Knights and Merchants.net Forum

Nothing better than a game that takes six hours. I wonder how many people were still in it at the end.

Well, I bet it was x3 speed then...

kontr, let me tell you a story about this community...

The forum represents a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands of players of KaM Remake. Most people here are the "hardcore" KaM players who are highly skilled at the game and like to play it a very specific way: 60 minutes PT, x1 speed, and only certain maps which don't encourage "camping" (which some players might call defending). These hardcore players are also known as TeamSpeak players because they hang out of the TeamSpeak server kamts.eu. They typically despise those who they call the "randoms", which is most people playing on public servers. Most KaM Remake players seem to like playing Cursed Ravine (defensive/campy maps) with 75-90 minutes of peacetime, and x2-x3 speed, which is very different from the way the hardcore players play. I'd say these "random" players are more casual, they want a fast paced game with more defending/sieging (rather than large open battles that harecore players have) and typically have a lower level of skill. This makes sense, not everyone wants to spend 2 hours on a game of KaM, and defensive maps give you a chance to stay alive and train an army if your opponent made a bigger army right after peacetime ends.

From my point of view as a developer, we want to please everyone who plays KaM Remake. However, our community is pretty much exclusively made of hardcore players who are extremely loyal and helpful to us in developing the game (and are also my friends). It's possible that when casual players dedicate enough time to the game to join our forum community they become so skilled that they get tired of the "casual" popular style of gameplay and end up joining the "hardcore" players.

I find it disappointing when there are clashes between the popular/casual players and the hardcore players. Some hardcore players are elitists and believe that everyone should play the game their way, and are rude and dismissive towards anyone who plays the popular way. They tell us developers we should remove x2/x3 speed, limit the number of towers each player can build, make 60 the maximum PT, etc. so everyone is forced to play their way (which they call the "correct way", I find that kind of arrogant). They seem to forget that they are actually a small minority of the total KaM Remake players and their way of playing is unpopular with most players (although they are also the most loyal/active/helpful in the community so from our point of view we want to support them and their play style).

KaM Remake needs casual and hardcore players (since different people have different amounts of time/effort to dedicate to the game), I just wish we had some casual players in our community so their opinions could be heard too, and hardcore players would be more welcoming/understanding when someone different joins our community, instead of being like "lol you play 90 PT noob we are the TeamSpeak masterclass" (joking)

The way I see this topic: kontr is a strong player at the casual/popular style of playing (Cursed Ravine, 90 PT, fast speed). He came here looking for the other top players of this game to challenge them. Unfortunately everyone here plays the game very differently to kontr, and therefore there were some misunderstandings. kontr could probably soon learn to be highly skilled at the hardcore way of playing since he understands the game mechanics well. But that's his choice, he can play the game whatever way he likes. Remember that they are two different skills: kontr is skilled at casual/popular, players here on the forum are skilled at hardcore. It's pointless to argue who is better, they are completely different ways to play.

So kontr, I hope you now understand why people responded to you the way they did. Please don't be put off by some people seeming arrogant and rude, mostly people are friendly here. I really hope you join our community because I would love to have players like you here to give your opinions! You play the game in the most popular way, yet your voice is rarely heard by us developers of the game. If you have any questions please ask

Hi
My favorite map!



cheers
L.W.

The game probably took over 3 hours to play. Seriously, who has time for such long games? And even if you did have such leisure time, you still have to have toilet breaks, food breaks, and other basic necessities.

I think if we hadn't implemented multiplayer speed there would be less people playing the game now. I think it's a shame that the majority of people only play one map though.

On that subject, multiplayer speed is actually reason why I stopped playing this game. Maybe I was just plain lucky, but before its introduction, I had played about 20 games (if memory serves), and I enjoyed them all, even if I got my ass kicked, which was almost always. But at least players would say "gg, thanks for game, bye". Some time after MP speed, situation degraded to this state: I sit in the room ready to start game, map different from Cursed Ravine, with game speed lower than 2x. Most players do hit & run (disconnect before I type "hi"), some of them repeatedly. Those who stay for a few seconds will type "2.5x 2x", with occasional "noob", and leave before I have a chance reply them (some guy even wanted 2x on Coastal Encounter Scored). If by any chance I get into game (on Cursed Ravine of course), most people just quit before peace-time or after 10 minutes of game, not even saying "crap, i must go" or something.

