Crusader Kings II Spirit-all

Downloading. This is coinciding rather nicely with my exam period drawing to close

When I launched Steam today, on my library tab I noticed something named ValveTestApp206310 with "Downloading paused" beside it. Not knowing WTF that was and being cautious, I tried to delete it, but it still showed up. So I right-clicked and chose Properties > Local files > Verify integrity of local files. After that process finished, I noticed that Crusader Kings II Demo was installed, but I had never even been to the game's Steam page, let alone choose to install the demo.

Weird. Did this happen to anyone else?

Bonus question: Is this a new form of aggressive marketing?

You probably forced install by asking it to verify files that were not originally there. As to why you had that test app, I don't know.

Hm apparently there is already a glitch that lets you play other countries, besides the demo ones. Maybe that will make it easier, I always preferred England in these kind of games. Still so far I have been really liking what I have been playing.

Maybe that's why the demo appeared, then disappeared.

And Pre-ordered.

CK2 manual.

Man, Tuesday cannot get here fast enough...

Thanks Tboon.

Preordered on Steam. Should get around to playing it around Christmas.

gentlemen, it's demo time.

Since Medieval II, I've been looking for a game that was more about ruling and less about fighting. I thought that I would find that in Civilization but it wasn't quite the same. I watched some 'lets play' videos and this seems like it'll be great fun to get lost in.

The CK2 site says it's available but Steam says it's unlocking in approx 8 hours

Prozac wrote:

The CK2 site says it's available but Steam says it's unlocking in approx 8 hours :(

I'm downloading from GamersGate right now.

Well I'm downloading through Steam right now!

Out of Eight review: 8/8.

Crusader Kings II is Paradox’s best game (and certainly the most accessible), as it presents more than enough to keep you busy as you attempt to become the greatest family in Europe.
Prozac wrote:

Well I'm downloading through Steam right now! :P

Dude, I already played for an hour before I had to go to work.

Feeling a might poorly this afternoon, may need to go home for the rest of the day. *cough* *cough* It might be so bad *cough* that I need to stay home *cough* *cough* tomorrow too.

That review is no surprise at all. I don't know what Paradox did or what voodoo magic they used, but someone had to die to make this game as good as it is. I just don't see how the same studio that made Sengoku could have made Crusader Kings II.

ZaneRockfist wrote:

That review is no surprise at all. I don't know what Paradox did or what voodoo magic they used, but someone had to die to make this game as good as it is. I just don't see how the same studio that made Sengoku could have made Crusader Kings II.

I know we disagree on Sengoku, but I think Sengoku is an OK game that had two big problems:

1) It had a really really simple objective for everyone (take over Japan) that led to simplicity in other areas as well.
2) Not nearly enough events, not even close.

So all you could do was either fight or get ready to fight. That's pretty much the entire game. Not much else would happen because of the dearth of events.

Since CK2 has no defined objectives (aside from keeping your family alive!) and tons of events, it's a much deeper and better game.

I think Sengoku was an experiment in getting the Clausewitz engine updated to support the stuff needed for CK2. But they didn't take the time to make it as deep as it could/should have been. I enjoyed my time in it but it doesn't have legs. Maybe they will fix that with an expansion, as per Paradox SOP. Until then, we have CK2.

Man, I downloaded it around 6am this morning, and just finished work. To arms!

You people are NOT making it easy to avoid pulling the trigger.

HedgeWizard wrote:

You people are NOT making it easy to avoid pulling the trigger.

Why would you want to? Come on in, the water's fine!

tboon wrote:
HedgeWizard wrote:

You people are NOT making it easy to avoid pulling the trigger.

Why would you want to? Come on in, the water's fine! :)

I'm superexcited, but with the size of my pile, I can wait until the inevitable sale

Besides, I've only got about 70 hours in EU3 - there's easily another 400-500 I can put in!

Tanglebones wrote:

I'm superexcited, but with the size of my pile, I can wait until the inevitable sale :P

Yeah, I'm in the same boat. This looks amazingly fun and I've fiddled around with the demo for a bit, but I've got three or four in the pile that need playing, including a couple that could be complete time sinks.

