Earlier this month, we asked you to vote for your favourite strategy games of all time to celebrate the launch (and glorious return) of several strategy classics this month, including Relic's WW2 RTS Company Of Heroes 3, Blue Byte's The Settlers: New Allies and Cyanide's fantasy Warhamball Blood Bowl 3. And cor, I've never seen such love for individual expansions and total conversion mods among mainline RTS games and 4Xs. As with all strategy games, however, there can only be one victor - and you can find out what that single strategy game to rule them all is right here. Here are your 50 favourite strategy games of all time, as voted for by you, the RPS readership.
]]>If you wanted all the expansions and content packs for Crusader Kings 2, at MSRP you'd be paying over £200. Alternatively, you now have the option to pay £4 a month to get access to all the dynasty-building RPG's DLC, thanks to a new subscription service Paradox launched yesterday. Given that the base game is free these days, yeah, not a huge surprise. They are still selling DLC separately the old-fashioned way, mind.
]]>Regicide is once again a topic at dinner, thanks to the release of Crusader Kings III. Your aunt passes you the gravy, and asks about council matters. Your mother comments on the rise in guillotine stocks. Your father, the king, chews his mutton with a rueful and distant glare, probably thinking about war. A cloaked advisor enters and hands you a note on parchment. “The ten worft kingf and queenf in gamef,” it reads. You cough politely, put it in your pocket for later, and continue pushing poisoned food around as if you are eating it.
]]>Paradox Interactive, the makers of Crusader Kings and Stellaris, have announced the "impending completion" of a collective bargaining agreement with the labour unions for its employees in Sweden. By the end of this month, Paradox employees should have a formal way of influencing their pay, benefits and responsibilities, and be generally better protected by the unions they're part of. If you're a little confused on what all this "collective agreement" business means though, bear with me while I have a go at explaining it.
]]>Paradox Interactive today announced a release date for Crusader Kings III: September 1st. It's been eight years since CK2 launched and Paradox have stretched the medieval dynasty-building strat-o-RPG to breaking point with expansions and updates, so here comes a clean slate with some solid changes. Our Nate recently got to play a preview version and came away dead impressed.
]]>A new Crusader Kings 3 video developer diary explains how Lifestyles are going to work in this third instalment of the series. It's a new and improved system that's pretty different from Crusader Kings 2 - featuring proper skill trees so you can better shape your character to be the way you want them to be.
]]>Children, life’s great copy-paste. Adorable, drooling idiots with no self-control and a habit of yelling embarrassing facts to the entire supermarket. In our everyday lives, human children are a snotty emblem of hope, vulnerability, and aspiration. In videogames, they are a cursed harbinger of escort missions, narrative roadblocks, “cutesy” voice acting, and precocious dialogue. They are annoying. But hold on, that’s the point. Many of them are meant to be that way. So here is a list of the 10 most annoying children in PC games. And perhaps, the best annoying?
]]>It's been an eventful decade for PC games, and it would be hard for you to summarise everything that's happened in the medium across the past ten years. Hard for you, but a day's work for us. Below you'll find our picks for the 50 greatest games released on PC across the past decade.
]]>Building empires in Crusader Kings 3 is dirty work. You can't just roll up with an army and start taking farmland willy-nilly - you need friends to fund your battles, lovers to keep your line in check, and even an occasional so-called ally may need to be taken out of the picture. Paradox's latest Crusader Kings 3 dev diary is all about plotting and scheming, detailing how best to plot against your rivals by taking advantage of their most tantalising secrets.
]]>The Crusader Kings franchise has always had a massive Game of Thrones vibe. Indeed, the first two games in the series got their own Westeros mods, and our own Adam Smith called CK2’s “such a blindingly obvious combination of worlds and mechanics that it simply had to exist”. Now, however, looking into the new dynasty mechanics for Crusader Kings 3, it’s clear what Paradox are doing: they’re basically putting that stuff in from day one.
OK, it’s still a historical game, so there’ll be work for modders in adding maps, character names and probably dragons. But in terms of feuding cadet houses, bastard offshoots and needlessly intense family mottos -- not to mention the new ‘Dread’ mechanic, wherein the more of a monster you are, the more your vassals are scared to disobey you -- you can have it all. There’s still plenty about CK3 to be revealed, but while we wait for flaying and seventy-seven course meals to be confirmed as features, here’s everything we know about the new dynasty system.
]]>Although we won’t be able to play Crusader Kings 3 until next year, last weekend I got to try the next best thing - a massive game of Crusader Kings 2 without a single PC involved. As part of the celebrations at PDXcon, Paradox turned the interior of the Nalepastrasse radio station (formerly the broadcast hub for communist East Germany) into a vast map of Europe, and gave 250 or so players the chance to swindle, excommunicate, marry and assassinate their way to the top of the feudal world.
I was curious to see what on earth would happen if you replaced CK2’s vast array of simulated bastards with real people, and how the sheer, breathtaking amorality of medieval power-grabbing would play out when you had to look people in the eye while doing it. As such, I enlisted the help of freelancer Rosh Kelly, and entered the melee for five hours of profound chaos. Here’s how it went down.
]]>Crusader Kings 2 isn’t the easiest game to define. It mixes Paradox’s grand strategy formula with a big bucket of RPG flavour, creating something that’s just as playable as an emergent storytelling toy as it is as a wargame. Crusader Kings 3, its freshly-announced sequel, has this same mix of ingredients. But from what we’ve seen so far, it looks like it might just have edged over the line from “a strategy game with RPG elements” to “an RPG you play on a map”.
Let’s be clear: it’s still very much a strategy game. Crusader Kings 3 is about exploiting a range of interlocking systems -- from military power to succession law to church doctrine -- to grab big metal gauntlets full of power, and rise to the top of the medieval world. That world is now bigger, too. Four times the size, in fact, which brings it to a par with the vast map of Imperator: Rome. And the mechanics used to manipulate it are as varied as they ever were. More than in CK2, however, all of them are affected by who your ruler is as a character.
