Crusader Kings III

[Syt]

New (small) DLC out today. Currently not in a CK3 mood, but even then this seems ... "eh." I mean, I'd rather have it in game than not, but coronations were already covered by mods (though obviously the DLC has some bells and whistles, like oaths etc.).

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/dev-diary-183-coronations-art-changelog.1857935/

Expansion Features (Paid)�

• Added Coronation activity
• Added game rules for Coronations: one making them optional by turning off Crowned laws, another that allows rank-up to emperor without losing crown
• Added laws for kings and emperors regarding their Uncrowned, Crowned or Anointed status
• Uncrowned kings and emperors - and their spouses - do not wear crowns
• Adds Coronation Tradition doctrine to faiths, determining whether they have Anointment Required (for emperors), Anointment Permitted or No Anointment
• Adds faith-based triggers for whether a culture is focused specifically on crowns during coronations, on regalia, or utilizes either without preference
• Two Coronation types: Regular Coronation and Anointment by the HoF
• Adds Request Anointment character interaction with the HoF
• New filter for activity locations that permits your capital and holy sites, both within and outside your realm
• Ties coronations into title gain events and elsewhere
• Provide coronation artifacts (crowns or regalia) through multiple avenues: on game start, from free inspirations, on regular pulse for AI
• Adds imperial rank-up event informing players that they become uncrowned when increasing tier
• Coronation activity options: Ceremony and Celebrations
• Coronation host intents: Impress Attendees, Embrace Supporters, Weaken Detractors, Exalt the Crown
• Coronation guest intents: Bear Witness, Seize Advantages, Advocate Domain, Profess Rights, Offer Support, Disrupt Loyalists
• ~44 prelude phase random host events
• ~19 prelude phase random guest events
• ~28 feast phase random host events
• ~18 feast phase random guest events
• Above events include guest intent fulfilment events, where guests with shared intents choose what related reward they are interested in asking of the host
• "Critical fail" outcome for Coronations based on guests with disrupt loyalists besting the host
• Events include content for Christians, administrative, clans, nomads, tribals and confederations
• New Activity Pulse Actions for Coronations
• 10 ceremony phase key events with triggered success-based and regional loc variations
• Magnificence meter determining a Coronation's level of success
• Scaling Coronation and Oath rewards based on magnificence
• through activity and at conclusion, opinion gain with vassal stances based on intents
• Background relationship formations amidst and between Supporters and Detractors during Coronation
• Supporters and Detractors guest subsets
• Activity view widget displaying Major Supporters and Major Detractors
• Added 16 Oaths with bespoke rewards and fulfillment conditions
• Includes Oath-tracking story cycle, Oath decisions, and Oath failure and success events
• New Oath-based building lines
• New Oath-based cultural tradition
• Added crowning animation
• Added new intent icons for the coronation activity
• Coronation activity type illustration
• Illustrations for Regular Coronation and Anointment sub-types
• AI behavior adjustments so they will host a Coronation ASAP while uncrowned

Game Content�

• Added bow inspiration type and added bows to the weapon option of the commission artifact decision.
• Bow artifacts now increase hunter trait venator track xp gain.
• Adds 4 free random yearly events about being a councillor
• Underaged kings/emperors over 12 years old now wear crowns
• New camera angles for event characters, many playing with perspective
• ~8 new feast events
• Adds regional/government type-based custom loc keys like GetFighterTerm, GetRegionalSword, GetTitleTierAdjective, GetLocalCommonerTerm