One of the few times I wish I could leave my vacation early would be now.

I played for 2 hours before going to work and SERIOUSLY considered calling in sick.

So who are you all playing? I started as King of Aragon. The prestige of a kingdom all in 1 province? why it's like being a count that answers to no one!

I Married off my 2nd sister to the king of France and used that military muscle to gobble up the Muslim provinces I had de jure claims on. Unfortunately I ended up with a few rebellious muslim counts. One tried to rebel and was crushed. When he died the war was ended and his son took over. His son has no heir and I will take the title if he dies. As I already killed his father he's a little rebellious. I plan on making him my court jester to try and provoke him into suicide so I can give the land to a loyal christian son.

I hate you all and so does my wallet.

I'm going to start a HoI 3 game at the slowest speed to distract me from this......

Prozac wrote:

So who are you all playing? I started as King of Aragon. The prestige of a kingdom all in 1 province? why it's like being a count that answers to no one!

I only got 3 hours of sleep last night.

I started the game with William the Conqueror, though when you start as him he's William the Bastard - a Duke of Normandy with a claim to the throne of England. You have a big fat army, one that you need to take advantage of or you'll never see the likes of it again. So I sail to England and alternately beat on the King of England and the King of Norway (who's also roaming around with his own army). Eventually King Harold surrenders and I take his title before kicking the King of Norway out of England and beating on the King of France who's decided to be an opportunist in all the excitement. Now I'm William the Conqueror.

What happens next is a long line of revolts as I don't quite understand the vassaldom system and as Duke Harold (who I left alive) gets sassy. I believe at this point I was giving my loyal vassals Duchies and going, "Huh! I wonder why they hate me now. Maybe it will go away in time." As it turns out, the reason why they hated me was because I was making them Dukes but not giving them control of any of the land they were Dukes of and silly mistakes like that. So, William spends the the rest of his life getting that sorted and then, at the last minute, his four or so sons say, "Hey dad? We'd really prefer Gavelkind succession if you don't mind." I said sure because otherwise I'd have to fight my kids, and then promptly kicked off leaving my son Robert in charge. He'd later be called King Robert the Cruel.

So one thing this game is teaching me is the different kinds of succession law, and the ways that they suck. Gavelkind seems like a good idea - when I die the land will be split between all my sons. Except enjoy your thirty year civil war as all your sons duke it out over who will be King, which is what happened here. King Robert was mostly getting his ass kicked, but I apparently made some EXTREMELY good political marriages so all my brothers and sons-in-law showed up to beat the sh*t out of my brothers. One died in battle early on, another I got to surrender and then took his kids as hostage, and the last I fought to a stalemate and just plain outlived. King Robert's reign was really interesting. I spent all my time fighting as King William, but King Robert's kingdom settled down after the war with his brothers and he was insanely long-lived. He made it to 74 years old, and he spent it laying the groundwork for his son, Robert II, to take over without dealing with the same bullsh*t he had to. He changed the succession laws to Agnatic-Cognatic so that the eldest male inherited, or the eldest female if there were no living males, and then he raised an entire generation of nephews to not be traitorous bastards. He kicked the bucket leaving a wealthy and stable kingdom to King Robert II. And then I learned the problems of allowing women to inherit land.

So I love the multigenerational aspects of the game. I love early on making one of my asskicking generals into a Duke and years later my son is having political squabbles with his son, or I'm marrying my nephew to one of his daughters. You're setting up future generations of allies and villains with who you're putting in charge now. Now, when I set up Agnatic-Cognatic succession I did it mainly to avoid the problems I had with Gavelkind. Now my kingdom is full of dukes and duchesses! Cool!

Then they start marrying each other.

Then their kids get ambitious and rise up in revolt and have half the kingdom behind them because they've inherited two duchies.

