Crusader Kings 3

[That_Dude]

I don't know how many of you are fans strategy games. especially from Paradox Games, but I tried CK2 (which is by all accounts a fantastic game) a couple of years ago but was put off by the UI and the steep learning curve. The gaming websites gave the current installement stellar reviews and considered it to be much more newbies friendly. So I gave it a go. Spent 8 hours on the tutorial to get the basics and began a playthrough. Here's my experience:

 

 

Thanks to character deisgner mod I could start (on easy) in 867 as a 20 years old scheming county ruler in Brittany with an eager eye on Anglia.

 

First couple of hours went well, developped my county, built up a small army and spent months fabricating a claim on the duchy next to mine, while plotting the murder of its ruler with whom I was allied to. That went smoothly too and soon I was Duke of Brittany. Time passes by, the duchy is prospering, children are born, the army keeps getting bigger, a couple of alliances are formed, murder and seduction plots are successful, and one day I feel strong enough to take the now disorganized Petty Kingdom of Wessex on. King Alfred is defeated and I'm now King of Brittany with Winchester as my capital.

 

Time to reform the religion: remove theocracy and make myself Head of Faith, introduce some useful tenets like sacred lies, divine marriage and cannibalism, as well as making polygamy legal. I considered for a time to allow same-sex relationships, witchcraft, deviancy and adultery, but I'm not strong enough yet and it would reduce the general opinion of my plebs people. It would me make lose potential hooks on my allies and enemies. Maybe my lesbian heir would see to that. Can't believe how good I am at this game.

 

However the constant Viking raids from East Anglia got on my nerves and I decided to declare war on their small local ruler with the intent of burning their settlements down and execute every single member of their family, to set an example. Small prey anyway and I was eyeing on that county for a long time. Big mistake. In my eagerness to wipe out the fly, I didn't notice that the small fry was allied with Ivar the Boneless and some other big fecker(s) and what was thought to be a walk in the park turned into a disaster.

 

After a couple of small victories, I was raided from absolutely everywhere, my treasury tanked, my army suffered from attrition. I lost battle after battle and the King of France made his move on my inland possessions. I had to sign humiliating terms and lost almost of my possessions.

 

Cherry on the cake, in the midst the of war, I learned that my scheming and vengeful wife got my lover killed (she neither appreciated the extra-marital relationship nor a bastard) and was actively plotting against my life. I was mind-blown since the lover in question was a nobody, and the bastard was not even legitimized. However I should have paid more attention to her intrigue skills and her "vengeful" trait. So I threw her in jail and had her executed but my character couldn't cope with all this shit, became a drunkard and died in 885.

 

 

Although I'm still scratching the surface and coming to grip with the game, I'm absolutely blown away by its depth: customization, strategy and RPG. Each decision you make, each alliance you form, everything has consequences. The traits of your character have a massive impact on how you rule, since making decisions against your nature causes stress and stress can litterally kill you.

 

There are ways to cope with it (opium, booze, brothels, etc...) but like in real life, they'll take their toll on you and at the end of day, just delay the inevitable. The hook system (learning secrets about other people) is fantastic as you can gain a massive lever and force someone to do something against their will.

 

The game rules are highly customizable (even more so with mods): faiths relations to each other, great invasions, same-sex relationships, divorce rules, you can absolutely tailor your game experience to your liking. To make things better the game is pretty and not taxing on your hardware. It's also highly moddable with a very active community, so if you're on PC you're in for a treat.

 

My only gripe are the UI. While more intuitive and miles better than the precedent game, there are still tons of input thrown at you in pop-up windows that can take the whole screen and it's sometimes hard to get access to some vital infos. There's also a lot of trial and error to understand how the game works. A certain knowledge of history is highly recommended if you don't want to spend your time wondering what the feck is happening, and why you can or can't do something.

 

 

All in all, it's a magnificent game for every fan of strategy and role-playing and history nerds, and I can see myself spending on it the hundreds of hours I don't have. If you like the genre, you should really give it a go.

 

Edited 7 September 2020 by That_Dude

[Finnegan]

I've dabbled.

 

 

 

 

Fair to say, not a thread I expected to see on FoxesTalk - but yeah Paradox titles are fantastic and CK is probably the most enjoyable. I hate their business model with a passion, it's basically release an unfinished game for full price and then release about £200 worth of DLC over the next few years until the game is actually done.

 

That said, nothing appears to be missing from CK2 that's in CK3 from what I've read. I probably will pick 3 up at some point although I might wait for a steam sale, they are immensely immersive games. 

