LotR LCG: The mines of Moria

There must have been a mighty crowd of dwarves here at one time and every one of them busier than badgers for five hundred years to make all this, and most in hard rock too!
- Sam Gamgee, in The Fellowship of the Ring

The first deluxe expansion released for the Lord of the Rings living card game was Khazad-dûm, and since we not only kind of like the idea of going through these in roughly chronological order but I also wanted Arwen in my deck, it was also the first deluxe expansion we bought. Moria! The dream of every dwarf and Minecraft player! Deep, dark mines long abandoned by dwarves, now infested with orcs and trolls and haunted by a Balrog. Wait, why did we buy this expansion again?

Into the Pit - DL 5

The first quest sees our heroes sent to Moria to make contact with Balin's lost dwarven colony. In a nice touch, we're entering the Mines from the opposite direction as the Fellowship of the Ring did, so the quest starts with East-gate as the active location. This comes with the special condition that enemies can't engage you nor you them, which can mean that as soon as you clear the gate, you get swarmed by a horde of goblins - or that the threat in the staging area gets so high that you never even clear the first location. If you do, then it's on to the First Hall and across the Bridge of Khazad-dûm with you!

There are lots of awful locations in Moria (*cough*Zigil Mineshaft*cough*), and as an additional interesting wrinkle, you're given a Cave Torch to help clear them.

In practice, the Cave Torch adds an element of randomness: if you're unlucky, using it will summon up a horde of enemies; if you're obscenely lucky, you'll be discarding horrible encounter cards while placing progress on locations. The mechanic of taking bigger risks for more progress is thematically excellent, but I'm not sure I'm overly fond of the wide range of randomness that comes with it.

The scenario itself is quite tough, with three very different quest stages. You need to move quite quickly to avoid being overwhelmed by locations with nasty threat-increasing synergies, and, of course, hella goblins. Our first three-handed swing at this ended in massive location lock. I've since beaten it both solo and with another player running a Leadership/Lore deck, with Northern Tracker unsurprisingly playing a key role.

My first two-handed attempt together with my partner's revamped Tactics deck was a pretty intense emotional rollercoaster. First, of course, we struggled mightily to even get past East-gate. This really is the only quest I've seen where it's perfectly possible to fail to clear the first location! We were lucky to get Dreadful Gap at this point, though, sparing us from ever having to travel to it. Things looked a bit grim until Gandalf stopped by to nuke the Patrol Leader in the staging area, and I got a Northern Tracker into play. We were also quite lucky with our Cave Torch use, getting no extra enemies in play. Still, by the time we raised our threat to travel to the First Hall, with no progress on the quest card yet, it was high enough for Goblin Scouts to engage both of us. I'd also lost one of my two Galadhrim's Greetings to a Fouled Well earlier, which didn't make our lives much easier.

Eventually we cleared First Hall as well, and Northern Tracker saw to Bridge of Khazad-dûm; we were really inside Moria now! I'd played a copy of Elrond's Counsel on myself and a Galadhrim's Greeting on my partner, but both our threats were already well over 40 by the time we hit the second quest phase. To be honest, I didn't think we had a chance in hell. We were both fighting several goblins at this point, giving me ample reason to be grateful for both Arwen's defence boost and A Burning Brand. In order to buy at least a little time, and because we needed so many of our characters to fight, I played Gather Information: completing it got me Dwarven Tomb, which I used to retrieve a Galadhrim's Greeting, and my partner Secret Vigil. They helped!

We managed to thin out the goblins, both got a much-needed wizard intervention to lower our threats, and made liberal use of our torch to blast locations from the staging area. I also started getting a sizeable questing force into play, with our torch luckily discarding several treacheries that would have wiped them out. Where I'd be without West Road Traveller, I don't know. Finally we had amassed enough questing and dispatched all the goblins, so that when Legolas killed the last Patrol Leader standing, we fulfilled both victory conditions for the second quest phase simultaneously! But at grave cost: Boromir fell in battle against the orc horde.

Despite our heavy loss, we moved on to the last stage, where there was nothing left to do except quest like hell, and against all odds, we made it! This was one of the most harrowing experiences I've ever had in the game; at one point, my threat was 48 at the end of the turn, meaning a single treachery in the previous staging would've knocked me out. On the one hand, we were lucky: our cave torch use mostly discarded treacheries rather than summoning enemies, and we were able to avoid some of the nastiest shadow effects. Hell, even the Patrol Leaders took damage almost every time. On the other hand, if so much as a single Warden of Healing or Hasty Stroke had showed up in my hand, Boromir would have made it.

So it could have gone better, but it could also have gone much worse. This is what I mean by the cave torch introducing a wider range of randomness: if we'd been hitting more enemies when discarding encounter cards for it, those treacheries would also have been hitting us in staging.

This is a pretty good quest, though. The combination of location lock and hordes of goblins can destroy you in the beginning, if you even manage to get past East-gate, and the last stage of the quest has a nice little twist to it as well. The whole experience is also thematically strong: there's a definite feeling of despair at the horribly creepy underground locations and the constant threat of orcs. After the hopelessness of East-gate, you'll feel lucky to have gotten in, only to begin to suspect you're never going to get out again...

**

The Seventh Level - DL 3

Here's a real mystery for the ages: as far as I know, this is the only quest in the entire game with a difficulty level between 1 and 4. Why that is, I have no idea. Admittedly this is a fairly straightforward quest, but there are even more goblins, they're tougher and they surge; you have to quest pretty hard and fight them off. My initial solo attempts ended in complete failure, so if there is some point of view from which this is easier than Hunt for Gollum and considerably easier than Dead Marshes - or indeed Into the Pit - I don't share it.

Having barely managed to get into Moria in the previous scenario, we recruited a third player to run a Leadership deck (Core Aragorn, Théodred, Prince Imrahil), which you'll find at the end of this post, and made a three-handed attempt at The Seventh Level. Suddenly all those Goblin Swordsmen don't seem so tough any more, and I can kind of see where the difficulty level of 3 comes from. To put it simply, if you can handle a constant stream of goblins, this quest is easy. If not, then you can't beat it. It's almost like the exact opposite of Emyn Muil. With the Leadership and Tactics decks smashing goblins left and right, the quest was a total walkover.

In fact, it was so easy we decided to move on to the last quest in the expansion. I mean, how hard can it be?

