User Reviews (11 - 16 of 16)

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Not Worth the Frustration

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 6 / 9
Date: July 14, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Continuing the trend of EU and EU2, and true to their name, Paradox's latest release is the video game version of a...paradox. Very cool game. Lots of depth. A great thinking-man's game for those who enjoy grand strategy, historical accuracy, and realism. The interface is very reminiscent of the EU series, with a few changes to general game play (for example, diplomacy improvements and character development).

I won't spend time on the specifics of what I liked and disliked about the game, because ultimately I cannot recommend it...for anyone. I suppose there are some who have run these games bug-free, but after three games in the series run on three different computers with different components--and encountering the same incessant bug--I'd say Paradox has a problem. And the bug is not one you can live with. The game crashes to desktop with even greater frequency than EU2, and none of the patches for any of the games ever fixed this basic problem. And in case you think you can get by with frequent savegames and reloads, CK introduces the new crash-during-load bug.

A quick check of their technical support forum confirmed what I suspected, that a lot of people get this problem. I see Paradox Tech Support trying to one-off these bugs as some kind of video/sound/driver problem (which they could be, on a large scale) but until they acknowledge the ubiquity of the problem and address it en masse I suggest staying away.

Since Amazon doesn't have it...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: June 14, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Try http://www.paradoxplaza.com. Paradox sells their own games from there.

And another more of the same, nothing new game!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 13
Date: June 16, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Once again another copy and repeat of the now infamous Europa Unversalis I & II. Yet, this one comes with the same initial "crash to desktop" bugs, lack of a tutorial, and a user interface that only Albert Enstien could enjoy.

This is yet another one of those "buy it now, we'll fix it later games" from Paradox. You'll be pulling your hair out, from the moment you run the game for the first time with the CTD's (crash to desktops). It's nowhere realistic by any means, the computer only Crusades doesn't even do them, wondering who to marry off your court to and why is a dumbfounded example of lack of realism, you do it just to be doing it and later on find out the results. It's just another toddlers toy that wanted to be great, but, instead is just mediocre. This time period is rather boring as a strategy game. If you don't have Europa Universalis II then I suggest getting it instead, it's been patched to 1.07 and for $7.99 it's a better buy overall.

I'd recommend a wait on this title, in 6 months to a year it will be "patched" finished and you can probably get it for $15 or less, why pay for an unfinished game?

Availability?

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: June 13, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Hi,

Where can I buy this game? It doesn't seem like it's available
in North America. I can't find it listed on amazon's UK site either.

Thanks...

Great Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: March 27, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is a great game.If you like the dark ages and/or grand strategey this is for you.It delves deep but not to deep into nobilty chain of command.It is a RTS but not your typical RTS.Simmler to other paradox games like Hearts of Iron

I never had a probelm with it but appartly u will if you have a bad computer

Great Concept, Poor Support

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: April 02, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This game is a deep simulation type strategy game. For those looking for a Risk type world conquest, or a fast paced game, this would not be for you. This is the type of game where you might spend 30 minutes trying to find just the right girl to marry your son to so that hours later you just might wind up with a new title in your dynasty. Some people say its visually attractive, I personally don't think that the graphics are that much to look at. Character portraits are pretty boring and repeat too frequently considering how simple they are, the name generation isn't that interesting either. Despite these things, you can get really deep into this game easily and then the crashes start to happen, the bugs begin showing up and illogical events occur just to make the game more challenging.

Paradox is not supporting the game the way it should. Now seeing how old the title is, this might not be surprising but the game wasn't that well patched up to begin with. Then they release an expansion pack complete with a whole host of new bugs and still haven't fixed that. In regard to events and difficulty of the game, there are a couple approaches developers seem to take with the two main being the AI cheats or doesn't cheat. Paradox went with the latter. Army payroll is a big challenge during times of war (a good thing really) but the AI never enters debt. It just doesn't make sense. Some other events are completely random. For instance, your characters have traits, traits that add to their statistics or subtract them. If you save the game before one of your children gets their adult trait, it changes, and not just a little. Each time you load and the event is triggered, the trait shows up and how you "raised" them doesn't seem to matter as much as you would think, beyond which category the random trait will be chosen from.

Some people love random events. I happen to like events but just think they should be a little more logical. Oh, and the AI has this weird thing going on with marrying within the dynasty for no apparent reason other than maybe it's not smart enough to know that marrying within your own family is a really bad thing despite how good ( in terms of stats) the spouse could be.

As a bargain bin title, those a bit tech savvy, patient, and willing to forgo a saved game when (if) the patches come, it's worth it. You really have to appreciate the unique flavor Crusader Kings brings to the industry and hope that a similar title, that offers more and a cleaner presentation, is on the horizon.

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