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You are a crusader King, striving for wealth, political power, religious influence, and military might across the continent and across generations. Reshape the history of medieval Europe in your own image — if only that dimwitted son of yours set to inherit the throne doesn't spoil your grand plans...
The board game "Crusader Kings" captures the essence of the Crusader Kings video game experience in a physical tabletop format. This is a strategy game at heart, but with a special focus on characters, intrigue, and drama. It's a big, beautiful game centered on a map of medieval Europe, using cards for actions, characters, and events and well-crafted plastic miniatures to represent knights, armies, castles, and more.
In this game, your goal is to spread your influence over medieval Europe and lead your dynasty to triumph over its rivals. To do that, you need to groom your family over the generations, build and develop your dominion, be shrewd in the realm of diplomacy and intrigue, and use your vassals wisely to grow your wealth and military power, while at the same time fulfilling your duty to partake in the crusades to the Holy Land.
To win, you need to survive invasions, plots, crusades, and even marriage! Or at least have children or siblings standing by to take over the throne if your regent dies. Failure to raise a suitable heir can mean the end of your dynasty.
—description from the publisher
- Reprint of a game with four games inside
- Solo and co-op modes
- Double-sided game board covering different crusades
- Visually appealing with custom dice
- Accessible complexity
- Crusades
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Reprint — Now my understanding is this Crusader Kingdoms is a reprint of a game.
- Solo/Co-op Modes — It's got solo and co-op modes, uh, solo and co-op modes.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Statecraft from Doit Games. Link is down below if you want to go check out the Kickstarter.
- The Kaiser's High Seas Fleet, The Great War at Sea, 1914 to 1918 by Compass Games.
- So, it's really taking War at Sea, reimagining it, modernizing it, and then bringing it to World War I. So, fascinating, clever design idea from Compass Games.
- Congratulations to our winner there. We're not done quite with giveaways yet because we're going to give away a $50 store gift certificate from the Noble Knight sponsorship.
- So, I'm curious how many of you out there that play board war games and watch these videos uh do miniatures combat as well.
References (from this video)
- rich narrative with emergent stories
- vast strategic depth and replayability
- very steep learning curve
- long play sessions potential
- grand strategy with dynastic storytelling
- medieval dynastic governance, spanning roughly 800-1200s
- story-driven both at empire and personal level
- Crusader Kings 2
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- dynasty management — management of realm, family, court, and wars
- political intrigue and technology growth — religion, culture, and technology shape outcomes
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- This is my favorite list of war games based on the experience that I've had with these games and not based on some external data source.
- This list is a work in progress.
- I think you'll like decisive campaigns or dens.
- There is so much terror and tension in the combat missions.
- Crusader Kings 3 is the current number one top PC war game.