Bug Fixes�

• Fixed bug where player couldn't close the travel window after opening it during an ongoing travel - only check if a travel plan is cancel-able when checking if the travel window can be closed if we have a travel plan draft. for ongoing travels, the window should always be close-able.
• Fixed travel_danger_events.6000 listing the wrong character in its effects and hunt_legendary_animal_custom_loc_trigger no longer errors if scoped on the root character.
• Blocked certain disease recovery event outcomes for children
• Cultivated Sophistication's development bonus now only applies if your Estate is in your realm capital, preventing vassals from providing repeated development bonuses to their liege.
• Added a cooldown check for activities, so they are moved to the right list when they are unavailable, and tell you how long is left before they are available again on hover
• Various fixes to tsagaan sar feast flavor events
• Added non-nomad music tracks to nomadic music list to lessen repetition
• Fixed an issue with mass ransoming, where you would get all of the character's money instead of a fixed amount
• Updates background triggers for more appropriate regional backgrounds
• Makes holy_site_unique background include generic fallback backgrounds
• Fixed the effects and progression of Paiza Office nomad domicile upgrade for the Barter Stalls yurt
• Fixed the effects of Skull Collection nomad domicile upgrade for Court Yurt
• Fixed edge cases in activity invalidation events
• Makes HoF more likely to accept Declaration of Repentance if you are their liege or top liege

I mean, I get that they won't add a huge new system, what with the mega-expansion into Asia looming on the horizon, but it does look a bit paltry. Hard to justify if you don't already have the Season Pass IMO.

(And I'm low key looking forward to nonsense like playing a Japanese ronin who becomes Byzantine Emperor, or a Viking sitting on the Chinese throne. )

[Syt]

So the DLC (priced at 4.99) appears to be a bit of a mess.

Between OPB's video and forum comments, there seem to be a few main issues:

- Repetitive events. Coronation events are highly repetitive and within one or two of those activities you'll likely have seen the vast majority (either because of too few events, or because the activity takes too long, or both). I think I can stomach that. Yes, repetitive events and activities are a problem with the game as a whole (partially alleviated with mods), but I can deal with that.

- Oaths requirements are busted. As part of the coronation you can swear an oath to do a thing within a timeframe. It seems many are highly demanding. Now, that, in theory, I wouldn't necessarily mind. But an Oath to become a Great Hunter would require you to either host 10 successful hunts in 20 years (including 1 successful legendary hunt) or 3 successful legendary hunts. Keep in mind you can only host a hunt every two years or so. Or an Oath to strengthen defenses which requires you to build 3 special buildings in 3 provinces. Each needs to be built to tier 3, costing (either in total or tier 3, I forget) 6000g - in 10 years. Again, late game when running a big Empire this should be easy, but if you take this oath as the King of Ireland in 900AD you might struggle (and the tooltips don't give much warning about the required steps/cost). Many comments say that it would have made sense to have tiers to the oaths. Maybe have a tier 1 where you just avoid penalties or get minor bonuses ("I technically said what I'd do!"), a tier 2 with bigger rewards and tier 3 with big stretch goals. Heck, you could add modifiers to the targets based on your character. If you're charismatic you might get away with lower requirements, or if you have high intrigue trick people with Potemkin villages.

- Oaths rewards are busted. Some successful Oaths can give you 2000 legitimacy ... while a Tier 3 Legitimacy Legend gives 600. The building thing I mentioned - the building gives 60% strength and 40% defense to stationed men at arms ... when it's already tempting to stack crazy MaA bonuses.

- Oaths are bugged. When you complete an Oath's requirements it opens a decision. The decision has a little ceremony where you fulfillment is recognized. But there's quite a few players reporting that they completed their Oath, decision and all, but the failure still triggered when time ran out, tanking their vassal opinions and legitimacy.

- Oaths are really player only. AI will take oaths, but the scripting is geared heavily towards hunting only and away from things the AI struggles with (like having money to build things). Also, the AI's penalty is heavily nerfed compared to what a player gets hit with. Clearly - this is not an AI mechanic.

Now, some of this will be patched or smoothed over with balancing nerfs, but it doesn't really fill me with confidence for the All Under Heaven expansion's release quality.

[Syt]

Apparently, the "prepare heir" oath only counts for sons. Not grandsons.



Also - apparently you only get one coronation per character. (Crowned) King of England conquers Kingdom of France. No French coronation for you! (Which, given the bonuses from fulfilled oaths is probably sensible. But also is a symptom of separate titles not really being kept separate.)

