Crusader Kings 2 is a complex grand strategy game. The most complicated game I've ever played. Be prepared to spend hours and I mean hours confused as hell, looking at youtube, the wiki and forums. Once it clicks though, it's awesome. Not for everyone, but its kinda like playing through 'real life' Game of Thrones (there's a game of thrones mod too).

You control a land owning character starting on any date between 1066 and 1453 AD (The Old Gods DLC will push this starting date back to 867 if you wish). You can start as a powerful emperor or a lowly count. The map you play on is more or less Europe stretching into parts of Asia and Africa. Your sole goal in the game is to keep your bloodline going (and I believe holding land). Other than that, there isn't a win screen, there aren't defined goals, its open ended, you play until 1453AD and then the game ends (save exportable to Europa Universalis 4 to continue your game with the purchase of a DLC). You get a 'score', but that is just a rough estimate on how prestigious and pious your bloodline was. It's quite possible to have 400 years of super rewarding gameplay without getting a high score. This is a trend you will see me developing on and is a big part of what makes CKII so awesome.

That's kinda hard to grasp, but it is less awkward than it sounds. The goals sort of present themselves naturally. You don't often sit there with no idea what to do (again, once you understand the game), you kind of always have something you're working towards. For a first time player this is usually just become as powerful as possible, i.e. aquire land, become a king, then become an emperor and expand your empire. If you're an advanced player you can set your own crazy goals, roleplay, or do other things to spice up the game.

The game runs in 'real time', with a day going by a few times a minute on normal speed. You can fast forward and pause. Most of the time you will indeed be going through various menus. Arranging marriages, keeping tabs on powerful families, plotting assinations, acquiring territory through political shennigans, keeping your subjects happy, bringing in powerful characters to tutor the children of the realm and hold office, and much more. You can micromanage to your hearts content, play a more hands off style, or switch between the two.

When combat breaks out, it is done by moving stacks of armys around the campaign map, meeting an opposing army will cause a battle. These really just compose of watching numbers go down, and kills go up, so if you're looking for Total War style combat you arent going to get it here. Don't be fooled though, many times I've been on the edge of my seat watching these numbers change. The combat system is quiet nuanced as well. To be the most effective you have many things to consider. Terrain bonuses, attrition penalties, appointing competant commanders from your realm, and more add depth.

In all I highly recommend this game to anyone who has played something like Civ or Total War and fancy themself a strategy gamer, is looking for a challenege, and has a lot of patience. This is kinda the next step you can take into something quite a bit more complicated. That is the path I took into the game am loving it.

The game is still actively having expansions and patches developed for it as of the writing of this review 11/25/2013.

Full disclosure: Your reviewer has not quite finished a playthrough yet but am close. I have 120 hours playtime. I own the dlcs The Old Gods, Legacy of Rome, and the Europa Universalis 4 save converter. I solely purchased EU4 because of how much I enjoyed my crusader kings 2 game and wanted to continue playing my empire, I haven't even played it yet.

Also: Don't buy for full price. Even though it is worth it, getting the game and all the dlc all at full price is pretty expensive. The base game is often on sale or in bundles.

This is my first steam review so if you think this is helpful give the thumbs up and I'll do some more reviews. Hope you enjoyed reading.

This game is arguably THE best game in the Paradox library, by a large margin in my opinion, if only for the fact that you don't get to play as generic "France" bit you actually get to play as the count of Paris, and scheme your way up to becoming the emporer of the entire Holy Roman Empire.

Considering the game was free, I'll just try to advise on which DLC are worth your time to pick up. I'll go in order of best/most features to smallest.

Holy Fury: Quite a few features from The Old Gods are rolled in, except for the start date. A large expansion for pagan realms, as well as Catholicism, including coronation for Kings and Emporers, with negative consequences for not being crowned. Pagans get warrior lodges, and the choice to fine tune their reformed religion. Some features are tied to other DLC however. Includes shattered/random map generation.

Way of Life: This DLC allows your character to choose a specific "focus" for a period of time, no less than 10 years, from shagging all the ladies, to focusing on becoming the worlds greatest commander, to fratenizing with merchants. It offers a ton of features and fun events to mess with.

Conclave: Changes the way some of the core game mechanics work. Notably, changing the way the councilors work, so they can have a say in the affairs of your realm. Some people despise this DLC because it admittedly makes the game much harder to handle. For me that's a good thing. Conclave also changed the way educating children worked, from more or less copying the traits of the educator to allowing you to choose a childhood focus for them which somewhat more randomly, but organically grows the traits of the child.

Reapers Due: You can't have a Miedeval game without the Plauge, right? This DLC massively expands on the way your character can die horribly, from the usual diseases, to changing the generic "maiming" to actually losing limbs in battle, or other events.

The Old Gods: Allows you to play as a "pagan" including the Norse Vikings, to plunder the rest of the world. This DLC is highly focused around the Norse and less so around the surrounding religions. It is a solid DLC however, and it does include an earlier start date than the 1066 date.