Edited 7 September 2020 by Finnegan

[Beechey]

Yeah I love Paradox games, absolute time sinks though. More than once I've looked at the clock and it's 2am, turns out I've lost 6 hours without even realising.

Bought CK3 last week, despite being in Newquay since March and unable to play it. 

[That_Dude]

1 hour ago, Finnegan said:

I've dabbled.

 

 

 

 

Fair to say, not a thread I expected to see on FoxesTalk - but yeah Paradox titles are fantastic and CK is probably the most enjoyable. I hate their business model with a passion, it's basically release an unfinished game for full price and then release about £200 worth of DLC over the next few years until the game is actually done.

 

That said, nothing appears to be missing from CK2 that's in CK3 from what I've read. I probably will pick 3 up at some point although I might wait for a steam sale, they are immensely immersive games. 

Lol, I made this thread without knowing if I'd ever even get a reply.

 

I never liked their business model, but as far as I can tell, they integrated a lot of the CKII's expansions and DLC in the base game. The general consensus is that it's a massive improvement over its predecessor and the map is already very big. The trait and hook systems are an instant hit and give an additional layer of depth to an already complex game. The ruler designer will come later with a patch, but it's something I wanted to have from the get go though.

 

There are also free expansion mods on Steam (Princes of Darkness, Age of Bronze and Sunset Invasions) which have already been ported for CKIII. I got the Royal Edition for 50 euros on CD Keys and it includes the Abbassid dynasty, the season pass and some other DLCs. I'm good to go for many years, given my lack of free-time.

 

If you can wait, all the better as there are issues which must be ironed out, especially the UI. All in all, it's definitely worth the pick and I have to think of a game with this level of freedom and immersion. Truly one of the best games I've ever played.

Edited 7 September 2020 by That_Dude

[Finnegan]

I'll definitely wait for ruler designer and a sale. The fact they launched with DLC already available is pretty disgusting and peak Paradox. I mean if you've developed it, it should be in the base game. Selling season passes from launch is an EA move. 

 

I don't doubt the game will actually be fantastic though. No question. 

 

I'm currently waiting for my most used mods to update for Three Kingdoms so I can play the Furious Wild expansion, so that's gonna be taking up for strategy time for the foreseeable anyway. 

Edited 7 September 2020 by Finnegan

[Sampson]

I'm not the biggest gamer, but I did really get into Victoria II years ago. That was just about the most complex simulation of the worldwide economy ever made in a game at the time and even though I don't follow gaming as closely, I imagine it would take a hell of a lot to have bettered it since. Was absolutely brilliant. You could customise trade, factory building and industrialisation to a crazy degree and depending on your political ideology of your government would change even how you managed your economy (you could have laissez fare, interventionism, state capitalism or a command economy) you could see every type of worker and their political beliefs, religion and ideology in every single province. Want to see how many factory workers or farmers in Leicester favour a 14hr workday or having state benefits are more likely to vote the for Liberals, Whigs or Labour party? You can do that.

I work in computing and data and as you can imagine a lot of people in those jobs are into these kinds of games so I hear people talking about them all the time, I played a bit of Hearts of Iron III and Europa Universalis IV and Cities: Skylines as well and really enjoyed what I played.

Edited 7 September 2020 by Sampson

[That_Dude]

52 minutes ago, Beechey said:

Yeah I love Paradox games, absolute time sinks though. More than once I've looked at the clock and it's 2am, turns out I've lost 6 hours without even realising.

Bought CK3 last week, despite being in Newquay since March and unable to play it. 

That happened to me this week-end, where I was free from GF and kids for once. Immediately hooked and I couldn't put it away. I already sank 40 hours in and can't wait to get back to it. Almost pissed off that the GF and the kids are back.

[RoboFox]

I have to admit, I'd never heard of the series. 

 

I've dipped in and out of strategy in general since the days of Civ II, and having just watched IGN's rave review of it, it looks incredible and right up my street.

 

Unfortunately these days - as much as I want to - I just can't allow myself to get into these types of games anymore. 

[leicsmac]

Can we merge these threads...or should mine just slip back into obscurity again?

[That_Dude]

3 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Can we merge these threads...or should mine just slip back into obscurity again?

Ah sorry, mate. Didn't see your thread.

[Finnegan]

14 minutes ago, RoboFox said:

I have to admit, I'd never heard of the series. 

 

I've dipped in and out of strategy in general since the days of Civ II, and having just watched IGN's rave review of it, it looks incredible and right up my street.

 

Unfortunately these days - as much as I want to - I just can't allow myself to get into these types of games anymore. 

 

Paradox games are probably the absolute worst games if you're on a limited time budget as well. 

 

You need to do pretty much a bachelors degree in the Clausewitz engine (powers the majority of their titles) to get in to them. 

