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Alright, now for the part that is often people's favorite. Abe's evaluation of the new game system he just played. As many of you know, Crusader Kings is my 4th favorite game of all time, and I rate its sequel very highly - it was a great game, and I'll come back to it more, no question.
The ideas of holdings is brilliant. Its more realistic, works as game mechanic, and changes these grand historial games. It took me a while to figure things out (for example, my first few wars I just took the first holding and left. Thats why some of the peaces took a long time to come from the enemy.). Once I did, I was set, and I now have them intuitively in me.
I also love the new traits - they really did a good job on making the aspects of Crusader Kings that appealed, such as marrying, children, and more even better. With all of these new traits, the whole system felt new and fresh.
I also liked some of the minor tweaks. You can make someone a bit happier by sending a gift, but you can't send a bunch of gifts to make them happy, and it onlyworks for a few years. That I enjoyed, because it makes sense and removed a cheese element to the game. I enjoy a low fromage content in my games.
It was harder to keep my realm together in some ways. I could only give one gift, and I felt things such a Ambitious or othe rtraits really played a role in my realm sticking together However, in the old game, a low diplo score hurt your ability to keep your vassals in line, and I didn;t feel like diplo did much in this game with my own realm
I enjoy plots at first, but I had few opprotunities to do any ambitions, and those that I had were boring. I also found myself unable to do plots that I really wantd, such as against certain Dukes. I wish I could tell it to choose a Plot to revoke a title or assassinate a person, and then tell it who i wanted. That's the sort of flexiblity that makes sense.
I felt like my Marshal wasnt that good, because he didn;t automatically go out and lead armies, and speeding up regen rates for you troops in one province by a bit was't a big enouh advantage. The Chancellor was great ,the Spymaster fine, the Bishop needed and the Steward obvious, but the Marshal seeemed a bit underhelming. I'd like more for him to do or for him to do it better.
I still see dumb AI decisions. Why does the Duke of Alexandria go rogue when A), it has about 1500 troops total to draw on because all of its provinces save one are still Moslim, and B). surrounded by Egypt, France or Me, all of which have expansionist eyes and have tens of thousands of troops on call at an moment? Why would any person who is competant and cpable ta that risk. I uld understand it o rinciple - We are Moslems, and die we may, but we are not going to die under the Catholic yoke! I got that, I feel that. But why else, I don;t know. Perhaps they were hoping for international assistance, but who would help them against us? The Byzantines are our allies, the HRE doesn;t care, Egypt and France would rather take them themselves.
I would also like teh ability to see what happened in other countries. I still don't know what happened to bring Sicily back into the French fold after winning independance in a war.
More diplomatic options are great. I like a lot of them I wish I could ask or tell my vassals to knock off their minor petty wars. I wish I could join one of those sides in a war. Once Navarra was attacked, and I wanted to join them and end it immediately, but I wasn't allowed. When my vassals are acting like idiots, I want to get involved
Anyway, my overall view is that it was good. Yay!
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