Bought the Conclave and Monks and Mystics DLC for Crusader Kings 2 (on sale) and I really like them, Conclave especially. Council action, new portraits (which seems minor but actually provides a breath of fresh air), revised educational system, changed law systems... Definitely improved the game. I still haven't ventured away from the Deheubarth (southern Wales) starting point in any of my games, but the Kingdom of Brythoniaid is formed, the filthy Anglo-Saxons in the east fight amongst themselves (as are their wont) and I've started to conquer the small irish tribes... Then the glory of Brythoniaid shall encompass every living soul from Deasmhumhain (or Desmond) to Ipswich.
And holy crap when did Francia get a female Empress and when did they take Iberia and even the lands beyond the Gibraltar strait, and ... they stretch all the way to what now is Poland.
That's what i love about this game. You get totally engrossed in the affairs of your pathetic little kingdom while the game churns on no matter what you do, and then you zoom out a bit and the world has changed. And there are so many interesting characters around... Which brings me to this woman I don't even recall the name for.
My son had just turned sixteen and thus was eligeble for marriege. I looked for women preferebly from powerful families so his prestige would get a boon, or someone with good qualities. And then I came upon the Woman. When you look for partners you get a huge list of eligeble characters, and you can sort them by rank (essentially as powerful they are), and on the very very bottom of the list there was this Woman. She was from Greece somewhere, aged 38, childless, she had plenty of good qualities, but she was nothing special at all ... apart from the fact that she was excommunicated, meaning she had no real status in the catholic world. And she was branded as an apostate. And she had been blinded, presumably because someone had accused her of being an apostate. And her greatest longing in life ("Ambition" in game terms) was to get married. For some reason I really felt for that Woman. I still do, and it's almost bizarre how I react to it.
Anyway, I invite a nobleman to my court and promptly arrange a wedding between the two. She arrives at my court in my cold castle of Cardiff (or Caerdydd as the welsh say), far away from the intrueges of the Byzanthine Empire and the hubbub of the world. She's grateful. About six months later a bishop in my realm accuses her of being an apostate, again, and demands I do something. Obviously I don't. I don't even know if she is an apostate, but having her brought from across the world just to have the accusations thrown in her face again (together with demands of her excecution) is not something I will accept.
Two years later she dies in childbirth, giving birth to a healthy baby boy. Considering in how many interesting ways she could have died otherwise it probably was not a bad death, as such. At least her last few years was spent in relative peace, in the cold embrace of Wales. At least I hope her husband was a good man.
And the game is just full of stuff like that.
BTW, Norway is for some reason ruled by turks.
i need to check on those remaster (and maybe get HW Desert of Kharak)
Just one of those crazy things that happen no matter what the strategy game when you just let stuff alone in the rest of the world!
