Knights of Honor 2: Sovereign

[undercovergeek]

Yup trade for specific items is the one thing I'm stuck on - needed wine, France has wine, set up a trade agreement and sent a merchant - I can import horses or beef - no idea where the wine is - I don't know if they haven't built the buildings for it or are using it for themselves - I have found a nice corner of Spain with no allies or friends who have grapes so they might be my next conquest

Unsure how morale and supplies are affected by a sea journey from Genoa to north west Spain and then a siege - all exciting stuff to find out

[Gusington]

^Heh I started sniffing around for plump provinces that have...out of all things...salt.

[undercovergeek]

You know there's a map filter for it?

I can give you nice as one but use the map filter

[Ian C]

Wow I really have turned my game around here.

Watch your food. Build crop farms in provinces with the most farm settlements and upgrade them. Also, you can assign merchants to import food.

Also watch your armies - you are down to -9 there, not good. Rebellions form when they get really mad and they are not easy to handle.

[Gusington]

I got to sit and play for a few blesses hours this afternoon, made enough gold to declare my independence from Hungary (which allows more money to come directly to me) and am now a great power. I've started building heavy armories and if I am patient and collect more coin (20k) I can declare a minor victory. I have cracked the game open! I also wiped Austria and Bosnia from the map, and one of my clerics is the Pope...that's how we scored independence. I even have provinces that are not part of my kingdom, but border on it, taking up my culture.

I have gone from KoH2 zero to KoH2 hero  :D

[Ian C]

I got to sit and play for a few blesses hours this afternoon, made enough gold to declare my independence from Hungary (which allows more money to come directly to me) and am now a great power. I've started building heavy armories and if I am patient and collect more coin (20k) I can declare a minor victory. I have cracked the game open! I also wiped Austria and Bosnia from the map, and one of my clerics is the Pope...that's how we scored independence. I even have provinces that are not part of my kingdom, but border on it, taking up my culture.

I have gone from KoH2 zero to KoH2 hero  :D

What a triumph! And to have the Pope under your wing - I've not encountered that myself yet.

When it all clicks it's great. It's even better the next game, because even on the same difficulty level, depending on which nation you choose, there's still plenty of challenge. I tried England and that was a deep, epic game and it wore me out in a fun way.  Really got me thinking about diplomacy, war and economy. Dont forget espionage. Spies can really swing it your way (one opened the gates of a city in a critical siege and turned the war in my favour). Byzantium is also huge with many provinces and that's a challenge I may accept in a future game. Like everyone says, the replay value is great.

[Gusington]

^Definitely. I really wanted to love this game and am very glad I stuck with it until that clicking point. I'm now confident I will get 100s if not 1000s of hours from it, easily. Replay here is infinite.

Are you sticking with Normal/Easy for now? The big factor that really helped me was the initial amount of gold I had. Not having any is very crippling and almost impossible to overcome.

Also does anyone know what to do with excess books and piety? All of my marshals are maxed out and my book supply is just languishing, as is my piety, as you can see in the shots above. Can I cash them in somehow?

[devoncop]

Played a blinder there Gus . Great job.

It is an absolute blast this game . My Austrian run shows it is definitely possible to enjoy the game with the default amount of gold, you just need to play very carefully early on and try to butter everyone up. :).....that is of course on easy difficulty...

Austria is still playing a delicately duplicitous diplomatic game and has managed to jump in on the winning side in the latest Germany v Hungary bloodbath and I now have the Hungarian King and a Marshall rotting in a Vienna dungeon after an epic 6000 v 6000 battle outside Pec in the Hungarian borderlands....

[Ian C]

Also does anyone know what to do with excess books and piety? All of my marshals are maxed out and my book supply is just languishing, as is my piety, as you can see in the shots above. Can I cash them in somehow?

Increase Crown Authority (click on the crown icon top left, also costs gold) and you'll get a bunch of buffs.

Another part of the game strategy is to hire & fire Knights. In peacetime there's no real point to having 3 Marshals. Painful as it is to fire fully-levelled-up Marshals, more Merchants, Spies or Diplomats will open up peacetime opportunities to increase trade and gold, do some political intrigue and find new allies as well as undermining some potential enemies. Hiring/firing is a juggling process with considered risks and potentially huge benefits. Peacetime espionage can weaken or even overthrow your rivals or potential future targets. Levelled-up Spies are quite powerful. Diplomacy/Espionage/Trade is a game-within-a-game and takes a little while to master it but as I mentioned, the benefits can be huge. Fully-levelled-up Diplomats and Spies can work wonders.

Choose a Tradition (click the crown, bottom left). Costs 1000 gold and 400 books. Only selectable after a knight learns a skill to level 3. Gives signifiant buffs.

[Gusington]

^Ah thanks Ian and devon - so crown authority can be increased with books as well as gold? That's pretty awesome. I have selected 1-2 traditions for my kingdom so far, mostly generalist stuff like 'strategery' :) - this part of the game is deceptively deep.

I play and think very defensively...I never thought to aggressively use my uber spies. Same with uber diplomats. I also use my marshals in peacetime to crush rebellions - in this game it has been pretty effective. I have three right now.

I enjoy rolling in the gold coming in so many times I pass up operations that diplomats or spies are offered to keep the money for other things.

I cannot express enough how satisfying it has been to learn this game. After the initial nerd rage, having things click was a great gaming moment...it really changed my mood.

[Ian C]

^Ah thanks Ian and devon - so crown authority can be increased with books as well as gold? That's pretty awesome. I have selected 1-2 traditions for my kingdom so far, mostly generalist stuff like 'strategery' :) - this part of the game is deceptively deep.

I play and think very defensively...I never thought to aggressively use my uber spies. Same with uber diplomats. I also use my marshals in peacetime to crush rebellions - in this game it has been pretty effective. I have three right now.

I enjoy rolling in the gold coming in so many times I pass up operations that diplomats or spies are offered to keep the money for other things.

I cannot express enough how satisfying it has been to learn this game. After the initial nerd rage, having things click was a great gaming moment...it really changed my mood.

No, piety and gold for Crown Authority, not books.

You can do neat cold-war strategies like cause unrest in a kingdom using spies, and the nation will be frozen dealing with rebels. Rebels are the bane of Normal Difficulty for me. I read on STEAM that a player used only Spies, Merchants and Diplomats and achieved a lot. That's one of the great things about this game, you can approach it many ways, using many strategies.

[Gusington]

^Ah ok on the crown authority.

Rebels have been pretty baneful for me on easy difficulty!!

[undercovergeek]

you have rebel prisoners - click on them and convince them to start a rebel army in a province of your choice

[Gusington]

^Too late, I killed them. KNEEL BEFORE ME

[undercovergeek]

 :)

that works too - i tried the other way thinking it would be anonymous - bavaria was not happy