Paradox Interactive has a pretty decent track record when it comes to accessible games. This is largely due to the fact that their games play out like board games, with the AI opponents filling in for your buddies around a table. This Crusader Kings II review may, unsurprisingly, resemble our Supreme Leader: Cold War review from last year (also a Paradox game). Crusader Kings II does have a more simplistic interface but that does not mean that the game is simple. Perhaps the best addition from Cold War is the in-game tutorial in place of a PDF manual.

In Crusader Kings II you choose any ruler of any territory to control. When I say any ruler, I mean any ruler. You can be the most insignificant little speck on the European continent or try to assume the role of William the Bastard of France. What you choose to do as them is up to you. The game will only end after either around 400 years have passed or your dynasty has no heirs. If the single character you play as dies, but as long as there is an heir to your throne, the game will continue.

Your goal is to do whatever you want. If you want to just kick back and focus entirely on the domestic issues of your demesne then that's exactly what you can do. If you want to try and take over the surrounding areas to put under your control, go ahead! It wouldn't be a Paradox game if you were limited as to what you could do. You have to be careful if you want to take over more land though - you'll have to distribute the land amongst your Council in order to maintain order. The game does give you little accomplishments that you can set out to do if you please, so there's at least some direction.

Really, there's a ton of aspects to take into consideration when playing Crusader Kings II. The tutorial does a decent job on introducing you to some of the more important aspects, but chances are you'll still be left with questions while playing. I recommend going online to find tutorials that people have created since I can guarantee that they'll be way more in-depth and allow you to better understand what exactly is going on.

Accessibility Issues/Concerns

The game can be controlled completely by the mouse. There are a few keyboard shortcuts but each shortcut can also be done with the mouse. The speed of the game is up to the player. You can manually increase or decrease the speed at which time passes at will, even pausing it whenever you like. The game will pause itself when certain events happen, allowing you plenty of time to read them and dismiss them. Events of less importance will not pause the game and will only give you notifications as to when they happen. You can adjust how fast the screen scroll when you're moving the camera around in case you need to. There are also five difficulty modes, adjusting the overall aggressiveness of your computer opponents.

There's no voiced dialogue within the game and everything is conveyed to you in text. Any prompts that pop up on the screen will only go away when you dismiss them. The biggest issue is that when the minor notifications pop up they are accompanied by small jingle. Without the jingle you may miss them since they are rather small on the screen.

Red and green are used to differentiate between armies, with red indicating an enemy army and green representing your army. It can be a bit confusing for colorblind gamers, but at least you can pause it at any point and click on one in case you get confused. Many of the numbers and some of the text are quite small and may be very hard to read for some gamers.

At a Glance
Mobility: The game speed can be set and paused at any time. Important notifications pause the game automatically. The entire game can be played with only a mouse. There are five difficulty levels ranging from Very Easy to Very Hard.
Score: 10/10

Hearing: A small chime is played when some notifications happen which make them way more noticeable. For the most part, game is completely playable without sound.
Score: 9/10

Vision: Red and green are used for friendly and enemy armies, respectively, causing a slight issue at times for colorblindies. Many of the numbers and words are quite small, making it difficult for gamers with low-vision to easily read them.
Score: 5/10

Overall: The biggest issue holding Crusader Kings II back is it's incredibly small text, at least on higher resolutions. You'll need to spend a lot of time outside of the game in order to completely understand all the mechanics at play, but that's about standard for a Paradox strategy game.

Score: 8/10