Looking at: Chivalry: Medieval Warfare

For King and Country

Large weapons like Battle Axes hit hard, but are slow and unwieldy.

There, in the center of the battle, we met. Two armor-clad titans, with sword and axe in hand. The battle around us raged, but there we stood, for but a moment, before our own storm erupted. Blow after blow was struck, some getting through, but most being parried. A tale for the ages, even if it only lasted a moment. All good things must come to an end, and after a while my opponent made a fatal mistake. I swung with all the might I could muster and off came his head like so many before. I was victorious, if only for a second.

First-Person melee combat has always been something of a gamble. games rarely decide to go that route, and the number of games that do it well, or even acceptable, can be counted on one hand. What a gamble it must've been then to pitch the idea of Chivalry, a multiplayer focused arena-style old-school first-person slash-em up completely and utterly focused on melee clashes. Did the gamble pay off, or is this just another lost fable?

Clash of Titans

The maps are huge with many varied paths to the objectives.

Chivalry started life as a Half-Life 2 mod similarly named "Age of Chivalry". The idea is similar to that of most arena games like Counter-Strike or Unreal Tournament in that 32-50 players are locked in a room and told to just wreck shit. Of course, in normal games it comes down to good shooting and use of cover. In Chivalry it comes down to proper foot-work and well timed swings.

It's an interesting idea in theory, but like I mentioned, first person melee is incredibly easy to fail at. Even the Elder Scrolls series has a number of problems with it and no game has ever really nailed the formula. At least, not until now. Chivalry is probably the best implementation of a first person melee system I've ever seen, and it all comes down to two things.

The first is the hitboxes. Hitboxes refer to the rendered area of a character in-game that needs to be hit by a weapon for the game to register it. Below is an example from Team Fortress 2:

1

Note the highlighted boxes around the character models indicating where they can be hit. Hitboxes are notoriously hard to program, since character models are almost constantly moving and shifting, and this is often why first person melee combat doesn't work quite right. Except in Chivalry, where the hitboxes seem almost perfect. I can't even fathom how much time this must have taken to perfect, but in the several hours I've spent in Chivalry I've not once missed an action that I thought for sure would hit. 

The second reason Chivalry works so well is because it's designed from the ground up to be completely about the melee. There's nothing else at work, save for the small handful of ranged weapons (more on that in a bit). Each weapon handles a bit differently based on it's weight, lenght, and type, but more importantly then that are the controls. Rather then just the standard LMB attack, RMB defend, Chivalry makes complete use of the mouse. LMB is your standard swing, RMB is a short parry, up on the mouse wheel is a stabbing attack, and down on the mouse wheel is a heavy over-hand attack. If your mouse has side buttons then these two are taken into effect for alternative swings and stabs. All of this works to really immerse you into the melee combat, and successfully landing a blow in satisfying every time. 

Once More Into the Breach

Shields provide better cover from arrows, but make you slower.

There are four classes in Chivalry, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. First is the Archer, specializing in long range attacks with bows or crossbows. They're fast, but incredibly weak and the ranged combat is iffy at best. The Man-at-arms is fast and has access to shields, but his weapons are relatively weak and you'll need to rely on hit-an-run tactics against armored opponents. The Vanguard combines speed and armor, but is limited to two-handed weapons and needs to rely on a charge attack to be effective. The Knight is heavy and slow, but has access to a huge amount of weapons and tools to effectively deal death. 

Each of the classes plays just different enough to be interesting, and a proper balance of all of them is paramount to success on the battlefield. Of course, you won't be going it alone, since Chivalry is largely multiplayer based. The official servers are usually full, but there are more then enough private severs, some with higher player caps, that finding a game is easy to do. Obviously playing with real people is decidedly different then AI, so your experiences will likely vary from match to match. 

Chivalry probably could work as just a free-for-all hack and slash, but to keep it from growing stale each map has it's own objective or set of objective to complete, often with one team rushing to complete the objective while the other team attempts to hold them back. There are traditional objective maps too, like team deathmatch, last man standing, and a no-team free for all to score the most kills. All of this is well controlled and maps are fairly well balanced. 

No Honor in Battle

Chivalry is not a bug free game...

Chivalry is an incredibly niche game that could really only exist on PC. It's controls are clunky, yet innovative. It's design is old, yet well suited. It's graphics are your standard Unreal engine 3 fare, but it conveys what it needs to quite nicely. It's a simple game to learn, and yet can take hours to master. 

