Khan Wars

Which came first, the chicken or the dinosaur?

First, a personal note: I don't find intriguing a game advertising its simplicity, but this might only be my personal taste; I appreciate a game that challenges me and that is intuitive on one hand, but on the other wants me to learn through experience. Anyway, what jumps to the eye here is the 'unique round based design', which is instead a quite standard choice nowadays. To be fair, Khan Wars went through many releases and has a long history (it was first released in Bulgaria in 2005), so that could have been a novelty around then, but not anymore.

The entire concept has been seen many times, over and over (medieval cities, ancient greek poleis, space civilizations, etc) and it's depressingly unexciting. It's the usual mambo: each player starts with a castle and an handful of resources (please, I can't see a grain icon anymore!!). By completing some very boring quests and missions diligently brought to them by some random fella they never summoned in the first place, players unlock the new structures, collect items and amass more wealth. Otherwise, new units or perks are unlocked by paying increasing prices for every structure. Very annoying is the fact (already seen) that by completing some quests players can start developing a second castle (and more), which must be some form of new age mongolian torture. The aforementioned raising prices of almost everything in the game are coupled, as usual, with wait times for upgrades progressively becoming longer and harder to come by. As resources accumulate rather slow, such limitation is of course meant to stimulate players to add slots in the building queue to speed things up, which does not give you a very good feeling.

A very repetitive and annoying tutorial stage gives us the basics to navigate the heavy interface, but it is most unnecessary. When it is indeed necessary, is then to cope with some counterintuitive mechanics. I won't spend much time listing all the features, as we already know this tune. There is not much else to say, although something is actually not so common in this sort of games.

First, the combat system is a quite more involved than the usual flat calculations, and the player can effectively devise his own strategy by adjusting the combat formation. Some siege units also allow to destroy enemy buildings (not nice, guys!). Here is when I got a bit interested, as you have to learn your way thorough all the dos and don'ts of this new mystic cabala. Still, we must admit that players are given here a fair amount of control, so understanding each units strength and learning how to improve them with the blacksmith can give you something not often experienced elsewhere. A battle simulator luckily helps us in the task, which is very much appreciated.

Quests can be assigned to knights, which a player can personalise and equip, giving different kinds of bonus to his troops during a combat. Although any game is full of quests, at least the idea of these knights makes them slightly more interesting, and adds another layer to our military strategy.

One crucial aspect in Khan Wars is to maintain relationships with other castles around us, and ultimately to form alliances to launch joint attacks and trade. Competition but also cooperation is then a main feature to outlast other pillaging lords. Other games are normally very individualistic, so this is a good news.

A broken clock is right twice a day, but not a digital one

In conclusion this game is not so attracting or unique in almost any way. The developers just promised an exciting new version, so during the wait I will be trying some other title, hoping to find at my return a revisited and revitalised game. One last point: I still don't get the title (the cultures of possible nations don't fit much this choice), but I guess this is the last of their issues, right now.