SOOOOO

Crusader Kings 2 has a demo at Fileplanet of all places. 
 
IT IS WORTH PLAYING. This is the best polished and most stable Paradox Interactive released EVER. I played for 12 hours yesterday with NO CRASHES AT ALL.  

The demo is FULLY FEATURED. Everything in the game is in the demo. BUT there are two catches. 
 
1) You can only play as 4 powers.
2) You can only play for 20 years.  

 
NEVER FEAR! Enterprising fans have figured out workarounds to the first two points, both of which have been openly discussed on Paradox Interactive's Boards without a ban (and so, presumably, are semi-legit)
 
Workaround to #1: 
Select any of the four available characters, and press start game. There's a brief delay before the game starts to load. During that delay, if you click on a county on the map, you will instead play as THAT power!
 
Workaround to #2: 
To get more than 20 years of play, make sure Crusader Kings 2 is not installed to your Program Files directory. Go download GAWK, and make sure that it isn't installed to Program Files either. Then go download the script at the following link http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?583150-Cheats-%28In-Demo%29&s=d13a0cc82ba5ccd72d230db788c295b0&p=13401700&viewfull=1#post13401700
Edit the .Bat file in the script to read as follows

@echo OFF
IF not exist ck2demo.exe (
    echo not in ck2 directory
    goto :eof
)

echo awk needed, make sure it's installed!
::SET PATH=C:\"Games"\GnuWin32\bin\awk.exe;%PATH%
echo.

echo creating backup directories
mkdir backup\common
mkdir backup\decisions
mkdir backup\events
mkdir backup\history\characters
mkdir backup\history\provinces
mkdir backup\history\titles
mkdir backup\history\wars

echo.
echo creating backup
FOR /F "delims=:" %%i IN (textfiles.txt) DO copy "%%i" ".\backup\\%%i" >NUL
copy ".\common\defines.lua" ".\backup\common\defines.lua" >NUL


echo.
echo modifying files
FOR /F "delims=:" %%i IN (textfiles.txt) DO C:\"Games"\GnuWin32\bin\awk.exe -f awkskript.txt <".\backup\%%i" >"%%i"
FOR /F "delims=:" %%i IN (textfiles2.txt) DO C:\"Games"\GnuWin32\bin\awk.exe -f awkskript2.txt <".\backup\%%i" >"%%i"
FOR /F "delims=:" %%i IN (textfiles2.txt) DO C:\"Games"\GnuWin32\bin\awk.exe -f awkskript3.txt <".\backup\common\defines.lua" >".\common\defines.lua"
echo DONE!
 
Where "Games" is replaced with the path of your GAWK directory.
 
If you do all this shit, promise me you buy the game. It is fucking worth it. PEACE

Oh and one more point:
 
The demo won't let you save, and there's no way to workaround that with a few changes to a text file. Also, there is the inevitable rebalancing and bug fixing that you'll miss out on if you just cheese the demo.  So buy the damn game!!!

you should first explain paradox games to people who don't know what the fuck they are.

but yeah, game owns, I wanna see dave do a QL of it myself

Thanks for taking the time to explain what this game is. It sounds dreadful.

Thanks for taking the time to explain what this game is. It sounds dreadful.

@MB said:

Thanks for taking the time to explain what this game is. It sounds dreadful.

You should try playing it, or at least a similar Paradox grand strategy game. Europa Universalis sounded boring to me at first, but then I played it and found myself really enjoying it.

@Jumanji said:

IT IS WORTH PLAYING. This is the best polished and most stable Paradox Interactive released EVER. I played for 12 hours yesterday with NO CRASHES AT ALL.

Wow.

@Jumanji said:

IT IS WORTH PLAYING. This is the best polished and most stable Paradox Interactive released EVER. I played for 12 hours yesterday with NO CRASHES AT ALL.

Wow.

So how complex is this compared to other Paradox titles? I can play Europa Universalis 3 fine, but Hearts of Iron 3 baffles me. Will I still be able to understand this game?

@darthturtle said:

So how complex is this compared to other Paradox titles? I can play Europa Universalis 3 fine, but Hearts of Iron 3 baffles me. Will I still be able to understand this game?

This is no more difficult than EU3. It might take a bit to get some of the title inheritance stuff, but that abut it.

I don't care. I don't care that it's done by Paradox Interactive. I don't care that it's too complex for my feeble intelligence. I don't care that it will be as buggy as hell on release (prove me wrong Paradox). All i know is, i can play as Serbia, and that's enough for me.

