Read the rulebook of Crusader Kings boardgame?

[gammy13]

I've opened and read the rulebook, but doubt I'll get more than one play out of it. The rules overhead is simply too high to ramp up any new players:

1. The action cards don't have their real effect printed on them. Instead, they're event cards with the name of the action on the top. So you have to know what all the actions do, based only on the player card, which also has the turn structure on the opposite side.
   
   
2. You can see your events before they happen. 7/8 of your hand is bad events. So you're reading all these terrible things, and you have to pick which of them you like the least, before round 1. That means you have to know all the mechanics before you've played a turn.
   
   
3. The manual is terrible: repetitive, windy, and focused on everything but the core gameplay loop (Glitterhoof gets almost a page of content). There are so many little rules and edge cases designed to improve the simulation fidelity that you'll have to consult the manual a lot, so this is especially grating.
   
   
4. There seem to be a lot of overlapping ways to do the same thing. Want to defend against an aggressive neighbor? Promote a duke, raise troops, build a castle, research tech, sabotage their rolls, or play an event card that screws with Cassus Belli. So much work!

The actual game is really simple. Draw your hand of cards, get married and pay for upkeep every 2 turns, and try not to get your best son killed before you send him on the Crusades. I feel like a variant with half the rules stripped out would be a better, more fun game that's closer to the spirit of the originhttps://19216801.onl/

 

[fizikus]

1. Every player gets a reference sheet that tells you what are the possible actions. The actions are straightforward and logical, so after a few turns you will know what are the different actions.

2. The crusader cards has good events for you, everything else is bad for you or good for someone else. I see no problem with this, as when someone else plays a card, you might get something good. Yes, you have to know all the rules before you start to play the game. No, you dont have to know all the possible events to be able to play the game.

3. The manual is not terrible, it explains the game well, but there is a 4-page long errata/faq that you should read before playing the first game. There are lot of rules, but i think everything is logical. We only found a few "little rules and edge cases". There are lot of games that have a longer rule book and lot of games that have shorter rule book.

4. Oh no, there is more than 1 way to lose a territory and also more than 1 way to gain a territory! Unacceptable!

I think that the rules are simpler and more intuitive than for example the rules of Game of thrones: the board game, while the gameplay and the complexity of the two games are similar.