The Middle Ages were a time of constant war and shadow politicking; intricacies such as waging wars and forging alliances in a feudal system of government can make one killer game. Luckily, Paradox Entertainment, the makers of Hearts of Iron, a quality war game set during WW2, created a game that brings forth the governments of Medieval Europe. Crusader Kings focuses on the ruler of parcels of land called a demesne, whether you are a king, a duke, or simply a lowly count. You forge alliances, wage wars, and play shadow games to become the most powerful ruler in Europe.
Gameplay is somewhat similar to that in Hearts of Iron. The entirety of the game is played out on a large map of Europe and North Africa. The map is broken down into counties, much like a Risk board, and all the menus are available on the screen. The interface was greatly simplified when compared to that of Hearts of Iron. There are no longer multiple menu levels to slough through. Everything needed is no more than two clicks away. This makes navigation incredibly simple and streamlines the entire game to create a more enjoyable experience.
The game is broken down into two broad groups: warfare and diplomacy. The warfare portion of the game is fairly simple. Much like that in Hearts of Iron, units are moved around the map by selecting groups and directing them toward locations. The difference, though, is how those units are created. You no longer instruct the construction of units, but instead, the units are built at all times. Each county has a hidden population number that determines the amount of troops it can field. Then, depending on how much power is given to nobles, clergy, peasants, or burghers, the region then trains soldiers to place in the army of the region. When you want to use them, you simply activate the troops and they appear on the map. In the Middle Ages, most soldiers had other lives. As such, troops don’t cost anything until you activate them.
Armies aren’t simply built and moved around either. You also have to worry about local support for the army and dealing with attrition. Each county also has a value associated with it that determines how many soldiers it can support. If this number is exceeded, you begin losing a percentage of your soldiers. The more troops you have over the demesne support, the greater the percentage of troop loss you will suffer. You also gain an additional percent for entering neutral territory or crossing seas and two percent for entering enemy territory. Troop size and movement is important to waging a successful campaign.
Warfare is a bit complex. To start a war, you first must grab a claim on a piece of land held by the individual you wish to wage war against. This costs prestige points which increase gradually during the game and sometimes jump up or down based on random decisions given to you during the game. After laying claim to the parcel of land, you then send your troops into the enemy territory. Combat is in two stages. First, you have to deal with any troops the enemy may have on the field. Field combat comes in multiple stages: maneuver, advance, skirmish, front, and flank. During each stage, you have various events. Maneuver jockeys for position on the field. Advance is the stage where the armies are coming together, and during this stage, the archers are important. Skirmish is when the lighter, faster units merge in the center and fight. Front and flank are when everyone is in an all out brawl. The game then cycles through these stages until one side is defeated or retreats. Because of such, it is important to have a good mix of all unit types you can get your hands on.
Once the field combat is completed, you then go into siege warfare. In this stage, your armies siege the enemy encampment. Once the siege is completed, you then gain control of the county. To place the county under your rulership, you must sue for peace and demand the enemy to renounce the claim. All the stages of combat are entirely automated and depend entirely on the equipment levels of your troops and the marshal skill of your commanders. Combat cannot occur on the oceans as such combat was incredibly rare during the time period.
You can also go to war to support a vassal, ally or liege, in which case you do not take control of the county (unless you decide to grab the title) and are there to help clear out field armies for them.
There is a particularly controversial part of the game, though entirely accurate from a historical standpoint. The game punishes you for grabbing titles and instigating war against Christian foes by reducing your prestige and reputation. On the other hand, when attacking Pagans or Muslims, you are given free reign to march your armies around and are rewarded for attacking them. To attack a Pagan or Muslim, you simply declare war and attack. It costs no prestige to take over their territory and doing so improves reputation. This creates a historically accurate attitude of defeating the non-believers but can be entirely distasteful to some today.
There is also the diplomacy aspect of the game. Diplomacy is broken down into internal and external diplomacy. External diplomacy is rather simple. It involves brokering alliances and waging wars against outside parties. You can send monetary gifts to allies, or send assassins to kill rivals.
The most important aspect of the game is the internal diplomacy. It is especially important if you play as the king. Internal diplomacy determines your relationships with your liege and/or vassals. Keeping them happy is a tough but important task to undertake. Your vassals are a major source of income, which is used to improve your lands and upkeep your armies. If you make a vassal angry, he may break off relations and strike it out alone or swear allegiance to someone else. Your liege is also important as he has a bigger army than you and is an important ally in times of war. You are also given an option to change laws of the land. You can determine who gets to take over when your die, if you favor a tighter grip on the people or give them more control, and whether or not you give high favor to the church. Each law has effects built in and changing them can greatly affect your vassals. Vassals can rise up in mass revolt if you make the wrong change to the laws, or can turn around and love you.
