From the makers of the Victoria, Hearts of Iron, and Europa Universalis series, Paradox Interactive brings you the latest game in their grand strategy genre
Crusader Kings II Many were called, few were chosen Europe is in turmoil. The lands are fragmented into petty fiefs, the emperor struggles with the Pope, and the Holy Father declares that all those who go to liberate the Holy Land will be freed of their sins. Now is the time for greatness.
Increase your lands and fill your coffers, appoint vassals, battle traitors, introduce laws while interacting with hundreds of nobles, and create the most powerful dynasty of medieval Europe. A beleaguered king will always have friends to support him. But beware, as your rule and realm may find trouble when a loyal vassal becomes a bitter rival. Stand ready, increase your prestige, and listen to the world whisper your name in awe. Do you have what it takes to become a Crusader King?
The known world
Just what is Crusader Kings 2? Crusader Kings II explores one of the defining periods in world history in an experience crafted by the masters of Grand Strategy. Medieval Europe is brought to life in this epic title rife with rich strategic and tactical depth.
The earliest starting date for the game is 1066 C.E. and is playable through to 1455 C.E.. You basically take on the role of pretty much any medieval noble and carry them through the ages from Count to Duke, from King to Emperor via the line of succession. Prestige is gathered for every successive character you play, furthering the glory of your dynasty. Expand your feudal domain at the expense of your rivals, unravel the plots of your courtiers and vassals, each armed with their own agendas, re-enact the crusades, defend against the Mongol onslaught, and form feudal nation-states. Struggle with the Pope for control of the bishops and relive the Middle Ages with up to 32 other players in a competitive multiplayer mode. If you've never played one of these grand strategy games, it's sort of like an RTS meets a TBS in that the game can progress real-time by day-sized turns (which can last as long as 7-10 seconds or be shorter than 1 second depending on changes of speed) and you can pause the game whenever to issue as many commands as you'd like while it's paused.
There is an insane amount of strategic depth to this game and a huge focus on characters involving management of politics at your internal court, external diplomacy with your vassals and beyond, military maintenance of the traditional levy-armies of the middle ages with a variety of different types of units (within the same tech level from light/heavy infantry or cavalry to pikemen and horse archers), complicated economic and technological management, detailed provincial building system etc etc etc...
Be warned! This game is not intuitively easy! You will play this game for hours with little to no idea what is going on and only slowly climb up the very steep learning curve. The learning process can be a mix of frustration and awe at how little you understand what's going on, but it's extremely fascinating and the more you learn the better it gets.
Hmm will this be as much about underlings as Victoria 2 (where I never could stop them from rebelling due to lacking understanding)? I like EU3 mostly since it is so streamlined, I make grand decisions and don't worry about the details. Ie, if it was turned based, would I spend 10 minutes a turn microing things or just 1 minute?
This game is pretty much all about underlings. You have to balance your own needs with your vassals to make sure they don't revolt because your realm is extremely decentralized. Instead of dealing with states you only deal with other characters and vassals in this game. It's sort of like the Sims but in Paradox's grand strategy style, think A Game of Thrones the game with all that intrigue and dealing with other people.
basically, this game owns
honestly for me I found Crusader Kings to be the easiest to grasp in terms of gameplay because you only deal with other characters, it's very human based so you can easily relate as to whats going on, unlike in EU3 where things are heavily abstracted like budget, combat, revolts, etc.
On February 05 2012 16:11 Yurie wrote: Hmm will this be as much about underlings as Victoria 2 (where I never could stop them from rebelling due to lacking understanding)? I like EU3 mostly since it is so streamlined, I make grand decisions and don't worry about the details. Ie, if it was turned based, would I spend 10 minutes a turn microing things or just 1 minute?
In a sense yes, not to the degree to which you have to in Victoria with the hundreds of Pops in your country though that feel insignificant on their own because there's so many of them. The underlings are individual characters where each one is fairly significant, so it's sort of an in-between of Victoria which is entirely about this mass of underlings and Europa with isn't about underlings at all because it has none.
On February 06 2012 03:47 Sanitarium14 wrote: Whatever they say, they can't stop me from naming my children IMMVP and MMA. Also, my first game will be as the king of hungary, for no good reason
hungary is pretty strong so it's a good choice. I think I will go with Bohemia because Prussia or the Teutons dont exist when the game starts
Hmm after having played the demo a bit I have to say it feels like the usual paradox release. :/
The tutorial can't be completed one part at a time since an earlier part doesn't play out as it should, so one has to leave part of the tutorial in order to play the next one or the same one again with the right settings. Also spotted a missing space in the text in one of the few tutorial maps I played.
