Crusader Kings II
Developers | |
---|---|
Paradox Development Studio | |
Publishers | |
Paradox Interactive | |
Engines | |
Clausewitz | |
Release dates | |
Windows | February 14, 2012 |
macOS (OS X) | May 24, 2012 |
Linux | January 14, 2013 |
Reception | |
Metacritic | 82 |
IGDB | 84 |
Taxonomy | |
Monetization | DLC, Expansion pack |
Modes | Singleplayer |
Pacing | Real-time |
Perspectives | Bird's-eye view |
Controls | Direct control |
Genres | RPG, Strategy, Simulation |
Art styles | Realistic |
Themes | Medieval |
Series | Crusader Kings |
Crusader Kings | |
---|---|
Crusader Kings | 2004 |
Crusader Kings II | 2012 |
Crusader Kings III | 2020 |
Crusader Kings II is a singleplayer bird's-eye view RPG, strategy and simulation game in the Crusader Kings series.
Key points
- Performance can be poor in the later game due to the increased save game size and the increased number of calculations that have to be performed.
General information
Availability
Source | DRM | Notes | Keys | OS |
---|---|---|---|---|
Publisher website | ||||
Amazon.com | ||||
Green Man Gaming | ||||
Steam | Imperial Collection also available. | |||
(unavailable) | ||||
Humble Store (unavailable) |
- All versions require Steam DRM. The GamersGate DRM-free version is no longer being updated or supported.[1]
Monetization
Type | Notes |
---|---|
DLC | This game has over 45 separate cosmetic micro-transactions, these are comprised of unit packs, portraits, music, ebooks, dynasty shields, clothing and customisation tools. |
DLC and expansion packs
Name | Notes | |
---|---|---|
Dynasty Shields | ||
Mongol Faces | ||
Songs of Albion | ||
Songs of Faith | ||
Ruler Designer | ||
Songs of the Holy Land | ||
Sword of Islam | Now possible to play Muslim rulers. | |
African Unit Pack | ||
Songs of the Caliph | ||
Dynasty Shields II | ||
Legacy of Rome | Able to restore The Roman Empire, expanded Orthodox religion and employable retinues. | |
Byzantine Unit Pack | ||
African Portraits | ||
Mediterranean Portraits | ||
Russian Unit Pack | ||
Russian Portraits | ||
Songs of Byzantium | ||
Sunset Invasion | The Aztec Empire will invade across the Atlantic at mid to late game, unique culture and religion. | |
Songs of the Rus | ||
Norse Portraits | ||
Norse Unit Pack | ||
The Republic | Can now play as Merchant Republic, able to build trade posts and compete in new Doge election system. | |
Songs of Prosperity | ||
The Old Gods | New bookmark set at the year 867. Now possible to play Pagan rulers and reform religion. Added raiding system for Pagan rulers. | |
Hymns to the Old Gods | ||
Celtic Unit Pack | ||
Celtic Portraits | ||
Dynasty Shield III | ||
Europa Universalis IV Converter | ||
Customization Pack DLC | ||
Sons of Abraham | Now possible to play Jewish rulers. Revised Christianity with College of Cardinals for Pope election. Pope has new powers and can now donate to Holy Orders. | |
Military Orders Unit Pack | ||
Warriors of Faith Unit Pack | ||
Hymns of Abraham | ||
Songs of Yuletide | ||
Saxon Unit Pack | ||
Finno-Ugric Unit Pack | ||
Rajas of India | Now possible to play as Indian rulers. Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism as new religions with separate sects. Also adds a caste system. | |
Turkish Unit Pack | ||
Turkish Portraits | ||
Songs of India | ||
Persian Unit Pack | ||
Persian Portraits | ||
Charlemagne | New bookmark set at the year 769. Introduced tribal holdings that offer a new unique playstyle. | |
Early Western Clothing Pack | ||
Early Eastern Clothing Pack | ||
Dynasty Shields Charlemagne | ||
The Song of Roland Ebook | ||
Way of Life | Rulers are now able to select one of ten focuses for ruler granting stat boosts and new events and decisions. | |
Iberian Unit Pack | ||
Iberian Portraits | ||
Tales of Treachery EBook | ||
Horse Lords | Introduces new government type, "nomad". Adds The Silk Road trade mechanics. Expanded adventurers mechanics. | |
Horse Lords Content Pack | ||
Orchestral House Lords | ||
Conclave | The council now has more power and influences realm decisions. Revised the education/guardianship system. Added new "favor" mechanics. | |
Conclave Content Pack | ||
Viking Metal | ||
South Indian Portraits | ||
The Reaper's Due | Improved illness and diseases, added hospitals, court physicians and province prosperity. | |
The Reaper's Due Content Pack | ||
Full Plate Metal | ||
Monks and Mystics | Adds Societies you can join including demon-worshipers and monk orders. New councilor actions. | |
South Indian Portraits 5 Year Anniversary Gift | ||
Hymns of Revelation | ||
Jade Dragon | Adds China as an off-map entity you can interact with. | |
Holy Fury | Overhauls gameplay with Christian and Pagan religions, adds dynastic bloodlines, Christian saints, Pagan warrior lodges and coronation ceremonies for royalty. Also adds the ability to start games with worlds shattered down to its duchies, or with the cultures, religions and names randomised. | |
Pagan Fury | ||
Pagan Fury - Warrior Queen |
- When playing multiplayer, expansions and some micro-transactions (customisation tools) that the host owns are made available to all clients for that session.
