Knighthood, a Facebook application/game by Hive7, is a construction and management simulation with particular emphasis on warfare. You build your kingdom, collect your vassals, enter into alliances, and wage war against others.
We’ll be taking a look at the Game Flavor, the Game Mechanics, the Good, the Bad, the Ugly, and the Final Review. So, is this game for casual gamers, hardcore gamers, or no gamers? Read on!
Game Flavor
Knighthood has a strong mundane (real world, lacking magic) medieval setting. The game mechanics further support the flavor of the fiefdom’s political structure, where Lords/Ladies are primarily maintained by vassals beneath them. This is a good case where the game mechanics support the game flavor.
In addition, Knighthood has good typography, nice images, and a good visual layout.
Game Mechanics
Knighthood has a fairly complex system of rules from building to warfare. It is primarily a competitive game with a pyramidal power structure, where the number of vassals under your control pertains directly to your in-game strength.
The building system is tree-structured; once buildings have been upgraded high enough, you gain access to additional buildings and game mechanics. Although Knighthood has a fairly simple build-tree, each building interacts with the mechanics in different and varying ways.
The basic actions of warfare revolve around sending your vassals to raid, pillage, seize opponents’ vassals, and conquer (claiming players as a vassal). Warfare is based on attack and defense ratings further modified by buildings, weapons, and vassals. Also, if you don’t like war, you can always go into peace mode (at a slight penalty to efficiency, implying it is better to be at war than at peace).
There are other game mechanics that are socially based, such as trading vassals, making (and breaking) alliances, recruiting additional vassals, etc.
The Good
Knighthood is a game where you set the pace for activity. Although building and generating gold is dependent upon time, you can go to war as many times as you’d like. The only thing holding you back is healing your troops, and if you successfully raid for gold you can perpetuate the cycle of war.
In addition to a highly active game, Knighthood does an excellent job reproducing a highly social game. Because most vassals are other players, the game itself is built upon a broad social base. Combined with the ability to make alliances and socially interact, the game helps produce a community feeling.
The Bad
Although the Knighthood manages to capture the concept of a medieval political structure, it falls short. The basic elements are there, but the game fails to reproduce the nuances of a medieval fiefdom, or even knighthood for which the game is named.
Firstly, warfare is treated much too casually. The only real ramification for going to war is that your vassals take damage, which costs either time or gold to heal. But other than this you can attack as many people as many times as you want. Without any major constraints on warfare, it becomes a possibly endless tactic void of any real world limitations.
Secondly, in game there can be little choice of whom you serve. Once tied to a Lord/Lady (possibly by choice or conquest), you can’t freely abandon your liege, only rebel. The game treats all vassals more or less as serfs and thus fails to capture the nuances between the medieval freeman and the un-free. If all vassals are therefore serfs, then how can any vassal uphold the tenants of gentry? One cannot be both serf and knight, the two are mutually exclusive.
The Ugly
Knighthood is essentially about owning people. The ultimate goal is to own as many vassals as possible, and vassals are for the most part other players. Vassals can be seized in warfare, and also traded for an in-game monetary exchange; you, in other words, conquer, buy, and sell people.
Knighthood treats people as mere tools, things that bring you wealth and power. Maybe this is a great representation of how nobility once viewed serfs, but in a modern game it reinforces the notion that people are expendable tools that can be bought and sold if need be. It also falls woefully short to reproduce the social cast structure of medieval society.
Furthermore, warfare has no focus on conquering and controlling land, only in raiding gold, weapons, and people. And here is my greatest critique of the game: in Knighthood, the purpose of war is not to capture land but to capture people. In effect, when land is captured, inhabitants can choose to flee. However, when capturing people is the focus, another connotation is assumed. To assume that by conquest, and therefore force, another person will labor on your behalf means that your primary endeavour is enslavement. If a person cannot leave of their own volition, they are no longer free.
Final Review
I really, really, want to like this game. It is directly up my ally in flavor and historical period, but I can’t get past the negative attributes of Knighthood. The game mechanics and potential depth of game play are redeeming qualities.
However, Knighthood’s inability to reproduce the feeling of being either a Knight or a Lord, combined with the uneasy undertone of dehumanization and the gross inadequacies of warfare leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. Either the game should be called Despotism, or this review should be called “Knighthood: making slavery fun again.” For the above reasons, compounded by the game’s gross misunderstanding of the medieval economy, society, and politics, I give this game a “D.”
Knighthood – a game with great potential, all of it wasted, much like one’s time playing this game – “D”