]]>Having permanently removed Crusader Kings II's price tag last week, making it free for keepsies, Paradox are giving an expansion away free to people who sign up for an account. The Old Gods is the giveaway, the 2013 expansion focused on marauding Vikings, pagans, and Zoroastrians. Turns out I already have a Paradox account from something or other so sure, gwan, wang me a Steam key. I'll show Wessex what's what.
]]>A few minutes ago, Crusader Kings 3 was announced at PDXCon in Berlin, with an actual choir of hooded figures, and this splendidly grim trailer. Predecessor Crusader Kings 2 is still going strong after nearly eight years, with its last expansion launched last November, but now it's time for that old warhorse to be put to pasture. Or perhaps become pope. Either way, it's free to play now.
But what's in store for budding Dukes, Caliphs, and Holy Roman Emperors in CK3? Luckily, I spent the start of the month with Paradox in Stockholm, where even a thematically appropriate run-in with blood poisoning couldn't stop me soaking up all there was to know about the grand strategy behemoth under construction. I’ll be posting some longer pieces getting into the meat of the game in the weeks to come, but for now, here’s a summary of what we know so far:
]]>To start their annual fanfest PDXCON off with a bang (or at least an "Ooh!"), Paradox are now offering Crusader Kings 2 for free. It seems to be free forever? [Update: yes, it is.] If you've not yet tried to form your own medieval dynasty and found yourself undone by intrigue, backstabbing, and your own damn foolishness, you're missing out. Expansions are not included in the giveaway, unsurprisingly, though they are all half-price in a sale at the moment.
]]>Hey, you there, the reader who's always fascinated to hear weird tales and unusual patch notes from Crusader Kings II but has never gotten into the wheeling-dealing empire strategy game because even just buying it is intimidating with the array of add-ons supplementing it. Yes, you. You can now grab CK2 and all fifteen expansions for just over £12 in a new Humble Bundle, which is one fine deal. Heck, it's a good deal if you already have CK2 or even a few expansions, just to top it off.
]]>One of the games I return to regularly is Crusader Kings 2, and usually, what pokes me back into its torrid embrace is a trip abroad. I’ll go to a place I’ve not really thought about much, then get well into its history and, because my curiosity writes cheques my attention span can’t cash, I’ll fail to read up on it at all. What I will do, however, is open palm slam good ol’ CK2 into the VHS slot on my computer, and play the shit out of whatever bit of history I’m intellectually horny for.
]]>This is the shipping forecast; the synopsis at 5pm. Solid Snake just west of cloak room, expected to move towards Sam Fisher on dance floor before midnight. Wrecking Ball from Overwatch, mild at 1am, becoming rabid with lust at 3am. Agent 47 from Hitman: confused, occasional peeping, becoming horny later. Red Prince: cyclonic, mainly drinking alone, peering at Steve from Minecraft with questionable motives, occasionally licking lips.
(Yes. We did a podcast about romantically matchmaking game characters.)
]]>Bugger me, Paradox Interactive’s grand strategy games are a lot, right? If I could put that even more in bold, I would have fattened up like a sacrificial pig before god-appeasing slaughter, because they really are.
My experience with Crusader Kings II, for example, mainly involved me staring at menus for half an hour then crushing half a pack of ibuprofen into a fine powder, mixing it into a hot chocolate, and cradling it while rocking back and forth in a corner for the evening. I am, to put it lightly, not a bountiful well of expertise when it comes to these devilishly complex map-painters. Which is why I was pleasantly surprised to find that, about four hours into Imperator: Rome, the thing had got its wreath-decorated hooks well and truly into me.
]]>Hello! This week John is doing a super secret special mission (playing a video game) so I, one of the other Alices, have taken over the Steam Charts. I am afraid that I do not put as much time as John into constructing elegant jokes that are several layers deep, though, which means you might even be able to tell which games are charting. I understand if this is a huge disappointment.
There are, however, some interesting shake-ups this week, if you've been following the Steam charts for a while. There are a couple of games that had their DLC charting last week without the main game, whilst the reverse is true this week. What does it all mean? I do not know. Consumer data is a mystery to me. Stop pre-ordering things.
]]>It feels only right that the biggest expansion for historical simulator Crusader Kings 2 adds the option to simulate alternate worlds's histories, too. Released today, Holy Fury was initially billed as an expansion to the religious systems of the game. While that is part of the package, even Paradox's own focus has shifted to the expansion's potential to generate endless earths. While the geography may look similar, the empires, cultures, religions and borders are all new. Plus, sometimes the planet may be full of talking animals. The launch trailer readies to march below.
]]>Credit to "quill18" for the image.
Crusader Kings 2 has always played fast and loose with historical accuracy, but the random world generator in its next expansion, Holy Fury (due tomorrow) lets Paradox really get wild. Covered over on PC Gamer by the familiar-sounding Fraser Brown, poking around in the world generation settings can reveal the hidden 'Animal Kingdom' option. It replaces most (if not all) humans with talking animals great, small and mythological. Elephant empires, dragon duchies and cat caliphates, oh my. Check out a feature roundup and a YouTuber's peek at this mode below.
]]>As if holy wars weren't bad enough, Paradox are making them more complicated than ever before in their expansion, Holy Fury, for historical political life-sim Crusader Kings 2. Announced back in May, the expansion now has a release date - November 13th, just one month away. Leaders can become saints, successions are to become thornier, and pagans can forge their own custom path instead of bowing to one of the other trendier religions. This one's going to be bigger than past expansions, and include random world generation too. Below, a new story trailer.
]]>The Vikings have long ago invaded the coasts of pop culture on their dragon-headed longships and carved out their own Danelaw in the realm of video games. In recent years, they’ve grown even bolder, taking over most genres from RTS to RPG, classic point and click adventure to action, with an utter disregard towards distinctions between AAA and indie. They’ve settled in Hellblade and Frostrune, Dead in Vinland and The Witcher 3, God of War and Crusader Kings 2, and of course, The Banner Saga trilogy. Luckily, it’s easy to spot a Viking. Horned helmets, mead-filled drinking horns, bloody battle axes and grim miens are a dead giveaway. When in doubt, tempt the suspected Viking with loot, then wait and see whether or not they can resist the urge to pillage.
