If you want to restrict or block the cookies that are set by our website, you can do so through your browser setting. For example, we will recognize your username and remember how you customized the site during future visits. Functionality cookiesįunctionality cookies let us operate the site in accordance with the choices you make. For example, these cookies let us recognize that you have created an account and have logged into that account. Necessary cookies allow us to offer you the best possible experience when accessing and navigating through our website and using its features. What types of cookies do we use? Necessary cookies It will contain some anonymous information such as a unique identifier, website’s domain name, and some digits and numbers. Each cookie is unique to your web browser. What are cookies?Ĭookies are simple text files that are stored on your computer or mobile device by a website’s server. By visiting you agree that may use cookies to be processed by Google Analytics and Yandex.Metrika. Knights and Merchants followed in the footsteps of the popularity of The Settlers as a cute management sim by introducing more intricate combat of pikeman, archers and cavalry which could be aligned in 8 directions and moved and commanded in formations as well as a management, city building sim that simulated and neatly displayed every single link in any production chain for every single in-game item, without having to rely on graphs, statistics or spread sheets.Please read this cookie policy carefully before using operated by us. Mechanics of army food supply also allowed to avoid combat, and draw the hungry enemy out of the reach of food carrying serfs forcing them to starve in futile pursuit of the enemy. While Knights & Merchants featured innovative formation combat at the time, it also relies too much on simple Rock, Paper, Scissors dynamics and efficiently lethal ranged units. Most of the game play is spent on Sim City like building and planning of production facilities. Real Estate becomes the limiting factor to the sizes of army and economy. Real Estate as a Limited Resourceīecause every single unit requires food, and farms and vineyard take up considerable amounts of space. The player is also allowed to specify what it is the people who may perform multiple functions should be working on. For instance, a lumberjack will cut wood which will later become bows by means of the carpenter. In Knights and Merchants, the player also makes their own weapons. Resources are ferried around between the relevant buildings by serfs, who perform many key functions in this game such as taking food to the military - the game will not automatically do so.Īs well as keeping the military fed, you must also keep them armed. What the farm produces will then be taken to a mill, which will then end up in a bakery - and the end result will be a single loaf of bread. For instance, to obtain food, you need a farm. Many types of real-time strategy games tend to simplify this, whereas this process is often broken down into several stages in Knights and Merchants. One of the key elements of Knights and Merchants is working for your resources. The game also has a "training" level before throwing you straight into a scenario that teaches the mechanics of the game and is useful for people unfamiliar with the way the economy works in this game. Mostly this is achieved by left-clicking, although to select units the mouse uses more of a "click and drag" method similar to other games such as Age of Empires. You can use the mouse for most things in the game. GameplayĬontrols and gameplay are simple. This gives it a much greater sense of realism than other similar games given that things such as the amount of people your food supply can sustain must be taken into account. As the name suggests, Knights and Merchants does not focus exclusively on the fighting side of real-time strategy games, but also the building of a medieval economy in order to sustain a military - and the civilisation as a whole - function.