Knights and Merchants: The Shattered Kingdom

Knights and Merchants: The Shattered Kingdom (abbreviated TSK) is a medieval-time based Real-time strategy (RTS) game.

It was developed by Joymania Entertainment (since changed to Joymania Development) and published by TopWare Interactive in 1998. The player takes the role of the captain of the palace guards and leads the soldiers and citizens to victory. The game did not receive a strong critical or popular reception in the UK and the US, but elsewhere it was more popular, consequently a follow up game was released called Knights and Merchants: The Peasants Rebellion. Recently it has also been made available in the US as a value game.

Overview
Knights and Merchants: The Shattered Kingdom has a single player campaign that consists of 20 scenarios with scenario length ranging from around 30 minutes up to 7 hours depending on difficulty.

The game also offers a multiplayer mode by using either IPX, TCP/IP or Modem where up to 6 players can play. There's 10 different scenarios to choose from including a number which focus specifically on the combat element of the game.

Economy
The economy is very complex in Knights and Merchants: The Shattered Kingdom, more so than most other RTS games, with a greater range of resources and a need to combine basic resources in a number of ways to create a functioning economy. For example, in order to get loaves the player is required to first build a farm to get wheat, then a mill to get flour and also a bakery to bake loaves of the flour. The many different resources in the game require a large amount of corresponding buildings and units in order to fully utilize them requiring greater than usual micromanaging for an RTS.

Every citizen and soldier must eat in the game meaning that you need to produce a great deal of food creating a more naturalistic limit on army size. There is no population limit in game, instead population is limited by how much food you produce. If a unit is not fed for a sustained amount of time it will die.

The every day life aspect of this game is considered a notable feature. You can place many different structures, forcing the player to consider where and when to place each structure. However for new players this greater complexity can lead to a process of trial and error but once experience has been gained it becomes an interesting take on RTS economics.

Sequels
Knights and Merchants: The Peasants Rebellion (TPR) (2001)