Crusader Kings III

[Syt]

Played a bit as a self-made adventurer for a an hour or two. I can see the complaints from OPB in his review video. Unless you start leading armies, it's doing schemes, which means hiring people you can use in schemes, traveling to your contract and then wait for "advantages" to accrue and reacting to events. I didn't have repeating events, and there's some adventurers in 1066 that have scripted events for them. It's ... ok, I guess? I can see it in its current form as a diversion between holding landed titles, but to get to some "end goals" (like founding a holding in an empty barony, or claiming land by conquest) seems a bit of a grind with events etc. On the plus side, at least I didn't have any repeating events in 2 hours. Though without a doubt that might happen soon.

However, I can see the potential for modders to fill this space with more content. (Especially mods like Game of Thrones or Elder Kings.)

Haven't tried Byzantium yet. OPB seems to like that content a lot, but I'm not the biggest Byzantophile.

[Josquius]

Lots of buzz about Roads to Power. I can't help but be skeptical given the general quality of travelling events in the regular game. Syt's comments there suggest my feelings are true.
But still, it is good to see things moving in this direction. The issue with paradox games has always been that they're too set up to be map painters and this is a small step away from the map as the sole focus.

The other day I was listening to a piece about a period of Byzantine history where they were doing really well against the muslims but had big issues with internal politics. As per usual. Really got me thinking about how this side of things could be made actually *fun*  gameplay wise- the usual path of rebel armies or parts of  the country going independent isn't it.
My mind can't help but go back to the original Dune game, something I think is one of the best things ever but I seem fairly alone on, and how having this adventure game element could work.

[Syt]

Despite my protestations above, I kinda like the adventurer lifestyle. There's something about roaming the map doing whatever. It also has you interact a lot more with your followers, so you can get attached to them a bit more. Yes, the events and missions are repetitive. Incredibly so. Even when installing RICE or VIET for more flavor and variety. But I generally have made my peace with that. One of my two main gripes is that visiting a settlement to recruit people or buy supplies, or sell artifacts etc. has you clicking through tons of screens. It takes me back to C64 days playing Pirates and being presented with a very similar chain of menues every time I pulled into port ("Visit a Tavern" was an oft used quote between me and a friend; maybe also why I'm reminded of it now, since you visit taverns A LOT). Then again, I also spent way too much time playing Pirates on C64.

The other is that it can become trivially easy. Once you expand your camp and have a decent number of followers and sunk enough XP into your lifestyle tree your band pretty much becomes OP. Huge armies of Men at Arms? Practically free once you bought them (except having to replenish them). Running jobs that require schemes that you're not prolific in? Chances are that you have followers and buffs that make them trivial, anyways.

I guess you could make it harder by adding some sort of upkeep cost. Supplies should be a constant drain, especially if you're fielding 3,000 men-at-arms. I suppose this could be modded in, because standing still (or traveling without my retinue) shouldn't be "free". I get why they decided against it, but I feel this would be an ideal thing for a game rule, and a persistent money sink. Also, maybe a bit too much murder between camp followers.



Mini-AAR:

Anyways, my last game I decided to start as a Byzantine adventurer with a diplomatic focus and an "Explorer" specializatoin. I happily travelled around the Mediterranean, but a case of underestimating supplies use in the desert while transporting some artifact from the Lybian coast into the Sahara caused the band to run out of supplies and my dude became a cannibal. Oops. (Btw, with fully developed camp and camp officers, it would later take me under 1000 supplies to travel half the map.) I slowly worked my way out of the desert, essentially begging locals for food along the way (with high diplo you can ask vendors in settlements to give you food for free). Afterwards we ran errants around Sardinia and in Northern Italy, before going to Germany. At one point, the Basileos of Constantinople invited me tojoin him at the chariot races where I made some money betting. I was finally hired by the German King to transport some item or other to Zagreb. On the way I had an event about spoiled food. One of the options has a 99% nothing happens chance, a 1% death chance. After clicking the event many times, this was the one where I died. Seemed maybe appropriate that my cannibal died of eating something he shouln't have?

