Crusader Kings II

[Solidice]

Re: Crusader Kings II

I just have the original CKII, any expansions worth getting? Anyone play the game of thrones mod? is it worth it? and is it easy to install?

Thanks

Game of Thrones mod is apparently the most popular mod of CKII, according to the dev team. Of the people that allowed the game to upload stats to Paradox, 9.8% of total CKII players used that mod at least one. 2nd place was CKII+ with 6.0% with The Prince and The Thane in 3rd with 2%. the rest of the mods on the list were less than 1%.

I never played Game of Thones, so I can't comment on it. I've used both CKII+ and The Prince and the Thane mod in the past. currently using no mods right now. I believe CKII+ has been updated to be compatible with the newest patch, not sure about the other ones yet.

Mod are pretty easy to install in CKII. just download them, put the files in the mod folder(there is a CKII folder in "my document"), then on the CKII launcher, make sure it is checked to be active.

for DLC. The Old Gods to me is the best one. Legacy of Rome gives you access to retinues(standing armies), which can be useful. for the weekend most of Paradox's games and DLCs are at least 50% on steam, although The Old Gods is not one of them. Gamestop.com does have The Old Gods at 50% off though. They'll give you a steam key if you buy it from them.

the one to avoid for sure IMO is Sunset invasion. unless you like the Aztecs to invade Europe.

[Kaiser Wilhelm]

Re: Crusader Kings II

I just have the original CKII, any expansions worth getting? Anyone play the game of thrones mod? is it worth it? and is it easy to install?

Thanks

The Old Gods and The Legacy of Rome are very good expansions. I do not recommend Sword of Islam because decadence is a terrible system. The Republic is really only if you want to play as a Republic. Paradox was doing a sale on Steam recently, so you might want to check if it is on sale. You missed a big sale on GamersGate; 75% off.

[Cyros]

Re: Crusader Kings II

So my two sons seem to not like each other.

Wife of the second son plotted to kill the first son. Wife of the first son plotted to kill the second one's kid. Finally when my ruler died the second son revolted and declared war.

Side note: I had the plot to commit suicide since I became depressed.

[trobinson97]

Re: Crusader Kings II

Do you guys visit the Paradox Interactive forums? I like to read AARs.

What is "AAR"?

[Skyboxer]

Re: Crusader Kings II

My latest test/learning playthrough- My ruler died during a battle roughly 5 minutes before Victory...

Lots more to learn but probably can't get deep into it until my next few days off which isn't until Wednesday night. I'll get more small amounts of time with it though until then.

[Perfect Zero]

Re: Crusader Kings II

What is "AAR"?

After Action Report. Once people play the game, they write up the story of their game. Some of them are crap, but some of them are really good reads. Think of them like the Dynasties on these boards.

[Cyros]

Re: Crusader Kings II

Can one of you tell me which menu I go into to form a kingdom?

Edit: NVM, I figured it out and created the Kingdom of Mali.

[TheBleedingRed21]

Re: Crusader Kings II

Is this game like civilization? I loved it but got bored quickly. This game seems interesting.

[Skyboxer]

Re: Crusader Kings II

Is this game like civilization? I loved it but got bored quickly. This game seems interesting.

Yeah sort of but a LOT more details and variety.
Basically in this game you "win" by surviving (Family not just your character you start with)
After the end of your families rule you are graded and end up with a final point value..

Others can probably give much more details but thats the simplified version lol

[Solidice]

Re: Crusader Kings II

Is this game like civilization? I loved it but got bored quickly. This game seems interesting.

from one angle you could say it's like Civ 5. But I don't think you can really compare them fairly as they have different goals. CK II is not turn based, it's all real time, but you can pause/unpause whenever you want and adjust speed. time goes by days/months/years. The combat is comparable I guess, as you don't have direct control over the units and the result are simulated.

I'll copy/paste a post I made in another thread about Crusader kings II.

Spoiler

Crusader Kings

The base game starts in the year 1066, around the time the Duke of Normandy invades England. The latest DLC allows you to start in the year 867 though. I'm not quite sure what year it ends, since I never got there, but I think somewhere in the mid 1400's. The game is also centered on Europe. the map is not the whole world, there is no Americas, only the top part of Africa is shown, and the east part of the map stops before India. As the name suggests as well, it's based on the christian crusades and religion does play a role in the game. I believe the base game only allows you to play a christian character. there are multiple DLCs that allow you to play as other religions. I think the only characters that are unplayable now is the Pope(or any Theocracies), and in-land republics(you can play a coastal republics).

The gameplay is centered around your Dynasty, or family. As long as someone in your family is alive and holds a county level title, you'll never get a game over screen. You control one person at a time, when that character dies, you play as the heir of that character.

