Differences between CKII and any 4X game

[erekose123]

I need someone to explain the concept of Sandbox Games to me.

I recognise CKII as being a Grand Strategy Game with everything you might want in a game : no obvious bugs on release, diversity, realism, depth, etc.

My problem is that i grew up playing 4X games where the goal is well known : conquer your neighbors and win. The game i played most in my whole life is Civilization, just so you know.
I have played very few other PI games as you can see with my icons. HoI3 is easy too : conquer the world, destroy the Axis, etc.

What is the difference between playing the Count of Flanders and becoming King of France, or count of Köln and becoming Emperor of HRE ? In Civilization kind of games, all leaders/nations have their own weaknesses/strenghts you can play with. SAme for HoI3, Japan and USA do not have the same starting grounds.

In CKII absolutly everyone has the same concerns it seems : succession, land-grabbing, marriages.

I'm happy i gave 40 bucks to PI for such a beautiful bug-free game, but I fear i might lose interest pretty fast because i do not see the Great Plan that lies with it.

 

[Harle]

Your first mistake was thinking that you are playing a nation, that you embody the civilization. You don't, you are playing a character, and his son, and his grandson, and his great-grandson, etc. You are a family in feudal Europe, scraping out a scrap of glory from a brutal dog-eat-dog world. Every character is unique, every character has unique strengths and unique flaws. I've had one character be a diplomatic genius able to fashion alliances and maneuver feudal politics with ease, while his son was a strategic genius who was able to use those political machinations to take those claims by force of arms. And then the grandson, who was utterly useless and because of that, turmoil erupted across the land.

Every character is different. And every culture is different as well; different places have different succession laws. Different religions have different power structures. Different parts of the world have different technologies. Many places are more developed, more defensible.

This is a game about characters, prestige, and power, and how power changes form over time.

If you try to play it like a game of civ you're going to be confused and probably bored. Play it more like a generational RPG in a grand strategy setting, and you'll see the appeal.

 

[unmerged(75409)]

Instead of painting the world your color, you can set yourself goals like this:

- install a family member on the throne of England (either by seizing it yourself, or by pressing a relative's claims)
- reach the top, rule as long as you can WITHOUT RELOADING, if you get a really shitty heir accept defeat even if it means losing a lot of land. Claw your way back to the top.
- rotate your own characters through all major European kingdoms, by seizing additional crowns and handing old crowns to younger brothers / relatives.
- crush the Byzantine Empire, then switch dynasties (by selecting a new character from the load screen) and repair it again. Watch your former kingdom crumble to dust as the AI enemies devour it.

 

[KroganElite]

Your first mistake was thinking that you are playing a nation, that you embody the civilization. You don't, you are playing a character, and his son, and his grandson, and his great-grandson, etc. You are a family in feudal Europe, scraping out a scrap of glory from a brutal dog-eat-dog world. Every character is unique, every character has unique strengths and unique flaws. I've had one character be a diplomatic genius able to fashion alliances and maneuver feudal politics with ease, while his son was a strategic genius who was able to use those political machinations to take those claims by force of arms. And then the grandson, who was utterly useless and because of that, turmoil erupted across the land.

Every character is different. And every culture is different as well; different places have different succession laws. Different religions have different power structures. Different parts of the world have different technologies. Many places are more developed, more defensible.

This is a game about characters, prestige, and power, and how power changes form over time.

If you try to play it like a game of civ you're going to be confused and probably bored. Play it more like a generational RPG in a grand strategy setting, and you'll see the appeal.

that was...perfect. Saving this for future reference.

 

[erekose123]

that was...perfect. Saving this for future reference.

Indeed it was. I think i get it a bit better now. I'll play with your ideas and state-of-mind, thanks.

 

[unmerged(143725)]

It's actually described somewhere as being more like the Sims than like Civilization. Guess it's true

 

[Robert Wyatt]

That is how to approach it, you're playing as a family with the goal of expanding that family to the greatest heights of power available to them by any means necessary, even if that means hopping around countries via marriages etc. You're painting the map in the "blood" of your family rather than the realms themselves, so essentially it is still a game where you expand across a map as much as you can etc, but the method of doing so is different to a Total War etc (which tbf has elements of the character driven gameplay, albeit not as complex as CKII).

 

[Lamprey]

I suppose I play differently than everyone else then, since I continually think in terms of nations. I may be playing the Piasts, but everything's being done to the greater glory of Poland

As for goals, just set your own. I do. Usually when starting, I'll do so with a specific target in mind - say, make some duke in Ireland king of the island, or unite Russia as one of the duchies there. Once that goal's achieved, I make another - the Irish king now needs to conquer Scotland, or the Russian king needs to found the kingdom of Jerusalem.

Come to think of it, after playing a 4X game, a sandbox game is so refreshing. Being locked into one mode - expand, kill neighbors, repeat - is an invisible leash that you only really notice after it's gone.

 

[unmerged(358109)]

i wounder how it would be if Paradox and CA combined forces and made a game with total war medival II + CK II combined into one package.
thou out of the two i prefer CKII, it just feels more... fun.. and less restricting.

 

[Shoelip]

Hm, I'm not sure what I'd want in CK2 from TW besides the real time battles. I suppose having a more detailed map with more features would be cool... If all the baronies in a province actually showed up and stuff, and you could build forts and watch towers and roads...

 

[zxc]

Hm, I'm not sure what I'd want in CK2 from TW besides the real time battles. I suppose having a more detailed map with more features would be cool... If all the baronies in a province actually showed up and stuff, and you could build forts and watch towers and roads...

The main thing for me would be an army system where you don't just march from province to province, but actually within the province. No need for the rts battles, they'll just tip the scales in the player's favour even more, as well as not being available for mp.

 

[Joel M Bridge]

CK1 was first strategy period I play to end. Personal I hated and thought idea playing nation was silly, I could not personaly relate to some guiding hand for nation. Since CK let you play as person that in postion of command not nation I could relation be invested. Now if EU rome was about play as roman citzen then this nation state I would been inlove with it.

 

[chameleon_skin]

great thread! I know the OP already got a satisfactory answer above, but I wanted to add my 2 cents based on my play history with Paradox games. I don't really set my goals beforehand, other than figuring out the scope of where I want to play (King of England? Count of a German province?). That largely sets the types of actions you will be pursuing in a given game, at least initially - if I'm the King of England my ambitions will be grander than if I'm a count (at least for the first few generations).

After the game gets going, as long as I try to put myself in the mindset of that particular ruler, then the next goals just jump out at you. I just think, what would this ruler really try to do in this situation?

I was playing a game of CK recently in which I was William the Conqueror, and my first ambition was to conquer all of the UK. But then I started losing Piety because I wasn't going to the Crusades, and I got an offer for a province in Tuscany to become a vassal at the same time, so I gave up that goal. Next thing you know, half of Italy are vassals of mine, I'm trying to become the King of Sicily by fighting off the largest Muslim empire in the West, while simultaneously reclaiming provinces in the British Isles that revolted because I had overextended my empire in the Mediterranean. There's no way I could have predicted the game would have gone that way - and for me, that's what makes Paradox games so great!

Finally, I think it would be a tall order to get the RTS elements of TW into a Paradox title; inevitably, you'd end up with mediocre grand strategy and RTS elements. However, I agree that I would love to be able to dig into my provinces more than I can. Maybe you could do things like position you armies before a battle takes place, or set up strategic defense structures in a way that protects the things that you want protected in that province (wealth sources vs. monasteries, perhaps). It's funny how Paradox titles seem so overwhelming at first, but after a while we want them to be even more complex