]]>We've just passed the half-way point of 2018, so Ian Gatekeeper and all his fabulously wealthy chums over at Valve have revealed which hundred games have sold best on Steam over the past six months. It's a list dominated by pre-2018 names, to be frank, a great many of which you'll be expected, but there are a few surprises in there.
2018 releases Jurassic World Evolution, Far Cry 5 Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Warhammer: Vermintide II are wearing some spectacular money-hats, for example, while the relatively lesser-known likes of Raft, Eco and Deep Rock Galactic have made themselves heard above the din of triple-A marketing budgets.
]]>One of Crusader Kings II’s best mods just got a little less fiddly. Elder Kings is a mod that turns the world of khans and popes into one filled with cat mayors and lizard barons. It’s been around since 2013 and the developers have long been tinkering with it, but playing an up-to-date version involved a bunch of irritating steps, not so much jumping through hoops as navigating some really annoying Oblivion gates. However, now playing a stable version of the mod is as easy as clicking a button on Steam workshop. Good.
]]>Yesterday, things got a little weird for fans of historical sandbox Crusader Kings II, as a screenshot of the game used in a Bosnian newspaper led to a flurry of interest in the history of forks, of all things. CKII fans confirmed that the newspaper's article on the history of the now-ubiquitous cutlery was inaccurate, and it didn't actually originate with an obscure Venetian Doge's wife.
Today, Paradox threw down the gauntlet and asked players to engage in a little tine travel. Players have been challenged to take control of Doge Domenico III of Venice and correct the history books by conquering the world in the name of forks, and claim a community achievement named "This fork of mine".
]]>Tee hee hee. A newspaper has used the portrait of a character from Crusader Kings II to illustrate a small article about the history of the fork as an eating utensil. The article is in Bosnian newspaper Dnevni Avaz and shows a picture of everyone’s favourite 11th century Doge of Venice, Domenico Selvo. Don’t you know him? He’s a cool guy. He’s humble, shy, just, stubborn and a tough soldier. But, uh, he has nothing whatsoever to do with forks.
]]>The Paradox DLC factory continues to diligently extend the lives of its myriad grand strategy romps, with all but Stellaris getting new DLC announcements at PDXCON last month. We’re getting restless pagan warriors, war elephants and even some sharks. If you can match the feature to the game, you get a polite nod of respect.
Rather than tiring you out, making you click on three articles like a thoughtless task master, I’ve gathered all the sizzling deets in one place. Rest those fingers and direct your eyes below to find out what’s changing in Hearts of Iron 4, Europa Universalis 4 and Crusader Kings 2.
]]>It didn’t take long for the deals to start flying across the table. We hovered over the weathered map of medieval Europe, shouting out offers and threats between excursions to the Holy Land. There were marriage proposals, bribes and even an assassination plot or two. Like its PC progenitor, Crusader Kings The Board Game has a knack for generating stories, but it does it in a couple of hours, not a couple of days.
]]>As part of this avalanche of Paradox Interactive material today, you'll be excited to hear that the hyper-specific bread and butter of their strategy games, Crusader Kings II, is getting an expansion born of pure hellfire. The Holy Fury add-on will be changing the way crusades are waged, from starting in a randomly generated map to raiding something called "Pagan Warrior Lodges" to using special powers to antagonize or control your neighbors. Exactly as Jesus would have wanted.
]]>It's good to be king, and even better when you're not paying a penny for it. Today, Paradox are giving away the base version of their enormously enduring historical simulation sandbox Crusader Kings II, completely free. Grab it on Steam here, and you get to keep it forever, no strings attached, although the temptation of collecting over a dozen major expansions is now open to you.
]]>Civilization VI: Rise and Fall wants to solve a problem. That problem is perpetual growth, and it plagues many 4X games. Whether your aim is world conquest or cultural hegemony, victory in Civilization and many of its cohorts depends on domination. However peacefully you try to play, you're often straight-jacketed into a utilitarian-psychotic view where all resources and people are just raw material to be assimilated, Borg-like, until the whole map is monochrome.
But as the early excitement of exploration and expansion ebbs to late game stagnation, the fun runs out. Historically, stagnating empires tend to fragment and collapse. But in Civilization VI, like many games, you're the star of the show – and there's nowhere to go but up.
]]>What's your favourite paradox? My current one is 'how can the many awesome games in The Humble Paradox Bundle 2018 cost so little money?'. Wait, that's not a paradox - it's just a really good deal. Looks like I need to finish this news post then head back to paradox school.
Fortunately I won't need to enrol to enjoy the games on offer here. This bundle has 8 in total, with highlights including Obsidian's RPG Pillars of Eternity and the surprisingly funny wizard brawler Magicka 2. This is Paradox though, so best of all is the selection of sprawling strategy games. Let's dive in!
]]>We've already seen which games sold best on Steam last year, but a perhaps more meaningful insight into movin' and a-shakin' in PC-land is the games that people feel warmest and snuggliest about. To that end, Valve have announced the winners of the 2017 Steam Awards, a fully community-voted affair which names the most-loved games across categories including best post-launch support, most player agency, exceeding pre-release expectations and most head-messing-with. Vintage cartoon-themed reflex-tester Cuphead leads the charge with two gongs, but ol' Plunkbat and The Witcher series also do rather well - as do a host of other games from 2017's great and good.
Full winners and runners-up below, with links to our previous coverage of each game if you're so-minded. Plus: I reveal which game I'd have gone for in each category.
]]>Another year over, a new one just begun, which means, impossibly, even more games. But what about last year? Which were the games that most people were buying and, more importantly, playing? As is now something of a tradition, Valve have let slip a big ol' breakdown of the most successful titles released on Steam over the past twelve months.
Below is the full, hundred-strong roster, complete with links to our coverage if you want to find out more about any of the games, or simply to marvel at how much seemed to happen in the space of 52 short weeks.
]]>Royal incompetence simulator Crusader Kings 2 is one of the best games ever. Over hundreds of years, sultans and kings create new empires and murder their families. Today a data science man gets in touch to say he recorded a 700-year game in ‘observation’ mode, pulled out all the data like a big reel of cassette tape, shoved it through some kind of magical process I won’t pretend to understand, and came up with statistics on several rulers. This also resulted in detailed “networks” of kills and marriages. The important thing is: this lets us see who had the most babies.
