CK + DV for $9.99

[Josquius]

Aww, the ups and downs of building an ironclad dynasty with a powerful Realm, only to find your efforts totally ruined by some dinky, inbred, totally impotent, and schizophrenic heir who survives for 30+ years, chases all your vassals away, and cripples your Realm in the near future. 

Great memories. 

That is the best part of CK for me; in most (single-player) games when you get to a certain point there is no chance that you can lose.   In CK you can carve out a huge kingdom, then suddenly the Uber-King dies in a tragic lawn-dart "accident" and the Kingdom is taken over by a regency because your In-bred heir is 3 years old.  Next thing you know all of your vassals rebel and it takes you 3 generations to re-unite the kingdom.

I hate that, thats loosing the cheap way. I prefer games to actually challenge you fairly. Thats where CK fails for me, the initial take over of masses of land should be much...not harder (or else it'd be boring) but very different.

[saskganesh]

make some house rules and play the game like a RPG. there's only so much the AI can do to stop powergaming.