**

Flight from Moria - DL 7

Four hours and one Balrog later...

We got a pretty good notion of what we were in for when revealing encounter cards for the scenario setup. We drew Fouled Well, and our Leadership player decided he liked his opening hand so much he was going to refuse to discard anything. So Fouled Well surges into Massing in the Deep, which raises our threats and reveals three more cards, one of which is Cave In, which has no progress to remove, so it surges... You get the idea.

So we kicked off the quest with a pile of locations and a horde of goblins in the staging area, not to mention, well, Durin's Bane. I quite like the way they've depicted the Balrog in this quest: we never fight it directly, but are instead trying to run away from it as fast as we possibly can, while its threat constantly grows. It's an excellent mechanic that leads to a truly nail-biting quest.

There was nothing to do except get down to clearing the staging area and getting some progress on the quest. While we were still more or less busy getting some of the initial cards sorted, poor Boromir was defending an attack from a Goblin Swordsman, who drew Chance Encounter as its shadow card; since my partner was the first player, and Boromir was already wounded, we lost our first hero. It didn't get much easier from there.

I also need to remember to write this one down for the history books: I used West Road Traveller's Response! We drew Dreadful Gap, which immediately became our active location. With our Leadership deck amassing its army of allies, we'd never manage to clear that damn thing ever - until my West Road Traveller swapped it for Plundered Armoury.

Somehow or other, we made it to the second quest stage, down to eight heroes. The second stage is quite clever as well: instead of a single quest card, there's a quest deck, consisting of a whole bunch of second quest stages, all with identical 2a sides, and they only get flipped over to reveal the business side when staging begins, so even as you're committing characters to the quest, you don't know which quest it is! Only when you find one of the quest cards that represents a way out can you win the scenario.

By this time, treacheries like Undisturbed Bones and Dark and Dreadful were taking a steady toll on our allies, including the only Warden of Healing I'd managed to draw. Galadhrim's Greetings, Secret Vigils and Double Back were barely keeping our threat manageable as the looming shadow in the darkness grew and grew...

We struggled through several quest stages looking for an exit, to no avail: we piled up quest stages and even a Great Cave Troll in the victory display, but all we seemed to be able to do was raise the Balrog's threat. Both Thalin and Eleanor were lost to A Foe Beyond, leaving us with six heroes standing. My partner soldiered on with just Legolas and Radagast, but when we finally reached a quest stage that promised us an exit and set Prince Imrahil to digging our way out, a horrifying combo of several enemies and Orc Drummer put over thirty threat in the staging area, which knocked my partner's threat well over 50. The rest of us managed to hang on for a few more harrowing turns while we dug our way out, barely escaping with a horde of orcs at our heels.

So we won! But what a victory. Nine heroes went into Moria, five came out. One more setback would almost certainly have destroyed us completely. This really is one hell of a quest: finishing it took hours, and we were physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted by the end. But it was worth it. I especially like the way in which the quest ramps up the difficulty constantly, rather than by throwing huge enemies with massive stats and card immunities at you. Even when we draw a truly dismal initial staging, we still had a chance to beat this, unlike something like Return to Mirkwood where drawing a gigantic spider, or two, or two and a Hill Troll in the first couple of turns is pretty much the literal equivalent of revealing an encounter card that says "You lose". Top-notch work, this, and absolutely brilliant in terms of theme. The whole expansion is thematically strong, and Flight from Moria is especially awesome. This epic three-player saga is one I doubt any of us will soon forget.

**

So, why did we buy this expansion? Well, like I said, so I could get Arwen in my Amazon deck. We got that, but what we also ended up with is an excellent deluxe expansion. I'll admit I'm biased: the chapters in Moria in the Lord of the Rings have always been among my favorites, so I'm kind of a sucker for this one. But it really does deliver. I love the fact that the first quest in the Khazad-dûm expansion is a hopelessly desperate effort to get into Moria, and the last quest is a far more hopeless and desperate effort to get out again. To me, the quests and encounter decks in this expansion do a great job of conveying the feel of Tolkien's Moria. The second quest is quite uninspired and either frustratingly overwhelming or trivially easy, but Into the Pit is excellent, and to date, Flight from Moria is my best experience playing this game. Even if you don't care for the dwarf-themed player cards at all, this is worth buying for the quests alone, especially if you get to play multiplayer.

**

I'm serious about the player cards, by the way. Literally every one of them in the damn thing has something to do with dwarves. I'm not complaining; in fact, I think I'd complain if Khazad-dûm cards weren't heavily dwarf-themed! But as it happens, I don't now have, nor do I think I've ever had, a single card from this expansion in my deck. Back in the core set days, I did use some dwarf cards, and I have nothing against them, but since Arwen is a pretty key ally in my Amazon theme, I feel it'd be thematically better to not mix elves and dwarves in the same deck. For what it's worth, my notion of some kind of fluff explanation for my deck is that Arwen has come south via Lórien, bringing a contingent of elves and Dúnedain with her, who've met up with Éowyn and Eleanor's Rohan-Gondor bunch. To me, dwarves don't fit in here. That's why I skipped doing any card spotlights, too: we're not using any!

In cards we do use, we continued our foray into the Angmar cycle with Escape from Mount Gram, netting the excellent Spirit side quest Double Back. I wish I could include more of the victory display trickery from that expansion in my deck, but I can't think of much anything I'd be prepared to part with to make room for them. I really do have to build that Rossiel deck!

After my latest experiences both solo and in multiplayer, I also decided to dispense with Gléowine's services. The minstrel of Rohan's been around since the very beginning, but to be honest, I've kept finding better uses for my Lore resources. If I regularly pick the same card to discard to Éowyn's ability or Protector of Lorien or whatever, I think that's a sign to consider leaving it out altogether. This may be a mistake based on getting lucky in drawing Unexpected Courage early in several games and attaching it to Beravor to maximize her card draw; I'll have to see how this works out! With Gléowine gone, I added a copy of Double Back.