]]>Jon Shafer, the lead designer of Firaxis's Civilization V and his own strategy game At the Gates, is gone from strategy specialists Paradox only six months after joining. Paradox say neither that he ditched the company nor that they fired him, rather that they have all "decided to part ways due to creative differences." How enigmatic! We didn't even know what he was working on.
]]>With this week's release of Star Wars: Battlecrate 2 marking the end of big, noisy shooter silly season, there's a whole lot more breathing space for a wider variety of games. Case in point, a double-whammy of DLC for Paradox's grand strategy heaviest-hitters, Crusader Kings II and Europa Universalis IV.
Big add-ons for both have landed today, with CK2: Jade Dragon putting China front'n'centre, and EUIV: Cradle of Civilization looking at the state of the Middle East and Asia during the early modern era.
]]>With Halloween fast approaching, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about typical spooky things: ghouls and ghosts, vampires and werewolves, marrying off my daughter to an appropriate suitor and the best trade strategy to dominate the Aegean. The Steam Halloween Sale is in full swing until November 1, and thanks to Paradox Interactive, it’s full of grand strategy games.
]]>Crusader Kings 2 is a strange thing. At first glance, it's a wildly complex grand strategy game in the vein of Europa Universalis, but dig a little deeper and you'll find something not far divorced from The Sims; an ant-farm sandbox driven not by goals or win-states, but the personal dramas of a cast of thousands.
As with The Sims, Crusader Kings 2 just keeps on growing, constantly reinvigorated by expansions adding new layers of complexity to the simulation. The latest of these - Jade Dragon - offers you the chance to puppeteer your way through seven hundred years of Chinese political history, starting this November 16th.
]]>The next expansion for Crusader Kings II [official site] will introduce China as a power offering potential riches or ruin depending on how you play the cards. Paradox today announced the Jade Dragon expansion, "coming soon". It's not properly adding China to the world of Crusader Kings II, mind, rather as an "off-map influence" accessed through a "China screen" with the pertinent options and information. No, that's not nearly as fun.
]]>The hosts of the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show, know neither respite nor shame. This week we have a chat about "replayability" - what games are the most replayable? Why do we always go back to our "comfort games"? Exactly how many hours has Adam spent in Crusader Kings II? Hint: QUITE LOTS. Meanwhile, Pip attempts to cultivate the excrement of wet monsters in Slime Rancher, Adam tells us about his cowardice in Playerunknown's Battlegrounds, and I am slumming it with another collectible card game, this time The Elder Scrolls: Legends. We've also got some reader questions and comments, all based on replaying old favourites. It's a theme!
]]>Paradox have started handing out games as compensation to those affected by their recent surprise regional price hikes. Prices went up by only a few percent for some people but almost doubled for others. Paradox have reverted the prices now. They had thought they might be able to give partial refunds but that's proved unworkable.
Instead, anyone who bought Paradox products at the higher prices -- which were between May 17th and July 6th -- is eligible to claim a game from a list including Stellaris and Crusader Kings II, or alternatively two bits of select DLC.
]]>Paradox Interactive, the gang behind games including Crusader Kings and Hearts of Iron, have pledged to undo their recent increases to regional prices across much of the world. While many of the price rises were minor, others were huge. For example, the price of Stellaris in Russia went from 699₽ to 1199₽. Paradox had said the increases were "to make our prices match the purchasing power of those areas" but have since decided they communicated this poorly, so they will roll the prices back.
]]>At the Paradox Convention last month, I was hoping to see something new from Paradox Development Studio, the internal team responsible for the company's core strategy titles. There were new expansions for Europa Universalis IV [official site] and Hearts of Iron IV [official site], and the hiring of Jon Shafer is an interesting move, but no actual games were announced. I sat down with creative director Johan Andersson and CEO Fredrik Wester about the possibility of a Crusader Kings [official site] sequel, the expansion model, and what the future holds for the development side of Paradox.
]]>The RPS podcast of yesteryear, the Electronic Wireless Show, is now the RPS podcast of presentyear after a triumphant return. In this episode (two in one week!) we chat about our E3 expectations, the asymmetrical multiplayer slasher Friday the 13th, Witchery card game Gwent, and maths-em-up CrossCells.
Also featuring listener's questions and Patch Adam, in which we jumble fake patch notes into a pile of real ones and ask Adam to guess which are true and which are false. This week: Crusader Kings II!
]]>Forget everything Fallout has ever taught you because war is changing. We already knew about upcoming geographical expansions in Crusader Kings II [official site], making areas that were previously impassable playable, but fresh news arrived in today's dev diary and it involves changes to fundamental systems. The major shift will be in the causes of war, which will no longer require justification in every instance. That could be a dramatic change, given that one of the most important aspects of CK II is the need for a Casus Belli to not only declare war but to inform the goals of a war. The other alterations will come in battle itself, specifically sieges. More below.
]]>Jon Shafer was 21 years old when he became lead designer of Civilization V. Now working at Paradox on an unannounced project and on his own historical strategy game At The Gates in his spare time, he says he's learning from the likes of Spelunky along with the more obvious strategic influences. We spoke about how the second half of every Civ sucks, the part the series played in his life, the perils of boredom in strategy design, how much we love maps, and what the future holds for both Shafer and Paradox.
I began by asking how he ended up sitting at the Paradox Convention, in Stockholm, the city that has now been his home for two weeks: "It's quite a long story, actually."
That story begins in Denver, around 2003.
]]>Crusader Kings 2 [official site] is secretly Crusader Kings 5 or 6. The specific number isn't important; the point is, Paradox's alternate history generator has grown in all directions since release. The timeline covered has expanded, the map is much bigger, there are more cultures and religions, and you can join a cult and give birth to the antichrist.
There wasn't an official expansion announcement at PDXCON, the media event and fan gathering that I returned from yesterday, but today game director Henrik Fåhraeus published a post discussing some future changes. The playable world is getting bigger, again: "the Himalayas and the vast Tibetan plateau" are opening for business.
