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Armies marching across Britain.
I'm attempting to get my second son killed. I'm trying to do this because if I die and there are two male successors to me the kingdom will be split in half between them. That means that my years of hard work uniting all of Carpathia (modern day Hungary) will be for not as my sons inevitably bicker over who gets to rule. Meanwhile I'm attempting to assassinate the Pope to put my own man in place, and also fighting in a crusade against the infidels.
This is just a normal day in Crusader Kings 2, one of the most detailed simulations of the ruling class in the middle ages. CK2 isn't about anything in particular, at least not when it's at it's best. Rather, CK2 asks you to set your own goals, often with gentle prodding in the way of character ambitions, and lets you go about creating it. Often your goals will be as simple as "claim a shitload of land" but you'll often find this to be a difficult task. So you create minor goals to compliment your overarching goal, and soon you find yourself in deep with a web of lies and deceit, barely staying above it all.
Off with their head
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The best possible outcome of a game.
CK2 is a brutally difficult game. This is mainly due to two things: it's AI system and it's adherence to medieval authenticity. The AI in CK2 can range from mind-blowingly stupid to incredibly devious, regardless of the difficulty setting. It constantly keeps you guessing, never really sure how various people will react, and there are layers upon layers of mechanics at work within every AI controlled character. It's unfortunate that the AI can't always be perfect, but they tend to remember things you did and ruling like a tyrant will see several dynamic attempts on your life orchestrated by AI.
The second layer of difficulty is CK2's absolute authenticity when it comes to life and law in the middle ages. Long time players of grand strategies like the Total War or Civilization games will notice that they can't just start wars willy-nilly. Claiming territory has different rules based on a myriad of factions including your location geographically, your religion, your opponent's religion, your family ties to your opponent, the factions and kingdoms around you, and even just what your character currently wants to do with their life. Trying to get permission to claim one province can take a long time, and getting permission to claim an entire country or kingdom often takes decades of in-game years.
Oh, CK2 is also completely real-time, rather then turn-based like Total War or Civilization. You can literally watch the days go by as you wait for things to finish, although blessedly the game has speed up/down controls as well. It's interesting to watch as the world evolves in this manner, with characters visually aging and kingdom boarders going back and forth. As of the newest expansion there's even a weather system that adds and removes snow as the year goes by, really adding a nice touch to the map.
Map to the stars
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Some possible kingdoms to establish and conquer.
From a distance, CK2 looks simple. At it's core it's just a selection of menus overlaid on a giant map screen. The buttons are big and shiny, and a lot of information is gleamed just by hovering your mouse over something for a second. This is all a facade, as you quickly learn that CK2 is full of depth. One of the most unfortunate part of CK2 is it's attempt at a tutorial, which I've been told is out of date by a few major patches now. CK2 isn't a game you can just brute-force your way through, and despite being over a hundred hours in there are still concepts I don't fully understand. You'll likely find yourself making multiple trips to the Wiki, and even Googleing words you don't understand (I still don't fully understand what a Casus Belli or a De jure Kingdom is).
Thankfully, the UI in CK2 is really easy to use. All the buttons are labeled, and while you might not know what the labels mean, when you are looking for something specific it's usually pretty easy to find. Most of the menus only go down, maybe one or two layers so it's pretty rare that you're searching for menus inside of menus. Almost everything you need is available right from the main screen, and you get used to it fairly easily. The map itself is simple to use, and there's a wide selection of different overlays to show things like the various religions, possible empires, different cultures, and the risk of rebellion. It takes a long time to understand what your doing, but once you do you'll fly through menus like a pro.
Best laid plans
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CK2 has great mod support. This is the Elder Scrolls mod.
Success in CK2 is determined by you. There are no quests in CK2, only what you want to do and how you want to do it. You can start the game as a powerful emperor and attempt to keep your empire together till the end of the game, or you can start as a minor vassal in a grand kingdom, trying to work your way to the top. Success might not even be about winning wars, it might simply be keeping your family line intact till the end, regardless of what happens. There is only one rule in CK2: your lineage cannot die. You must have a valid ruler from your bloodline by the time your character dies, or you loose the game. This can be harder then you think, especially if your kingdom doesn't allow female rulers. One accidental wedding, one bout of disease, or one angry vassal can completely ruin generations of hard work. You'll likely loose your fist dozen or so games of CK2 as you attempt to learn how to keep your family alive.
That's not to say you won't be killing a lot of other people's families. It's fair to say the CK2 is the closest we'll ever see to a videogame version of Game of Thrones or House of Cards. The better part of the game is planning out long cons, position people exactly where you want them and playing them like fiddles. You'll have to learn how to plan to really get ahead in CK2, finding reasons for things to happen the way you want, and laying in wait until the proper moment. Want to rule a kingdom? Marry your daughter into the family so you'll get a blood claim to the throne. Want more religious power? Position your bishop as the next in line, then murder the pope and bribe the house of cardinals in the election. You'll have balance a lot of plates on a lot of sticks, especially if you want to run a kingdom or empire rather then a small duchy.
War memorial
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/attachment.php?s=f2d68e2cf57e65d4496485ee3af5c550&attachmentid=80132&d=1368015233
Events are the closest thing to a plot, with multiple events stringing together.
Crusader Kings 2 is a very difficult game to recommend, even to fans of grand strategy games like Total War, Civilization, or even CK2's cousins Europa Universalis or the Victoria series. For one, it has a boatload of DLC, and while you can enjoy the game fine in vanilla, the DLCs tend to add a lot of content. Two of them (Old Gods and Charlemagne) push back the start date of the game, adding substantial length to a campaign. Even more frustrating is how the DLC is implemented, literally putting up an in-game paywall if you don't own the DLC. CK2 plus all it's DLC at full price is $159, making it more expensive then all the Civilization games currently available on Steam, including the recently released Civ: Beyond Earth. ($124.99)
More then that, the gameplay is hard to recommend. Unlike other grand strategy games it's not always just about starting wars and killing your enemies. Sometimes war is the product of you doing something wrong in the game. Often CK2 is more about the political meandering, trying to please some people and kill others. It's a very slow paced game that requires a lot of patience, and you'll often have to accept that you just can't get your way.
If you're the kind of person that like to pretend your Machiavelli and plan out grand campaigns CK2 is the game for you. If you're the kind of person that wants to rule a kingdom, and deal with the daily squabbles that comes with it, CK2 is for you. But if your the kind of person that wants things to happen, and needs things happening constantly or you get bored, then stay away from CK2 at all costs.
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