Waiting for Europa Universalis IV

Have pre-ordered....
Will be released today....
Can't wait.....
What nation to try first?

Crusader Kings 2: A Game of Thrones Mod Review AND the Old Gods DLC is coming

I promised a review, and I kind of never delivered. CK 2 continue to shine. But to play it unmodded has become like not getting the real experience. There are two major overhaul mods: CK2+ and Prince and the Thane, and both are very good. There is no reason to play vanilla anymore. There are also now two major conversions. The Game of Thrones mod and the Elder Kings mod based on the Elders Scroll Universe. I don't know shit about Elders Scroll, so I don't play that mod. However I do play Game of Thrones alot.

So, the mod was first released about a year ago, with one scenario: Robert's Rebellion, i.e. about 15 years before the book A Game of Thrones, and season 1 of the TV show. The mod is heavily based on the book series: A Song of Ice and Fire, and choses the book alternative in the occassions the show does something different. Since the books are filled with a rich history, there are hundreds, if not thousands of canonical characters in the mod. The scenarios have grown. We have The Crowned Stag (Robert has just become king), A Clash of Kings (the book A Clash of Kings, season 2 of the show) and A Feast for Crows (the 4th book) as playable scenarios after Robert's Rebellion, heavily based on canon characters. Then we have a couple of scenarios based on the lore that happens before Robert's Rebellion. Aegon's Conquest takes you to the time Aegon the Conqueror conquered Westeros. Dance of the Dragons takes you to the age when to Targaryen siblings fought a destructive civil war, both on the back of their dragons. The Blackfyre Rebellion takes you to an age when a Targaryen Bastard names Daemon Blackfyre rose up against the crown. And After the Spring takes you to an age when Daemon Blackfyres' heirs secretly plan their revenge for losing the first war. And all this is awesome.

The mod plays great. There are many new features, like reaving quests for the Ironborn. There is an awesome Duel Engine, The King's Guard and the Night's Watch and several good stuff imported from CK2+ and Prince and the Thane. Like in most mods, the God Awful Vanilla faction system is overhauled, and much better. The next step for the modders will be to add Essos, the large Continent east of Westeros. But they are still developing it, so it won't be in for a while. But Essos will be awesome!

But there are more. Paradox Interactive is up to something that will improve the CK 2 experience by a lot. After releasing several good DLCs like Sword of Islam, Legacy of Rome and The Republic, we will now get The Old Gods. All Hail Paradox Interactive! All pagans will be playable, and we will get a new start date: 867! There will be Vikings! And pagan armies can be set to raid, so they just plunder rich provinces to fill your coffers. Rebels with a cause is finally introduced, they have been around in Victoria 2 and Europa Universalis 3 for ages. And we will get Adventurers, landless characters gathering armies to steal your land! You better defend yourself! The Old Gods will be Awesome!

Crusader Kings 2

So I have not been updating my blog for ages, since I have been totally occupied playing this awesome new grand strategy game from Paradox Interactive. Crusader Kings 2 is just awesome. It's like George R.R Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, only it happens in medieval Europe instead of Westeros. The hook it, unlike other Paradox games you don't play nations, you play characters, i.e. rulers. Your goal is to make your dynasty last and make it more powerful. But you have to look out for your brothers and other relatives who always wants to kill you or revolt. Family is the most dangerous thing there is, I tell you. You have to choose who to marry, who your sons should marry, and to whom you marry your sisters and daughters. All to get alliances with other rulers or inherit more land to your family.

It's of course not all about family intrigue (although most of it is). There are wars against your rivals and holy wars and crusades against the infidels in the Holy Land and in Spain. The time frame is 1066 to 1453 and you can start any date from 1066 to 1360. If you start at the earliest date the war for the Crown of England between Harald Hardrade, Harold Godwinson and William the Conqueror (the Bastard if he doesn't conquer anything) is in full swing. Speaking of bastards you could sire som of your own, but your wife will probably hate you for it. And the more children you have, the more headache you get when your current ruler dies, and your new ruler has far too many greedy brothers who wants to tear him apart.

Any Christian emperor, king, duke or count is playable. There's a huge difference between playing a powerful king who has to control all his unruly vassal, to play as a vassal yourself and decide whether you should be loyal to your liege, or plot his downfall so you can steal his titles. This game is very addicting, and you should really buy it right now, if you haven't already!

BTW, even the boxed version require Steam authentication. If you don't like Steam you have to buy the Gamer's Gate version, since that's the only non- Steam version.

Victoria 2: A House Divided

It's once again time to discuss a Paradox Interactive game. And what better place and time is there to discuss Victoria 2 than now when the expansion A House Divided has finally been released!

Victoria 2 let you play a nation through the Victorian age and the early 1900s. The game take you from 1836 to 1936 and every nation on the map is playable. You can have a lot of fun uniting Germany as Prussia, expanding your borders south and west as the US, modernizing as Japan or keeping the darn gringos out as Mexico. The goal is always to finish as a Great Power, i.e. in the top 8. You have to always take care of your finances, make sure you're industrializing, and getting the goods you need to supply your armies. You also need to invest in education to make your people literate so your research goes faster. And never forget to enact both political and social reforms to appease the middle and working classes. Sure, Liberals and Socialists with all their demands of a fair and equal society can be annoying, everyone knows democracy is for pussies, but these pacifist Liberals and Socialists can radicalize and become Anarcho- Liberals and Communists, organize rebel militias and launch a revolution if you're not careful enough. And you should also remember to colonize Africa and conquer rich parts of Asia for all the great resources there. Imperialist FTW!!

