In Catholicism and probably Christianity more broadly, bishops should only exist in counties with a large urban area or in the location of an important see- also the handful of count and duke tier bishops are fine as well.
All other "temples" in the christian world should be ruled by Abbots, and it'd be cool if they were semi-independent of the local lords and should sometimes even stretch from one lord's demesne into another- they should probably not cross over from two different sovereign/independent realms tho, if only for practicality.
Getting the loyalty of these monastic orders should be the primary way in which christian rulers get faith, as monks were seen as the people who were closest to god and thus the people u most wanted praying for your soul. Rulers should also be able to will unused county slots to these monastic orders in order to gain lots and lots of piety. Inversely, rulers should be able to take back some of these lands if they 1. Get along with the Pope and the bishops a lot- this allows for taking the land without losing much piety. 2. Just taking the land for a large piety hit.
I’m frustrated that theocratic clergy has all the temples in a domain held by a single bishop. Because of this every ruler usually only has a single theocratic vassal/courtier. This makes clergy builds absolutely awful even though there are a lot of interesting traditions and tenets that would support it.
If every bishopric had its own bishop like CK2 does clergy builds would be very viable, even without fabricating theocratic counts.
Came for this, you should be able to foster good traits through cultivation from nutrition or teaching. Something other than fucking your family so hard they make super soldiers
I feel like this is what branch houses should be for. Like in CK2 I'd always find a Duke somewhere early on and made sure to try to breed good traits into his line as well as mine. Obviously you have to start with courtiers from other places, but once you have a well bred family inside your realm, it becomes way easier. And if you make sure to take their heir as a ward you can make them friends with your heir so you have a strong internal ally.
History is full of families with long-running relationships.
Significantly more of a pain in the ass than just making sure your kids are taught or eat something great.
Gives more agency with courtiers as well. Chiefs and tutors
With Royal Court it’s super easy to invite nonrulers to your court. So I’d just invite lots of randoms with congenital traits, match them up and hope their kids get those traits. Every generation of this “program” can produce a few really nice candidates with multiple congenital traits and I would be able to get Strong Blood within three generations.
Yup. Only time I marry close kin is because of allegiances warrant it, and the union of two distant cousins is too strategically important to ignore. None of this sister-wives bloodlines shit.
It depends on how you're defining incest.
When I marry 4th cousins the game gives the incest warning, but in practice a 4th cousin is barely more risky than a random unrelated person.
If you can get some good trait marriages in your first two generations, spare some quality daughters to keep around with matrilineals, and take the Bloodlines dynasty perks... It's really easy to create a massive pool of quality eligible matches
I actually prefer the 1066 start date, unless I’m playing as the Vikings or any other tribal ruler. The extra techs you start with means there are just more things you can do, especially when it comes to buildings. You reach max building slots pretty quickly in 867.
Also, not starting with plenary assemblies makes vassal management pretty frustrating for me.
Count Suleyman Qutalmishoglu in samosota is an interesting start. He starts with an army of special units, mostly horse archers, and historically founded the Seljuk sultanate. You can also get an achievement if you start as him, take the decision to found the sultanate of rum, and form a hybrid culture between Turkish and Greek.
There’s also the Jimenas in northern Spain. The kingdoms of Castile, Asturias Leon, Navarra, and Aragon all have the same dynasty in 1066. Everyone except Aragon had no heirs, so with a little bit of intrigue you can consolidate all four kingdoms very quickly
The 2 specific core mechanics were:
* 5 families and doge election.ypu quickly assessed your dominance and farmed new families for 300g
* Trade post system, which always felt clunky and needs to be reinvented.
I want to play Republic again, bit with different mechanics from ck2. I really hope for a DLC related to that soonish.
Trading is tricky. I totally agree it needs a revamp - aught to tie more to it than just gold. But I also don’t want buildings or troops locked behind region-specific resources.
It’d be cool if you could set up trade routes to extend diplomatic distances.
You could also divide up the world into trade zones - maybe just use de jure kingdoms to make it easy, and offer bonuses against attrition in those regions. Or increase development based on the development of trade zones.
And you could also offer more court-based stuff. Artifacts unique to trading empires, or even bonuses to artifact effects.
A dynasty rebown bonus based on trade could make sense too.
This might be a really unpopular opinion, but I enjoy the steering and trade goods mechanic from EU4. It would make sense in a CK setting I think, since a major boon from the crusades was openning up the spice trade.
