Crusader Kings II Spirit-all

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Crusader Kings II is the sequel to Paradox's slightly broken, but oh so endearing 2004 game Crusader Kings. Unlike most of their other games, the focus of Crusader Kings is on creating a dynasty (like we saw in Sengoku and EU: Rome) and not a country. That adds in some RPG elements that I find make the game more enjoyable as it makes for better stories. It's more of a people and war management game than it is an economic simulator.

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tboon's DLC buying guide: https://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/...

Pro tip from Gremlin:

Gremlin wrote:
Lobo wrote:

I wish CK2 had some way to tell at a glance each person's opinions of other noteworthy people. This is my first Paradox game, though I come from a strong Civ background, and in Civ you can just pull up the diplomacy screen and check the colors of the lines that link all the character portraits to gauge the strength of relationships. CK2 has far too many characters operating at once for an all-inclusive relationship matrix. But a limited matrix, one with filters to show the selected person's relations to his or her family/vassals/liege/allies/neighbors/former foes/members of the same court/etc, would really help.

Right click on a character portrait, and then right click again on the icon that pops up on the left. You'll see three more options, one of which lets you star a character as interesting, and one of which lets you see that character's relationship with every other character in the game, after the manner of your own relationship tab.

New to the game? Start here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis... or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJho...

Excellent (written) beginner's guide can be found here. Or this written guide is also excellent.

Not sure this is for you? Watch this:

And for fun, check this out:

NOTE: All or some of the posted vids are out of date. Your best bet for up to date help is to ask in the thread as patches and expansions vastly change how the game looks and plays.

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I'm not sure how old these images are as I pulled them directly from Paradox, but you get the idea. Click on the images to be taken to the full size pic.

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I absolutely cannot wait for this game to come out. I wish there were more 'RPG-centric' grand strategy games out there. I like having more personal involvement.

Really looking forward to this. Can't wait to sire some inbred hunchbacked imbeciles.

tboon wrote:

Really looking forward to this. Can't wait to sire some inbred hunchbacked imbeciles.

And then assassinate them.

I may hold off on getting this, partially due to potential bugginess, but mostly due to the fact that my son's due February 6. Give it amonth and I'll be asking how well you can play this one handed in the middle of the night.

tboon wrote:

Really looking forward to this. Can't wait to sire some inbred hunchbacked imbeciles.

With leprosy, and blackjack!

Neat. (Tagging.)

I love the idea of this game. Any ideas on whether this game will be (relatively) easy to get into for someone new to the genre? When I asked OutofEight on Twitter, he said the game is easier to get into than Paradox's other titles. Not sure what that'll mean for me specifically, but it's good to know.

CKII seems to be a game where you create your own stories, but on more personal level than something like EUIII. Does that sound right? i.e., Is it a game more about the King of Scotland than Scotland itself or am I sort of misunderstanding the premise?

Also, I'm curious how random and unpredictable situations are in a game like this. In other words, are you going to see the same situations over and over (e.g., your son is always going to plot against you)?

ebarstad wrote:

I love the idea of this game. Any ideas on whether this game will be (relatively) easy to get into for someone new to the genre? When I asked OutofEight on Twitter, he said the game is easier to get into than Paradox's other titles. Not sure what that'll mean for me specifically, but it's good to know.

CKII seems to be a game where you create your own stories, but on more personal level than something like EUIII. Does that sound right? i.e., Is it a game more about the King of Scotland than Scotland itself or am I sort of misunderstanding the premise?

Also, I'm curious how random and unpredictable situations are in a game like this. In other words, are you going to see the same situations over and over (e.g., your son is always going to plot against you)?

Based off playing CK1, then yes - it's definitely more about characters, dynasties and stories. You'll have a lot of family dynamics to manage, as well as unrelated court members - all of whom have their own suites of strengths and weaknesses.

Sounds like my kind of Paradox game, I will certainly pick this up at some point

ebarstad wrote:

I love the idea of this game. Any ideas on whether this game will be (relatively) easy to get into for someone new to the genre? When I asked OutofEight on Twitter, he said the game is easier to get into than Paradox's other titles. Not sure what that'll mean for me specifically, but it's good to know.

CKII seems to be a game where you create your own stories, but on more personal level than something like EUIII. Does that sound right? i.e., Is it a game more about the King of Scotland than Scotland itself or am I sort of misunderstanding the premise?

Also, I'm curious how random and unpredictable situations are in a game like this. In other words, are you going to see the same situations over and over (e.g., your son is always going to plot against you)?

Caveat: This is all based on my experience playing a lot of CK1. I have not had the privilege of playing any CK2.

