The First Crusade
I blame _andre_'s recent post about Crusader Kings II for getting me interested in the game and ultimately engrossed. I read the wiki page he links to, "How to Lose in CKII," and thought, "Huh, this sounds like a really clever game of medieval diplomacy and warfare. Sounds up my alley!"
And it is.
Now, I should qualify that by saying that this game has a steep learning curve. It's not Dwarf Fortress-steep, but it is significantly more complex than, say, picking up Civ V or Starbase Orion, or one of the other popular modern 4X games. And it's not really a 4X game, so I guess that's appropriate. There's building cities (to some small extent) and warfare (to a larger extent), but a bigger amount of your time will be spent brokering alliances (through marriage, education, intrigue, etc), keeping your vassals happy, preventing succession crises, putting your councillors to useful tasks, and, sometimes, assassinating rivals and pretenders.
Which is awesome.
But let me step back, and give a basic description. You play not as any one titular crusader king, but as a dynasty, in the years between 1066 and 1453. You can pick any Christian ruler to start (or any other religion, in the DLC, I guess?), and then play through the ages as him and his heirs, trying to... well, this is very much a "set your own goals" type of game, so whatever you want, really. In general you want to try to gain more prestige, and avoid a situation where your dynasty dies out for lack of heirs.
Also awesome is the delightful chance for askew history. Make part of the Kingdom of Sicily appear in the middle of France! Embrace the Cathar heresy in Wales!
I will also say I spent a lot of time, when I first started the game, staring at it in confusion, trying to figure out what was going on. Judging by other people I talked to, this is not an uncommon experience. I ended up following the advice of this beginner's guide, which I would recommend to anyone who wants to start playing but is boggled by the complex mechanics. Basically they recommend starting as a count or a duke, vassalized or not, in a place where you won't be instantly crushed (basically not Spain or Eastern Europe--it recommends Dublin in particular). From there, you can expand at your own rate as you learn the game, not having to worry about appeasing too many vassals or ending up in pointless wars.
That said, I seem to have gotten the hang of it. More or less. I've played around with a couple of games so far:
- My first game was as the Earl of Breifne, in Ireland, but I didn't get very far with it--that was mostly just to learn the concepts.
- Next I tried the Earl of Dublin, and did pretty well with it for a time, getting neighboring Leinster from my father and, I think another neighboring province? But then I tried to attack Munster and got crushed, and got kind of discouraged.
- Next I tried starting as the Count of Angouleme in France. This has been my most successful game, with some tactical rewinds ;) In the first trip through history, I became Duke of Bourbon, only to die, leaving the title to my eldest son, Albert, who was also the King of Sicily through his wife's family. (Hence Kingdom of Sicily in the middle of France. Ironically, Sicily-in-Italy also didn't actually comprise the island of Sicily by this point, either). Since we were under gavelkind inheritance (damn crown authority wouldn't let me change the law!), his four brothers inherited the counties that comprised Bourbon, and immediately set to revolting. At the same time, Albert's uncle Roger the so-called "Wise" in Italy decided he wanted to be King of Sicily. Fighting a war on two fronts with really only one country in my demesne I could raise levies from (everything else was subinfeudated to my brothers)? Not so great, akshully.
So I rewound history to back before Daddy Manasses grabbed the duchy of Bourbon, and tried it again. This time, conveniently, only one of his five sons outlived him (*cough*, okay, maybe with some help from an assassin), so even without primogeniture succession, Albert inherited everything. Which, sadly, did not include the Duchy of Bourbon this time, as I didn't have the money to usurp it before the King of France was a dick and stole it away.
His son, Nicolas, however, has managed to grab Bourbon and Aquitaine. Then he set to rebelling against King Dickwad of France. Twice. Unsuccessfully. Now he's imprisoned and it's late in the 12th century. Le sigh.
- I have one other game, on my Mac laptop--while, happily, this game will run on Mac (and even Linux), it doesn't sync with Steam Cloud, so my saves are all local. In this game, I started as King of Gwynedd in Wales, managed to unite the kingdom before my death, and then failed to realize that when I did so inheritance reverted to gavelkind. And I have six sons. Cue succession crisis, similar to what happened in France. I... kind of haven't been back to this one since.
In conclusion: if you like 4X games or sim-ish type games you might like this, but be prepared to spend some time learning it.
