Knights of Honor II: Sovereign News

Hi everyone and welcome to the start of the beta program of Knights of Honor II: Sovereign!

Since the release of Knights of Honor II: Sovereign, we are gathering your feedback and implemented many new features and quality of life improvements, including much-requested items like better camera controls and higher zoom levels, better modding support, shattered world scenario, additional actions for the Knights of the Royal Council, more Unification Quests and countless more.

Your feedback and your ideas were a tremendous help for us to identify what would benefit the game most, which is why we decided to add a dedicated beta phase to all future updates where you can give feedback on the next update before it gets released.

The next patch 1.6.0 will add new options to get the most out of your subjects and interact with your vassals. You can find the full patch notes below this post.

The current Beta version is available on Steam right now, to access it just right-click on the game in your library, select “properties”, switch to the tab named “Betas” and choose “publicbeta – Public Beta Builds” in the top-right dropdown.



You can opt-out of the Beta at any time by choosing “None”.

Please note:

• Beta builds are not fully tested like release builds. While we do some tests to make sure nothing major is broken, some bugs are to be expected.
• To play multiplayer with other players, you need to make sure all players are using the same version of the game.
• Mods may not be compatible with the Beta branch. If you plan on giving feedback, please deactivate all mods you have installed.


Please report any feedback or bugs either on our Discord Server or this Steam forum post:
Discord: https://discord.gg/knightsofhonor

Steam Forums: https://steamcommunity.com/app/736820/discussions/0/3886103032720889900/


Thank you for your continuous support and have fun playing the beta build!



[h2]Known Issue[/h2]

• This build is lacking translations, currently only English is fully supported. We will add translations for all languages as soon as possible.


[h2]Changes to Vassalage[/h2]

• Added three special types of vassalage: Scutage, March and Sacred Land
•Vassal type can be chosen or cancelled through a special action available to the king

o Scutage:
* Vassal is protected by its sovereign; the sovereign must aid it in all defensive wars
* Sovereign receives +100% gold tribute
* Vassal generates +100% gold from population
* Vassal generates +3 gold in every village
* Vassal has 10% cheaper building and upgrade cost

o March:
* The vassal is sworn to aid the sovereign in all wars
* Vassal pays no gold tribute
* Vassal has +3% squad manpower for each keep (up to 10 keeps)

o Sacred Land:
* Vassal pays no gold tribute
* Vassal pays 20% book income
* Vassal pays 20% piety income
* Vassal develops skills and traditions 20% cheaper
* Vassal generates +2 books in each Monastery/Mosque/Shrine
* Vassal generates +2 piety in each Monastery/Mosque/Shrine
• Newly created vassals now inherit their sovereign’s relations with other kingdoms
• Players can now convert their vassals’ provinces to their own religion
• Decreased commerce upkeep by 50% when trading with a vassal

[h2]Changes to Army Supply System and Morale[/h2]

• Army movement speed decreased by -30% (was 15%) when the army runs out of supplies
• Armies that run out of supplies now have a -75% penalty to archer salvos
• Armies that run out of supplies now have a -50% penalty to cavalry attack
• Increased out-of-supplies morale penalty from -5 to -12 for armies in foreign lands
• Increased leadership morale bonus from 1/2/3 to 2/4/6
• Increased bonus defence granted by high morale from 25% to 50%
• Increased morale threshold that gives no bonus from 10 to 15
• Added a defence penalty for armies with morale below 15. Max. penalty is 50%.
• Increased the maximum flat defence bonus given by morale from 3 to 15

[h2]Misc[/h2]

• “Influence” now has a bigger impact on diplomatic decisions
• Increased the max. influence modifier of diplomats from 20% to 30%
• Changed criteria for AI to accept offered land from the province’s loyalty to its culture
• Increased gold produced by workers from 0.2 to 0.5
• Increased gold produced by rebels from 0.1 to 0.2
• Updated Books income tooltip
• Updated Piety income tooltip
• Reduced merchant character level bonus to base trade from 1 to 0.5 per level

The following hotfix is currently being delivered to your kingdoms:

• Fixed several texts missing in the German version
  
• Fixed issues with exiled prisoners happening with save games created prior to version 1.5.0
  
• Fixed performance issues with campaigns that were created with a version prior to 1.5.0
  

Note: Issues with save games could carry over to new games when the new game started after a player loaded an affected save game.
Affected save games should be fixed with the new version and can be resumed as usual.

