How is the game?

[sillyrobot]

G'day Folks,

I got a free copy of CKII a few months ago, but I haven't installed it yet. I've enjoyed a couple of older Paradox titles including the original Crusader Kings a decade ago.

I haven't enjoyed my more recent purchase of Stellaris because the game mechanics are going through enough churn to be more comparable to an Alpha/pre-release game than I expected picking a game over a year after release.

Are CKII mechanics more or less stable? If I were to play a campaign for a few months, should I expect to need to relearn how the game works at least once or worse yet, would my save become incompatible with the most recent game version?

 

[junassa]

Hey,

There are some bugs but I highly recommend playing the game. If you're playing non pagan you might be better off not letting your character (or your heir) fight in battles.

I've played this game a great deal (mostly without dlcs) and I'm constantly learning new things. DLCs will change how the game works in some places (like your council and educating your children). The only dlc I know for sure that will break saves is HF.

You didn't mention if you bought any dlcs. IMO the game is fun w/o them, but it's even better with some of the dlcs. Someone will come along and tell you which dlcs are the best, and then other people will correct the first person with their own completely different "best" list. Personally I'd advise at minimum HF, Legacy of Rome, and Old Gods. Also you should wait for a sale because buying all the dlcs will put a dent in most people's wallets.

 

[sillyrobot]

I have no issue with a DLC changing how a mechanic works: that's partially what they're for after all. I appreciate bug-fixes; making the game work as intended is cool.

What I don't like are game play changes that affect the base game and render previous saves only playable on older releases without any possibility of pretty important bug fixes and effectively force me to relearn the game again should I want to partake of the fixes to the game.

I got the CKII through a give-away. AFAIK it is just the base game, my avatar doesn't have any badges for DLC at least. Should I give it a whirl, I 'll play base until I get comfortable then figure out which DLCs appeal.

 

[Xenrek]

I have no issue with a DLC changing how a mechanic works: that's partially what they're for after all. I appreciate bug-fixes; making the game work as intended is cool.

What I don't like are game play changes that affect the base game and render previous saves only playable on older releases without any possibility of pretty important bug fixes and effectively force me to relearn the game again should I want to partake of the fixes to the game.

I got the CKII through a give-away. AFAIK it is just the base game, my avatar doesn't have any badges for DLC at least. Should I give it a whirl, I 'll play base until I get comfortable then figure out which DLCs appeal.

*most* save-compatibility issues are across patches, rather than expansions

that being said, installing a bunch of DLC then booting up an existing game can and usually *will* cause some *funkiness* in both AI and mechanic behaviour.

but those same DLCs also open so many more characters, regions, and mechanics to play as, you might find yourself not nearly as interested in your original campaign anyways.

 

[sillyrobot]

*most* save-compatibility issues are across patches, rather than expansions

that being said, installing a bunch of DLC then booting up an existing game can and usually *will* cause some *funkiness* in both AI and mechanic behaviour.

but those same DLCs also open so many more characters, regions, and mechanics to play as, you might find yourself not nearly as interested in your original campaign anyways.

Cross-patch compatibility is one of my main concerns; if I want to add DLC that's my choice and I'll live with the consequence. I don't want to deal with the choice of play the game with important patches or play my saved game without. Though to reiterate, I'm much more concerned with patches that replace working underlying game mechanics because "reasons". If X doesn't work, fix it. If Y would fit the game, and it is missing, add it. If Z works, but the devs have thought of a more awesome way to do it... release as DLC or add the idea to the next game.

Is CKII going through episodes of "Z would be more awesome if it was done this other way so let's swap out working subsystems for new ones"?

 

[junassa]

Cross-patch compatibility is one of my main concerns; if I want to add DLC that's my choice and I'll live with the consequence. I don't want to deal with the choice of play the game with important patches or play my saved game without. Though to reiterate, I'm much more concerned with patches that replace working underlying game mechanics because "reasons". If X doesn't work, fix it. If Y would fit the game, and it is missing, add it. If Z works, but the devs have thought of a more awesome way to do it... release as DLC or add the idea to the next game.

