To you what makes CK unique?

[Kayapo]

We read lots of posts on these forums about how CK is so innovative and unique.

So I ask you, what makes CK unique?

To me, it is the anti-human blob effect. I'll explain:
Every strategy game I've ever played has a tipping point. A point where the human player just can't be beaten anymore. Granted most games are so easy that you can't be beaten from the start, but there is definetly a huge issue with strategy game design about this. How do we keep the game interesting for the player when it is obviously that he can't lose anymore.

Now, we know CK isn't really the best developed game, it isn't stable and most of the features don't even work correctly, a lot of stuff doesn't make a lot of sense, etc. But there is no other game out there where you can have 3 king titles, be crowned Emperor of the germans, rule over a larger empire then Charlemagne and then sudenly your crazy bastard son kills you and your Empire starts to implode.

The icing on the cake is that...in CK...when that happens the game isn't finished...it is far from that. It can be just getting more interesting for you. Just as you tought you were better off starting again as a count.

That to me is the single most unique aspect of CK. ( and you thought I was going to say dynasties :rofl: )

 

[Emperor Walter]

We read losts of posts on these forums about how CK is so innovative and unique.

So I ask you, what makes CK unique?

To me, it is the anti-human blob effect. I'll explain:
Every strategy game I've ever played has a tipping point. A point where the human player just can't be beaten anymore. Granted most games are so easy that you can't be beaten from the start, but there is definetly a huge issue with strategy game design about this. How do we keep the game interesting for the player when it is obviously that he can't lose anymore.

Now, we know CK isn't really the best developed game, it isn't stable and most of the features don't even work correctly, a lot of stuff doesn't make a lot of sense, etc. But there is no other game out there where you can have 3 king titles, be crowned Emperor of the germans, rule over a larger empire then Charlemagne and then sudenly your crazy bastard son kills you and your Empire starts to implode.

The icing on the cake is that...in CK...when that happens the game isn't finished...it is far from that. It can be just getting more interesting for you. Just as you tought you were better off starting again as a count.

That to me is the single most unique aspect of CK. ( and you thought I was going to say dynasties :rofl: )

I totaly agree. In HTTT, you still have dynasties (Albeit less detailed), but it still has a point where the human player is unstoppable. For me, what makes CK unique in the fact that it is the most accurate simulation of an average medieval kingdom. In M2TW, it was horribly unrealistic. Standing Armies? Assigning Nobles without having to revoke titles? Handguns in 1350? Not having to worry about noble revolts? No inheritances? :rofl::rofl:.

 

[A_Dane]

med 1 was great though.. you could actually inherit, nobles got upset if you revoked titles & you could get into a civil war. God i loved that
(although it had the problem with standing armies too)

 

[ECLoco]

It's the way the game makes me care about the rulers and their extended families. It's a soap.

 

[Järnblomma]

It's the way the game makes me care about the rulers and their extended families. It's a soap.

THIS.

I really love how you make a history and how even simple chains of events are really cool and realistic. Like a nobleman challenges another to a duel, which you agree to. He is wounded. The wound worsens to sickness and a couple of years later he dies. That's simple, yet it's a story. Or that bastard who is bullied all his life, becomes stressed, goes mad and at the age of 21 goes on a killing spree amongst his former antagonists which is topped of by the murder of you who made it all happen.

That is what makes CK so interesting for me! =)

 

[Emperor Walter]

THIS.

I really love how you make a history and how even simple chains of events are really cool and realistic. Like a nobleman challenges another to a duel, which you agree to. He is wounded. The wound worsens to sickness and a couple of years later he dies. That's simple, yet it's a story. Or that bastard who is bullied all his life, becomes stressed, goes mad and at the age of 21 goes on a killing spree amongst his former antagonists which is topped of by the murder of you who made it all happen.

That is what makes CK so interesting for me! =)

This is totally true. It is the most realistic family simulator game as well as being a strategy game.

 

[Gollevainen]

Guys like these:

 

[kadvael56]

Guys like these:

Great guy , I do not have a screenshot but for me seeing a completely strange Europe with a persian pagan king of Croatia was priceless.

 

[Gollevainen]

What was the best that he still managed to produce a son with his disloyalty incarnate rival wife (who had Crazed trait) that saved the dynasty and become rather nice chap:rofl:

 

[Gulluoglu]

I love the situations and stories that emerge as I play.