[Syt]

It's sad - last HoI4 DLC (about India/Afghanistan) was so badly reviewed it was the worst reviewed DLC of theirs on Steam (still is, maybe?), currently 15% negative (out of 1700 reviews) on Steam.

Stellaris's last DLC was apparently ok, but the big 4.0 overhaul was a huge mess that they're only now recovering from, 20+ patches and hotfixes later.

Let's best not talk about Cities Skylines 2.

Millennia (remember that?) seems dead.

Meanwhile Vic3's last DLC was surprisingly good, though, despite rewriting a core system (and requiring some follow up patches). And Age of Wonders seems to be doing fine, too.

[Syt]

List of oaths:

[The Minsky Moment]

I played CK3 on release quite a lot; it was one of the best out of the box experiences of any Paradox game (well "box" - played through gamepass).And since then I've watched them release DLC after DLC and think - yeah, don't really need that. Roads to Power looked a little interesting, but it essentially seemed to be: let's create a completely different mini-game within our existing game. It's running away from the core gameplay. 

Paradox seems to have leaned too hard into their own hype about the CK-series being a unique hybrid of strategy and RPG by playing up the RPG side of the game.  But it's a fundamentally strategy game built on a strategy game platform and it seems like the development team took their eye off the ball.  They keep slathering on layer after layer of character life events.  Yeah I get it - European nobles did a lot of hunting.  But I paid for a Paradox map game, not a text only version of the Deer Hunter franchise.

[Josquius]

Yes. Its a problem with paradox games. They're too fundamentally paint the map games so when they try to do something else....its iffy.
One again I'd love to see something like the original Dune game.

[Syt]

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/update-1-17-0-1-a-long-overdue-apology.1858561/

Hi everyone,

My name is Riad, and I'm the QA Manager for PDS Black, the studio working on Crusader Kings III. You might know me as the guy who wrote a dev diary about Black Forge Jam. I want to speak to you directly and honestly. First of all. I am not a PR guy, and I don't have an elite team of ghostwriters who can craft a response for me. I work at Paradox, and I am someone who cares deeply about this game and this community.

I want to take the proper time to say something that's been on my mind all day, and led me to ask for approval by my higher-ups to make this post:

I'm sorry.

"Coronations" was not up to the standard you deserve, and that's on me. As the QA Manager for the studio, it is my job to ensure that our releases meet the QA vision we have set out. It is clear we didn't give the project the resources and attention it needed, and the result was a release that let you down. You have every right to be upset, and I want to acknowledge that openly.

To give some context, not as an excuse, but as a bit of background, our team has been pouring enormous effort into "All Under Heaven". It's the biggest expansion we've ever attempted, and making sure it's both fun and stable has demanded most of our experienced developers, and basically every resource we have in the studio to be committed towards that release to ensure that things like tick speed performance is up to your expectations. Due to this, our other projects, such as "Coronations", have had less resources dedicated to them. Though I am very proud of the development team, and really amazed with what they did with such limited resources, we didn't assign enough people to oversee the release and meet our quality demands, and that was clearly unfair to both them and you, our fans.

I don't want this to happen again. As a studio, we're taking a hard look at how we assign resources, and support our developers so that every release meets the expectations you rightfully have. For example, we will be more stringent about allowing last-minute changes to the game (which can cause issues like broken oaths). We will also ensure that we dedicate more time towards full-length playthroughs throughout the entire development cycle, to ensure that issues like these can't slip through. This is about making sure the quality of every DLC lives up to the game that I, and many of you, love.

Many of us on the team, myself included, joined Paradox as fans of the games. Meeting you at events (most recently in Visby!), hearing your stories, and seeing how much Crusader Kings III means to you is what makes this work so meaningful. That's why it hurts so much when we fuck up like this. We don't take your trust for granted, and I want to do my best to ensure we earn it back.

In the meantime, we have done our best to address many of these issues you've experienced with yesterday's release. Please let me know directly if there are any other issues that are breaking the game for you and I'll do everything I can to make sure they're included in upcoming patches. Additionally, we are planning at least one more patch for Coronations to fix many of the issues we encountered ahead of the release, but didn't have enough time to fix.

