Ye Olde Introduction!
Well hey there AAR readers! Paradox's games are amazingly in-depth and open-ended, but the most fun aspect of them is writing AARs and putting a compelling story to go with my game. I've written a few on and off in the past -- some of them have made it to the end, others have been the victim of bugs or that crazy thing we call "real life" and "a job." I've usually focused on HoI 2 and its various mods and offshoots, took a bit of a liking to Europa Universalis III, and just utterly failed to grasp HoI 3 and never really bothered with it.
Now, thanks to Steam's fancypants sale, I'm taking my first foray into Crusader Kings. I always wanted to try the first game, but never really invested the time.. Now, I've found CK2 extremely fascinating, especially because of its strong character-driven nature... So with that said, I'm putting together my first CK2 AAR, which will also be my first real CK2 -game- unless you count the various mini-games I've pounded through to try to grasp the basics of the game. So be aware as this AAR starts: since this IS my first game, I haven't got a clue what I'm doing, for the most part :blink:
The Quick Info
- The AAR is being played using the Sword of Islam dlc, as well as the CK2+ Mod. Yes, it's probably suicidal to try to play a mod that makes the game MORE complicated before I even learn the base, but hey... A lot of the features in CK2+ look like they make me happy, so I'm going for it.
- My goal isn't necessarily to succeed at becoming all-powerful and far-reaching. This is partly because I have low expectations for myself since I'm new to the game, but also because I'd much rather focus on telling good, (hopefully) interesting stories about the characters in my game. If I happen to expand my territory and grow powerful, great. But I'm mainly out to have fun and tell some stories.
- I plan to let character abilities, traits, backgrounds, etc. factor heavily into my decision making. That means I'm perfectly happy to make an utterly boneheaded decision if I feel it's what my moron of a character would do. In fact, I'm already partway through preparing the first actual game update, and I've already done at least one pretty stupid thing, simply because I thought the traits lined up and made it compelling.
- In terms of writing style, I'll probably be using a mix of methods... History book, third-person narrative, first-person narrative, journal writings, whatever I feel is a good medium to show whatever event is going on. Expect a fairly slow pace, though -- I want to take my time and enjoy the characters in front of me.
I'll be beginning as a fictional Count, Raniero di Ruggiero, a pious young man who is the Count of Orvieto, the only vassal of the Papacy. A difficult spot to work in? Yeah, probably. But something about playing the Papal lap dog County just seemed like fun.
On to the AAR
With that said, here we go! I plan on putting up the first gameplay update tomorrow giving a little flavor / background and getting the beginning of the game underway... For right now, I'm just posing this up to hopefully catch a few eyes and intrigue a little interest so I'll have a few readers hen tomorrow rolls around!
Well hey there AAR readers! Paradox's games are amazingly in-depth and open-ended, but the most fun aspect of them is writing AARs and putting a compelling story to go with my game. I've written a few on and off in the past -- some of them have made it to the end, others have been the victim of bugs or that crazy thing we call "real life" and "a job." I've usually focused on HoI 2 and its various mods and offshoots, took a bit of a liking to Europa Universalis III, and just utterly failed to grasp HoI 3 and never really bothered with it.
Now, thanks to Steam's fancypants sale, I'm taking my first foray into Crusader Kings. I always wanted to try the first game, but never really invested the time.. Now, I've found CK2 extremely fascinating, especially because of its strong character-driven nature... So with that said, I'm putting together my first CK2 AAR, which will also be my first real CK2 -game- unless you count the various mini-games I've pounded through to try to grasp the basics of the game. So be aware as this AAR starts: since this IS my first game, I haven't got a clue what I'm doing, for the most part :blink:
The Quick Info
- The AAR is being played using the Sword of Islam dlc, as well as the CK2+ Mod. Yes, it's probably suicidal to try to play a mod that makes the game MORE complicated before I even learn the base, but hey... A lot of the features in CK2+ look like they make me happy, so I'm going for it.
- My goal isn't necessarily to succeed at becoming all-powerful and far-reaching. This is partly because I have low expectations for myself since I'm new to the game, but also because I'd much rather focus on telling good, (hopefully) interesting stories about the characters in my game. If I happen to expand my territory and grow powerful, great. But I'm mainly out to have fun and tell some stories.
- I plan to let character abilities, traits, backgrounds, etc. factor heavily into my decision making. That means I'm perfectly happy to make an utterly boneheaded decision if I feel it's what my moron of a character would do. In fact, I'm already partway through preparing the first actual game update, and I've already done at least one pretty stupid thing, simply because I thought the traits lined up and made it compelling.
- In terms of writing style, I'll probably be using a mix of methods... History book, third-person narrative, first-person narrative, journal writings, whatever I feel is a good medium to show whatever event is going on. Expect a fairly slow pace, though -- I want to take my time and enjoy the characters in front of me.
I'll be beginning as a fictional Count, Raniero di Ruggiero, a pious young man who is the Count of Orvieto, the only vassal of the Papacy. A difficult spot to work in? Yeah, probably. But something about playing the Papal lap dog County just seemed like fun.
On to the AAR
With that said, here we go! I plan on putting up the first gameplay update tomorrow giving a little flavor / background and getting the beginning of the game underway... For right now, I'm just posing this up to hopefully catch a few eyes and intrigue a little interest so I'll have a few readers hen tomorrow rolls around!