Kallocain – Linda Kiby – Associate Producer[/B]
"Walking around in the office and hearing what people discuss during playing sessions. The situations can become so bizarre and weird. "I have too many sons, I can't give them all land! I'll need to marry them off or kill them I guess." Gives a certain flair to the conversations nowadays."
We have to be careful, though, telling my secretary that my sister died in the Oubliette might have given the wrong impression (I was King of Leon - you know she deserved it).
Tegus – Fredrik Zetterman – Programmer
"My favorite feature about CK2 is the succession wars. There you are, running your kingdom, everything is going great. Then BOOM - your ruler dies, half of your kingdom rises in rebellion when the evil twin brother tries to wrest the crown from your heir. It makes the game really interesting, because you really need to think about which titles you give to whom. You can't really overpower your heir too much either, since he might actually try to take the crown _before_ the current king dies "
This, I think, is the key - you've never "won" the game. There's always danger, real, legitimate, understandable danger. Face it, nearly all of us gamers play with an eye to removing all of the threats to our success. That's how you win. Yet when we succeed in doing that, so that all we have left is to decide how much effort to put into conquering the entire map, the game becomes dull. Taking
everything is just work. If the risks to our empire are random, that's unsatisfying. If the risk is small, it's not really much to worry about, and then we've "won" and it's game over whether it's 1166 or 1300. However, if the risks feel legitimate (and having had the Byzantine Empire fall apart in a few months, I can say they do), and if they can stay large enough to make life tough (and there's always a risk that we'll learn too much), then the game keeps you on your toes right until the end.
From what I've seen so far, CK2 looks to be around 1000 different playable character starting points, where even the most stable regime can fall apart at the seams in one or two generations, and where the threats all feel legitimate, both internal and external. Throw in the fact that any one single character starting point can rapidly turn into a different game experience, even if you attempt the same strategy, and I think that it was entirely rational for me to take the day off tomorrow.
The downside? Well, I turn 54 in two weeks. I know from CK2 that have only a few years left in me. I have only one son (and three unmarried daughters!), and their mother, my current wife, is my age. Obviously, I need a new wife pronto, and somebody to go stand in the neighbor's lawn faking some documents. It's a wonder nobody ever spots them doing that.