Crusader Kings

For starters, I'll go ahead and get the oft-used and expected famous movie quote that's most fitting for this game out of the way: It's good to be the king. As in history, kings had it both good and bad, and Crusader Kings follows likewise. In this seventh use of their well-known Europa Universalis game engine, Paradox Entertainment and company have created what I think may be the most grand game of diplomatic strategy and political intrigue ever appointed to royal game code.

However, like the court fool who turns up where he's not wanted, many of the same mistakes made in previous Paradox games have found a new home in Crusader Kings. After awhile, the gems cease to sparkle, the gold loses its luster, and all that remains is a gamers' continued search for a perfect game. Crusader Kings certainly has the potential to become one, but only with a good bit of work.

To summarize Crusader Kings, players slip on the royal garments of the king, duke or count of one or more provinces (called a demesne) in an attempt to build and foster a dynasty through strategic manipulation of your vassals, marriage arrangements, diplomacy, and the ancient laws of medieval times, among others. All the while, you must keep a wary eye on your prestige, piety, and royal checkbook to insure they stay in the black amidst such ilk as highway robbers and warmongers.

Steeped in historical accuracy and almost 400 years of game play, you may meet or even play as such notable historical characters as Richard the Lionheart and William de Normandie, or wield the royal scepter of the (in)famous great houses---Capet, Aragon, Normandy, or Navarre, to name a few. You'll play to see how well you can guide your dynasty through the Crusades, the Hundred Years' War, and the Mongol Wars. If and when you survive this feudal era, you can take your saved game(s) and import your kingdom into Europa Universalis 2, for a near 800 year reign!

But, hearken unto my warnings here before going further. If you're looking to crush the known world into submission through military might, you probably will not like Crusader Kings. While as grand in scope and scale as any scenario in The Operational Art of War, warfare and battle tactics play only a small part in here. If you are prone to massing armor units (in this case, knights and heavy infantry) in preparation for a 'tank rush', or to building a killer stack and waltzing through territory after territory, again, you probably won't like Crusader Kings

This is pure strategy so royal it bleeds purple. The goal here is not to conquer the world, Alexander-style, but to steer your family and demesne through the political and social turmoil prevalent in the Middle Ages, and hopefully leave behind a dynasty worthy of being written into history books.

Amazingly, with all that's packed into Crusader Kings, it only has a 3.46 MB footprint on my hard drive. Installation went quickly and without error. Sadly, it's straightforward; no flashy scenes of mounted knights hewing down terrified enemy archers, or the like. Personal preference, of course, but I like it when a game catches your attention from the get-go. Anyone remember the installation sequence for the original Command & Conquer? (sigh) I do, and I may never see another that great again.

I'm one of those people in the minority who actually read the game manual before playing the game, and it seemed to have all the basics covered. Indeed, it does have the most very basics covered, and it wasn't until I got into an actual game that I realized how much was missing from the manual. I learned from perusing the Web reading over other Crusader Kings reviews that this fact was lamented by many other players. This is one of those glaring errors repeated yet again by Paradox, and their fans continue to wonder why.

As I said, the manual is very informative as it stands with the information provided. In 62 pages, it explains the games' premise, some of the unique terminology used, the interface, the five steps for declaring war and conquering a province, and so on. Eight appendices take up the second half of the manual, glossing over items like character traits, diseases, the tech tree, and the game's impressive soundtrack.

The problem comes in that it simply isn't enough. Believe me when I say nothing short of a textbook and dictionary used in a Master's degree-level Medieval Studies program would be adequate help here. Not even my old Dungeons & Dragons manuals helped me; heck, that's where I learned about medieval culture from. Tourney events? Usury events? Amateurish Pettifogger? Semisalic Consanguinity? Phew! I'm not really the Pope, but I did play Crusader Kings last night. Then again, maybe it's just that I never attended a civilian college, and I'm the only lost soul here.

Thankfully, I found a place to go to have all my ignorance abated, and that place is the Crusader Kings forum section at http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum. If I had not found that superb site, this review would still be forthcoming. Populated by developers, beta testers, and fanboys alike, it is the place to go to have all your Crusader Kings questions answered. Here also you'll find tactics, techniques and procedures fully explained on all the games' aspects. AAR's, mods, help on editing scenarios, FAQ's, even the subtle gaming strategy of 'bridefinding' are all explained. The forum community here all deserve to be knighted, in my opinion.

