Crusader Kings 2 comes out next month.

Dinner · January 11, 2012, 19:57

I won't be buying it on release since Paradox tends to release games half cooked but I have to say I always liked the original and it looks like they've made a bunch of improvements to make the whole marriage & dynasty part of the game easier to manage. Is anyone looking forward to the release of this game? There are a few previews already up on youtube including one where a guy plays Leon from start to finish.

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/...I-Let-s-Play!&

Al B. Sure! · January 12, 2012, 03:38

You liked the low-budget crappy original with the shitty interface?

You, the person who finds Total War battles stupid and boring?

Oerdin is always wrong about games.

CK2 looks like it has a much, much improved interface. I find the Paradox games outside of EU to be difficult to get into, though. I have CK1 (no Deus Vult) and EU: Rome but can't get into either because I just don't like the crapload of characters and the constant pestering of events.

Main_Brain · January 12, 2012, 04:23

Won't be buying it either, having to share the spoils of conquest and the Character Juggling, which I already loathed in Rome, puts me off. Eco0nomy and Warfare are again oversimplified I presume?

I rather wait for Magna Mundi, which should come arround soon too.

Al B. Sure! · January 12, 2012, 15:24

I'll say this from looking at the gameplay videos... there's a well-interfaced searchable character database (where you can search by gender, ethnicity, religion, marital status, etc. as well as the usual sorting by attributes) and useful characterizations relative to your dynasty head are given in red next to the character's name (half-brother, cousin, sister-in-law, etc.).

Still looks like a lot of annoying character juggling. To be honest, even the character juggling in Total War games gets too much for me (Shogun 2 is borderline but the entire game takes place in a single lifespan so there's not too many characters over the game's course). EU: Rome and CK1 was even more ridiculous.

And why are you waiting for Magna Mundi when MEIOU is out and been out for Divine Wind? MEIOU is better.

Al B. Sure! · February 4, 2012, 16:39

The demo for CK2 is out.

Dinner · February 12, 2012, 21:45

There seems to be a good sized learning curve on this game. I tried a quick game as the female Italian ruler (one of four people you can play in the demo) and the hints section said the first thing I should do is have my ruler get married. OK, I used the diplomacy section to search for a suitable husband, found literally dozens though the search function allowed me to narrow it down to only the best candidates, yet when I tried to offer marriage my selected candidate wasn't on the list of possibilities. It seems you can only marry people at your own court instead of people from other kingdoms, which seems stupid. Surely there must be a way to do this but so far I haven't figured it out.

To be fair I only got about 1/10th of the way through the tutorial before I got bored so I'll probably just go back and finish the whole tutorial as I'm no doubt missing something.

Dinner · February 12, 2012, 23:24

20 years is such a pathetic amount of time, especially when they limit you to just four characters to begin with, as to make the demo meaningless. I didn't manage a single technology advance, only made a few improvements, and didn't get a grasp for diplomacy or war making. All in all it's the worst demo I've seen. I mean I thought the purpose of a demo was to get a feel for the game.

mrboo123 · February 13, 2012, 08:58

Originally Posted by Dinner

It seems you can only marry people at your own court instead of people from other kingdoms, which seems stupid. Surely there must be a way to do this but so far I haven't figured it out.

You can. It probably was just a function of the tutorial. I haven't played the demo but in CK1 you could and I've seen Let's Plays where people did manage to marry people from other kingdoms.

Honestly, the tutorials in Paradox games have always been kinda crappy. I've only used them to get a feeling for the layout then I go play the actual game.

If you pick a small out of the way county/duke and just goof around you'll probably have more fun that way.

Al B. Sure! · February 13, 2012, 15:17

When you try to marry, change the liege lord from yourself to someone else. Or use the diplomacy screen directly. This stuff isn't hard to figure out.

The lack of a demesne view (the diplomacy view is the closest approximation) sucks.

Dinner · February 13, 2012, 17:18

Release date is tomorrow and people over at the PI forums are chomping at the bit. I can't wait to hear the howls about the game being half baked and buggy.

Al B. Sure! · February 13, 2012, 17:30

Yeah I don't like it. Not because it's buggy (the demo doesn't seem buggy) but because I don't like the concept. Managing a family is boring to me relative to managing a nation.

Though to be honest, even EU3 is boring unless I make up a story in my head and have specific goals.

Dinner · February 13, 2012, 17:31

There seems to be some balance bugs still to work out based on the AARs I'm seeing. A poster named Alerias started as the Holy Roman Emperor and with in one character life time conquered France, the low countries, all of Spain, Poland, Hungary, and all of North Africa. In another game he started as a minor duke in Apulia and pretty much conquered all of the med in one character life time. The only part he hadn't conquered was Byzantium but he'd arranged a pretty devious bit of marriage & murder so that his grand son is heir to both empires. Unless they make the game harder/more balanced they're going to have everyone doing world conquests in one or two character life times.