[h2]Update Overview[/h2]

This is the fourth major update since the release of Knights of Honor II: Sovereign. This version adds new unification quests for many kingdoms along with an improved UI to show the quest’s status. A new setting allows players to place up to 18 buildings in a single province, which not only increases the importance of smaller kingdoms with few provinces, but also introduces more gameplay styles and tactics.

The game’s AI also got a makeover, especially the economic decisions, army recruitment and kingdom stability have been improved, making the challenge more interesting and fun.

[h2]General[/h2]

• Almost all kingdoms now have a unification quest
• Added new icons to show rebellion risk for provinces
• Changed rebellion triggers to be more predictable
• Rebellious population now depends on the population size of a province
• Buildings can now be reorganized via drag and drop
• The maximum amount of buildings slots in a province can now be set at game start
• Added several indicators and messages for pause and game speed in multiplayer

[h2]AI[/h2]

• AI in general is now more stable and makes it harder for the player to "snowball" in late game
• Improved AI decisions when choosing a governor for a province
• AI now focuses province development of governed provinces
• AI takes more things into consideration when developing a province, like the cost of upgrades, province specialization, realm's needs, and more
• AI now spends more of its budget surplus for armies
• AI kingdoms now hire more knights and always try to govern all their provinces
• AI now tries hard to keep their kingdom stable and chooses skills and traditions accordingly
• Increased AI’s focus on book production

[h2]Miscellaneous
[/h2]
• Decreased the chance for vassals to become “Emperor of the World”
• Added new UI elements to show unification quest progress

[h2]Update Overview[/h2]

This update mainly tackles various issues related to the new actions introduced in patch 1.4.0, alongside other small fixes and improvements.

[h3]Improvements and Fixes[/h3]

• Success chances for Arrange Peace Talks and Ask for Absolution Pope actions are now only visible when you hover on the exact target in the target picker, to avoid misleading tooltips when hovering in the main action icons, prior to selecting target.
• Fixed a bug for the Ask for Absolution action, causing the target kingdom wars with Catholics not to be taken into account in the breakdown of the success chance.
• Fixed a bug for the Ask for Absolution action where the message for the target was not triggered.
• Fixed a bug with the Arrange Peace Talks Pope Action, causing the message to the kingdom not being displayed and no change to relations happening.
• Changed Arrange Peace Talks Pope Action so that the target cannot be a player.
• Fixed Ruin Puppet Actions cancelled message not appearing when the event is cancelled due to the target diplomat being exiled while the plot is in progress.
• Fixed relation change messages (angry/pleased reactions) not being received by clients in multiplayer.
• Fixed a bug where the town visiting army political view icon would not show up during a siege.
• Fixed the Wiki not resetting properly after starting a new game.
• Kingdom types of certain kingdoms are now hidden in main areas in the UI, such as the kingdom selector in lobbies, in the main HUD and in audience. For example, Empire of Latin Empire is now displayed as Latin Empire.
• Updated Papal nobility to have proper knight and kingdom titles.
• Improvements to the way kingdoms grow in Shattered World scenarios (and not only), when Destroy Kingdom is set as a main objective.
• Fixed problems with spawning Trade centers in Shattered World scenarios, requiring a lot of time to start spawning properly.
• Fixed text reasons for Pausing not appearing in multiplayer.
• Multiple text fixes, mostly related to the notes above.

Update Overview

This is our third major update since the release of Knights of Honor II: Sovereign. This time, we focused on quality-of-life improvements and adding more options to the Knights of the Royal Council, specifically Clerics and Diplomats. We chose to focus on the Catholic Church in this update, but we will continue to work on other religions as well for future updates.
We also added a much-requested Search feature for the Royal Library, the game’s built-in Wiki system. We hope this will help both newcomers and advanced players to learn about the more advanced mechanics of the game and quickly find the information they need. The help module already had hyperlinks and convenient ways for players to jump to important topics from tooltips and interface elements, but it is now much easier to also find information directly on topics one is interested in.

[h3]General[/h3]

• Added search feature to the “Royal Library” (the in-game Wiki).
• Added visualization of armies stationed in towns, on both the world view and the political map.
• Added merchant’s opportunity "Entice mercenaries", which allows a merchant to convince mercenaries to move from the kingdom the merchant is currently trading with or the neighboring kingdoms to the home kingdom of the merchant.
• Considerably increased availability of special units in provinces and kingdoms. Kingdoms that are formed from a province now have the province special units as their kingdom special units as well.
• Improved logic for AI kingdoms regarding kingdom expansion, aiming to increase the initial stability of kingdoms, which is especially important for scenarios like Shattered World and Destroy Kingdom.

