One of the games I return to regularly is Crusader Kings 2, and usually, what pokes me back into its torrid embrace is a trip abroad. I ll go to a place I ve not really thought about much, then get well into its history and, because my curiosity writes cheques my attention span can t cash, I ll fail to read up on it at all. What I will> do, however, is open palm slam good ol CK2 into the VHS slot on my computer, and play the shit out of whatever bit of history I m intellectually horny for.

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This is the shipping forecast; the synopsis at 5pm. Solid Snake just west of cloak room, expected to move towards Sam Fisher on dance floor before midnight. Wrecking Ball from Overwatch, mild at 1am, becoming rabid with lust at 3am. Agent 47 from Hitman: confused, occasional peeping, becoming horny later. Red Prince: cyclonic, mainly drinking alone, peering at Steve from Minecraft with questionable motives, occasionally licking lips.

(Yes. We did a podcast about romantically matchmaking game characters.)

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Bugger me, Paradox Interactive s grand strategy games are a lot, right? If I could put that even more in bold, I would have fattened up like a sacrificial pig before god-appeasing slaughter, because they really are.

My experience with Crusader Kings II, for example, mainly involved me staring at menus for half an hour then crushing half a pack of ibuprofen into a fine powder, mixing it into a hot chocolate, and cradling it while rocking back and forth in a corner for the evening. I am, to put it lightly, not a bountiful well of expertise when it comes to these devilishly complex map-painters. Which is why I was pleasantly surprised to find that, about four hours into Imperator: Rome, the thing had got its wreath-decorated hooks well and truly into me.

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Hello! This week John is doing a super secret special mission (playing a video game) so I, one of the other Alices, have taken over the Steam Charts. I am afraid that I do not put as much time as John into constructing elegant jokes that are several layers deep, though, which means you might even be able to tell which games are charting. I understand if this is a huge disappointment.

There are, however, some interesting shake-ups this week, if you’ve been following the Steam charts for a while. There are a couple of games that had their DLC charting last week without the main game, whilst the reverse is true this week. What does it all mean? I do not know. Consumer data is a mystery to me. Stop pre-ordering things.

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It feels only right that the biggest expansion for historical simulator Crusader Kings 2 adds the option to simulate alternate worlds’s histories, too. Released today, Holy Fury was initially billed as an expansion to the religious systems of the game. While that is part of the package, even Paradox’s own focus has shifted to the expansion’s potential to generate endless earths. While the geography may look similar, the empires, cultures, religions and borders are all new. Plus, sometimes the planet may be full of talking animals. The launch trailer readies to march below.

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Credit to “quill18” for the image.>

Crusader Kings 2 has always played fast and loose with historical accuracy, but the random world generator in its next expansion, Holy Fury (due tomorrow) lets Paradox really get wild>. Covered over on PC Gamer by the familiar-sounding Fraser Brown, poking around in the world generation settings can reveal the hidden ‘Animal Kingdom’ option. It replaces most (if not all) humans with talking animals great, small and mythological. Elephant empires, dragon duchies and cat caliphates, oh my. Check out a feature roundup and a YouTuber’s peek at this mode below.

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As if holy wars weren’t bad enough, Paradox are making them more complicated than ever before in their expansion, Holy Fury, for historical political life-sim Crusader Kings 2. Announced back in May, the expansion now has a release date – November 13th, just one month away. Leaders can become saints, successions are to become thornier, and pagans can forge their own custom path instead of bowing to one of the other trendier religions. This one’s going to be bigger than past expansions, and include random world generation too. Below, a new story trailer.

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The Vikings have long ago invaded the coasts of pop culture on their dragon-headed longships and carved out their own Danelaw in the realm of video games. In recent years, they ve grown even bolder, taking over most genres from RTS to RPG, classic point and click adventure to action, with an utter disregard towards distinctions between AAA and indie. They ve settled in Hellblade and Frostrune, Dead in Vinland and The Witcher 3, God of War and Crusader Kings 2, and of course, The Banner Saga trilogy. Luckily, it s easy to spot a Viking. Horned helmets, mead-filled drinking horns, bloody battle axes and grim miens are a dead giveaway. When in doubt, tempt the suspected Viking with loot, then wait and see whether or not they can resist the urge to pillage.

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We’ve just passed the half-way point of 2018, so Ian Gatekeeper and all his fabulously wealthy chums over at Valve have revealed which hundred games have sold best on Steam over the past six months. It’s a list dominated by pre-2018 names, to be frank, a great many of which you’ll be expected, but there are a few surprises in there.

2018 releases Jurassic World Evolution, Far Cry 5 Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Warhammer: Vermintide II are wearing some spectacular money-hats, for example, while the relatively lesser-known likes of Raft, Eco and Deep Rock Galactic have made themselves heard above the din of triple-A marketing budgets. (more…)

An entirely objective ranking of the 50 best PC strategy games ever made, now freshened up to include everything from 2017 and 2018. From intricate, global-scale wargames to the tight thrills of guerrilla squads, the broad expanse of the genre contains something for everyone, and we’ve gathered the best of the best.

The vast majority are available to buy digitally, a few are free to download and play forever. They’re all brilliant.

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