King’s Bounty II beginner’s guide: The basics
For this section of our King’s Bounty II beginner’s guide, we’ll talk about the basics when it comes to your character, the alignment system, and general exploration of Nostria.
Which character to choose?
King’s Bounty II lets you choose from three distinct characters that have a particular class:
| Hero Name and Class | Aivar (Warrior) | Katharine (Mage) | Elisa (Paladin) |
| Alignment | 3 Power and zero in others | 3 Finesse and zero in others | 3 Order and zero in others |
| Perk 1 | Practice I – +15% unit XP from battle victories | Magic of Air and Fire I – Cast level 1 air and fire spells | Phantasmal Armor I – +5 resistance for units during the first round of combat |
| Perk 2 | Battle Preparation I – +3 Warfare | Magic of Earth and Ice I – Cast level 1 earth and ice spells | Protection I – +5 armor for units during the first round of combat |
| Perk 3 | Retribution I – +5% unit damage for each wounded member | Insidious Maneuver I – Attacking an enemy has a 25% chance to remove a random buff and apply it to unit | Magic of Life and Light I – Cast level 1 life and light spells |
| Perk 4 | Power Balance I – Reduces morale penalty for Power ideal units by 1 when there are units of other ideals. | Finesse Balance I – Reduces morale penalty for Power ideal units by 1 when there are units of other ideals. | Order Balance I – Reduces morale penalty for Power ideal units by 1 when there are units of other ideals. |
For the first few hours of the game, you might feel as though you’re pigeonholed into a particular role. Later, though, you should be able to acquire talents to improve your character’s versatility.
Talent perks and the ideals/alignment system
Your character in King’s Bounty II can acquire talents (“T”) as you level up. But, these perks are tied to the game’s ideals system. Think of ideals as diametrically opposed alignments: Order vs. Anarchy and Power vs. Finesse.
From time to time, you can complete quest objectives by following a particular ideal, netting you some alignment points. The unlockable talents themselves follow a threshold — 0/8/16/28 — which means you can keep choosing a particular ideal (i.e., Order) until you can get the highest talent tier at 28 points.
However, be forewarned that having too many points for a particular ideal will prevent you from completing quests of the opposing viewpoint. For example, Elisa starts with 3 Order points. That means an early-game decision (attack the humans or dwarves) won’t let you pick the Anarchy option. Still, other opportunities may present themselves later so you can at least get a few points for opposing ideals (i.e., maxing out Order and having 8 points in Anarchy to get tier 2 talents).
Note 1: You can reset talent points by clicking on a button on the lower-left part of the panel. This is free the first time you do it, but subsequent attempts will cost gold.
Note 2: You can learn more about these mechanics in our King’s Bounty II guides related to ideals/important decisions and talents/perks.
Altars, loot, and character stats
During your adventures in King’s Bounty II, you’ll stumble upon different types of containers (i.e., chests, caches, pouches, and the like). More often than not, the loot you obtain tends to be random (but most of them are junk that you can sell). In certain cases, you could find equipment that you can wear, though you’ll probably get these as quest rewards or as vendor items instead.
Also, be on the lookout for altars/shrines (i.e., Power Obelisks, People’s Altars, War Memorials, and more). You can interact with these only once, and different types provide bonuses to your character’s stats. Examples include:
- Warfare – Extra damage dealt by units.
- Magic Power – Strength and duration of spells.
- Arcane Knowledge – The threshold with which you’re allowed to learn or upgrade spells, as well as how much mana you can have during combat.
- Leadership – Higher values allow you to field more units.
Fast travel, general exploration, the world map, and saving
A major point of contention mentioned in our King’s Bounty II official review is the egregiously slow movement. Your character only jogs, and there’s a walk button instead of one that lets you sprint. Likewise, your horse mount will only canter when inside hubs (even your jogging movement is barely quicker). Worse, the environments are designed akin to a “corridor world” rather than an “open-world.” This means that you have to follow pathways and dirt roads to reach a new destination. You could easily get stuck on ledges that won’t let you hop off or bump into obstacles. At the very least, you can fast travel by interacting with steles, so make sure you find them to speed up the exploration.
If you look at the world map, you’ll see various icons referring to quests, vendor NPCs, unit recruitment, discovered fast travel points, and even loot. You’ll also see icons representing the ideals in case objectives can be completed in a certain manner. Moreover, I’d advise you to manually save often. Autosaves are only triggered by starting a battle or earning an alignment point. There might be moments when you’d make a mistake, only to realize that all previous autosaves have been overwritten.
Anyway, let’s go to the next part of our King’s Bounty II beginner’s guide to talk about combat mechanics such as leadership, unit recruitment, magic, healing, and reviving troops.
