It's an oddly proud moment when you've granted your son his own duchy and he then proceeds to declare his first holy war against your religious opponents. So if you're prepared to marry off your son to the princess of a powerful foreign king to gain a military ally, you need to be careful because that beautiful young royal may happen to be devoutly religious or homosexual, which would decrease her fertility rating and, thus, your son's chances for producing an heir of his own.Ĭrusader Kings II covers a lot of terrain, so it's a good thing you can easily color-code the map by all sorts of paramaters.Īlthough each character is shown as a static portrait on a menu screen filled with statistics and personality traits, you wind up feeling a genuine sense of attachment to your next of kin. This encourages a careful style of decision making where you have one eye on the present and one on the distant future. And because the game combines each successive ruler's "prestige" score into one final tally, it's in your best interest to keep your dynasty going strong until the game ends in 1453. When your character shuffles off this mortal coil, you take control of the first heir in line to the throne. The game is stuffed to the brim with these methods for pleasing or angering people, and there's a believable logic to the way people react that makes carefully managing your reputation immensely satisfying.Įqually important to your cause is managing the state of your family. If you keep your vassals' troops engaged in combat for too long, they'll grow resentful, but if you send your child to be educated with them, you'll earn a significant amount of goodwill. Everyone in your chain of command has their own agenda, which creates a constant back and forth between you and your underlings. Each territory you hold is like a semiautonomous state unto itself, with your vassals (bishops, counts, and the like) supplying you with tax income and troops only if their opinion of you is high enough. Nurturing these relationships is a delicate but highly rewarding process, thanks to how well Crusader Kings II reflects the slippery nature of feudal rule during the Middle Ages. With no tangible win state, you'll need to come up with your own goals, like uniting the Iberian Peninsula under Spanish rule. Even personal maladies you were born with will carry a lifetime of social stigma if you happen to be one of those unfortunate souls afflicted with a clubfoot or a hunchback. Have you broken a peace treaty with an emir lately? Expect your standing to drop considerably in the Muslim territories of North Africa. Have you been ruling steadily for 50 years? Your constituents will respect you mightily if so. These opinions are an indicator of how easily you can rule over and interact with them, with dozens of factors at play.
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Every character in the game has an opinion of you displayed as a single number, ranging from 100 (glowing adoration) to -100 (bitter hatred). The way you deal with these subordinates is a critical part of your success because what makes Crusader Kings II special is its focus on the value of personal relationships. Each has its advantages and disadvantages: picking a powerful empire grants you more military and financial resources, but it also saddles you with a collection of barons, dukes, and counts whose ambitions aren't always aligned with your own. After you choose a starting point somewhere between 10, you play as any head of state from the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire to the king of a tiny territory long since absorbed by a larger nation. Your job is simply to take the patchwork of feudal states that comprise Europe and the Mediterranean during the Middle Ages and expand your power however you wish. There's no tangible goal to be found in Crusader Kings II.