History Videogame / CrusaderKings

* AttemptedHomewrecker: In ''II'' and ''III'', only player characters can become one of these. In the case of NPCs seducing the player character, the player has an option to tell the would-be seducer you'll never be interested in them, permanently stopping them from trying to romance you. However, the AI can't exercise this option against the player, meaning you can doggedly pursue an NPC forever, even if they're married and aren't attracted to your character in the slightest.

* AttempedHomewrecker: In ''II'' and ''III'', only player characters can become one of these. In the case of NPCs seducing the player character, the player has an option to tell the would-be seducer you'll never be interested in them, permanently stopping them from trying to romance you. However, the AI can't exercise this option against the player, meaning you can doggedly pursue an NPC forever, even if they're married and aren't attracted to your character in the slightest.

* TheManyDeathsOfYou: There are many, many ways your characters can die. One of the more recent patches introduced a "cause of death" mechanic, and these tend to be strangely generic. Suicide is "Death by Depression", heart attacks are "Death by Stress", DeathBySex is "Died in [[NoodleIncident an Accident]]", and so on. Deaths caused by plotting can be anything from simple poisoning to driving carriages over cliffs to [[VorpalPillow vorpal pillows]] to something that can only be described as "[[IncendiaryExponent death by exploding manure pile]]."

''Crusader Kings'' is a historical grand GrandStrategy / RealTimeStrategy FourX game produced and published by Creator/ParadoxInteractive in 2004. It's set chronologically before its sister series, ''VideoGame/EuropaUniversalis'', and uses a variant of the ''Europa Universalis II'' engine.

''Crusader Kings'' is a historical grand GrandStrategy / RealTimeStrategy FourX game produced and published by Creator/ParadoxInteractive. It's set chronologically before its sister series, ''VideoGame/EuropaUniversalis'', and uses a variant of the ''Europa Universalis II'' engine.

* WeHaveReserves: The AI for some reason thinks its funny to send soldiers that just spent a month marching and retreating back into battle, no matter how many times they have already been smacked down.
** It does this because there is always a chance that if you are besieging a province, an attacking army will manage to interrupt the siege and set it right back to square one. If you're defending or have beaten off an invading AI opponent they will hang back and let mounting debt and attrition, [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard the first of which they don't suffer from,]] weaken the player instead.

* YouALLLookFamiliar: Played straight in that there are only so many individual portraits for each culture.

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: Some inheritance rules (based on either Salic or Semi-Salic Consanguinity) favour the son with the highest martial score rather then the eldest (Primogeniture).

* GoodShepherd [=/=] SinisterMinister: Depending on appointment policies, your bishops can be either, or somewhere in between.

* MeddlingParents: Chances are that you will sooner or later play as one of these yourself, because children are amongst the most easily controllable characters in the game and also of paramount importance for your family's survival. Children that are left to themselves (especially if you give them land to rule) have an annoying tendency to marry spouses that are statistically awful, [[ObnoxiousInLaws hostile to you]] or worse, [[IWantGrandkids infertile]] or [[CainAndAbel murder their siblings]]. While you do lose prestige over time if you don't grant your adult sons any land, it is still better to keep them under check at your court.

* AluminumChristmasTrees: The "Cadaver Synod" global event that pops up whenever a Pope with the "Wicked Priest" trait dies, in which his successor digs up his corpse and puts him on trial for his crimes posthumously, is sometimes assumed to be yet another of Paradox's tongue-in-cheek gags by new players -- but the inspiration is [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadaver_Synod entirely historical]].

* ThePatriarch: Kings of large realms who have ruled their kingdom for a long time usually become this eventually. They usually have so much prestige, money in their pockets and [[OneHundredPercentAdorationRating loyal vassals]] that they can claim entire kingdom titles and decide wars simply by virtue of siding with one or another faction.

* GoodPeopleHaveGoodSex: Spouses with "good" traits like each other and accordingly will produce more offspring.

* DeathOfAChild: A child has a disproportionately higher chance of coming to death ([[IllBoy one way]] or [[WouldHurtAChild another]]), because they do not have yet the developed health or intrigue score to ward off illnesses or assassinations respectively. No doubt TruthInTelevision.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: There are literally '''thousands''' of characters alive at any given moment, most of them are randomly generated, many of them are historical. Depending on how long you last, you can go through multiple generations of people. But every single one of them is an AI actor who actively pursues individual personal objectives and has an opinion about every single other character.