Anyways, that left his 5-year-old son in charge of the Byzantion Horsemen. This presented the problem that as a kid you can't interact with settlements, so recruitment becomes a lot harder. For the next 11 years I travelled around the map, running errands, going on treasure hunts etc. By the time I was 16, I was just, compassionate, and forgiving. I married my childhood crush. Who died in childbirth.

I was in Southern Italy when I received a letter from my other childhood crush. I professed I still had feelings for her and she responded in kind. I checked where she was .... in Kola, the Northernmost peninsula in Scandinavia.

For love, I took the band all the way to meet with her, we made love ... and I couldn't marry her because she had become a nun. She gave me a bastard son who I immediately legitimized, and though we decided to break off the relationship she and her parents joined our merry band. I would eventually marry once more, and have 7 children. All but one died before me.

The next years I travelled around Europe and Africa, taking in the sights. In retrospect, playing a traveling lifestyle with the mod that adds tons of unique buildings to the map makes it even more OP because of all the lifestyle XP you get when you visit one of those. The mod should have a rule to nerf the reward, I guess.

Once I asked the Sultan in Cairo to host a feast for me. During the feast he served food with bits of glass in it, taking delight in seeing his guests suffer and bleed (WTF? Didn't expect Salo in my CK3!). Also, the steward of the Emir of Jerusalem stabbed my son. Despite my nature we decamped to Jerusalem and spent the next half year scheming to kill the bastard. Which we did. In fact, my dude only killed a handul of people - this guy, and 4 or 5 slavers who I dueled to avoid losing any of my entourage. However, murderers I couldn't execute because my character traits would give me almost 200 stress. So a lot of banishments, including some of my kids who were then briefly my rivals, but because of all my diplo buffs reconciled.

I grew profitient in prowess by necessity - but it had its advantages. I asked a patron in Ethiopia to host a tournament for me. It turned out to be a wrestling contest that I won at the ripe age of 53. The next 15 years I spent in India. By this time words of my deeds had started a legend. We spread it along the Ganges valley and got to level 2 with it when I croaked at age 78, or 73 years of playtime.

My son took over, but having known nothing but a restless life of traveling, and seeing that the Byzantine Empire had lost almost all of Anatolia, he decided to return to the land of his forebears. The Strategos of Naxos became his patron and it allowed him to found an estate and settle down. He used the treasury he had inherited to expand his estate rapidly and move up the ranks of the Imperial families. However, the Empire was wracked by constant civil wars. Something would have to be done about it. Lacking the backstabbing nature of his compatriots, he used his diplomatic skills to scheme and shame them with a smile, moving up the ladder and becoming Strategos in Cyprus, a one province Theme on the fringe of Empire. Would he become the savior of Empire? (Probably not, he's in his 50s by now )



It's the first time I've dabbled with the Byzantine content, but damn there's a lot going on. Between managing your estate, you have a new currency, "influence" that you can use for favors/positions from the Emperor, use to bribe other characters, or gain/lose in schemes against others or yourself. Plus there's like 15 or so different levels of laws within the Empire, and each Theme has a list of candidates for succession that you can try to manipulate. I don't think it's extremely complex, but it's a lot of stuff to engage with. Though the constant civil wars are a tad concerning.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

That was an enjoyable read. Might be getting time to go back to ck3

[Solmyr]

I'm waiting for the Expanded mod series to be updated before getting back to it.

[Syt]

I'm waiting for the Expanded mod series to be updated before getting back to it.

EPE always takes too long to update. As long as CFP, RICE, VIET, Medieval Arts, and More Interactive Vassals works I'm happy. Everything else is a bonus.

[The Minsky Moment]

Saw the following negative review on the last CK3 DLC

Byzantine empire is a joke. It's bugged, so at the game start it becomes hostile to Catholicism and will never recover. Constant civil wars + crusades make the whole thing eventually fall apart. Then just wait for the Mongols to show up and delete the rest of civilisation.

OK . . .

[Syt]

Has to be a troll comment.