King Arthur - The Roleplaying Wargame - Various Information and Links

skavenhorde

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Since it is a slow newsday I might as well tell you about a little game called King Arthur - The Roleplaying Wargame. You can view their site here.
I know very little about this game other than it reminds me of Warhammer: Mark of Chaos, but according to the site and various posts it may have a lot in common with Space Rangers 2 in that it has a little bit of everything thrown into it. The game features many myths and legends from Arthurian lore. Whether the Sidhe will just be a replacement for elves remains to be seen. The game is only available through steam. Here is some of information on the game taken from IGN's summary of the game:
King Arthur is an empire-building strategy game set in a medieval, mystical Britain where you will play the role of legendary Arthur, the Once and Future King. You build Camelot, enlist the Knights of the Round Table, unite the country and ultimately challenge the powers threatening the essence of all their previous endeavors. You choose their own path, be it the way of virtuous glory, the might of the Sidhe or your wish to succumb to the dark powers.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun has given a brief description of the game and what it has to offer. They aren't quite sure what to make of it either and yet are very impressed with the dev diaries. You can view all the dev diaries at their website.
There is a review out for the game at Impulse Gamer. They gave it 8/10 and here is a little bit of what they thought of the game:
As Arthur, it is the players destiny to unite the kingdoms under one banner. It's empire-building , strategy gaming at a grand scale. The hero characters in the game are your knights of the round table, they lead the players armies. These knights are more than just a few stats on the screen though, as the game progresses the characters can gain skills, and gain spells to aid in battle. Knights can also be leaders in provinces. The knights skills also assists in the over all improvements of the provinces that they over see. Better yet, how will you as the player rule? What lengths will you go to get to your goals? In this Arthurian mythological game, the player forges and perhaps even reshapes the tale. There is no set alignment for the King, so slipping away from the ways of a virtuous knight, and ruler can very well happen. Choices impact the game, and too the soldiers under command. Choices made shape Arthur's character. It's pretty cool concept and is pulled off well in this game.
So if this sounds like your cup of tea then you might want to check the game out.
Thanks, Curious.
More information.
 
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We've been discussing this in a thread on the Non-RPG forum, and I have to admit, I like the looks of this one. The setting is familiar, but not over-used, especially in terms of developing the Celtic mythology, and the combination of several genres(rpg, empire/city building, and traditional big-map war game)and combat styles(turn-based for building, real time for large-scale battles) gives it a different approach than the usual fantasy knock-off.

(For those who might think it's purely strategy, it appears to have at least some real role-playing elements in how heroes are advanced and developed, the choices and consequences aspect, etc, so probably ranks along the lines of other hybrids we've covered designed for gamers who like both genres.)
 
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If this game approaches the amount of detail that was put into Nethergate then this will become a must buy for me. Plus, it looks so much like Mark of Chaos (I loved that game) that I'm dying to just try it out. Though, I'll wait a little longer to get a few more reviews on it and see what the game is all about.
 
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Looks almost too good to be true. However Im not going to risk it. Ill wait for reviews.

Its only 35€ in steam. The cheapness might be because lack of the physical release. They dont have to artificially raise the digital price just to make store-owners happy.

If its a good game I would still really like a physical. RPG/RTS hybrid is my favorite genre.

Plus, it looks so much like Mark of Chaos (I loved that game) that I'm dying to just try it out.

So there are people who loved that game? Was the expansion any good? I actually once had the collectors edition on my hand but I returned it for all the bad rep the game received from both critics and players.
 
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Tis an ambitious game in many regards from what I can gather as I cobble together money to purchase it. The way they approach equipment, as per a dev video, is especially ambitious as they are essentially calling out the stock equipment tropes RPG wise.
 
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Since I wanted an excuse not to buy it right now I dag up some negative comments:

I don't understand the battle system in this game. Most of the troops just stand around.

Like for example, lets say I have 30 footmen against 30 enemy footmen. When my troops take out 20 of them, none of my other 20 help the attack. they just stand there watching the 10 vs 10 fight. It would make sense that they would assist them?

If I have 30 VS 5 there is no way to out number the enemy. it still is one on one duels it seems.

In huge battles most of the army never assist others, I think that if this is how the battle system works, probably one of the worst RTS battle fighting I have ever played.

Everything else in the game is great, tho.
First impression is that it's broken.
i get runtime errors all the time, cant play it, which is a shame cause the game seems interesting
The first update of King Arthur – The Role-playing Wargame is available. Steam will automatically update your build at the next start. This update fixes the crashing problems.
It really like that game mark of chaos.. Battles really annoy me and its far too easy to lose at the begining..
You can't refill your defeated troops, you can make new armies, you don't have a good grasp on what is going on..
Although perhaps I haven't played it long enough..
The fact the battles themselves look very out of sync, kills the mood for me. Mark of Chaos did a better job of that and that game is old and also sucks.

You have x amount of soldiers engage with x amount of enemies (squad vs squad or whatever) and its x = x. Say you have 32 guys and the enemy squad is 11 guys. You'll have 22 guys killing each other while YOUR extra 21 guys are standing around or moving cm by cm to their foes, their shields/weapons up, doing nothing to overwhelm them.

