Crusader Kings II

[Subotan]

I pre-ordered it, and I'm so glad I did. My first game as the House D'Hauteville was great fun - Robert I of Apulia was a complete badass, who managed to unite the whole of Southern Italy, found the Kingdom of Sicily, and make tentative inroads into capturing the island of Sicily itself before dying at the age of 82. My first son, Bohemond, was a bastard; Robert was an incapable hunchback who died a year before his father; King Guy was king for a mere year before being slain, childless, in battle against the Saracens; and the lustful King Rainulf, my best son, had married the lustful Countess of Passau - in what was apparently a matrilineal marriage. By the time I realised my mistake, Rainulf and Passau had pumped out five sons and four daughters at the age of 31/32, all of some German dynasty. Shortly after, the rule of the House D'Hauteville came to an end in Sicily, despite there being absolutely tons of members of the dynasty hanging around in the Kingdom.

I'm on my second game now, as Duke Ugo d'Este II of Lombardia. Had an excellent game sofar - captured Brescia, lost a province in the Alps to a vassal's stupid marriage, and inherited the Duchy of Apulia from Ugo's mum. Currently, the Holy Roman Empire is engulfed in a ferocious civil war featuring French intervention, who are presumably still annoyed that the HRE somehow got the whole of the Duchy of Aquitaine. Had a particularly awesome war against Bavaria - straight after capturing Brescia from the massive Duchy of Toscana/Capua, Bavaria declared war on me for it, in alliance with Capua. Thanks to the geography of the Alps and an attack by Muslims on the Capuan heartland, I was able to pick off their armies one by one, and render their massive numerical advantage useless. My third daughter came of age, and I married her to the 19 year old King of Croatia - unfortunately, I could not then call him into the war to help me as he was busy fighting for the Hungarian throne. Happily, he dropped dead very soon after, and I married her again to the second son of the brother of the King of Bohemia. Apparently, this warranted an alliance, and Bohemian forces swept into Bavaria like a tide - Czechmate. I fought the Bavarian-Capuan alliance to 100% warscore, and forced them to abandon their claim to Brescia.

It also doesn't feel like it needs many patches, unlike any other Paradox game I've played. Good work guys, this is definitely the best release in years.

[Monk]

I'm on my second game now, as Duke Ugo d'Este II of Lombardia. Had an excellent game sofar - captured Brescia, lost a province in the Alps to a vassal's stupid marriage, and inherited the Duchy of Apulia from Ugo's mum. Currently, the Holy Roman Empire is engulfed in a ferocious civil war featuring French intervention, who are presumably still annoyed that the HRE somehow got the whole of the Duchy of Aquitaine. Had a particularly awesome war against Bavaria - straight after capturing Brescia from the massive Duchy of Toscana/Capua, Bavaria declared war on me for it, in alliance with Capua. Thanks to the geography of the Alps and an attack by Muslims on the Capuan heartland, I was able to pick off their armies one by one, and render their massive numerical advantage useless. My third daughter came of age, and I married her to the 19 year old King of Croatia - unfortunately, I could not then call him into the war to help me as he was busy fighting for the Hungarian throne. Happily, he dropped dead very soon after, and I married her again to the second son of the brother of the King of Bohemia. Apparently, this warranted an alliance, and Bohemian forces swept into Bavaria like a tide - Czechmate. I fought the Bavarian-Capuan alliance to 100% warscore, and forced them to abandon their claim to Brescia.

Very nicely done there Subotan

In my experience the HRE are always aggressively marrying among the french nobles trying to get claims, so seeing duchies flip every now and again isnt a big surprise. A bigger surprise would be France managing to stay together. With the latent stability of the HRE France can feel the pressure at times. Sometimes they keep it together and become the BBB we all fear, and sometimes they don't and end up fighting for their starting counties all game.

[frogbeastegg]

CK1 had a lot of issues. At launch it was barely half a game. Paradox had to scramble to throw something together after a deal with another studio fell through, IIRC the whole game was made in a matter of months. Patches and the expansion helped, yet the game always had holes in its fabric and plenty of bugs. CKII is the game I thought I was getting all those years ago when I preordered CK1, and a good helping more. It only needs more plots and events adding, a few tweaks here and there.