If you have experienced any other Europa Universalis-powered games, you'll be at least familiar with the layout of Crusader Kings. After choosing the level you wish to rule at, and choosing your territory to rule over, the game fires up to the main screen. This consists of an information window down the left side of the screen, and the main map taking up the center and right.

Although the Europa Universalis crown is a bit tarnished with age, there is still some sheen that manages to place a glint in the eye. Prime example of this being the tool tips, which I think provide more information than the manual. Hover the jeweled- cross mouse pointer over almost any section on the screen and you'll soon see a small window with more details about the item in question.

There are quite a few screens available to click to, giving you all the needed information with which to run your fledgling empire. Herein is a two-edged Excalibur, because, while they may be easy to get into, they are confusing and frustrating to get out of. There's no browser-style 'back' option, meaning you must close down the whole window and start again, even if you only needed to step back a single window. Once you have some playtime invested and have learned where to get to get what you want, it get tedious to keep having to do this over and over.

Down the left side of the screen (from top to bottom) are details to such relevant items as the currently selected province; province improvements constructed, being constructed, and available; small banners representing the loyalty and taxed level of the province's peasants, burghers, clergy and nobles; a small window showing provincial details concerning income, religion, terrain, and supply level; the mini-map (with zoom functions); and toggles to switch the main map to show overall matching terrain, ruling relations, economy, religion, and provinces related to the same realm. Another set of toggles are included for coats-of-arms, units, and provinces that have forts built therein.

This side of the game screen will change to show the dynasty window when you click on your own coat-of-arms in the upper-right of the screen. Or, it will show the same for another character's dynasty if you click on their coat-of-arms. From here, you may choose to mobilize your troops, declare war, sue for peace, grant and revoke titles, and even send assassins, among other actions.

Also showing up as you maneuver your way through info screens will be options for appointing qualified members of your court to the specific posts of Martial, Chancellor (Diplomat), Spymaster (Intrigue), and Steward. Your all-important Treasury screen will show up here, where you may set tax levels and monitor your income. And still another window can be found here allowing you to set your kingdom to any one of nine Realm laws and seven Inheritance laws, as well as choosing from a list of thirty military, cultural, and economic Advances.

On the other side of the game screen lies the 2-D main map and message window. Yep, I said 2-D. Depending on what options you may toggle on/off, this side can look rather bland or very colorful. A small graphic of your character and personal coat-of-arms at the time appear upper-right, and along the very top you'll find the current game date, along with your piety, prestige, and gold levels.

Once you get into a game, you'll soon become painfully aware of another way Crusader Kings has been geared to interface with you, via the pop-up window. Eerily similar to those Internet pop-up windows most of us computer users spend a great deal of time trying to never see, they are used in game to relay all types of instant information, from marriage proposals (and acceptance and denials), births and deaths, news of your children's behavior in school, to completed construction projects, and, of course, when the Pope decides to kick off the Crusades.

This interface method can be tailored to suit your gaming preference to a great degree, but just may take as much time as playing through a scenario. I would recommend you don't try to do so until after you have spent some time in and are comfortable with Crusader Kings. Listen carefully, now: go into the Options section from the main menu and click on Message Options at the bottom. Here you'll find the list of (now get this) 85 message settings you'll see during gameplay, and you can choose from 4 ways to receive each message! I broke the royal abacus trying to figure that number out, and I'm still trying to get all my settings down to something I can work well with.

Which leads me into some ways I think the interface could be made better, and also helps me segue into the Gameplay section of the review. If you're gonna constantly give me pop-ups and information scrolling along the message window like 'Tribe of Sames declared war on County of Chuvash', and 'Sibilia has lost a trait: Wise', at least let me have a way to pan the game screen to the province of said news item for a closer look, if so wanted. The game already provides a medieval socio-political history lesson; why not add in geography? A link would have been a great help, either with a Go To option or via hyperlinking province and character names.

Maybe even a better way would be to just hold off on all those instant items, and have them reported by the royal court reporter in the form of an end-of-the-month summary? In keeping with the game's excellent emphasis on history, wouldn't this way be closer to how it actually was? Even African swallows couldn't carry news as quickly as Crusader Kings relays it to players. Then again, do I even really need to know that someone in the court of the Prince of Beloozero has had a child, especially when I don't know where Beloozero is?

