TBS Kingdom, Dungeon, and Hero - crush your enemies and loot dungeons (hex-and-chit wargame / 4X / RPG hybrid)

[udm]

I was looking through the Next Fest catalogue, and this popped up far, far down the list of various shovelware titles. The name caught my attention though—Kingdom, Dungeon, and Hero—reminding me of the pnp RPG Adventurer Conqueror King System. Thus intrigued, I decided to take a look, and the description intrigued me even more.

Spoiler

Kingdom, Dungeon, and Hero is a fantasy strategy and adventure game. Immerse yourself in a realm of horrors, magic, and strategic conquest on a hex-based map with a board game feel. Form armies, expand an economy, negotiate agreements, send heroes off on missions, explore dungeons, find magic items and artifacts to help you win the game.

• Play on maps with up to 50 kingdoms.

• Manage resources, diplomacy, armies, and heroes to do your bidding.

• Build and configure armies and navies of up to 6 units against the enemy. Assign a hero to lead it.

• Hire heroes to find lead armies, govern cities, go on missions, or explore dungeons for gold, magic items, and artifacts.

• Research tactics, production, and magic to increase your kingdom's power.

• The Editor allows players to generate an infinite number of maps. Create magic items, army types, and change images.

• The game comes with a main story scenario and multiple other scenarios to play.

I decided to give the demo a quick shot amidst my busy schedule. It's certainly a very interesting game that plays like an SSI wargame albeit one that's less complex, and you get to go dungeon delving with a party of heroes too. Some quick thoughts:

- it plays like what you'd expect from the description. You control armies to hold the border, attack enemy armies, and capture cities/villages for resources. Meanwhile, you also have heroes that can either lead these armies, crawl dungeons and ruins, and perform missions.
- Armies and heroes can level up. Armies can gain specialisations, while heroes can upgrade their attributes.
- Basic logistics/supply mechanics are in. Your army needs food to be supplied every turn or they might starve (if they fail to forage).
- Terrain affects your unit's chance of winning a fight against an enemy unit. There are also different weathers/seasons that affect combat and resource production.
- Every turn, there is a chance for random events like plague and famine to take place.
- You can construct buildings, do research, conduct diplomatic talks, and do other typical 4X stuff in order to advance your kingdom. I haven't really played too much with these options though, so I can't say how simple/deep they are.
- Dungeon exploration is interesting. The interface is simple as you decide whether you want to go one square north, south, east, or west. As for combat, it reminds me a bit of Neo Scavenger, where you choose your actions and the results are narrated. Occasionally, random events can trigger during combat: for example, one of my mages hit a monster so hard that it crashed through a fake wall to reveal a hidden chamber with a stash of gold.

All in all, I liked what I played and will give the demo another go when I have more time this week (if they don't take the demo away after Next Fest is over).

 

[Zero CHAR]

So... Sengoku Rance?

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

I was looking through the Next Fest catalogue, and this popped up far, far down the list of various shovelware titles. The name caught my attention though—Kingdom, Dungeon, and Hero—reminding me of the pnp RPG Adventurer Conqueror King System. Thus intrigued, I decided to take a look, and the description intrigued me even more.

Spoiler

Kingdom, Dungeon, and Hero is a fantasy strategy and adventure game. Immerse yourself in a realm of horrors, magic, and strategic conquest on a hex-based map with a board game feel. Form armies, expand an economy, negotiate agreements, send heroes off on missions, explore dungeons, find magic items and artifacts to help you win the game.

• Play on maps with up to 50 kingdoms.

• Manage resources, diplomacy, armies, and heroes to do your bidding.

• Build and configure armies and navies of up to 6 units against the enemy. Assign a hero to lead it.

• Hire heroes to find lead armies, govern cities, go on missions, or explore dungeons for gold, magic items, and artifacts.

• Research tactics, production, and magic to increase your kingdom's power.

• The Editor allows players to generate an infinite number of maps. Create magic items, army types, and change images.

• The game comes with a main story scenario and multiple other scenarios to play.

I decided to give the demo a quick shot amidst my busy schedule. It's certainly a very interesting game that plays like an SSI wargame albeit one that's less complex, and you get to go dungeon delving with a party of heroes too. Some quick thoughts:

- it plays like what you'd expect from the description. You control armies to hold the border, attack enemy armies, and capture cities/villages for resources. Meanwhile, you also have heroes that can either lead these armies, crawl dungeons and ruins, and perform missions.
- Armies and heroes can level up. Armies can gain specialisations, while heroes can upgrade their attributes.
- Basic logistics/supply mechanics are in. Your army needs food to be supplied every turn or they might starve (if they fail to forage).
- Terrain affects your unit's chance of winning a fight against an enemy unit. There are also different weathers/seasons that affect combat and resource production.
- Every turn, there is a chance for random events like plague and famine to take place.
- You can construct buildings, do research, conduct diplomatic talks, and do other typical 4X stuff in order to advance your kingdom. I haven't really played too much with these options though, so I can't say how simple/deep they are.
- Dungeon exploration is interesting. The interface is simple as you decide whether you want to go one square north, south, east, or west. As for combat, it reminds me a bit of Neo Scavenger, where you choose your actions and the results are narrated. Occasionally, random events can trigger during combat: for example, one of my mages hit a monster so hard that it crashed through a fake wall to reveal a hidden chamber with a stash of gold.

All in all, I liked what I played and will give the demo another go when I have more time this week (if they don't take the demo away after Next Fest is over).

