Crusader Kings III

[garbon]

I saw this which i think best summarises how I feel about ck3.

P'dox has always been about paying upfront for what they will develop later but they gotta develop it at some point.

The whole point is that it's been two years. CK3 was arguably the best Paradox release ever, but the game was far from being perfect. The events being disconnected from the larger narrative were always a problem, which people hoped would get remedied in time. A lot of very warmly received mechanics from CK2 (missionaries, coronations, Byzantine elective system, diseases from the Reaper's Due, etc.) straight out disappeared with nothing to replace them. The conflict mentioned by the title of the game was noticeably lackluster, because the AI was unable to even threaten the holder of Jerusalem and the Pope could as well not exist.

Two years later these problems not only are still there, but are even more glaring. The only major expansion, the Royal Court, not only didn't fix these mayor flaws, but exacerbated them by adding even more shallow, inconsequential and sometimes absurd events. Both flavor packs fleshed out Iberia and Scandinavia a bit, while leaving the rest of the world as content-starved as it was. And Friends and Foes seems to be more of the exact thing that I already dislike.

Playing Paradox games is a lot like watching a TV series. You can forgive a lot of flaws initially if the whole shows a lot of promise. But if those flaws aren't fixed after some time, it's probably a good moment to reevaluate your opinion of the series.

[Tamas]

Yeah I saw that comment this morning, it is spot on.

[Zanza]

I agree, it is shallow. I liked both the Iberia and the Viking DLC. Immersion packs for interesting regions of the world ate good as DLC content. But Royal Court is a big disappointment for me. Adds almost nothing to the game in my opinion. And yes, quite a few mechanics from CK2 are still missing.

[Tamas]

Yeah it is a bit puzzling why they don't go through the big CK2 expansions. Nobody (of any meaningful quantity) would blame them for it, and it would be very good for the game.

[Jacob]

Eh...if you have a big family you can easily build up a lot of stress dealing with them, without a convenient feast available for a few years, or you just don't have the money to pay for one because of a war.

Yeah, I didn't realize the stress mechanic was implemented until my successful character suddenly went from fine to dropped dead from stress in the game I was playing. Turned out having a bunch of siblings and semi-decent relationships with them during a big war is very dangerous, because if they die you get stressed.

EDIT: and yeah, getting super stressed because relatives died doesn't seem super aligned with a game where you often murder them for material advantage.

I want to love CKIII and I've played it a lot, but flavour wise they missed the target IMO.

[Sheilbh]

I think it's all still too bland/vanilla everywhere. They've added mechanisms and events around the personal character stuff which is fine but I think they need to look at EUIV and do things for, France, Iberia, England, HRE etc to give a bit more character and depth to those regions because it all feels very much of a muchness.

[Jacob]

Yeah. The writing could be better on the personal stuff all up, but yeah applying the same thing across all regions/ cultures suck. There are way too many events that are framed as - say Christian - but can trigger for non-Christians all over the map. It's pretty weak, actually.

[Syt]

I think it's all still too bland/vanilla everywhere. They've added mechanisms and events around the personal character stuff which is fine but I think they need to look at EUIV and do things for, France, Iberia, England, HRE etc to give a bit more character and depth to those regions because it all feels very much of a muchness.

Isn't that what they did with the struggle mechanic for Iberia?

[Tamas]

Yeah. The writing could be better on the personal stuff all up, but yeah applying the same thing across all regions/ cultures suck. There are way too many events that are framed as - say Christian - but can trigger for non-Christians all over the map. It's pretty weak, actually.

Yeah I don't think there's point in playing non-Christian, just too weird.

And yeah the writing isn't great but perhaps because of the whole tongue in cheek thing going on everywhere.

[Tamas]

I think the new patch is a clear improvement even if it doesn't change what the game is. The AI seems markedly improved, I haven't bothered to check provinces for buildings etc but kingdoms seem to stay stable and together longer and I think the AI is often able to field bigger armies than it used to.

But I do wish event approach would be revised. Great example from a complains thread to show how many events want to force emergent gameplay instead of the other way around:



(wife is complaining of abusive husband but actually they have a great relationship in the game).

[Tamas]

When I hit a nice going session I feel like I am being harsh with this game.

One thing I am trying to condition my mind for while playing is handling events "right" - they just go into too much flavour detail in the text so it's ridiculous when they keep repeating, so I just handle them like "awkward moment at feast" event and "vassal nagging me about pet peeve BS" etc. because essentially that's what these are, and just pretend I am not supposed to think the exact same thing happens to my character every second feast.

Otherwise, it can present a nicely realistic-feeling feudal "life cycle" - exceptional ruler builds big demense and centralises realms, conquers stuff. Mediocre heir focuses inward to keep it together, next in line is shit and ends up having to downgrade to autonomous vassals, with the strong ones then starting to eat up weaker ones within the realm, posing a challenge for the future non-sucky lieges to untangle and solve.

It can be fun.

[Syt]

That's how I approach CK games. If you play them to min/max you can optimize it to the point where it can become quite repetitive and boring, because most events or event chains will have optimal paths, and there will be optimal ways to ensure your breeding program generates the best heirs etc. Other Paradox games have a much stronger focus on that type of gameplay (esp. HoI4 and EU4, I think).

However, if you play this much more as an RPG and try to make decisions that make sense for the character, or just look interesting (even if not the optimal play overall) you can have a better time. It helps that both CK2 and 3 are relatively forgiving when it comes to failure. I've had games where I bounced from one province to being King of half the Balkans, back to one province (funnily enough on an island, which felt like exile after my treachorous sibling ousted me) to going to owning 90% of the Byzantine Empire as vassal to the Emperor etc. I play CK much more for the stories it can create than for "make numbers big" and painting the map. If it all comes together that's great, but even muddling through as a lowly Duke somewhere in Germany can be quite interesting.

And for more events, check the Very Immersive Events and Tales (VIET) mod which adds hundreds of events (they've been working on it since CK2, latest release claims 888 events). They used to have some silly meme events, but they've mostly removed them for CK3. They do retain some references, though (like a book "The Lusty [Culture] Maid", our a character called Qi Ma in reference to Elder Scrolls, but this is on the level of stuff Paradox does anyways ). There's a bunch of additional mods that add just variety (Community Flavor Pack, Cultures Expanded ...) without changing gameplay much. I generally prefer such mods - they add more variety without rewriting the game logic from scratch like some overhauls who claim to be "historic" but really just yank difficulty up to 11.

Similar with Stellaris. Give me more events, traits, traditions, ascensions, planet types and planet modifiers and I'm quite happy (Check Guilli's mods and adjacent ones like Planetary Diversity or More Events Mod)

[Josephus]

Sometimes you just have to laugh the stuff off. I just got a A Secret Exposed event. My 3 year old son has accused his sister, my daughter, of having an extramarital affair.
It's too bad, though, that they can't filter this kind of stuff off, a simple "is X >16 years old" type of thing. Makes them appear sloppy.

[Syt]

Might be a moment he walked in on her doing the deed and now having a lot of questions.

[Josephus]

Might be a moment he walked in on her doing the deed and now having a lot of questions.

If only one of the options was

Sit down son, we need to talk.