Knights and Merchants Remake is a mod of the game Knights and Merchants : The Shattered Kingdom, with selected resources of its expansion (Knights and Merchants: The Peasants Rebellion). The main goals of this mod were to fix bugs, to allow the game to be played on today’s operating systems and to implement a multiplayer system. But this mod has gone far beyond that, creating a whole community of players and people willing to collaborate. An impressive achievement, taking into account that the developers had to code everything from scratch.
KaM is a RTS game that takes place in a medieval European fiefdom, most precisely Anglo-Saxon. In this game, every resource exists physically and the serfs are the units responsible for transporting them from place to place. The constructions are raised by the builders, who may also build roads, plough fields and construct wine fields. When  wanting to build anything, the player uses a general “build” menu and sets up the blueprints. Then, any available builder will take up the job for one blueprint at a time. If it’s a building, he will flatten the determined area to create a building site. Otherwise, we will dig and wait for a stone (if he’s building a road) or a timber (if he’s building a wine field). If it’s just a field, no material is required and he’ll end the job in a few seconds.

The roads are essential for citizen locomotion. After a building site is ready, the serfs will only take the required material there if there’s a road connecting it to a storehouse, a sawmill or a quarry that have timber and/or stone available. And even for already build structures, if the roads that leads to them become blocked for any reason, the serfs will stop going there. Anyway, the only materials used for buildings are timber and stone, timber for the basic foundation and stone for the walls. That being so, the builder will only start building the walls when the timber foundation is ready.
Every building has a condition bar with two numbers: ( current / total). When attacked, the damage is represented with fire. There’s an auto-repair button that, when activated, calls the builders to fix it costlessly. When the building condition reaches zero, it’s destroyed, the place turns into ruins in a ravaged soil.

   
When the player needs more citizen units, it costs one gold chest, and they’re trained in the schoolhouse. The soldiers are trained in the barracks and require one recruit and some items, depending on the desired soldier type. For instance, if there’s an ax and and a recruit in the barracks,  the player may equip a recruit.
The citizens are harmless and defenseless against the military: if attacked, they simply die.
           
                                                         The fighting mechanic:
In Kam, the soldiers are part of a troop with one leader. The leader is the soldier that commands all the others and he may order them to move, halt, turn right, turn left, storm attack(only melee), halve in two groups (only one half remains under his command and another soldier becomes the leader of the other half), join another group (then he turns back into a normal soldier), call for food or add/remove a column from the formation. The leader is also the standard-bearer, and the flag represents the troop class. There are four classes:
1) Ranged units, represented by the red eye, includes bowman, crossbowman, rogue and the banned catapult and ballista.
2) Mounted units, represented by the golden goblet, includes scout, knight and vagabond.
3)Anti-horse units, represented by the silver pike, includes lance carrier, pikeman and rebel.
4)Mêlée units, represented by the keen sword with golden helve, includes militia, axe fighter, sword fighter, barbarian and warrior.
Like the name suggests, the anti-horse units are good against the mounted units. The mounted units are good against the mêlée. And the mêlée are good against the anti-horse. As for the ranged units they’re defenseless against all three, but they surely can’t walk faster than horses. When protected by other troops, they may become really powerful. Since ranged, anti-horse and mêlée units walk at the same speed, the mounted units are the only class that have an advantage over two other classes. They are by far the most expensive, though.
When the player order troop to move, only the leader position is considered. If the destination is two feet ahead, all the soldiers will go two feet ahead, no matter if the troop is scattered throughout the map. Even if there’s a soldier exactly two feet ahead the leader, he’ll go another two feet. If the player press the halt button, all the troop will go back into their positions in the original formation, represented by the shields in the middle. This original formation may be changed using the add column and remove column buttons.

 

                                                                    No deserters:

     Except for the ranged units, when any soldier of a troops start to battle with any other soldier, all his troop go to the place of conflict to help him. All the leader’s buttons become gray and you lose control over the troop at all. You may also lose control when the troop storm attack. Only mêlée may do this kind of attack, that consists of howling and running straight ahead with the weapons raised to the sky. It’s good to reach fleeing soldiers, like ranged units, but it’s tough to manage. If any soldier is turned to the wrong side at the time of storm attack, he’ll stray away and may enter in combat with another unit, calling the rest of the group for support and allowing the target to flee safely. When a non ranged soldier gets near a citizen he attacks without calling support and you keep the control over the troop, although it’s hard to make the soldier leave the citizen alive.

