
AI and army management lost this battle
Unfortunately, the unit management and their AI are the weakest aspects of Knights and Merchants. Firstly, we issue orders to each unit separately, which makes it much more difficult to control larger armies, and coordinating attacks is breakneck. But that's not all, because when moving from one place to another, soldiers tend to break formation and form long lines if they encounter terrain obstacles. We need to be extremely cautious to avoid getting into trouble and monitor where and how our soldiers move. They only stop after their commander (the person with the flag) reaches the designated position. What does that mean? If other units pass the captain during the march, they will bypass the assembly point and keep going, sometimes to their own demise.
It doesn't help that once a battle starts, soldiers can't be withdrawn as long as the squad is engaged in combat with at least one enemy. Enemy pikemen attacked cavalry engaged in fighting other enemies? You're out of luck. Your men are honorable soldiers, they will not run away - they will fight to the death.
Ranged units also have their problems. Fortunately, they can be withdrawn if attacked, although they are quite delicate and losses will likely be considerable. The problem here is different. Sometimes they act like close combat units and close the distance instead of maintaining the appropriate distance. Furthermore, they have a tendency to cease firing when their comrades in the formation begin to die.
It's easy to guess that archers and crossbowmen become useless in such a situation (they have no melee combat option). It's best to place them behind a wall of swordsmen or axemen and watch as they automatically strike down the enemy. While the situation here is also not straightforward, as they must be perfectly positioned toward the enemy. A slight incline to enemy units can sometimes make the difference between a deadly salvo and waiting for death.
Walking through an enemy village is also not the most pleasant. Our ruthless soldiers are forced to stop and kill any citizen they encounter along the way, which significantly delays the advance. Not to mention the fact that soldiers can deal with helpers, not enemy units.
Combat, fool
Unfortunately (for me) there are no missions where we only build – we always have to fight, although in different ways. Fortunately, the developers attempted some diversity. Sometimes, apart from defeating the enemy, we also have to defend our allies, and other times we only have a predetermined army with which we have to survive subsequent waves of enemies. Moreover, like most strategies, we uncover new resources and equip stronger units as the campaign advances. This combination creates varying dynamics from one map to another, preventing the title from quickly becoming repetitive. Luckily, the DLC brings a greater variety.
DLC? What DLC?
Believe it or not, Knights and Merchants has an expansion titled The Peasants Rebellion.It was released in 2001. I found out about its existence after I had reached adulthood, so it took me a while. The DLC is quite interesting though. The devs decided to play around with the existing gameplay basics. The maps are full of neutral units, and our goals are more diverse than in the base game (of course, within the available mechanics, the wheel hasn't been reinvented).
The first mission involves defending a settlement with a variety of available troops, including those from the final stages of the basic game. We can also train them based on the weapons we possess, but there is no option to replenish supplies. This is a variation of the first mission from the original campaign. On both Steam and GOG the DLC is bundled with the base game.
You still play for the details
Despite its numerous shortcomings, I can't stay mad at Knights and Merchants for long. Building a settlement is one reason, another is attention to detail. I've already talked about the chains of connections in economics, but perfecting them captured my heart. The game allows you to see how the inhabitants of our settlement work in their workshops, which isn't so obvious even today. Furthermore, we can witness different phases of building construction and crop cultivation. If you like such tidbits, this game is for you.
How to play Knights and Merchants today?
The original Knights and Merchants with the DLC
This is how the original version of the game looks without embellishments. Knights and Merchants Peasants Rebellion / Joymania Entartainment
If you want to play Knights and Merchants today, you have the opportunity to do so. The game can be easily purchased on GOG and Steam. I own the game on the Valve platform and had no trouble launching it. Although, to change the resolution options (there are two to choose from: 800 x 600 and 1024 x 768), I had to run the game in compatibility mode for older Windows systems.
It should be noted that although this text focused on the basic version of Knights and Merchants, it is not the only option. The game has an HD version and even a fan remake.
Knights and Merchants HD
This is what the HD version looks like. Knights and Merchants / Topware Interactive
Knights and Merchants HD is included in the game bundle if you purchase it on Steam. I suspect it's similar on GOG (but I'm not sure), so you don't have to spend extra money. As the name suggests, this is a version that is a bit more adapted to current standards but takes a few steps back from the original.
The developers also chose not to update the DLC. Furthermore, there is a lack of a feature to accelerate the gameplay (although it should be acknowledged that the game in its basic form runs slightly faster than the original) and a pause (at least I couldn't find one). You also won't see any story cutscenes, although many people may not notice that since there weren't many of them in the original.
If you decide to go with this version, you may encounter a technical problem at the start – K&M will launch in the corner of the screen, cutting off a lot of the game. This happens if your screen scaling is not the same as your monitor's native scaling. This is easy to remedy. In Display Settings, in the Scale and Layout section, set it to 100%. Only then start the game.
Knights and Merchants Remake
This is what the remake looks like. KaM Remake, a collective work of modders headed by lead programmer Krom.
Chances are you didn't know this, but Knights and Merchants has a fan remake called KaM Remake. Many forum users argue that this is the intended way to engage with this title in today's times, and it appears that I have to agree with them.
First of all, KaM Remake isn't afraid of large screens, it even supports 4K. Additionally, the game can be sped up to 10x and paused at will. Many people might also be surprised to find out that this title includes multiplayer (even though I haven't tried this mode, as I am primarily a single-player gamer by heart and conviction).
Moreover, I had many of my arguments about AI and the military taken away from me, as the behavior of our soldiers has been significantly improved. For instance, archers usually fight to the death, and troops stop where they should stop. Even the soldiers attacking the building, if attacked by the enemy, don't allow themselves to be killed, but respond with force. That also works the other way around. Enemies are smarter and are much more likely to attack with an entire army if a lone archer starts firing at them. In addition, several new campaigns were created. It's also possible to play single missions, as well as remain on the map after victory. For people who want to build a settlement in peace, this is the place to be.
Of course, this is a fan-made remake. Modders point out in the readme that bugs can happen. Additionally, there won't be any cutscenes here – whether related to the story or at the end of the mission.
If you feel like trying out this remake, you can do so. Remember, however, that the devs aren't responsible if something goes wrong after installation. Finally, the obvious: the original version of the game with the DLC is required to run.
