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Nikolai
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Bergen, Norway
Oct 2000
time: 06:30
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Oh, letting me go into details, that can be interesting...
Well, firstly, I guess you already have played EU2 a bit, and know that you there can play any country in the world 1419-1819 and control technology, trade, military, religion etc. Well, to a certain degree, Ck is about the same thing. But where you in EU2 play a country, you play a dynasty in CK. The game goes from 1066-1453, and you can play as either a count, a duke or a king. In other words, this game is about feudalism. Through marriage, diplomacy and warfare your goal is to bring your dynasty, your blood line, to the greatness it deserves.
You can start as the count of nowhere and by marrying your king and/or his son(s) and daughter(s) to other rulers, you can 1)bring your dynasty on(if you fail to have a male of your dynasty's name ready to take over when your ruler dies, it's game over) and 2)inherit land that expands your influence/power. You can f.ex. start as the count of Foix, and through marriage to the duke of [some duchy of southern France]'s daughter, and a few assasinations of the same duke's sons, the eventual son of your ruler and this daugher will be your heir and the heir of the duchy. And voila! You're the ruler of the southern half of France!
The game is titulated Crusader Kings, and you can of course crusade against the muslims and the pagans of North Africa, Europe and the Middle East. That's right, this game does not give you the entire world, but you won't care too much for that in the middle of a game of CK I promise. The game is not as historical determinsitic as EU2, everything is pretty historical at the start of the campaign, but as soon as you start playing, things will go different because of your actions, the AI's actions and so on. There are very few historical events, only the big ones like the Black Death.
Well, that was some points, but the game is much more than this, and there are several other differencies, but now I'm a bit tired. I am here to answer if there are other questions, other than that, I'll like to point you to a post made over at Paradox's forums, that tells how this game can entertain and involve you:
quote:
I'm playing as the Pest Borkalans. It's about 1250, and the Il-Khanate and Golden Horde have both appeared and are establishing footholds in Persia and Russia.
I am king of Hungary and Croatia, hold half of Lithuania, all of modern day Ukraine (having extinguished the Cumans), and straddle south-eastern Europe. So if it comes to war I can mobilize, but for now I'm content to take a passive role.
When the Golden Horde first showed up, the Khan asked for a marriage to one of my courtiers, a Hungarian pagan whose father was Prussian... Or Alan, one of them. Either way, I signed off on it. But after a few years of watching one Russian kingdom fall after another, I started to reconsider. This doubt grew more certain as I looked at the Khan's sheet--four children in four years. I had provided him with quite a wife. And she was his spy master, to boot.
I had her killed, which provided further assassins greater access to the Khan himself. Of course, he proved formidable, and after spending thousands of crowns I decided to change tack. The Khan had three infant sons, the first and the third of whom showed promise in their attributes. After several attempts on my elder son (then just a boy) and infant daughter, I sent a further assassin to kill his final, and by comparison more feeble, son. After this he killed my younger son.
At this point I could have declared total war against the Mongols, but I didn't. I don't know if it was the current king I was playing (a much nicer sort than most in the dynasty so far, particularly the schizophrenic a century back), or the feeling that maybe it was fair (or more than fair) for me to lose a son when I took all three of his, not to mention his wife. Either way, I wasn't playing according to strict strategy. I found myself sympathizing with not only a character in a strategy computer game, but a character who could, in time, very well wreck the kingdom I'd built in a little under two-hundred years.
I've learned to expect surprises in Crusader Kings. I figured that I might as well buy it, since I owned so many Paradox games and found myself in need of some new strategy. And that was after I found out that you could only play as a Christian state, so I expected an underwhelming game. Technically impressive, perhaps, but not as engrossing as it could have been. And I bought it and played it and it stays on my laptop so I can play it when I've got some extra time. Because it's a good strategy game? Sure. But also because I actually care about what's going to happen next.
This isn't an RPG, or an adventure game with a great story. This isn't the Sims. But somehow this game, at least for me, offers the same kind of interaction and involvement. And as a strategy game, it destroys Medieval: Total War, despite that game's tactical play and faction options. But what's more--I'm not looking forward to exporting my game to EU2 like I was. That game has been on a pedestal for some time but now it shares its place, if it does not yield it. How will I get used to playing the state and not the dynasty? For a global game, EU2 is going to feel pretty small.
I still look forward to patches. CK is not a perfect game and it never will be. I think future versions (and I demand future versions) should feature Muslim, if not pagan, play, and an ideal game would allow the player to control republics and religious orders. Diplomacy needs more detail (but then, it always does). I really would like to see the whole of Machiavellian politics presented in a game. So I don't think Crusader Kings is the ultimate, but it's a big step in the right direction.
So the Khan is in his fifties, widowed, and left with an infant daughter. I don't have the heart to take any more from him. Maybe that will change (he's still trying to take my courtiers, but it'll take a lot to arouse my anger; I've granted my remaining son a duchy, which should keep him safer). But for now I'm just amazed at this game. It's impersonal, an abstraction, a representation, as all games need to be, but for me, it provides just the right details for the player to connect to it on not simply a logical level, but a human one as well.
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07-09-2005 01:03
But you'll get a much better empire and lots of fun in the bargain if you decide to buy CK of course.
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