No work. No workshops. No Brian. No Maddy.
Just me and the cats. And my laptop came back from the repair shop a few days ago. So I plugged it in. And I downloaded Crusader Kings III which someone gifted me ages ago. I spent most of the day playing various medieval kings of Ireland.
You play a dynasty over time. The tutorial starts you in Ireland but there are many options to start characters elsewhere that even pop up as a result of the things you do.
It is essentially a story engine. I lost a fair few hours to it. Making sure I have enough heirs, then dying and becoming one of them only to have to murder the others or burn them at the stake for heresy, all the while managing the ego of various ambitious vassals. I deliberately killed one king by botching a boar hunt, just so I could get into controlling his heir while he was still young, thinking I might be able to work my way towards holding both Ireland and Alba through careful breeding, but a revolution took all my attention and by the time things settled the people I needed for my plan had died of smallpox so now I’ll have to raise an army.
It’s a game where massively messing up is part of the story, and so long as your dynasty isn’t wiped out for good, then you just keep popping up in someone else. One of my granddaughters was installed as a puppet after a crusade somewhere and I got the option to swap to her. I chose not to as I’m kinda happy to stay in Ireland for now. My first conquest ambition was The Isle of Man, and it took me two generations to get it.
Anyway, it’s a game. It’s just a game. I played too much of it today though. Now I’ve got to play with the cats and go to sleep, where I’ll almost certainly have weird dreams about succession.
Lovely to have a day like this once in a blue moon. I genuinely don’t think I’ve had such a long gaming session since I was about fifteen and I had chicken pox.
Playtime for the cats now.
AlBarclay 