There's nothing really wrong with Chivalry, but then there's very little that makes it truly stand out. The melee combat is new and interesting, sure, but strip that away and it's just a reskin of every other multiplayer shooter. It's in Chivalry's best interest then that the melee combat is so well done and so precise. If you are looking for a multiplayer experience that's far and away from the same old shooting madness then Chivalry is definitely worth checking out. 

Image Sources:
http://www.yialife.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/chivalry-medieval-warfare-15987-1920x1080.jpg

Looking at: Mount and Blade: Warband

http://megagames.com/sites/default/files/game-content-images/mount_and_bladem.jpg

13th Century Man

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/900985983948389890/0857A60FC247368E6A4D8FB49D51426C429CA5AF/

Fights will often see you outnumbered, and you'll need to think fast to stay alive.

It's raining, men are yelling, some screaming, and my horse has just died from an arrow to the head. I'm thrown forward as my mighty beast slides into the earth. I recover just in time to spin around and parry the axe being swung at my head. I return in kind and soon find myself covered in bandit blood. Eventually my small party overcomes the bandit scum, and as the sun breaks through the clouds we let out our collective victory howls.

This is Mount and Blade: Warband, an ugly as sin and mostly broken game that encourages you to create your own stories. It's less RPG then it is a simulation of a suck-ass life style, but when your charging the enemy lines with a full force of armored knights it's easy to forget the many faults of this game and just get lost in the moment.

We Ride

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Much of the game will be spent on the map screen, planning and moving around.

As the name suggests, Mount and Blade is a medieval combat simulation RPG. The game is actually split into two distinct parts: a world map where you move from place to place interacting with the world, and the 3D battles. It's this second section of the game that gets most of the attention, despite actually being the minority of gameplay, and it's here that M&B's best moments are forged.

Combat is the main focus of M&B, and it's for a good reason. Unlike, say Skyrim, or even Dark Souls, combat in M&B is all very realistically modeled, and requires a lot of skill. You'll need to properly position yourself and gauge the distance between yourself and your target to properly hit. That's just for landing a blow, in order to do damage you need to take into account where you're positioned, how fast your going, your skill with a weapon, and what armor the enemy is wearing. Combat is visceral and intense, and one-on-one duels to the death can be heart-pounding as you block, parry, and try to break the enemy defense.

That's the blade, let's look at the mount. M&B prides itself on it's mounted combat. This being the middle ages most open field combat involves horseback, and riding through a squad of enemy troops, cutting them down from your mighty steed is incredibly fun. Watch out for spears though, as being tossed back down to earth can often spell your immediate failure. Navigating around the battlefield, systematically taking enemies down with mighty swings of your weapon is a joy I will never get tired of.

Of Horses and Men

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Sieges are bloody and brutal, and will often cost you much for victory.

It's a damn good thing M&B: Warband is fun to play, since lord knows it's not pretty. There's no getting around this, it's an ugly looking game, with very little to be positive about. The terrains are well mapped I guess, but everything else looks bad. Character models are bland and expressionless, textures are low-res and repeated all over the place, and animations are stiff and unnatural. It doesn't even look good from a distance, despite how awesome full scale battles can seem. I guess on the upside, it runs on almost any computer available, but this isn't a game worth showing off.

On the audio side of things it's a little more positive. Battles are punctuated by screams and shouts, and the constant clang and smash of weapons, shields and armor mix well with the pounding of hooves. There's almost no voice acting, save for grunts and the occasional one-liners from bandits, which is for the best considering character mouths can't move. The score is a mixture of classic medieval fares, with whimsical tunes for towns, and bombastic battle songs for the heat of conflict. None of it is particularly terrible, although I find myself playing my own music instead of the games.

Riding into the Sunset

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The Napoleonic Wars DLC takes Warband in a new and different direction.

Warband's particular contribution to the Mount and Blade series is it's inclusion of multiplayer. While the packaged multiplayer suite is functional, it's made even better by the collection of mods and expansion packs that have been released. Specifically is the Napoleon expansion, which overhauls Warband and turns it into a simulation of Napoleonic warfare, complete with musket formations, artillery, destructible terrain, and more. It's a great time, especially on servers with up to 200 players, and a truly intense experience.

Mount and Blade Warband isn't an outstanding game. Like I said, it's ugly and has a rollercoaster of a learning curve. What it is, though, is an interesting and unique idea and an experience like no other. If you've ever wanted to be a knight, merchant lord, or a cunning mercenary then Mount and Blade Warband is definitely worth a look.

Looking at: Crusader Kings 2

http://www.crusaderkings.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/wallpaper-1280x800/CrusaderKings2_Wallpaper_0.jpg

In the game of thrones...

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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.