Looking Raja Fine: Crusader Kings 2: Rajas Of India Out Now

I really appreciate the efforts of the voiceover man in this launch trailer for the new Crusader Kings expansion, Rajas of India. He's doing his very best to make the game sound exciting and dramatic, even as the camera pans slowly across colourful cartography and static menu screens.

Except, as we players of Paradox's medieval soap opera know, this is exciting. You don't need to say it in a dramatic voice: Rajas of India adds the Indian subcontinent, three new religions, and a lot of new ways to commit lusty barbarism.

Adam has argued previously that Crusader Kings 2 is 2013's grandest strategy game, and I find it hard to disagree. The original Crusader Kings was the game which drew me into the nerdier, more historical end of grand strategy - Civilization doesn't count - and nurtured me there amid its systemic stories of character-driven betrayal, bastardry, a third thing beginning with 'b'. Crusader Kings 2 polished those mechanics up and made them more easily accessible, while successive expansions since have given you a pallette of sordid misery to paint with larger than a mid-'90s Brookside scriptwriter's.

Plus it's got elephants in now.

I'm sure our own Jimmy Corkhill, Adam, will be along in due course with some fine musings on the new addition to the muddled, power-hungry family, but until now, watch the trailer or visit the official CK2 site.