The biggest change to our card pool during our Moria adventures was my partner's acquisition of a second core set. This put me in a bit of a quandary: I'm actually quite happy with my deck right now, but at the same time I'm painfully aware that the optimal solution is to include three copies of non-unique cards. Since we're not playing the game competitively (hell, we never even keep score!), there's no reason in the world why I should care about this, but there it is: I do. Given that I've got Eleanor and A Burning Brand, and despite my experiences in Moria just now (!), I'm going to take a chance and stick with only two copies of Test of Will and Hasty Stroke for now. I instead added a third Northern Tracker, a second copy of Unexpected Courage, Henamarth and Dwarven Tomb, and a third Galadhrim's Greeting. To make room, I dropped both copies of Westfold Horse-breaker, Radagast's Cunning and Secret Paths. None of these cards had seen much use lately, even though both Radagast's Cunning and Secret Paths can be very powerful at the right moment. That's the thing with deckbuilding; only rarely will a card be so obviously terrible that you can leave it out of your deck with no compunctions. I like this! I also swapped one copy of Over Hill and Under Hill Gandalf for the core set Gandalf.

We also qualified for a discount at our retailer, having collectively spent quite a bit on boardgames and this LCG, and used that to grab a copy of On the Doorstep. I have high hopes we'll finish our Hobbit saga by the time my Let's Read project is done!

For now, here's the current incarnation of my Amazons:

The Amazons

52 cards: 29 Spirit, 18 Lore, 5 neutral; 3 heroes, 23 allies, 9 attachments, 14 events, 3 side quests

Éowyn
Eleanor
Beravor

Allies: 23 (12/8/3)
Elfhelm (TDM) x2
Northern Tracker x3
Arwen Undómiel (TWitW) x2
Escort from Edoras (AJtR) x2
West Road Traveller (RtM) x3
Haldir of Lórien (AJtR)
Mirkwood Runner (RtM) x2
Warden of Healing (TLD) x3
Henamarth Riversong x2
Gandalf (Core) x2
Gandalf (OHaUH)

Attachments: 9 (2/6/1)
Unexpected Courage x2
A Burning Brand (CatC) x2
Athelas (TLR) x2
Protector of Lórien x2
Song of Wisdom (CatC)

Events: 14 (12/2)
The Galadhrim's Greeting x3
A Test of Will x2
Dwarven Tomb x2
Hasty Stroke x2
Elrond's Counsel (TWitW) x3
Infighting (AJtR) x2

Side quests: 3 (1/1/1)
Double Back (EfMG)
Scout Ahead (TWoE)
Gather Information (TLR)

Solo sideboard:
swap one Warden of Healing (TLD) for Resourceful (TWitW)
swap Gather Information (TLR) for Will of the West
swap Infighting (AJtR) x2 for Forest Snare x2

**

Here's my partner's Tactics deck:

Team Boromir

53 cards; 49 Tactics, 4 Neutral; 3 heroes, 22 allies, 14 events, 13 attachments, 1 side quest

Boromir (TDM)
Legolas
Thalin

Allies: 22 (18/4)
Beorn
Descendant of Thorondor (THoEM) x2
Eagles of the Misty Mountains (RtM) x3
Bofur (OHaUH) x2
Honour Guard (TWoE) x2
Winged Guardian (THfG) x3
Vassal of the Windlord (TDM) x3
Dúnedain Hunter (TLR) x2
Gandalf (Core) x3
Radagast (AJtR)

Events: 14
Feint x3
Quick Strike x2
Goblin-Cleaver (OHaUH) x3
Foe-Hammer (OHaUH) x3
The Eagles are Coming! (THfG) x3

Attachments: 13
Support of the Eagles (RtM) x2
Dwarven Axe x2
Blade of Gondolin x3
Horn of Gondor x2
Secret Vigil (TLR) x2
Black Arrow (OtD)

Side quests: 1
Gather Information (TLR)

**

And finally, this is the Leadership deck we ran the last two quests with:

59 cards; 53 Leadership, 6 neutral; 3 heroes, 25 allies, 11 attachments, 19 events, 1 side quest

Aragorn (Core)
Théodred
Prince Imrahil (AJtR)

Allies: 25 (19/6)
Erestor (TLD) x2
Faramir x2
Ingold (TWoE) x2
Longbeard Orc Slayer x2
Dúnedain Watcher (TDM) x3
Silverlode Archer x2
Veteran of Osgiliath (EfMG) x3
Snowbourn Scout x3
Gandalf (Core) x3
Ranger of Cardolan (TWoE) x3

Attachments: 11
Sword that was Broken (TWitW) x2
Celebrían's Stone x2
Dúnedain Cache (TDM) x2
Steward of Gondor x2
Dúnedain Warning (CatC) x3

Events: 19
Grim Resolve x2
Dawn Take You All (RtM) x2
For Gondor! x2
Campfire Tales (THfG) x2
Second Breakfast (CatC) x2
Sneak Attack x3
Valiant Sacrifice x2
A Very Good Tale (OHaUH) x2
Parting Gifts (AJtR) x2

Side quests: 1
Gather Information (TLR)

Let's Read Tolkien 15: The Gathering of the Clouds

Now we will return to Bilbo and the dwarves.

Meanwhile, back at the Mountain, Bilbo and the dwarves are wondering what's going on with all the birds: there are whole flocks of them flying around quite unseasonally. A thrush approaches them, but none of the dwarves can understand him. Balin explains to Bilbo that in the old days, the ravens of the Mountain were friends of the dwarves, and he remembers a raven he knew called Carc. Hearing this, the thrush vanishes, and soon returns with an ancient, venerable raven: Roäc, son of Carc, chief of the ravens of the Mountain at an improbable 153 years of age.

Roäc gives Bilbo and the dwarves the news of Smaug's death and the approaching armies. Everyone is overjoyed at the first, and as for elves and homeless Lake-men, Thorin asks the ravens to send word to his kinsman Dáin of the Iron Hills for help. The dwarves immeiately start fortifying the Mountain; the only remaining entrance is the front gate, and using tools they find in the ruins, they build a stone wall to block it. When the elves and Lake-men arrive, they find the dwarves and hobbit holed up in the Mountain.

To say the discussions don't get off to a particularly good start is an understatement. Bard speaks for the Lake-men; he points out that it was he who slew the dragon, and that as descendant and heir to the Lords of Dale, a fair chunk of the treasure Thorin is sitting on is his by right. Further, he reminds Thorin that the Lake-men helped him in his quest, and in return lost their town and a quarter of its population.