Charlemagne: Adds the story of the Karlings, a largely scripted series of events based around the creators of "Frankia" and the creation of the Holy Roman Empire (you can quite easily change history and ruin the scripted events (in a good way) if you want though). Includes a start date even earlier than the Viking age. The story is only relavent to the player if you play as either of the Karling brothers, or the king of Lombardy (Italy), otherwise, no events will fire for the player, unless the AI makes the Empire.

Legacy Of Rome: Adds flavor to the Byzantine Empire, and any characters within it. This DLC also introduced standing armies, called "retinues", which are permanent (semi)profesional armies on the map. This is a good DLC to get, even if you have 0 interest in the Anatolia area of Europe.

Jade Dragon/Rajas of India/Sword Of Islam/Sons Of Abraham: I tie these 4 DLC together, primarially because they allow you to play a non Europe centric group of characters and religions.

Jade Dragon allows you to play in the Tibet area of the map, and allows you to communicate with the Chinese, for boons, or banes, depending on how you treat them. This opens up the ability to play a Buhdist or Bön character, with a special government type allowing the ruler to hold temples without penalty.

Rajas of India i'm least farmiliar with, even after a few thousand hours of this game offline. I personally only have ever played in India once. However, it is an expansive DLC. Opens up Hindu and Jainisim.

Sword of Islam allows you to play as the variety of Muslim rulers across Africa, and Asia. Playing as a particularly powerful Muslim ruler can get extremely hard to manage, due to Decadence. Decadence ticks up over time as a result of particurlary impious family members, and once it reaches a certain point, it can become a full blown civil war.

Sons of Abraham: Implemented Holy Orders (Such as the Teutonic Order, Knights Templar for example) and also allows you to play as Jewish characters.

Horse Lords/The Republic: Both of these are tied together because they allow you to play entirely different government types.

Horse Lords has the most resembelance to EU4, due to the fact that you don't get to have a "levy" of troops, but instead a "horde" (standing army of pure cavalry). The government is also revolved around having empty lands for your horses to graze upon, which also means that when you successfully invade a "civilized" peoples land, you get to raze and pillage their cities, temples, and castles to the ground to make way for more grazing land. It's a very fun way to play, but it can also get very volatile internally should clans declare feuds against each other.

The Republic is the complete opposite. Instead of razing settlements, the nations you can play as in The Republic (notably Venice, and Genoa) revolve around building trade posts in lands bordering the coasts. These republics as a result tend to be extremely wealthy to offset the fact that in general, their armies are relatively weak. This DLC is also incredibly hard coded, and hard to work with, in some cases outright randomly giving you a game over, for no discernable reason. It's a decent DLC, but highly optional, in my opinion.

Monks and Mystics: This DLC is interesting, if only for the fact that Devil Worshipers were added with it. Most Christian nations have, more open, less nefarious societies, such as the Benidictine monastic order which your character can patronize. These orders give a variety of bonuses to your character and anyone they interact with. There's the Hermetics, basically philosiphers and wizzards, which can be very fun to play in if your character is smart enough (learning above 10) and not a tribal ruler. Then, there's the Assasins, a religious order, specializing in... well... asasinations. They're locked specifically to Shia true followers, but all characters who are not pagan can secretly convert to Shia as a result of showing interest in the society. Lastly, there's the (insert diety of evil here) worshipers. These characters get some extremely powerful clandestine actions they can preform, mostly including abduction of other characters TO START, going all the way up to performing miracles, such as regrowing limbs with some luck. Unfortunately, most non christian/muslim/eastern religions only have Devil Worshipers available to them as a society, so they are fairly common in pagan lands.

Sunset Invasion: A very ahistorical DLC, obviously. I'd personally avoid this one, mostly because it's pretty broken, and not fun to deal with. Think of a west coast Mongol invasion of Europe. At some point in your game, if you enable the features of this DLC, the Aztecs will invade Europe, with no joke, millions of men, who will stay there for hundreds of years.

Optional DLC
This DLC is COSMETIC ONLY.

Ultimate Unit Pack: It adds a variety of historically correct looking units to represent your armies as they move about the fields.

Ultimate Portrait Pack: Adds a ton of portraits for rulers of various cultures. I'd personally advise picking it up if you can. It feels weird sometimes having a West African character look exactly the same as a Bedouin character (not trying to be racist, but north/central africans are different peoples).

Dynasty Shield Pack: Contains a lot of historically accurate dynastic shields, such as the proper Arabic written onto the shield of the shields of most Muslim rulers, instead of a blank colored shield. Optional, but a nice addition.

Ultimate Music Collection: What it says on the tin. All of the music in the pack is amazing. I never knew I could like Metal until I bought Full Plate Metal and heard "We're that perfect storm" just as the pope called a crusade.

*Update* So good I nominated for an award!

Word of warning when buying this, it will will ruin all other strategy games!

I was a big Civilization fan and whilst it isn't really far to compare the two (they are wildly different in many ways) going back to something like Civ now seems like a huge leap back in terms of depth.

