Crusader Kings III

[Syt]

I agree with you that it's nice they iterate on existing mechanics. I am not charmed by the harm mechanic at this point, but thankfully there are settings for it

Indeed. Personally, I welcome that extra random element, but I'm glad they add settings for it, because people would flip their shit otherwise.

[Jacob]

Yeah, there are some playthroughs where I'd enjoy it, but for my run of the mill games not so much.

[Josephus]

I agree with you that it's nice they iterate on existing mechanics. I am not charmed by the harm mechanic at this point, but thankfully there are settings for it

Yeah...it really depends on the frequency of these things...once or twice a game I can live with.

[Syt]

I agree with you that it's nice they iterate on existing mechanics. I am not charmed by the harm mechanic at this point, but thankfully there are settings for it

Yeah...it really depends on the frequency of these things...once or twice a game I can live with.

Dev diary says there'll be a 50 yr cooldown for players.

[Jacob]

I agree with you that it's nice they iterate on existing mechanics. I am not charmed by the harm mechanic at this point, but thankfully there are settings for it

Yeah...it really depends on the frequency of these things...once or twice a game I can live with.

Dev diary says there'll be a 50 yr cooldown for players.

Yeah, so that's about once per character or maybe once per two characters.

[Josephus]

I agree with you that it's nice they iterate on existing mechanics. I am not charmed by the harm mechanic at this point, but thankfully there are settings for it

Yeah...it really depends on the frequency of these things...once or twice a game I can live with.

Dev diary says there'll be a 50 yr cooldown for players.

So it's very likely it can happen to the majority of characters. hmmm...

[Josephus]

Here's the thing about Ck though. A lot of the event choices are obvious

For instance.

I am getting married at a grand wedding and one of my vassals is giving me condolences, a sort of "you don't know what you're in for ".

Now the event has 4 choices. The results of which are:

1. 80 per cent I gain Confident Groom and lose 35 stress
19 per cent I gain wedding jitters and gain 22 stress

2.73 per cent I gain CG and lose 35 stress
26 per cent I gain jitters and 22 stress

3. 33 per cent I gain CG and lose 35 stress
66 per cent I gain jitters and 22 stress

4. I gain wedding jitters


Now choice 1 is the obvious one, No? Why would you pick any of the others ?

[Josephus]

Lol. Here's the irony. I chose number 1  and got the jitters 😁

Still silly. Next thing that happens is my sister pulls me aside and I either enjoy a quiet moment with her and lose the jitters and the stress or form a friendship with my sister

[Syt]

Now choice 1 is the obvious one, No? Why would you pick any of the others ?

For me? Depends on what my playthrough is. Trying to play reasonably optimal and picking the best outcome, always? Sure, clear choice.

If I get into an RP mood I might go with what seems most reasonable for my character (tbf, often reflected by the percentages already ... ), or is "more interesting" narratively.

Since overall the game is fairly easy taking a suboptimal choice can also be a way to add more challenge for yourself (nost saying that this is ideal from a game design standpoint, but it is an option at this point). How bad can your decisions be, and can you still have "success" (depending on how you measure success for yourself in the game).

[Jacob]

You could get a RP mod that hides the percentage chances

[Syt]

Out of curiosity I had a very quick look yesterday at the "More Provinces Expanded" mod:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2960153137

Almost 7000 New provinces/baronies. Hundreds of new counties. Dozens of new duchies. Several new Kingdoms.
Historically and most importantly Geographically accurate. Countless Paradox placement and naming errors fixed.

Many counties have been renamed to their historically accurate designations of "Lordship" for the various Seigneuries and Herrenschafts, Viscounty for many appropriate places in France, Abbeys for the few territorial Abbeys in Europe like Prum and Corvey. Also the Duchies of Toulouse, Champagne, and Flanders are called that no more, they are now Counties as they historically were (they are still very much Duchy tier titles though). Many, many of the new counties and baronies have appropriate cultural names.

Changes virtually the whole world except for Siberia, Tibet, Central Africa, and West Africa (with the exception of Senegal). If someone can find me a good detailed historical map of Sub-Saharan Africa this will change, but I very much doubt such a thing exists, I've looked.

Also added a COMPATCH folder for those using Cultures Expanded and/or Trade Resources. If you use these mods simply transfer the folder from within COMPATCH to common. scripted_effects folder for Cultures Expanded and on_action folder for Trade mod. In the Playsets within the Paradox Launcher where you had to go to add this mod, if you click the three dots in the lower right corner of the mod there will be an option to "Show in Folder" opening up the mod folder.

