Crusader Kings (video game)

Crusader Kings
Developer(s)	Paradox Interactive
Released	2004
Genre	Real-time strategy, Grand strategy
Mode(s)	Single player
Ratings	ESRB: E (Everyone) PEGI: 3+
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X
Media	1 CD-ROM
System requirements	Windows: 256 MB RAM, 4X CD-ROM drive, DirectX 8.1, Windows 98 Mac OS: 500 MHz CPU, 256 MB RAM
Input methods	Keyboard, mouse

Crusader Kings is a grand strategy game made by Paradox Interactive about the period from 1066 until 1453. It was released in 2004. Unlike other past Paradox titles (Hearts of Iron, Victoria and the Europa Universalis series), Crusader Kings focuses on building a dynasty instead of a country, having similarities to role-playing games and even The Sims. The lead game programmer was Johan Andersson. As with the other Paradox Interactive history games, Crusader Kings must be considered a macro-management real-time strategy game (as moves are played out simultaneously and continuously) but typically involves far more planning than the fast-paced action that is usually associated with real-time strategy. While the game has historically accurate scenarios to start from, featuring interesting personages such as William the Conqueror, Robert Guiscard, Alexius Comnenus, El Cid, Friedrich Barbarossa and Edward III, a significant part of the game's charm is that from that point on, a new alternate history always starts building. Unlike past Paradox titles, there are very few predetermined historical events and no predetermined historical personages that would always appear after game start. Twists to the story are created by simulating the lives of tens of thousands of individuals of note (courtiers and nobles), intermarrying, having children, moving, inheriting, plotting, accumulating wealth and titles etc. Each is at birth assigned a number of inherited scores ('DNA') that determine health and fertility as well as administrative and military capabilities and the characters, will through the course of their lives, usually add a few noninherited traits that alter the scores. The qualifications and relations of individuals will highly influence their fate and is therefore of great interest to their player. This all makes for highly unpredictable game dynamics as the state of affairs on the 'world stage' is the product of the interplay of a myriad of events on the micro level. A unique feature of the game is that when the game ends in 1453, the player has the ability to save the game and be able to continue it using Europa Universalis II. This has the effect of extending the time period of the game from 1066 to 1820. On July 31 2007, Paradox announced an expansion to the game: Crusader Kings: Deus Vult. The game was released on 4 October, 2007, and will only be sold online. Paradox Interactive's forum community is large and has useful third party tools; one can play a game from 1066 to 1964 with the following games:

• Crusader Kings
• Europa Universalis II or Europa Universalis III
• Victoria with the Revolutions expansion.
• Hearts of Iron II: Doomsday with the Armageddon booster pack.

Awards

• Strategy Gaming Online Editor's Choice award
• Game Vortex Top Pick award

External links

• Paradox Interactive website
• Paradox Interactive's Crusader Kings Beginners Guide
• Virtual Programming Mac Version
• Crusader Kings to EUIII savegame conversion tool