Post Game Impressions

[thesword88]

Thanks to eagle's fixed launcher I have been able to finish the game on both campaigns.

I beat both of them on the normal difficulty in about 12 hours total. Overall the game was good but I was very disappointed with the length of the game and just the lack of content compared to Neocore's previous offering King Arthur, one of my favorite games btw.

As far as balance goes I felt like archers and knights were both very powerful while heavy infantry were only mediocre and light infantry were nearly useless in comparison but this imbalance between units is somewhat balanced by cost, at least in the Saracen campaign where it takes some effort to get good knights. I personally didnt mind this as I enjoyed the style of a knight heavy army backed by archers.

The AI was about the same as in King Arthur as well but since you need to win most battles taking few losses in order to win the final battle, particularly as Saladin, it's ok that the AI is a little weak.

Overall the game is very comparable to Crusader's Thy Kingdom Come but with a litany of improvements albeit a few missing features. In Crusaders in each level there were special faction missions you could attempt in addition to the main objective and I thought that was an excellent feature that is sadly missing from this. I also miss the small text based quests from King Arthur and I feel that there would be some way to work them into this game as well.

The graphics were great I played on max settings at 1920x1080. The sound was fine except for the narrator for the crusaders campaign sounds terrible.

Overall I would give them game an 8/10 primarily due to the shortness of the game.

 

[ranbir]

I thought the light infantry were more useful than heavy, especially in all the rough middle eastern terrain. The styrian' infantry's javelin power is really amazing.

 

[SA_Avenger]

I thought the light infantry were more useful than heavy, especially in all the rough middle eastern terrain. The styrian' infantry's javelin power is really amazing.

they have their value but being weak against archers or knights you don't have as many opportunities to use them esp that there are less fights in woods than in KA

 

[thesword88]

The weakness against archers is what really made them harder to use plus it was easy for me to stay out of the woods in the vast majority of battles.

 

[ranbir]

It is possible to trait them to be very effective against archers. My same Styrian unit had dodge ability, +200% defence against archers, add to sparse formation that left a lot of ground being covered quickly to hit the archers.

What I didn't make use of much was in fact heavy cavalry, outside of Richard himself being my main trampler. Mostly light cavalry to zip about where needed; they still can batter through with momentum, just not as powerful.

Of course, I imagine in higher difficulty the individual strengths and weaknesses of each unit type will become far more important.

 

[zefert1]

I find heavy infantry to be the best type of unit in the game, they slaughter everything when fully upgraded.

 

[Blastaz]

I find heavy infantry to be the best type of unit in the game, they slaughter everything when fully upgraded.

+1

I upgraded my White Company to Foot Knights after a unit disintigrated in melee and never looked back.

Playing on normal the overwhelming work was done by my mounted heroes/Crusader Elites. And any really hard slogging was then finished off by my heavy infantry. While archers could be deadly I often ignored them.

Steam tells me I completed the Crusader Campaign in 6 hours, which is I admit a little short, as it is hard to see too much replayablity in there.

 

[mp84]

+1

I upgraded my White Company to Foot Knights after a unit disintigrated in melee and never looked back.

Playing on normal the overwhelming work was done by my mounted heroes/Crusader Elites. And any really hard slogging was then finished off by my heavy infantry. While archers could be deadly I often ignored them.

Steam tells me I completed the Crusader Campaign in 6 hours, which is I admit a little short, as it is hard to see too much replayablity in there.

Even though I haven't finished this game, as I'm side tracked with other games, it really doesn't suprise me that the game is this short.

I mean, think about it, all you have is 16 provinces, and it all happens in a straight up linear progression, very different from KA. So in my book, KA is still the far better game, even with its horrendous AI cheating that happens in that game.