Knights and Merchants.net Forum

Welcome everyone, to the Official KaM Remake Ideas Topic. This topic is meant to list all the community ideas in three sections:

• Accepted/To be Implemented
• Declined
• Open for Discussion

Since ideas are now posted in random topics, Lewin and Krom are having a hard time finding all the (good) ideas and discuss them. This place is meant to be the only place to post ideas from now on.

The list as you'll find it below was created by gathering all the ideas from all of the topics in the 'KaM Remake' section, and was checked by Lewin.

So: please post your new ideas here and discuss the ideas that are "open for discussion".

Note: Please quote the person you are replying to! That way there won't be any confusion when there are multiple ideas being discussed at the same time.

- Tom



Official list of ideas


Accepted/To be Implemented

• Removing wares from buildings (so as to relocate them into another)
• Blocking recruits in barracks
• Split one unit from group
• Customizable hotkeys
• Friend/foe colors.

Declined

• Auto train in schools
• Buildings with multiple entrances
• Blocking foods in Inns
• Prioritize trees to be chopped by woodcutter
• Warning message when low on a specific resource
• Registered Accounts
• 'Distribution of Wares' sets a priority instead of the maximum number of wares
• Split laborers into teams (max. 2?)
• Walls
• Withdraw soldiers from battle

Open for Discussion

• Auto pause at the end of PT in replay viewer
• Pause in mutiplayer games
• Split hungry units from group (Discuss how to implement)
• Town Hall
• Siege Equipment
• Shared control
• Take over disconnected players' army/village
• Move Vagabond from Town Hall to Barracks as a trainable unit
• Ability to use marketplace to send resources to allies.
• Ability to Delete an ally's buildings after he/she disconnects/is defeated.
• Additional players in lobby (to allow more spectators)

This topic is frequently updated!

Thanks for that Tom, this forum really needs some moderating so I'll start cracking down on people from now on and forcing them to stay on topic.
This should also make it easier for new people, I've seen so many posts repeating the same ideas that have been discussed in other places.

Note that this list is not set in stone, e.g. accepted ideas might become rejected if they don't work well in game.

Look at castlesand, you'll find plenty of txt-files with ideas and suggestions in it

Is this list meant to be an overview? Or shall we discuss about it?

Before I go ontopic I'll bother you one more time about the woodcutter thing.

If I remember correctly Lewin said the woodcutter will randomly cut and plant trees and not first cut all trees and then plant them all again, like it is now.
I didn't really mind before, but now I came up with a problem which is the reason why I now think it shouldn't be changed: what if an area where you want to build is blocked by two trees? The woodcutter cuts one, that's great, but before he cuts the other one he first plants a new one! Disaster! :evil:
Obviously I think this should somehow be avoided.

I thought townhall, siege weapons and walls were accepted, but just didn't have high priority.

Some playtime clock should be implemented in the game.
I think there is a clock when you boost the game speed, but there should be some everytime.
It can be useful when u have some peace time, and totally forgot when did u start or just when you had to reload game.

In editor there should be coords when you are moving mouse over the map, so u can know where exatly u are building something.
And when u choose custom map in editor there should be empty map with NO trees.

Thank you for this topic. Now it is all a little bit more in structure and I love it,too because my flag mod/idea is here,too

I'd quite like to see a few different speed settings. I used to play a game called Anno 1602 around the same time as KaM, and you could use the following:

F5 = normal speed
F6 = slight speed up
F7 = fast mode
Shift + F7 = super fast mode

Another idea: if your ally disconnects you can command your ally's troops. Or perhaps you should get them (as in: own them; so you can feed them as well), but then I think you should also get his village and that might be troubling when your village isn't connected to your ally's village.
Or perhaps you are able to command them and you can also feed them with your ally's serfs, but you can't control the rest of his village.

(Something different and off topic: is 'ally's' correct English? It seems awful to me. Allies' looks better but would be inappropiate when you're talking about one ally. Help me out please, this has been bothering me for too long already! )

It's allies'

About your idea: I think it's quite hard to maintain 2 cities at a time AND also battle with both cities against 2 enemies..

Well that's the point; you don't get his village so there's nothing to maintain. Your allies' soldiers will still have your allies' colour and still belong to your ally, the difference is that you can control them (and they will be fed by your allies' serfs) so there is not much to maintain.

Well this thread was definitely a good idea. i believe it is prudent, then, for me to post "my official opinion" on the "open for discussion" topics, yes?

1) Country flags (mod?)
Well i don't really care for it. It will require work and won't add towards gameplay; thus, I think it should be low priority.

2) Walls
In a word: no. Of course, this is my pinion, but I will back this up with my reasoning. In KaM, soldiers CANNOT retreat from combat. As ridiculous as this may seem, it is needed for the game's combat system to function correctly (and I might add that I enjoy this feature). Now this also serves another function: as a human wall. I believe that walls are not needed since soldiers, themselves fulfill this feature just fine.

