Reviewed: July 10, 2004
Reviewed by: David Caviness
Publisher
Strategy First
Developer
Paradox Interactive
Released: September 21, 2004
Genre: Strategy
Players: 8
ESRB: Teen
9
8
8
9
8.5
System Requirements
It is ironic that in this age of information, falsehoods and absurd misconceptions of history often perpetuate themselves through the media and other outlets into the minds of unsuspecting 21st century citizens. Time has a way of distorting the truth behind events long passed, usually replacing them with the stuff of myth and legend. Often when we hear of the Middle Ages, we envision knights in glimmering platemail and a civilization built on ignorance and savagery. Rarely are we granted a glimpse into its true past, into an era of dawning enlightenment, empires risen and fallen, and brutal reality.
Rather than turning a blind eye to historical authenticity and marching off into the realm of fantasy, Crusader Kings aims its crosshairs directly on the political strife and unending intrigue that coursed through the veins of the Middle Ages. With the advent of feudalism, Christian monarchies split up their realms into provinces, granting the lands to their trusted nobles and faithful clergy. In turn, these lords were expected to provide military strength when called upon, an obligation that often did not go untapped. Underneath each lord the lands were split even further, creating a deeply layered system. Based on the engine that powered the much-lauded Europa Universalis, Crusader Kings thrusts you into feudal Christendom like no other game has before.
The first decision you are confronted with (there are many more to follow) is exactly when to begin. You have three options: 1066, 1187, or 1337. Regardless, the game ends in 1453 and a victor is declared. Having thus decided, you then must choose what level of rulership you prefer, and again you have three choices. The lowly count will reign perhaps over a single tiny province, while a duke will possess more land and possibly a few vassals, whereas a king will obviously command a large realm.
Once you have a title, you’re almost ready to take the reigns, but you’ll need a place to call home. Here you will find an ample list of choices, different for each title, covering all of Europe and quite a bit east of it as well. This decision will have the most impact on the game that follows, as different nations will make for wildly varied experiences.
Once all of this is straightened out and the game begins proper, you might find yourself a bit overwhelmed. You’ve read the manual, and the pop-up window that explains all of the vital interface functions, as well as reading through the list of general tips, but you still don’t understand how it all fits together. The only way to overcome this is to keep playing and to try everything, just to see the result. There is no tutorial. Owners of previous Paradox games will be at an advantage, but as Crusader Kings is quite different from their previous titles in terms of the overall goal, everything will not be immediately clear. This is, obviously, a thinking man’s game, and it will test your capacity to strategize and scheme from the barest beginning.
So what is the ultimate mission then? To garner as much Piety and Prestige for your realm as possible. These are rather like resources, except that they cannot be gathered from mines or generated in facilities. They are won through certain decisions and actions you undertake, and as the years stretch onward you will become locked in a struggle to acquire them. Granting one of the provinces in your demesne (provinces where you are the direct ruler) to an archbishop will give you Piety. Choosing to send a band of traitors to the gallows will win you some Prestige. These are just two minor examples, and for everything that will positively affect these values there are events and decisions that can deplete them as well.
Aside from these two you must also worry about material wealth, as managing a kingdom can be quite costly. Most of your gold will likely come from taxes, the degree of which you can control, but there are other sources as well. These include inheritances, provincial improvements like fishing wharves and tile factories, and sometimes quite significant sums from defeated enemies, in the form of tribute.
Gold, however, only lubricates the wheels and sprockets of your realm. It is your court and family that are of the utmost importance. In the upper right-hand corner of the screen you’ll see a portrait of the liege you’re playing, and upon clicking on it you will see a window that shows all of his relatives, siblings, vassals, titles, attributes, traits and if applicable his liege. Click on any of the portraits in this window and you’ll see all of the relevant information for that person, allowing you to literally lose yourself in a sea of names and faces. This is definitely one of the most interesting aspects of Crusader Kings, as you can click your way through every county, duchy, and kingdom in the land.
The world is alive with characters vastly different from your own, and many of them are plotting and appeasing and toiling just as you are. An apt ruler requires a well-stocked court, and though you have little control over who joins your court and when, you can appoint them to various positions of importance. Each character possesses four basic attributes: martial, diplomacy, intrigue and stewardship.