Is CKII going through episodes of "Z would be more awesome if it was done this other way so let's swap out working subsystems for new ones"?

I can't think of anything that was just replaced instead of improved upon and given the age of the game I seriously doubt they would start now.

 

[Castimirr]

Is CKII going through episodes of "Z would be more awesome if it was done this other way so let's swap out working subsystems for new ones"?

There have been some improvements to mechanics like the pope changed how he makes demands when you try to get unexcommunicated. The only quasi-big change I can really think of outside of a DLC is how crusades work. There are also map changes between major patches (with major patches and DLCs generally coming out together.) Neither of those really require much of an investment in terms of relearning how the game plays.

 

[sillyrobot]

Excellent! Thanks for all the replies, I'll give the game a shot!

 

[elvain]

the most iportant thing is that the game is now pretty stable and neither DLCs nor patches are very frequent (last year there was only one, but HUGE DLC), and no other new DLC is announced yet. So I personaly wouldn't expect no more than one or two patches in the next few months. But of course anything can change.. but assuming from previous years, there's no reason to expect dramatic changes in your game for next few months.

And the game as is now is absolutely worth playing... I have some 4k hours on it

 

[Anthropoid]

I used to play CKI and wished for CKII. Bought it shortly after it came out but found it badly in need of more fleshing out and balancing. Set it down for a long time; four or five years I guess.

Thanks to getting interested in the history of Bohemia as a result of Kingdom Come Deliverance, I came back to CKII recently, reinstalled, bought ALL the DLC and content packs (only missing about half dozen of the music packs now, and I don't think I miss them).

My short and sweet review: base game CKII is good (maybe very good . . .). If you like it, then you will probably LOVE the full game, i.e., ALL the DLC and content packs. It is hard for me to judge the base game as it stands now because my most recent experience has been with the whole thing.

The whole game is astoundingly good. Years of play and replayability. You can explore almost any alternate history you want to explore using reasonably believable game mechanics and decently historical content. 9.4/10 for whole game. Probably about an 8.8/10 for base game, but I didn't really play it enough to say. ADDIT: the nice part about the base game being available for a 'normal' price is: it gives new comers an opportunity to check out the core game with a more limited time frame and less stuff and see if they like it.

Presently I've got about 200 hours with my current install, and probably had about 30 hours maybe 40 in the previous install (which only included about half the DLC and 25% of the content packs). Referring specifically to that most recent 200 hours of play: I've experienced nothing that I'd call a "bug" and certainly nothing game breaking. Good balance and good design, good 'emergent narrative' structure, quite good "game play" (meaning the observe, analyze, decide, and reap reward or punishment cycle and always with a risk of 'game over.'). That last part distinguishes it from my past experiences with EUIV, which (when I played it) lacked good over-arching integration of all the game mechanics and content to create an engaging game play cycle, and also had bad mid to late game balance (which . . . actually I cannot comment on for CKII as yet, still only up to 850 AD).

And then, once you exhaust all the possibilities of the whole "vanilla" game, there are lots of cool mods.

Just about the only downside to the whole game is the cost for the whole package: somewhere in the $100 ballpark on top of the base game, but of course there are sales if you are patient and watchful.

IMHO, if they wanted to push the sales tail of the game out indefinitely in six months or so, release a CKII Master Edition that includes pretty much EVERYTHING and retail it for about $60 or $65. They could probably even make up for the lower unit prices with more units sold even at a $50 price (I speculate wildly . . .).

 

[Maracas]

CKII. I can't give it up. I've owned it since it released and have all the DLC except for several music packs. Games come and go on my machines, but CKII is always there. I never seem to run out of things to do with it. Right now, I've started as Cornwall in 769 with the goal of ridding the island of Anglo-Saxons and never letting the Vikings get a strong foothold so I can boot them, too. After that, I plan to greet William the Bastard and work on kicking his rear end clear back across the Channel. Bretons, Welsh, Picts/Scots and Irish. It belongs to us. If I manage to defeat William, I'll figure something out from there. By that time opportunities will have presented themselves, I'm sure.

