The Kingdom Expanded
Now what could this be? Knights and Merchants - The Kingdom Expanded, is a work in progress Knights and Merchants engine recreation. So basically it is a fanmade game that tries to come as close as possible to the original Knights and Merchants games.
Note: as far as I know this engine remake has been abandoned.
| Developer: | Harold |
| Release Date: | N/A |
| Genre: | Real Time Strategy (RTS) |
| Game modes: | Singleplayer & Multiplayer |
| Platforms: | Microsoft Windows |
| Homepage: | TKE Repository |
Knights and Merchants - The Kingdom expanded is an attempt at recreating the engine that is powering Knights and Merchants. It is by no means an easy task, so we are left to see what Harold and his team will manage to accomplish. Currently, this project seems to be abandoned.
Features
Entirely new engine
It should come as a surprise to nobody that as the source code for the original game is not available, the game engine will have to be coded from scratch. What kind of features this new engine will bring forth is unknown, but maybe it will work a bit smoother than the official one?
Military waypoints
Ever sent a troop of your soldiers to a certain area only to find out they took the path that went straight through the enemy base? Well, this is not a problem anymore! Military waypoints are being worked on for the game. By using them, one can specify the path the soldiers will take to reach a certain area yourself. Usually waypoints work so that you can place numerous waypoints for the soldiers, and the troop will then walk to each of the points in the order that you placed them. If this is how it will work, and if there will be a waypoint limit, is currently unknown.
Fog of war
How annoying do you find it when playing a multiplayer game and your opponent manages to slip into your base with a soldier and it will then be visible for him/her for the rest of the game! Luckily, this problem might be solved by the upcoming engine! Promised is this feature that exists in the majority of RTS games but was absent from Knights and Merchants. Even if it might be a good addition, I hope it will be an option as otherwise it cannot truly recreate the original game.
Evacuate button
Desperately want to destroy a house that would fit better in another place, but there are some wares in the building that are just too precious to get wasted? It seems like this problem will no longer be faced when the new engine arrives, as it seems like a new button will be added to all buildings which tasks your serfs to seek all wares from the building and then take them to your storehouse or another building in need of the wares! Convenient, I must say!
Bigger game maps
For some people, the original max size for the maps, 196x196, just doesn't seem to be enough. I personally haven't seen the map size as a problem, but I heard a rumor somewhere that support for 8 player online gaming is considered? Maybe then this could be a handy feature. Of course, it's never a good thing to have limits, so that is probably the reason for bigger maps.
New map format
Naturally, if there are to be bigger maps, even the map format has to be renewed. Nothing specific about this new format is known, but there will be at least one new command, !CLEAR_ALL (clears whole map). Other than this, it is also believed that the new maps will be slightly smaller than the original ones. As it now looks, the maps will most likely still be two separate files, but we can hope that this new format will be updated so that it has everything merged into one file. This would make it easier to create new missions.
Classic map support
Scared you off didn't I? Luckily there is still going to be support for the original map files, and I think and hope that the two original campaigns will also be included in this new engine. Unless they are not, well you will have to load each mission separately...
Disclaimer: The engine is still in early development stages and anything mentioned above is subject to changes!