Mad Hat Pirates

Crusader Kings II
Bloody peasants!

I'm sure that more than a few of you have heard of the Game of Thrones TV series by now. An excellent program based on the Song of Ice and Fire Saga by George R.R. Martain. It's a fantastic series with so much intrigue and backstabbing I think I just committed treason by glancing at the cover. See the program, read the book, I don't care, just have a go and you won't be disappointed. Fact is, gamers want a game of GoT, and they got two of them. They were shit. So we shall make do with Crusader Kings II, a game that gets you as close to the GoT lifestyle as possible, straight down to having sex with your sister and a dwarf brother trying to kill you!

Sexy, sexy incest made possible with stats and menus

So. We'll start with what CKII is. Its the usual grand strategy affair you expect from Paradox. Deep and complex, manual as big as a Yellow Pages, excellent at giving a great sense of satisfaction when a plan comes together and you'll have no fucking clue what the actual hell you are doing for the first ten hours. I call it the Paradox Curse. They make good games, brilliant games. No-one has any idea how to play them. That is the only real criticism I have of CKII. My advice is to check out a few let's plays and read some wiki's if you decide to buy it. Cracking on, CKII lets you play as the head of any noble family from the period of 1066 to 1453 with one goal. Earn your dynasty more prestige than various other historically significant European dynasties of the time. If you die and you have no heir to take over, its game over. 
The level of detail is truly astounding. You can marry, kill, impregnate, intimidate, befriend, backstab and possibly give back rubs to any of hundreds of characters each with their own stats, traits, behaviors and motivations all trying to work/backstab/marry their way to the top. Children are born with genetic traits of their parents and other traits from who you decide should educate them. Said children tend to grow up resenting your oldest son for being your heir and I've had to stop half dozen assassination attempts by jealous siblings in one playthrough. If you play as a king then you are fighting your own nobles, either in the court or on the battlefield, as much as you are fighting other nations. The game may be just a map with sprites and a bunch of often indecipherable numbers and menus, but the level of drama trumps most of the triple AAA offerings of today's games. 

"Sorry m'lord. I couldn't find the menu for horses.

So you may have guessed by now I really hate the interface for CKII. I have good reason, its a bloody nightmare! Honestly, playing this game, even after doing the tutorial, is like being asked to solve a Rubik's Cube before getting on a bus to pay your fare. Yes, you understand the concept of both of these,  you could eventually figure out the Rubik's Cube, but you'll be stumped as to how they connect to each other or why the hell you even have to do the Cube in the first dam place. That's the problem, you're not entirely sure what effect your actions are having or why you are doing them. I married my son to a Norwegian Princess but I couldn't say what it caused except her dad liked me a bit more. With time and patience you can see past the clunky interface and see that its all very simple at it's core. It isn't complicated, its just a lot of information horribly presented. I can't blame Paradox. There really isn't a simple way to do it. 

My only real other complaint is that wars can be a pain in the arse to start. To start a war you need a claim, which can be gained through marriage or bringing a claimant to your court or fabricating a claim which can take years in game, so you have legal right to do so. That or if you are a smaller country you can request an invasion from the Pope. Its all very counter productive if you wish to expand, you have to plan years, even decades, in advance which I suppose, in the end, is more in keeping with the time period of the game and encourages the intrigue side of it.

"One day, many years from now, my great grand children may have the right to brutally kill everyone in that castle."

The intrigue is where the game really separate's itself from the rest. As mentioned earlier, your nobles and kin are all murderous buggers and will make your life as much of a living hell as possible. The solution in my case? Kill them all first. Keeping them all happy is impossible and putting one in the dungeon just riles up the rest! Murder, revoking titles, rebellion, getting laws changed, you've got a good selection of morally dubious options at your disposal and so do your vassals. 

Crusader Kings II is a difficult game to get into. But once you do you'll not find anything else like it. I highly recommend giving it a go, its only about £15 on Steam so its hardly going to dent the bank balance. To top it off, there is a Game of Thrones mod in development.

Brilliant Medieval simulator,
horribly presented. 
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