In short, oh yeah do play it. It may take a little getting used to because it's not your usual "paint the map" game. Think dynasty. Think dynastic spread. It's all about your family.

 

[AlexArgos]

I'm guessing the OP belongs to the players that had a hard time adapting to the core mechanic changes of Stellaris (the restriction of FTL travel to only hyper-lanes and the recent abandonment of the planetary tiles method of colony development). For many people those fundamental changes turned Stellaris into a whole new game and the OP is scared this might happen with CKII.

Well, don't worry! First of all, CKII is nearing the end of its development cycle (if not there already) so there shouldn't be any fundamental changes left.
Secondly, after the controversy with the Conclave patch additions (shattered retreat & defensive pacts), the developers have added game rules: at the start of each new game you can disable some undesired features (like the aforementioned patch additions). And only very few of these game rule tweaks/decisions can disable achievements (like turning off the Black Death or the Mongol invasion).

 

[Tryvenyal]

Saves might break when game is patched. At least big patches. Often you can continue though. Just saving and reloading and the game _might_ work fine to continue. I have several times continued games where I was told it should not be supported, with no or low impact. Map- changes obviously cause impact, though.

It´s the code base that case problems. Not the DLCs. you change no code by enabling DLCs along the road.

if a new DLC is relased, that could/would break your save, you can patch back the game to before the codechange or even stop the game from updating in Steam. I have never done this but I think that works quite well?

 

[sillyrobot]

I'm guessing the OP belongs to the players that had a hard time adapting to the core mechanic changes of Stellaris (the restriction of FTL travel to only hyper-lanes and the recent abandonment of the planetary tiles method of colony development). For many people those fundamental changes turned Stellaris into a whole new game and the OP is scared this might happen with CKII.

Well, don't worry! First of all, CKII is nearing the end of its development cycle (if not there already) so there shouldn't be any fundamental changes left.
Secondly, after the controversy with the Conclave patch additions (shattered retreat & defensive pacts), the developers have added game rules: at the start of each new game you can disable some undesired features (like the aforementioned patch additions). And only very few of these game rule tweaks/decisions can disable achievements (like turning off the Black Death or the Mongol invasion).

Not scared so much as the refrain on the Stellaris forums is "What else would you expect? It's a Paradox game!" as if every purchaser of a game is drawn from a small pool of previous consumers. My previous experience with Paradox didn't expose this feature, but it is about a decade old so I wanted to check if I would be jumping into another constant mutation of a game before I wasted my time.

I enjoy pre-alpha games when I set out to buy and play them. I don't enjoy the experience when I expect a settled full-release game. From the replies, CKII seems closer to a settled full-release game and I'll probably enjoy it more.

 

[Anthropoid]

I'm guessing the OP belongs to the players that had a hard time adapting to the core mechanic changes of Stellaris (the restriction of FTL travel to only hyper-lanes and the recent abandonment of the planetary tiles method of colony development). For many people those fundamental changes turned Stellaris into a whole new game and the OP is scared this might happen with CKII.

Well, don't worry! First of all, CKII is nearing the end of its development cycle (if not there already) so there shouldn't be any fundamental changes left.
Secondly, after the controversy with the Conclave patch additions (shattered retreat & defensive pacts), the developers have added game rules: at the start of each new game you can disable some undesired features (like the aforementioned patch additions). And only very few of these game rule tweaks/decisions can disable achievements (like turning off the Black Death or the Mongol invasion).

Good points.

The other thing about PDS (last time I checked): unlike many developers/publishers, they make use of Steam's provisions to allow users to install various versions of their games. Granted, they probably cannot provide "support" for anything but the latest version. But, if a user prefers to have access to an archived version, I do believe PDS has a policy to provide that in the games Steam library functionality. I could be wrong on this, as I have not specifically checked what options are listed in the drop down in the Game/Properties/Updates on a PDS title for some time. I think the last time I looked was with HOI4 and there were several archived versions of the app one could choose from . . .

