Crusader Kings

Pete: Hey Keegan, how would you like to be alive in some Western European country during the 11th–13th centuries?

Keegan: Um, I think I would file that under “sub-optimal life circumstances.”

Pete: All right. Well, what about being a knight during one of the crusades? Riding under the banner of any nation you want?

Keegan: I would file that under “One of the worst things I can possibly imagine.”

Pete: Well, how do you feel about being a king?

Keegan: See, now, that I could get behind. I basically am one in my life already, you have to admit.

Pete: Well, minus the title.

Keegan: Well, sure.

Pete: And the lineage.

Keegan: Sure.

Pete: Or the staff or wealth.

Keegan: I suppose that’s also true.

Pete: Or the prestige or really any significance of any kind.

Keegan: This is starting to feel suboptimal again.

Pete: Well, what if you had to manage the medical and mental illnesses of your family members, who are really just trying to screw up your life and make you miserable, destroying any plans you had to get anything accomplished, in addition to outside external forces invading from afar and trying to chop off your head and set the rest of you on fire?

Keegan: And now we're back to another one of the worst things I can possibly imagine.

Pete: So, your life?

Keegan: . . . Yeeeeeeeeah.

Pete: . . .

Keegan: …Don’t really know where to go from here.

Pete: …Just…sit with it. Sit in the mess.

Keegan: Could we not?

Pete: Wanna jump into the escapism of a board game?

Keegan: YES!

Pete: Great! Let’s unbox and play Crusader Kings (2019) by Tomas Härenstam, Nils Karlén, Jon Manker, and Martin Takaichi and published by Free League Publishing. In this game, each player is a crusader king, striving for wealth, political power, religious influence, and military might across the continent and across generations. 

Keegan: Peter.

Pete: Yes?

Keegan: Everything you do…irritates me.

Pete: Granted. Still wanna play?

Keegan: Can I be the blue player?

Pete: Of course you can, my peasant-blooded, lonely, destitute, forgettable, insignificant little buddy!