Recommended Posts

So I try to give every Quick Look on Giant Bomb at least a few minutes, even for games I'm not that interested in. I just watched the one for Crusader Kings II and went from not being interested at all to holy shit take a look at that Quick Look! It's a strategy game you play on a motherfucking gorgeous map of Europe that has all these sweet labels that fade in as you zoom around and move through time. Instead of playing as an abstract civilization or faceless ruler, you're actually this guy (though you can choose from a wide array of historical figures) and you have to manage your personal life, which I did not expect. There are menus for wives and heirs, and you have all these people under you that you can do stuff with, I guess. I didn't really watch the whole thing, but these two things made me want the game:

  • The beautiful map of Europe
  • A war strategy game where you get half of your wife's stats, and have to decide how your stuff is divided up when you die, and then I guess you play as your heir.

The reason I haven't bought it yet is that apparently it's super complicated, and the tutorials are not that good, and I don't really enjoy complicated games.

Anyway!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah, I've been doing the same and getting interested in a bunch of stuff I never thought I would be.

I tend to stay away from obscure, detailed, European conquest games, but after this quick look I'm completely on board, it appears to be a bunch of stuff I really love and I like the fact that they took a hardline on history and realism.

edit: Also, multiplayer. Doubt there will be enough thumbs to do this, but who knows, with the podcast about to happen again there might be an influx of people willing to try this crazy thing.

Edited by Murdoc

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I already have it because I'm a terrible person. I would be up for MP at any point.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I don't know how you would feel about it Toblix, but this is a short minutes of my latest game.

- Marry eight year old son to Italian Duchess.

- Assassinate Duchess and various heirs.

- Wait patiently for twelve years.

- Inherit 3/4ths of the Italian peninsula.

- Participate in the first Crusade, capture a significant portion of the Barbary Coast, whilst not participating in the actual Crusade at all.

- Kill everyone linked to the Hapsburg line because fuck the Hapsburgs.

- Betroth newest daughter into Agnatic-Cognatic succession based Byzantian empire. (Eldest female heir will inherit.) Why is Byzantium running on A-C? Who fucking knows. Five years later I own huge tracts of... land, in the Balkans and Mediterranian.

- Save game because it's lunch time and I have to plot how to get the King of France off my back.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I hate these games. I love them and want to love them, but I rarely have the time to really invest in them. It takes a deal of learning... I must say that's one hell of a map. Maps are breathtaking.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

This is seems to be the most similar game (but also different) to Knights of Honor, which I loved despite its flaws. That's why I'm quite excited about this. I've also tried others like Europa Universalis, but couldn't get into them.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Paradox order of difficulty is like this

EU3 -> CK(2) -> Hearts of Iron -> Victoria

But I can totally understand not being into a specific section of their stuff. I guess that's why they do all these different time periods.

As for time investment to get into these games, you can drastically reduce that with a good guide.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Boy am I interested in this. I really want to play it, like it and be good at it. But I really don't see that being the way it happens. Do you have any links to good guides, Orv? It really interests me but I'm almost certain I will flounder, get frustrated and bored and stop playing it pretty quickly.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

:ancient: If EU3 ever strikes your fancy, buy Chronicles and not Complete. Carry on. :ancient:

Unfortunately, Crusader Kings 2 guides are limited, having just come out. Crusader Kings 1 guides are also limited, most of the CK stuff I know about is in strictly controlled narrative form.

For instance: http://lparchive.org/Paradox-Hohenzollern/

That said, this EU3 LP/Guide is incredibly informative, and while most of it doesn't carry over to CK(2), it'll give you an idea of what's going on in a Paradox style game. If this peaks your interest enough, keep in mind that CK is character driven rather than country, and most of your time is spent plotting machinations. It's all very MacBeth.

http://lparchive.org/Europa-Universalis-III-Divine-Wind/

Please for the love of the gods, if you feel the need to dig deeper into Paradox strategy games, avoid the official forums. They're an absolute cesspit of completely insane ultra-nationalists.

Here. The big draw of Paradox games for many people is playing through a large portion (rarely all of the timespan) of any given Paradox games to see what bizarre things occur as a result of the AI being utterly insane. See if you can spot the things that might be a little off.

This is relatively tame compared to some of the alt-history stuff you get at times.

j14dljkLCQHZO.bmp

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

This is a thing that causes me to marvel at how beautiful it is, then not buy it and wistfully look at videos from time to time, wishing I had that much spare time.