Bilbo, listening in, feels quite strongly that Bard is right and reasonable, and I'd agree. Thorin, though, responds in amasterpiece of dwarven arrogance and stupidity. The plight of the homeless Lake-men is singled out for special scorn, and in general Thorin maintains that the treasure in its entirety is his and his alone. He calls the Lake-men thieves and robbers, and won't even talk to Bard again unless the elves leave, and in a final insult, offers to pay for the ponies and supplies the Lake-men provided him with. Unsurprisingly, this turns out to be a non-starter, and talks end. Later, the heralds of Bard return. Their message is that Bard requests a twelfth part of the treasure as dragonslayer and heir of Dale, out of which he's prepared to compensate the Lake-men for their losses. Thorin shoots at them. The Mountain is declared under siege.

**

I'd like to start my discussion of this chapter off by pointing out that Thorin is an asshole. The rousing song the dwarves sing has a refrain about the death of Smaug that ends "And ever so our foes shall fall!" By the hands of others and at the expense of others, one assumes; the dwarves haven't done anything to deserve the tiniest bauble of the dragon's hoard. Without Gandalf and Bilbo, they'd never have made it as far as Rivendell, let alone into the Mountain itself. They roused Smaug against the Lake-men; the dwarves never had a hope in hell of getting rid of Smaug, or indeed by their own admission any kind of plan or notion for it in the first place. Bard is clearly right: not only does Smaug's hoard undoubtedly consist of the treasure of Dale as well, but the dwarves' reckless treasure-hunting has directly led to the deaths of a quarter of Lake-town's population and the destruction of the town itself. The dragon only lies dead because of the unlikely tag team of a hobbit, a thrush and a man of Dale. Thorin's response to all this is that these homeless people can kiss his ass, because it's his gold and they can't have any of it. The people who paid the price for his wealth are thieves and robbers for appealing to him for compensation, and his answer is violence. There's no two ways about this: he really is a monumental asshole.

As we're told, what's at work here is the curse of the dragon's hoard, and the special suspectibility of the dwarves to it. In modern terms, the curse seems to turn dwarves into excellent caricatures of privilege. Thorin, sitting on a fantastic pile of wealth delivered to him by the work and sacrifice of others, moralizes on his inalienable right to it through his ancestors, and has nothing but violent scorn for anyone actually involved in the work of earning it. The worst thing anyone can do is appeal to his sense of charity.

To be honest, I don't remember reading a more devastating condemnation of unearned wealth and privilege in fantasy. Again, the engine of the story is the juxtaposition of the modern and the fantastical: the great quest to slay the dragon is over, and the romantic figure of the dispossessed King under the Mountain turns into a grasping, avaricious bigot. The only way King Thorin would ever make the river run golden would be by pissing in it because the poor drink from it. Here, if you like, is a precursor of the main theme of the Lord of the Rings: power corrupts. In a powerful allusion to Fafnir, Thorin, under the curse of the dragon's hoard, is turning into a dragon himself. One of Tolkien's key messages is that in setting out to slay a monster, you should take care lest you end up taking its place.

**

Next time: a hobbit gets bored.

More obsessions: Crusader Kings II

This is a very long post. My final verdict on the game is in the very last section if you're interested.

Earlier this year, I had vague notions of getting something productive done this fall. As it turned out, my three-year studying binge that culminated in writing my master's thesis over the summer left me feeling a bit tired. Add to that the wrecking of the Finnish university system and with it my professional future, and I might go so far as to say that I was a bit depressed. The final blow to any notions of getting anything done was delivered by my brother, who gifted me a copy of Crusader Kings II on Steam.

I'd gotten my hands on Paradox's Europa Universalis back in the day. Based on a board game that sounds completely insane, Europa Universalis was a grand strategy game set in early modern Europe that was almost really good, but in the end too soulless to be really rewarding. I played it a bunch, though, but always kind of hoping that it would turn out to be a better game than it actually was.

Crusader Kings II is a direct descendant of Europa Universalis in two ways. The basic approach is strongly similar, so if you've played a Europa Universalis game, you have some notion how CKII works as well. This is a good thing, because the other way it's exactly like the EU games is in how completely hostile the presentation is. There's a tutorial of sorts that doesn't really explain much at all, and the manual only really tells you where to find which button. What they actually do is another thing entirely, let alone how the whole thing works. Hell, even the Wikipedia article on the game is a hopelessly confusing wall of text. To make any sense of what's going on, you need to consult the wiki a lot, and resign yourself to just flat out losing on your first several attempts as you try to figure out what the hell's going on and why.

**

I set out to do just that. There's a fairly good beginners' guide on the wiki, and one of the easier starts it recommends is 1066, the earliest you can start without DLCs, in Ireland. Mind you, not easy in the sense that it's easy to beat the game, but rather that it's easier to get a grasp of the mechanics of the game when starting out small. The original Europa Universalis had a sort of alternate history freeform scenario, where I particularly enjoyed playing as Éire, and there's an entertaining Let's Play as well, so I decided to try to get a hang of the game on the emerald isle:

That's the basic game interface, in the default terrain view mode, which is kind of useless. Here's a more legible map:

I'm sorry the pictures are so small, but this is the best I can do with Blogger. In the map above you can see the basic building blocks of the game: the counties and duchies. There are thirteen counties in Ireland, grouped into five duchies. The thicker borders delineate duchies; at the time that screenshot was taken, the duchy border between Mide and Connacht isn't shown because both counties are part of the royal demesne.

And this is me, at the moment:

That's King Abbán II of Éire, his wife and eight children. Unlike most grand strategy games where you play as something fairly abstract like a country, in Crusader Kings II you control a dynasty of characters, one ruler at a time. When the character you're controlling dies, you switch over to their heir. If there isn't one, you lose the game.

Here's the character I started out as, then Earl Murchad of Dubhlinn. The blazon in the top right corner is the symbol of his dynasty, the Ua Cheinnselaig.

Earl Murchad fought his way to Duke of Laigin and petty king of Mide, and amply deserved his sobriquet by living to an astonishing age of eighty. One of his many founding acts was to establish the barony of Clondalkin in the earldom of Dubhlinn for the use of his designated heir. When children grow up, they start getting uppity if they haven't either been granted a title of their own or married to someone who has one. Each county has a number of holdings, usually a castle, a town and a temple; generally whoever holds the main castle of the county is also count, called earl in the British isles. My solution to the inheritance problem was to give Murchad's heir his own barony in the capital county: until he acceded to the throne, he could be Baron of Clondalkin, and on his accession the barony could be handed on to the next heir.

