CK2 is a game about match-making, not warmongering (unlike EU3 or HOI3)

I think many of the females in the game look pretty darn good compared to what they historically looked like. lol But, yeah matchmaking is fun and this is the only strategy game that really gives you that unless you want to include "The Guild" series but it hardly had the trait values that this game has. Matching up certain traits to certain other traits and see what kind of offspring you get is sort of like a Renaissance Frankenstien type game. IT'S ALIVE! IT'S ALIVE! Plus the various traits give some very interesting outcomes to what happens in your game. I doubt any two games would ever be alike in expansion and series of events.

I also think it would have been more fun if they added in the economic touch of running a business or businesses in each city instead of just an abstract base income. I like micromanaging and I enjoy economic games as much as I enjoy this type of game or The Guild series or The Sims.

It's a great game and there is warmongering it just depends on where you start out and how you play.

If you don't enjoy dynasty-building and the intrigue that is associated with it: these are not the droids you are looking for.

I rather enjoy it myself. Except yesterday when I paired up my king with some random female who had some good traits, and I end up getting an Attractive, Quick and Strong male child. Who happens to be hunchbacked. Why?! At least it's not the worst thing that could've happened, but still bloody annoying, 'cause the hunchbackedness stayed in the family for like 5 generations.

But! Still a really good game.

Issac Wolfe said:

If you don't enjoy dynasty-building and the intrigue that is associated with it: these are not the droids you are looking for.

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This

90% of my land comes from warmongering tho

You still fight a lot of wars. It's just that the matchmaking might be even more important than the wars, since you need heirs, and you need heirs who aren't retards.

yourworstnightm said:

You still fight a lot of wars. It's just that the matchmaking might be even more important than the wars, since you need heirs, and you need heirs who aren't retards.

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I didnt notice a lot of causality and predictability when marrying people with good stats and having kids.

artspraken said:

After enjoying EU3 and HOI3, I bought this game thinking it was similar. Unfortunately, I really do not enjoy this thing about family trees and matchmaking. Whilst I am a big fan and history buff of the feudal and medieval period, this whole thing about feudal familial relationships in the game -> it just does not evoke the same type of ooomph that I experience in EU3 and HOI3.

Do you guys really enjoy all that matchmaking? Everybody looks like a flanders' mare to me. If I really wanted to enjoy a matchmaking game, we should better graphics about the lads and girls on offer right?

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Have you played through a succession yet? CK1 was very cumbersome and had far too much emphasis on match making. CKII is very different. I've nearly been at war my entire game. It has been all about inviting claimants into my house, then going to war for their claims. I think that you have only scratched the surface of this game and you are missing a LOT of what the game has to offer. When you first start playing it is easy to think that it is all about betrothals and strategic marriage claims - those happen, don't get me wrong, and if that is the area you want to focus, there is probably a whole game of stuff to do there, but there are many ways to play the game of thrones and I for one don't want to spend my game just picking wives!

I haven't really heard this complaint about CKII yet. The biggest complaint I keep hearing is that the succession wars consume so much time that you only get a sliver of a generation to get some serious realm building in. Though I've had rulers that were smooth as can be and most everyone loved right away, and others that everyone hated and were a torturous struggle to maintain the helm their entire lives. A ruler like that in my current game just died fortunately, my succession wars this time completely fractured my realm, but I managed with some Call to Arms support from a key ally to get most of my realm back together - to be quite honest, after about 16 hours of non-stop warring under that last guy I'd LOVE a generation of peace and match making right about now.

Well yeah, there's dynasty management, but if you don't care about roleplaying you can pretty much ignore this, set your elective law to seniority maybe and the chances of you ever having no heir are very slim. Just make random marriages and focus on the warfare if thats more fun to you.

War is still a huge part of this game, its how I get all my land anyway.

oddible said:

after about 16 hours of non-stop warring under that last guy I'd LOVE a generation of peace and match making right about now.

