I never got into FIFA on PC. Not sure why. It doesn't feel right.

For fps, a gaming PC is the obvious choice.

PC is the most expensive but the most flexible. If you'd rather play in your living room, PS4 is fine choice. Xbox is kinda pointless.

I play in my living room on my gaming laptop

That sounds like the worst of both worlds . Small screen, not S-tier computer, probably not super comfy desk?

I do like to play on my laptop too from time to time, but it is mainly limited to turn-based games. LoL's Team Fight Tactics work very well on laptop though.

You can connect a pc to your tv and play with a controller sitting in your couch - it's just like a console, only better

Yeah, I have my PC setup for my couch as well. Run 2 HDMI cables, one to computer desk monitor for traditional PC gaming and the other to a 106" projector + 7.1 surround for gamepad friendly games when the Wife is not around.

I also do some laptop+couch gaming, but usually strategy games like CK2/EU4/CIV, or card games (MTG-Arena, etc). Good for when I want to play something a bit more casually with the TV running in the background.

New Humble Bundle Crusader Kings deal is pretty insane assuming you don't have and are interested in it. It literally gives all content-related DLCs and base missing, missing only some visual dlcs like more portraits or house emblems.

already had the CK2 base game, so for whoever doesn't

^ Best game of all time. Anyone who hasn't played, should.

since you mentioned it....
i bought the base a long time ago, and kind of bounced off it. Since i've gotten pretty familiar with EU4 and stellaris, both i have a ton of hours.
Obv since i bought the bundle, i'm going to give it another go, any advice on how to "get it" this time around?

I started-then-quit the game several times before it sank its jaws into me. I think that first and foremost, you have to embrace failing. Often, some of the most memorable triumphs will emerge from bitter circumstances. Don't give up when your god-tier character dies unexpectedly, his/her heir might just surprise you. In a lot of ways, the learning curve *is* a lot of the fun. So just fire up the game and just start failing all over the place. A lot of people recommend watching Let's Plays, but I found that extremely boring, it was much more fun just jumping in and embracing the learning curve.

Second, it really helps to have a point of interest. I only played 20-30 hours of vanilla CK II initially. The next 700 hours I spent solely on the Game of Thrones mod (http://agotcitadel.boards.net/). Even though this mod is actually more difficult that vanilla, I found it easier to be immersed as I was hot on the ASOIAF craze and had the lore fresh in my mind. There is a huge community of mods, from Elder Scrolls to weird post-apocalyptic stuff-- there's surely something to grab your interest. After getting tired of the AGOT mod, I went back to vanilla and had a blast for another thousand hours. It's really a game (and community) that keeps on giving.

Third, roleplay roleplay roleplay. While there is definitely fun to be had in min/maxing and achieving the "best" your realm can be, it's arguably more fun to play your character rather than your omnipresent "self." If your character has the cruel trait, be a cruel ass mother****er. If you are honest and chivalrous, act accordingly. If you're a lunatic, make your horse a councilor. This also makes it a lot of fun to look back on the twists and turns of your dynasty's history.

In the end, it's a bigass dynasty simulator sandbox. You can play Ironman and aim for achievements, or go superpowered with cheats, maybe go crazy with some mods, punch your way to global supremacy or spend the years slowly building tall as a lowly count. It's really what you make of it.

As for starting areas, there's plenty of suggestions online for that. I'd recommend somewhere that's catholic, poland and ireland (noob island) are solid picks. I'd avoid the early start dates until you get a handle on pagans/raiding, 1066 is a beefy bookmark.

Edit: I'd also like to say that it's totally FINE to have a liege. I think too many new players get huffy when they aren't independent states, but then cry when every big blob declares war on them. It's fine to serve a liege, he can protect you with his big armies, and you can slowly take over his realm internally.

Do you have any recommendations for videos or guides? I'm in a similar boat as philly, I have 500 hours in Hearts of Iron IV so I'm theoretically in the target demo, but something about just getting started in CK2 overwhelms me because I have no idea what sort of short term goals I should be pursuing so I just aimlessly watch stuff happen for a while then get bored.

Again, the let's play videos don't really do it for me so I'm not an expert in that area. Many folks over on the CK2 AGOT subreddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/CK2GameOfthrones/) seem to love the stuff that ngParadox puts out, so I'd start there.

While playing, don't be afraid to poke around. It's an intimidating UI, but almost everything has a hover-over description or tooltip. It's okay to ignore stuff. I don't think I even messed around with retinues for my first year of playing.