Just that makes the battles look bad, no epic feel or sense of charge or even a mood of wanton slaughter.
no crashes but performance is really a big problem..

Q9400 CPU
8GB ram
Windows 7 64bit
Nvidia 285

around 25-40 FPS :/
 
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Well that doesn't sound good.

OTOH, some of it just sounds like confused people. That performance thing on Windows 7 with plenty of power and a top end graphics card really does sound bad, though. Maybe they'll put out a demo eventually.
 
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A demo would be good. People were confused by Space Rangers 2 also, but that turned out to one of the best games I've played. They took a risk incorporating something as old as a text adventure into their game and imo I'm glad they did. I haven't played one of those since the days of 'Windham Classics'. I'm not saying that they have text adventures in this one, but it does sound like it can be confusing at first until you understand what the game offers.

In any event a demo would be a great idea :)
 
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Hmm this looks very interesting (if/when the issues mentioned are addressed) I am a
sucker for the Arthurian cycle and celtic lore in general. Will have to keep an eye on it…

Oh, yeah +1 for the Demo
 
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Well that doesn't sound good.

OTOH, some of it just sounds like confused people. That performance thing on Windows 7 with plenty of power and a top end graphics card really does sound bad, though. Maybe they'll put out a demo eventually.

What I noticed was that they mostly complaing about the battles and som bugs/performance. Everything else is great though as mentioned in one of the comments.

I think the point is not to expect hybrid like this to have total war -class rts battles. They might be able to fix the "troops standing around doing nothing" thing. Its sounds just an AI clitch.

In the current economical situation they could have been forced to release this now even though its not all ready just to boost their earnings this year.
 
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Had a look at the first dev diary - this actually looks really cool. A Total War like game with some roleplaying elements and set in Arthurian Britain? With choices and consequences? I am almost sold. I am not sure the comments worry me too much - similar things happened in the early Total War games, IIRC, and it wasn't a big deal, and anyway its probably a cosmetic problem.
 
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Had a look at the first dev diary - this actually looks really cool. A Total War like game with some roleplaying elements and set in Arthurian Britain? With choices and consequences? I am almost sold. I am not sure the comments worry me too much - similar things happened in the early Total War games, IIRC, and it wasn't a big deal, and anyway its probably a cosmetic problem.

This never happened in total war games not even the first ones afaik:

Like for example, lets say I have 30 footmen against 30 enemy footmen. When my troops take out 20 of them, none of my other 20 help the attack. they just stand there watching the 10 vs 10 fight. It would make sense that they would assist them
If I have 30 VS 5 there is no way to out number the enemy. it still is one on one duels it seems.

I still play the first two total war games from time to time. They are more challenging than the later games.
 
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Maybe I misremember, I haven't played them in years now - I just have this image in my head with armies clashing and certainly not all units joining battle, especially not when they are in formation. Anyway, I will wait for a few reviews or a demo. Got plenty of games left to play at the moment.
 
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Don't try TOO hard to parade rain things folks, there has been a patch since release that seems to have been focused/generally successful at KO'ing the crashing some people experience at launch. The devs are on top of it feedback wise I think and paying mind to the Steam forum to the game as well as their contact email address for other problems.

Just be like me and too broke to grab it for awhile! ;)
 
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Maybe I misremember, I haven't played them in years now - I just have this image in my head with armies clashing and certainly not all units joining battle, especially not when they are in formation. Anyway, I will wait for a few reviews or a demo. Got plenty of games left to play at the moment.

In total war there was two modes "Stay in formation" and "Dont stay in formation". If you ordered them to stay in formation then they did i.e to block enemies on a bridge. Without the order to stay in formation all units joined battle and break the formation once they met the enemy.

Don't try TOO hard to parade rain things folks, there has been a patch since release that seems to have been focused/generally successful at KO'ing the crashing some people experience at launch. The devs are on top of it feedback wise I think and paying mind to the Steam forum to the game as well as their contact email address for other problems.

Just be like me and too broke to grab it for awhile! ;)

If you read my quotes the update was fourth in it: ;)

The first update of King Arthur – The Role-playing Wargame is available. Steam will automatically update your build at the next start. This update fixes the crashing problems.
 
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Tried it for a while now. Still in the tutorial mission, so only tried fighting. It is a bit bugged and not very exciting yet, though it might get better when more troops are available.
 
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So there are people who loved that game(Mark of Chaos)? Was the expansion (Battle March) any good? I actually once had the collectors edition on my hand but I returned it for all the bad rep the game received from both critics and players.

Loved it. Expansion added a lot and fixed a lot. Still a few serious problems, sadly, but all in all, a great game. Especially in multi. If you can get a gold pack with both for a bargain, definitely worth it.

There's still an active, nice and fun community that play each other in multi-week, multi-team campaigns here:

www.warhammerers-online.co.uk
 
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Same here. I loved Mark of Chaos. Sadly I don't think it sold all that well. Too bad, it's one fun game.

I like Dawn of War, but Mark of Chaos kicked Dawn of War's butt. The tactical combat was closer to the tabletop version of the game. Still the rules were tweaked a bit to make due with the real-time aspect of the game, but at least it resembled the TT version and was still fun too.
 
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