This was a brilliant idea in theory, but in practice, Murchad outlived his son and heir Domnall, who died of depression at the age of 55, still Baron Clondalkin.

Other people had trouble with Murchad's succession as well. His brother Énna was caught plotting the murder of Domnall, and thrown into the oubliette where he died.

While Domnall may never have made it to the throne, his son Abbán would go on to become the first King of Ireland - but not before surviving a murder plot directed by his older sister.

Optimistically, King Abbán named his first son Domnall, and when he came of age, he was made the second Baron Domnall of Clondalkin. Domnall was a good kid and a capable soldier, but unfortunately he died fighting the Ua Briains, making his son Abbán the second king of Ireland.

But that's just the direct line of succession, though; in this game, you have a whole dynasty to run.

**

When I started the game in 1066 as Earl Murchad of Dubhlinn, my father Diarmait was still reigning as Earl of Laigin, immediately to the south. The dynasty basically consisted of him, his nephew Donnchad and his two sons, Murchad and Énna, with Murchad set to inherit Laigin. The dynasty tree view shows you the total prestige accumulated by the dynasty; there's no win condition in the game as such, but dynasty prestige is used to keep score.

Caírech was Murchad's half-sister, born to Diarmait's second wife after his death. Diarmait was, well, strongly motivated to do his dynastic duty:

We carried out a bit of feudal maneuvering with Caírech. For every title in the game, you can view a screen that shows you the potential claimants to it. This is tremendously important because just as in the Europa Univeralis games, you can't just suddenly decide to declare war on your fellow Christian lords; you have to have a casus belli. One of the most common ones is a dynastic claim, real or fabricated, on someone else's land.

Now, for instance, we can see that there's only one living claimant to the county of Dubhlinn, Ragnailt nic Gryfydd, whose claim is weak and won't be inherited unless the Duke of Slavonia declares war on us over it - possible, but highly unlikely!

As it happens, Ragnailt is Caírech's daughter. Back when Murchad was still Earl, there was only one claimant to the earldom of Dubhlinn outside our dynasty: one Gruffydd ap Cynan, grandson of the Duke of Powys, which meant he also had a claim on the duchy of Gwynedd. Not only was his claim on our earldom a potential threat, but a claim on Gwynedd might also come in handy in the future. Therefore, we married Caírech to him matrilineally, meaning that their children would become part of our dynasty, not his.

Caírech had two daughters, Lucia and Ragnailt. Ragnailt was married off to Ulfo Trpimirovic, son of Duke Stjepan the Dragon of Slavonia. She went on to have several children for his dynasty, including the current Countess and Mystikos of Cephalonia. Those circles below her children are the dynastic emblems of Trpimirovic. It's obviously risky for us to let claims to our holdings pass out of the family, but her claims are weak enough that they won't be inherited by her children, and Slavonia is far away.

Caírech's other daughter, Lucia, got the full feudal treatment. The first Baron Domnall of Clondalkin's second daughter, Flann, was married matrilineally to Ruah mac Ruaidrí, son of Duke Ruaidrí I of Connacht, a duchy we had designs on. Their son, Faílbe mac Ruah, was married to another member of our dynasty: Lucia nic Gryfydd. In general, intermarriage inside a dynasty can be a bit risky as it can result in hereditary complications, but in this case, they had a son who ended up as Duke Conállan the Just of Mumu.

Faílbe died young, so Lucia was married to the King of France to secure an alliance. Her sole living descendant from that marriage is the current Countess of Melgueil, of the house of Bourbon, no less.

So basically this little family story is the end result of two dynastic maneuvers, both to secure a claim to the earldom of Dubhlinn and grab potentially useful claims to Gwynedd and Connacht. We never did end up using the last two for anything, and the duchy of Connacht is now part of King Albán II's demesne through other means, but this story is the descent of not only several distant kinsmen in various European courts, but also the current Duke of Mumu, who as duke of three counties and spymaster of the realm is one of King Albán II's most powerful vassals. This is how the game creates stories.

**

As the son of Diarmait, Murchad's brother Énna obviously had a strong claim on the earldom of Laigin. As the player, you only ever control a single character in your dynasty and his immediate vassals. This meant that while I was only the Earl of Dubhlinn, had the earldom of Laigin passed to Énna, it would have been outside my control and Earl Énna of Laigin would have been another computer-controlled character in the game, albeit a very close member of my dynasty. There are various limits on how many counties you can rule directly: there's a hard limit based on the character's Stewardship value, beyond which it becomes inefficient to have too large a demesne, and also your vassals will be annoyed if you hog all the land to yourself. I'd decided early on to keep the duchy of Mide as my demesne, so once I became Duke of Mide and Laigin and could have earls as vassals, I handed the county of Laigin off to Énna. I figured that since he and his descendants are going to have the strongest claim to it anyway, why not just give it to him?

Énna passed the earldom on to his son Diarmait. As a wonderful detail, the frequency with which names are repeated down the family tree is different for each culture. The Irish sure seem to like repeating certain ones. Diarmait's son was called Donngal the Mad, because, well, he was:

Mad enough to ask me for the title to the Duchy of Laigin, which I gave him because I was King of Ireland by then. In general, your vassals won't like it if you directly control more than two duchies, and as I wasn't planning to keep Laigin for myself, I'd been meaning to hand it over to Énna's descendants anyhow. Donngal the Mad married his aunt, Énna's daughter Derbforgail, and lived to the ripe old age of 71, dying with a fantastic combination of traits that included Poet, Scholar, Charitable, Diligent, Humble, Chaste, Wroth, Deceitful, Cruel, Shy, Scarred, Brilliant Strategist, Inspiring Leader and of course, to the end, Lunatic. Rest in peace, you wonderful old man. His son Énna is the current Duke; his heir is Donngal mac Énna. Long may they rule.