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Oh lord, this. I had an ugly, craven, cruel, wrothful, deceitful queen of Wales/England who had become a kinslayer before she took over, and I spent my entire rule trying to keep my dukes in prison.

artspraken said:

After enjoying EU3 and HOI3, I bought this game thinking it was similar. Unfortunately, I really do not enjoy this thing about family trees and matchmaking. Whilst I am a big fan and history buff of the feudal and medieval period, this whole thing about feudal familial relationships in the game -> it just does not evoke the same type of ooomph that I experience in EU3 and HOI3.

Do you guys really enjoy all that matchmaking? Everybody looks like a flanders' mare to me. If I really wanted to enjoy a matchmaking game, we should better graphics about the lads and girls on offer right?

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I find this game to be very strategic with a lot of depth. Calling it a matchmaking game is an over-generalization IMO. It sounds like you haven't really played it that much, there is plenty of warmongering in this game.

Lessing said:

I didnt notice a lot of causality and predictability when marrying people with good stats and having kids.

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True. Regardless whom I marry to who, my heir can, in the end, always sustain 13 holdings and has decent abilities all around. I ended up not looking for traits at all; just for the titles I could eventually inherit.

At the rate they have been pumping out these games lately, I'm sure you will see a EU4 in the future. No offense to the makers of MM that is.

While this game's ultimate goal is to make your dynasty the most powerful in Europe, there are a lot of ways to declare war and play an aggressive expansionist nation. Victoria II and EU3 could do this a lot easier, because they had generic, yet painful, Casus Belli's that basically just said "Alright, well I'm going to conquer you for fun now." Crusader Kings II has nothing like that, and whether that is for the worse or for the better, I don't really know or care. I think CKII should have a generic CB that is just intensely expensive in money (bribes?) prestige (going to war without a legitimate reason isn't very noble) and piety (Church won't like you killing people for no reason), but that is just my opinion.

delimeat567 said:

At the rate they have been pumping out these games lately, I'm sure you will see a EU4 in the future. No offense to the makers of MM that is.

While this game's ultimate goal is to make your dynasty the most powerful in Europe, there are a lot of ways to declare war and play an aggressive expansionist nation. Victoria II and EU3 could do this a lot easier, because they had generic, yet painful, Casus Belli's that basically just said "Alright, well I'm going to conquer you for fun now." Crusader Kings II has nothing like that, and whether that is for the worse or for the better, I don't really know or care. I think CKII should have a generic CB that is just intensely expensive in money (bribes?) prestige (going to war without a legitimate reason isn't very noble) and piety (Church won't like you killing people for no reason), but that is just my opinion.

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I kind of agree.. But if u want that kind of game. Play EU3 or Victoria II?

delimeat567 said:

I think CKII should have a generic CB that is just intensely expensive in money (bribes?) prestige (going to war without a legitimate reason isn't very noble) and piety (Church won't like you killing people for no reason), but that is just my opinion.

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That's exactly what Fabricate Claims is. Except you have to do the waiting before going to war, in the other games you have to let your badboy burn off after the war.

I love the "matchmaking" of this game as you call it. It's what differentiates it from other games of Paradox and what makes it cool. Though I (still) don't really understand too well how it works, it's the part of the game I enjoy the most. Arranging marriages with my children, getting the right guards to educate them, all to get the best genetics for my dynasty.

If you want the kind of game like EU3 or HoI3, then just play those games.

You can play it as you like.

If you enjoy war, go play close to the heathens. My game as Barcelona was pretty much a non-stop war versus the Muslim factions, you can simply declare war on everyone close to you. But even then I did gain Flanders & Toscana through marriages.

If you prefer getting land through marriages, it's also possible, especially as a smaller player. Marry your heir to a powerful duchess and you gain land! In my current game marriage is how I united Flanders & Holland which gives me a nice power base to go claim more lands through war.

I don't think its enough of a matchmaking game, with the 'desires a better alliance' modifier making fabricating claims a much better way to expand then marriage when all the powerful heiresses just mattrilinially marry some lowly courtier.

depends on where you play, really.

If you play as a duke in the HRE, you will marry your way to power 99% of the time. Now I am playing the seljuk Turks and I am basically at war 90% of the time jihading left and right.