Crown Wars: The Black Prince

[A Chinese opium den]

ALL REVIEWS Mixed (117)

tried the demo, opens with a stronk womyn knight in full plate armor with a war hammer.
alt+f4

I feel more and more justified in quitting at the first sign of this content because it nearly always goes hand-in-hand with bad games.

Fucking game about the hundred years war and it has female knights.

In retrospect I'm glad Jeanne d'Arc was burned at the stake.

[rusty_shackleford]

In retrospect I'm glad Jeanne d'Arc was burned at the stake.

She never fought in combat.

Also, it features authentic 14th century French knights:


This is their own words:

It's meant to be about the Hundred Years War except with "dark arts and the occult", well, they got the dark part right I guess.

[1998]

Roland Blanc

I don't think they had any nig knights in the beta, females sure. Probably that's why they had to delay it by another 3 months.

[rusty_shackleford]

Quit the game after my second battle. The performance was awful. it's also not an RPG but a tactical game much like medieval nu-XCOM so I moved it to Command Center.
There's nothing good here.

[1998]

Unsurprsingly this is not exactly a smash hit. 58% positive on Steam.

Peak concurrent players:

• Naheulbeuk: 4,707

• Dungeon Master: 1,599

• Crown Wars: 567

Guess I won't get a Naheulbeuk 2

[Statesman]

I feel more and more justified in quitting at the first sign of this content because it nearly always goes hand-in-hand with bad games.

Fucking game about the hundred years war and it has female knights.

The thing is how many "modern" game (or media in general) doesn't have ahistorical female "warriors"? I already automatically drop any post-2012 content with female/black protags (I'd probably make an exception if it was some historical Africa-centered game).

[1998]

I feel more and more justified in quitting at the first sign of this content because it nearly always goes hand-in-hand with bad games.

Fucking game about the hundred years war and it has female knights.

The thing is how many "modern" game (or media in general) doesn't have ahistorical female "warriors"? I already automatically drop any post-2012 content with female/black protags (I'd probably make an exception if it was some historical Africa-centered game).

Only a very few of course, like King Arthur. Sure there are females, but fewer and in more appropriate roles.

[Galdred]

It could be salvaged with some time (note that as a dev making a competing game in the exact same niche, it may be hard for me to be neutral).
Actually, the dev team made a few patches already, but the CM do seem indeed MIA (and beta testers are still to get their keys...).

- You can decide the gender and skin of your characters, so it's not a huge issue.
- The HYW setting has a few other issues (all Hundred Years war factions seem to field beast masters with a bear companion and grenade throwing alchemists...). Also, why is your faction engaging all other factions before the "grand reveal" (that tells that an evil cult is manipulating others).

- The core combat is enjoyable (and many people cry about the turn limit so they must have done something right!), but it has a few WTF issues:
- No malus for shooting when engaged in melee (either at the character engaging you or someone else).
- Most missions have a turn limit, but the AI ignores it and rushes towards you (that said, if the AI ran around the level to time the player out, it would be a million times worse).
- Characters have zero defining traits and same stats (I think, but I may be wrong on that). Also, it is cheaper to recruit a level 3 character than to train your characters from level 2 to level 3... Economy in general is all over the place.
- You cannot issue orders while a character finishes moving, and there is no animation speed slider...

But the siege weapons are fun to use, and the missions are varied enough.
The main issue currently is that there are a lot of bugs, but some players managed to complete the game.

At least, they sorted the forced AZERTY keybinding and some of the bugs!

[1998]

But the siege weapons are fun to use, and the missions are varied enough.

I am gonna disagree with this one. All the variety they are trying to add (defend marketplace etc.) just feels like flavor. Eventually, I approached every encounter the same way. For real variety, as in mandator different strategy/tactics, at the very least there would need to be more enemy variety.

[Galdred]

But the siege weapons are fun to use, and the missions are varied enough.

I am gonna disagree with this one. All the variety they are trying to add (defend marketplace etc.) just feels like flavor. Eventually, I approached every encounter the same way. For real variety, as in mandator different strategy/tactics, at the very least there would need to be more enemy variety.

The main difference in missions are that some require freeing/capturing/killing someone and getting out, while other require clearing a place.

But some maps add some variety with fixed ordnance. Other are indeed very bland, with not enough terrain. You are right there is not much enemy variety, but the main issue for me here is that they went NuXCOM with pods, which makes the overall layout of the map not matter much (as you only care about the immediate area round each pod).

OG Chaos Gate didn't have that many different opponents, but the map layout mattered a lot, so that was enough to make missions very different for instance.
Even OG XCOM didn't have that many opponent early on (the issue with Crown Wars is that you face basically the same guys for the whole campaign, right? I'm only at the beginning of Act 3).

[1998]

But the siege weapons are fun to use, and the missions are varied enough.

I am gonna disagree with this one. All the variety they are trying to add (defend marketplace etc.) just feels like flavor. Eventually, I approached every encounter the same way. For real variety, as in mandator different strategy/tactics, at the very least there would need to be more enemy variety.

The main difference in missions are that some require freeing/capturing/killing someone and getting out, while other require clearing a place.

But unless you are cheesing those (essentially pre-planning your exit with your dog), you are approaching these missions the exact same way. Kill everything, in the same order, using the same units/skills.

[rusty_shackleford]

It could be salvaged with some time (note that as a dev making a competing game in the exact same niche, it may be hard for me to be neutral).

I installed it thinking I might make a mod to help salvage the game just to realize it's UE aka nearly unmoddable garbage.
Also runs like complete shit.