]]>Crusader Kings 2 [official site] is (somehow) now five years old. Adam raised a glass to its humour and humanity last month in celebration of its half-decade anniversary, so I thought I'd delve into its modding community to mark the occasion too.
Much like the digital empires depicted in-game, many of its mods have risen and fallen since my last visit, however the following list sends the best into battle. Given how involved CK 2 can be at times, I've tried my best to link videos where possible so as to properly showcase each mod's worth. Enjoy!
]]>I’ve been hanging around with a bad crowd, staying up all night, attending weird orgies and torturing rivals until they embrace the teachings of Lucifer. Last night I ate my cousin because the Devil told me to do it. Crusader Kings 2 [official site] has always had a bit of a dark side, but with the new Monks and Mystics DLC, it’s been cranked up to 666.
Ostensibly, Monks and Mystics is all about opening up new roleplaying possibilities in regards to faith. You can join a variety of societies, including monastic orders, secret organisations and devilish cults. These sects offer new ways to interact with the religious side of medieval society and for the adventurous can offer strange powers, forbidden knowledge, and the ability to champion heretical religions. Guess which path I followed?
]]>Cults and orders of assassins, satananiacs, Hermetics, monks, and more are now roaming the historical simulation of Crusader Kings 2 [official site], if you buy the latest expansion anyway. Paradox today launched Monks and Mystics, which boshes in secret (and not-so secret) orders who reward loyalty with handy abilities, pops in holy relics and masterwork weapons, and more. In short, yes, you can sacrifice people in Lucifer's name and try to summon a familiar.
As is the Paradox way, also out today is a big new update free for all players. It brings new features, useful changes, welcome fixes, and things that, y'know, sound funny. Sadly, the endless carousing has ended.
]]>It’s that time again – Crusader Kings II [official site] is already obese with DLC and expansions but that is not stopping Paradox from bringing yet more obscure possibilities to the historical son-murdering simulation. The next addition, Monks & Mystics, is going to let you join religious sects and shadowy groups of clandestine devil worshippers among others. It’s release date has today been confirmed as March 7. And there’s a dev video below explaining some of the features.
]]>Today, on the Big Love Day of Victor Von Valentine, Crusader Kings 2 [official site] celebrates its fifth anniversary. I'm celebrating too because though I love many games, this one has a special place in my heart. I've written about its brilliance before but today I wanted to focus on an aspect that deserves more attention, and that's the way that the game functions as a period piece. With Chaucer and Monty Python as company, I've been thinking about the filth, humour and humanity of this grandest of grand strategy games. And the importance of farts.
]]>What is Crusader Kings II [official site] missing? I've been playing again recently, drawn back in by The Reaper's Due and its perfect simulation of the general snotty sickness of an English winter. I'd never have thought of disease as such an important addition, which is a bit silly really considering the historical impact of the Black Death, and the fact that entire military campaigns could be undone by infection and illness. Disease is important.
So too are religious societies and cults, and that's what the next expansion, Monks and Mystics, will bring.
]]>This is The Mechanic, where Alex Wiltshire invites developers to discuss the inner workings of their games. This time, Crusader Kings 2 [official site].
Meet Domnall, Earl of Osraige. He’s a pretty affable guy. He’s friends with his neighbouring rulers, and all seems peaceful. But he’s also ambitious and a just little crazy, and he’s about to make a big mess of the Emerald Isle.
Domnall is one of the hundreds of characters across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa that Crusader Kings 2 is simulating here in the year 1066. Whether the player is interacting with them or not, they’ll be vying with each other, allying, marrying, dying, giving birth, and generally doing all of the things that your ruler can do. Crusader Kings 2 is a game all about people. It’s about marriages and dependencies, accordances and kinship. And at the heart of how it models all these dense and messy human complexities is a single value that governs the way its little computer aristocrats behave:
THE MECHANIC: Opinions
]]>The Witcher 3 [official site] is the longest game I've played for years, or at least the longest game that I've actually come close to completing. There was a time when I'd be thrilled to hear about a new fifty or sixty hour epic adventure, very much subscribing to the policy “the more the better”, but now I'm more likely to flinch away from the screen when a game's sprawl is revealed.
I've realised that my aversion to enormous games has been growing for a while, but the announcement of Red Dead Redemption 2 brought it into sharp focus. Do I really want yet another massive open world game? I'm not sure that I do.
]]>It's always a happy day when an update for a much-loved mod appears. The Game of Thrones total conversion for Crusader Kings II [official site] is such a blindingly obvious combination of worlds and mechanics that it simply had to exist. That the team working on it continue to do such a good job is fantastic. The latest update brings in support for the latest expansion to the base game, The Reaper's Due, which adds all sorts of epidemic modelling and hideous disease-related deaths. So, yes, you can watch your least favourite characters suffer and squirm as they try to sweat or bleed out the bubonic plague.
]]>A new Europa Universalis IV [official site] expansion, named Rights of Man, is out today. This means that people who pay £15 can play with expanded diplomatic options as a Great Power. As is the traditional Paradox grand strategy way, a big update has launched alongside this expansion with fixes and additions for all.
Look, if I sound half-hearted, it's because I'm reading the notes for a Crusader Kings II patch Paradox also released today, and that has the lot: cats, fraudulent mystics, and cannibals finding human heads in their beds. EU4 is a let-down on the japery front.
]]>When you start a new game of Dwarf Fortress, a world is generated. Not just a map, but a world, with its own legends, characters, factions and historical wars. It's one of my favourite openings to any game and gets me far more hyped than any fancy cinematic intro.
Wouldn't it be great if Crusader Kings II [official site] could do something similar, rather than sticking to actual historical beginnings? Thanks to a modder who goes by the name Yemmlie, it can. The CK2 Generator can create alternate histories, simulating the appearance and development of cultures, religions, languages, characters and all the rest. It defaults to the vanilla map but if you want a random world to play on as well, that's supported.
]]>Bring out yer dead, we’ve got a lovely wheelbarrow ready and waiting. Dynastic strategy and infanticide simulator, Crusader Kings II [official site], has received its latest add-on. The Reaper’s Due brings a bunch of new events and mechanics for Europe’s worst case of the sniffles. The Black Death will ravage the land and you’ll be forced to either fight against it or hide away in your castle with your pet cat. As usual, there’s also a free patch tweaking other issues, for all the peasants unable to find £7 in their coffers.
