EU4 is more of a game, CK2 is more of a sandbox. CK2 is free on Steam, so it is easy to check out, but personally I think EU4 is superior. There is also CK3 coming out later this year, which also is a point in EU4's favor (= play EU4 now, CK3 when it comes out.)

In my experience with CK2 you'll have no idea what you're doing and then you'll knock up your brother's wife and then execute your brother but you'll still have no idea what you're doing, and your wife who you only chose because she was young lustful and fertile has confessed that your child is a bastard, and you'll still really have no idea wtf you're doing other than knowing that plots are sweet

I jumped in to CK2 and had no idea wtf I was supposed to do. Quit without being interested much.

Its hard to get into something that will take hours of wiki reading and youtube tutorials to learn.

Thanks for the review. I'm on the fence. Is it pretty much only multi-player? Plenty of people still playing? Expansion required at this point?

I laughed so hard at this and is so ****ing accurate. Game is absolutely hilarious once you get kinda into the swing of things I've found tho since I initially felt this way (obv you know what you're doing I'm sure). I had a mistress once early on as Germany (I'm a noob w/e) and she literally had prob 4-5 bastard kids and obv my wife wasn't too happy about it.

You basically want to make people that are important like you is my understanding lmao. You want people that hold a lot of land to marry your family so your lineage takes over or something like that. I've barely played it but it cracks me up.

Wat? I must be missing out

lol, you said you played Stellaris. This is Paradox's thing-- the learning curve is half of the fun. Just stumble around and fail a bit, feel free to cheat yourself extra money until you get the hang of things.

I never watched any youtube tutorials, only checked wikis and such when I was at work and not able to play the game. The UI is surprisingly powerful, if quite un-intuitive. Don't be afraid to click around on stuff, use hover-over to read tooltips. Perhaps try the GoT mod if you aren't as familiar with medieval history: https://agotcitadel.boards.net/threa...e-thrones-v2-1

Also tried out Age of Wonders: Planetfall recently and while I know more about what I'm doing still feels like too big a curve to be worthwhile even though it seems like my kind of game. Open to encouragement

Yeah, if you're into paradox games it's def worth playing. I pref eu4 personally but I really enjoy CK2 as well.

In stellaris alteast I knew I was going to be building dyson spheres and enslaving aliens, so that was motivating I guess lol.

But yeah you are right. I need to just knock up a few fair maidens and have some bastards.

If you are willing to spend some time, watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaLP7m_g5Q4

(FWIW I think EU4 is the greatest game of all time.)

I have solo'd the whole thing, its PvE with PVP if you go to a specific place on the map for PvP which has some realy interesting mechanics for pvp. Dont have the expansion.

If you like shooters with excellent gun play and loot then just go for it. Excellent open world etc.

Apparently Steam DB keeps a list of upcoming free trials and giveaways on steam.
Biggest game coming up is Total War:Shogun 2 will be free to keep towards the end of the month.

https://steamdb.info/upcoming/free/

Basically make people who own a lot of land in your country marry your family. They'll hopefully birth you some kids to take over that land when they die. Buy some women to pimp out and marry. Assign the most important people (can't remember the ranks but Count is lowest so don't associate with those plebs if you're playing a big country) to spots in your court. Some people have goals (become a chaplain, be a commander etc). If you do that for them it makes them very happy. One thing on the UI that mixed me up (personally) was making your court actually do stuff like create plots or religion stuff. You actually click the person and then click the province to assign them to it.

Ok so some video on youtube told me to start on ireland and to try and take the whole island. How do I go about that? If I invade someone small, I get invaded by others, and the list of potential wives/husbands for my heirs are always in Spain or some far off place.

If I plot to murder the guy who has the land and I succeed, then what happens?

I find Arumba's videos teaching a new player pretty useful. This link should work for a CK2 series:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01md...YNgDbJdcn75HZY

Given it a couple of tries as I used to love the original game. Then I realise I'm terrible at turn-based games, so quit.

New Xcom game dropping next week!

https://www.pcgamer.com/xcom-chimera...ffer-pcgamertw

Assassin's Creed II is free on Uplay today.

Is xcom a must play?

Never played either. Should I start with 1 or just go with 2?

I'm bad at strategy games but loved and even beaten XCOM:EU with Enemy Within. It is really great. XCOM 2 I tried but didn't get far, didn't have time for it so can't vouch, but it's probably amazing as well.

There's a promo for the whole package of the former:
https://www.indiegala.com/store/product/37429?ref=itad

I was a big fan of the original XCOM and the reboot did not let me down. Great atmosphere and good tactical strategy (which is hard to find these days).

Your plot to succeed can also go over 100% If it's at like 200% it basically auto fires the event to kill them I think. If they die then the heir of the land would take over (think it's a smaller picture below them on their character screen). So basically if you kill someone you'd prob want to be married to the heir (women you hire, someone in your family etc) or removing someone who doesn't like you.

Yeah, Xcom 1 of the remakes is great tile strat if you like that.

ElKabong's game drops in 2 weeks!