God that's one of the nicest maps I've seen in a game. All those geographic layers! :tup:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
The biggest complaint appears to be the inability to play as Pagans or Muslims

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/02/23/wot-i-think-crusader-kings-ii/

;( One of the things I liked to attempt (but didn't succeed at) in Knights of Honor was to convert all of Europe to paganism. Sad that I can't even try it in this one.

Also, is there really a time limit and the game ends in the 1300's or something? Is it enough time to realize your grand plans?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Paradox games have a set start and end time, yes. However, the way that Paradox games can be heavily modded leads to crazy things like playing EU (that normally ends in 1823 something) up to 2025 or something. Unfortunately, AI tends to break going outside the usual timelimits.

There's a nation in EU3, called Ryouku. It's a tiny little island south of Japan, off the coast of China. The achievement in the game that awards the most points is to conquer the entire world as Ryouku. It starts as a single province, with the second worst tech group in the game.

It's possible, certainly. But it's almost always more fun to roleplay your country and go for sane goals. A bit of world conquest never hurts though. But beware, France is the Paradox final boss.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

So I bought it, though I perhaps shouldn't have considering all the kickstarting I've been doing and not having much spare money right now. It's good, but it does seem super complicated and I feel like I should watch some videos of people playing it first.

I conquered England as William the Bastard and then let it fast forward some years -- poor Will was declared incompetent (or something to the effect) and his wife took over.

I think they could have done some small things better to make it more accessible. For example, the way armies move is a bit weird -- the figures stay where start from, but a progress on the movement arrow shows how far they are from the goal.

I find the managing of excess demesne to be quite difficult -- who should I give lands to etc. Same about the marriages, tutoring and stuff. At first it's really hard too keep track of so many details. I couldn't figure out why some regions where not producing any income.

It seems great though. I think it will take time to really get into it, but it should provide hours and hours of fun once I figure it out.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think they could have done some small things better to make it more accessible. For example, the way armies move is a bit weird -- the figures stay where start from, but a progress on the movement arrow shows how far they are from the goal.

I find the managing of excess demesne to be quite difficult -- who should I give lands to etc. Same about the marriages, tutoring and stuff. At first it's really hard too keep track of so many details. I couldn't figure out why some regions where not producing any income.

It seems great though. I think it will take time to really get into it, but it should provide hours and hours of fun once I figure it out.

Lesse here, in order;

- Standard for Paradox games, sorry. Doubt it'll change without a new engine, and this is the new engine.

- Give lands to kin with high loyalty and respect. (Opinion of you, mostly) Or people you can easily assassinate and reclaim it from. Or throw in jail and strip the titles from if they get uppity.

- Were the regions that were not producing incomes bishoprics, by chance? Barring a few specific incidents/conditions, bishopric income goes to the Pope. Which is why you don't piss off the Pope. He may only have 2 provinces, but he's got a significant portion of the income of Catholic Europe in his pocket, meaning if you piss him off, gigantic mercenary companies will be your reward.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Is anyone here still playing Crusader Kings 2? The big 1.06 patch has finally hit and -- perhaps more importantly -- the CK2+ mod has been updated to incorporate a lot of the new features.

I'm currently playing as the Ynglings of Norway after an ahistorically successful invasion of England. Harald Hardrada's son Magnus was a worthless wretch who spent his short reign fighting border wars with Sweden and putting down revolts among the Anglo-Saxon lords, though that left his son Svend with little to do besides look longingly at Scotland. He hasn't bothered to produce a son, so I may be facing a fail-state in a couple decades. If not, I'm hoping to annex most of my Scandanavian neighbors and recreate Cnut's North Sea Empire.

Or, you know, die in battle and watch the north explode in civil war.

It's not as fun as my first game, as King of Ireland and self-professed High King of the Free Peoples, but I'm optimistic. How about you guys? Do you reload when stuff goes to shit? Do you roleplay your rulers? Do you hate how the vanilla game is full of immortal kings and unshakeable empires?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It's really a balance mod masquerating as a historical accuracy mod. The important features are increased character mortality, slower levy regeneration, and more disastrous civil wars. These, along with trait rebalancing to make the other stats like Martial and Learning useful, mean that going to war is a true risk and keeping a happy kingdom a real reward.

