Crusader Kings III

[Jacob]

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.

Fair

[jimmy olsen]

We're all old with careers, kids, etc.

We don't have time for that, no matter how much we'd like too.

[Tamas]

We're all old with careers, kids, etc.

We don't have time for that, no matter how much we'd like too.

To be fair the whole idea is that it isn't regular MP, all of us wouldn't have to be online at the same time.

[Syt]

Somehow my current emperor looks a bit like Niles Crane. 

[Tamas]

 

[Syt]

State of my game in 1250. Iberian Struggle resolved before I really got involved in the peninsula.

[FunkMonk]

We're all old with careers, kids, etc.

We don't have time for that, no matter how much we'd like too.

To be fair the whole idea is that it isn't regular MP, all of us wouldn't have to be online at the same time.

So basically online hot seat? That sounds cool. How is the save file transferred though?

Doing something like that with Vic 3 might be an idea. Give every player like 10 years and send the saved game to the next player.

Although, like Timmy said, we're all old with jobs and kids and stuff. It might take me a month to play 10 years 

[Jacob]

So basically online hot seat? That sounds cool. How is the save file transferred though?

Doing something like that with Vic 3 might be an idea. Give every player like 10 years and send the saved game to the next player.

Although, like Timmy said, we're all old with jobs and kids and stuff. It might take me a month to play 10 years 

Yeah. It's particularly appropriate for CK since you play a different person.

I don't play Vicky, really, but aren't there elections or something? Would a good point to change be when there's notable change in government?

As for how to transfer the safe file, in the CKII game I played we just took the file from the folder it was in, emailed it, and then put it in the appropriate folder to continue playing. I haven't checked if it works in CKIII though (or Vicky either).

Though all that said, I think it's a better style of play for games you're familiar with to give it a new twist, than on new games where you're just figuring out what all the dials and bells and whistles do.

[Syt]

Finished my campaign, at last.

Around 1250 or so my Empire reached a critical mass where I couldn't really be challenged anymore. Pope called a crusade in Iberia which I joined, and put one of my heirs on the throne of Castille. At that point I felt I had "won" the game, so I decided to take it off the rails. I created a religion that legalized adultery, same sex relationships, deviancy, kinslaying, witchcraft, added unrestricted marriages & polygamy, divine marriage, carnal exultation and polyamory tenets. (In hindsight I should have gone all in and instead of having no head of religion made it temporal, i.e. me; also - should have added ritual cannibalism to make that one legal, too, while at it )

I then proceeded to see how badly I could mangle my family tree. Turns out not that badly, actually. My next few rulers seduced everything left, right and center, but turns out that ends up "spreading yourself thin." See, when you seduce someone, you likely get them pregnant. HOWEVER, if you have 4 wives and 20+ lovers, you end up with one, maybe two kids per partner. So while it led to my dynasty growing quite wide, it also diluted the inbreeding quite quickly. My last few rulers instead kept it "close" and just married their sons and daughters to each other which leads to crazy OP characters who are beautiful, strong, and genius, to the point that any penalty they get is outweighed by the rest of their stats. I mean look at my last ruler (and no, I didn't try to min/max stats for characters, and yes, almost everyone in my family has lover's pox):



At any rate, my new religion didn't add the chaos I had hoped for (the AI is much less likely to intermarry within family, though they will take a fair few close family lovers).

So I kept slowly expanding, spreading my empire out wide. In the end I was strong enough to just take on any outsiders. I dismantled the papacy, moved the capital back to Constantinople and had like 10-12 Empire level titles (including Byzantium).

The last few years I was just gobbling up more territory. End game maps for my Empire, Vassals, Religion, Cultures below.









Links to full sized 4k screenshots:

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1907863287673220534/BE85BB247206FB8968C496B4B0D512DCED4B4E7D/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1907863287673220804/ACB03E653F788AB001C0A23573A63BED878D7A9E/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1907863287673221038/75F07704F567C1B6349035C4917CC3017635197E/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1907863287673221412/BC44976AB9EA89A8925FFF970610249892810F4D/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

Couple of observations:

I got to a point where even succession wasn't a problem anymore in holding the Empire together, because I had so many opinion modifiers stacked that even powerful vassals with tons of claims on me wouldn't dip their opinion under 50 or so, and I could just buy them off in the first few years. In the end I didn't even need them on my council, because they were super happy. I disinherited a shitty heir and he still had +100 opinion of me.   

Additionally, I stacked all kinds of cultural acceptance modifiers - which is why the culture map is so fractured. Angevin culture never really spread because I just made sure we were tolerant to everyone and reduced penalties for different cultures.

