New Let's Play - Crusader Kings II

Well, it's been a long hiatus without writing but I have now returned for what I hope to be a more stable run of posts.

In the meantime I've acquired more games of which Crusader Kings II stands out as a shining example of a well executed game in what must be considered a niche market, namely that of dynastic strategy games. In Crusader Kings II you play as the invisible guiding hand of a noble family trying to survive and flourish during the Middle Ages. Your tools for increasing your own power and diminishing your competitors include everything from strategic marriages and alliances to forging fake claims on your neighbours lands and assassination! Many have deemed the game a "Habsburg simulator" after the way the Habsburg family successfully used the same tools in real life to create the Austro-Hungarian Empire which prospered until the First World War.

The Medieval period was one of great turmoil caused by religious and cultural friction together with the lust for power, glory and gold. These factors are all reflected in Crusader Kings II in that you will most certainly see war between Muslims and Christians and between Frenchmen and Germans, however, certain events such as the reconquest of the Iberian peninsula by Castille are in no way guaranteed to happen. Instead, it is up to you to see what mark on history you can make whether you start out a count, a duke, a king or an emperor.

For this Let's Play I will be playing will all DLC, including Sword of Islam, Legacy of Rome, The Republic and The Old Gods. More on the settings in the next post!

From the Chronicles of The Holy Roman Empire - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The lay of the land

I am pleased to be the chronicler engaged to put into writing the events pertaining to the rule of our most Holy Emperor Henry.

In the year of our Lord, 1102, the mighty Holy Roman Empire spans some 14 regions from Saxony in the north to Provence in the south and from Bohemia in the east to Flanders in the west. All is ruled by the chivalrous emperor Heinrich who has, through his sons, expanded the borders of the realm for the past two decades. These years have also seen a great reformation of the agricultural system, which will, God willing, pave the way to a prosperous future. In addition, a great effort has been put towards expanding the mines in the empire, with the Austrian silver mines worth a particular mention as they have become a source of great wealth

Hostilities against the Papal state have not been pursued during this period, although the state of war has not been revoked. It is widely thought, in learned circles, that the emperor has been in contact with the most holy Pope Gregory concerning the current situation, but little is certain. Something which is known, on the other hand, is that the Polish continues to honour our alliance and have directed their forces towards the Baltic coast in an attempt to further spread the word of God.

On the other side of our glorious empire, the lands of the French have been split by the activities of the British. The ceasefire in place is tenuous at best and rumour has it that further campaigns are being planned. As the area around Île de France holds considerable wealth the French have the means to field a large quantity of troops.

On our southern borders the Venetians and the Milanese have renewed their hostilities and declared open war. Although there has been only skirmishes for the past decade, I have been informed that the Doge Domenico of Venice has assembled an army in the city of Bologna, which will be ready to march come spring.

On the northern border our Viking friends have undertaken long exploratory voyages with their speedy long-ships, plying up and down the Baltic Sea and journeying far to the west around the British Isles. Perhaps they too are anxious to expand their borders?

With the multitude of conflicts brewing around Europe the Emperor, in his wisdom, has ordered the building of new facilities to hold an expanded army, as well as starting the recruitment of suitable soldiers.
Thus securing the borders of our prosperous union of duchies, kingdoms and cities our Emperor continues to safeguard the interests of the Holy Roman Empire and all his subjects.

May the peace last for ever!

From the Chronicles of The Holy Roman Empire

Introduction
Time for another gaming diary, one that will span multiple updates.

As stated in the last post, my thirst for medieval warfare has been rekindled and so, I now set out to conquer the known world as portrayed in the Medieval 2: Total War-mod “Lands to Conquer”, playing as the Holy Roman Empire (aka. The HRE).

Why the mod?
Most people familiar with the game know that the vanilla AI isn't very bright. Besides improving on this, the mod also rebalances the world, making it a bit more historically accurate and at the same time a bit more challenging. This particular mod stays quite close to the original and doesn't make any changes to the areas of the map, although it does distribute then a bit differently. Most of the work done lies in the rebalancing of the units. For more about the differences please visit this link.

