Crusader Kings Complete

Ah yes, the original incest simulator. “Wait, it's all incest?" "Always has been". I wrote a love letter to the pope. I murdered my own uncle for making fun of me at a feast. I slept with my sister. I then sat down to play some Crusader Kings, it's a pretty good game. CK1 was fantastic. It very effectively pulled me away from EU1/2/FTG, and far outshone Vic1/HoI1/2 for me. The character-based framing was just so much more immersive, even if the lack of AI challenge made it a map-painting simulator to some extent like every other Paradox game. It's a very old game though and it shows. By today’s standards... well there's a few things you can't do in 2 and 3 but can in CK1. It has its charm especially if you played it back in the days. But generally, the interface belongs to another age, and the gameplay feels closer to (old) Europa Universalis than to a dynastic simulation, and it's much more focused on catholic Europe. The AI also belongs to a different age. It's not just bad, it also lacks any flavour by comparison with the more recent games. CK1 wasn’t that bad, but when CK2 and now CK3 came out there was literally no reason to play it anymore, but it was a great game in its day. CK3 and 2 are an improvement over CK1 is almost every way yet, if you’re craving some old school retro incest… 10/10 would Lannister more.

I played it to the end and I enjoyed it, so I can't in good conscience give this a thumbs down. But it's definitely a game showing its age, and there is not much of a reason to play this over CK2 or CK3, unless you're curious to see where the series began.

Superb grapics, although some may call them minimalistic, an easy to use interface and fleshed out time line/period mark this down as a genre leader for those with an acquired taste.

I'd give a positive as I have a major soft spot for this game despite its age and flaws compared to its successors, but it's so insanely unstable and crashes so often on modern hardware that I can't give it a positive.

Very outdated. Not worth it when there's Crusader Kings 2 and 3

If I could I would refund all my Paradox games.

I really loved this game as a kid. Unfortunately it is unplayable now due to constant crashes.

First of all, I don't care that it came out in 2004. It's still a game and I'm reviewing it compared to every other game, no nostalgia or pity points here. Crusader Kings is a great foundation, the idea of controlling a kingdom after the dank imperial abyss that was antiquity but before the world became so globalised and mathematical is so special. Since you have this era where the world was so lost and brutal, technology had dropped into darkness, society had upgraded into feudal serfdom hell, freedom was suppressed and disease could erase much of Europe at any moment. This creates simplicity compared to other strategy games, which forces Paradox to concentrate on making it a fun experience, focusing rather on characters, stories, plagues and assassinations instead of micromanaging trade and worrying about what colony you should settle in your massive global empire. However, a great setup does not make a great game. When the UI makes my eyes bleed, the game runs at a snail's pace, everything is confusing and the AI is so deeply illogical that it feels more like Russian roulette than a strategic challenge. Even so, that's all okay as long as the game is fun, which the Crusader Kings series is really all about. But this is not fun, it's more like running on Lego for hours with no end goal. It's like there is nothing to achieve except for maybe painting the map if you are lucky. It's punishing to a level of insanity, unlike Dark Souls where you fail, learn and improve. Here you just die, no fault of your own, but at the sheer unreasonable structure of the game. It's actually what made me keep playing for a while since that's what I loved about the later Crusader Kings titles. Death and losing your kingdom or seeing your empire be split into pieces really just makes you care about your campaign. In those titles, you can claw your way back from ruin. You can infiltrate an empire, murder yourself to the top and wreak havoc. They have meaning to the madness; you just can't have a gameplay loop with pain and suffering but no reward, that's just not good game design. Some people, including myself, seek pain and suffering in games. To actually understand the game and be able to fulfill a campaign is hugely rewarding. It creates madness and euphoria at a level of bliss that only monks may achieve after a hundred years of meditation. But this is not that game. It's no hidden gem, no torture lesson, no philosophical journey that will force you to love it. It asks nothing of you but patience, and offers nothing but frustration in return.

I’ve played Crusader Kings 2 and wanted to try the original to see where the series started. But it definitely shows its age. There’s not much reason to play this over CK2 or CK3, unless you’re just curious. As an older game, it lacks many of the quality-of-life features that came later. The menu isn’t very intuitive, and a lot of important information is hard to find, which makes it harder to play.

I don't even know how to play