Crusader Kings 2 (PC, Mac, and Linux)

The King is dead and it’s your time to rule. Choose from a Kingdom across Europe and take control of its monarch. Consolidate your power and, essentially, do whatever you wish. Do you want to be the king of Ireland? Go for it. Simply wish to amass wealth? Nothing wrong with that. The one thing you must do is manage your family because continuing the game is not about the persistence of your nation. Instead it is based on the persistence of your dynasty — and the last thing you want is that blithering idiot, Michael, on the throne.

History

Crusader Kings II was created by the Paradox Development Studios and published by Paradox Entertainment. They’ve been known for publishing and creating other Grand Strategy games. Uhhh… sorry, no trivia today.

Crusader Kings II was released on February 14th, 2012. It’s competition was The Darkness II (PC,PS3, and XBox 360), Dear Esther (Mac and PC), and Alan Wake (PC).

Experiences

I won’t lie, I have a hard time keeping track of the members of my dynasty and my children. To remedy this I name all my children silly things based on their randomly generated names. I mean, who could forget about DRAXX and his brother NACHO. NACHO’s son, NACHO II, was good with money from a young age, he made a great Steward on the council. DRAXX’s sons didn’t work out so well. His third son EON OF AGES thought that he was better suited to rule and tried to lead a revolution. It failed and DRAXX had to watch his son EON OF AGES rot in the dungeons for several decades.

ALL HAIL MOTHRA! QUEEN OF THE MONSTERS!

Gameplay

Crusader Kings II is a Grand Strategy game which basically means it’s a gigantic menu-fest where each menu has value imposed on in from a series of stats and numbers. It’s a very slow burn game where master strategies get built up until they culminate in a master stroke. It’ll seem like nothing has happened in years and then France ceases to exist and has been divided into 13 feuding mini-kingdoms.

Oh goodness, those two mini-Frances almost make a whole France.

You play as a King, Duke, or Count who vie for power internally and externally. Your character is based on the Diplomacy, Martial, Stewardship, Intrigue, and Learning statistics which are influenced by the characters traits. Traits include things like being Zealous, Ambitious, a Genius, a Leper, or Slothful. Traits also effect how different characters feel about each other and certain choices become available to characters with certain traits.

It’s difficult to fully express how many different menus there are and how they interact with the world around you but I’ll cover the most important menus with the most activity. Those would be the character panel, where you can see your stats and choose your ambition, see your family, and check on various loyalties. And the other is the council where your most trusted –hopefully– and skilled –also hopefully– advisers do your bidding. These are the Chancellor, Marshal, Steward, Spymaster, and Court Chaplain.

Seriously, that game has so many goddam menus. They do become familiar over time.

The big thing that differentiates this from games like Medieval II: Total War is that diplomacy is mired in ancient laws and traditions. It’s impossible for a character to declare war on someone else unless they have a just cause to do so. This is where the intrigue and skullduggery comes in. Where diplomatic marriages and bribes are used to fabricate or create claims on someone else’s territory. Which allow a declaration of war and subsequent invasion.

The Gush

The ruler designer is one of the greatest pieces of DLC ever imagined. Normally you have to choose from one of the currently existing rulers of the age but the ruler designer changes that. It allows you to insinuate a new ruler with stats and traits of your choosing as the ruler of whatever county, dukedom, or kingdom you choose. I’m personally fond of strong, lustful, hunchbacked, midas touched, lepers. Overall the designer is a great opportunity to try different things and see what suits you.

All he needs now is a dumb name in all caps so I remember he’s mine.

The writing in this game is really good. The descriptions of traits, the phrasing of letters, the responses to random events are all witty, pithy, and simply fun. It fills the whole game with flavor and personality.

The Kvetch

This game doesn’t have a difficulty curve, it has a difficulty wall. It took me going through the tutorial twice and watching a lot of guide videos on Youtube before I was able to make heads or tales of what the hell was going on. It was a pretty big investment and I don’t regret making it but it’s something that did suck.

Too much DLC. Wanna play Venice? Gotta buy the DLC. Wanna play a Muslim Monarch? Gotta buy the DLC. Want some new different music? Gotta buy the DLC. It’s just really frustrating to dish out $40 for the game and then $5 or $10 more again and again for so many little things.

Look at this shit? There’s so much! And it just keeps going!

Sometimes RNJesus will hate you and bad shit will happen. Only 5% chance of getting maimed from a random event choice? Oops, now your character’s got no legs and everyone calls him stumpy. 26% chance yearly to fabricate a claim on a county? Takes 10 years to come through.

The Verdict

If a Medieval, Byzantine, Draconian, politics simulator sounds like something that would interest you then this game is really the one stop shop and the only shop at that. I cannot think of another game that goes as in depth as this one. It’s a largely unique experience that’ll keep you switching gears between teaching children one minute and dispatching troops the next. It’s a little pricey at $40 but since it’s the only game of its kind it can command that price. That being said, it’s on sale quite frequently so you can save some cash by being patient.

Next Week: Lisa: the Painful

Mount and Blade (PC)

 

Introduction

The night is wet and cold. You’ve surrounded the city of Veluca with your group  of loyal and trusty warriors. You’re wearing the best armor and weapons money can buy and are the first climbing the ladder to mount the walls. You reach its precipe and get nailed with like, 6 crossbow bolts. What were you thinking? Never be the first over the wall– who do you think you are, Alexander the Great? I bet you thought it was so cool to have a giant axe and charge forward. Seriously, get a shield, it’s useful.