 

I'd say Europa Universalis is proooobably their flagship game and is intensely complicated. Rewarding if you're willing to take the time but definitely not something you can pick up and dabble with for a few hours. 

 

Crusader Kings is probably their most accessible franchise but it's still quite heavy. I think CK2 is free to play on steam, mind. 

Edited 7 September 2020 by Finnegan

[leicsmac]

3 minutes ago, That_Dude said:

Ah sorry, mate. Didn't see your thread.

No problem man, hopefully one of the mod team can sort things out one way or another.

 

Just now, Finnegan said:

 

Paradox games are probably the absolute worst games if you're on a limited time budget as well. 

 

You need to do pretty much a bachelors degree in the Clausewitz engine (powers the majority of their titles) to get in to them. 

 

I'd say Europa Universalis is proooobably their flagship game and is intensely complicated. Rewarding if you're willing to take the time but definitely not something you can pick up and dabble with for a few hours. 

 

Crusader Kings is probably their most accessible franchise but it's still quite heavy. 

I'm finding this with Surviving Mars tbh and that's the most easily accessible Paradox game I've tried so far.

[Finnegan]

3 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

No problem man, hopefully one of the mod team can sort things out one way or another.

 

I'm finding this with Surviving Mars tbh and that's the most easily accessible Paradox game I've tried so far.

 

How do you like surviving Mars and do you have all the DLC? 

 

I was put off by the reviews at launch which described it as completely empty and unfinished, looked like the most Paradox of Paradox titles. It's started getting OK reviews now there's like five DLC out and it's looking more like a finished product. Stellaris was the same. 

 

It just infuriates me. 

[That_Dude]

1 hour ago, Finnegan said:

I'll definitely wait for ruler designer and a sale. The fact they launched with DLC already available is pretty disgusting and peak Paradox. I mean if you've developed it, it should be in the base game. Selling season passes from launch is an EA move. 

 

I don't doubt the game will actually be fantastic though. No question. 

 

I'm currently waiting for my most used mods to update for Three Kingdoms so I can play the Furious Wild expansion, so that's gonna be taking up for strategy time for the foreseeable anyway. 

That's the best approach without a doubt. I just waited a very long time for this game, wanted to give it a go and personally already got more than what I paid for with the best yet to come. There's a ruler designer mod that somewhat alleviates my RP needs but I can't understand why it wasn't included at launch, even if it comes for free later

 

Without excusing them, I noticed that it's a pretty common practice in the sim niche, the Sims being a prime example. Microsoft Flight Sim, X-Plane, iRacing, Automobilista also follow the same business model.

 

Played Warhammer II and while I like the series, it didn't hook me the way CK did.

Edited 7 September 2020 by That_Dude

[Finnegan]

If the Sims is what you're basing your business model on, you should get the **** out of the gaming industry. EA are a cancer in terms of business practice. 

 

I like the Creative Assembly model, release a few very solid DLC packs that don't add features that should have been in the base game but instead add in some new, interesting campaigns or factions etc. 

 

There's nearly always a "Free-LC" at the same time that includes any features that have changed or updated the base campaign, so you don't need to pay anything to have the main campaign kept up to date. 

[That_Dude]

58 minutes ago, Sampson said:

I'm not the biggest gamer, but I did really get into Victoria II years ago. That was just about the most complex simulation of the worldwide economy ever made in a game at the time and even though I don't follow gaming as closely, I imagine it would take a hell of a lot to have bettered it since. Was absolutely brilliant. You could customise trade, factory building and industrialisation to a crazy degree and depending on your political ideology of your government would change even how you managed your economy (you could have laissez fare, interventionism, state capitalism or a command economy) you could see every type of worker and their political beliefs, religion and ideology in every single province. Want to see how many factory workers or farmers in Leicester favour a 14hr workday or having state benefits are more likely to vote the for Liberals, Whigs or Labour party? You can do that.

I work in computing and data and as you can imagine a lot of people in those jobs are into these kinds of games so I hear people talking about them all the time, I played a bit of Hearts of Iron III and Europa Universalis IV and Cities: Skylines as well and really enjoyed what I played.

Without having played, it seems indeed brillant. Like @Finnegan said, these games are very time consuming. Insanely rewarding when you're ready to  sacrifice tens of hours to just learn how the game works and know what you're doing, completely frustrating when you don't. CK3 seems to be the most accessible although I definitely get the distinct feeling of being a bit of a monkey with a keyboard at times.

Edited 7 September 2020 by That_Dude

[Finnegan]

5 minutes ago, That_Dude said:

I definitely get distinct feeling of being a bit of a monkey with a keyboard at times.

