King's Bounty: Armored Princess

A complete analysis of various aspects of the gameplay of King's Bounty: Armored Princess.

Many of these posts start from the assumption you've read my posts about The Legend. I mostly explain changes from The Legend, such as new mechanics or tweaks to old mechanics, with my commentary on the unchanged often being limited to 'it's the same' or even failing to mention it at all. Here is the index for my posts about The Legend if you'd prefer to get that context first.

As with The Legend, much thanks to Quaranyr in the comment's section for digging up behind-the-scenes info and whatnot. Also as with The Legend, I play the Good Old Games release, so there may be discrepancies between my posts and your experience if you have a different version.

In order;

Introduction. A general overview post before getting into the meat of things.

Units


Humans. Also covers various major mechanics that have changed of relevance to units, such as Morale being made more strongly relevant.


Dwarves. Not as cool as they will be, but a lot more interesting than they were.


Elves. They haven't changed much, but they didn't need to change much.


Orcs. They've gone from one of the most boring species in the game to one of the most interesting. Awesome.


Demons. Like Elves, little has happened to them, and that's fine.


Undead. See above.


Neutral Animals.


Neutral Sapients.


Lizardmen. A new faction. I think they don't quite stick the landing, but there's some really neat ideas here.

I don't cover Gremlins in Armored Princess; they don't really change across the games.

Magic


Chaos. Also covers broad changes particularly pertinent to Spells like how Intellect has been overhauled and summons have been made actually pretty good.


Order.


Distortion.

Hero


Rage. One post for Rage, because there's less Rage stuff to talk about; The Legend had 16 Rage moves spread across 4 Spirit of Rage. Armored Princess has a single baby dragon that gets 9 Rage moves.


Medals. A mechanic new to Armored Princess, and probably my favorite addition. It's got some kinks to work out, but it's a fantastic idea.


Might Skills. Lots of good changes to be found here.


Mind Skills. Massively overhauled, which is good because it needed it.


Magic Skills. Much more recognizable than the other two Skill trees: Magic was pretty solid, after all.

Other


Bosses. They're a bit more standardized in some ways, a bit more creative in others.


Companions. This time they're called 'armor bearers', though it probably should've been squires. Either way, they're hot boys for Amelie to ogle.

Turn Order and Damage Types. Like in The Legend, this lists every unit's Initiative+Speed tier (But leaves out Level) and visually organizes every unit by damage type. The latter is still really, really heavily oriented toward Physical, though this time I had to make an Astral category.

Military Academy: Regular Training. A Crossworlds addition, the Military Academy is a somewhat-opaque system that's more interesting in concept than in execution. Still, it has some uses, and it's worth covering, even if it's perfectly valid to ignore it entirely.

Military Academy: Demonic Conversion. The rest of the Military Academy system, it can be summarized similarly to the main of the Military Academy system: an idea that's interesting in concept but not nearly so much in execution. But more so! I cover it for completeness' sake, but honestly it wouldn't surprise me if not a single player has gotten real use out of this portion of the system.

Comments

  1. Wonderful guide. Comprehensive and deep, and full of opinions about everything you speak of.

    By the way, just in case you don't know, there's a new campaign based on Crossworlds called The Trent War. It's made by aficionados, but the quality overall is impressive.

    http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=230196

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    Replies
    1. Thanks!

      I'll be sure to check The Trent War out, as well. It sounds interesting.

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    2. Now we're discussing about what spells are OP or underpowered and things like that. Would you lend a hand? :)

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    3. Haven't actually checked it out yet because I'm in a limbo situation regarding when my current horrible and dying computer is going to be replaced. IT WILL BE SOON, but I don't know how soon, so a lot of stuff is just 'I will get to this when I have the new computer... whenever that is'. Don't want to install Trent Wars, play it for an hour, and then whoops need to jump through all those hoops again!

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    5. Heh. I understand you so well. Last time I changed my computer took me several months until I chosen all the components, purchased and brought them into my house, ready to be crafted.

      The feeling of success after finally building the new machine was priceless, though.

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    6. I didn't custom-build my new computer, I just wasn't sure when the extra chunk of change making it practical to afford it would arrive.

      In any event I have it now and have been enjoying the mod, more so than I expected tbh. It's not as impressive as Red Sands, but it's also not as demanding, so that's good.

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    8. This guide is simply amazing. One of the best and most comprehensive thing I have ever seen. It is even more impressive when you take into account how little the internet has to say about Kings Bouty games. Which is very sad when you think about it - its easily as good the best of Heroes of Might and Magic series.

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    9. Glad to hear you're liking it.

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  2. You seem like a big fan of the game and you are very thorough when it comes to analyzing it.

    Would you be interested in reading some detailed fan-made concepts regarding a new race?

    I had a big rush of inspiration and created a whole new faction with a lot of units. Since the game is so unpopular I have literally nobody to share my ideas with.

    Right now it is just draft but I could polish it a bit if you have interest to get acquainted with it and give some feedback.

    Although I have completely lost the spark, I think my work is deserving of attention and there seems to be no better candidate than you to give it a look.

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    Replies
    1. If you're actually considering making a mod or some such, sure.

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