Crusader Kings II

Crusader Kings II is all about running a medieval dynasty, not a battlefield, so the real play is marriages, claims, heirs, grudges and sudden succession problems. By our assessment, its great strength is how many little political accidents it can turn into a story, because the map is only half the game and the family tree is the other half. The downside is the amount of attention it asks for: there are layers of menus, rules and inherited mess to keep track of, and the game does not simplify that for you. In practice it feels like managing a live court where one bad alliance can change the next few hours. Against strategy games that only care about armies, it is more personal, messier and often stranger. Crusader Kings II is for players who enjoy long, intricate systems and do not mind learning the dynasty machinery; it is not for someone who wants quick wars and a tidy front line. The ceiling is high, but it comes from patience with the whole inheritance machine.