**

Now we finally get to Earl Murchad of Dubhlinn himself: the first character I controlled in the game. Murchad inherited his father's enthusiasm for the dynasty; he had to be restrained from debauching his daughter-in-law at the age of seventy-one. Murchad had three children with his first wife Tailltiu, and after she passed away at the age of 50, a marriage was arranged with Cecilia de Normandie: the daughter of William the Conqueror, no less! I thought it would be a formal marriage for prestige reasons, but Murchad thought different and gave her four children. Here are his children by Tailltiu: the first Baron Domnall, the luckless conspirator Énna and Donnchad, who I made Earl of Osraige and whose descendants still hold the earldom under the Duke of Laigin. Donnchad's daughter Tailltiu was married to King Niklas the Lionheart of Sweden, and through her, both the current Duke of Västergötland and Chancellor of Sweden, as well as Prince Eskild of Sweden, are King Abbán II's kinsmen.

Énna mac Murchad, you'll recall, died in his brother's dungeons, but Murchad raised his son Fearchar personally, and he was married to Elisabeth, daughter of King Harald the Drunkard of Denmark. Their only child was Gormlaith nic Fearchar, who we gave in a diplomatic marriage to Duke Magnus the Cruel of Nidaros (sorry!). One of their children is the reigning King of Denmark, Svein the Unready. King Abbán II married his sister Sigrid, making Svein my brother-in-law. You can spot the various kings in the dynasty tree by the elaborate border around their portraits. Murchad's descendants also include, through Domnall's daughter Failenn, Duke William the Silent of Strathclyde, who has the slightly less elaborate border reserved for counts and dukes.

Next, there are Domnall mac Murchad's children. His oldest, Dub-Dil nic Domnall, was married to a pretender to the Isle of Man called Indulf. He eventually, with our help, became Duke Indulf the Usurper of Manaw, but unfortunately the heir Dub-Dil bore him, Finnbarr mac Indulf, died before his father. Indulf remarried, and his son, Duke Fergus the Cruel of Manaw, is of his father's Ivaring dynasty rather than ours. These things don't always pan out the way you'd hoped.

Abbán went on to become King Abbán I of Ireland. Flann, grandmother of Duke Conállan, was already mentioned, as was Failenn. Their sister Brigit was married to Kaiser Heinrich! Murchad mac Domnall was a curious case:

This Murchad was a bit dim, so we married him off to a princess of Poland; if the wife's title is superior to the husband's, he goes over to her court. Unfortunately, someone seems to have told him why he was being sent off, as he soon started plotting to murder Abbán. I wasn't going to let the idiot of the litter assassinate the heir to the throne, and as he refused to be reasonable about it, we had him killed.

**

So the male line continued through King Abbán I. At that point, plotting seemed to run in the family, as pretty much the first thing his eldest daughter Tuathflaith did when the next Domnall was born was to begin plotting his murder. We had her thrown in the oubliette, where she died. The decisively less murderous Máiread married the Duke of Norrland, and the current Duke is her grandson. Domnall's younger brother Erc is still alive; I built the castle of Ail Finn in Connachta to be his personal fief. Erc's been something of a magnet for resistance to King Abbán II, as several factions have formed to champion him for the throne. So far nothing's come of them, but to be honest, I think both the King and his heir will sleep easier when he's dead.

Abbán's youngest daughter, Dub-Lemna nic Abbán, was also at the center of an elaborate feudal maneuver. Meet one of the great characters of the Irish unification, Duchess Sinech the Usurper of Ulaidh:

Sinech was the sister of Earl Áed of Tir Chonaill, and came to our court to press her claim on the earldom. We agreed to help install her as Earl, as it made our lives easier by giving us a cheap casus belli against Tir Chonaill. To ensure her loyalty, a matrilineal marriage was concluded between Dub-Lemna nic Abbán and Sinech's son Conchobar. Sure enough, the ambitious Sinech became Earl of Tir Chonaill. Once all the earls of Ulaidh had become Abbán's vassals, she offered to buy the title of Duchess of Ulaidh from us, so we sold it to her. Unsurprisingly, she went out of her way to secure the duchy, and during Abbán II's minority, she was one of the foci of resistance to his rule until her death at the very respectable age of 72. Her son Conchobar proved a chip off the old block when he threw one of the counts of Ulaidh in prison and launched an all-out war to seize his vassals' properties. He would've won, too, had he not died in battle against Earl Abner of Tir Eoghain, leaving the duchy to Dub-Lemna's son Ruairdi, of our dynasty and much calmer. His brother is King Abbán's cousin Abbán mac Conchobar, and currently serves as the Marshal of Éire. So Sinech may be dead, but her legacy lives on, and her grandson is Duke of Ulaidh. I like to think she'd be happy.

I've already arranged for Abbán's second daughter to marry the Baron of Buckingham, but this all reminds me I really ought to find Sithmaith nic Abbán a husband as well. He's been a good marshal to me, and I'm building a new castle in Dyfed that I think he could have. You like to have competent vassals. The other marriage challenge I'm facing is the heir to the Earldom of Gwent, actually a relative of Sinech's. Áed mac Máel-Petair was a son of Sinech's nephew, Earl Máel-Petair of Tir Chonaill; he came over to my court when Sinech usurped his father's title. He was a competent military commander at a time when I didn't have too many of those around, and since he was instrumental in our conquest of South Wales, I had him married to my sister Lucia and made Earl of Gwent:

Áed and Lucia only had one daughter, for whom I struggled to find a husband, and so far they've only had one child, also a daughter. Since she's staying at my court, I should really find her a husband to make sure nothing silly happens with the succession to Gwynt. I don't want it to end up with Sinech's descendants in Ulaidh! Abbán mac Conchobar might be far enough from the succession that if he had a son, that might solve both the problems of Abbán's descent and Gwynt.

**

None of this is particularly important, though, compared to my main task: the succession of the kingdom. Here's my oldest son and current heir, the third Baron Domnall of Clondalkin. Yes, Abbán II also decided to call his first son Domnall, and I went ahead and gave him Clondalkin. Pay attention to the part that's titled "Siblings", though:

There are several game mechanics in play here. First of all, under primogeniture succession, I get a prestige penalty for all unlanded sons. One I could manage, but four would hurt. The sons themselves, of course, will also insist on getting land and titles for themselves: soon after they reach adulthood, they'll start pestering you about it, and if you refuse them, they'll start to dislike you and either begin plotting to change the succession laws or even murder the current heir, or leave for another court like Sinech and Indulf of Manaw did for mine. With a big and threatening England right next to us, I don't fancy seeing one of the princes of Éire hanging out at Westminster! At times, I'm seriously tempted to just plonk down the 10€ for the Sons of Abraham DLC that lets you send troublesome courtiers off to a monastery somewhere.

