Alright, strategy gamers. I finally got the chance to build a video of me playing Crusader Kings 2. Luckily, the video displays the game as it appeared on my monitor, and not what I looked like while playing it (which would be disturbing and not as much fun).

I spend a lot of time blabbing in voice-overs in these videos, but before you start watching, you should keep some things in mind. First, this was played on version 0.78 of the game engine. It’s still in beta; the current version floating around in press copies is 0.80. The game has already changed in some slight ways since I encoded this video and posted it. Second, it did have a glaring bug at the beginning, which has since been fixed. You see William the Conqueror ask Harold Godwinson of England for a white peace a few seconds after the start of the video. This kind of changes things, since the famous conqueror doesn’t even try to make good on his claims to the English throne. Aside from that, things proceed in a plausible way, but I don’t want to hear any complaints relating to William. I know he should have invaded England, the designers know it, and everyone with a high-school education in either the US or the former British Empire should know it. The AI just didn’t know it, but that has been fixed.

Oh, and don’t bother asking me why certain troop types do certain things, or why certain buildings cost a certain amount. These things are still changing, so don’t sweat that stuff. Instead, sit back, listen, watch, and then ask me intelligent things, such as “Why did the AI just send the entire Holy Roman Empire into the oblivion of a civil war?” or “Holy Machiavellian politics Batman, why did you just spend 10 years crushing your own vassals?”

The video is broken up into three separate chunks. They can be found here, here and here.