Seeing the logo of Paradox Interactive -- maker of some of the most in-depth (and intimidating) strategy titles in PC history – might make a lot of gamers, even strategy fans, balk instinctively. But Crusader Kings II is a different sort of strategy game from the developer's usual fare. To be sure, it is deep, broad, high and just about every other dimension you can think of, but it's not really a strategy game. Or it is, but not in the way you're used to. And that's a good thing, trust me.

A game of Crusade Kings II takes place on an overhead map of Europe, but the borders of the countries -- and counties, baronies, duchies, etc. -- are secondary to the main thrust of the game. Essentially, you control a "dynasty," that is, a single family line through a five-hundred-year-ish period of European history. Your goal is to increase your family's honor, prestige, standing, land holdings, and power through multiple generations of sons, nephews, daughters, and intermarriage.But Crusader Kings II is no simple pass-the-torch exercise, it's far too deep and challenging an experience for that. Even if you build up your wealth under one family member, that person is sure to die sooner or later, leaving a bevy of decisions in terms of inheritance, divvying up of hereditary lands, pretenders to the throne, and just about every Byzantine (forgive the pun) machination you can think of. Fortunately, your decisions when running your family line aren't solely your own. Crusader Kings II provides a variety of advisor slots that you can fill with characters, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Diplomacy and military conflict are options for exercising your will outside your demesne, but within it, you'll need your advisors to help you choose how to build up your economy (by choosing various improvements to build in your provinces), deal with the pettier nobility, marry off you and your children, and to protect you from being assassinated.That probably sounds overwhelming – and at first it is. But you can take comfort that Crusader Kings II comes with a pretty comprehensive tutorial, and absolutely enormous help resource: just about every button and statistic in the game has a rollover tooltip that will explain what it does and what changes will occur if you select it. You can also take comfort in the fact that the more you play the game, the more entertainment you'll derive from it, and the more you'll want to play. Sure, some aspects of the game are abstract in the extreme, for example, the effect that certain personal characteristics like wrathful vs. patient personalities will have in "real world," practical terms can be hard to discern. But for the most part, if it's going to make a difference, you'll come to understand what that difference is and whether or not you want it to be made, and you'll soon find yourself parsing data like the characters in the Matrix: it's gobbledygook to outsiders, but to a seasoned pro like you, it's a beautiful masterpiece.Keep in mind that, while Crusader Kings II is technically a real-time strategy game, there's very little in the way of hands-dirty micromanagement or rapid clicking going on. Mostly you click a button that moves your dynasty toward or away from a certain set of policies, or you initiate a process that third-parties will handle the dirty work of, and then you sit back and deal with events as they unfold. The game presents you with alert messages for important events – that you handle according to your whims – but, for the most part, things are controlled only at a very high level. But don't think you'll get bored just handling high-level stuff: this really is like being the king of your own castle, you'll soon be accosted by so many simultaneous events that you'll find hours going by like minutes as you make your choices.While events unfold in Europe that sometimes accord with real history and sometimes don't, it does help to have a basic grasp of who's who in Europe at this time (which the game will teach you) and some overall sense of what you want to accomplish in a given playthrough. Because things are so high level, victory conditions are much more subjective in Crusader Kings II than in your average strategy title. Does winning for you mean taking over the whole of the British Isles? Or maintaining a continuous line of male heirs for five centuries? It's this wonderful sort of freedom to play how you wish, grounded in the concerns of the real world, that make Crusader Kings II so enjoyable.