I began in 1066 as the Count of Usora and my first wife gave me 3 daughters before dying in labor while trying to produce a son. The aging king's wife had a daughter, who I waited to marry, and she produced me one son. The only problem is that the King of Croatia does not have a succession law which recognizes his daughter's line as legitimate heirs.

I saw that the king's legitimate heir, the Duke of Slavonia, had one son of his own and three daughters, and he sent his son off to be a fosterling with one of my rivals, another count in the kingdom. My spy mistress (who happened to be the king's daughter) sent assassins over to that county to murder the Duke's son, which was a success after the second try. The count later sent assassins back to my county and killed my new wife before she could produce me another heir.

The King meanwhile become a rival of mine, but raised me to the Duke of Bosnia (perhaps in an effort to maintain my loyalty, or so I like to think) while the Duke of Slavonia become my friend, despite my having his son assassinated (maybe he blamed the king's daughter entirely for that one).
The King and my rivalry heats up to the point where I was given a free claim on the crown of Croatia, but he can still field way more troops than me, so I'm just sitting on it and waiting for the Pope to call a crusade so I can stab him in the back.

But then he dies of old age, and now my friend is king and I don't want to go to war with him; before long, it's revealed that my son from the previous King's daughter is a homosexual, however, and so I marry one of the new King's daughters to produce another heir while I marry my son to one of his younger daughters in the hope they procreate anyway. But by now I'm 60 years old, he's 69, and that pesky succession law governing the Kingdom of Croatia still hasn't changed. If he dies off before he changes the law, and they put some bumpkin of lesser nobility from the hills on the throne...

 

[LordofSaxony]

So I ask you, what makes CK unique?

It's the only game where my bishop can go insane, kill my children, and then off himself. As funny as it sounds, that did happen in one of my games. Went from having several heirs to none in one foul swoop of the Bishop's hand.

I like the complexity factor, it's not a simple single layer nation. Instead, your nation is 3 different layers, ranging from the Emperor/King, to the Duke, to the Counts. It creates this pillar effect that at any time, no matter how big you are, it can easily topple.

On top of that, it's the only kingdom simulator where I REALLY care about my family and it's offspring. MTW and MTW2 had this a little bit, but not on the scale of CK. Also, on a sidenote, MTW's system was much better than MTW2, but that's another story.

I also like the aspect that I can start out as a Count and work my way up, getting my hands dirty while plotting, and arranging strategic marriages.

 

[TempestDK]

Ofcourse the dyansty system is awesome (still can't believe they managed to get that together in 6 months). Each game is different, and you never know what will happen ... everything might be sunny and great, and you sit on vast empire across Europe. Then your only son dies due to mysterious circumstances and suddenly you stare the end of your rule in the face, as your oldest daughter's son now stands to inherit all.

Or your super statted son suddenly becomes depressed and then crazed and kills his whole family, leaving you with the hard choice of either killing him off (before he kills you) or leave your entire realm in the hands of a mad-man.

Also I love the fact that you can play almost any realm and still have a chance for greatness.

 

[unmerged(76560)]

What makes CK unique for me is that i can choose a bride among hundreds of girls It's better than any Sim game !
I love so much to watch the portraits and find one which is charming o
I can't imagine a CK2 without that (with even better and more various portraits !), i would be extremly disapointed

The portraits are really helping to roleplay and feel real persons.

Ps : and all the reasons other people have given so far of course

 

[Anthropoid]

Being new to the game, I just want to chime in and say: I agree with almost everything I see previous posters have said.

The social dynamics, the dynastic dynamics, and the complex way that a realms power is effected by the social-political-personal dynamics is as far as I'm aware absolutely unique in gaming, and indeed, perhaps the most meritorious design in strategy gaming.

This game, tweaked or modded with events, etc., could be used to teach social science, be it history, sociology, anthropology, whatever. It is an amazing system.

To better that: it still has tremendous potential, and the designers did not 'overreach' by either adding lots of superfluous 'bells and whistles' or trying to make it appeal to a fickle 12-year FPS or RTS segment. They have been true to the vision with this game, and kept it within the reasonable constraints of a CK+DV 1.21 version. Meaning: they did not try between CK and DV to make a completely new game, but to perfect and enhance the basic elements.

Now that the game has been well-played, well-patched, and is well-understood by a fan-base, the stage is set for them to build a CK2 that will take the inherent potentials of the design to still higher levels of beauty.

