Crusader Kings III

[Josquius]

Well. Game over for me.
Starting as ivar the boneless I tried to avoid being too gamey and sort of RPing as I slowly conquered the British Isles and established an empire.
Several generations later I get into a lucky situation with my heir standing to inherit uber Sweden which runs most of Scandinavia.
But... The fucker goes and converts to Christian whilst I'm not playing as him.
I stumble through as him putting down constant pagan revolts but maintaining power pretty much.
The election at his death is tough. Everyone wants his grandson to take over, another cross worshipper, but I manage to get the favoured norse ruler in charge....
I didn't consider his demesne sucks. And... Everything falls apart. Lots of independence revolts. Revolts to lower authority. And then a crusade for England.

The English crusade takes not just England but an uber Christian Finland-England-Brittany Union forms. And then somehow shortly after destroys all its titles and reverts to the dark ages situation in England with pagans taking control in some further flung places again.

Meanwhile my weak guy dies and has someone a bit more powerful take over but still....the damage is done. His military score is low so potential levies are awful. The wars aren't quite so constant and horrid as with his predecessor but still, Iceland is holy warring me for the Northern Isles and they have a bigger army than most of Scandinavia, Ireland, and Scotland.

Tempted to restart the game now I've learned a bit more on how things work but that was a big time investment... Still I have to burn through the game to stop it being addictive.

[Syt]

I'm so far holding it together as Francia. However, managing my powerful vassals is becoming troublesome. I have the King of France, the King of Burgundy, the Queen of Aquitaine (who holds basically half of France ... ), King of Brittany, the Queen of Wales and the Queen of England (married to my heir, so will cease being an issue soon enough). I'm working to get the kingdom titles under control so I can dissolve them bit by bit and weaken my direct vassals, but it's a slog.

That said, I'm one county away from usurping the Irish kingship, and I have a vassal with a claim for one county there. Similarly, another vassal has a claim on the Scottish crown, so I'm close to uniting the isles. I manage to keep my vassals happy so far, but I spend more time keeping them in line (and arranging titles so the realm doesn't splinter too much under my heirs ... ) than expanding; though it gives me some time to build up my own demesne. I tried instituting absolute crown authority with my previous ruler, but when he died, I had to dial it back - the extra 20 opinion malus for your direct vassals is a pain in the ass.

[Syt]

Slight tangent. Since I'm watching Last Kingdom I installed Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia about the 9th century struggle in the British Isles, starting in 878 AD.

Now, the saga games have a more limited scope, and are more "spin offs". I picked this up at some point on sale or so.

It comes with the expected factions - Wessex, Mercia, Northumbria, York etc. It has a stronger focus on financing and feeding your army and kingdom, managing vassals etc. It's more about smaller, fewer armies and gritty battles rather than the spectacle of a Rome 2 or Warhammer. Sounds good up till here.

But then you get to the campaign map ... it looks pretty, don't get me wrong. But this is the maximum you can zoom out (without mods):



(Notice the vision cone on the map top right.) I don't think you'll have as  many armies in this game as in the more mainstream titles, but still, managing them on this map is ... tedious and claustrophobic (maybe intended?).

For comparison, this is the same area in CK3 when you zoom all the way in:



Sure, not as pretty, and settlements might be off, because tris is after about 300 years of ganmeplay.

Now I thought, "ok, maybe the TWS:ToB map has more detailed provinces. It doesn't really. I only checked this map area, but if I'm not mistaken, the CK3 map has more baronies (subsections of provinces) than the TW one has. 



Which begs the question: unless I *really* want to do the tactical battles - why would I play the TW game? Sure, it has some extra flavor, maybe, but otherwise CK3 seems to have more going on in the strategy layer - province development, army management, managing my family, vassals and commanders ...

Still, if anyone's interested it's currently off 75% on Steam as part of the big SEGA sale.

[jimmy olsen]

I heard the latest update really improves the AI economy. Is that true? I'm still playing 1.61.2 because I want to finish my Barcelona game.

That game is going pretty well. I hope to win the struggle via domination and then found Hispania in about 30 years. Really annoyed by Bohemia becoming a neighbor due to the same color.

[Syt]

That said, I'm one county away from usurping the Irish kingship, and I have a vassal with a claim for one county there. Similarly, another vassal has a claim on the Scottish crown, so I'm close to uniting the isles. I manage to keep my vassals happy so far, but I spend more time keeping them in line (and arranging titles so the realm doesn't splinter too much under my heirs ... ) than expanding; though it gives me some time to build up my own demesne. I tried instituting absolute crown authority with my previous ruler, but when he died, I had to dial it back - the extra 20 opinion malus for your direct vassals is a pain in the ass.

I took Ireland easy, and then went after Scotland. I was about to wrap things up when my ruler croaked and his heir took over. A sadistic murderer with -500 piety. He finished up the war his dad had started, but he was immediately excommunicated. Factions sprang up left and right. Independence, liberty, dissolution, claimants. I tried to buy time with agreeing to lower crown authority (to level 1, in 1160s ), but chose to fight the wars. I put my king at the head of one of the armies, kind of hoping he would die in battle. 

Things went better than expected. I had to acquiesce to the independents - Brabant, Jülich, Lower Lorraine, Ireland, Wales (who also owned chunks of Ireland and Scotland) broke free, with Brabant and Jülich quickly being gobbled up by Germany.

By this point I was like 1500 in debt. The pope called a crusade, and looking to get myself ex-excommunicated I pledged money (that I didn't have) and went on a pilgrimage (increasing my debt). Eventually I could ask the pope to welcome me back into the fold (for a hit to prestige level), and over the next years I consolidated my finances again a bit.