The awesome politics, emergent story and shear possibility of genuine scheming in Crusader Kings 2 make other dilpomacy games almost a joke. Once you've conspired to kill a duke with the help of his wife and the hope of triggering a civil war to potentially swing in the favour of your first born heir as your final legacy, nothing will offer the same devious pleasure in other games.


By all means try the demo, but don't be scared off by the amount of information. Whilst great, the interface is certainly intimidating at first, but the tool tips are excellently written for just about every button. Just take your time and don't worry about losing to much at first, just mess around and it will soon come to you.

This is the type of game that makes you want to write down your stories just to share with other people. Like that time I murdered my own inbred daughter because she was in a plot with my uncle to kill me! Beat that!

Was young viking. Learned I had fatal cancer. Decided to dedicate my life to oden, if I was going to die young I might as well go out in glory
Did not fear death, was on borrowed time anyways. Much fearce and became mighty viking. All feared me
My Martial said he would find someone to cure my cancer. I realize there is another military genius in my court that wants his position so I tell my martial to leave, want to make room for genius.
Am now 50. My realm is prosperous. All fear me but I know my time left is short.
Decided to die while my realm was safe so that my sons could succeed me without much bloodshed. I am loving father.
WIll not kill myself, is cowards way out. Went out raiding even more fiercely to die with glory. Did not die, only got more glory
My martial came back with a hun witch doctor
Doctor said he could cure my cancer. Told me to stick my hand in a barrel of venimous vipers. Doc is idiot however I cannot refuse without looking like coward. Besides, want to die so my son can succeed me.
Stick hand in barrel, do not die!
Doctor told me to drink poison. Do it for Oden. I am old and want to die so my son can succeed me. Do not die.
Doctor tells me to do some stupid ritual that costs lots of money. I think its stupid but I think he's funny and I'm rich so I do it anyways.
My cancer is now gone. Furthermore I'm now immortal.
I retreat into my lands. Fighting can get me killed. Now that I can live forever I'm suddenly afraid of dying.
My courtiers are plotting against me, I kill them all. I must stay safe.
My nobles want me dead, I kill them too and give their lands to my sons.
My sons die of old age. My grandsons call me paranoid, I don't care. They whisper that I'm unnatural. No one lives to 150.
My grandsons die of old age. Their sons inherit. Now I'm the immortal tyrant that cannot die. All live in fear of me. They start to plot against me, I do not know them. They are not my sons nor are they my grandsons. These spoiled brats are strangers to me who covet my lands. I must kill them all.
My lands are now in revolt. They say no man should rule so many lands alone. I do not care, I marry a woman who is great at managing lands. It helps a bit but is still not enough. I don't care. I alone am King in the North
West Francia wants me dead. They say I'm an abomination, an imortal pagan who kills their men and steals their women. The fact the second two are true is no matter, its still an insult.
They raise a great host against me. I bat them all aside. All shall die to me. The men I capture are killed for Oden. The ogly women too. The pretty ones are kept as brides. I have more children with the captives. They are given the lands I cannot govern on my own.
Rumors reach me of a way to speak with the Gods, a great ritual that takes place at the sea. I am intrigued. I ask questions of the cult leaders, they speak wisdom, much more so than my priests.
I follow all of their rituals, I want to see Oden.
The last ritual takes place on the shore at night. They say I must sacrifice myself to the Old God. They must mean Oden.
Suddenly a gient squid attacks! I've been betrayed, this is not Oden.
I fight it vallently however it drags me to the depths. At long last after 200 years, I the great Ragnar, am slain. By a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ PIECE OF CALAMARI

10/10 would recommend summoning Cthulhu again

•Played as a Viking in the late 8th century.
•One of my more ambitious council members "has decided it's time" for me to leave this world.
•He begins a plot to assasinate me.
•The rest of my council advises me to righteously imprison him.
•Instead I notice the poor bastard is lonely and just wants to get married.
•Marry him off to another lonely girl in my court.

•She's happy.
•He's happy.
•I ask him kindly to end his plot to kill me.
•He agrees.

☺ I'm happy..

Best feel good simulator 11/10.

Almost done with the tutorial.

Ruined my life.

After 7 long years humble bundle sold this game with all major expansions for 15$

I never bought this game when it came out because i knew it will just eat my wallet whole with it's million expensive expansions.

But 15$ is completely worth it.

Just wait 7 years guys!

Id just say this:
Love the game,hate Paradox's dlc policy.

I bought this game in a Humble Bundle package and activated it on May 14th of 2015. In the 566 days since that day, according to Steam, I have logged 1310 hours in this game. This means that 9.6% of my life since adding this game to my Steam library has been playing Crusader Kings 2. If you adjust to exclude 7 hours of sleep per day, 13.6% CK2 time. If you adjust to exclude a 40 hour work week, this figures to 20.5%.

Since installing this game, it has occupied one fifth of my waking non-work life.

These are all facts. Hard, sobering, mathematical facts. Some day, if I stop playing CK2, perhaps I will reflect upon these facts. But until then, I'll be conquering the world.