CKDV is a work of art.

 

[crusadertsar]

To better that: it still has tremendous potential, and the designers did not 'overreach' by either adding lots of superfluous 'bells and whistles' or trying to make it appeal to a fickle 12-year FPS or RTS segment.

CKDV is a work of art.

But that was the old Paradox . Now they are all about bells and whistles. I would wait and see how Vicky 2 turns out before raising my already-high expectations of CK 2.

 

[Anthropoid]

But that was the old Paradox . Now they are all about bells and whistles. I would wait and see how Vicky 2 turns out before raising my already-high expectations of CK 2.

Not to sound like a romantic fool, but, what games are you reflecting on when you say they are now all about bells and whistles?

I like all of the games I've bought from them now, though I have to admit, I do seem to like their older ones more (CKDV 1st place; Rome second place; Victoria, just got it and it is so complicated so far it hurts my brain; EU3-HTTT, loved it for weeks but played it to death, and kinda burned out; seemed so hard at first, but then once I 'figured it out' it seemed too easy, that always seems to happen eventually though).

 

[unmerged(94161)]

it isn't stable and most of the features don't even work correctly

Most of them do work, actually. The only big broken features that come to mind are that AI doesn't assassinate and, uh... the Zero Moral glitch.

The other "broken" feature is that different government types don't matter much but that's not... that's just not really implemented well and it's hard to find a better way to do it without getting ahistorical.

Outside of the two issues I mentioned about the underlying simulation's actually pretty solid.

Anyway, everyone's talked about the dynasties, but you know what I loved?

Technology spread. I've never seen that done anywhere else. Well, Anacreon was sort of close. That wasn't tech spread so much as technology across your empire normalizing to that of the capital. meaning that if you conquer a really high tech planet but your homeworld's sort of... stupid, the high tech planet degrades. Same sort of net effect though.

I'm not a fan of tech trees where you get to pick which technology you want to research, specifically. As much as I love Civ 4 and GalCiv... that aspect of it doesn't really appeal to me. Alpha Centauri-style blind research or Hearts of Europakingstoria any day, plox.

The notion of spreading techs, though. That's awesome. I really want to see that applied to a space-based game sometime. Techs and info can't spread instantly, after all.

To better that: it still has tremendous potential, and the designers did not 'overreach' by either adding lots of superfluous 'bells and whistles' or trying to make it appeal to a fickle 12-year FPS or RTS segment.

Side rant. FPSes... it depends on how you play them. Some developers are really good at appealing to multiple camps. For instance, Quake 3 can either be a hyper-gory, mindless shooter, or a really, really complicated virtual gymnastics/parkour sim wrapped around a physics simulation I can't even begin to grasp.

I have to admit, though, I sort of lost interest in more recent FPSes because they focus squarely on netplay but with no offline experience. Sure, you still get pretty deep and strategic stuff like TF2 coming out, but like... I remember going from UT99's bots, which were quiiiite nice, to something like BF1942 where the bots were completely useless. It wouldn't be much of an issue but most of the people you meet on line are creepy.

 

[unmerged(149703)]

The curve balls are good. One horrible heir and watch it all implode. The imploding and slow expansion are good but it's probably at its best when you have a deranged lunatic as a ruler, and role-play him. Nothing like having a crazed homosexual heretic kinslayer to put the realm on edge .

 

[Acularius]

Working an an AAR right now, right off the bat I could see the progresson getting worse and worse.

First, my bastard son requests a higher place in court. TO become a marshal. I said 'no', the current one is good. He's fairly vengeful.

(Another one attempts the same thing)

Second attempt, he asks to not become a bastard anymore, I say 'no' I have enough heirs, I don't need anymore claiming my ducal title.

Third attempt, wasn't really an attempt. My bed chamber doors flew open and I did not succeed in the 25% chance of living.

So, that was truly interesting development of events.

Truly though, I love the absolute ability to care for the entirety of my dynasty, even my far flung relatives who in a stroke of luck could take my throne due to an unfortunate series of events.

That isn't even my land, to craft my land, watch it develop from nothing to a little bit of something... as well as the spread of tech, which is just supreme.

Also, as frustrating as it can be when it happens to me... watching a Empire collapse after reaching what in most games would be consider the 'tipping point', is simply amazing.
Civil wars can be an interesting show as well.

 

[Jayavarman]

Of all Paradox games, Crusader Kings arouses me the most.