Polygamy & unrestricted marriage & gender equality & on-demand divorce also made things quite easy. Have someone who might be a problem if they join a faction? Just marry them (make room in your schedule, if required) - most rulers didn't go for a full roster of additional spouses. And even so I could have enforced a divorce on them because most of them were part of my dynasty in the end (we had 1500+ living members).

Byzantium staid around quite a while. It wasn't till I married one of my daughters into their bloodline that things changed. My ruler at the time was high intrigue and murdered folks all around, but mostly foreign rulers to destabilize them. I murdered Byzantine Emperors till a dynasty member was on the throne with my religion at which point civil wars tore the realm apart.

The Damascusids ( ), a cadet branch of the Abassids mostly had the borders you see in the screens, for a very long time not doing much. At the same time I never could challenge them, because our militaries were equel strength. Every time I thought I had pulled ahead I checked and they were equal, with plenty potential allies if I called a Holy War. In the end I mis-stepped and they pounced, though. I was taking some manufactured claims in Sweden. My 360k army was chasing the Swedes around the countryside and took a fair amount of attrition. I hadn't noticed that I had dropped to 50% strength when I got a pop up for a Jihad on Pontus. 1M Muslims against my 400k total (my diminished troops, plus mercs and Holy Orders, plus fellow believers). Yeah, I lost that one. (I did win a Crusade for Rome 150 years prior, though, with 500k of our troops against 250k Catholics.

Kicking the Muslims out of Iberia was a pain. Getting all those little Kingdoms/Empires, them calling in reinforcements from Africa all the time, and the rugged terrain that sucks for pinning down enemies meant it took me a few tries (and more than one White Peace) to get it all done.

Events become a tad repetitive over 600 years, though having different situations (persons involved, your relations with them, your stats and resources) mixes it up a fair bit IMHO. And I had WAY too many artifacts by the end. I stopped maintaining anything grey or green, just to declutter a little bit.

Overall I enjoyed it a lot and will play a lot more, though it's a bit iffy that even when I wasn't even trying very hard, I ended up blobbing massively. Though starting somewhere not as comparatively peaceful as France might change that a lot.

I might go either achievement hunting, or dabble with mods. I had a look at the Expanded series of mods before and really liked what I saw there. Incidentally, there was a video about CK3 mods yesterday:

Modlist is here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2792850702

Make sure to pay attention to the load orders for the Expanded mods and their various patches and also whether they're all updated for the latest version.

Though I might check out some of the sillier mods out there. Like the Pantheon of the Gods one which lets you take a decision to ascent to godhood. (I'm sure it's silly and unbalanced, but it might be fun for a run or two )

[The Brain]

Sweden a bastion of freedom thanks to its OP leaders and events.

[Syt]

Played some more CK3. It's really addictive for me at the moment, and I wouldn't mind if V3 was delayed by a week or two

I have a few quibbles overall.

More areas of the map need flavor. Playing in Nepal is functionally little different than playing in Europe or Africa (at the seamlines between tribals and clan/feudals). Obviously this is something that can be addressed with mods (like RICE which adds flavor events and decisions to various parts of the map, or Cultures Expanded, or the Community Flavor Pack which adds more outfits for characters).

More events and more varied events. A heavily event based game like this can always do with more of those, because one way or other they will become repetitive at some point. This can also be used to flesh out certain parts of the game - more lifestyle events, more events for raising children, wedding events, etc. etc. Again, mods address this in part.

Raising troops feel a bit too easy. In my game I could raise 400k in Northern Africa to steal a Muslim kingdom, disband them instantly, and raise them again a week later in the Baltic to attack Novgorod. I don't think going back to an old CK2 system where tons of microstacks are raised across your realm, but a gameplay option to slow the process down would be great - e.g. when you disband an army it takes a while for the guys to trickle back to their homes, and then they have to be raised again. Maybe even have troop number slowly decrease while you disband to model that? I don't know. Also, managing vassal good will should be important for making sure they send their troops. CK2 did that better, IIRC. Heck, it might be interesting to have a vassal withdraw from a war if they have cause for it (too many troops lost, hates you, war is going badly, ... ). Additionally, allies seem way too eager to just join any old war of yours.

Speaking of vassals - in vanilla on default settings it feels a bit too easy to keep them (mostly) happy, esp. once your realm is more established. Family renown (and the prestige bonus it gives to your kin), court artifacts and grandeur sometimes makes it quite hard to actually piss off anyone anymore. Even ambitious vassals are rarely an issue you have to deal with.

