Crusader Kings II Review

Some reviews are particularly difficult to get started; there are often key points you want to bring up at the relevant opportunity, but delivering that opening gambit is a struggle. The same could easily be said about starting your first few games of Crusader Kings 2.

Continuing their insurmountable reign over the empire of Grand Strategy, Paradox Interactive have followed up the recent Sengoku, with the medieval Europe themed conquer 'em up sequel to the 2004 original. Like its predecessor - and unlike most other strategy game - Crusader Kings 2 sees the player taking control of a bloodline rather than a specific country; and with a setting starting at 1066 and spanning just under 400 years, you're going to get through a number of leaders before the game is out.

Each character has their own traits and abilities, and whilst abilities are influenced by an heir's parents, a sudden death can lead to playing a ruler that dictates a distinctly different approach to moments earlier. I experienced a prime example early on whilst playing as the king of Castile (a small kingdom in the north of what is now Spain); I was at war with my brother, king of the neighbouring Leon, fighting for a province which rightly belonged to me. Suddenly, after just five months in charge, my character died and control passed to his heir, the aforementioned brother; in one action I had effectively completed my original goal and now had both kingdoms under my command, albeit with some sudden changes of allegiance.

It's not all about the kings though - dukes, earl and various other nobility are available, both as playable and non-playable families; some of which swear allegiance to a king, whilst others control a duchy of their own. Just because you have a liege though, doesn't mean you have to obey them; it's not uncommon for civil wars to break out, either as a result of bitter disputes between neighbouring dukes or as an attempt to overthrow a country's rightful ruler.

With such an extensive roster of characters available, it can be a little daunting when the time comes to actually choose one. Whilst the selection screen displays the relative difficulty of playing as each character, the scale used to rate them is a little unclear; there only appears to be a single character listed as less than 50% difficulty. Ideally it would have been nice to have a list of characters in order to compare, rather than clicking each region individually, however the sheer number of characters renders this ultimately impractical.

Having successfully selected your nobleman (or woman) of choice, it's time to get down to the actual business of ruling over your subject. This brings us back to my initial point; newcomers to the Grand Strategy concept are likely to feel out of their depth rather quickly. A tutorial is included to assist complete beginners, however it does gloss over a lot of details, focusing mostly on demonstrating where certain features can be found, accompanied by a brief overview. One could argue that the point of Grand Strategy games was to be inherently complex, and as such not suited to novices. Ultimately the easiest way to get to grips with the numerous mechanics is through trial and error; your first few games have a high likelihood of being miserable failures, littered with mistakes, but it's all part of the learning experience.

Once you've settled into your new role, how you decide to play is entirely up to you - set your sights high and try to conquer the whole of Europe, or simply settle for holding out against larger, powerful neighbours. There are no victory conditions to speak of; it's possible to lose by having your entire bloodline eliminated, but it's left to you to judge your own level of success. Those favouring total dominance will find that it's not simply a matter of selecting the largest kingdom and overpowering all comers; in order to declare war on someone, it's necessary to have a jolly good reason. This 'casus belli' can range from a claim over a territory that historically belonged to your dynasty, to a simple, good ol' fashioned holy war against one of the numerous Muslim or Pagan factions (only the Christian characters are currently playable without using a mod), much to the delight of the Pope. Yes, the pointed-hatted one himself is also included for you to keep onside - upset him enough and you'll be able to appoint your own Anti-Pope (unfortunately not as evil as it sounds!)

After deciding to declare war on your new enemy of choice, thoughts must turn to matters of combat. Gone is the painstaking decisions of whether to build/train/recreate a unit of pikemen or archers in a particular province; armies are levied (conscripted) from territories under your control, along with any levies from your vassals that you choose to call upon. Be aware though - whilst your own levies will be happy to follow you halfway across Europe, your vassals will become upset if their soldiers are under your command for too long. Battles themselves are automatically resolved and tend to degenerate into a matter of who has the larger army; defeat the defenders and you will be able to lay siege to their holdings in a territory, and eventually claim it as your own.

Unlike other titles, there's little micromanagement required to keep your realm running smoothly - day-to-day running of individual territories is left to which ever vassal you opted to leave in command. Your power will mostly be enacted via your council members, who can generally be dispatched to increase a county's output in a particular area: tax income, construction rate and technology research, amongst other things. Research itself is not represented as a traditional technology tree, instead each county develops technology at its own rate; once a new discover has been made, it initially only applies to that county, before eventually spreading to the surrounding areas.

All the action plays out across a beautifully render 3D world map that pans and zooms smoothly to show as much or as little of the terrain as you wish. Combine this with a variety of informative map overlays and an interface that remains intuitive despite providing access to such a large number of features, and it quickly becomes evident that Paradox have done an admirable job of retaining accessibility in the face of such complexity.

Should you manage to accomplish the seemingly impossible and achieve success with every character available, then you might consider turning your hand to a multiplayer game with up to 31 other like-minded souls. Throw in support for user-created mods, and you could find that Crusader Kings 2 lasts long enough for you to start a dynasty of your own. Despite the potential for an initial feeling of confusion, it rarely detracts from the overall enjoyment.