The flip side to all this trouble is that whatever size your realm, you need competent and reliable people to do things, and quite often your immediate family can be both of those things. Also, as I mentioned before, you simply can't administer each and every county in the kingdom by yourself, nor would you even want to. At the moment, I'm getting opinion penalties with my vassals because in addition to the duchies of Mide and Connacht that form my demesne, I'm also holding the duchy of Deheubarth in Wales, so I actually want to pass on some of my properties in short order. While your vassals are alwys going to be ambitious and fractitious, at least if they're from our dynasty, they'll be that much easier to deal with.

This is an aspect of the game that quite nicely showcases the need for constant expansion - if your rulers keep having children! I've had a game that ended in game over when my dynasty died out, so while finding inheritances for eight children can be a massive chore, there are worse situations to be in.

What I've tried to convey with all this is what a massive and complex job managing a dynasty is. Ideally, the end result to all these maneuvers is to leave the Kingdom of Ireland securely in the hands of the Ua Cheinnselaigh dynasty. A prince of the realm handed a distant barony won't be very happy, and especially in the early years of a young ruler he can be dangerous, but the hope us that in the long run, as his or her descendants are more distant from the crown, they'll be far more reliable vassals for us than members of a rival dynasty would be.

Of course, this doesn't always work out, as the sad tale of King Abbán II's only brother demonstrates.

Back when King Abbán II came to the throne, the unification of Ireland wasn't complete yet. After Sinech's usurpation, we had enough of Ireland under control to declare Abbán I King, but the petty kingdom of Mumu still held out in the south. Abbán II saw to them, defeating the petty king of Mumu in battle and annexing his realm. My plan at the time was to present the duchy of Mumu, as it became, to Abbán's only brother Ercáed. Conallán mac Faílbe had already been made Earl of Tuadhumhain, one of the counties of Mumu, but when Ercáed started pestering me for a landed title, I gave him Urmhumhain to hold as count. Predictably he soon started complaining about not having the duchy. I'd been meaning to look into the various remnants of the old ruling family of Mumu, but since Ercáed had the nerve to bug me about it, I thought "you know what, fine, it's your problem". And it was indeed.

Meet Countess Taileflaith the Usurper of Urmhumhain. Effectively Sinech's southern colleague, Taileflaith earned her title by declaring war on my brother, defeating his army and throwing him in prison while proclaiming herself Duchess of Mumu. And because it was a conflict inside one of my vassals' holdings, I couldn't help him out! Well, not directly. Soon enough, our spies found out that Taileflaith was fabricating a claim on the Kingdom of Ireland, and this was obviously going much too far. I had her thrown in prison and stripped of the duchy, and in prison she, too, died. The Ua Cheinnselaig dungeons have been the death of many a conspirator against the crown.

Having done this, I was all set to restore my brother's titles, but he'd apparently been banished by Taileflaith. Ercáed had made his way to the court of the King of Scotland, and despite a generous gift from me and an invitation to return, he wouldn't. At some point I think he even set up as the King's spymaster, until the Duke of Manaw had him murdered. Luckily, his claim to the kingdom died with him, but his story is a tragic example of how carefully laid dynastic plans go wrong. This is also how Conallán the Just got his duchy; he's much more popular with his vassals than Ercáed ever managed to be.

**

Here's what the strategic situation in the British Isles looks like right now. The Norwegians are still hanging onto the Orkneys, but other than them, the whole area is dominated by the kingdoms of Ireland, Scotland and England.

There is a de jure kingdom of Wales that consists of roughly present-day Wales, as well as Devon and Cornwall. Because all parts of it are being held by other kings, what happens is "de jure drift", meaning that parts of the kingdom become associated with different kingdoms. You can see it marked on the map below as colored hatching: Devon and Cornwall are drifting over to the Kingdom of England, the southern counties of Wales are being incorporated into my Kingdom of Éire, and the rest of Wales is becoming de jure Scottish.

So I'm basically stuck behind a unified Scotland and a powerful England: not a good place to be. There's always hope, of course; the Norwegians won their last territorial squabble with Sweden, which might hopefully empower them to take a hand in England or Scotland again soon, and we have a strong marriage alliance with Norway. The King of England is getting old, and there's always the possibility of at least a succession crisis, or if we're lucky, a full-blown civil war.

This is what the rest of the game world looks like. The north is still a bit of a patchwork, but Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Poland are consolidating themselves. The Holy Roman Empire is going strong.

To the south, France has almost ceased to exist between Brittany, Normandy, Aquitaine and the Holy Roman Empire. Normandy is an English fief, while bizarrely, Mortain is subject to the King of Scotland. Byzantium seems to be doing all right - is that Antioch they're hanging onto? - but the reconquista doesn't seem to be going great. There might be some opportunities in that direction.

To the east, the map extends as far as India, and Abyssinia in the south. None of them have any real practical bearing on my game, but they're there!

Actually playing as an Indian ruler would require a separate DLC, as does my future project:

The Old Gods DLC pack lets you play as a Pagan ruler and reform a pagan religion to be on par with Christianity, Islam and what have you. I'm slightly annoyed that they've called Finnish paganism "Suomenusko", as not only is suomenusko neopaganism that really has very little to do with any actual Finnish pre-Christian faiths or practices, but the name itself is completely anachronistic and would have been senseless to pre-Christian Finno-Ugric peoples. Despite this, I'm moderately excited for the possibility of starting a Finnish Pagan world conquest from Häme in the future.

**

In the more immediate future, King Abbán II is going on crusade. There was briefly a Kingdom of Jerusalem, for at least long enough that a predecessor of the current King of England managed to grab the title, but they got thrown back into the Mediterranean.

I have no interest in acquiring lands for the King of England; on the contrary! So why go on crusade? Largely because it gets all participants the Crusader trait:

Those bonuses, +25 to church opinion and +30 with all co-religionists who are also crusaders, are invaluable. King Abbán I was a crusader, and it definitely helped, both with diplomacy and collecting taxes from bishops. If I can get Abbán II, his heir and most of their important vassals to share the Crusader trait, it should make the handover to Domnall that much easier. So in other words, a third Baron Domnall of Clondalkin gets to try his luck as designated heir of the kingdom...

