An amazing gmae that shouldn't be over looked... read on!
Let me point out how the game works, if you've every played the Total War series consider this the grown up alternative. I will be honest your going to have to look passed the 2D graphics and see that KoH has an amazingly indepth gameplay. So lets get started shall we!
When you download the demo from this very site you'll be able to play the game from two prespectives, Bohima (a vassel of Germany), and Scotland (free and indapendent at this time), those are your only choices in the demo version though if you buy the full version you'll be able to chose any of the other nations (yah thats right... sadly Total War only lets you pick "most" of the nations, where as KoH and its cousin Europa Universalis 3 allow you to chose any nation... go Paradox). Now before you jump into the grand campeign take the time to do the titorial, at first it seems very basic and if your a stratagy gamer you'll pick up on a ton of the concepts very quickly, but like all good games its origonal in most aspects so controling your nation down to the last gold peice will require knowledge.
Once you've conqured the titorial you can jump into your first real game (as Bohima or Scotland). At this time I'd recomend Scotland, only because they are indapendent and not vassels, for those who don't know vasselised nations are "atonumos" but pay a fair ammount of tax to an overlord nation, and Bohima starts as a vassel of Germany (as mentioned before). So I would recomend for your frist run Scotland. Now this isn't a stratagy on how to play KoH, so I'll get back to the review.
The graphics are all 2D which in this day and age is sadly considered behind the curve. On the upside if you see 2D graphics as an "art style" you'll love KoH, all of Europe is neatly done in glorious 2D from rivers and mountians to shimering waterfalls. The detail level is fairly high and just adding walls to your cities will show up on the main map.
Now I'm going to break up gameplay into two parts, battle and rule:
Battles are frought by the AI or by the player and they are similar to 2D versions of Total War. The startagy involved can be simplistic or coplex depending on how you wish to play the game. If you attack or defend on a river it gives you major bonuses or negatives, such as forcing all your men onto rafts while you sail accrosed the river. When defending or attacking a castle you get to attack the gates and walls, and so forth amazingly it contains a fair ammount of depth.
Now the game is all "real time" as in its not turn based, so if you play it on easy and command a battle the default is that the game pauses during a battle, if you play on hard you have no choice the game continues during the battle so cities and so forth can be attacked while you duke it out on the feild of valor. If you like the dificulty set to high it may be recomended that you let the AI do the battles while you cordinate the whole war.
Once you've gained victory (or defeat) your generals (marshals in KoH) gain XP which they can use on skills like Dread which makes your enemies moral drain faster or Command which makes your troops moral drain slower. Even skills like enginering allow your general to use siege equipement such as catipults and battering rams.
Now the second part of the game is your rule over your nation, you have a royal court which can be commanded to do various activies such as trade, govern a town (for increased income) or even spy (amont other options). While ruling your nation you can have diplomatic releastions with other nations, such as trade agreements which allow you to send merchants to their lands or even no aggression pacts all the way to alliances. If you have an alliance and you go to war you can request that your allies join you this is important as while playing Bohemia I saw the massive nation of Germany taken down but a bunch of small nations due to its lack of allies.
The sound in the game is solid, you'll hear eagles cry as they soar above your mountains and armies march accrosed the feilds of battle, even the water crashing as it goes over the edge of a water fall. The game hosts a fair ammount of sound detail and randomly plays era correct music.
Now the major downfall of KoH is the lack of a grand campeign multiplayer, though the solo game is enough to keep you busy for hours you'll wish you could command a whole nation against the worlds most dangerous prey... humans!!! The game does host a battle mutliplayer but on its own you may as well go play Total War, for KoH shines as a whole game not part of a game.
All in all KoH is an amazingly well done product that could use some slight improvements (such as an increase in AI smarts) but aside form minor flaws it'll suck you in and keep you there for a while. I personaly recomend the demo, its a great way to see if you like it, the main campeign has every province open to you, though you can only develop so high and saving isn't an option so its realy just a taste. If you do decide to buy it, it took me a bit to figure out where to buy the game these days, which you can find at www.gamersgate.com for $19.99 (which is a fair price I'd say).
As I mentioned before if your curious and sick of all the "other" stratagy games, or if you want a startagy game with some minor "RPG" flairs give KoH a try, you may just be happily suprised!