I saw a comment on the official forum about how losing is far more enjoyable than winning. They're right. CKII provides some excellent loss stories, situations where it all goes horribly wrong in a natural and entertaining way. By natural, I mean that it doesn't feel as though the game it out to get you.

Due to various things I haven't had nearly as much time to play as I'd like. CKII is the kind of game which can eat up hours like children eat sweets. One minute it's 4 in the afternoon and I have half an hour before I need to think about cooking, the next it's 8PM and I'm wondering why I'm hungry.

Have I mentioned how much I love the title screen music? I love the title screen music! Each time I start the game I have to sit and listen.

How are people finding the loading times? I'm running it on a freshly defragged drive and it seems to take an age to load, longer than Victoria II AHD despite being considerably smaller on disc.

My second article is out. It's mostly aimed at new players, and explains the basics of the feudal system and how it works in the game. Basics, not froggy's guide to CKII. I don't know if there are any new players here who do not have some knowledge of the historical feudal system, so maybe someone will find it useful or maybe not.

[Monk]

CK1 had a lot of issues. At launch it was barely half a game. Paradox had to scramble to throw something together after a deal with another studio fell through, IIRC the whole game was made in a matter of months. Patches and the expansion helped, yet the game always had holes in its fabric and plenty of bugs. CKII is the game I thought I was getting all those years ago when I preordered CK1, and a good helping more. It only needs more plots and events adding, a few tweaks here and there.

I saw a comment on the official forum about how losing is far more enjoyable than winning. They're right. CKII provides some excellent loss stories, situations where it all goes horribly wrong in a natural and entertaining way. By natural, I mean that it doesn't feel as though the game it out to get you.

Due to various things I haven't had nearly as much time to play as I'd like. CKII is the kind of game which can eat up hours like children eat sweets. One minute it's 4 in the afternoon and I have half an hour before I need to think about cooking, the next it's 8PM and I'm wondering why I'm hungry.

Have I mentioned how much I love the title screen music? I love the title screen music! Each time I start the game I have to sit and listen.

How are people finding the loading times? I'm running it on a freshly defragged drive and it seems to take an age to load, longer than Victoria II AHD despite being considerably smaller on disc.

My second article is out. It's mostly aimed at new players, and explains the basics of the feudal system and how it works in the game. Basics, not froggy's guide to CKII. I don't know if there are any new players here who do not have some knowledge of the historical feudal system, so maybe someone will find it useful or maybe not.

Initial load time (first boot up) takes around 45 seconds to 2 min. In game loads (loading saves) are almost instant. I have 8gb of RAM and a well cared for HD though so take that as you will

[frogbeastegg]

Initial load time (first boot up) takes around 45 seconds to 2 min. In game loads (loading saves) are almost instant. I have 8gb of RAM and a well cared for HD though so take that as you will

That's a similar time and setup to my own, so it must be something to do with the game itself. Strange. Vicky 2 AHD loads in almost half the time. Oh well, it's not important since the game only needs to load once per session.

[The Stranger]

one thing that is really bugging me now is that the kings of europe do not cooperate in a crusade. there are like a bazillion noblemen all declaring their own crusade and occupying different territories. therefor there is no possiblity to get a conclusive victory. resulting in one crusade lasting for a 100 years -_- it should be a joint venture, with possible rivalries ofcourse but if one of the crusading nobleman conquers the territory and another crusader conquers another they should be able to sue for demands together and each gets what they have conquered, thus ending the crusade.

[Monk]

Paradox has posted a post mortem dev diary discussing the reaction to Crusader Kings II. They talk about (in limited terms) what went into making the game, how the game has been recieved, as well as what they have planned for the future. Of particular interest are the things they intend to patch into the game.

So, what are we planning for the future? Crusader Kings II will have many major DLC packs that are actually more like small expansions. Every time we release a major DLC, we will also release a major free content patch. I cannot say exactly when we will be adding what, but here are some things you can expect for free in the coming months:

Enhanced, more focused Crusades with a "contribution" score
Causes of Death
Asking to join an ongoing war
Lots of more plots and ambitions
Events, events, and more events
Improved GUI where it's needed the most (plots, marriages)
Flexible de jure liege structure
More de jure kingdoms

You can read the entire dev diary here: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/...rtem-Dev-Diary