Why the Holy Roman Empire?
In short: Because of the potential for challenging game play as well as drama.
The situation of the HRE at the start of the campaign (beginning in the late 11^th century) is quite interesting: The empire covers vast tracts of land located in the heart of Europe and is surrounded on all sides by Christian monarchies. At the time, the Holy Roman Emperor is not highly thought of by the Pope after the Investiture Controversy . This is translated in the game as the Papal state being at war with the HRE along with a minimal rating by the pope. Any aggressive behaviour towards the aforementioned neighbours can be expected to result in an excommunication, effectively limiting expansion on the home front. This home front is, of course, rather large. To guard these borders can be a costly affair as the wide spread nation prohibit the use of a larger centralised defence force. With better part of the realm land locked, trade routes are of lesser value than those of, for example, the regions of the Italian peninsula.

If the mod reflects history well enough there should be some trouble keeping the already existing empire together as well, since in reality it was a hodge-podge of states, territories and free imperial cities. A plethora of revolts and uproars could and should plague the reign of Coin, further adding to the excitement.

The Style
I thought it could be fun to try something new, so this gaming diary will be written in the style of a chronicler at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor. The chronicler will have full access to the Royal archives as well as the meetings of the Council of Lords and should be able to give full account of the proceedings. I'll be using modern language to make things easier on both writer and reader but try to add enough flavour to make it interesting.

Starcraft in the dark

The other day I played a couple of rounds of Starcraft against my brother with random teams on random maps new to us both.

This is a variant that increases the value of information and the importance of scouting as high as we can push it, which makes for some very interesting games full of deceit and cunning.

Tools such as denial of map information, a form of containment, suddenly becomes viable as the other contestant doesn't know what's out there. If you can dissuade your competitor from exploring a certain area then he or she might miss an excellent expansion or a key defensive point for long enough that you may exploit it first.

For example, on one of the maps we played I discovered very late that I had a semi-hidden third entrance to the base, which I had left completely undefended. Shrouded in shadows the scenery suggested that there was nothing there and so I didn't prioritise the exploration of that area until late in the game. Fortunately for me I had managed to keep my opponent busy through needling attacks on one his expansions, so he didn't have time to capitalise on my mistake. In the end, I had to give up that game for lost as the results of my appalling macro skills reared it's ugly hydra-like head.

The first map we played was a small 2 player map on which there was no easily found natural expansion. I was lucky enough to get protoss as my team and quickly got some zealots over to an easily defended ramp where I also smacked up a shield battery and later on a photon cannon for detection. When my probe encountered purple creep the fact lay clear to the day (or the dusk, as we played in the evening): My brother is a zerg!

I should have realised this from the sounds he made earlier in the day and the size of his fangs, but I guess I've become used to it.

Aaaanyway.

Knowing what I had in front of me I went for some dragoons while reaching for corsairs to harass his overlords. Remember: none of us knew the map we were playing so denying him the scouting from his overlords could be vital.

After having a few skirmishes zergling vs. zealot I gathered a few dragoons to make a push while at the same time annexing that far away "natural" expansion. This turned out to be a good move as I found a budding hatchery in the mirror position, and lightly defended at that. Knowing that this would grab my brothers attention I attempted to cut of his reinforcements with a second team of mixed zealots and dragoons, but they never got to their intended position as my first team desperately needed help. Outnumbered, my brave soldiers managed to dance around enough, through my microing, to ensure the destruction of the horrific zerg outpost whilst the reinforcements strove to join the fun.

At this point I realised that I didn't have any observers. As the thought registered in my brain, spikes started shooting up out of the ground, throwing my ranks into disarray. You can't fight what you can't see.