I was in this boat as well, which is why the GoT mod really helped get me going. I could jump into Robert's Rebellion or the War of Five Kings and immediately be familiar with the characters and achievable goals. For vanilla, it's as easy as doing some wikipedia dives into real history. Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harald_Fairhair, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastein, or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_Conqueror. If you're into the show Vikings, maybe take a spin as Ragnar Lodbrok or one of his badass sons. The more you play or read about the timeline, the more interesting characters/places you'll notice for your next playthrough.

Edit: I also wouldn't be against cheating yourself a bunch of gold until you get a hold of how the economy works. Pretty sure I did that my first time around when playing Ireland.

Afraid I don't have any vids, mainly just played 10ish hours couple of years ago, then got interested early this year and played for 500 more .

I do have some tips how to make it little less overwhelming, though:

Ireland the start you want. Personally, I always play from 769 start, but it might be better from other starts. You can really pick any of the counts there, it doesn't make much difference.

Your character has bunch of stats. The only one that really matters early is martial. Not only does it make your leader much better commander, it also affects how many troops you can raise from your levy.

By default your starting inheritance law is gavelkind, which kinda sucks. Once you die, all your land is split among all your kids. As a result, you want only one kid, which is very risky or alternatively you should switch the inheritance law to something else. Fortunately Irish have access to unique inheritance law, Tanistry, which let's you vote from among all your dynasty members to pick your heir once you die. This is great, since it not only prevents game overs but also let's you skip your drooling imbecile of a son and instead nominate your genius nephew.

There are 3 ways to expand in the game:

1) Regular conquest war like in other PDX titles. You can use your chancellor to fabricate claim on a province, or you can use some other Casus Belli. (Irish start as tribal, so they get very strong Subjugation casus belli they can use once per ruler.)

2) Marriage. Your dynasty is denoted by a red blooddrop on the top of the porttrait. By default, kids are always of the father's dynasty, but if a character is irrelevant OR in your court, they will accept matrilinear marriage, where the kids are of the mother's dynasty. The plan here is to find some distant heir to a throne, matrilinearilly marry him to your dynasty (for example, your daughter), then help him ascend to the throne. This can be done either by murdering everyone who is before him in the line of succession via espionage or...

3) Pressing other people's claims. In CK2, it is hard for your character to have claim to many places. However, ton of random cousins and nephews will have claims to who know what duchies and counties. If they are in your court, you can press their claims, and once you win the war, they get the title. If the character is unlanded, he will become independent, but if you make him your vassal first by giving him some minor title, he will stay as your vassal once you win the war.

The provinces that are directly under your control (demesne) are the most useful - for others you will only get portion of income and troops depending on the mood of the vassal. Your first long-term goal should be to find couple of weak neighbors and fabricate claims on them and conquer them for yourself. You really want to conquer enough land so that you can create a duchy, since it unlocks bunch of new stuff, like conquering the rest of the duchy. Once you are a duke, you should fairly easily be able to conquer most of the Ireland and become a king. From there it is up to you if you want to continue this tutorial game and conquer rest of England or play something else like the Norse and reform the germanic faith.

To add on to Anssi's martial-focused post, be aware that CKII is a lot less about map painting than other Paradox grand strategy. Yes, you still want to conquer ****, but your main focus is your DYNASTY, not your country.

Well as long as the map is in single color in dynasty map mode...

lol, touche

I said **** it and went in on the CK2 bundle. Like philly, I already had the base game, so I will PM a code for it to the first person who responds to this saying they want it.

If i already own:

Way of Life
The Reaper's Due
Legacy of Rome
Conclave
Sons of Abraham
The old Gods

would you still advice i get in on this bundle? i have barely played CK2, but i suspect i will enjoy it.

Crusader Kings 2



The rest are DLC

The Old Gods DLC



The Republic DLC



Crusader Kings II: Sunset Invasion DLC



Crusader Kings II: Legacy of Rome



Crusader Kings II: Sword of Islam



Crusader Kings II: Horse Lords



Crusader Kings II: Way of Life



Crusader Kings II: Charlemagne



Crusader Kings II: Rajas of India



Crusader Kings II: Sons of Abraham



Crusader Kings II: The Reaper's Due



Crusader Kings II: Jade Dragon



Crusader Kings II: Monks and Mystics



Crusader Kings II: Conclave

Oh god, no one told me the UI scaling is god-awful on 4K screens:



Dat blurry text

I thought they added UI scaling with Holy Fury? You may need something to fix the fonts though, check the Stream workshop.

They did, that's with 2x scaling. Doubling the size of the text without improving the resolution makes it kinda blurry.

Yeah, there are a lot of font/text mods on the workshop to fix that up. But, I get that it’s annoying to have to do that on your first play. Newer Paradox games have legit scaling, CK II is just an old, lumbering beast.

I never really thought about it because I’m still using a 1080p monitor.

Thanks a lot, I tried a few I didn't own but they seem all redeemed.