Essential improvements
Notable mods
- A Game of Thrones: A full-conversion mod set in the world of George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" (ASoIaF).
- Elder Kings: A full-conversion mod set in the Elder Scroll's world.
- Middle-earth Project: A full-conversion mod set in J.R.R Tolkien's legendarium.
- Crisis of the Confederation: A total conversion mod, allowing the player to take the role of a military officer, politician, or crime lord amidst the chaotic political upheavals of the 31st century. It is set in an original science-fiction setting.
- After the End: A total conversion mod set in a post-apocalyptic New World.
- Warcraft: Guardians of Azeroth: A total conversion mod set in the World of Warcraft universe by Blizzard Entertainment.
- Witcher Kings: A full-conversion mod set in the world of Andrzej Sapkowski's "The Witcher".
Game data
Configuration file(s) location
System | Location |
---|---|
Windows | %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Paradox Interactive\Crusader Kings II\ |
macOS (OS X) | ~/Paradox Interactive/Crusader Kings II/ |
Linux | ~/.paradoxinteractive/Crusader Kings II/ |
- This game does not follow the XDG Base Directory Specification on Linux.
- Mods use the
settings.txt
located in the mod subfolder, e.g.%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Paradox Interactive\Crusader Kings II\A Game of Thrones\
Save game data location
System | Location |
---|---|
Windows | %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Paradox Interactive\Crusader Kings II\ |
macOS (OS X) | ~/Paradox Interactive/Crusader Kings II/ |
Linux | ~/.paradoxinteractive/Crusader Kings II/ |
Save game cloud syncing
System | Native | Notes |
---|---|---|
OneDrive | Requires enabling backup of the Documents folder in OneDrive on all computers. | |
Steam Cloud | Approx. 954 MB available. |
Video settings
Windowed
- Windowed option added in patch 2.1
Manually edit fullscreen[citation needed] |
---|
|
Borderless fullscreen windowed
- Borderless fullscreen option added in patch 2.1
Manually set borderless fullscreen[citation needed] |
---|
|
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Edit anisotropic_filtering[citation needed] |
---|
|
Input settings
Audio settings
Localizations
Language | UI | Audio | Sub | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
English | ||||
French | ||||
German | ||||
Spanish | ||||
Italian | Download here. |
Network
Multiplayer types
Type | Native | Players | Notes | |
---|---|---|---|---|
LAN play | 14 | |||
Online play | 14 |
Connection types
Type | Native | Notes |
---|---|---|
Matchmaking | ||
Peer-to-peer | ||
Dedicated | ||
Self-hosting | ||
Direct IP |
VR support
3D modes | State | Notes | |
---|---|---|---|
Nvidia 3D Vision | See Helix Mod: CRUSADER KINGS 2. |
Other information
Console commands
- All the console commands can be found on the Crusader Kings II wiki. Only some of the debug commands are listed below. Discretion is advised when using the console as it is very easy to cheat with it (adding/removing traits etc.).