No starvation:
Every living unit has a condition bar representing its non-hungriness. When it reaches a small amount, the unit becomes hungry, and a fork and knife thought bubble appears. If the condition gets even lower, the unit start to starve and a skull thought bubble appears. If the condition bar depletes, the unit dies of starvation.
The citizens can only eat inside an inn, and they need two different types of food to recover their condition bar entirely. If there’s just one type available, they will recover half. Except for the serf, all the other citizens won’t execute new tasks when hungry or starving, waiting for the moment there’s an inn with food available. When a builder has dug to build a road or wine field, and is waiting for stone or timber, he won’t leave no matter how hungry he is. He may even pass away waiting for the material. If a recruit in a tower gets hungry, he’ll go to the inn and left that part unprotected.
As for the military, the leader is the responsible for asking for food, shouting “Chow time” or “Time for chow, men”. After these words of wisdom, the serfs start fetching food for the whole troop. For the military, just one type of food is enough to recover their condition entirely.
There are four types of food : bread, sausage, wine and fish.

                     Other Buildings, besides the schoolhouse and the barracks:
Uninhabited constructions:

 

Storehouse : It’s the depot for all the wares that exist in this game. The player may block the storage of any material, clicking on it (a red mark will appear). This is generally done to avoid traffic jams, since there will be less serfs entering the building.

Market: The market was created by the remake staff and consists of a place to trade materials at predefined rates.

Townhall: It’s a place to hire rogues, vagabonds, rebels, barbarians and warriors just using chest of golds. These units are vagrant mercenaries. The townhall is a banned building in the Remake, because it doesn’t fit the Kam style. It also allows a player to create soldiers too fast, and it would become a trouble in multi-player.

Inn: It’s where the citizens eat. There’s space for five food of each type, and a table for six people.

                                                   Abodes and dwellers:
These are all the citizens available in Knights and Merchants:

Quarry: It’s built near a stone mountain (beware, not all mountains are stone), from which the stonemason will get a chunk and mason it in his quarry, producing three stones. The quarry has space for only six stones. The stone mountain will eventually deplete.

Watchtower: A recruit lives in there and throws stone at any enemy that appears nearby. If hit, its a certain demise. The recruit may miss the target, though. This building has space for five stones.

Woodcutter’s: It’s the woodcutter house, and he needs some space to plant trees. If there’s a tree tall enough, he’ll fell it and bring home. There’s space for five trunks there. Otherwise, he’ll plant more trees. But the player may select between “fell only” and “plant and fell” options.

Sawmill: The trunks are taken to the sawmill to become timber. Each trunk yields two timber, There’s enough space for five trunk and six timber, and the carpenter works in this building.

Weapons workshop: In this construction, the carpenter may produce axes, lances and bows, using two timbers each. The player may define how many and which weapons he want to produce. There’s space for six timber and five weapons of each type.

Farm: It’s built near a plantation (about twenty fields are sufficient). The farmer first sows the corn and when it becomes ripe, he reaps the corresponding field. There’s space for five corn in this building.

Mill: In this building, the baker uses corn to produce wheat. There’s space for five corn and five sacks of wheat.

Bakery: It’s the place where the baker uses wheat to produce bread. Each sack of wheat yields a bread. There’s space for five sacks of wheat and five breads.

Stables: To produce horses, the animal breeder feeds them with corn several times, until they’re big enough to be mounted. There’s space for five corn and five adult horses.

Swine farm: In this building, the animal breeder raises pigs, feeding them several times with corn. When a pig is big enough, it is slaughtered, producing one skin and one piece of pig meat. There’s space for five corn, five skins and five pieces of meat.

Butcher’s: That’s the place where the butcher uses pieces of pig meat to produce sausages. Each piece yields three sausages. There’s space for six sausages and five pieces of meat.

Tannery: To produce leather, the butcher uses skins. One skin yields one leather. There’s space for five skins and five leathers in this building.