]]>Reigns [official site] is a game of decision-making and courtly governance that was described by Adam as Crusader Kings meets Tinder. You get presented with card after card of choices and have to swipe left or right (or in our case, click) in order to say yes or no to your courtiers’ requests. It’s also out today. I’ve just played 20 minutes of it. One of my kings was abandoned to rule over a kingdom of pigeons, another was slaughtered and thrown to the dogs by the merchant class, and another went mad, kicked a dog and started hearing the Devil. It’s good to be the king.
]]>Paradox and Adam may tell you that the next Crusader Kings II [official site] expansion is about diseases tearing through medieval Europe, but no. The Reaper's Due is about cats. Lovely cats. Hunting dogs be damned, Reaper's Due will let characters befriend a cat - which naturally brings bonuses. Then... maybe a few more cats. All of the cats. Lovely, lovely cats. Get carried away and you might get the 'Crazy Cat Lady' trait. And then something something black death bad omens angry mob blah blah but look, the point is: cats. Oh, and the expansion now has a release date: August 25th.
]]>We all get sick every once in a while. When certain unnameable stars are ascendant and the pollen count is high, the writers of RPS are stricken with a variety of ailments ranging from the mildly irritating Wheezing Calamities to the truly dreadful Kneecaps-A-Shudder that causes the sound of grinding bones to echo around our word-cubicles, day and night. We have a proud record of 'zero plagues' in 2016 though and that's something to celebrate.
Crusader Kings II [official site] is set in more sickly times though and the next expansion to the bestest of all historical strategy games will explore illness, death and all that other good stuff.
]]>Total conversions are like mods, except so ambitious they never get released. Ho ho! A little bit of 1999 mod community humour there. They're also sometimes mods that completely change the face and function of game, bending its every part in service of some new purpose. That's what Paradox want to support more of across all their games, and to that end they've released a 3D model exporting tool alongside a new developer diary discussing modding for their upcoming procedural space strategy game, Stellaris. It looks hot like that sun.
]]>The launch of a new expansion for Crusader Kings II [official site] is a happy time. Folks with spare cash can add an interesting new system to the dynasty-building strategy game, all players benefit from a big free update launching alongside it, and non-players like me get to enjoy the silliness that comes in that update's changelog.
So, the Conclave expansion has arrived today to add a council who can work with or against rulers, the update has added an infamy system, and I'm giggling at patch notes explaining that humans should no longer give birth to horses and wondering whether "History is no longer executed if the player loads a savegame" refers to somehow sticking the head of history itself on a pike above the gates.
]]>I like to think of Crusader Kings II [official site] players as those shopfolk in comedies who painstakingly stack vast pyramids of cans, only for our hero to breeze through and trash it. So they start over. Then our hero returns. Restart, return. And again. That's you, CK2 players. That's you and new expansions coming along just as you've managed to get your kingdom running smoothly. Hey look, here comes the Conclave expansion, ready to make councils interfere with your rule. Pick up your cans, Canno.
]]>These are my personal Edwin Droods. Stories that I've failed to finish, for one reason or another, and that are left suspended. In the manner of somebody reversing out of a relationship like a heavy goods vehicle, trundling slowly and beeping nonchalantly, I'd like to say to the games included: “It's not you, it's me.”
]]>That feeling when you finish a long series of books, or a television series, and say goodbye to the characters for the last time. Closing a world, pulling down the shutters and knowing that it has run its course, is a peculiar sensation. Indeed, it can provoke a sense of loss. How utterly ridiculous I felt last week when I mourned the ending of tens of thousands of tiny football-men, each of which is little more than a pile of numbers and behaviours. BUT CAN ANY ONE OF US CLAIM TO BE MORE THAN THAT, I thought, as I uninstalled Football Manager 2015 [official site] and prepared to move on to the beta for the new model.
I'm very bad at goodbyes.
]]>Crusader Kings 2 [official site] is a grand strategy game about human beings instead of armies, and it spins gripping Shakespearean yarns about medieval social climbing, full of murder, betrayal and bastards. It's brilliant, but you might be a little intimidated by its setting. That's just one of the reasons why the Game of Thrones mod is so good - and it's just hit version 1.0.
]]>Paradox Interactive's grand strategy games create extraordinary scenarios. Often they're based around small, local events - everyone seems to love sharing Crusader Kings II's twisted family trees and tales of incest, treachery and knives in the dark - but occasionally a story emerges that shows how preposterous and impressive these games can be at the other end of the scale. I've never seen anything quite like this million-man battle from Europa Universalis IV [official site] though.
]]>Expansion packs were once a core part of playing PC games, but they can often feel less essential in a world of constant updates and microtransactions. Original game Alec, expansions Adam and Graham, and brief DLC Alice gathered to discuss their favourite game expansions and why they still think the model works.
]]>Paradox’s internal development studio, responsible for Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis, Victoria and Hearts of Iron, is deep into development on a space strategy game. We’ve already seen it, and picked the brains of CK II maestro and project lead Henrik Fåhraeus and EU IV designer Tomas Johansson about this giant leap for the studio. The project, which the company announced at their Gamescom fan gathering moments ago, goes by the name Stellaris and it’s shaping up to be one of the most exciting games in recent years.
Below, you’ll find everything we know, including how randomised alien species will ensure that each new galaxy is mysterious, and why the commitment to an intelligent and subversive end-game could make this one of the smartest interpretations of 4X strategy ever made.
]]>I was the first member of my family to go to university. Before my ascent of the ivory towers of academia, the Smiths had known how to work with their hands. No more. Currently, I'm the last of my line and the most impressive thing I've handcrafted in my life is a spicy avocado wrap.
If your family tree is in danger of withering, Crusader Kings II's [official site] new Horse Lords expansion has fresh solutions. While Christian leaders lock children in a tower, you could take a more nurturing approach as a new nomadic clan leader over on the steppes of Central Asia. Send your kids out into the world to make a name for themselves as mercenary warlords. That way they might forge a dynasty rather than fretting over the lack of fresh coriander.