Selecting the campaign I selected one of the four playable characters and saw no way to centre to where that nation is without loading the game. Basically the game forces me to google where I would end up by selecting one of the interesting characters.
It feels like much more micro management compared to EU3, doubtful I'll play this game until the first expansion pack is out.
In the character select screen you can actually change the map mode to view terrain, counts, dukes, kings, and emperors. From there you can just click one of them on the map and it will select your character (although this applies more to the main game than the demo because of limited character selections).
--There's a bug to let you play any character though, just select a character on the map right after you click start. Still doesn't get around the 20 years limitation on the demo though.
Yeah this game is awesome and even more addicting then Europa, at least for me (however don't know if that is a good thing since I have school ^^). I recommend everyone to try playing it (there is a demo) for at least 10+ hours even though it can be really challenging in the beginning.
I played the demo for 5+ hours so I went into the full game with SOME knowledge.
I chose Munster in Ireland and after 50 years I control more than 50% of Ireland and can now claim the throne in Ireland! I also got a son as the ruler in Denmark and Sweden, and only had to assassinate 2kings and a prince !
I haven't encountered any bugs or crashes or anything else wrong with the game yet, the feeling I get is it is a lot more polished than the usual Paradox games :p
The tutorials is better than usual but still lacking to much to be of any real help
So I was King of Scotland one or two generations passed with me mostly trying to gain more centralized control over my kingdom, but in the third generation it all went to shit under my ruler who earned the name "the Fat" lol. First two wives ended up dying off, ended up marrying this young courtier who was the daughter of a Scottish noble and an Arabic courtier I had invited to my court due to his high skill in Intrigue, great for a spymaster. Over the next 40-50 years, my eight children from across 3 wives, their spouses (sometimes more than one per child. Neil the terrible had something like 5 wives before he finally kicked the bucket), and their children proceed to go about slaughtering each other into oblivion with the help of a distant relative here or there (mostly a distant cousin here and there).
At the end of my ruler's reign, all of my children are dead, all of their spouses are dead, most of my grandchildren are dead and the daughter of my firstborn's first wife ends up inheriting the throne as my king passes at the old age of something like 77 (pretty damn old for that time). It was really crazy, at first I thought "wow this is going to be easy I'm going to have so many successors lol" and before I knew it dozens of people were all plotting against each other and hiring assassins. Meanwhile I managed to expand into the northern isles and somewhat South into England, which turned into a 3-way battling ground between the Normans, Saxons, and Danish while France is busy invading the Moors. Several crusades are called and the Byzantines surprisingly expand their borders southward and eastward into the Seljuks and the like.
Idk, got about 80-90 years played so far and my family tree is already a fucking mess lol, might throw up some screenshots of it later on. Long-term goal is to unite the English Island under one Scottish king, possible go after Ireland after that or maybe start joining some crusades.
I always loved Paradox games, Crusader Kings first of the name was good fun. I'll test the second. Trying to bring the Habsburg back to power. Either that or recreating the french-scottish alliance, or conquering spain with navarra or leon. SO MUCH POSSIBILITY !!!!!
i'm playing as the count of ulster in ireland. just wondering - is there any reason the female courtiers can't be put on the council? is there a certain law that can change that? and where can i find the info about these rules beforehand?
I think if you switch your inheritance laws to allow women to be able to inherit, you can put them on the council. That or maybe having a female ruler allows you to because my grand daughter was the closest in line of succession so she inherited the throne and I was able to put her mother as the spymaster (who actually had really good intrigue).
On February 15 2012 13:13 fush wrote: i'm playing as the count of ulster in ireland. just wondering - is there any reason the female courtiers can't be put on the council? is there a certain law that can change that? and where can i find the info about these rules beforehand?
I think you have to be full kognatic. So absolute equality between men and women.
here is my game I started with Rostov
almost the most important thing is breeding your heirs. It doesnt matter much who you marry but imo most important are the stats for diplomacy and stewardship. If you can find a wife with high stewardship and good perks like "Midas Touched" you can get yourself an awesome heir if you send him to learn from your wife. So for example the mother of my heir has the "Midas Touched" perk this gives her +9 stewardship, +15% fertility, +2 learning, +2 martial. So in the end with her other perks she has 18 diplomacy and 22 stewardship and the heir will most likely get all of those traits too when you send him to learn from her
edit: 20 years later my king dies because of a wound in battle and his sister gets the throne. All vassals go crazy gg I lost
EPT![[image loading]](http://www.paradoxplaza.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/large/crusaderkings2art.jpg)
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