Why another new and unnecessary thread, you might ask? Because fuck yeah, that's why! The latest Crusader Kings 2 expansion has arrived and rather than adding earlier starts or new continents, they improve what they've already got; basically turning their medieval grand strategy/rpg hybrid into a fully fledged playground. Take a look. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pntRkvu_aR0[/youtube] I mean, seduce your relatives? That alone would be worth a pretty penny. Try naming another game that offers such a delicious, uh, feature. So if anyone would (contrary to expectation, of course) wonder where I've gone off to or what I'm up to, that's what I'll be doing. Seducing my relatives. Finally, I'd like to (re)toss an old idea out there. Namely: For encouragement, here's a [the best] trailer [ever] to one of their earlier expansions. Enjoy!
Hmmm, I'm starting to think it was a mistake to add the Muro option. Tradition be damned! Still, one is better than no one. Get it? It's funny because there is nothing to get. Who else is up? If it's just the two of us, I'd suggest that we switch turns every other generation. But I'd rather wait awhile for anyone else who might be interested. The more the merrier, right? We can start after the holidays maybe? P.S. Knowing how to play is, of course, a prerequisite for joining. My apologies.
Re: I unfortunately don't know how to play, but it's a game I've been curious about (genuinely, I mean anything about incest...), so I'd observe with interest your updates even if it was the two of you (more genuinely, this mod drew my attention for it recently - as a vastly more avid fan of V:tR over V:tM).
That mod looks quite cool, but I'm not familiar with the differences between Requiem and Masquerade. I thought Requiem only had five or six clans, none of which were Toreador, Tremere or Malkavian all of which are present in the mod. As for “knowing how to play”, only basic knowledge is required. You can learn the basics fairly quickly whereas mastering the game (something I'm nowhere near doing) takes time. Here's a useful (albeit slightly outdated) lp/guide for that purpose. Sorry if I came off as an arse. After playing around a bit with WoL (just 20 years or so in Sicily) I have to say that I'm slightly disappointed. The focus bit seems to be little more than occasional events and minor stat boosts, that is to say no gamechanger. If you want to go to war, pick “war focus”; wanna make babies, pick “family focus” or “seduce focus”; wanna increase your demesne, pick “stewardship focus” and so forth. That's not to say that the game hasn't improved. Everything is slicker and easier to access, the number of required clicks has been diminished (you can for example conduct diplomacy directly from the character screen) and certain actions unlocked by focuses seems to be used to great extent by the AI. Examples include receiving news that my court chaplain had spent a little too much time with my son (I had him castrated, naturally) and being seduced (and subsequently killed) by my stepmother. Still, the greatest improvement I've noticed has got to be the newly introduced vassal limit (which works much like the demesne limit) that severely penalizes huge kingdoms/empires which were nigh unstoppable earlier. Ten years into the game Flanders had successfully rebelled, leaving the Holy Roman Empire, something I've never seen before. Good stuff! Edit: It's possible that the vassal limit came as early as with the Charlemagne patch, but I haven't played a lot recently. Also, an amusing patch note: Jews no longer want boar meat for their feasts.
I would be game, but when I come home after new year and will be within reach of a computer I will eagerly awaiting several game release, with a couple of long games already planned in with some friends. So my involvement would maybe not be the most efficient.
Re: It has 5 clans (there's extra ones in other source books that have particular purposes though), but each clan has it's own bloodlines which gain an extra in-clan discipline in terms of experience cost but also an extra debilitating weakness; naturally they used this to incorporate variations on some of the old World of Darkness clans. Toreador were made a bloodline of the passionate Daeva - having a general history of artsiness and being patrons of it too, whereas the "Malkovians" (see the clever spelling difference? As a side note "Malkavia" was released in a later book as a vampiric illness that makes vampires mad but also gives them an additional discipline) were a completely mad bloodline of domineering and already prone to madness Ventrue. Tremere were incorporated into the new World of Darkness Mage game, being deathless life draining wizards with similarity to vampires - but they were left out of Requiem itself. [/WoD lore} Thanks for the info on the game, sounds pretty interesting.