Hopefully EU4 keeps that, at least as an option. That was badly missing in EU3, since vassals (and allies) always acted as uncoordinated retards. One minor aspect that I really enjoyed was how I could actually control my vassal's armies. You can only push claims to a single county in a war, no matter how many claims you have, getting claims is mostly completely random, wars can stop at random if a ruler on either side dies, you can't protect your allies in any way (EU3 had warnings, guarantees, sphere of influence and alliance CB - all made it possible to join a war to defend your allies), and I've even had one of my allies surrender completely when our war score was over +40%. Battles in spite of fancy interface are pretty much 'bigger army wins', and leave much less room for tacticalВ manoeuvringВ which in EU3 made it possible to defeat much stronger foes and was so satisfying. Strategy elements on the other hand - not so much. Some events like the chain with framed cook's wife leave quite an impression. Managing relationships between characters, building dynasties, plotting to kill anybody you don't like, handling various events (in ways depending on your character's traits) is unusually deep and complicated. It is actually far more of an RPG than most of the so called 'RPG' games which are usually just shooters with some rudimentary XP and levelling system. It's an RPG with some fairly minor strategy element.

So far my impressions are not as positive as they were with EU3.ДЇirst - CK2 is not a strategy game. So after playing Europa Universalis 3 Divine Wind a lot (my review - part 1, part 2) I decided to give Crusader Kings 2 a chance.

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