Basically, it short-circuits the snowball effect most people eventually notice in vanilla, where successful conquests fuel future ones and the bubble never bursts. With CK2+, I can't crush the Duke of Lancaster and extort his relatives for ransom if he revolts. He's married to the house of Norfolk, plus Gloucester and Cornwall still nurse grudges, so I have to conciliate him right now, but I'm low on cash, so my only choice is to appoint him to my council and give him my daughter to foster. Fingers crossed that this satisfies him, or I've put him in a great position to abuse me further.

Double-binds like that rarely happen in vanilla. Paradox's design is towards maximizing player choice, agency, and empowerment. CK2+ doesn't take those away, but it imbues them with consequence. I wouldn't recommend jumping straight into the modded version, but sooner or later everyone's going to want either a more challenging or more verisimilitudinous experience, which is what CK2+ offers in spades.

Still, I've had great vanilla games too. The tug of war with the King of France when playing as the Duke-turned-King of Aquitaine was pretty damn fun in and of itself.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Really looking foorward to playingg this, it soundss like it was made for me, how taxing on ur system is it?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It's not particularly taxing, though there seems to be a common issue where CK2 makes graphics cards run pretty hot.

As for CK2+, Wiz has been talking about messing with the decadence system to make it more of a stop gap, if you have Sword of Islam already. Which is pretty great, honestly, it's a real change of pace from some Irish count or a Bohemian duke.

So yes, I am still playing it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Boo, someone changed my fancy Latin thread title to plain old readable English. Oh well.

Really looking foorward to playingg this, it soundss like it was made for me, how taxing on ur system is it?

I have a beast of a PC I built a year or so ago, so it doesn't make a scratch. Like Orvidos says, some of the map overlays piss off older cards something fierce, and in general a larger kingdom is fairly RAM-intensive, though if you have an x64 system you can follow this tutorial to allow the game access to more than 2GB of RAM (targeting "ck2.exe" instead of "eu3game.exe" of course).

As for CK2+, Wiz has been talking about messing with the decadence system to make it more of a stop gap, if you have Sword of Islam already. Which is pretty great, honestly, it's a real change of pace from some Irish count or a Bohemian duke.

So yes, I am still playing it.

I am having a heck of a time justifying a purchase of the Sword of Islam DLC. I rarely if ever play non-Christian powers, and ten dollars feels a bit steep for a lark. Then again, all the CK2 DLC has seemed a bit off in pricing for what it does. Two dollars for a sprite pack or a three-song addition to the game's soundtrack? Five dollars for a barebones character editor that barely works anyway? I don't know.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I am having a heck of a time justifying a purchase of the Sword of Islam DLC. I rarely if ever play non-Christian powers, and ten dollars feels a bit steep for a lark. Then again, all the CK2 DLC has seemed a bit off in pricing for what it does. Two dollars for a sprite pack or a three-song addition to the game's soundtrack? Five dollars for a barebones character editor that barely works anyway? I don't know.

Well, let me put it this way, pre-SoI, CK2+ allowed the play of Muslim rulers, but it was just Christian play in Abyssinia, more or less.

Let me quote something at you to give you an idea.

The pace of a Muslim game is just so ridiculous. WHY AREN'T YOU INVADING SOMETHING INVADE INVADE INVADE OH GOD YOUR WIFE DIED MARRY A NEW ONE WELP TOO MANY SONS GOTTA START STABBING YOUR HEIR NEEDS A PROVINCE TO RULE INVADE INVADE INVADE OH GOD YOU'RE LIKE A MILLION YEARS OLD GO ON HAJJ RIGHT NOW NOW NOW

It's a very different experience than sitting around in Holland for forty years waiting for all your claimants to come of age and waiting for your plot to go through.

They've said they're going to have 4 things similar to Sword of Islam for CK2, each focusing on a different area of gameplay. Republics becoming playable is a decent bet, as well as pagans. I'd say for $10 it's worth looking into.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Damn, I want to play as some crazy proto-Finn! If you click the religions tab, there's a huge swath of land marked as SUOMIUSKO that cannot be historically accurate, but still gives me a warm national romantic feeling. What I'm actually hoping from this game is playing as some pretty small dynasty and enjoying that. We'll see how it goes.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Damn, I want to play as some crazy proto-Finn! If you click the religions tab, there's a huge swath of land marked as SUOMIUSKO that cannot be historically accurate, but still gives me a warm national romantic feeling.

CK2+ lets you play as any religion, so it's possible. I've even read an AAR about becoming the pagan king of Finland and Lithuania, but it sounds like a brutally boring first hundred years as you struggle to scrape together enough men from your one-holding provinces to actually beseige someone else.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now