This looks awesome

 

[Hoodoo]

Interested see what your further impressions are. Seems too good to be true.

 

[udm]

So... Sengoku Rance?

Don't know. Never played it. But watching some videos, it looks very different even if on paper they share similarities.

 

[kris]

Interesting also that they have included a full editor.

 

[normie]

So... Sengoku Rance?

wut? I'm reading turn-based Majesty

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

Its by the same developers (person?) that made this WW2 Strategy game Warplan and Warplan Pacific.

 

[udm]

So it seems the dev disabled AI for the demo. But weirdly while playing the main scenario yesterday, I thought I saw enemy galleys moving on their own. Other factions also initiated treaties with me. Not sure what's happening so I'm going to ask the dev later.

 

[Stormcrowfleet]

This looks nice, thanks for sharing. I'm downloading the demo.

 

[udm]

So it seems the dev disabled AI for the demo. But weirdly while playing the main scenario yesterday, I thought I saw enemy galleys moving on their own. Other factions also initiated treaties with me. Not sure what's happening so I'm going to ask the dev later.

The dev just confirmed the AI doesn't fully work in the demo, so it doesn't control its army units. However it is able to perform actions like engage in diplomacy.

 

[Lagi]

i complete the demo scenario and try 3 different factions.

-----------------
mouse control is super annoying!!

Right mouse click is ordering unit to move AND pan the map. So if you select unit, you cannot scroll the map with Middle mouse button f.ex.

or you need to Left click all time to deselect units, scroll map, and select unit again.
-------------------

i hope for fantasy races, like in Dominion series, but it appears all of the 50x Kingdoms share the same human faction "structure" with little variety of available to recruit units.

game is quite accessible because i was able to play without reading the manual, which is a rare achievement for hex war games.

dungeon exploration is suprising good flesh out. Its interesting to explore the locations with heroes. even thous all my heroes always die in every single exploration attempt.

main world strategic game is little boring. I move my troops from one town to another to capture. There is little point to explore the map with army. With heroes you can search for rumors and then make expedition to explore dungeon. But main army just move from one city to another.

its probably because AI is doing nothing. So you dont have to defend in mountain to put pressure on enemy, try to surround them, sneak at the back or try to get access through some passage.

each faction f.ex have the same buildings(granary, barracks etc), resorces, research

even some exotic factions have humans as core units.

multiple combat parameters (1st range, then melee. There is siege if your target is behind wall. And pursuit which affect damage to victim after you win combat).

each unit has 10 strenght points like in Panzer General. on 1 hex there could be stack of max 6 units, which is annoying when you single militia is on the road for your main heavy hitter stack

Final stack stat is calculated like that : Melee stat of unit * current strenght ; summarized from all max 6 units in stack.

this yellow stars on the right of the chits are morale - it seems they affect how much units are willing to die to control the current hex after battle, or they flee.

some effort was put into description of the main cites - which is quite fun to read and make the board alive

hmm... i am not sure if the game is worth the effort of learning it to get fun out of it, for me mostly because the factions are boring humans.
I will check the rulebook nevertheless, finger cross

 

[udm]

snip

Good shit, thanks bro. Haven't had the time to dive properly into the main scenario (especially with saves disabled, as my daily gaming time is limited), but some of the stuff you mentioned like mouse control, I definitely agree with.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

It looks interesting... I sent my heroes into a dungeon and got absolutely trashed there. Will try some more.

 

[Lagi]

i think something is not right with combat, this formulas results are all wonky. Or maybe the demo let player to win absolutly everything?

i attack with milita another fortified milita with 3 defense. And i manage to breach the wall (reduce to 0 wall bonus - its this triple= on the right hand side). And i just lose 1 dude?
check milita siege stats is 0 (zero). how the fuck i am able to destroy walls??!!

this is stupid because it make a massive drop stats, why bother with siege units if i can just use peasants with 0.
all this system make no sense, if It doesnt matter. Is the demo just one massive LARP sandbox?

nah... ok im out... I crave a fantasy hex war game, but this is just not it. I think the author play too much generic WW2 war simulators and dont have a feeling of Fantasy games.

1st i want unique factions. I know most gamers play anglo-saxon'esque humans anyway, but for them at least make interesting opponents. Dont get me wrong, Dominion 5 have similar working factions too with tons of humans and oftens its just different numbers, but each factino has different graphics for units and the why units work is different (not even mention the magic system is ... well Fantastic)
look at this Lizards - to get the feeling what im taking about

2nd i want skilll to make units special. Fantasy General or Age of Wonders... Heroes of M&M even. Staple shit like flying, breath fire, chain lighting, shield wall, spear counter charge(big units).
here all units feel the same, just different numbers.

Droping dungeon exploration is not sorting the issue, becuase in most games dungeon is just check if your hero manage or not to get something from it, not a mini game inside the game.

----
well i really like Towns description... a great effort was made in creating this scenario map. I rarerly read any lore dump in games because it is of piss quality, but here its interesting and coherent. And one location refere to another sometimes.

 

[Lagi]

It looks interesting... I sent my heroes into a dungeon and got absolutely trashed there. Will try some more.

Whats your point with "math" rating?

you cannot really enjoy hex wargames, if you dont understand the formulas and mechanic behind it. its just then moving ugly looking monocolor squares around hex grid.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

My point is that you point out some mathematical problems with the game. Hence the math rating.