But really in conclusion: Crusader Kings II--teaching pimply nerds words like "subinfeudation" and "gavelkind" since 2012.
And it is.
Now, I should qualify that by saying that this game has a steep learning curve. It's not Dwarf Fortress-steep, but it is significantly more complex than, say, picking up Civ V or Starbase Orion, or one of the other popular modern 4X games. And it's not really a 4X game, so I guess that's appropriate. There's building cities (to some small extent) and warfare (to a larger extent), but a bigger amount of your time will be spent brokering alliances (through marriage, education, intrigue, etc), keeping your vassals happy, preventing succession crises, putting your councillors to useful tasks, and, sometimes, assassinating rivals and pretenders.
Which is awesome.
But let me step back, and give a basic description. You play not as any one titular crusader king, but as a dynasty, in the years between 1066 and 1453. You can pick any Christian ruler to start (or any other religion, in the DLC, I guess?), and then play through the ages as him and his heirs, trying to... well, this is very much a "set your own goals" type of game, so whatever you want, really. In general you want to try to gain more prestige, and avoid a situation where your dynasty dies out for lack of heirs.
Also awesome is the delightful chance for askew history. Make part of the Kingdom of Sicily appear in the middle of France! Embrace the Cathar heresy in Wales!
I will also say I spent a lot of time, when I first started the game, staring at it in confusion, trying to figure out what was going on. Judging by other people I talked to, this is not an uncommon experience. I ended up following the advice of this beginner's guide, which I would recommend to anyone who wants to start playing but is boggled by the complex mechanics. Basically they recommend starting as a count or a duke, vassalized or not, in a place where you won't be instantly crushed (basically not Spain or Eastern Europe--it recommends Dublin in particular). From there, you can expand at your own rate as you learn the game, not having to worry about appeasing too many vassals or ending up in pointless wars.
That said, I seem to have gotten the hang of it. More or less. I've played around with a couple of games so far:
- My first game was as the Earl of Breifne, in Ireland, but I didn't get very far with it--that was mostly just to learn the concepts.
- Next I tried the Earl of Dublin, and did pretty well with it for a time, getting neighboring Leinster from my father and, I think another neighboring province? But then I tried to attack Munster and got crushed, and got kind of discouraged.
- Next I tried starting as the Count of Angouleme in France. This has been my most successful game, with some tactical rewinds ;) In the first trip through history, I became Duke of Bourbon, only to die, leaving the title to my eldest son, Albert, who was also the King of Sicily through his wife's family. (Hence Kingdom of Sicily in the middle of France. Ironically, Sicily-in-Italy also didn't actually comprise the island of Sicily by this point, either). Since we were under gavelkind inheritance (damn crown authority wouldn't let me change the law!), his four brothers inherited the counties that comprised Bourbon, and immediately set to revolting. At the same time, Albert's uncle Roger the so-called "Wise" in Italy decided he wanted to be King of Sicily. Fighting a war on two fronts with really only one country in my demesne I could raise levies from (everything else was subinfeudated to my brothers)? Not so great, akshully.
So I rewound history to back before Daddy Manasses grabbed the duchy of Bourbon, and tried it again. This time, conveniently, only one of his five sons outlived him (*cough*, okay, maybe with some help from an assassin), so even without primogeniture succession, Albert inherited everything. Which, sadly, did not include the Duchy of Bourbon this time, as I didn't have the money to usurp it before the King of France was a dick and stole it away.
His son, Nicolas, however, has managed to grab Bourbon and Aquitaine. Then he set to rebelling against King Dickwad of France. Twice. Unsuccessfully. Now he's imprisoned and it's late in the 12th century. Le sigh.
- I have one other game, on my Mac laptop--while, happily, this game will run on Mac (and even Linux), it doesn't sync with Steam Cloud, so my saves are all local. In this game, I started as King of Gwynedd in Wales, managed to unite the kingdom before my death, and then failed to realize that when I did so inheritance reverted to gavelkind. And I have six sons. Cue succession crisis, similar to what happened in France. I... kind of haven't been back to this one since.
In conclusion: if you like 4X games or sim-ish type games you might like this, but be prepared to spend some time learning it.
But really in conclusion: Crusader Kings II--teaching pimply nerds words like "subinfeudation" and "gavelkind" since 2012.