As I mentioned earlier, the focus of gameplay in Crusader Kings is on diplomatic strategy and statesmanship; think Civilization and the classic board game Diplomacy mixed together, with a sprinkling of Medieval: Total War.

Gameplay is also greatly affected by your choice of ruling level/demesne at the start. Choose a king with a large kingdom, and you'll be busy overlooking your vassals and their territories, mostly to make sure they stay loyal to you and are not planning a coup. A larger kingdom means more neighbors along your borders. Are they friendly? Who might be open to becoming a vassal to you, or at least willing to form an alliance? What's their military force/religion/family heritage?

But, say you choose to play a Duke or Count, or someone of lesser known historical prominence, someone who only rules over one or two provinces? After the initial orientation to your lands, family, and court, there's a steep and sudden drop in how much you interact with the game. In other words, aside from responding to pop-up messages, the crusading kings in the game world will go on about their game lives, while the wannabe crusading counts sit idly by, waiting to acquire enough gold to replace their province's hill fort with a small castle. You could (and I did) sit back in your home throne, and Crusader Kings will play itself for months and years in game time, with only an occasional mouse click here and there from you needed. That may be the welcomed method by which real-life kings want to rule, but it is not how real-life PC gamers want to game.

I'll share an example of getting started with a Crusader Kings scenario, and what the initial gameplay is like. After spending a solid week getting to know my way around the game, I sat down with my favorite pen and notebook (the one with Alyssa Milano on the cover) for a serious game session.

I chose to play during the Battle of Hastings (1066) as Ramon Berenguer de Barcelona, Duke of Catalonia, Count of Lleida and Barcelona. I know nothing about this duke historically, but I do know this area becomes the Spanish Marches, and it is close to the Kingdom of Aragon, or what is to become that. I chose him because it was a small demesne, but with three vassals along the north border.

Immediately after the game starts, I hit the Pause button before the screen fills with pop-ups, and to take my time getting to know my character and all that concerning him. Duke Barcelona starts with 100 prestige and piety points, 50 gold, 3 vassals, 5 children (3 male, 2 female), 1 sister, deceased parents, 7 successors, and 8 courtiers. His strongest trait is Martial(8), with 6's and 7's in the others. Duke Barcelona himself is 43 years of age, and considered to be Valorous, a Scholarly Theologian, and Deceitful. Ahh, two-out-of-three ain't bad.

My home province of Barcelon already has a Small Castle and a Catholic Church built, while my other province, Lleida, houses a Hill Fort and a Library. What I find puzzling is that the primary religion of Lleida is Muslim. I make a note to take a closer look at that.

I click in for a look at my court, and take a few minutes to appoint Marshals, Chancellors, Stewards, and Spymasters. I notice Duke Barcelon once had a wife who is now deceased, so I make another note to start 'bridefinding'. I'll hold off on that for now, until I have briefed myself well about my own realm. A quick pass-and-review of my provincial regiments show them strong in Heavy & Light Infantry, with enough Cavalry, Pikemen and Archers for support Glancing at my vassals show their regiments at least equal to mine. Good thing they are all Devotedly Loyal (100%) to me.

I want to make sure they stay that way, so I go in to check on the power and tax levels of the peasants, burghers, clergy, and my nobles. All looks like it's going well, so I click over to see what current laws govern my realm, and what advances I have and what I'd like to begin work on.

Lastly, I take a good look at the other characters who make up my dynasty: family members, courtiers, and vassals. If I had a liege, I'd inspect him and his, as well. I delve into who has what traits, loyalty levels, titles held, and titles that might need to be awarded/revoked. I pay special attention to my own children and their personalities, along with who's married and single. I also look closely at the children of my vassals and successors, their vassals and successors, and so on.

All in all, just a few short paragraphs, but it actually took me right at an hour to accomplish all this, while making notes about it. Afterwards, I resume gameplay by unpausing, answer a rush of pop-ups concerning alliances and courtiers who think they could do a better job than one of my currently appointed officers, and I'm off to try to mark my name into the big book of history. By no means is this all there is to Crusader Kings, but, aside from the occasional military operation, it is what I found to be the most common gameplay items.