With the royal courts I wished they had added a bit more rules around your capital. I shouldn't be able to instantly move it from one end of my realm to the other with little effort. And I shouldn't be able to have an imperial court with a grandeur of 10 in a 0 development holding - courts require maintenance, and I'd like to see court grandeur capped by local development. Also, I'd love to see something like itinerant courts, where your royal court moves around the realm instead of staying in a fixed location. Being in a location gives bonuses to actions taken there but puts penalties on areas further away (think the German rulers trying to balance attention between Italy and Saxony, East and West). You could probably adapt a raid mechanic, i.e. the court, depending on e.g. number of courtiers and knights, drains local resources to the point where you have to move on periodically.

Church politics should play a bigger role, most notably investiture. Currently it's tied to the religion doctrines (are religious holdings appointed by temporal or spiritual leaders), which doesn't really model a case where technically the spiritual leader should appoint them but in practice it's the ruler of the realm. We have already per-title inheritance rules which might come into play there, but in a larger kingdom this might be a pain. It could be better tied into realm laws. The characters in question should also play a role. If you have a very pious king and a complete retch of a pope then it should be hard for the pope to do something against you taking away this authority. Not sure we need to bring back the college of cardinals and anti-popes from CK2, but there could be a lot more done here.

Speaking of realm laws. The crown authority things is kinda nice and easy, but I'd rather the various rules be split out into separate laws again like in CK2, and there'd be more push and pull between you and your vassals/council on those. (I think there's a mod for that.)

Inheritance can be a bit easy to manage, and I feel there should be a bigger penalty for disinheriting a legitimate successor (tyranny?). Again, this could be tied into characters. If your successor is a e.g. a criminal, or has low piety/prestige, or is just disliked by your powerful vassals, then disinheriting him should cause little problem. But if you remove a beloved (but crappy) heir in favor of a hates asshole this should push vassals towards revolt (and disinherited heirs should press claims more often).

Similarly, securing advantageous marriages is a bit easy. I wish there was more of a tit for tat - abandon your claim on this duchy, and I will give you my daughter.

I sometimes wish there was more fog of war. Being able to see everyone's traits/stats across the world, including army sized etc. seems a bit much. I should know it for my inner circle, but the further away someone is the less info I should have about them, adding some uncertainty to gameplay (I believe there's mods that obscure stats to some degree and also add espionage).

[jimmy olsen]

Finished from a 1066 start. Probably my most successful game of CK3 so far.

Not sure how those alpine-catalan provinces popped up in my territory? 

[Jacob]

Every time I play I start out trying to set limits or rp constraints to stop from going all in on map-painting, because I find the large "conquer the world" games a bit tedious. But I can never help myself... and then the game gets tedious and I stop.

[Josquius]

I persevered at my norse game after the collapse and got the empire back.
England was crusaded and taken again at one point but I retrieved it shortly after.
Later gained France and got to - 99% war score though pulled through to keep it.

This is a problem in the game. Way too easy for the AI to blast through to - 100% warscore in larger scale wars leaving me losing without a say, when my army is only just showing up for the fight (they had been busy with an ongoing war elsewhere).
I do think we need more of a timer on how long key areas have been held.

Interestingly I'm noting a bunch of old god following nations popping up around me. I don't think these are vassal conquests. They're just previously Christian nations converting.
This definitely makes sense but I wonder by what mechanism its occurring.

Next I'm looking forward to killing the pope. Before time is up on the game I shall also try to storm mecca and I guess constantinople stands as a last boss-I had some success in assassinating the elderly byzantine emperors heir leading to a child emperor and the entire thing collapsing when I wasn't looking. Nicea has managed to reconquer a fair bit of it but the way is overall quite clear.

[Syt]

Every time I play I start out trying to set limits or rp constraints to stop from going all in on map-painting, because I find the large "conquer the world" games a bit tedious. But I can never help myself... and then the game gets tedious and I stop.

It's true. In my game I didn't exactly plan to blob out as I did, but it happened. You see an opportunity and you go for it. And once you've acquired something, you're keen to hold on to it and resent when you lose it (even if it's lands going to your various own heirs on inheritance).

I'm considering starting a new game while waiting for a bigger V3 patch, starting as a count in Germany but deliberately limiting myself to trying to create the HRE in reasonably historical borders and focusing on preserving it till end of game without going ahistorical, and releasing parts that aren't part of the HRE core cultures (e.g. if an heir becomes king of France, transfer that title to someone else in the dynasty, but keep it apart from the HRE).