It seemed really excessive, so I loaded it up in 867 start. It's ... silly E.g. I picked the count of Verona - the county now has something like 10 or 12 holdings (only two occupied in 867)? And other counties were the same, though in some cases they just split the new baronies into more counties. So you have areas of the map where you have tiny counties with 3-4 holdings, and then some small to medium counties with 8-12 ... I feel this might lead to an extreme imbalance since some counties with more holdings will be inherently much more powerful than ones with fewer holdings. Also unsure how it will affect expansion and game dynamics, because the demesne limit isn't changed which might lead to some issues in areas where counties were split but remain with the same ruler/liege (vassal limits)?

The game ran fine despite the extra holdings, but I guess if you play for 100, 200 years and the holdings (plus their barons/mayors ... ) start to populate it will start grinding down a lot more than the normal game.

[The Minsky Moment]

I get the logic of it: from 867 to the 1200s, population doubled and a lot of new settlements were cleared out.  So if you want to properly model the development of Christian Europe across the period, then something like this mod is needed.  But to my mind it just points to another reason why an 867 start time doesn't work for the game, as the social and political structures the game is built around (~c. 1000-1250 western europe) didn't exist in that period. (the same problem exists for areas on the periphery of core Christian Europe and for the Muslim polities but there is no avoiding that one).

the ability to vary start times in CK2 was one of my favorite features of that game; I would have preferred effort be put into replicating that rather than developing a Carolingian start time.  I have nothing against that historical period; in fact it's one of my favorites in terms of reading about history.  But it needs a different kind of game model.

[Syt]

I think the best effort to offer the variety of start dates in CK3 is More Bookmarks Expanded:

https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=2216670956

- Around 300 more baronies and a very modified county, duchy, and kingdom setup for a somewhat more accurate setup for the bookmarks. Extension of the map into East Asia thanks to Rajas of Asia.

- Hundreds of new CoA's for titles ranging from baronies all the way empires with England and the Levant changing based on who holds the title

- Completed history for every bookmark so no missing or incorrect rulers for large parts of the map like in other bookmark mods and even tributaries courtesy of the T4N teams Tributary Framework

- Historical Holy Orders spawned in later bookmarks in their respective regions with the Teutonic State and Hospitaller Rhodes being playable

- Playable Republics thanks to Res Republica

- Over 22 new bookmarks ranging from 769 to 1337

- New decisions for some of these bookmarks such as restoring the Byzantine Empire after 1204.

- Many new cultures and religions

- New decisions for various bookmarks and cultures

- Partial integration of some other larger mods like Rajas of Asia, Africa Plus and Muslim Enhancements cultures and religions to ensure their full compatibility

- Full integration of Tenets to Doctrines, Cities of Wonders 3, Silk Road and Religious/Cultural Minorities

So if you want to start in the 900s, 1204 (Fourth Crusade) or 1337 that mod has you covered. It can be a bit of a pin in terms of compatibility with other mods, however.

[Tamas]

Couldn't resist the DLC any longer. It does seem good, although I am playing with a collection mods:
- Turning off lifestyle perks (my own mod, just upped XP requirement to the stars)
- The mod that randomises who you play as
- VIET
- More Bookmarks
- MNB: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2220794067

I wanted to the highlight the last one, I have been using it pretty much constantly since it came out and it has been updated for 1.9 as well.

Here the guy explains what he has done:

Detailed Breakdown of Changes
Muster travel speed has been drastically reduced. You will no longer be able to amass your full army nearly instantly at any rally point. Equally, dismissing your armies will be quite a risk in a war, since they will take much longer to travel back to their homes. This is actually a rather nasty nerf for a large empire, as it can take quite a while to actually get a full army assembled. This has no effects on MAA units.

Second, levies do not regenerate with nearly the speed they once did. You can and will be worn down if you fight wars constantly with heavy losses. Again, a nerf for a larger empire, which due to it's size may find itself in many smaller wars. MAA regeneration is also reduced, but only slightly, with the cost adjusted to match. Losing masses of men is no longer a trivial matter.

Finally, army movement itself is slowed slightly, even when raised. Armies will not zip around the map, this makes positioning and supply more important to consider, and again limits the ability of a single army to respond to multiple smaller armies. Sea travel is also quite a bit slower, though days without attrition has been adjusted to allow the same total range, just without the insanely rapid speeds. Smaller, more compact realms will see rather large benefits from these three changes, and equally larger realms will feel their weight as the burden it should be.