One confusing aspect that I encountered is that sometimes vassals will just break off for no good reason. I have not found any documentation on this. I assume it has something to do with the diplomacy value of the ruler. It is rather strange to see someone with full devout loyalty just break off your kingdom.
Each character in the game has various values. These values are martial, stewardship, diplomacy, and intrigue. Martial values improve combat, stewardship determines how wealthy your regions can be as well as determine the base modifier to how many demesnes you can control, diplomacy affects relations with your vassals by helping improve (or deteriorate) their loyalty, and intrigue determines how well you can assassinate enemies. Your ruler has a value in each of these four areas which are modified by their education and traits. Furthermore, you can also create an advisor in each area which adds their ability to yours.
Demesne improvements are a big portion of the game. Depending on the region’s technology level, you can build a variety of different improvements in the area. The improvements can increase income, help improve relations with the four factions (nobles, clergy, burghers, peasants), and improve military might. Each improvement costs money to build and takes a number of months to construct.
Economics are a combination of taxes, vassal scutage, and your demesne income. Because Crusader Kings is set during the feudal era, you simply cannot gobble up a lot of land for yourself. If you exceed the abilities of your king to control the land (stewardship skill), you are given a penalty to your income. For each demesne over your maximum, your income is cut by 10%. This can be combated slightly by building royal outposts, but you would need to cover each province with an outpost just to get 2 more demesnes under your control. Because of this, it is important to give vassals land to run for you. They give you a small portion of the income, but that is better than losing 10+% of all your income.
Crusader Kings also includes a technological advancement screen. Unlike other games, you can’t sink money into this and gain advancements faster. The advancement in Crusader Kings is rather unique. You can choose to have your scholars focus on specific tasks. There are three main groups: military, economic, and social. You pick one option from each group to have your scholars focus on. Each month, the game rolls a random number and if you hit the right number, the advancement then gets placed in your capital demesne. From there, the spread is entirely random. It flows outward from your province to other regions, slowly spreading around. You can speed up the spread by building schools and universities, but it is still out of your control. Technologies are even capable of spreading from other nations. As of such, many advancements aren’t even ones that you are actively trying to gain. This system does an incredible job of simulating scientific advancements in the Middle Ages and creates a very strong aspect of realism.
Visually, the game is rather simple. You are given an overhead map and, when waging wars, units to move around. There are also character portraits to identify the ruler, vassals, and courtiers. It is artfully and tastefully done, but nothing about it is even remotely advanced or eye popping. Not that it matters though as the game itself is very solid.
The sound is remarkably well done. Like Hearts of Iron, the background soundtrack is done in high quality MP3 tracks. The music is impressive and does a good job associating itself with the time period and region. Music ranges from courtly tunes to harmonious Arab songs. There are also other sounds such as marching troops, warfare sounds, and a few voice clips to indicate when a disease hits a region. The only irritating sound in the game is when you open your court screen and are greeted with an annoying trumpeting.
The AI is very good. There are multiple settings available, but they react in a very realistic manner. Other nations don’t simply wage wars but take into consideration complex factors like reputation and prestige before doing so.
My PC specs are a 1.8 GHz Pentium 4, 512 Megs of RAM, and a GeForce FX 5600 card. The game requires a 450 MHz processor and a 4 Meg video card. Everything runs as smooth as butter and I have never once encountered any crash bugs. The only long wait is loading the game and loading a scenario.
The replay value is massive in Crusader Kings. The game includes 200 years of in-game time with a variety of different gameplay options to undertake. You can go easy from the start and chose to be the Emperor of Byzantium or even go as far as picking a minor Scottish count and scrape your way up to glory. You can be the great crusader or the scourge of Europe. There is even a multiplayer mode that allows you to play with friends. Even after finishing the game you aren’t done. After the game ends, you are then able to export your current game into Europa Universalis 2 and keep your dynasty alive. Talk about cool.
Crusader Kings is the best game I have played in months. The game managed to create the most complex yet most simple to navigate gameplay mechanism I have ever experienced. The level of control you are given controlling your nation is impressive, and it is packaged into a simple, easy to use interface. For anyone who loves empire building games and is looking for a historically accurate challenge of running a feudal nation, Crusader Kings is for you. Everyone else, well, this title will likely make many people happy to play. The only downside is Crusader Kings is not scheduled for release in the United States until mid-September. Just be patient, it will come.
