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Rob Zacny

Episode 456: Crusader Kings 2: Holy Fury

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Three Moves Ahead 456:

Three Moves Ahead 456


Crusader Kings 2: Holy Fury
It's been a minute since we've talked about Crusader Kings 2, so why bring it up now? Holy Fury - the latest major DLC - is one of the most significant changes to date, moving CK2 even closer toward RPG than grand strategy game. Is this the expansion that restores Fraser's interest in the game? Is this really the last expansion? What is the future of CK2? Why does T.J. go on and on and on and on about succession laws? Can you really be a duck? T.J. and Fraser answer all these questions and more.

Crusader Kings 2, Holy Fury

 

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Funny how CK2, initially being a relatively simple GSG with interesting sandbox character mechanics, finds its roots on the way. Because when you look back it's not clear how was it even playable. Before Way of Life and Monks and Mystics, you had a very limited influence on your character waiting for events to fire to give you opportunities. Before recent patches portraits were very bland and bad at representing character features (and even now I think portrait packs are most important DLCs because it's the attack of the clones otherwise). They gradually made this mess of features organized. Now it looks as if the game was intended to play Pagans first and Feudal/Republics later: most independent rulers at the earliest start date are Pagans and they have an actual use for Prestige and Piety while Feudal Lords have more complex mechanics and use Prestige and Piety more like passive bonus dealer. Then Chinese expansion added an ability to spend part of your useless heap of Prestige on poorly justified wars. Then they've added Sway and Antagonize so that you can spend resources on making friends or beating rivals.

 

It's still a beautiful mess. Unlike EU4 that had its fundamentals set up from the very beginning, CK2 doesn't have a UI that even remotely understands the game. It still pretends you're playing a wargame so that actual important stuff only takes 1/3 of the screen, the rest is the map. EU4 from the get-go knew that Rivals and Alliances are extremely important and this is reflected in UI. Meanwhile, CK2 doesn't even have a dedicated map mode to see relationships, alliances, friendships. EU4 shows you whether your proposal will pass even before you click a button; in CK2 you have much more possible diplomatic actions and you have to click every button to see whether they agree in a separate window.

 

The more they add to CK2 the more it feels like they form an actual game from the sandbox and the way they iterate makes me resentful about their DLC policy again. It's nice to have a sprint goal for the iteration, so to say, but it feels like the game is overloaded with features that were added just because they were thematic; meanwhile, some expansions try to tackle on themes that are too big and thus themes like Muslims feel underdeveloped. They still are rarely able to make those DLCs truly isolated; they still do a better job than EU4 but you have features like mechanically beneficial Casus Belli (allow you to pay a lot of prestige and diplomatic standing to conquer the land instead of being forced to help pretenders or use RNG-based claim fabrication) added in an expansion about China. Holy Fury looks like a lost opportunity, this is the expansion that upgrades every part of the game with a minor focus on both Pagans and Crusades. It's an old-school expansion and I imagine that game would be both much better and much more approachable if we had those for several years instead of an endless barrage of small inconsequential thematic features we got in Sunset Invasion or Reaper's Due or Charlemagne or whatever. Or even sequels. Some people say that PDX are not like EA that would release a game each year but if we had that then we'd probably have much more consistent game, maybe with proper 3D portraits and other immersive features that would make the whole experience even better. But we'd probably didn't get features like Forts, Chronicles, Custom Empires and other fluff.

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I have difficulty imagining what CK3 should be. Mounted Crusader Blade Kings sounds cool, but how would that game work? Is Paradox willing to build a whole new engine for a game that would support landless characters? I think they should, but it's a big risk. There's a lot they would simply have to guess at, and it's likely the first game in that style to suck in many ways. It's much safer (and more profitable) to just tweak the formula a bit.

 

I do think King of Dragon Pass offers some ideas they could fairly easily incorporate into the CK model, which would make the storytelling aspects a lot richer. But a big part of it is indeed the presentation. For a game that's evolved to be about the characters, they sure are hidden.

 

I have also wondered if it would be better if we were at CK4 or 5 at this point and talking about what the next game would be like. As much as I've enjoyed most of the DLC in CK, I do think they should have stopped already. Probably after Horse Lords, definitely after Monks and Mystics. I certainly never really put the time into Monks and Mystics, despite buying it. I kind of would want to, but there's too much other stuff to do, and as much life as it brings to the game, I practically feel guilty these days if I play CK2.

 

Although perhaps I'll go back to it after they announce CK3 and I know they won't add any more stuff/fluff to it.

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