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Fertility is something which is...much more fragile. You will, on average see fertility reduce more when you are older, and base childbirth is reduced as well. You will see far fewer children on average, meaning that bonuses to fertility have more inherent benefit. This is, of course, not entirely realistic, but it is better than having a third of children dying around age 1-2 and lagging the game with useless data (And the result is the same). Also that would be a bit depressing.

Children, and women, are more likely to die in childbirth, or have other outcomes which are not ideal, this is especially the case when the mother is in poor health.

While less children can make succession easier with partition laws, this may also harm the player, since the AI is far less able and willing to murder, disinherit or cheese their way to a single heir. AI realms will be a bit less prone to fracturing, at least from succession. There is also the very real danger of not having ENOUGH children, meaning that ill timed deaths can result in real problems. Your idiot fifth cousin is now your heir, have a great day!

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Religious tenets have been rebalanced, with the goal of making more tenets viable or interesting. There should be, ultimately, no 'bad' tenets that are never worth taking in any situation. This will improve difficulty in the game, as the AI generally won't make their own religion, and thus the player will min-max and many default religions had weak tenets by default. Improving these 'bad' tenets helps this situation, and thus base religions will be stronger by comparison to their prior selves, or against the player min-max religion.

A few religious choices were changed to fit history, mostly in cost, but in a few cases availability. Sacred childbirth, for example, was not an option for Christian faiths... despite Catholicism's huge fixation on Mary... seems like it should at least be possible, since naked Christians who live in forests are an option. A lot of minor cost adjustments, as well, just to smooth out some odd situations with religions.

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The economy has been changed, with basic buildings providing less income and levies, but the effects of county development has been doubled. This makes defending your realm far more important, since rich developed lands can be twice as valuable, even with the exact same buildings. Terrain also plays more of a part, affecting building costs and development growth more than vanilla.

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There is an additional difficulty option added, called roleplay difficulty. It is now considered the default difficulty, and applies a 25% increase to stress gains, only for the player. It also increases all tyranny gains by 25%. This is meant to keep the player more bounded in, while still providing them a level playing field with the AI. You may find yourself having to care more about your character's traits, and perhaps a little less able to rule recklessly without irritating your vassals.

Rolehard has been added as further increase to roleplay enforcement, with a 50% increase to both values.

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Vassals have been given quite the rework, starting with the most basic change that they can be called into defensive wars by their liege. This means realms have a defensive advantage, however all is not perfect. Vassals are no longer quite so willing to make alliances, and even with an alliance they are less likely to enter a internal war. All alliance calls have been a bit more complex and less automatic, meaning that every alliance is not a blanket guarantee of support, especially when the ally likes the attacker and defender both. Expect more negative opinions in general, since there has been significant bloat of positive opinion modifiers with T&T and Artifacts. You will need to consider more carefully the personalities of your vassals, since if they clash with you those modifiers are more potent. Equally vassals are far more unhappy with higher crown authority, meaning that keep crown authority low may improve realm stability. And of course, making alliances within your realm can protect you, since allies will never joing factions against you, but beware, since you cannot imprison or revoke the titles of the vassals who have pledged to be your allies.

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Sway and many other schemes are now more uncertain, even in ideal circumstances. Sway especially has been heavily nerfed, only providing up to +50 increased opinion at maximum. There will be characters who hate past the ability of sway to fix even with time. Sway also takes into account some of the more serious actions the player may have taken in the past, applying success penalties. If you murdered someone's child, swaying them at all will be an uphill battle for obvious reasons. Many hostile schemes now take far more account of intrigue scores of the target, meaning that high intrigue can provide extensive protection. At the same time, the handcuffs have been unlocked for the AI, they will murder players if they hate them and see an opportunity. Higher ranks also receive a bit more hostile scheme resistance, so have fun trying to murder an emperor without agents or a severe intrigue advantage.

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There are also an increasing number of general changes involving:

-> several changes which make religious unity less simple to achieve, especially among vassals.
-> Cultural difference opinion penalties increased
-> Dread changes, closing loopholes which allow dread to be gained without some cost

Most of these changes again are problems for empires more then smaller powers, reflecting the real difficulties of maintaining a large empire that might contain other cultures and religions. This may also benefit religions and strategies which sacrifice pure power builds for those with more tolerance. Which is a weak playstyle already, so a good balance outcome.

[Syt]

I have to take back my recommendation for MB+ - last time I played it didn't expand the map all the way to Indonesia and Korea (I think ). Also, I don't think it included those various laws and a few other things I'm not too into. Also, for some reason it made the Pope, the Doges, and all Indonesians shirtless.