3) Town Hall
I wouldn't miss it at all, but I won't morn if it makes the cut. It totally throws the KaM system out of sync since it skips the requirement to construct the necessary weapon making buildings, removes the requirement to make weapons, and removes the training time needed for recruits Now, I don't want to see the soldiers go. I'd like them to be like barbarians in TSK, where they exist, but can't be trained.

4) Diagonal roads
I don't like them. They have a nice look to them, but they have flaws (tress ending up right in the road, knocking off the tile system in KaM, and the work needed to get these to work). Now, I do like the idea of ridding KaM of those ugly roads with the corners removed.

5) Siege Equipment
Don't like them. The "magical movement" of the equipment rids KaM of its realistic atmosphere. I also think they are slightly unbalanced, but maybe that wouldn't be so true in multiplayer (since Humans are smart enough to flank and prioritize in attacks). Since we also don't need to feed them, we see yet another flaw in the KaM style of "feeding the soldiers."

These are my opinions, but I will support any decision Lewin and Krom make. However, if my opinions help sway theirs to my favor, so be it haha

God bless! Thanks for everything!

P.S. Will there ever be a need to make a registered account for playing on the Remake? This would be useful since it would deter people from changing their name, which would allow people to quickly "screen out" the players who have been--annoying, shall we say?-- in the past.
If this happens, we could always allow people to sign in as a Guest.

Can walls die? No.(except when siege weapons are working)
Can soldiers die? Yes.

The point is, walls are not necessary. it breaks the game's mechanics, and besieging a base is monotonous enough as it is.
Forcing people to use siege equipment would also devastate the offensive party. No more maps without iron: buying it would be too expensive. The defending player just needs to sit back, kick his shoes off, and laugh as the enemy tries for hours to get enough siege equipment to break down a wall.
Walls would need to be planned very, very carefully in order to prevent them from being unbalanced.
Besides, it is changing the game too much. Leave it for a mod I say.
Again, my opinion

Both. Tom will keep the first post up to date as an overview, and people should use this thread for discussing new ideas or the ideas listed here.
You have a very good point there. We have made the woodcutter more likely to cut trees when there are a lot of trees available (so if you place him in the middle of a forest he will go mad cutting them all down for a while) but you are right, you cannot use woodcutters to clear and area for building then demolish and rebuild him outside your village (I have used this tactic a few times in multiplayer games)
I will discuss this with Krom and see if we can figure out a solution/justify why it should be this way.
Certainly not. I think all of these things don't fit in KaM and kind of mess with the balance/gameplay style. So they'd need to be planned in such a way that avoids these problems, hence they are open for discussion.
That's on the todo list already, but thanks.
I agree with both of these and have added them to the todo list. As you've probably seen the map editor has been on the back burner for a while.
I agree and I've added it to the features list. There are hundreds of little niceties like this that we could do but I don't want the features list to become too cluttered at this stage. (we are still implementing core elements, polishing will come later)
We'll do this when we allow players to share control with their allies. Disconnected players could automatically become controllable by anyone on that team.
I also thought it would be fun to have two players controlling one player at once. You'd have to be in close communication over Skype or by sitting next to each other. So many times in multiplayer I lose focus on my economy while controlling my army, and vice versa. I think it would be cool to have one person managing the economy and training new troops as requested by the person controlling the military. That way your village would not be forgotten when you attack.
These options could be disabled by the host in the lobby of course.
I'd always thought the possessive noun of ally was ally's, and the possessive noun of the plural allies was allies'. But I see you are right, (even my dictionary is highlighting it red for me) how embarrassing that a Dutch guy is teaching me my own language
Wow Ben, you basically just wrote down exactly the way I feel about the "open for discussion" items!
If anyone wants to know what I think about the open for discussion items, please read Ben's post above.
I've thought about this, but right now it doesn't seem necessary. Once the game is less frustrating to play (with auto reconnect, file transfer and enforced peace time) I think things will calm down a bit. It's certainly not a priority at all, and it would be a fair bit of work to implement.
But if we ever did this I would want to have a way for people to play without an account, as I hate games that force you to sign up before you can play online.
I agree 100%. Siegfried also summed it up nicely on some other topic. KaM needs more things to encourage offensive tactics, (as opposed to defensive, I'm not proposing we need rude or insulting tactics ) we don't need more reasons to camp at your village and build up towers/walls/archers.
Actually I just see that as a very good reason NOT to have walls. A defence that is difficult to destroy will just bog the game down in drawn out sieges.
I don't think the KaM engine is well suited to sieges like that, we'd need elements like siege towers, battering rams, guys with ladders, tunnellers, etc. that you see in games like Stronghold (I'd say sieges in Stronghold work fairly well and the engine is well suited to that)

Thanks for your comments everyone.
Lewin.