In 1066, Ireland is divided pretty equally among several small kingdoms, so you don’t have a big, powerful neighbor threatening you right away all your neighbors are just as weak as you are. Most of them only have a couple of provinces you need to manage, which reduces the number of variables you have to juggle to the absolute minimum. There’s lots of opinions about which kingdom is the best for new players to start with, but the consensus in the forums is that (if you’re starting the game at its earliest start date, 1066) any of the provinces of Ireland are ideal “starter kingdoms.” Choosing a smaller nation lets you learn the ropes by dealing with a much smaller cast of characters. CK2 is a game about relationships, and when you’re running a huge empire, you have a lot of relationships to manage all at once, which can be overwhelming. The assumption they’re making is that it’s easier to play a big, powerful kingdom than it is to play a small, weak one. New players have a natural tendency to want to start the game playing one of the larger empires - France, say, or Byzantium. Finally, if you want more of a tutorial walkthrough than a collection of general tips, there’s an excellent thread at Something Awful that walks you through the game in great detail. There’s also a Wiki where players are gathering information to make a comprehensive reference on how CK2 works. If you’re interested in talking CK2, you should definitely create an account and join the discussion there. The community that posts there is thoughtful, respectful, and really, really smart. There’s lots of people who have delved far more deeply into the game’s mechanics than I ever have, and you can find them all in one place: the indispensable Paradox forums. Next, I’m hardly one of the world’s foremost experts on CK2. First, the tips below all assume you’re playing a Christian king Sword of Islam allows you to play as a Muslim, and introduces some new mechanics for Muslim characters, but that’s a subject for another post. I should preface this with a couple of notes.

So, here’s a post that will do just that. Those posts led to a discussion on Facebook asking me to expand on them a bit, by taking them down to a more concrete level: strategies for how to play them and win. I’ve written in this space before about how impressed I’ve been with the latest strategy game from Paradox Interactive, Crusader Kings II, and its first expansion, Sword of Islam. How to crusade like a king in Crusader Kings II

Crusader kings 2 gavelkind tips