The various traits characters have are incredibly important; they make the difference between a random set of names and faces and a real character. King Abbán II, for instance, has been tremendously helped by the fact that he inherited the Quick trait from his parents.

Characters can inherit some traits, but mostly they're acquired. Upbringing is massively important here; a poor choice of guardian for a child will mean they get all kinds of negative traits, and their stats won't develop nearly as well as they could. Characters who are made guardians of children of the royal family also get a big opinion boost, so there's always a choice between handing out guardianships of your children as political tools or trying to choose what's best for the child.

Of King Abbán II's children, only Prince Fubthad inherited the Quick trait. I made Abbán see to Fubthad's education personally, as he did to his heir's, which has resulted in Fubthad having pretty good stats as well as a choice of positive traits. Princess Ben-Muman's guardian, on the other hand, has let her develop a bit of a temper:

Having a guy who's literally called Scandal might seem like a poor choice as guardian of royal children, but he's actually doing a good job with Prince Glaschu here!

The heritability of certain traits adds a twist to arranging marriages; especially in the early days of the dynasty, it may be worthwhile to seek out husbands or wives for your children who have positive hereditable traits. I did so this time around, and I think that it's paid off to an extent. Each marriage you contract is a balance between acquiring claims and alliances, controlling claims to your fiefs, avoiding characters with poor attributes and negative traits, and looking for characters with positive attributes and traits to contribute to the dynasty.

**

As I took the screenshots for this post, I couldn't stop myself from thinking ahead. I'm not terribly keen to take on a unified England, as they'd destroy us militarily and you can't really rely on allies for anything except not coming in on the other side - maybe. With both Scotland and England, a waiting game seems to be in order. So what other opportunities are there?

I couldn't help noticing this tiny county in Brittany, Broërec, which has somehow managed to become nominally independent:

Broërec is a de jure part of the Petty Kingdom of Breizh, which is coterminous with the Kingdom of Brittany. I think I forgot to explain this, but a petty kingdom is a name used for independent duchies in some parts of the world; Murchad became petty king of Mide when I founded the duchy of Mide and held it as an independent ruler. Some of the de jure titles exist from the start of the game, and some have to be created. Here it looks like the petty king of Breizh hasn't been bothered to fork over the dough to crown himself King of Brittany.

Looking at potential claimants to the throne of Breizh reveals several Scots princesses, apparently because at one point the King of Scotland married a Breton lady:

It also reveals one Branoc mab Guoethoiarn, a 16-year-old married courtier at Breizh who isn't a big fan of his liege and holds an inheritable claim to the petty kingdom.

Because he likes King Abbán II a bunch more than he likes the petty king of Breizh, he's willing to come over to our court if invited. It's only a weak claim, but inviting him over costs nothing, so why not?

The county of Broërec doesn't have any interesting potential claimants, but the count himself does happen to have a strong claim on another county in Breizh, Kernev, and would you look at that? His only heir is an unmarried daughter.

Hey Fubthad! I found you a job!

There's a number of ways this Breton gambit could go. Count Hedyn of Broërec could have a son, bypassing his daughter Iudhent for the inheritance. Even then, though, if Fubthad and Iudhent have any children, they'll belong to my dynasty and have at least a weak claim on Broërec that we may be able to use. Depending on how good Hedyn's spymaster is, we might also be able to do something about any sons he comes up with. Whether we have a use for either a potential claim on Broërec or Breizh depends a lot on how the succession in either one ends up going and a lot of other things, but on the whole it's not much trouble to go to for a shot at the Kingdom of Brittany.

**

As I write this, the game year is 1163, so all the above is what's happened in the first hundred years or so. The game goes on until 1453, so there's still a whole bunch more to survive to get to the end. On starting this game, my goal was to become King of Ireland, and I've now done that. The next goal, I think, will be to try to survive until 1453, if only for the achievement.

If you're willing to overlook the brutal presentation and considerable initial difficulty, this is an absolutely fantastic game. It strongly reminds me of Koei's excellent L'Empereur, a Romance of the Three Kingdoms spinoff where you played as Napoléon: another strategy game where you didn't just move anodyne tokens around on maps but rather commanded people. It's the focus on people, and the way that playing the game creates stories about people, that make it so immensely compelling.

In terms of "historical accuracy" or rather verisimilitude, the game does an excellent job of portraying the classical pyramid model of feudalism, so had such a system actually at some point existed as a coherent whole, this is very much how it might have worked. In that sense, I'd say it'd be accurate to call Crusader Kings II a highly succesful alternate history game.

On the downside, many of the mechanics, especially warfare, seem a little disappointingly simplistic, but it's really impossible to tell if this is because of the actual mechanics or their presentation. Battles seem to be decided almost purely mechanistically so that the larger army wins, and sieges are succesful if the attackers outnumber the defenders and can afford to wait, failures if not. So warfare is really just a matter of building up an army that's bigger than your opponent's and rolling them over.

Having said this, there's a bewildering array of detail seemingly dedicated to it, but because the actual mechanics are so completely opaque, it's almost impossible to understand what significance any of them have. If upgrading my castle from Militia Training Grounds I to Militia Training Grounds II costs 120 gold but gives me +50 light infantry and +50 archers, I don't actually understand what that means, let alone have any idea if that's a good investment or not. This kind of complexity doesn't really seem to add anything meaningful to the game at all. In terms of historical verisimilitude, the mathematical attrition logic of combat in the game has absolutely nothing in common with medieval warfare, so in addition to being generally unsatisfactory, it's also the game's biggest thematic disappointment by miles.

To return to the positives, in addition to the focus on unique characters with personalities, where the game really shines is in the decision-making situations it creates. All decisions you make, from arranging marriages and guardians for your children to going to war, are multidimensional; there are very few, if any, straightforward optimization situations. The best decision at any given time is what works best in that situation, rather than what maps out as optimal on a spreadsheet. There's a very immersive and properly complex in-game logic that you can use to make decisions and plot the future of your dynasty, and the world is dynamic and unpredictable to just the right extent, where you can plan ahead intelligently, but nothing will ever work out quite like you expected either.

On the whole, I want to give a very strong warning: this game will destroy your life. It's extremely immersive and terribly, terribly addictive.