This page was added because we get a lot of emails and post on the forum asking the same things over and over again. We hope it saves you some time.

Table of contents


Q: Do you have the source code to KaM TSK or TPR?
No we don’t, the original source code has never been released. We have rewritten the entire game engine from scratch.

Q: Why did you remove the siege workshop, catapult and balista?
Two reasons:
1. Siege equipment “magically” drives with nobody pushing or pulling it. In KaM every tiny detail is visible, and yet these machines drive themselves.
2. We don’t think it’s balanced. Balista are basically a one-shot-kill ranged unit, so if you get a lot of them they are overpowered.
Later in development we might consider adding them back into the game with somebody pushing them (of course we’d need someone to make the sprites) and some rebalancing.

Q: Why did you remove the town hall?
We think it is “cheating” and doesn’t fit the game style. In KaM you have to make a complex economy to produce anything. (e.g. there are 4 processing steps to make leather armour) The town hall allows you to make an army with only one resource and a handful of buildings. We don’t think that fits into the KaM style.
Later in development we might consider adding it back into the game redesigned.

Q: Why don’t you make fish self-replenish?
Because fish is depleting resource by intent. KaM has 4 types of food, each different from the other in terms of creation speed and food value. Wine is cheap and quick to produce, Bread takes more time but comes in more food value, Sausages are slowest to make and best to eat (plus produce skins for military). Fish was added as a resource that is quick to get but is depleting unlike all others, that is its weakness. So having those – player has meaningful choice between four food strategies and their combinations. Otherwise, if we make fish replenishing it would become either abused or identical to bread or wine. One of the options we might consider, is to make it replenish real slow, so it still has initial advantage, but later becomes almost useless (e.g. one fish in 5 minutes).

Q: Why isn’t there a button to kill your people?
We don’t think it’s realistic or fitting in a game like KaM. A king does not go about randomly killing people. KaM is a “nice” game with no blood or gore, and we don’t think it would fit if you can just kill anybody you like. Early releases had a kill button for debugging/testing purposes which has since been removed. We are considering allowing unnecessary units to be sent back to the school and disappear, without refunding gold. (because there should be some reward for managing your units well and not needing to “untrain” any units to save food or something)

Q: What is the marketplace? (building shown to the right of the logo in in the header)
It’s a new building we added to the game. The main house sprites come from the KaM TSK Alpha (development) version, and were leaked to us. Apparently the creators of KaM planned to have a marketplace, but it was removed during development for one reason or another. We have reimplemented it. It allows you to trade one resource for another, at high exchange rates. It is still being tested for balance issues and might be tweaked later. It will be disabled in the early campaign missions and for those of you who don’t like change, we will have an option to play the game without it. (as well as any other new features we add)

Q: How do I install KaM Remake if I have the Steam version of KaM?
You need to launch Knights and Merchants from Steam at least once before you run the KaM Remake installer, otherwise the installer will not detect it. Apart from that, just download the full installer from our downloads page and run it. If you want to have the Steam overlay while playing, you can add KaM Remake to your Steam library by clicking Games -> Add a Non-Steam Game to My Library on the Steam main menu.

Q: Will you implement a player accounts system for multiplayer which can record statistics like wins, losses, games left, etc.?
Maybe eventually, but it will be complicated to implement, especially trying to make it secure. It will be extremely difficult to record statistics in a way that can’t be faked or cheated. We would need to force players to use only our own secure servers and change our multiplayer code so the server can record the statistics (which is currently not possible). In short it would require a large amount of time, cost and continued maintenance for only a small gain.

Q: Why doesn’t the AI build a full village and attack in multiplayer?
We haven’t completed the code to make the AI build a complete village and attack, so currently their behavior is limited. We will add this to the Remake but it is complicated, and we want it to work well. (better than the original KaM AI which wasn’t very good) However, if you want to play against the AI in multiplayer you can play the co-operative missions, where the AI already has a complete village and is scripted to attack.

Q: Will you include my map in the Remake?
Yes, if it is good quality and we like it. Common mistakes include:
– Water flowing in different directions (use the magic water feature in Krom’s editor)
– Not enough map objects like rocks, mushrooms, etc.
– Tiles not connecting properly, and so having square edges.
– Entire map is too flat.
– Resources/positions are not balanced well (for multiplayer maps)
If you think you’ve made a map that is good quality, send it to us and we’ll decide whether to include it. Posting your map on the forum (check the Links section) is a good way to get feedback on it.

Q: Will you add fog of war to the game?
Later in development we will try it. It might not work very well in KaM, because it wouldn’t be possible to have those classic large open battles if you can only see your opponent when they are right on top of you. We’d probably use quite a high view radius through the fog because of this.

Q: Will you add constructable walls to the game?
Maybe, but constructable walls don’t really fit into the game style. In KaM you must work with the terrain and find suitable places to the defend. If you can build walls that won’t be necessary. And it will make multiplayer matches turn into stalemates more often. Walls don’t seem like a necessary addition to the game.

Q: Will you implement a tower limit in multiplayer to stop tower spam?
No. If a player chooses to spam towers, then he won’t have enough space/resources/time for weapons production, and the other players should be able to crush him easily. Towers can easily be disarmed by militia rushing them: Each tower holds 5 stones, but a few of them miss, meaning each tower kills about 3 units on average. So if you have 60 militia you can disarm 20 towers. Usually you can reach the center of the enemy’s village and destroy his storehouse/schools/barracks without encountering all of their towers, (there are multiple places to defend) so disarming 20 is more than enough. 60 militia does not take long to produce when you have a steady wood production. Of course if he has bowmen you will need extra militia because some will die from arrows, but if you bring other troops behind the militia once the towers are disarmed this shouldn’t be a problem. If you find tower spam is troubling you, you are probably using the wrong tactics against it. Militia rushes work much better than trying to destroy each tower with bowmen.

Q: I have an idea for something you can add!
Write about it on the forum. If we like it we’ll discuss it. But we won’t add new things unless they fit into the game. Also, adding new features is a lower priority than fixing bugs and implementing missing features from KaM.