So yes, you have more players, but I still think it was easier to get a complete game with fewer players, let alone decent one. Don't get me wrong, I would be first to vote for higher game speed, but I would think of maybe 1.5x or 1.75x max. But hey, that's just me

I think if we hadn't implemented multiplayer speed there would be less people playing the game now.

I think if we hadn't implemented multiplayer speed there would be less people playing the game now.

I'm not so sure. It may have attracted some new people who never played the game before and weren't used to its slow nature, but it also scared away some of the 'ancient' players. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the number of players these days more or less equal to the number of players that used to play the Remake before the speed change? I'm sure the graphs can tell us.

However, there is something else bothering me: why is the player count so extremely important? It's not like nobody played the Remake before the change. I'm disappointed to see that the player count is more important than the spirit of the game.
You already said you think it's arrogant if someone thinks that 60 pt and x1 is the 'true' way to play this game, but I'm not ashamed to admit that I really think x1 is the true way. This game was not designed for fast-paced gaming. This is no Starcraft II or a similar modern RTS game. Some will hate me for this, but: let people who think x1 is too slow remove themselves from the community so we can play the game as we are supposed to. These speed settings have really seperated the community. It's as good as impossible to play anything else than Cursed Ravine with x2.5/x2/85 pt settings or something similar, except when we play with TeamSpeak players. IF we play with those settings, it's a trollgame because it's impossible to play properly with such speeds (and anyone who denies that has nothing to do here).
We need to get rid of these speeds so the community will be reunited, the noobs described by Duke Valennius will vanish and the world of KaM will rejoice!

This post was written not by the friendly and just global moderator known as The Dark Lord, but by the appallingly arrogant, conservative and rather radical player The Dark Lord.

Do you have some raw files (3 types) of your games, please? I would like to see your skills, as you described yourself as a veteran. Would be great too see your best games.

Do you have some raw files (3 types) of your games, please? I would like to see your skills, as you described yourself as a veteran. Would be great too see your best games.

The Dark Lord doesn't play much. Don't get me wrong: He is a good player. Still, there are better players yet and more content elsewhere.

If you insist on seeing some "pro" players, I have some pretty modern shoutcasts on my channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKBFrx ... oJw/videos

I have also provided a replay of a game played on Rich Land. I can guarantee that at least 6/8 of these players are better than any you've encountered on the public release

Do you have some raw files (3 types) of your games, please? I would like to see your skills, as you described yourself as a veteran. Would be great too see your best games.

The Dark Lord doesn't play much. Don't get me wrong: He is a good player. Still, there are better players yet and more content elsewhere.

If you insist on seeing some "pro" players, I have some pretty modern shoutcasts on my channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKBFrx ... oJw/videos

I have also provided a replay of a game played on Rich Land. I can guarantee that at least 6/8 of these players are better than any you've encountered on the public release

Dear Ben,
I have just seen this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTMmdak ... rxP_EVsoJw

Some other games have very "not comfortable for users camera movement". I would be grand to get some raw files (3 types) to see replays.
But white player did mills. It is a huge mistake. And the blue built inn so early.
Unfortunately, they did not use unbeaten strategy, called SimCity, they did not expand cities after pt.
Ben, Is there any ability to meet you online soon? My nick would be SimCity.

Cheers!

Haha, that's a problem if you only play Cursed Ravine: you don't know much about other maps. Golden Cliffs is a map with a 'slow start': you are forced to build according to the traditional build order (school --> inn --> stonemason --> woodcutter) instead of school --> woodcutter.
In my opinion expending your town after peacetime is only useful if your economy wasn't already strong enough or if all raw materials will be depleted so you can trade stuff you overproduce for gold/coal.

Haha, that's a problem if you only play Cursed Ravine: you don't know much about other maps. Golden Cliffs is a map with a 'slow start': you are forced to build according to the traditional build order (school --> inn --> stonemason --> woodcutter) instead of school --> woodcutter.
In my opinion expending your town after peacetime is only useful if your economy wasn't already strong enough or if all raw materials will be depleted so you can trade stuff you overproduce for gold/coal.

Dear Veteran,
Let's check that. We can meet on Cursed Ravine. I can learn Golden Cliffs (one location) so we can meet on Golden Cliffs later.
However, I played (very bad then) on Golden Cliffs and could not confirm other than (school-stonemason/woodcutter and so on) building order. Like inn after school? Too bad for me. Really.
Unfortunately, I cannot agree with your last sentence: expanding is the key of the game. This is economy game, not Mortal Combat.

Best!

Cheers again!