One of the most engaging game I've played. If only the manual and tutorial were not done by Paradox
I've been playing this game for a month now and It's climbing at the top of my favorite-game-of-all-time in an alarming pace.
It's a shame that Paradox is such a looser when comes the time to write a good manual and a tutorial cause the game itself is such a great game and it will surely discourage a lot of casual gamer. But once you know what to do, it's really easy to play. You'll have to do a little research, go over the net, over the forums to know what to do (look for the "for beginners from a beginners" on the AAR report of the paradox's formum). And then you'll have to invest 7-10 hours of gameplay in order to really understand all the aspects of this game. But once you've done that, you're rewarded with a unique and unparallelle strategy game filled with intricate and multiple ways of waging war. This game is really, really unique.
One thing you might want to do is make an AAR (After Action Report)after every session of game you play which basicly consist of writing down what happened in the game history wise. You'll soon discover that you're writing down your own history like historian did and that you'll become more and more attached to your familly line even discovering fun after-the-fact facts like having the descendent of an old enemy being now in line to take the throne of you greatest allies or having the child of step-step uncle being the key to keep your empire alive or take over another liege.
If I could write down the reward beind the learning curve I would but I guess you'll just have to trust me. And really do write the history of your familly wether it's just a couple of line per Liege to describe what they have accomplished or lost during their time.