]]>What are the best Steam Summer Sale deals? Each day for the duration of the sale, we'll be offering our picks - based on price, what we like, and what we think more people should play. Read on for the five best deals from day 5 of the sale.
]]>Paradox are preparing to inject some of that "Khan-do" spirit into Crusader Kings II [official site]. The eighth major expansion for the grand strategy masterpiece was announced a couple of days ago. I didn't report on it at the time because Paradox had dropped me in the middle of an altogether different war and I was somewhat distracted (full coverage of that on Monday).
The Horse Lords deserves my attention though. If the new nomadic and horde mustering mechanics are effective, it could be as impressive an addition as The Old Gods. Trailer and full details below.
]]>Let's Play Crusader Kings II [official site]. Or rather, let's watch Crusader Kings II play itself.
Partly inspired by the ongoing Civ V AI Battle Royale and partly by my own longstanding interest in the interplay of game mechanics without player intervention, I've decided to run a Crusader Kings II campaign, beginning at the earliest possible start date. I'll be running the game in observer mode – that is to say, there will be no human player – and I've drawn up a set of rules to govern which parts of the world I'll be observing most closely. Empires will rise, Kingdoms will fall. The mighty will end up rotting beneath carparks in Leicester.
]]>In the second chapter of an AI-only alternative history, the Very-Much-Not-United Kingdom is home to several Lords who get a kick out of impaling their enemies, our own Earl Osbald proves to be quietly competent and ambitious, and Charlemagne owns just about everything.
Part one, which lays out the rules, is here.
]]>“We don't want to be a cult.” Shams Jorjani is VP of Acquisition and Portfolio Strategy at Paradox Interactive. He's the guy who reads through and listens to a thousand MOBA pitches and occasionally finds a Teleglitch hidden behind them. He laughs at the cult line as soon as its out there. This, after all, is a company that frequently dresses its employees in coloured wizard robes, faces concealed.
Cultish maybe. Cult adjective rather than cult noun. Bruce Campbell's career rather than Tom Cruise's alternate career.
]]>Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in. Scenario Generator is a tool that creates random restrictions, goals and startup settings for a variety of games, and it's the reason I've become happily lost in Crusader Kings II [official site] and Civ V [official site] again. Reinvent an old favourite with the click of a button, as you find out precisely how often you can commit Unprovoked Murder.
]]>Crusader Kings II [official site] is three years old, which means we've delayed too long. The little blighter should have been married off to its own cousin at least a year ago and is probably plotting to have us all killed even as I write this.
To celebrate the occasion, Paradox are allowing people to play the base game for free on Steam, from now until February 23rd. It'll also be discounted by 75% throughout that period, so if you finally decide to take the plunge, you can buy in for £7.49. It's my favourite game of the last five years and quite possibly my favourite game of all time. Here's my review. Thoughts on its growth over the last three years below.
]]>This year has been unusual for me, gaming-wise, because I haven't had That One Game. You know the one - the game that keeps you up at night while also managing to occupy your coffee breaks. The one that you can play while you're listening to the new Flying Lotus album just as easily as you can play while Corrie's on. It can take up all of your attention or the slightest part, filling whatever part of your mind you commit to it at any one time. I miss That Game.
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Few games would boast of allowing that, perhaps only cracking a nervous joke in patch notes addressing the bug's removal, but it's a proper listed-in-the-trailer feature of Crusader Kings II's latest mini-expansion. Way of Life launched yesterday, injecting a little more personality into your pawns. WoL lets you give characters a "focus", a passion in life that they'll follow and pursue. Some folks like gossip, some are happiest when hunting, and some, well, some really want to marry their cousin. CK2 is basically a weirder, stabbier, and more difficult version of The Sims anyway, right?
]]>Crusader Kings II is almost fully grown. As a kid, it didn't have the breadth of thought to explore more than one belief system and certainly didn't know how a Republic operated. With age came wisdom and the youngster was soon travelling all over the world to learn about different cultures and faiths. As part of the MA in Early Medieval History that it completed recently, CK II wrote a biography of Charlemagne and now it has left the cloisters of academia and is ready to enter the real world. The school of life. I give it two weeks before it's bedding its own father in law and having its brothers chopped into messes.
]]>Every Sunday, we reach deep into Rock, Paper, Shotgun's 141-year history to pull out one of the best moments from the archive. This week, Adam explores his own gaming history to understand why he plays and why he writes.
This is my first week back from a holiday, during which time I barely looked at an internet, let alone wrote on one. I didn't play any games either, unless you consider freezing to death on a remote Welsh hillside to be some sort of game. As is often the case, not doing something for five minutes has made me think about why I do it in the first place. Why, of all the wonderful and fascinating things that exist, do I spend so much time thinking and writing about games?
]]>I haven't checked in on Europa Universalis IV or Crusader Kings II for a while, but both games continue to expand in my absence. For Crusader Kings II, the Charlemagne expansion pushes back further into the early medieval period, with another hundred years added to the timeline and enough features to make the DLC equivalent in size to the gargantuan Old Gods expansion. EU IV's Art of War expansion might be even larger and is certainly the grandest piece of DLC for Europa Universalis to date. As the name suggests, the focus is on military campaigns, but every system in these games is linked, so it'll affect far more than the fracas. Videos below.
]]>Last week we wrote about the Humble Jumbo Bundle 2, because it was the best haul of games we'd seen in a Humble Bundle in a little while. Now that bundle has expanded as planned, and the three new games added are all good too. Pay more than the average of $6.62/£4 and you'll now receive Legend of Grimrock, PixelJunk Eden and Orcs Must Die! 2.
This on top of a bundle which already included Galactic Civilizations 2, Terraria, Crusader Kings 2 and more.
]]>Humble Bundle are always going to be of varying quality - sometimes including only a single quality game with some bonuses, sometimes of no interest whatsoever - but the latest, titled Jumbo Bundle 2, is quite the bargain.
For the low, low price of whatever-the-hell-you'd-like you'll get space 4X Galactic Civilizations II with its expansions, side-scrolling undead violence-applier Deadlight and isometric action RPG The Incredible Adventures of Ven Helsing. Beat the average price however ($6.32 at the time of writing) and you'll also receive 2D survival exploration Terraria, combo-heavy high-skill fighting game King of Fighters XIII and the story-spawning strategy-RPG Crusader Kings 2.
