Should I or Should I not..

[Lord de Lyonesse]

I was looking into reviews about Crusader Kings. I have Hearts of Iron anthology but i never really played it. I was going to pose the question 'should i buy CK' when i chanced upon seeing an entire section dedicated to paradox games.

I didnt realise its games had such a following. I never really got into HoI, i want to but the action just wasnt their and i guess i never really understood it, i didnt have a manual so i took the tutorial which i never really completed.

Anyway my friends recommended i should get CK and i must admit it does look good. The whole idea of forging your own dynasty brings about a sublime sense of intrigue to me.

I wanted to know what you think i should do, I am also interested in Victoria: An Empire under the Sun bit i refrained as I just didnt know much about it.



*silence* ¬_¬

Please inform me about what exactly CK is like and wether the whole forging your own dynasty is as awesome as im imagining.

[Axeman]

Trying crusader kings at this point is like starting total war from right now with no prior experience with Shogun.

Sure Crusader Kings is great, and one of the best games ever, however paradox has progressed past crusader kings. I recommend buying one of the newer games, such as Europa Universalis 3, if you like EU3 you will like Crusader Kings.

[Tankfriend]

Trying crusader kings at this point is like starting total war from right now with no prior experience with Shogun. Sure Crusader Kings is great, and one of the best games ever, however paradox has progressed past crusader kings. I recommend buying one of the newer games, such as Europa Universalis 3, if you like EU3 you will like Crusader Kings.

I never had any experience with Shogun (and still haven't) before I started playing Medieval. And that still kept me up to Medieval 2.
And I also wouldn't say that liking EU3 or any other complex Paradox-series games equals liking the others - they're each having their respective focus on certain gaming aspects that the other games don't have at all or only in small quantity. And that's also the reason why you've always got to put some effort into learning each consecutive game from the get-go. I learned that lesson the hard way when I switched from HoI 2 to Victoria.
The main problem that I see here is that you're missing the action from Hearts of Iron and never really got into it from the start. Even if the other games might be focusing on different aspects and time periods, the core game design remains the same. So, to be able to give a real answer, I guess it would be useful to get a definition of what kind of "action" you're interested in.

In any case, here's a short info about CK.
One thing that CK is doing differently from HoI is that there aren't any national states like "France", "Great Britain" or "Germany". Instead, you've got "realms" of various sizes and titles like the "Kingdom of France" or the "Kingdom of England". What sounds pretty much the same as the national states from HoI actually is much different though because CK adheres to the feudal system which increases the political complexity by a lot when compared to HoI - there's not just a single "France" but some 20+ fractions of it instead, for example.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

A generalized and very simplyfied example:
- We've got a "Kingdom A" with a king (obviously, duh ). This kingdom has a realm of some 60 provinces with the king "owning" all the titles connected to those provinces.
- The king can't rule all those provinces by himself so he decides to grant some of his titles and provinces to other rulers who in turn swear allegiance to him (i.e. becoming his vassals).
- Now we have the kingdom divided into 6 blocks at 10 provinces each: The king himself ruling 10 provinces and 5 new vassals that have received 10 provinces each and the according titles, most important among them the title of "Duke of 'X'".
- These 5 dukes in turn can't rule all their 10 provinces, respectively, so they do what the king did before and create some vassals of their own which will get the title of "Count of 'Y'".

One noteworthy general principle:
- A king can have both dukes and counts as vassals.
- A duke can only have counts as vassals.
- A count cannot have any vassals.
- Whenever a faction creates a new vassal that they cannot control themselves, the new vassal automatically is a vassal of the next higher step in the hierarchy.

Now, each of these tiny fractions is ruled by a certain dynasty and each dynasty is recognizable through a certain "dynastic" name (the Count of Pfalz is a "von Bonngau" for example). The overall aim of the game is to lead the dynasty of your faction to glory or , in a worst-case scenario, just barely keep it alive. Keeping a dynasty alive can be quite hard already if your current ruler doesn't get any male children - because children always carry the dynastic name of their father. A child of one of your ruler's female children might trace heritage (i.e. get a claim on the title and throne of your dynasty; this is based on what type of heritage laws you have enacted) but it will not trace your dynasty. And that combination could, under the right circumstances, mean that you will lose the game because your dynasty ceases to exist in the male line. With assassination being present, it doesn't really get any easier...
However, just as this system can become rather difficult, it can also offer a lot of possibilities to increase the power of your dynasty through "subversive" methods. It can take a long time and many careful thoughts and actions but seeing the title of another realm falling to your dynasty because you married one of your sons to the female (and only!) child of a character that has just decided on celibacy (he's never going to ever sire any more children) is very satisfying.
You've always got to be careful about your dynasty and plan ahead though because there are many possibilities you can lose members of your dynasty - war, illness, defection, wounds, assassination, you name it. Character development being event-driven with the player only being able to decide on general directions and with characters outside your current rulers court being outside your control as a player (if you grant your eldest son a title and make him a vassal of your current ruler, you loose all control over him, his own court etc. for example) all add more spice to the delicious meal.

Btw., I never really bothered using the tutorial. I tried it once and it didn't do the job for me either. Working out every aspect of the game myself did end up rather well though. The classic Paradox series is really hard on the workload to get familiar with them but they're well worth the effort if you like complex and large-scale games. Apart from this and asking other Paradox players, there are also some Wiki's available for the Paradox games - they're usually offering some tips and guides for beginners as well so they're worth a look.
Here's the link to the main Paradox-Wiki portal:
http://www.paradoxian.org/
The wiki for Crusader Kings is in a rather bad shape though because they had to restart it or something along those lines. It's still enough for a rudimentary starters' guide, though.
http://crusaderkings.wikia.com/wiki/Crusader_Kings_Wiki

[Kanaric]

crusader kings, though one of their popular games with their fans, is probably not the first paradox game you should play.

[Pious Agnost]

Try Hearts of Iron II and EU III (Plus expansions) before CK.

Maybe you'll move onto Vicky some day

[Yoda Twin]

Crusader Kings is awesome must buy if your experienced PI player, if not, grab EU3