Pictured here are shields being useful. Do you believe me now?

 

History

Mount and Blade was developed by TaleWorlds, located in Turkey, and was published by Paradox Interactive, located in Sweden. You might know Paradox Interactive for Magicka, the Crusader Kings series, and Runemaster– these guys really like their medieval/fantasy roleplaying games. The game takes inspiration from games like Sid Meier’s Pirates! and Daggerfall. It’s meant to feel like the player is a vital character in a historical fiction novel.

Fun Fact:  The review scores for Mount and Blade varied greatly. Ranging from Eurogamer’s 5/10 to Gamepros 5 stars.

Mount and Blade was released on September 16th 2008. It’s competition was, Sid Meier’s Civilization IV (PC), Stalker: Clear Sky (PC), and The Witcher: Enhanced Edition (PC).

Oh man, check out those… 2008 graphics?

Compare that still shot with Stalker Clear, mentioned above and released in 2 weeks before.

 

Nostalgia

Game Mods. I remember seeing the guys at my college computer club playing this game and they all had all sorts of crazy mods for it. I’ve seen Star Wars mods where being wookie is just about wearing special wookie armor and all the swords were replaced with lightsabers. This game is easily modable and I think that’s a huge point for it. I know it’s no excuse for its lacking appearance and its semi-limited gameplay options but it is really cool. I’ll admit that I haven’t installed any mods for it but that’s not for lack of them. The internet is brimming with mods for this title and I urge players to seek out and try them.

Freaking skeletons. You can mod a skeleton army! Sign me up.

 

Gameplay

Mount and Blade is difficult to describe when it comes to its gameplay. It’s certainly a bit of a sandbox, there are any number of things the player can do. They can become a trader, become a bandit, a mercenary, a gallant  knight, a despicable scoundrel, the protector of a village, the lord of a castle, or try to take the world for themselves–key word ‘try’. The character’s skills are the main influence on what the player can do. If they want to make a character who’s good at trading it will behoove them to put extra points in trading or looting if they wanted to be a bandit for example.

Look at all these skills! They’re all also cleverly related to different attributes.

But if you want to do what the game “intends” you to do you’ll end up becoming the vassal to a king and conquering castles and cities… until he doesn’t shower you with the attention that a brave and valiant warlord deserves and has consistently given fiefs and castles to Lord Bulba and then you defect and he flips his shit and then you’ve got to flee to the nearby kingdom and hope they’ll accept you after to took over 2 of their cities… I think this one got away from me. But the point is that you can do a lot of things and you never know what’ll happen.

Maybe if you could extract your lips from King Ragnars butt then you might be able to actually accomplish something instead of having me do all your dirty work you stag bannered, stubble faced prick… I might hold a grudge.

Your path to success is based on the troops that you recruit. Each of the different factions has a recruit that can be upgraded into different units. And each factions troops lends themselves to different roles, certain factions have troops that a better suited to different tasks on the battlefield. In taverns across Calradia there are mercenaries and “heroes” to hire. Mercenaries are generic units that perform their tasks admirably but don’t excel in any real way. Heroes are characters that always get knocked out in battle and never truly die. They also can gain skills like the player can which allows very skilled heroes to contribute to each other’s skills, if applicable. These heroes also have opinions of other heroes and of the player’s actions. Some heroes revel in being bandits, other will leave the party if they raid too many villages.

 

The Gush

Do you see that face? That’s Jeremus and he’s the best hero money can buy, by which I mean he’ll join the party just to save peoples lives. How… Why? Because he’s a surgeon. I know medicine from this era isn’t great but Jeremus has got some good ideas and he just wants to keep people alive. He’s not too keen on bandits and imposing on villagers but he’s the only surgeon that needs no training.

All of the factions have grounding in different cultures of the time. Each one feels uniquely like themselves. It’s easy to identify who you’re fighting just by looking at their troops.

There are lots of different ways to alter the difficulty. From increasing the damage you deal to decreasing the damage you take to decreasing the general AI levels.

Being part of a cavalry charge is awesome and it’s something that not a lot of games offers.

Hold formation! Strike like a rogue wave!

I love the Nords, they assault castles and don’t afraid of anything.

I also love the Khergits, they are based on the mongols and that’s all you need to know.

The map is well decorated and looks like a real geopraphic location

It’s a pretty sweet map.

The interactions and dialogue of the heroes is really great. Hearing a superstitious and uneducated assassin accuse an engineer of black magic because he’s doing math in the sand is just hilarious.

 

The Kvetch

The music in this game isn’t very good. That’s all there is to it. It tries to have sweeping orchestral pieces but it’s plain to see it was made in some sort of program and not put together too well.

There’s only 1 different type of swing for every angle of attack. You’re always right handed and you can swing right, left, overhead, and stab and it’s always the same.

Cattle escorts. The cattle escort missions are the worst type of quests to get. They’re damn hard to control and it’s just tedious and not fun.

All the prisoners are only worth 50 denars because a Swadian Knight is just as valuable as a Swadian recruit.

The food system is really simple and seems merely ornamental.

 

The Verdict

This game is pretty good but after playing the sequel it feels incomplete. Mount and Blade: Warband has so much more polish and it really improves the games feel end experience. So I can’t recommend this, but only because Warband is better. Nostalgia status: Unblinded.

Next Week: Max Payne