@TheDudeOfGaming said:

I don't care. I don't care that it's done by Paradox Interactive. I don't care that it's too complex for my feeble intelligence. I don't care that it will be as buggy as hell on release (prove me wrong Paradox). All i know is, i can play as Serbia, and that's enough for me.

glorious srbja!

it's really not that complex though, you just have to find the right mindset for it.

I'm gonna buy it and play the shit out of it, because the first game was fairly unique and awesome, but suffered from being old and having a somewhat troubled dev cycle.

here's hoping for a quick look involving some combination of Vinny, Dave and Drew.

also, of all of paradox's games, this was probably the easiest to get into, because you just clicked a button to muster an army, rather than having to train units.

@Jumanji said:

have been openly discussed on Paradox Interactive's Boards without a ban (and so, presumably, are semi-legit)

@Jumanji said:

To get more than 20 years of play, make sure Crusader Kings 2 is not installed to your Program Files directory. Go download GAWK, and make sure that it isn't installed to Program Files either. Then go download the script at the following link http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?583150-Cheats-%28In-Demo%29&s=d13a0cc82ba5ccd72d230db788c295b0&p=13401700&viewfull=1#post13401700

Edit the .Bat file in the script to read as follows

@echo OFF
IF not exist ck2demo.exe (
echo not in ck2 directory
goto :eof
)

echo awk needed, make sure it's installed!
::SET PATH=C:\"Games"\GnuWin32\bin\awk.exe;%PATH%
echo.

echo creating backup directories
mkdir backup\common
mkdir backup\decisions
mkdir backup\events
mkdir backup\history\characters
mkdir backup\history\provinces
mkdir backup\history\titles
mkdir backup\history\wars

echo.
echo creating backup
FOR /F "delims=:" %%i IN (textfiles.txt) DO copy "%%i" ".\backup\\%%i" >NUL
copy ".\common\defines.lua" ".\backup\common\defines.lua" >NUL


echo.
echo modifying files
FOR /F "delims=:" %%i IN (textfiles.txt) DO C:\"Games"\GnuWin32\bin\awk.exe -f awkskript.txt <".\backup\%%i" >"%%i"
FOR /F "delims=:" %%i IN (textfiles2.txt) DO C:\"Games"\GnuWin32\bin\awk.exe -f awkskript2.txt <".\backup\%%i" >"%%i"
FOR /F "delims=:" %%i IN (textfiles2.txt) DO C:\"Games"\GnuWin32\bin\awk.exe -f awkskript3.txt <".\backup\common\defines.lua" >".\common\defines.lua"
echo DONE!

Where "Games" is replaced with the path of your GAWK directory.

If you do all this shit, promise me you buy the game. It is fucking worth it. PEACE

Yeah, seems pretty legit.

As others have said, best Day 1 release by Paradox in as long as I can remember and it'll only get better with time.

Now I just have to lure my friends into buying it so we can play "Co-op".

oh my god this game is soo good.

my first game as Queen of Navarra ended in 120 years though ;_;

@Jumanji said:

@Animasta: k Ck2 is an 11th century matchmaking simulation. You try to keep a noble family entitled by marrying them intelligently and keeping them alive long enough to procreate and produce heirs that can legally inherit the dynasty's title. If at any time your family is left untitled, YOU LOSE. This is complicated by a few wrinkles. #1: other noble families want your shit. If they get a legitimate claim on your shit, they invade. If they fabricate a claim on your shit, they invade. If for some reason your family planning breaks down and someone outside your dynasty is set to inherit the goods, you better believe they're going to try to assassinate you. Wrinkle #2: 11th century Europe is a patchwork of weird laws of inheritance. It's not all Cognatic Primogeniture. You can play in a kingdom where titles are divided amongst elder surviving children. You can play in a kingdom where the oldest male relative in a family gets the title. You can play in a kingdom where females CANNOT inherit, and so a slew of all daughters and no living male relations means the end of the game. ETC. These laws can be changed but it takes generations. If anything at all, this game illustrates the set of incentives that made a healthy, fertile, 16-year-old girl the most PRICELESS property that a noble family could acquire when all this shit still mattered. If spending hours staring at family trees looking for "Lustful" or "Hedonistic" young women sounds interesting (these are character traits that increase fertility), then you should PLAY THIS GAME

If your post is accurate it looks like they kind of misrepresented the game in the Quick Look. They really just glossed over the matchmaking stuff.

The Quick Look was very combat-focused, largely as a result of their decision to play William the Conquerer. I suppose that's not necessarily a misrepresentation, as that is one of many ways to play the game, but personally I've enjoyed starting small. It's satisfying to build a minor claim into an empire and a small family into a dynasty through a combination of strategic matchmaking and occasional military confrontations.