]]>I don't think I'd mind if Crusader Kings II received fresh DLC for the next twenty years. Judging by the latest announcement, which I witnessed live at a fan gathering/press conference at Gamescom, the greatest medieval strategy RPG-sim of all time might soon be simply the greatest historical RPG-sim of all time. The upcoming Charlemagne expansion brings the possible start date ever closer to the classical era, with the option of beginning play in 769 AD to follow the life and times of Big Chuck. EU IV is also set to expand, to the beat of a warlike drum.
]]>I really appreciate the efforts of the voiceover man in this launch trailer for the new Crusader Kings expansion, Rajas of India. He's doing his very best to make the game sound exciting and dramatic, even as the camera pans slowly across colourful cartography and static menu screens.
Except, as we players of Paradox's medieval soap opera know, this is exciting. You don't need to say it in a dramatic voice: Rajas of India adds the Indian subcontinent, three new religions, and a lot of new ways to commit lusty barbarism.
]]>Rajas Of India is the next gargantuan expansion for 2012-2013's best strategy game, Crusader Kings II. Your date with the Rajas is set for March 25th, which should give you just enough time to buy something nice to wear and book a table at that fancy restaurant that everybody keeps going on about. I've already gathered a wealth of information about what to expect, as well as thoughts on the expanded map, and new faiths and cultures. The ten minute video below contains much of the same information, delivered directly from the mind and mouth of Henrik Fåhraeus, the man who made the Middle Ages.
]]>I don't think anyone at Paradox expected Crusader Kings II to spread into India with quite as much gusto as it will this March. The next expansion adds around 50% to the world map, with almost 400 new provinces, three new religions and a continent's worth of new events, including the possibility of chained 'reincarnation' plotlines. As always with these generous chunks of DLC, a free patch will be released alongside the expansion and it will contain a surprisingly hefty amount of content, including the entirety of the expanded map, and Steam matchmaking and Workshop support. While it may not have the immediate appeal of the Old Gods to many (Vikings vs Buddhists anyone?), Rajas is the biggest expansion since. More details below.
]]>Crusader Kings 2 is one of my personal favourites of 2013, as it was in 2012, but it didn’t have a place in our calendar. It could been included using the Trojan Horse of DLC, as XCOM did thanks to Enemy Within, but it’s hard to pick out the stand-out expansion for CK II. Even The Old Gods, which expanded the timeframe, felt like part of the whole rather than a distinct item. That is part of the brilliance of the design, but it also makes it much harder to say ‘Crusader Kings II: Old Gods’ is one of the games of 2013 rather than simply saying, ‘Crusader Kings II is one of the games of the year. Again.” Here’s why I think that argument is valid.
]]>If you enter in to Crusader Kings 2 with a plan to win, you're going to be frustrated. It's a complex turn-based strategy game set during the Middle Ages in Europe, with an overwhelming array of options available whether you start as a mighty King or a lowly Count. If you approach it as a role-playing game though, with an interest only in being interesting, then it's an accessible, surprising delight to muddle your way through and craft your own stories.
That's why any new expansion to the game is so exciting; every added layer of detail gives you a new role to perform. Sons of Abraham focuses on expanding the Jewish and Muslim faiths. It's out now and there's a new developer diary below.
]]>Apparently, Crusader Kings II is still missing something, which seems unlikely considering the amount of content that each major expansion has added. The Old Gods took the cake* - Forseti loves a slice of Battenberg - adding a couple of centuries to play with, a host of religions and new raiding mechanics mechanics. That's not the end of the road though. It seems the one God and the diverse groups that claim to know Him best is a little jealous of the Old Gods and the Sons of Abraham expansion is hoping to make Him feel better by honouring "the big three in Medieval Europe: Christianity, Judaism and Islam". More details below.
]]>Paradox have sounded the news bugle to announce that Crusader Kings II, the game that has continued to expand and consume my days throughout 2013, is refusing to abdicate its crown. A polite ruler would step aside to make room for the next in line to the throne, but CK II has never been polite. It's a devious, murderous omnicidal lord and it will never die. Today's grand strategy news is this - Europa Universalis IV will couple with Crusader Kings II via a save-game converter.
Fans of Crusader Kings II will be able to maintain the empires they have established and guide them through the age of exploration in an all-new strategic experience, continuing their personal stories of expansion and conquest.
There's a very good chance I won't be playing anything else ever.
]]>Jim is basically the J. Jonah Jameson of RPS: I was handsomely making sweet news for you guys when he stormed into the forbidden RPS chatroom of mystery, slammed his fists on the desk with the rage that only an editor can muster, and demanded I find some mods. "It's the weekend!", he angrily typed. "If you don't find at least three mods by the end of the day that the readers can play, you can go and beg VG247 forra job." And then he stormed out, muttering about page impressions, tea, and robots. Luckily I've been on a bit of a modding binge of late, so I have a few interesting things for you. Do you have Arma 3 installed? That's nice.
]]>The Old Gods expansion for Crusader Kings II is out now. It costs £9.99 and for a few short hours, the base game is actually cheaper than its expansion thanks to a 75% price reduction. The Old Gods moves the start date back a couple of centuries and adds playable pagans, among other things. I've played CK II more than any other game in the last 12 months and it's going to end up at or near the top of the list over the next 12 as well. That's at least in part thanks to the DLC, which has opened up new features, factions and play styles. I shall be playing with the Old Gods tonight. I hope they're friendly.
]]>I've played Crusader Kings II's latest expansion and it's packed full of exciting things that I'd like to spend at least eighty hours exploring. For pagan characters, who are the focus, there are raids, landless adventurers, river-based assaults, plunder, warbands and human sacrifices. I never found the time to play with previous Republic expansion but I am incapable of ignoring the opportunity to unify every pagan religion beneath Odin's banner, creating a British empire that clings to the forests and the ancient ways of worship. Paradox are currently running a competition that will include the winner's historically appropriate event in the game. Rules below.
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