In addition to these attributes there is a multivariate list of character traits, ranging from things like a nasty intestinal worm infection to a cruel demeanor. Each can have severe ramifications on your ability to rule, and over the course of the game you’ll likely gain many of them. Choosing the right courtier for the right position will in turn improve your attributes, as their relevant attribute is combined with yours once appointed.
Your bloodline must also be carefully managed, as you are prone to mortality and certain to perish before 1453 comes to pass. Naturally, you must create heirs, and to do that you need a blushing, childbearing bride. Hunting down a worthy spouse can sometimes be a chore, and there is no guarantee that you’ll win her. Marriages must be proposed to and approved by whatever liege the potential bride answers to. Certain factors can tip the scales in your favor, including Prestige and as a last resort assassination. You can also arrange marriages for your relatives and offspring, which is a key element in rising from the count of a backwater province to the king of a mighty realm. This is also true of the period, as many nobles took their vows for political gain rather than wild love.
There are few things more satisfying that inheriting massive tracts of land via tactical matrimony. You must also choose how to educate family members, whether they should study matters of the spirit, how to swing a sword, or the intricacies of court life. Women, however, are not eligible for martial education, nor can they serve as members of the clergy. Under certain laws, inheritances cannot be traced through them either, which is important because it has the potential to end your game if you aren’t careful.
There are also vassals, or nobles who are subordinate to you and entrusted with counties or duchies of their own within your realm. As you acquire more land, it will become necessary to hand some of it out, otherwise you incur a penalty for trying to rule an oversized demesne. Even worse, that kind of stress can eventually lead to a nervous breakdown, rendering your powerful ruler into a jabbering, half-mad knave. Vassals will provide soldiers for you when called upon, though if you rely on their armies to the exclusion of your own, not only will they seize whatever province you send them to fight in, but their loyalty will wane the whole time. Keeping vassals loyal is somewhat of a balancing act, and once they turn against you, you can expect to meet them next on the battlefield. This is especially crushing when you’re already in the midst of another war.
Laws can be altered to suit your purposes. There are many to choose from, all of which were practiced in one form or another. You can also determine what technology your realm will focus on developing. Each technology has five levels of progression, and once learned, they ooze out from province to province. Provincial improvements like roads and schools can expedite this process. Tech is important, because it will grant you improved fortifications and new military units, as well as many other useful things. Some improvements will actually drain the treasury, as they require upkeep, while others will provide less tangible benefits than gold.
Castles will protect your province during a siege, and they range from hill forts to impregnable monstrosities. Within each province there are four classes of society, with serfs or peasants at the bottom and nobles at the top. You can control the level of power each class is privy to, and subsequently this will affect the composition of that province’s army. Peasants provide light infantry, while nobles provide knights.
Military recruitment is another area where Crusader Kings distinguishes itself from most other strategy titles. Instead of fabricating soldiers inside of facilities and pumping them out as needed, you must instead rely upon each province to provide you with armies. These can come from your personal lands or from those of your vassals, though their loyalty will decline steadily as they are asked to take the field. You can even, in times of great urgency, declare a grand mobilization, which will call up all available fighting men in your realm. You’ll need them, as medieval Europe was torn apart time and again by incessant wars and squabbles.
Aside from your Christian brothers, there are pagans to be conquered and Muslims to be shattered. Declaring war on a heathen nation is easy, since there are no restrictions, but to attack a neighbor in good standing with Rome, you’ll need a good reason. Fortunately good reasons can be bought, by grabbing claims, but this will cost you precious Prestige. Once you have a claim, war can be declared and mobilized armies can be sent into hostile territory.
Units are represented by a single figure, and battles take place in a window on the left side of the screen. There you can watch them go through the stages of battle until one side is defeated. After all opposition is eliminated, the siege begins. If successful, the province falls into your hands. Opponents may sue for peace if all hope is lost, and this may include a tribute for you as well as recognition of your claim. Additionally, going to war with pagan or Muslim nations will grant you Piety. In fact, once the Pope calls a crusade, failing to slaughter infidels will result in a loss of Piety. Negative Piety leaves you ripe for excommunication, and once you’re exiled from the flock, you’re fair game for the rest of Europe to swallow whole.