- Console is disabled if playing in "ironman mode"
Press ~ (or the equivalent key above Tab ↹ on your keyboard) or Alt+Numpad 2+Numpad 1
in-game to enter console commands.
fullscreen
- Toggles fullscreenclear
- Clears the consoledebug_assert
- Toggles asserts on/offdebug_bloom
- Toggles bloom on/offdebug_borders
- Toggles borders on/offdebug_citysprawl
- Toggles city sprawl on/offdebug_dumpevents
- Dumps event data to game logdebug_hires
- Toggles terrain hires mode on/offdebug_info
- Toggles debug infodebug_lines
- Toggles debuglinesdebug_nogui
- Toggles GUI on/offdebug_nomouse
- Toggles mouse scrollwheel on/offdebug_postfx
- Toggles postFX on/offdebug_rivers
- Toggles rivers on/offdebug_sky
- Toggles sky on/offdebug_smooth
- Toggles frame smoothing on/offdebug_terrain
- Toggles terrain on/offdebug_textures
- Dumps texture info to debug logdebug_tooltip
- Toggles tooltips on/offdebug_trees
- Toggles trees on/offdebug_water
- Toggles water on/offdebug_wireframe
- Toggles forced wireframe on/offhelp
- Print out all console commands or a specific command's descriptionobserve
- Switches to play no character at allrefresh_portraits
- Refreshes all character portraits as soon as possiblereload filename
- Reloads the gui or lua filereloadinterface
- Reloads the entire interfacereloadtexture texture-filename
- Reloads the specified texture
Issues fixed
Activation code length
If your activation code is too short for the code input box upon installation, fill the additional spaces with the character 'X', e.g. for a code formatted as AAAAA-BBBBB-CCCC
you would input it as AAAA-ABBB-BBCC-CCXX-XXXX-XXXX
.
Graphics card stress/overheating
- This is a likely cause of a game crash if your system only just meets the minimum system requirements to run the game. With such crashes, usually your graphics card will be at fault. One way to reduce stress on your graphics card is to turn off some of the more system-intensive options.
Instructions[citation needed] |
---|
Notes
|
Multiplayer incompatible versions
Your game version is given by "CK2 v<version> (<checksum>)" (for example, "CK2 v1.06 (YYEV)"). After entering a singleplayer or multiplayer game, it's possible for the checksum to change on some PCs (for example, to "CK2 v1.06 (ZYEV)"), while the others keep the same checksum. This won't allow you to play in multiplayer due to incompatible versions. Restarting the game fixes this problem.
Most mods also change the checksum, so you may not be able to join the host if you do not have exactly the same mods (including same version) as the host.
Alt-tabbing out and back in changes system resolution (Linux)
Since the introduction of the new launcher, alt-tabbing out of the game and back into it changes the system resolution and consequently makes the game unplayable. This can be prevented by bypassing the launcher via a terminal command. The command, in its simplest form, is:
/path/to/ck2 -skiplauncher
Additional arguments are:
-mod=$MOD
where$MOD
is the filename of the mod you want to enable.-exclude_dlx=$DLC
where$DLC
is the filename of the piece of DLC you want to disable.
A third-party free software launcher is available that does these things for you.
Other information
API
Technical specs | Supported | Notes |
---|---|---|
Direct3D | 9 |
Executable | 32-bit | 64-bit | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Windows | |||
macOS (OS X) | |||
Linux |
System requirements
Windows | ||
---|---|---|
Minimum | ||
Operating system (OS) | 7 | |
Processor (CPU) | Intel Pentium 4 2.4 GHz AMD Athlon 64 3500+ |
|
System memory (RAM) | 4 GB | |
Hard disk drive (HDD) | 2 GB | |
Video card (GPU) | Nvidia GeForce 8800 ATI Radeon X1900 512 MB of VRAM DirectX 9.0c compatible |
|
Sound (audio device) | DirectX compatible |
- A 64-bit operating system is required.
macOS (OS X) | ||
---|---|---|
Minimum | ||
Operating system (OS) | 10.11 | |
Processor (CPU) | Intel Core Duo 2.0 GHz | |
System memory (RAM) | 4 GB | |
Hard disk drive (HDD) | 2 GB | |
Video card (GPU) | AMD Radeon HD 6750 Nvidia GeForce 320 Nvidia GeForce 9600 1 GB of VRAM |
- A 64-bit operating system is required.
Linux | ||
---|---|---|
Minimum | ||
Operating system (OS) | Ubuntu 16.04 | |
Processor (CPU) | Intel Pentium 4 2.4 GHz AMD Athlon 64 3500+ |
|
System memory (RAM) | 4 GB | |
Hard disk drive (HDD) | 2 GB | |
Video card (GPU) | AMD Radeon HD 6750 Nvidia GeForce 320 Nvidia GeForce 9600 1 GB of VRAM |
- A 64-bit operating system is required.