 

Yeah sometimes that won't go away. Despite my 300+ hours I still don't really understand the retinue system and army composition. I'll read an article or watch a YouTube video on it and wind up even more confused. Fortunately, you can pretty much paint the map using just your levies if you're competent enough. 

 

If you find yourself struggling, Ireland is typically considered the unofficial tutorial because everyone's basically an OPM and the foreign AI tends to leave it alone on earlier start dates. 

[leicsmac]

38 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

How do you like surviving Mars and do you have all the DLC? 

 

I was put off by the reviews at launch which described it as completely empty and unfinished, looked like the most Paradox of Paradox titles. It's started getting OK reviews now there's like five DLC out and it's looking more like a finished product. Stellaris was the same. 

 

It just infuriates me. 

I'll have to check my DLC as I don't remember off the top of my head, but honestly (perhaps I'm biased as space mission design is a hat of mine) I've been enjoying it a lot, and I think perhaps a lot of the negative reviews were from hardcore Paradox fans wanting an inscrutable EUIV-in-space experience and being dissatisfied with a Paradox game that is actually reasonably accessible to noobs.

[Finnegan]

Stellaris is the "EU4 in space" so I don't think it's that. To be honest, recent reviews of SM are really positive. It just got panned at launch because there just wasn't much to do. 

[That_Dude]

1 hour ago, Finnegan said:

If the Sims is what you're basing your business model on, you should get the **** out of the gaming industry. EA are a cancer in terms of business practice. 

 

I like the Creative Assembly model, release a few very solid DLC packs that don't add features that should have been in the base game but instead add in some new, interesting campaigns or factions etc. 

 

There's nearly always a "Free-LC" at the same time that includes any features that have changed or updated the base campaign, so you don't need to pay anything to have the main campaign kept up to date. 

DLC are part of the landscape and will never go away, the question is how much of the game are you getting at launch? You have developpers CA or even better CDPR and then you have the rest. I understand the practice for small studios who aren't able to pull out a fully fleshed out game at launch and rely on DLC to survive and finish their game. For the others, less so. How big is Paradox Interactive?

 

EA are in a league of their own though. Absolute scumbags and I don't buy their games. I read today that they waited for the reviews for their UFC game to come out and then put ads in the game through a patch. Then come up with some PR bullshit like "Sorry we didn't know that you don't like ads in your games". Right. Not only their practices are lowliest in the industry but they downright take the piss out of their buyers and still get away with it. But as long as people buy icons for FUT, they have no reason to change.

 

  

1 hour ago, Finnegan said:

 

Yeah sometimes that won't go away. Despite my 300+ hours I still don't really understand the retinue system and army composition. I'll read an article or watch a YouTube video on it and wind up even more confused. Fortunately, you can pretty much paint the map using just your levies if you're competent enough. 

 

If you find yourself struggling, Ireland is typically considered the unofficial tutorial because everyone's basically an OPM and the foreign AI tends to leave it alone on earlier start dates. 

Lol, that's good to know.

 

Thanks for the tip, that's what I heard too. I don't mind getting my ass handed, as long as I'm having fun and what makes me particularly love this game is less map-painting than the own story-building, role-playing and the characters who revolve around you. The dynamic trait system is a massive addition in that regard.

 

I'm still fooling around in this playthrough, learning the mechanics, and didn't even come to the joy of heritage partition after your first character kicks the bucket for whatever reasons. With the primogeniture being locked behind civilization advancement for a while (even longer than in CK2), I have the feeling that's it's gonna be a lot of fun. That and the fact that Pope Niclaus (or whatever is his name) just landed and a massive christianisation campaign is about to begin. Great when one has so many powerful catholic rulers as direct neighbors.

 

 

 

Edited 7 September 2020 by That_Dude

[Finnegan]

6 minutes ago, That_Dude said:

With the primogeniture being locked behind civilization advancement for a while (even longer than in CK2)

 

Oof

[That_Dude]

14 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

Oof

Yeah...

[Finnegan]

Just now, That_Dude said:

Yeah...

 

Just murder all your other children before you die. Problem solved. 

[That_Dude]

2 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

Just murder all your other children before you die. Problem solved. 

Already started as soon I stumbled over that law and understood that I'd never be able to change it in my lifetime. Would also explain why my wife was actively trying to end my life.

[Finnegan]

3 minutes ago, That_Dude said:

Already started as soon I stumbled over that law and understood that I'd never be able to change it in my lifetime. Would also explain why my wife was actively trying to end my life.

 

Crusader Kings is right up there with Rimworld in encouraging some of the most deplorable human behaviour for gameplay goals