With none of the infrastructure in place to build the little blighters I quickly set a probe on construction duty and at the same time ordered up another gateway to up production of zealots and dragoons. On the front line my brother tried baiting my brave blue-skins to advance, no doubt to lure them into a trap. Keeping a firm leach on my fervent zealots I dashed in and out with my dragoons instead, managing to take out a few hydralisks and zerglings. When finally I got a reaver and some probes out, queens and a landing party came out of nowhere, destroyed a mining expansion! I quickly rallied what troops I had roaming the country-side and punished this intrusion (or extrusion rather). At this point I had a good containment of the zerg and went in with everything I had. In a reckless assault, where micro got lost along the road of macroing in all the troops, the last zerg base finally fell and victory was mine.

The Aftermath

It was great fun to add an exploration element to the game. As mentioned, scouting and denial of information became very important. Not knowing where the good first expansions were did perplex both me and my brother and things such as not scouting my own base properly could potentially have lost me the game. In games of this variant there is definitely room for tactics beyond what's normally used and a greater possibility for playing mind games.
Although many veterans will find that there aren't many good maps around that they haven't played, it could be worth finding one and trying it "blind" with a friend (or an enemy). There are some great games in store for those brave enough to take a step into the unknown.

Gaming Diary 1 - Minesweeper

This is an example of what's called a gaming diary.
Basically I play a game, note down what I'm doing and why, get some screen shots or videos to illustrate important points and then I type it up and then it might turn out something like this (but probably with a game more exciting than Minesweeper):

1. The Basics

Minesweeper is one of those games that come with all Windows versions since version 3.1 or something. The concept is pretty simple: You have a field, represented by little clickable squares, in which there are mines. Your job is to clear the minefield by a) flagging all the squares where there is a mine or b) revealing all other squares. To help you in your job some thoughtful person has left numbered cards in some places which tell you how many mines can be found in the eight squares surrounding each card. With a bit of time and patience, it is usually possible to find all the mines, though depending on the version you are playing you might find yourself having to guess between a number of squares.

Today there are a multitude of versions, some with sophisticated systems acting in the background to ensure that the board is solvable purely through logic and some
with simpler systems that make sure that your first click never hits a mine. The game has even inspired the people over at College Humor to make a trailer for Minesweeper - The Movie.

I first remember playing the game on my fathers ancient laptop some time in the very early 90's. The laptop, which weighed enough to make it all but desk-bound, displayed a beautiful playing field in black and orange on which I clicked on mine after mine. After a while I realised that there was a system to it and that it might not be such a good idea to click on the mines. In the end I managed to win a few games and was probably rather proud.

2. Let's clear some mines!

OK, so we come up with a really nice start. Usually you don't see half the board cleared in one click, but hey: Got to be lucky sometimes!



We can immediatly see 4 mines that need flagging and then a fifth which appears as the sweep proceeds.



We keep moving from right to left in order not to miss anything. With the 2 wedged in between two mines we can safely clear all the remaining squares around it.




The 3 appearing at the six o'clock position could be cause for alarm, thus prompting an attempt at circling around it.



Flagging the second mine at the top left and clearing the surrounding blocks reveal a 2x1 island, effectively isolating the remaining block.




Through inspection we can quite easily see the pattern appearing and so the perilous 3 is neutralised, but quickly joined by another of its kind.




At this point I make a mistake. My hand slips and instead of clicking the square immediatly below the second 3, I hit the one just to the left, thankfully revealing another 3 instead of losing the game.



After pausing to collect myself I then flag the final two mines and solve the board, clocking in on an abysmal 176 seconds, but glad to have gotten there at all after the earlier mishap.



3. The Aftermath
In reflection there wasn't anything wrong with the tactics applied, though improvements in the motorial skills-department is a necessity. Next time should probably see a raising of the difficulty level as well, but seeing as this was an exhibition game I think the level was appropriate.

If you want to try it for yourself you can find the game in the folder "accessories", sub folder "games" if you use a Windows OS or download a copy of the World Rankings-certified Minesweeper X.