The game world is dynamic and ever changing.

Will you create the Empire of Russia? Will you conquer Iberia for Islam? Will your king or queen convert to the Cathar heresy and try to replace Catholicism as the One True Faith? It all comes down to a series of choices, and the choices you make can change history. Intrigue against other nobles, arrange profitable marriages, make war on your neighbors, and try not to annoy the Pope. You control Medieval lord, and strive to guide that lord and his or her heirs through the next several centuries of European civilization. It’s dramatic stuff.Ĭrusader Kings II, the second-most-recent installment in Paradox Interactive’s sweeping and immersive history-based strategy games, is full of drama. I may have been inspired to model future Earths in my science fiction after the results of games of Civ III, in which the mighty Zulu battlefleet threatened to overwhelm the Aztec-French Alliance. I may have even written fan-fiction based on Deadlock, before I even knew what fan-fiction was. All of those games have sucked away whole days, even weeks, of my life. The first one I remember falling in love with is Deadlock, which is a sci-fi battle for planetary dominance with similarities to both Masters of Orion and Alpha Centauri, which was a spin-off of maybe the most successful strategy franchise, Civilization. Strategy games have always been my weakness, the games that I fall into for hours, from sunset to sunup, until I stagger away like a drunk from an all-night bender.

Crusader kings 2 how to play as a horde