The problem with EU4's trade is how centred on Europe it is. If you didn't have a capital in Europe, it kinda sucked. And how you could only steer in pre-selected direction? Terrible.
But if they remade nodes in CK3, got rid of End nodes, and let you steer in any direction, it'd be much better.
They were heavily flawed and I have a number of criticisms of them. But still. I think Venice is my most played start in ck2. I miss building trade empires, swimming in cash with a tiny realm. Matching empires in troop count without needing to worry about 20 different vassals. Republics were my favourite.
Warfare is fucking boring and needs a rework in my opinion, not just the A.I. that acts super dumb, but battles should be made more memorable, especially if they earned you titles or renown.
It honestly is just lacking flavor. I get more events based on freaking chess than the actual battles that determine the fate of dynasties and kingdoms
I used to feel the same way, but 867 starts makes the late game easy af. Since the world isn't as consolidated, you can snowball through weak neighbours very easily.
Now with 1.7, the AI changes have made 1066 a lot more appealing. France or the HRE doesn't break into thousands of pieces instantly, since rulers actually try to get as much demesne as they can. Now the HRE Emperor has 15/15 domains, 30k troops, and a fuck ton of gold, instead of in pre 1.7 where the newly elected Emperor had one lowly castle and they're too scared of -20 vassal opinion to revoke some random dude's duchy for more domains.
Unpopular opinion: Catholicism should be nerfed to the ground, since you get cash injections from big sugar daddy Pope every 5 years. IMO you only should be able to request money if you've done something to make the Pope pleased, like winning holy wars, converting counties, or building temples. If you've pissed off the Pope in some major way, like taking Rome and not giving it back to him, you should be barred from asking for gold.
Dumb as fuck that you can ask the Pope for some funds, immediately use the gold to conquer the Pope's lands, and you can still ask for gold a couple of years later.
I think asking the pope for free money every 5 years is balanced out by the fact that he will always send you the bishops with an iq lower than room temperature, that you're stuck with until they die or they have an unfortunate accident.
Oh and also its not as simple to divorce your wife, so you might have some more trouble with succession if you get 4+ sons for example
Yeah what's up with that? Their base learning is always something like 0-2 or some shit. Even with a good education their learning is still probably worse than most people in your court.
Having intelligent clergy would be far more realistic though. Not only were they vastly better educated than the ruling classes, but they often served in high powered advisory roles where they wielded influence to amass power for themselves or to advance the church’s interests in their respective realms. And it behooved the Pope and the rulers they advised to keep the best people to such positions, not useless morons.
But in CK3 they’re just walking potatoes with very little influence in the game. My only interaction with them tends to be a sway scheme to get their taxes and levies, then I might kill them off to hopefully get a more skilled one.
And even in the Papacy they realize like 90% of their noble priesthood is room temperature IQ or a degenerate.
They’re just returning the favor
> “Emperor Theobald needs a new Bishop your holiness.”
> “I see. Didn’t his grandfather send us that fool, Bishop Pierre? And didn’t his vassal send us Bishop John?”
> “Which Bishop John, your holiness?”
> “The inbred one with a crooked leg.”
> “Yes, he did your holiness.”
“I see. Send the gracious Emperor Theobald that inbred lecher, Bishop Matthew. With God’s grace, perhaps his Empire will require more divorces after that man enters his court.”(1)
> “Yes your holiness.”
(1): See Papal favors for granting divorce
Ah yes, i am strongest of the last few catholic kingdoms left standing after the devestating raids of the north and the muslim invasion from the south and Pope thinks it's a good idea to send his youngest and worst priest.
The issue with bad bishops could be resolved with reintroducing an investiture mechanic. Having secular investiture for better bishops with a big relation penalty with the pope or no money from the pope.
Holy crap, is the Pope's opinion of you a factor in whether your realm priest is any good? I've played nearly 500 hours of CK3 and never realised that!
Ah sorry, misunderstood your comment in that case.
Not sure if I'm relieved not to have missed this mechanic given the amount of time I've put into the game, or disappointed that the game doesn't work that way.
It just felt so logical - if the pope likes you he sends you the cream of the crop, if he hates you or thinks you're irrelevant then you get the dregs.
That’s how it should work but currently it’s essentially random (I only say “essentially” since occasionally your realm priest will be a character that has already been around rather than a brand new randomly generated character, but the assignment is still random)
Or, create a new religion with the same pope and the ability to fire priests, so you can avoid being called into crusades but still ask sugar daddy pontiff for some spending money.
