Crusader Kings II

[bgmnts]

Crusader Kings II is free on Steam, so I downloaded it and fucking hell! First of all, it crashes several times on startup, and when I finally get into the game; Jesus Christ the UI! It may be the busiest game I've ever seen. I have no idea what I am meant to do and it was incredibly overwhelming.

Is it a particularly obtuse game or is it actually really accessible if given time?

[Zetetic]

I think it's relatively accessible, in that you can simply ignore most of that baffling UI and mostly muddle through by playing mostly in terms of story events and marriages and stuff like that.

The economic and military stuff is as far as I've ever bothered to understand it both weirdly obtuse and confusingly shallow, in practice boiling down to "more land means more money and troops" and "more troops means win".

You can generally pickup stuff like "I can hire mercenaries?" or "I've ended up King of Jerusalem?" or "I can make women bishops now?" or "Tanistry is much better than just hereditary inheritance! Oh fuck..."  as you discover these things.

I've never bothered to actually learn any of the systems and still managed to create a

Spoiler alert

slightly democratic Prydain that replaced Catholicism with Lollardism across Western Europe

[close]

.

[Zetetic]

It's probably worth watching 20 minutes of a Let's Play.

[FredNurke]

A friend once said that the UI 'looks like it was designed by Thomas Aquinas', which is a wonderfully evocative description.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Always fancied giving this game a go.

[Dog Botherer]

brilliant game. get it.

[Mobius]

Yeah I love these games.

Definitely recommend a bit of a youtube tutorial or something though, it can be overwhelming and confusing - it's actually not that bad... but just appears so dense at first. Took me a while to get into it but once I did, I was hooked.

[Cuellar]

A friend once said that the UI 'looks like it was designed by Thomas Aquinas', which is a wonderfully evocative description.

Read this and thought 'what the HELL does that mean'

Then I downloaded it and yeah, fair enough.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Yeah I love these games.

Definitely recommend a bit of a youtube tutorial or something though, it can be overwhelming and confusing - it's actually not that bad... but just appears so dense at first. Took me a while to get into it but once I did, I was hooked.

I've dipped my toe into Europa Universalis and played Hearts of Iron III (even if I was rubbish at it) so the UI isn't totally alien. I imagine the endless tables work for those who want to live every second of the game. I understand CK II is a bit more approachable? The emphasis on diplomacy/marriages/succession planning will be a shift for me vs. most strategy games I'm family with.

[Zetetic]

Yeah, EU and HoI are far more player-hostile, with their tedious obtuse systems being front-and-centre.

[Ignatius_S]

Crusader Kings II is free on Steam, so I downloaded it and fucking hell! First of all, it crashes several times on startup, and when I finally get into the game; Jesus Christ the UI! It may be the busiest game I've ever seen. I have no idea what I am meant to do and it was incredibly overwhelming.

Is it a particularly obtuse game or is it actually really accessible if given time?

In addition to what people have said, would recommend having a look at: https://lparchive.org/Crusader-Kings-2/ - in an old thread (and I do mean old!) it was something that I mentioned that I found helped me get to grips with the game.

Something else I recommended was not worrying about quitting games and starting again, as found that helped my learning process.

Found that the game does require some investment of time, but worth it when it all clicks into place.

I recently got CK III and although playing the previous version helped I'm sure, feel it's more new user-friendly - e.g. better tutorial and improved UI.

Re: crashes - I found performance on OS X (as was) was shockingly poor and had to play via Bootcamp.

[Ignatius_S]

I think it's relatively accessible, in that you can simply ignore most of that baffling UI and mostly muddle through by playing mostly in terms of story events and marriages and stuff like that...

Yeah, would agree with that - also, I feel it's those elements that really make the game so good.