The game is a massive downgrade from Dungeon of Naheulbeuk, I'm not convinced it's the same developer that made it beyond sharing the developer's name.
Honestly, I rather hate nu-XCOM's 2AP shit to begin with.

[Galdred]

It could be salvaged with some time (note that as a dev making a competing game in the exact same niche, it may be hard for me to be neutral).

I installed it thinking I might make a mod to help salvage the game just to realize it's UE aka nearly unmoddable garbage.
Also runs like complete shit.

The game is a massive downgrade from Dungeon of Naheulbeuk, I'm not convinced it's the same developer that made it beyond sharing the developer's name.
Honestly, I rather hate nu-XCOM's 2AP shit to begin with.

It is the same studio (Artefact Studio), but it became so big that it may not be the same team indeed (or at least, only a small part of the Naheulbeuk team).
It uses 3 AP, not 2 (but it predates XCOM, as it was also used in a lot of tabletop dungeon crawlers and RPG)!

[rusty_shackleford]

It uses 3 AP, not 2 (but it predates XCOM, as it was also used in a lot of tabletop dungeon crawlers and RPG)!

nu-XCOM definitely popularized 2AP. The lead developer of Hard West(& other tacticool games) even devoted a part of a talk he gave to this and why developers are afraid to deviate from 2AP, specifically citing the popularity of nu-XCOM.

---

Which is funny, because I'm pretty sure DOS2 outsold nu-XCOM and it has variable AP.

[1998]

It could be salvaged with some time (note that as a dev making a competing game in the exact same niche, it may be hard for me to be neutral).

I installed it thinking I might make a mod to help salvage the game just to realize it's UE aka nearly unmoddable garbage.
Also runs like complete shit.

The game is a massive downgrade from Dungeon of Naheulbeuk, I'm not convinced it's the same developer that made it beyond sharing the developer's name.
Honestly, I rather hate nu-XCOM's 2AP shit to begin with.

It is the same studio (Artefact Studio), but it became so big that it may not be the same team indeed (or at least, only a small part of the Naheulbeuk team).
It uses 3 AP, not 2 (but it predates XCOM, as it was also used in a lot of tabletop dungeon crawlers and RPG)!

I don't think they grow much, if at all. I posted a team pic on the same page, not sure if they lost some key members between games. I think that's it for them. That whole disaster gives me strong Mimimi vibes. First game(s) were successful, but no massive hits. Then as a last effort trying to get that hit with a massively dumbed-down version of your game. Ultimately both new games were a clear devolution from their previous entries and also commercially flopped.

[Galdred]

I am gonna disagree with this one. All the variety they are trying to add (defend marketplace etc.) just feels like flavor. Eventually, I approached every encounter the same way. For real variety, as in mandator different strategy/tactics, at the very least there would need to be more enemy variety.

The main difference in missions are that some require freeing/capturing/killing someone and getting out, while other require clearing a place.

But unless you are cheesing those (essentially pre-planning your exit with your dog), you are approaching these missions the exact same way. Kill everything, in the same order, using the same units/skills.

Enemy deepstriking inside the "fort" you are supposed to defend does indeed reduces the effect of map variety... Also where are the gates? Is it Game of Thrones where we fight outside the walls or something?

[1998]

Who needs gates if you have such conveniently placed crates to get you onto an equally conveniently placed platform.

[Galdred]

I installed it thinking I might make a mod to help salvage the game just to realize it's UE aka nearly unmoddable garbage.
Also runs like complete shit.

The game is a massive downgrade from Dungeon of Naheulbeuk, I'm not convinced it's the same developer that made it beyond sharing the developer's name.
Honestly, I rather hate nu-XCOM's 2AP shit to begin with.

It is the same studio (Artefact Studio), but it became so big that it may not be the same team indeed (or at least, only a small part of the Naheulbeuk team).
It uses 3 AP, not 2 (but it predates XCOM, as it was also used in a lot of tabletop dungeon crawlers and RPG)!

I don't think they grow much, if at all. I posted a team pic on the same page, not sure if they lost some key members between games. I think that's it for them. That whole disaster gives me strong Mimimi vibes. First game(s) were successful, but no massive hits. Then as a last effort trying to get that hit with a massively dumbed-down version of your game. Ultimately both new games were a clear devolution from their previous entries and also commercially flopped.

I wonder how much the simultaneous console release had to do with that. Also one big change between both games was that they went with another publisher (Nacon this time, which also published Blood Bowl 3, to also mixed results).
On top of compromises for consoles, that would also stretch the resources thin. The other issue was that they have a pretty low number of wishlists at launch, thanks to little marketing (which is why you hand off a significant % of your revenue to the publisher in the first place).
I remember seeing them at least than 4 times the WL count of my own game shortly before release(1 week) and wondering what was their plan to remedy it.

Another issue that may have caused the low conversion rate would be the higher price point. It can still work at 39.99, but maybe not with issues that scream of 1 year patch.

[Galdred]

the discord is really weird: the Bug and feedback channels have been made Read only after the launch, and you need to go through the publisher bug reporting system where you need to create an account to report one...
I got a party lost in the warp on a clear corruption mission: they teleported to the castle instantly, but then, moved the wrong way to the mission site. I'm not sure I will ever see them again (I'd need to clear 2 battles to see whether they are gone for good, or whether going backwards still make them end at the castle. That's a lot of trouble to test whether it is a playthrough ending bug...).

[1998]

Their CM actually replied via DM to me, but in channel they have been quite I think ever since they announced the delay.