Allowing male and female succession is great if you have no male heirs or if you want to be a BLEEDING HEART LIBERAL, but what happens is your vassals start marrying each other and then your territories start pooling and then oh god you've created your own supervillain by letting women own land. I hate that suddenly I understand patrilineal succession. Thank god for democracy.

So when I stopped playing this morning in order to actually show up for work, Robert II was dealing with the his succession, which mainly will involve fighting a war against this badass Irish duchess whose parents both had duchies. Militarily, it's well in hand, but she has so much territory that it's going to take forever to siege all the various castles and get her to give up.

Oh, and Robert II may very well be the last of the line. He's chaste and pious and as a result refuses to make babies. Damn it Robert.

I like to start CK games in backwaters, but this time I may have picked one too watery and way, way back.

Connacht in Western Ireland is ruled by Aed Ua Conchobair who's 51 at game start and has a 46 year old wife. They have one son who, despite never having married has two sons of his own. The grandchildren are morons who hate PopPop Aed, which is fine because it means that their opinion won't drop too much when I have them killed.

Sadly the surroundings are the worst possible situation - everyone is across a river, which means a penalty to attacking and they all also have sneakily built hills and forests, meaning a bonus to defence. -ATT,+DEF sounds like a recipe for disaster unless you have a spectacular Marshall, which I don't, so I've mostly stayed home building trade villages on my castles and markets on my church to improve tax revenue.

Aed had no useful ambitions to start the game - he could choose from becoming about as pious as eight or nine popes combined, killing his wife, or having a daughter. I picked the daughter one despite the royal couple's combined age of 97 and the fact that he's chaste and she's sick, leading to a fertility rating akin to a pair of rocks. Surprisingly, they didn't manage to get pregnant in the first 10 years of the game and chances of conception then took an even more serious dip when Aed died.

About five years before he shuffled off the mortal coil, the game modeled some sort of mid-life, (almost end of life?), crisis as, out of the blue, Aed took up boar hunting and his wife started bugging him for a falcon. A conversation I look forward to having with Lady Bismarck one day.

Going hunting seemed to annoy everyone as Aed was beset with random people turning up every five minutes begging him to stop in case he hurt himself. He turned them all down at -15 to relations every time he did so. I hope there's an afterlife for Aed to feel smug in, because ultimately: Number of times killed on hunt : 0. Number of times died in sleep : 1.

Aed's son Ruaidri took what passes for a crown and celebrated with his wife, who promptly died. So he switched from being married to an uptight Princess from Navarre to being married to some wannabe-royal from Denmark whose traits suggest she could trip you up and be under you before you hit the ground. Her ambition was to marry into royalty, so I hope she enjoys all the spoils of position she is conferred in a rainy dunghole in the middle of nowhere.

The only consistent excitement in Connacht has been the Priests... (do your own jokes). I'm on my fourth after the previous three all converted to the heretic Cathar religion and tried to sell me on it. This has given me some use of my jails, at least, as the last thing I need is Pope Bastard giving the locals a casus belli to come and steal my stuff. I've run out of useful candidates for the church positions as a result of this, to the degree that the current preacher is somewhat less effective than if I'd given the position to a pig with a bucket on its head.

So I'm turning Connacht into a bastion of research and development instead. Partly through hard work and council research bonuses, (apart from the preacher, Father Stupid, obviously), and partly by using my rather good Spy master to go around the surrounding areas and look over people's shoulders. A couple of the things I've stolen have improved troop levels, but ideally I'd like to raise tax levels a bit more so I can bring in some mercenaries to go soften up some of my neighbours. Specifically Breifne to the direct east, as I have a soup du jour claim on their lands, which means I can attack them at any time without having to have a good reason, or fabricating a terrible one.

Favourite thing about the game so far is the new Duke's old dead wife's dad - I would make him King just for that beard alone. Wow.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/Nuhyw.jpg)

Yes, even though he's dead.

I'll probably restart somewhere that isn't quite so utterly pointless, but even tooling around here has been fun. This is really a good release state for a game. For Paradox it's a miracle.