Al B. Sure! · February 13, 2012, 17:41

I don't see it. As the Polish king, I got overwhelmed by the pagan Baltic (they had 3x the troops I had) and I had no claims on any of my Christian neighbors.

Dinner · February 13, 2012, 19:06

It looks like there are already zero time torrentz for this game even though it hasn't officially been released yet.

Dinner · February 13, 2012, 19:36

Originally Posted by Al B. Sure!

I don't see it. As the Polish king, I got overwhelmed by the pagan Baltic (they had 3x the troops I had) and I had no claims on any of my Christian neighbors.

I had a similar problem playing as Poland. Bohemia declared war on me and my army (after calling all of my levees) was just a little over 2000 men while they came at me with 5500. There was no way to win.

Dinner · February 13, 2012, 21:55

I can't ever seem to declare war on anyone else no matter how much time I spend trying to fabricate claims yet everyone always is able to declare war on me.

OzzyKP · April 21, 2012, 02:38

Anyone know how to edit the map? Assign provinces to different nations by editing a file somewhere? Where is that information stored?

Dinner · April 23, 2012, 03:05

I don't but Paradox's forums has a mod sub forum for this game. I know over at Westeros.org they're trying to make a Game of Thrones mod using the map of Westeros.

OzzyKP · April 23, 2012, 19:42

Perfect idea!

And I figured it out, sorta.

OzzyKP · April 23, 2012, 19:44

Pretty much the only thing I like about this game - and other Paradox games - is the map. Actually playing these games is pretty horrible.

Calanthian · April 28, 2012, 01:34

...

Calanthian · April 28, 2012, 01:35

I do like it very much. And lots of civ players seem to think that too.
It turned out very good, and it is pretty much bugfree (unlike other paradox titles at release).

Check here for a lot of CK II AAR's..

http://www.weplayciv.com/forums/foru...14-Other-Games

Ben Kenobi · May 3, 2012, 02:19

Albert - do yourself a favor and play CK1 with Deus Vult.

Jon Miller · May 4, 2012, 07:21

Is the OS X port of that worth it? (can it be played on a modern Mac Air?)

JM

Main_Brain · June 2, 2012, 13:17

Heads up: That was fast. Crusader Kings 2 + Sots I Complete (

) + Victoria II (w/o Addon) +Magicka+ DLC = 13 Buckeroonies

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0085CD7BE/

Main_Brain · June 2, 2012, 13:18

Also Sots II, wonder wheter that is playable by now.

Jon Miller · June 2, 2012, 15:11

I think that gives me the mac version.

I might do it.... even if I can't play CK2 yet...

JM

Jon Miller · June 2, 2012, 15:35

I got it, I don't really have a windows system right now, but I might install it at work...

JM

onodera · June 19, 2012, 14:52

Got in on a Steam sale, liking it so far, but the interface is terrible and the tutorial was almost nonexistent. Inviting people to my court turned out to be mega-impprtant, but there's no way to filter the character screen to find only landless people with claims or simply people who can move to my court, let alone will. I have to sort the list by opinion, remove rulers and go through the list one by one, looking for courtiers with good stats and trying to invite them.
I'm also missing a "promise" feature. There's an uber-diplomatic (26) courtier that wants to become a chancellor. I need a chancellor, he likes me, but he doesn't hate his master enough to move. I want to be able to promise him that.
Also, as a king of Poland, I wanted to off my duke of Greater Poland, who was a **** marshal. His own marshal was a superwarrior and was crucial for tue plot. I could've promised to make him a marshal of mine or even a landed noble, but there's no such option.
I am still learning my ropes as Boleslav-2, but my goal is starting out as one of the Russian princes, establishing the kingdom of Rus and whooping some Mongol ass.

onodera · July 8, 2012, 15:30

Forklifts or whatever that spambot was peddling notwithstanding, CKII is awesome.
I'm playing as the dynasty of Vsevolod of Rostov, and his son Vladimir just won't die. I've created the Russian Empire (not the best change in 1.06, but I won't refuse a free title), took over the western Cumania, lost the scramble for Finland and Karelia to the Scandinavian kingdoms, but then I realized the Byzantine Emperor was a heretic! I've waged three holy wars against him, breaking two truces (Vladimir is close to 70, having outlived his son and grandson), and now Constantinople is mine! His grandson should finish the takeover of the ERE, should he survive the succession crisis.