So with that said: Wow! they took away the planetary tiles in Stellaris!?! Not sure if that sounds intriguing or horrific!

I have a lot of respect for the creative folks at Paradox. They have their foibles, but on the whole they are an amazing developer. As long as you are willing to wait about 5 to 10 years for a game to be "finished," and to risk the possibility that it will never actually get there (Arsenal of Democracy) in official form, but might "get there" under modded form anyway (C.O.R.E. mod effectively did this for AoD), they are worthy of brand loyalty.

About the only pattern they are showing in recent decade or so that I would firmly discourage them from continuing is going overboard with the "minimal sellable unit" approach to DLC. Honestly, ALL the DLC which came out after the base game should sell for about 1x maybe 1.5 times the cost of the base game by now. The thing about this is: it probably HARMS PDS more than it helps them that they divide their publications into smaller packets and charge higher prices for each unit. They obviously have not generated a great deal of "good will" among the Steam review rabble and that cannot be helping to move units. Of course the marketplace is large and diverse and not everyone "listens" to Steam reviews, but there is also reddit, and plenty of other places where Paradox has been bad mouthed because of its DLC sales strategies. While I don't avail myself of the available market research on the game industry and I certainly am not privy to the sorts of private information which PDS presumably has to help it understand its marketing and sales context, I do have a Ph.D. in psychological anthropology and a post-doc in consumer psychology, and I am led to propose the hypothesis that: the minimum-sellable units strategy is not an emprically well-founded one for most games publishers. I would of course be delighted to hear anyone who has the empirical basis to address the predictions of such an hypothesis with actual evidence, but then games publishers rarely seem willing to speak openly about their sales and marketing strategies.

My guess is that, as PDS has grown in its fiscal strength and promise, non-gamer "corporate" and "legal" type minds have stepped in and begun to exert their sort of influence on the firms marketing and sales strategies. My intuition is that this is a prevailing pattern across the industry and while it obviously isn't good for consumers, I would posit that it ALSO isn't good for game developers--though it is PERHAPS good for the corporate types in one way or another.

 

[wthree]

I would definitely say that CK2 is one of the most stable.

Since it got released its been one of my favourites alongside Victoria II. Here are a few things to consider:

1) Out of all of the main current titles, its really been the only one where DLCs consistently add vastly new aspects of gameplay, rather than just redefining old parts. Part of this is because the general principle of CK2 is really fun and robust (the combination of character simulator and strategy). The DLCs will often just add new things to try and play around with, whether its trying a new government form, different religion or whatever.

2) Unfortunately, due to the nature of the DLC/patch combo, games will normally break after a new DLC is introduced, but is likely to still be fine between them.

 

[elvain]

I would definitely say that CK2 is one of the most stable.

Since it got released its been one of my favourites alongside Victoria II. Here are a few things to consider:

1) Out of all of the main current titles, its really been the only one where DLCs consistently add vastly new aspects of gameplay, rather than just redefining old parts. Part of this is because the general principle of CK2 is really fun and robust (the combination of character simulator and strategy). The DLCs will often just add new things to try and play around with, whether its trying a new government form, different religion or whatever.

2) Unfortunately, due to the nature of the DLC/patch combo, games will normally break after a new DLC is introduced, but is likely to still be fine between them.

Singned!

As for the second point I would only reiterate my previous post that a new DLC shouldn't be expected sooner than within few months...

 

[AlexArgos]

Not scared so much

Well, blame my not being a native English speaker. I meant something like afraid/apprehensive/worried. Wasn't implying anything about your ability to conquer fear; we're all Crusader Kings here!

 

[elvain]

@Sir Roderick why the disagree? Do you know anything that suggests I'm wrong and that there will be a DLC comming sooner than within few months?

 

[Sir Roderick]

@Sir Roderick why the disagree? Do you know anything that suggests I'm wrong and that there will be a DLC comming sooner than within few months?

What is Singned?
Is it a typo or this?