Armory workshop: In this building, the carpenter uses a timber to produce a shield and a leather to produce a leather armor. The player may define how many and which items to produce. There’s space for five timbers, five leathers, five leather armors and five shields.

Coal mine: It’s built above the coal, in places where it’s visible in the ground. The miner goes underneath the ground to mine coal, but the coal around this building will eventually deplete. There’s space for five sacks of coal there.

Gold mine: It’s built on mountains with golden veins, and the gold will eventually deplete. The miner may store up to five barrels of gold in his building.

Metallurgist’s: In this building, the metallurgist uses coal and gold ore to create chests of gold. One coal and one gold yields one chest of gold, and there’s space for five chests in this construction.

Iron mine: It’s built on mountains with iron veins, and the iron will eventually deplete. The miner may store up to five chunks of iron in his building.

Iron smithy: Here, the blacksmith uses coal and iron ore to forge iron bars. One sack of coal and one iron chunk yield one iron bar, and there’s space for five of each material in this building.

Weapon smithy: The blacksmith uses an iron bar and a sack of coal to forge a sword, a crossbow or a pike. The player may decide how many and which weapons to forge, and there’s space for five of each material.

Armor smithy: Here, the blacksmith uses an iron bar and a sack of coal to forge an iron armor or an iron shield, which and how many it’s up to the player. There’s space for five of each material in this building.

Siege workshop: This is the building where the carpenter uses iron and timber to produce the banned ballistas and catapults. Therefore, it’s a banned building as well. These two units where banned for being too strong, and they would be overused as well. Besides, they operate by themselves, with no unit leading them and thus they don’t ever get hungry, which doesn’t quite fit this game. Ballistas are better against troops and catapults against buildings.

Vineyard: It’s built near a grape plantation (about 16 wine fields will suffice). The farmer doesn’t need to plant anything because it’s already done by the builder, and there’s no need to reap as well. So, he waits until the grapes of any field becomes ripe and harvests it. Then, he produces wine at home. There’s space for five barrels of wine there.

Fisherman’s: It’s built near a stream of water or sea in which fish can be seen. The fisherman catches some fish and bring home. There’s space for five buckets of fish there. At that time, the fishermen didn’t considered any fishing closed areas and therefore, he’ll eventually annihilate every fish in the area.

The messages:
All the messages appears to the player as letters. When a house is empty, a troop is hungry and no food was called; fish, stone, coal, iron or gold can’t be seen from the corresponding building or a multi-player player has said anything, a message will appear.
If there’s more people than needed, the idle units will stop anywhere and a doubt thought bubble will appear. As for the serfs, the player  must have a quantity that is sufficient for the city demands, but not to much to cause idleness.

The unknown:
The places you’re units haven’t ever gone are represented by a black shade. All the revealed squares remain revealed until the end of the game. For instance, if one player manages to explore a city and the surroundings of one opponent, this player will be able to see what happens there and predicts what the enemy is plotting in advance. Therefore, beware for enemy reconnaissances.

The remake achievements:
As stated, beyond the programmers, there’s a whole community that supports the remake, and this team is always creating updates to improve the gameplay, The game was translated to several languages that may be selected in the settings menu (some have specific audio files for units), there’s an editor for maps and missions, a recorder to watch matches from the perspective of any player, dynamic scripting, additional missions and the possibility to select a large number of colors for the flag, to name a few of the improvements.

So, what so great in Knights and Merchants after all ?
The thing I like the most in this game is the way it tries to resemble reality. You can actually see the citizens working, the trees growing, the wares being transported. In some RTS games the resources are so oddly numbered e.g. In the Age of Empires series, a tree may yield 400 of wood. In Kam, a tree is just a tree (or one lumber), and it is used to make timbers. The idea of forming troops, instead of sending them alone for battle is really helpful to develop war tactics. The soundtracks are inspiring and motivating, and surely fits the way the game is. The remake staff created two additional musics, that also fitted the game and seems as good as the originals. Then, this game is really addictive.

Links:
Kam forum: http://www.knightsandmerchants.net/forum/
Kam remake website: http://www.kamremake.com/
The remake source code is available on code.google: http://code.google.com/p/castlesand/