If you've seen earlier incarnations of the Europa Unversalis game engine, then you know how this game looks. The view is fixed in an overhead, isometric position, with a couple of zoom steps to show more of the game world, or to focus on just a few provinces.

Five icons in the screen's lower left toggle the main map between showing different terrain, lands that belong to your demesne directly, provinces that share the same economic and religious states, and provinces that belong in the same overall realm. All these are translated on the main map through a variety of colors, but players are mostly left to their own devices to guess what color means what. The manual does define a few colors (e.g., for Economics, green is good, red is poor; for Religion, Catholic is white, Orthodox is brown), but much more should have been included here.

This same color-coordination is also used in the Laws and Advances menu. Provinces with the same selected law, and other provinces that also have, say, windmills, or siege towers, will all show the same color. Again, the manual only makes a passing comment about how colors are used here.

With only a 1024 x 768 screen size available, there's nothing here that should tax the AGP's of even the most basic superstore-bought computers. If you have played other Paradox games (Hearts of Iron, Victoria) on your current computer, Crusader Kings should do just as well.

As for the sounds in Crusader Kings, I think they are worthy of being played at any king's ball. Trumpets and whispering announce your entrance into court screens. Battle sounds emanate from your regiment when clicked on. But it's the music written for kings that sets this soundtrack on my list for the best in a PC game. About twelve tracks adorn and grace the gameplay, composed by Inon Zur, who also worked on the Icewind Dale soundtrack. I also recognized a snippet by Mozart, and when I looked in the game's music folder, sure enough, there it was, along with others by Haydn, Sousa, Verdi, and Wagner, among others. Excellent work to include this caliber of music and ambience, and it does Crusader Kings well.

I want to mention the artwork included here, also. Delve again into the Crusader Kings game folder, and take a look in the gfx folder. You'll see these very nice pieces of artwork in and around gameplay helping to describe certain events, like a marriage, mobilizing a regiment, and vassalizing a character. But from the folder it's much easier to capture them to make your own screensaver and/or wallpaper Crusader Kings tribute. Don't miss out on looking at the folder holding the 1,287 coat-of-arms used here!

The intelligence in Crusader Kings is, I think, geared to best operate according to the personality traits of each character. While the traits of your own character are less like a code and more like guidelines, allowing you some freedom to play with some RPG elements, those of the other characters in the game are played out in straightforward style.

But this is one place where strategy stands strong here. Wondering why that lowly Count keeps dismissing your attempts to make him a vassal? Take a good long look at each of the character's traits. Do you match? Are you compatible enough for a friendship to develop, or is your depressed, inbred and excommunicated Duke having a negative effect on building relationships?

Other than this, it's difficult to show how the AI shows itself during gameplay. Even combat seems to be nothing more than number crunching. I did try to read an explanation at the aforementioned forum site, but it was beyond my comprehension. The same goes for seeing any differences between the game's five difficulty settings. Another setting, called AI Aggressiveness, is merely explained in the manual as modifying how aggressive and how quickly the AI reacts.

Overall, the AI is not bad, in the sense that it makes other leaders single you out for destruction or such.

The manual states that multiplayer requires a connection of at least 512 kbit/s with TCP/IP protocol, or via LAN. Paradox Plaza hosts their own service called Valkyrienet, where you may meet other players for gaming or chat. After reading many other players failed attempts at using this service, because I have an extremely sad dial-up connection, and because it was all I could do to play against the computer, I declined to try this aspect out. I'll keep an eye on the chatter about it, and may eventually test it.

Historical emphasis and accuracy have become trademarks of a Paradox Entertainment game, and Crusader Kings is no different. The degree to which historical information is incorporated here is beyond compare. As mentioned, the coat-of-arms, provinces, weapons, buildings, soldiers, and, of course, the characters, are all accurately detailed. I think Crusader Kings would be an excellent addition to your game library simply based on its historical merit.

When I was actively participating in the gameplay, Crusader Kings was fun. All the empire building tools any newly-crowned king would need are here. At times, it was good to be the king. Other times, though, it felt like I was simply watching an excellent medieval documentary on the History Channel. An in-game Merlin-class tutor would have been an excellent addition to the gameplay. The steep learning curve didn't bother me; the fact that the game did very little to help me learn did bother me though, and is what keeps this rank at average.