by: Todd Brakke

When Fred Wester, CEO and "Lord Protector" of Paradox Interactive, kicked off the 2012 Paradox Convention he did so by listing all the ways in which the company had failed to meet goals he had set the previous year. A promise to publish 16 titles? Paradox put out nine. Improve the QA process? If you played Sword of the Stars 2, you saw how well that worked out. Release games on at least five different platforms? Hey, three is pretty close.

But then there's the money, and this is a company that's making plenty of that; to the tune of a second straight year of over 250% increases in gross revenue. Numbers may be boring, but coming from a publisher who specializes in finding and putting out the sorts of "niche" titles that companies like EA and Activision wouldn't give a second glance to, it shows that the Paradox formula of producing "smart games for smart gamers" is working. This year that formula includes a host of new titles that almost certainly won't set the AAA videogaming world on fire, but will find their place, make a lot of fans happy, and turn a profit.

What follows is a quick synopsis of each game presented over the course of the convention week.

Crusader Kings II

Developer: Paradox Development Studio

Genre: Strategy

Platform: PC

Release window: February 2012

With the ability to start any game between 1066 and 1337, and then play it out until 1453, Crusader Kings 2 lets you manage your very own, historically based, quest for political power. If you've ever seen the film The Lion in Winter you have a sense of the sort of court intrigue you're in for with this game. Pick a lord and then try to manage his house to regional dominance by gaining prestige, expanding your feudal domain, forging and unraveling plots, and contending with papal authority. The game also sports a full competitive multiplayer mode that supports up to 32 simultaneous players.

Demo Impressions:

This, as it has been for some time now, is the Paradox game to watch. That's probably no coincidence given that it's the closest to release. I never played the original game, but I was a huge fan of how Medieval: Total War required you to establish your house and deal with internal politics. The way Crusader Kings makes an entire game out of that process --appointing ministers and bishops, marrying off sons and daughters to forge political alliances, and marshalling troops to expand territory—makes me giggle with anticipatory delight. It's not a professional reaction, I'll grant you, but if I could play only one game in the Paradox stable for 2012, it would be this one.