Recent reviews by PocketWraith

A fascinating game for a wide variety of reasons. If you take an interest in the history, whatever point you choose to start between 769 and 1337 (769 and 867 starts only available with relevant DLC), the state of the world is set up as accurately as the devs could reasonably figure out. Of course, as soon as you unpause the game and leave things in the hands of the AI and yourself, historical accuracy will rapidly be thrown out the window, but then that's also fun! Preserve pagan religions against the onslaught of the Abrahamic faiths, restore Zoroastrianism in Persia, make the whole world Jewish, or whatever other ahistorical path appeals to you.

The game can have a fairly steep learning curve at the beginning, with a great many menus to explore and figure out what you should be doing, but there's a lot of room for game mastery which is not really required to beat the AI. Once your power level starts to snowball upwards, it's only a matter of time before you're sitting on a huge empire and the largest army in the world - assuming that's what you want. There is no real set goal in CK2, so if it appeals more to you then you can just as easily remain within more limited borders, perhaps as a loyal vassal to a larger power. Whatever feels appropriate for the ruler you're playing as.

Which brings me to a further point - while Crusader Kings 2 is billed as a Grand Strategy game, there's a significant RPG aspect to it, because rather than a country you play as a dynasty of rulers, each of whom will have different stats and traits, so if you want to roleplay your way through the game, there's a fair amount of scope for that. One ruler might be an aggressive warmonger wanting to expand his territory, but then his successor is content with what he has and gets super religious, and ends up passing the realm to his daughter, who was stifled by her father's devout and pious nature and turns to demon worship instead. Or whatever else you think fits.

Also, a lot of the random events are hilarious. If that doesn't appeal, you can turn off supernatural and absurd events in the game rules, but if you like the humour, then you can end up appointing your horse to your council, turning a branch of your family into bears, employing the services of a guard pelican, etc, etc.