So, in the game, the player is the head of a family of nobles. The player can be a king, a duke, or a count. As head of the family, you get to decide who your children marry, how they are educated, how you interact with your spouse and other family members, stuff like that. As lord of a piece of land, you decide how that is managed: how much to tax, who to encourage to move into your lands, what improvements to make. You can only control so much land directly, though, so you also get to decide who will take a fiefdom from you and be your vassal.

While you are doing all this, the other characters in the game, each of which have their own agendas based on their "stats" (some of which are generated when the character is born, based on the character's parents, others of which are developed over time and by experiences), are interacting with each other and you. So, for example, that vassal that you just gave some land to, he may be plotting to revolt. Or planning on giving you a gift. Your wife? Possibly sleeping around. Or is she just quiet and retiring? Your kids? Could they be planning to assassinate you to take over the lordship for themselves. Or not.

It is very dynamic, and, at least in CK1, felt very organic. The game starts from a fixed starting point (1066, can't remember the exact date) but then things happen probabilistically, so even if you play the same family, chances are that the same events will not repeat.

And reading this over, I really am not doing the game justice. It is *not* complex and it really just flows.

It's like Paradox has visited the inside of my head, and they're developing a game just for me. Really looking forward to this one.

Thanks for posting the screenshots and vids Garion.

Can't wait.

For those who have the original Crusader Kings and are Game of Thrones Fans, may I present to you The Westeros Mod. It'll tide you over.

Budo wrote:

Can't wait.

For those who have the original Crusader Kings and are Game of Thrones Fans, may I present to you The Westeros Mod. It'll tide you over.

I can't get CK1 to work on my computer, otherwise I'd be all over this. Yet another reason to want CK2

Yeah, sign me up. Expecting good things.

Came across the newest "Greed" live action video today and really enjoyed it. Had a good time playing the original, so this is definitely on my radar.

Man I came this close | | to pre-ordering last night, breaking my "no pre-orders" self-imposed directive. Man, Feb. 7 cannot come fast enough!

Have they said if this is going to be sold anywhere other than Gamers Gate? I'm about to have some Amazon credit to use.

Chaz wrote:

Have they said if this is going to be sold anywhere other than Gamers Gate? I'm about to have some Amazon credit to use.

Past experience has seen Paradox games on Amazon, Steam, etc..

I know, but the first Crusader Kings isn't on Steam, and CK2 isn't listed anywhere but GG yet.

Paradox consider CK1 to be a "Classic Game". It was only relatively recently that they started putting stuff up on Steam.

I can't recall how soon after release Sengoku showed up on Steam. I'm sure CKII will ... eventually. It might be at launch, it might not be.

I think Sengoku was on Steam at launch. PoN was as well.

Preorder bonuses:

Dynasty Shields

The Mongols

I hate this kind of DLC as it's just cosmetic, especially the shields. Modders will have a better collection of shields than the game.

Anyway, that's what you get with your preorder.

Release date pushed to February 14th (just a week). According to the post it's a marketing thing, not a dev thing.

Demo will be out before February 7th.

After having played Sengoku, I am concerned about whether or not this game will be good. Given the similarities between the two games, it does not bode well.

(This is all supposition taken from closely following CK2 - I have not played it, so take with a large grain of salt)
Sengoku is a much much simpler game. One of the biggest problems with Sengoku was that it did not have nearly enough events. This was probably dictated by the limited scope of the game - it assumes you will be either at war or preparing to be at war all the time. So, very limited diplomacy, family management, economics, and province management. So I'm not sure you can take the complexity of Sengoku and project it into CK2. By all accounts, CK2 will have many more events and be much more full-featured.
The thing I think you can project directly from Sengoku is the UI, which is head and shoulders above the original CK. And supposedly, they have taken feedback concerning the UI from Sengoku and rolled it into CK2.
Everything I've seen leads me to believe that this could be really good, out of the gate even (which is not the norm for Paradox titles :).

Damned, Dirty, Filthy, Tricksy, Nasty, Smelly Enablers!

All of you.

tboon wrote:

Everything I've seen leads me to believe that this could be really good, out of the gate even (which is not the norm for Paradox titles :).

I hope you are right, my friend. Sengoku is wonderfully presented, but it just lacks any depth. And some of the features, like relationships, are very poorly realized.

We will find out soon enough!

ZaneRockfist wrote:

I hope you are right, my friend.

Me too. I am looking forward to this way more than I was looking forward to Skyrim (which for me is saying a lot!). You'd think I'd learn not to get excited by unreleased games by now.

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