Yes, Victoria 2 is a complex game and it take time to master it. But it is fun! Building your nation and guiding it through the 1800s is just so much fun. And then you always think: It could have gone even better if I had done differently. In my opinion Victoria II is one of Paradox Interactive's best games. So what does A House Divided add? It add popular movements that you can suppress, or let grow if you want to pass certain reforms quicker. These movements could be movements for expanding the voting franchise, to better the school system, to free the poor Croats from Austro- Hungarian rule. They can also radicalize and organize rebellions. So it's an interesting addition indeed. Another addition is a whole new westernization track for uncivilized nations. Uncivs no have their own reforms they need to enact to become modernized and able to compete with the Western Nations. We also now have rally points for armies, which is useful. And we can now manufacture casus bellis (reasons for war) which would give us a free war without precaution if we can manufacture them undetected. I have always been detected though, and forced to take the infamy hit anyways (if you're infamous enough all other nations will attack you, like in all other Paradox games, a bad boy never have it easy). There are also changes made to Russia (they industrialize slower now due to the "serf question") and Chine (China now has sub states, so they can't be sphered at once, and getting China in your sphere was always made you over powered, now you have to get all the sub states in your sphere too).

I'd say the changes in AHD makes it an expansion worth buying. I hope there will be more expansions in the future. AHD can be bought and downloaded from Steam, Gamer's Gate or PC Gamestore or any other Internet gaming shop really. You need the original Victoria 2 to play it. The only negative thing about the game is that there are still no focus on Africa. Africa looks too empty and most of the African kingdoms that existed and were conquered during the 1800s are not in and just represented as empty provinces you can colonize. Also, AHD added an 1861 scenario for the historical American Civil War, but there's no Taiping rebellion in sight!! Come on, in 1861 the rebellion was still in full swing. I hope the Taiping rebellion will be added in a patch. It was after all one of the most bloodiest wars in Chinese and World history.

Thoughts on Europa Universalis 3 and Paradox games in general.

Paradox Interactive is a Swedish Game developer that has specialized in grand strategy games. Titles like Europa Universalis, Victoria, Hearts of Iron and Crusader Kings are all examples of Paradox grand strategy titles. They all work in a very similar way, they are real time strategy games where you control either a country or a dynasty (depending on the game) and try to steer said nation or dynasty through the challenges that the time period featured presents. You play the games on a 3-d map where you have a couple of provinces under your control at start. Of course if you start as a large nation you might have a really big empire to begin with already. You can always pause the game in order to make important decisions, which help especially when you are at war. Of course in Paradox games wars aren't everything. You will probably not be able to conquer the whole map anyways. Diplomacy, economic policy, trade and your laws are as important. You have to make sure your people like you enough to not rebel every time and you always have to balance your budget to make sure your economy don't collapse. Also diplomacy is always important. If you just wage war all the time every other nation will hate you and gang up on you. In Paradox games creating alliance or other pacts are very important features, every nation need friends. It also always help to choose your conflicts, don't attack unprovoked too much. Try to get casus bellis (justification for war) or just make defensive pacts with your neighbors. Sometimes you gain the most from wars you enter to protect another nation.

Europa Universalis 3 is the third installment in the Europa Universalis series. It takes on the time period 1399-1820, from the Renaissance to the fall of Napoleon. It gives you the option to play as anything from great powers such as France and the Ottoman Empire to trade powers such as Portugal and Venice, and to small principalities of the Holy Roman Empire such as Bavaria, Luneburg and the Palatinate. You can also play as non- European powers such as Ming China, the Sultanate of Brunei, several Indian kingdoms, the Songhay empire in Africa and much more. Europa Universalis 3 has 4 expansion packs: Napoleon's Ambition, In Nomine, Heir to the Throne and Divine Wind. The expansions have added so much more to the game that I wouldn't recommend playing it without them. Vanilla EU 3 actually feel a little bit empty. I would therefor recommend people new to the series to buy the Europa Universalis 3 Chronicles package since it contains all 4 expansions (the Complete package actually only have the two first ones, since they hadn't planned to do more expansions when the package was launched). The expansions has actually added so much that it feels like playing a whole new game. If there's something to criticize Paradox for is that they have not really given Africa much love, which is sad. This also apply to other titles such as Victoria where Africa feels too empty and you miss many of the historical African kingdoms. But I can honestly say that Europa Universalis 3 indeed are one of my favorite games.

When you have familiarized yourself with the game you might want to try some user made mods. These can be found on the Paradox forums on the Paradox interactive homepage. Some of the mods like Magna Mundi and MEIOU adds a lot to the game and are nothing short of masterpieces on their own right. I would also recommend to always update to the newest patch of the game, since even the patches sometimes adds a lot of new goodies.

The Paradox Interactive homepage: www.paradoxplaza.com