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[pacovf]

Anyone know this? It's been featured in a recent Humble Bundle deal, and it's reaaaally addictive. Like, the unholy union from Civ and the Sims. Very time consuming though, I'm 50 hours in, and still only halfway through a playthrough (though I think you are not really expected to finish them, but since it's the first one, let's see how much of Europe I can cover under the banner of the proud Ua Briain).

Basically, you start the game somewhere in between 1066 and 1453 (historic start) and take the control of a ruler, small or big, in Europe/North Africa/Middle East. The thing is, once the guy/gal dies, you get to play as his/her successor, and so on. So there's a lot of mustering levies and marching against your neighbours, but that's only 1/3 of the game.
The meat and bones of the game is to get a wife and lotsa kids so that you can keep playing after you die. You then marry those kids to either useful spouses (good generals/stewards/plotters/geniuses/etc), or to members of powerful families either for alliance purposes or inheritance. In the latter case, other dynasties are unlikely to marry their heir to yours... so you will have to marry them to the fifth on line and proceed to murder everybody standing on the way, hopefully without getting discovered.
And then as you get larger and rule a kingdom, you'll have to deal with the dukes and counts under you. Maybe they like you because you are a brave crusader, maybe they don't because you've got a stutter and they've got a strong claim on your crown (because it's your uncle... or because you've murdered the former ruler, her wife and her twin babies to send the country into chaos so that you could come with your armies and "set things straight" and the Pope excommunicated you sometime in there). So they stop giving you money or levies, plot to get you killed, or they get together to become independent from you, or they ask help to the neighbouring Holy Roman Emperor to replace you with his unlanded inbred third son.

And of course in the end the Mongol hordes come in and you get wiped out in one month.

Fun times! So, anyone knows it?

[eHalcyon]

Sounds a lot like Europa Universalis, which I believe somebody posted about before in the Random Stuff thread.  It looks like both were made by the same people.

[pacovf]

Yeah, it's made by the same people (Paradox), but for some reason I couldn't get into Europa Universalis, while I got hooked to this. I guess the emphasis on people rather than countries?

[AHoppy]

I got this and the second one in a recent humble bundle, but I can't play the second one because my computer can't support it I tried the first one a bit and got horribly confused

[WalrusMcFishSr]

Yesssssssssss! I played a bunch of this game a while back, sometime before discovering DCSS. I agree, super fun, super addictive, super murder all of your genetically inferior children. I got Voltaire to play too, although he mostly stuck to the Game of Thrones mod I think? (Which is also excellent)

I played a bunch of Europa Universalis IV as well, which was also fun, but I agree that I believe CK is the better made game. Europa IV (especially compared to its predecessors) felt annoyingly "game-y", with those monarch points and everything. The great rulers of history did not pay for wars and colonies with abstract intangible monarch points! CK reminds you brutally that history is nothing but the sum total of many individuals.

I haven't played in a while, but wasn't there an India-themed expansion that was supposed to come out? With an expanded map and new religions and everything. I might get back into it.

[pacovf]

I got this and the second one in a recent humble bundle, but I can't play the second one because my computer can't support it I tried the first one a bit and got horribly confused

Dunno about the first one, but a common tip is to start as a small duke in Ireland, because you get introduced to new concepts a bit more slowly (being small and close to other small counties that share your religion), and you are relatively safe from exterior threats for the longest of times. Although if there is no tutorial at all, there's no way you can jump into the game, the interface is just too complex.

Yesssssssssss! I played a bunch of this game a while back, sometime before discovering DCSS. I agree, super fun, super addictive, super murder all of your genetically inferior children. I got Voltaire to play too, although he mostly stuck to the Game of Thrones mod I think? (Which is also excellent)

I played a bunch of Europa Universalis IV as well, which was also fun, but I agree that I believe CK is the better made game. Europa IV (especially compared to its predecessors) felt annoyingly "game-y", with those monarch points and everything. The great rulers of history did not pay for wars and colonies with abstract intangible monarch points! CK reminds you brutally that history is nothing but the sum total of many individuals.

I haven't played in a while, but wasn't there an India-themed expansion that was supposed to come out? With an expanded map and new religions and everything. I might get back into it.

I'm only playing vanilla, though I might buy expansions when they get on sale / in a convenient bundle. The territory from Rajas of India is also included in vanilla, although of course you can't play as one.

The "one more turn" factor is driving me deep into the night though. When your character and his only child die in quick succession, or the Muslim world declares a jihad on you just as you were about to wrap up another war and go to sleep...

My only complaint right now would be that the AI doesn't seem to understand crusades, at least at normal difficulty. I've easily won all the crusades I've participated in, which means my king in Dublin holds all of Jerusalem and Andalusia. The logistics of war are a pain in the neck though

[pacovf]

My save game got corrupted somehow in year 1262. I can play, but the game crashes as soon as the game tries to save. Which is a shame, I was on my way to "world" domination! I had a weak claim on the crumbling Kingdom of Aquitaine on the line, and while the HRE and Byzantium could both muster more troops than I could on a good day (70,000 and 60,000 to my 50,000 and the HRE had infinite money), it wasn't among my plans to attack them "on a good day". A sad moment for me, I had 70 hours into this game.


Screenshot (I am the Empire of Alba; note Jerusalem and bits of Lithuania).


EDIT: Short description of the game: I started as the Duke of Munster (two counties in Southern Ireland, recommended for your first game), slowly conquered all the independent counts and dukes of Ireland and became king.
I managed to marry the heiress to the Kingdom of Scotland, but the damn scots usurped the throne from whoever. I had to fight them three times to get control over the throne (two of my -young- claimants died as I was finishing their respective wars, talk about bad luck).
I invaded Wales county by county with fabricated claims. That was boring.
I managed to marry a distant relative to a female claimant of the English throne. When they got babies, I put that guy on the throne, and spent two decades or so killing rebels for him. Then I married his heir to my heir and got tons of inbred babies, which were quite costly to get rid off so that the non-inbred actually became my heir.
Brittany I got because there was nothing going on for a while.
I got Jerusalem from the second crusade. Defending it was difficult, but luckily the Templars were up to the task; but getting all my armies there everytime some Muslim got funny ideas was kinda annoying. I got bits of Andalus in the Third Crusade, and stole other bits from the Castilians; that was difficult, because every-frickin-body in the Peninsula are relatives, so I basically had to declare war on all of them at the same time. I got Lithuania from the fourth crusade completely by accident, I was there only to get the crusader trait on my emperor and his vassals, and then poof, I am the king of Lithuania. At least the region is stable.

[Twistedarcher]

I just downloaded this game on steam today -- excited to play it!

Edit: Less excited now. The game had issues launching from steam that I needed to spend awhile fixing, and now I've already run into two bugs in the opening scenario...going to try again in a few days, but I'm very turned off on the game already.

[pacovf]

By opening scenario, do you mean the tutorials? They have been broken for a while now, it's all sorts of annoying.

I recommend googling a beginner's playthrough (like this one) and start playing the game, sort of following the tips at first. It will ease you into the game at a reasonable pace, and you shouldn't run into the tutorial bugs.

If you don't mind reading, here you can find a quick explanation of all the basic concepts of the game, it should cover everything the tutorial does. Learn to love the wiki, you are going to need it if you want to understand the nuts and bolts of the game.

Give it another try, it's a really fun game.