King Arthur - The Role Playing Wargame... with completely insane list of features!!!

This wargame released only a couple of days ago:

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The list of features is blowing my socks off:

* Real-time fantasy battles: spectacular fight scenarios on grandiose battlefields, featuring thousands of soldiers and powerful heroes such as Sir Lancelot, Sir Galahad or Merlin. Battles rely on the strengths and weaknesses of the different arms with several tactical possibilities, the abilities of the units and the heroes, monsters and most of all, spells.

* Turn-based Campaign Map: Britannia is represented as a fully three dimensional topographic map where heroes move freely, conquer provinces or find adventures. In the turn-based campaign the changing seasons have effect on the gameplay and the graphics of the Campaign Map.

* Create your own legend! The saga of King Arthur is an epic tale about the conquest of Britannia through a story-based campaign. The Campaign is divided into chapters, like a chronicle, each with a unique tone and theme. The chapters all have objectives, long- and short-term goals that also fit together to draw a grandiose picture of an unfolding storyline. There are many possible events and outcomes that all influence the legend itself and determine the ending of the storyline.

* Morality Chart: Every decision in the game will influence the position of King Arthur on the Morality Chart. King Arthur might become a Christian ruler or the Follower of the Old Faith; a rightful or a ruthless monarch. These choices unlock special contents, allies, heroes, units and developments.

* RPG elements: Heroes lead the armies and learn skills, spells and abilities from an ability tree for experience points. Heroes can also use magic items or become liege lords, entrusted with the leadership of a province, which is the best way to have them indebted. Arranging their marriages with the nice damsels of Arthur’s court also raises their loyalty.

* Adventures: adventuring is the essence of King Arthur’s world. Quests pop up on the Campaign Map regularly. In technical terms it is a short story where the chosen knight has to make important decisions. Some adventures end in battles on special battlemaps.

That's like everything I've been wanting to put into my dream game I've been planning for years... only it's out now and ready to be downloaded/played!!! :eek:

Sure sounds like Total War meets awsome High Fantasy meets Ultra-Dynamic Gameplay, all wrapped up into one package! :D

The only thing I see missing is the ability to ride into battle in 1st/3rd person - Mount and Blade still rules the roost in that department. But KAtRPW does have one big advantage: Apparently, you can eventually win, unlike in M&B (which goes on and on, starts getting repetitive, and never encourages you to start another game). Perhaps KAtRPW has multiple endings? And hopefully ways to lose as well? I suppose we shall see. Hmmm... Maybe these two developers should get together and deliver the end-all-be-all fantasy wargame?!? :cool:

I'm thinking KAtRPW will probably turn out to be a great game to compare notes on regarding other people's varying expereince playing through it. Indeed there appears to be a huge amount of replayability here.

Anyhow, I took the leap... downloading it now on Steam!

The same type of game, except with modern warfare, and i will buy it!

I have been waiting for another game like WIC for so long!

WIC = World in Conflict, right?

I played the demo to WIC, and I don't recall any dynamic turn-based features... were these present in the full version of the game?

Anyhow, WIC was a very cool game regardless. Very nice feel of being down there and in the mix, by RTS standards. ;)

Looks cool.. How does it play? is it any good? I was once hooked with total war series, but not anymore... dont know what's missing/wrong. Just that I feel its not right.

Lets hear what king arthur will bring...

Amid Thanksgiving Holiday in the US, I had a few hours to finally check it out. Here's a small update (very initial impressions mind you):

The turn based campaign map looks great, evokes a sense of wonder and excitement, and really makes you want to go exploring and see what's out there. The campaign system itself is highly dynamic, extremely playable, and ripe with possibility. That's the good news, which I'll get to in a moment.

The real-time battles, however, leave something to be desired. The mechanics are nowhere near as advanced as in TW.

* When soldiers clash in hand-to-hand combat, it's really not that convincing. The animations are simple and to be frank it looks kind of cheesey. Perhaps a bigger problem though... Seems to me like only small edges of the formations are actually doing any fighting, with men rigidly standing in formation, refusing to break ranks to attack an enemy mere meters away.

* There appears to be no morale system in place. As in, after four or so battles, I haven't seen anyone fleeing on either side yet! Zero! Unless something changes, here every victory in battle results in complete annihilation of the other side! :eek: (IIRC, I think the player has an button option to retreat, but I certainly haven't seen the AI doing their version of that button.)

* Your heros will knock opponents through the air, which is cool. But this actually is not very dynamic at all. After watching only a few iterations, seems like they are more-or-less following the same path through the air. Maybe once droves of men go flying at once (like in the trailer), this effect will get better.

* This one more a matter of personal preference, but I really don't like how battle victory is set up. There is a sort of "victory bar" in place and when each battle starts, both sides are forced to make a mad dash from neutral starting locations toward 4 to 5 victory locations. If you hold the victory locations (or kill enemy), the enemy's bar drops, and once one side chips the other's bar to zero, that side acheives victory. Kind of reminds me of Capture and Hold the Flags in FPS, and it's quite a laughable gimick, imo. What's wrong with the good old "drive the enemy from the field of battle" paired with a good morale system where men actually flee the field of battle?!? Furthermore, why don't the defenders hold the victory locations when the battle starts?!? :confused:

* Here's the real killer - Although there are three different camera modes for the real time battles, none of them are intuative or easy to use. Rolling the wheel-button does not seem to do what you think it should, resulting in the need for a second operation to adjust the horizon to maintain view on what you were looking at... seemlingly a problem in all three modes. That coupled with the fact that you cannot strafe the camera while pressing middle mouse to look around. Very user-unfriendly, and if there are hills and forests, forget it! Indeed, Total War has honed the real-time camera over the years, and this game should have taken some notes in this department.

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Now, the turn-based campaign map on the other hand... some truley groundbreaking stuff there. It's plays like an branching interactive novel, and it seems I cannot seem to turn the pages quickly enough. There is plenty of intrigue, betrayal, and great dynamic gameplay possibility in place. :)

I'm running late to a football game, but I'll most likely come back at some point and provide a more thourough description of the wonderful and viceral campaign map sometime soon.

At this point though, it's a tough sell. Will the positives of the groundbreaking dynamic campaign map and heros system be enough to overcome the underwhelming real-time combat? Having only played a few hours so far, I'm not convinced either way yet. But one thing is for sure, there is definately a auto-resolve battle button, so if worst comes to worst, I'll definatly see how my own version of the dynamic story of Aurthur and his Knights ultimately unfolds. :D

btw - Anyone else get this game yet? Hope I didn't scare you all off! :p

This is a really good game, a lot of depth, great graphics, did i say depth?