Of course, should you prove to be one of God’s chosen few, you can become Papal Controller. This position allows you to nominate anyone you should choose for excommunication, another useful tool for political gain. So how well does all of this convoluted scheming bode? Brilliantly. For any medieval strategy enthusiast, Crusader Kings is a testament to the innovation that developers like Paradox bring to the genre. It would be nice to be able to play a pagan or Muslim state, or to command one of the military monastic orders like the Knights Templar or Hospitallers, but alas they cannot be controlled. The religious orders will sometimes offer knights though, so you can use them to a limited extent in battle. Pagans and Muslims will also join your court, making for awkward relationships.
In a genre where clever opponents rule, testing your skills against another human is vastly important. Crusader Kings does not fail to deliver. At your disposal is the ValkyrieNet matching system, though since the game has yet to be released in North America, it is sometimes difficult to find ample players. The gameplay truly shines in multiplayer sessions though, and grows beyond any level of difficulty the AI is capable of.
This is a game where racing for upgrades and rushing into battle is not the supreme strategy. Multiplayer games are also a good way to further learn what is possible in building a dynasty, and the level of skill the average player boasts of is nothing to scoff at. There is a thriving online community of Paradox gamers at the official forums, where you can read AARs or After Action Reports. These are accounts of game sessions authored by players, many of which are well written and amusing. They also reveal how spontaneous each game can be, the breadth of which is amazing.
War gamers and Paradox fans will think nothing of the style behind Crusader Kings, but less seasoned gamers might find it difficult to adjust. The world map is colorful and widespread, a cartographer’s delight, while the interface is quite rich in detail. However, this isn’t a third dimension, video-card-devouring, pixel-shaded behemoth. Some might say that watching knights ride into battle represented by a lonely avatar is a bit anticlimactic, but this isn’t that kind of game.
Fancy pants graphics are unabashedly low on the priority list, and I can’t say that the game suffers for it. The minor details, like the surprisingly emotive portraits and the wind-waving banner above armies adds a lot to the overall quality. Not to mention the coats of arms – these are perhaps the finest visual aspect of Crusader Kings. The variety is staggering and rare is the shield with a boring image imprinted on it. Apparently Paradox went to great lengths to dredge up historically accurate coats of arms, appeasing the purists among us. Chances are, if this is a game you might be interested in, the graphics will become secondary to the experience as a whole.
The soundtrack does little to reflect the period, thought it could scarcely be called out of place. You will eventually tire of the music, but probably not before listening to it a few million times. Some of the sounds are not quite as innocuous. Battles are appropriately noisy and painful sounding, declarations of victory appropriately brassy, and in a nod to Monty Python’s Holy Grail a voice cries out “Bring out your dead!” when disease strikes a province.
For some reason, though, a jarring and nerve-testing sound is issued each time you click on the realm menu, which you’ll be doing very often. You could play the game sans sound without any kind of discernable negative consequence, as it serves no function other than to entertain, but its doubtful that you would deem its absence necessary. Mostly, it lives up to its aspiration.
Depending, as always, on your proclivity for hardcore strategy titles such as this, just about any price below $50 is fair. You will not blaze through this game in a matter of hours, even at the fastest setting, because one session may be entirely different from the next. To play through the entirety of what the game has to offer would conceivably take months of undivided attention. If you want a game that is deep, challenging, and built to last, Crusader Kings would not fall short of any such expectation.
I began my first game as the King of Denmark, and in short order, the face of Europe changed forever. After marrying an affluent young woman from the kingdom of England and producing three sons and two daughters, I declared war on the Baltic pagans and swallowed up province after province. My first king died in battle, and was canonized, while the second perished from disease. The third, at the age of thirteen, took the crown and became Papal Controller just as his grandfather. This, despite the fact that he was steadily losing Piety due to crusade expectations he could not fulfill. Later, Greenland fell into his hands as well as much of North Africa. And then, one fateful day, the Mongols descended upon Christendom. Scourge of God indeed. Much more happened, but too much to cover here. And that was but one game.
The missing tutorial is the only glaring flaw as far as I can see. The developer cites anti-piracy measures as the reason, but as usual this hurts paying customers the most. There are also some bugs yet to be worked out, including a feature that allows you to import your CK save to Europa Universalis 2, theoretically allowing you to pick up where you left off in 1453. This feature is still not functioning completely as intended. Paradox, however, is both attentive and prompt with their patches, so it’s only a matter of time. All in all, you’ll probably never find another game like this, unless it comes from Paradox, so if you are curious you should definitely give it a try.