Crusader Kings II, or CK2 for the fan, is a medieval political intrigue simulation. Like galactic civilization from my previous post, it’s a 4x (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate), but instead of managing a space civilization, you’re a noble from the middle age, you can chose to be the lowly noble or the King of France. The beauty of it is that when you die you play the heir of your primary title. Which mean that even if you get killed in combat or assassinated you get to play your heir and can revenge your father or make amends and marry his oldest daughter then assassinate his only son so your heir gets their kingdom.

The game is a sandbox which means there no specific goal but there an underlying one, is to increase your dynasty influence. Your goal can be start a lowly count in Ireland and become the said king of Ireland or play the Byzantine empire and plot the reestablish the Roman Empire.

Like I said before the death of your character doesn’t mean its game over, you get to play your heir (as long its from your House) which can be your eldest son, an elected heir by your vassal or the eldest relative depending on your succession law.

The depth of the game come from all the scheming that can goes unnoticed and then blew right under your nose. A powerful duke married his son to the only daughter of another duke, which you only realized when he died and his grandson has both duchy with 80% of your troops and he doesn’t like you. You are at war with a lowly count only to find out he married his daughter to a prince of the holy roman empire and now there 30k on the shore of whales. You can assassinate that imbecile son so your genius son might get the throne.

The historical period and character are reproduced astonishingly well. From the important historical character like Offa or William and the name and place of counties and duchy or the bubonic plague of the Late Middle Ages, as you can see the immersion is total.

There so much to say about the game the play style, the way each religion and region can be played differently, the mod (there an excellent Game of throne and elder scroll one).

The game might be a little expensive with all the mod but grab it on sale on steam and you should be fine.

More info:

CK2 Official Site

I wasn’t really active gaming wise in 2015, having a kids take a bit of a toll on everything. But I manage to play some new games, most of them came out before 2015 but I want to showcase them for you anyway.

Galactic civilization II

GC II is a space strategy game set in the 23rd century, when multiple alien civilizations, including Terrans, scramble to conquer the galaxy, planet by planet, by force, diplomacy, influence (culture), or technology.

GC2 is an old game from 2006 but I bought it for next to nothing in a steam sale in 2014 when Galactic civilization 3 came out. I love those kind of simulate the world kind of game like Civilization, Romance of three kingdoms (the SNES one), Master of Orion.

This game looked like a good knock off master of Orion, a game I played awhile ago that really liked.

The game is notable for its artificial intelligence, which is challenging without being given resources and abilities not available to the player, as is common in the majority of strategy games. The game like civ and other game of that genre, you build your galactic civilization from the instant it’s got the engine to do interstellar travel and you build it from there. There 4 primary axis to build around, military, economic, science and culture.

From there you try to create alliance and exchange resources, technologies with other civ or threaten them with your mighty military power. They are multiple way to win the game like a military victory is when all other nations are wiped out, a science victory is when you got to a specific tech that makes you win the game. A cultural victory is when your influence in the galaxy is more than 75% for a certain time, there are other mean that you can win to like by ascending to be a divine being (not sure) or by a diplomatic victory. 

With 35 hours played, which is about 2-3 play through depending of the size of the map and the difficulty. I did all the most of the way to win, It’s pretty cool when you’re building huge ship to attack other planet.

Hearthstone

That game need no presentation but allow me to tell my how I jumped in the bandwagon. I joined late on this one, but some of my old friends I used to play magic with convinced me to give it a try. And I was actually quite surprised by it. It’s seem well balanced enough if you have enough cards, it seems well designed enough that old card from the first editions are still playable.

The quest mechanic allows players to gain gold and buy pack or adventure even if they don’t have money, making it possible to rise even if you don’t spend a dime. In the Arena you just need to pay 100 gold or 1.99 and from there only luck and your deck building skill will allow you to progress since you build the card from what they give you and not all card are equal.

The brawl is another great way to get card, they sometime give you a deck and you play on equal terms against other players. The first win in brawl will give you a free pack.

However it’s get frustrating quickly if you don’t have all the card or at least not a lot of rare one. You get hit the face by the god damns $%*@ Dr.Boom every time, talk about op or you get one shot by a rogue because they got that rare card that cost 0 and reduce the cost of another spell.

And like on all ladder once you rank high enough it seem that you only win 50% of your game.

Ironclad Tactic

The game takes place in an alternate history at the onset of the American Civil War where robot-like "ironclad" machines are used alongside human troops by both sides in the war. The game incorporates elements of collectible card games, whereby the player constructs a deck of cards earned from previous matches for the deployment, outfitting, and tactics of human and ironclad tropes to achieve specific victory conditions. The game features single player and co-operative multiplayer campaign modes as well as skirmishes between two players.

Another steam sale with my money well spent, I haven’t played that much this one but I really like the concept. The alternate history where you have mech in the civil war it’s actually pretty neat. The collectible part is well balance has well. The way the story is told is through a comic style between each battle. This game is definitely worth a try.

And my favorite game I’ve played in 2015 was … see the answer in next post.

. . . there was a kingdom. Its glory was measured in magic and art,and above all else, stories.

The records of the Great Chronicle are the foundation of all order and balance.

To preserve these stories, the record keepers used powerful magic to bind them in paintings of great beauty.

The Opera House, Midgar, Zanarkand . . .

All these records of stories past were kept safe within the Royal Archives.

Until one day a dark force clouds the magical tapestries and you are tasked with entering the tapestries to reenact historical events from the various Final Fantasy games.

Final Fantasy Record Keeper is an iOS/Android game where you must replay the event of the game (only the battle actually) with characters from old final fantasy games. You build your team from all the characters you recruited and  equip them to either venture in the dungeon of each Final Fantasy or do the daily event (ginding) to get extra exp, gold, orbs and sometime your can do special event, that give big reward like new characters, lv break, rare equipment and ability.

The combat system is the old school ATB where your character can attack when the ATB gauge is filled.

Your Team

Building your team is the fun part, You get to create a party of your liking from your favorite characters and have them fight against enemies from different games. However getting equipment and abilities can be tedious at best.

Equipment is found either in dungeon (cheap equipment) or in relic draw, where your spend your precious mithril to get the real stuff.  Abilities are created and honed via the orbs you find while doing battle and event. Less frustrating than equipment to get but higher level orb are so rare and you need so much that it seems to take forever to have a decent 4 time level 5 ability.

Each character have different level of ability they can use, character from actual Final Fantasy game tend to be better than generic class. For example, my Lulu at level 36 at more magic power than a level 50 black mage.

Grinding in dungeons and event with your precious stamina

The game use the same social game gimmicky stamina systems, where you need to come back later when your stamina is empty. You can increase stamina by doing regular and elite dungeons. On the other hand, Event will get you character, equipment, orbs and material.

My personal impression

I’m actually hook because of the nostalgia, but the game get really tedious quickly. Honestly if it’s wasn’t Final Fantasy I would have drop it awhile ago. It’s require so much grinding, and the only way to obtain go items is by using the relic draw with mithril or gem (paid currency). I actually was able to have a decent character by getting Red XII ultimate weapon with the trine soul break. He was in every team until I manage to build other characters.

Verdict

For FF fanboy/girl: Play it

Others: Stay away…

Link

FFRK Wiki