Rock, Paper, Shotgun

As of now you can sign up to be on the closed beta for Paradox’s Crusader Kings II. Do you want to do that? I can’t help you answer the question. But if you do, make your way over here, and put in all your most private details such that the publisher can clone your identity and sell you to Russia. This one’s by the people behind Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron and Victoria, and we’ve written tons about it. So go research, then perhaps sign up for the map-based combat. The full game should be out early next year.

It’s tough to make Paradox’s glacial but intricate historical strategies look interesting in a trailer, but those plucky chaps have had a go for their Gamescom flag-waving attempt. Crusader Kings II, which puts you at the controls of a medieval European dynasty, is really all about the menus, and the trailer doesn’t deny that, but it does editorialise a bit and try to show how the game is telling the story of the 1066 Norman invasion. It doesn’t quite go for the big finish, but that’s history. The game is still a way off, too, as it’s due early 2012.

Right, so anyway, I’ve actually run out of trailer reblogging juice today, so this will have to be the last one, ‘lest my glands need replacing. I’ve got Red Orchestra 2 and Trackmania 2 betas to wrestle with, too. So serious business ahead, indeed.
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Are you excited about Crusader Kings 2? No? That must be because you don’t know what it is. You can read my preview here, but the long and short of it is that the original Crusader Kings sat you in the role of a medieval king, but let you concern yourself more with relationships and human politics than what you were going to build where, or how you were going to invade your peaceful neighbours, or any of the mathematical, combative problems that we’ve come to expect from grand strategy games. No, instead you had to worry about that weird uncle of yours with the glassy eye usurping the throne, or your heir being hated by the entire nation, and the like. Good stuff, and the sequel’s looking more impressive in every respect.
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We like our historical grand strategy games like we like our cup of tea: deep, complex, and with some nuance to its presentation of political relationships. Fortunate for us, then, that Paradox are thinking about precisely this sort of thing in the design of Crusader Kings II. Their latest developer diary (chained up in the dungeon of this post) looks at how the game handles relations between different powers and delivers a more authentic experience of deal with the political intrigues of medieval powermongering.

We’re keen on seeing more of this beast ever since Quintin gave it a feel earlier this year. The game is out on the 13th of January 2012. Gosh, that seems like a long time away.
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The above is a quote from an interview with Henrik Fåhraeus, project lead of Crusader Kings 2, and you can watch that very chat after the jump. We’ve also got the Crusader Kings 2 teaser trailer! Mm. You know, I’m not sure it’s right to call these things teaser trailers. Not when a game’s still a year away, or more. That’s not teasing, surely? I mean, you took a girl home and she teasingly went to the bathroom to slip into something more comfortable, only to escape out of the bathroom window, you wouldn’t call her a tease. Especially not if she jimmied open the same bathroom window fourteen months later and walked into the kitchen while you were making a sandwich or something.
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You’re old. Your wife’s plotting your downfall. Your son’s a dribbling imbecile. Your father-in-law hates your guts. And I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “Yes, that is certainly my life. Why would I want to play a game like Crusader Kings 2, which models all of this in a medieval environment?” Well, I’ll tell you why. It’s because you can cheat on your wife, kill your idiot son, raise a bastard child as your heir and send your father-in-law to rot in prison for the rest of his days.
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And I don’t mean that in a speculative way I mean it in a… well, let me explain. At the weekend, Vadermath dropped me a line saying that Paradox have created a facebook account saying that when 25,000 people become fans, they’ll announce a sequel to 2004′s dynastic al strategy game Crusader Kings. The campaign started on Friday. As of now, they have – er – 968. So – to return to the opening question – will there ever be a Crusader Kings 2? Not at this rate, there won’t.