You attack people by having a claim on a title on a piece of land. The claims are held by individual characters in the game. You can only control certain levels though, lowest level being Count, then Duke, then King, then Emperor. In a way, It's part RPG, as you'll get some roleplay-like events and the characters can have traits and attributes.

Alliances are made through marriages only. so your character marries the princess of France, France is your ally by way of that marriage. However, that doesn't guarantee that they will join your wars.

I have the first CK game, but I haven't played it that much. the 2nd one has been a lot of fun to play. Steam has a demo available to download/play, so you can play it. just a warning, these games can have a big learning curve and the tutorials are not exactly well made. So you may have to just try it out and end up learning things on your own(or search the internet). You could probably search youtube and find of human commentary explaining some parts of the game, which would be better than the tutorial.

These games also get updated a lot, and updates are sometimes big. so the current version 1.101 is actually a lot different than when the game was released(i think it was 1.01?). If you do become interested in getting the game, I would look around and wait for sales. the game often goes 75% off(or sometimes as much as 90% off) and you can get the entire collection of the base game + all DLCs for cheap. Normally all the DLCs and game would add up to around $125, but with the sales, I've seen it around $15.

CK II released in Feb. 2012. There are currently 5 "main" DLCs that add gameplay elements and most allow for certain types of character to be playable(republic DLC allows coastal republics, Swords of Islam allow Muslim characters, Old Gods allows Pagans). There are a bunch of minor ones that add immersion(music packs, unit graphic packs, character portrait packs)

if you want to see how it is in action, there is a demo available on steam. you could also watch some videos on youtube.

here is a playlist of videos where a guy is playing and explaining a few things. it's only a few weeks old, and using the latest DLCs, so it'll be how the game is currently(the game has changed a lot since it released).

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfm9XNvwBFG87N6fI1UhSuK7dYe5s5ICh

anther channel with videos that are recent, I haven't watch them fully, so not sure how well they are, and they look to be quite long(45 min -1hr long).

http://www.youtube.com/user/TurksStonehut/videos

[Kaiser Wilhelm]

Re: Crusader Kings II

It has a bit of a learning curve. After a few hours playing, you will feel like you have a good command. Still too many exploits in my opinion.

Matrilineal marriage is cheap as all heck, marrying for strong claims is stupid (should really be for weak claims when traced through a female), creating designer heirs is far too easy, and elective succession has almost no risk and fantastic reward.

Muslim decadence system is basically to kill/imprison every single family member not your direct heir or else 100k stacks of doom come and end the game for you.

Don't get me wrong, the game is fantastic and Paradox are showing some fantastic support for the game. It just needs some more TLC.

[SoxFan01605]

Re: Crusader Kings II

Picked this up on Steam yesterday morning. I messed around with the tutorial, but still felt lost, so I looked at some videos online to see how other people were playing (side note: I'm clearly a nerd, as I enjoy watching games like this played almost as much as playing them myself). Anyway, here's a link to a channel that helped me out:

http://www.youtube.com/user/TekkorGJC

He's got a "let's play" series you can follow and a separate tutorial series that goes over the basics and answers some faqs, etc. Not sure if his strategy is optimal or anything (not enough experience to really critique), but I do feel I have a better understanding of how to interact with the game.

[Skyboxer]

Re: Crusader Kings II

Yeah watched a ton of vids (Which was fun also) and it helped a lot.

I also started to look at Victoria 2 just to see what it all entails...
Which was a lot.
So many games so little time.
Also just found out yesterday that STEAM takes Paypal to add to wallet... Wish I hadn't seen that.

[Kaiser Wilhelm]

Re: Crusader Kings II

Yeah watched a ton of vids (Which was fun also) and it helped a lot.

I also started to look at Victoria 2 just to see what it all entails...
Which was a lot.
So many games so little time.
Also just found out yesterday that STEAM takes Paypal to add to wallet... Wish I hadn't seen that.

Victoria II is a much different game. I would not recommend Victoria II without all the expansions. It is very incomplete. It is very tough to manage the economy in that game as well. The military system is a bit tedious in the late years as well. Still a fun and good game. Nothing like forming the German Empire as Prussia and then proceeding to steamroll Europe.

I'm quite excited for Europa Universalis IV myself.

[SoxFan01605]

Re: Crusader Kings II

Well, my mission to whittle down my gaming backlog has hit another snag...lol. I had intended to finish up The Last of Us and Tomb Raider over the next few nights (including last night). I wanted to get my custom ruler scenario set up in CKII though, so I did that first. 6 hours later and the only thing that got me to stop messing with this game is the knowledge that my real life responsibilities would require at least a few hours of sleep. I still want to finish up those other games, but my mind is stuck on ideas of expanding a small Irish petty kingdom instead.