Thank you for holding us accountable and for continuing to care about this game as much as we do. We will do better.

– Riad




1.17.0.1 Changelog

Bugfixes�

• Fixed the issue with always getting the Oathbreaker event, regardless of if you completed the oath or not
• The buildings needed for the three "build special oath buildings" oaths have been changed from tier 3 to tier 2
• The special oath buildings have had their costs and modifiers reduced across the board
• The special oath buildings have had some of their triggers simplified, so they need fewer of their requirements than they used to
• These oaths have also had the time you can do them increased from 10 years to 20 years
• Specifically for the spiritual one, switched the requirements from tier 3 to 2, and vice versa
• The Alliance oath has been changed from 5 alliances needed to 3
• Building Oath (the generic one) has been reduced from 10 buildings to 8, and the time available to do it has been increased (from 15 years to 20)
• Legendary Hunt has been changed from 3 to 1, and has had the time available increased (from 20 years to 40)
• Fixed the Prepare Heir oath decision, so it checks for the proper scope in its requirements, and also removed the gold cost
• Added two new modifiers for the AI, so if they choose a warlike oath, they will have an increased war chance, and similarly, if they have the peace oath, they will have a peace oath, which will decrease their war chance
• Removed health bonuses and maluses from Prepare the Heir rewards
• Added extra checks for the AI so they will try to take oaths that make sense
• Fixed the End the Struggle oath, so it correctly tells you which struggle area it is targeting, and massively increased the time it is available to you (from 20 years to 50)
• Increased the time available to do the Repent Oath from 10 years to 20 years
• Fixed Anointment Doctrines and Anointment activity type being available to faiths with Temporal Head of Faith (these are for Spiritual HoF faiths only); temporal HoF faiths have guaranteed access to regular coronation instead
• Fixed duplication bugs and self-crowning malus caused by temporal HoF being Coronation host
• Blocked the building oaths for Nomads and Tribals

[Syt]

I played CK3 on release quite a lot; it was one of the best out of the box experiences of any Paradox game (well "box" - played through gamepass).And since then I've watched them release DLC after DLC and think - yeah, don't really need that. Roads to Power looked a little interesting, but it essentially seemed to be: let's create a completely different mini-game within our existing game. It's running away from the core gameplay. 

Paradox seems to have leaned too hard into their own hype about the CK-series being a unique hybrid of strategy and RPG by playing up the RPG side of the game.  But it's a fundamentally strategy game built on a strategy game platform and it seems like the development team took their eye off the ball.  They keep slathering on layer after layer of character life events.  Yeah I get it - European nobles did a lot of hunting.  But I paid for a Paradox map game, not a text only version of the Deer Hunter franchise.

I hear you, but I'm generally ok with them leaning towards the RPG aspect .... but it needs to tie into the game's systems. IMO the game needs a proper maintenance/balance pass to make sure small niggling things get fixed, power creep gets reined in and things are placed on a solid foundation again. I know I'm much more tolerant towards the "Sims" aspects of the game so YMMV, but even so I think it's time for some clean up before moving forward.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

I'm sorry.

"Coronations" was not up to the standard you deserve, and that's on me.

they keep making these posts...
maybe let things cook longer so they are up to the standard.
Then no apology is needed

[garbon]

My like of CK3 is at still play and mod CK2.

I recall when Henrik talked early about ck3, it was great opportunity to shed all the chrome and disconnected systems of ck2. It feels like they have just ended up treading the same ground.

[Jacob]

I'm in the middle of a CK3 game right now. I'm still enjoying myself, but I haven't had a chance to interact with the new DLC (which downloaded automatically, fucking Steam).

[Syt]

I'm in the middle of a CK3 game right now. I'm still enjoying myself, but I haven't had a chance to interact with the new DLC (which downloaded automatically, fucking Steam).

You can roll back to a previous version.

[Jacob]

I know that, but don't remember how. So far the update hasn't messed up the game... though I'm kind of at a "what do I do now?!" indecision point for my game as well.

[Syt]

Right-click game in Steam => Properties => Betas