By DECLAN HERTEL
 Staff Writer

“Oh my god, Dad! You’re sleeping with my
wife?”
This is the somewhat sanitized version of a
sentence I once said out loud while playing Paradox
Interactive’s 2012 grand strategy game,
“Crusader Kings II,” which marked its third anniversary
this month.
In CKII, the players take control of the head
of a medieval dynasty and do everything they
can to become rich, powerful, and above all,
long-lived. The only “objective” is to make your
dynasty last until 1453, although this is hardly
the appeal of the game: CKII is a sandbox game
at heart, meaning you are dropped into a huge
living world to do anything your heart desires.
There is an incredible amount of detail, not least
from the impressive level of research put into
historical accuracy.
Each character in the game is represented by
a ton of little symbols and numbers representing
their abilities, opinions, and character traits.
You can interact with these characters in many
ways, such as sending assassins to kill them,
sending them gifts, arranging marriages, and
requesting their excommunication. Learning the
significance of all these bits is key to keeping
your family on top, and there are a ton of bits.
Not to mention that in addition to keeping
yourself un-murdered and your heirs in the
hands of teachers who will bestow the best traits
upon them, you must also run a kingdom. You
can mess with everything from tax policy to succession
law to even more nitty-gritty bits; it’s all
up to you. This results in a difficulty curve that
more closely resembles a wall, but the CKII community
is nothing if not obsessive: there are a
great many guides and tip collections to ease the
process. Give some of these a perusal and you’ll
be bumping off meddlesome uncles in no time.
One thing I didn’t expect on first playing the
game is how darkly hilarious it can be. Being assassinated
on the orders of your 8-year-old mentally
disabled nephew; becoming your son’s lover
only to have him murder you for your titles; a
maimed blind man with typhus winning your
grand tournament; all of these are fair game.
There is no shortage of “ha ha, what?” moments
throughout any given play-through. Also incest.
Lots of incest.
CKII has, on average, 2,500 players active at
any given moment. Thanks to nine expansions,
37 minor DLCs, and a thriving modding community
(there is a very popular “Game of Thrones”
overhaul mod), CKII is very much alive with no
end in sight, three years post-release. That’s
more than many games can say after six months.
If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to unite
all of Western Europe into one giant France, if
you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to sire 30
children by eight mothers, if you’ve ever wondered
what it’s like to marry your syphilitic
daughter to an enemy duke and gain all his titles
and lands when he dies from the syphilis
you “totally didn’t know about,” “Crusader Kings
II” just might be the game for you.