What King's Bounty to start with?

[Grunker]

So, I've decided to give the new King's Bounty games a go, since I just finished playing some HoMM. Should I just start at the latest one (Crossworlds) since that's the most updated one, or is there any particular reason to start with Legend, then AP and finally Crossworlds? I don't give a toss about the story

Thanks in advance.

 

[zeitgeist]

But seriously, I have a related question - I don't know if the expansions are actually worth playing or not. Are the improvements/new features significant enough to bother with or is it just more of the same?

 

[Grunker]

Should have added "in before

" I guess

 

[Hobo Elf]

Crossworlds is an expansion for Armored Princess, which is a bit better than The Legend. It's a lot more open than the first one. The Legend has an open world too, but there is a very linear and set path of progression to it, Armored Princess has slightly less of that.

 

[Grunker]

So I should go with Armored Princess, then Crossworlds?

 

[Jaedar]

Crossworlds enchanced-Armored princess.

It's the only way to do it really, cause when you get bored of running around you can play the extra challenges included that make it a lot more interesting.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Yes.

 

[Grunker]

Thanks guys!

EDIT: I've been meaning to ask you, Hobo, why do you have that MtG-quote as your signature?

 

[Terpsichore]

Legend is well worth playing.

 

[relootz]

AP is more challenging and more fine-tuned then TL so play TL first because you will feel its a big step down if you do AP first.

TL is still a good game.

 

[Jaedar]

I dunno, I think TL had some huge issues. By the time I got halfway through the elven forest I just started dodging all the enemies because I had gotten so bored of all the trivial fights. Then I just started spamming Armageddon 3 times per turn.

And really it doesn't have anything that I can think of that you won't also get in the AP-Crossworlds combo.

 

[Darth Roxor]

I only played The Legend and got sick of it pretty quickly because of how friggin tedious and boring it was, so I guess I can only say 'don't start with The Legend'. I would say 'don't start with King's Bounty at all', but maybe those expansions are better (which I doubt because the whole formula of the game is boring).

since I just finished playing some HoMM.

Hohoho, word of advice. If you are expecting a HoMM-like - don't play King's Bounty. Seriously.

 

[Grunker]

Can you elaborate on the last point Roxorowski? Because that's kindda what I am expecting.

 

[relootz]

more streamlined, you get resources from picking them up, not from the castles. Castles have creatures, they don't give you income.

Tactically less refined too.

Still fun though.

If you play TL then play on the hardest difficulty.

 

[Renegen]

Don't play your first game of King's Bounty on hard unless you want a tremendous amount of pain.

TL is about twice the length of AP, and you only get to level 30 instead of 50. So do the math. There are many more battles in TL and the game quite drags on. But that's not a bad thing because the main fun of the games is the strategic combat. AP is so ridiculous that by the end of the game you will have every item in the game, an excess of creatures and skill points. TL is more about choices, and the fun is figuring out how to beat the game and its difficulty.

Throughout the almost 100 hours of gameplay, you will learn about the different creatures, spells, skills, items, tactics and so on. Maybe you'll be lucky and get a great item set, maybe you'll get lucky and get some interesting monsters in large quantities (even what monsters you get is somewhat randomized), each game will be different and will teach you new tactics. Once you have some 'talent' at the game, hard and impossible difficulty are there for you. The fun about AP is seeing how some of the exploits or overpowered skills in the first were rectified, how some of the indispensible skills are now given for free etc. It's a tacit acknowledgement to how awesome you are for finishing TL and understanding the game.

So play TL, no questions asked, but see it as a fun marathon than a game you must "finish". The sequels maybe add 10-15% more anyway. Also it goes without saying but don't consult walkthroughs or get advice for what to build. All I can recommend if you want quicker battles is to choose the mage. The paladin is the slowest at the beginning because their tactics rely on keeping everyone alive, casting ressurection and juggling mana, and that can be boring.

 

[sea]

Heroes of Might & Magic is based around capturing cities and building them up for unit production and resource management, not to mention you control multiple hero units and armies, and fight against another team of heroes. It's a straight-up strategy game for the most part.

In King's Bounty you instead have a single hero with a single army, there's no capturing of cities and towns, and there's no enemy heroes trying to win the game in the same way as you. Instead it has light RPG elements like quests, and rather than completing individual missions within a campaign, you instead hop from island to island to advance the story (not that the story really matters).

Both games are good, definitely, but the scale and overall gameplay style of King's Bounty is different. It's much more focused on combat and character building than it is on strategy (though there is still some in terms of how you handle your army - it's possible to screw yourself into an unwinnable state with bad tactics, lack of planning and wasteful playing, for instance). You'll probably be disappointed if you go in expecting otherwise.

 

[Grunker]

That sounds pretty much like what I was expecting. The key part of HoMM for me has always been hero advancement and tactical battles. Frankly, I find city management the least interesting thing in HoMM.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Can you elaborate on the last point Roxorowski? Because that's kindda what I am expecting.

The whole King's Bounty (at least in The Legend) is based on one thing: running back and forth. There is absolutely no management of anything - you never really run out of resources and creature dwellings have plenty of replacements ready, which means you can p. much win all battles by employing human wave tactics and doing fuck all about casualties (this is also usually the faster way).

There is not really any way to avoid casualties altogether because you almost always face overwhelming amounts of shitty enemies, so it all quickly degrades into:

enter battle -> kill stuff -> return to the other side of the fucking map for reinforcements -> return to your previous point on the map -> repeat until you get sick and uninstall.

 

[Archibald]

If you played better then you wouldn't have to run back and forth. I think that was the whole point of the game, if you suck at it you can spend 2x time playing it and still win.

Edit: i think game is most interesting when played on higher difficulty than normal.

 

[Overweight Manatee]

Can you elaborate on the last point Roxorowski? Because that's kindda what I am expecting.

The whole King's Bounty (at least in The Legend) is based on one thing: running back and forth. There is absolutely no management of anything - you never really run out of resources and creature dwellings have plenty of replacements ready, which means you can p. much win all battles by employing human wave tactics and doing fuck all about casualties (this is also usually the faster way).

There is not really any way to avoid casualties altogether because you almost always face overwhelming amounts of shitty enemies, so it all quickly degrades into:

enter battle -> kill stuff -> return to the other side of the fucking map for reinforcements -> return to your previous point on the map -> repeat until you get sick and uninstall.

I played AP and that was completely not true. You could have 0 casualties on most/all fights and lots of useful creatures were very limited (or randomly placed and very hard to find).


The game does get tiresome though after a certain point where every battle is a grind through 50k of enemies.

 

[Archibald]

Yeah, once you figure out certain tactics that work it gets stupid sometimes when you in essence have to do same thing but they got more skeletons this time.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Yeah, once you figure out certain tactics that work it gets stupid sometimes when you in essence have to do same thing but they got more skeletons this time.

Which is exactly my point.

 

[Archibald]

tactics != running back and forth.

 

[Darth Roxor]

tactics != running back and forth.

You can try applying a tactical approach to every battle (which yes, does limit casualties very much to a minimum), but it gets even more tedious and boring because you are left doing the exact same bloody thing in each battle. So might as well just use human wave to make them end faster.

 

[Grunker]

Well, to be fair, HoMM suffers from the "run-back-across-whole-map-to-get-reinforcements" too, and that's fine, because the alternatives would be stupid (aka instant summoning).

The eating through 50K enemies doesn't sound very fun though, but time will tell. Crossworlds GOTY Edition installing nao.