In the meantime I decided to embrace the cartoon villain vibe my ruler has. During one of my wars my son (the King of England) died in battle. His three year son slipped onto the throne, with me in line of succession - after two of my daughters, somehow. So I got rid of the daughters ( ) and eventually my grandson. Which was discovered (at 5% discovery chance ... ), so I added the kinslayer trait and was excommunicated. Again. This time my court bishop (who is my friend ... ) offered to speak on my behalf with the pope. 33% chance of suucess? Sure! And it worked.

So with England being mine, I inherited about 2000 gold that saved my finances, AND I started raking in about 90 gold a month (high dread with some tax increase perks that increase vassal tax and levies based on dread surely helped ... ).

Germany tried another go at taking the Empire. I kicked their ass in a prolonged war, and with 25k troops in the field I was still running a profit ... Germany paid another 3000 in gold which I invested in men at arms and building up my holdings, creating all the titles (because why not ) so that I'm now Emperor of Francia and Galicia, King of England, Francia, and Frisia. With only 1 heir in line, I though I'd just go for it.

I took back Wales, and will try to get back some more lost lands (I'm 57, so tik-tok). My heir is my younger brother. He was unlanded, but I have him a duchy. Though I might re-instate my disinherited son, my last living progeny (his stats are ok, but he's a witch with -500 piety ... ).

Speaking of heirs. When I took over my ruler had 6 kids. When a beautiful 18 year old became Queen of Aquitaine I thought it'd be fun to seduce her. Couldn't, because I'm gay. Some genuine dedication to father six kids as a gay guy (at least there's no hints that any of them were illegitimate).

[Syt]

One thing I'd like to see is a stronger requirement to lead your troops in battle. In this era it was expected by many rulers to lead their army in combat (this is something that could be modified by culture, rank of title, etc.), and it should incur opinion and prestige penalties (in holy wars piety penalties, too), with those penalties modified by traits. If you're brave and not fighting, it's a higher penalty. If you're a cowardly bleeder, the penalty is lower.

For RP purposes I think I will have my ruler always lead one army in future, I think.

[Syt]

Btw, I really liked the latest dev diary, outlining what their overall approach is going forward and making a rough sketch of areas they want to work on:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/dev-diary-109-floor-plan-for-the-future.1546534/

OPB did a pretty good summary/commentary about it:

[Solmyr]

After a few restarts, I finally formed the Empire of Gardariki. Rurik's grandson Rurik II almost managed to do it, but died with one province short. So his own son had to first reconquer the kingdoms held by his brothers and then form the Empire. The first Tsar is... Dan the Impaler. He looks like  Slavic Santa and is forgiving and content, but also arbitrary, pro at intrigue, and torturer. Basically he'll torture and murder you and your entire family, but will feel bad about it afterwards.





Anyway, now that my empire won't fragment with every succession, I can build up and consolidate, acquire the last de jure provinces of the Russian Empire, and then think about going Muslim for the other achievement.

[Valmy]

Every time I would get a Muslim ruler it would immediately destroy all my succession Laws and adopt the Muslim one which caused my Empire to fragment every time. Even if the dude was only Muslim for five minutes. It makes me so paranoid about Muslims now, CK2 is making me Islamophobic! 

Granted I guess that is not a problem if you only have one title 

[Jacob]

Since a lot of us are into CKIII right now, I thought I'd check if folks would be into a dynasty succession MP game?

As in - we agree on a time and place and some constraints to keep it interesting. Someone starts the game and does a light AAR along the way. When the ruler dies, they pass the save game to the next player on the list, who plays the heir and so on down the line of succession (looping back to the top of the list, until we get bored).

My one suggestion is we put in some constraints to encourage breaking up mega-blobs, since painting-the-map games get a bit dull after a certain size IMO.

At least you could do this in CKII. I assume you can still do this in CKIII.

Anyone up for it?

[Jacob]

Okay, that sounds like "not a lot of interest" 

Anyhow, had my first "Varangian Adventure" war last night and I'd obviously misread something... didn't realize that my existing realm would explode on victory. I somehow thought it was the target's realm that'd explode (which, in retrospect would be super unbalanced, so of course not).

... so that didn't work out quite the way I expected

[Valmy]

Sorry I haven't played a Paradox MP game in a long time and it was kind of stressful last time. And people were taking advantage of the mechanics in ways that I didn't feel happy about at all. Granted that was EU2 

Though I don't even own CKIII, my son does though so I guess if we get a MP game I could play it if I could somehow find the time. Back in the EU2 days I had nothing but time, not so much now. 

[Tamas]

Yeah it could be cool but it's less than two weeks until Victoria 3, which will either capture all my attention or make me fed up with Paradox games.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Can't work out wheter to play Prussia or Austria for my first game 

[Jacob]

Sorry I haven't played a Paradox MP game in a long time and it was kind of stressful last time. And people were taking advantage of the mechanics in ways that I didn't feel happy about at all. Granted that was EU2 

Though I don't even own CKIII, my son does though so I guess if we get a MP game I could play it if I could somehow find the time. Back in the EU2 days I had nothing but time, not so much now. 

I guess I didn't explain it well... it's not an MP versus game. It's a co-operative sequential single player game.

You play as whoever. When whoever dies, I play as his heir. When the heir dies, the next player plays at that person's heir etc. So, in fact, fucking up makes for more interesting games for whoever is next.

But it's cool, it's still a bit of a commitment