[h3]Diplomacy[/h3]

Gameplay
• Added a new action for kings – “Form vassal”. This allows the king to separate one of their kingdom’s provinces to become a separate vassal. This can only be done to disloyal provinces.
• Added “Bolster Influence” action to the Diplomat, an ongoing action that increases a Kingdom’s diplomatic influence.
• Claiming independence, but then accepting the refusal of your sovereign, can now lead to crown authority and nobility opinion loss.
• Truce is no longer signed with supporters in war unless they signed a separate peace, or their side won the war and accepted the enemy’s surrender or destroyed the enemy leader.
• Freeing an occupied town now increases the relationship with a kingdom (in addition to supporting it in battle or fighting/defeating its rebel armies/rebellion).
• Truce time is now indicated in kingdom selection by a circular progress bar around the stance icon.
• Influence in a foreign kingdom is now indicated in kingdom selection and diplomacy/offer windows.
• A pact dissolving due to a knight being exiled now results in a message explaining the event.

[h3]Religion[/h3]

• Added "Ask for absolution" action for Popes, enabling players to remove excommunication status of other kingdoms.
• Added "Arrange Peace Talks" action for Popes, allowing players to force an enemy to offer white peace to them or their teammates/vassals, if that enemy is catholic. The action cannot be used against other players.
• Directly donating gold to the Papacy through diplomacy now has significantly reduced effect on relations.
• Exiling your last Cleric as a Catholic kingdom now reduces your relations with the Papacy.
• Clerics now try to keep their armies during a religion change of a kingdom.
• Clergy opinion now changes upon destroying the papacy and rises or drops, depending on the religion of the kingdom that destroys it.
• Defeating a crusade now leads to clergy opinion change, depending on the religion and the target of the crusade, and army opinion increases as well (regardless the religion).
• Catholic clerics cannot become cardinals in the very beginning of the game and before reaching level 5. Time between elections of new cardinals is also increased.
• Suppressed narrator voice for own kingdom excommunicated, when the player is excommunicated due to a pope action failing.

[h3]Espionage[/h3]

• Added a “Ruin Pact” puppet (Diplomat) plot. Through it, spies are able to end invasion plans and defensive pacts, created by the kingdom the spy has infiltrated.
• Governor back independence cost increased by 1000 gold and success chance reduced by 5%.
• Hunting accidents appear less often and pose a higher risk of the spy being revealed.

[h3]Misc.[/h3]

• Added a setting to turn on/off transition between World view and Political view through scrolling.
• Added a setting to turn on/off the province highlight effect in world view on mouse over.
• Trade centers now require more initial time to start spawning on Shattered World mode, to prevent too significant early advantage.
• Death messages now warn you with additional text in case the deceased character is a prince that was an heir to the crown.
• Added checks to make the modding system more robust and prevent mods from breaking the game.
• Clicking on the kingdom's banners from the multiplayer players' table will now center the camera on that kingdom.
• Character level indications added in mercenary-related windows and in royal dungeon.

[h3]Fixes[/h3]

• Various text improvements.
• Fixed a rare issue, causing knights to be stuck outside the map’s boundaries.
• Fixed the tooltip for multiplayer campaign time limitation, to correctly mention the number of generations required for the game to end.
• Fixed a bug where changing a minor victory rule was resetting the lobby team mode.
• Fixed promoting belief status remaining after religion change.
• Fix spies getting imprisoned in non-existing kingdoms when “Hand over the Crown” or “Arrange Annexation” actions succeed, but the spy is revealed.
• Claim caliphate is now properly cancelled if a claiming kingdom becomes a vassal.
• Fixed a rare issue in Shattered world mode which prevented nearby provinces to be combined into a kingdom.
• In the multiplayer lobby, when a player’s kingdom is selected by clicking the icon in the players list, the selected province is now properly reset.
• Disabled "Default settings" button for Languages switch while in game.
• Fixed a visual bug, where the relations bar was present in the tooltip of destroyed kingdoms.
• Added missing information regarding Bolster Culture’s action effect, in the culture resource breakdown.
• Fixed issues with an incorrect Orthodox religion icon being shown in certain areas of the UI, when you are playing as the Ecumenical Patriarchy.
• Fixed an issue with tree wind waving visualization.