Crusader Kings

List Price: $39.99 Discount Price: $9.99

Features:

• Pausable Real-Time Grand-Strategy - based on the engine used by the award-winning Europa Universalis I & II.
• Unique Historical Setting re-enact the crusades, defend against the Mongol onslaught, and form feudal nation-states in Europe. A simulation of a feudal society, as never before seen in a game, involving laws, commissions, nobles, priests, burghers and peasants as well as religious influences.
• An Evolutionary Combat System - which will simulate the effect from Mongolian light cavalry to the English long bowmen.
• Saved Games Converted For Europa Universalis II!
• See Your Dynasty Progress get rewards from the Pope by being successful in the crusades!

Accessories:
PC Gamer (1-year)	Games for Windows: The Official Magazine

Customer Reviews:

And another more of the same, nothing new game! [Posted on 2004-06-16]
Once again another copy and repeat of the now infamous Europa Unversalis I & II. Yet, this one comes with the same initial "crash to desktop" bugs, lack of a tutorial, and a user interface that only Albert Enstien could enjoy.

This is yet another one of those "buy it now, we'll fix it later games" from Paradox. You'll be pulling your hair out, from the moment you run the game for the first time with the CTD's (crash to desktops). It's nowhere realistic by any means, the computer only Crusades doesn't even do them, wondering who to marry off your court to and why is a dumbfounded example of lack of realism, you do it just to be doing it and later on find out the results. It's just another toddlers toy that wanted to be great, but, instead is just mediocre. This time period is rather boring as a strategy game. If you don't have Europa Universalis II then I suggest getting it instead, it's been patched to 1.07 and for $7.99 it's a better buy overall.

I'd recommend a wait on this title, in 6 months to a year it will be "patched" finished and you can probably get it for $15 or less, why pay for an unfinished game?

Not Worth the Frustration [Posted on 2004-07-14]
Continuing the trend of EU and EU2, and true to their name, Paradox's latest release is the video game version of a...paradox. Very cool game. Lots of depth. A great thinking-man's game for those who enjoy grand strategy, historical accuracy, and realism. The interface is very reminiscent of the EU series, with a few changes to general game play (for example, diplomacy improvements and character development).

I won't spend time on the specifics of what I liked and disliked about the game, because ultimately I cannot recommend it...for anyone. I suppose there are some who have run these games bug-free, but after three games in the series run on three different computers with different components--and encountering the same incessant bug--I'd say Paradox has a problem. And the bug is not one you can live with. The game crashes to desktop with even greater frequency than EU2, and none of the patches for any of the games ever fixed this basic problem. And in case you think you can get by with frequent savegames and reloads, CK introduces the new crash-during-load bug.

A quick check of their technical support forum confirmed what I suspected, that a lot of people get this problem. I see Paradox Tech Support trying to one-off these bugs as some kind of video/sound/driver problem (which they could be, on a large scale) but until they acknowledge the ubiquity of the problem and address it en masse I suggest staying away.

Middle Ages come to life [Posted on 2004-07-28]
I ordered this from Paradox themselves in Sweden. It arrived within a week.

Based on the Europa Universalis game system, this truly strategic game is engrossing.

Its twist to that well respected game system is in its dynastic components. At the heart of this game is building relationships and alliances through marriage pacts, and providing for the continuation of your dynastic line through history by making good marriages for your own character and producing capable offspring. Each character in the game has strengths and/or weaknesses. The player must take into account the personal relationships they forge for good or ill.

It isn't easy for a petty nobleman to conquer a neighboring province, especially if a major power owns it as one of their many holdings. To accomplish land expansion takes long, careful planning - much as it did in real Medieval Europe.

For anyone who is an aficionado of the European Medieval Era, this game gives the best sense for what it was like to be a member of the noble class of that day, if not one of the monarchs. Take care, though, because true to history many of the Dukes and Counts are actually more powerful than some of the Kings. There's even features in which to designate the particular laws that govern inheritance for your own lands, selecting between primogenture (as became the norm in most of Europe), the older Frankish custom of division among all sons, even allowance for females to inherit, as occurred in some lands.

For those who would berate this game or any other because it supposedly has bugs, my suggestion is that you upgrade your hardware. It isn't capable of running modern software if it crashes trying to run some. This game, and every other, runs perfectly on my PC. Usually, it's a matter of installing a more modern video or audio card, with sufficient memory to handle all that the program asks of it. (I am the president of a computer software company.)

May become great if it is ever finished. [Posted on 2004-09-17]
The idea of a historical strategy game set in the Middle Ages is very appealing, but the implementation should have been better.

The game feature a variety of bugs, most of which can be grouped into two categories--design flaws and crashes. Crashes are the most annoying, since the game has a relatively long loading time (on a 1.6Ghz AMD). So even with autosave on, I sometimes had to abandon the game for a few days because of the frustration of having to reload it over and over again. Worse yet, one of the bugs caused the game to crash while autosaving, resulting in corrupted save files, and no ability to reload.

In addition to the crashes, the game also features several major design flaws. The most serious one is the ahisorical (and not particularly fun) way of implementing the Mongol invasions. At present, the Hordes will always do one of two things: conquer the entire map or get completely wiped out.

Many people at the Paradox (the developer's) forums reported these bugs and many other bugs, so I am definitely not the only one who has experienced them. Problems like these are almost always the result of faulty code, and not the user's hardware. It is reasonable to expect software to function properly on a system that meets (and exceeds) the advertised requirements. This software does not do that, at least not in the present version (1.03).

The game has plenty of enjoyable qualities, but the various bugs often make playing it a frustrating rather than enjoyable experience. Paradox usually releases a series of patches for a game, gradually fixing it. If you wait for patch 1.05 or 1.06 before you buy it, you will probably be getting a great game.

Great Game [Posted on 2007-03-27]
This is a great game.If you like the dark ages and/or grand strategey this is for you.It delves deep but not to deep into nobilty chain of command.It is a RTS but not your typical RTS.Simmler to other paradox games like Hearts of Iron

I never had a probelm with it but appartly u will if you have a bad computer

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