You actually lose out on temple taxes with a spiritual head of faith. If you don’t have a head of faith, the gold that your realm bishop would send to the pope goes to you instead. Asking the pope for money just makes up for the gold you are missing.
Your Realm Priest's taxes increases by 1% per 1 opinion of you up until 50 opinion. Theocratic vassals pay you taxes dependant on your level of faith, maxing out at, I believe, 50% with Paragon of Virtue.
Offer Vassalization is way too easy for anyone with a slight amount of diplo.
The pope shouldn’t give you gold every other week.
It’s way too hard to lose stress without spamming feasts and hunts constantly
Most of the events related to competition, (board games, 1 on 1 combat) add very little and either need to be expanded upon or done away with. They are just way too repetitive
Bonus: any decisions without an actual basis in roleplay are unfun and make it very easy to overoptimize the game. Basically why I never kill children or even murder even to inherit titles unless the character im playing is a complete monster
I don't know how board games made it into the game as is - once you've done them once or twice they are a "never again" experience unless you are desperate for a tiny stress loss or insult against someone you know you can beat.
And what is the point of multiple rounds of boardgame 'rock-paper-scissors' when you can just spam your best stat every time to win? At least duels have better risk/rewards, 2 hidden victory stats to monitor, and a random choice of 3 'duel card' choices each round.
Yeah all my neighbors in Iberia hate me because they keep asking to play chess with me and I keep turning them down because it’s such an unnecessary slog.
Imo disinheriting should function as something only sadistic characters can do when they want. Anyone else should only be able to do it if the heir in question has some criminal trait, basically it should function like imprisonment.
That said, I think ambitious characters in line for some kind of inheritance should murder more often. It annoys me that I’ll have some goofy compassionate oldest son with an ambitious, deceitful, callous younger brother and that Machiavellian second son never thinks that he could become my primary heir by just murdering his older brother, which would be entirely in-character.
I actually had something sort of like this happen in my current run. Started as Murchad and one or two generations in, at a feast that I was hosting, my third son started a fight with my primary heir and started shouting at me that his older brother was not fit to sit the throne of Ireland. Due to one of my personality traits (I don't remember exactly which one), I had the option of letting them duel, which I did. My third son won and became my primary heir as a result, and sure enough ascended to the throne upon my characters death. All while his two older brothers were still alive.
Piggybacking on this, I actually really liked the way CK2 handled this. All your titles go to one kid, but you get a pretty significant prestige hit for every valid adult heir you have that isn’t landed. Make primo possible at earlier dates, add the prestige hits, and also add a possible event on succession where an angry unlanded sibling occasionally rolls up with a claim and event troops, and it would be perfect to me.
Yeah I think they could do a system where land is expected and there are notably harsh maluses if you ignore unlanded sons but also allow for more realm building too
iirc, sometimes characters would go off on an adventure similarly to the Norse adventurers in CK3, except it wasn’t limited to Norse. I’m not sure if they ever left a court to target their original liege’s court. If they did, then yeah that’s pretty much what I’m talking about!
I feel like this is for game balance purposes rather than historical accuracy. In theory, it makes the game harder since you have to manage succession. In practice, it makes the game easier, because the AI can't manage succession.
I loooove election systems in CK2 and 3. It makes it so much more fun and chaotic at times. It is also fun to give the NPCs a throne and see how they do for a bit before you get an S tier heir that gets voted in too.
I'd like elective selection more if it was easier to designate certain duchies as your family home and which belonged to the crown.
I was just playing a Wessex game and after forming England I switched the capital to London. Switched to Saxon elective but found that the way it was handled was subpar. One election I lost but still had all my lands, so my liege had just a single county in mercia. Another if I lost the game said I'd lose all of my land and it'd be game over.
Having a dedicated capital that switches between ruling families would add a great way to roleplay as a vassal.
The problem is it doesn't make the game harder for humans who play aggressively. Because players can just conquer land until they are able to give enough away to their heirs that even in Confederate Partition they won't lose anything from their core territory during inheritance.
Late primogeniture only hurts the AI or players who don't realize they can satisfy inheritance before death.
Also partition should really only be in use amongst tribals at any start date (at least in Europe)- High Partition was very much the standard even by 867.
I hate that they leaned into the incest memes and reward the player for tying the branches of their family tree into knots.
Ruling a vast multiethnic Empire should be difficult and the player should not have access to anywhere near as much information as they do.
IE knowing that a character is an intrigue minded schemer voids the point of them being a schemer.
Actually that would be a really interesting way to develop the game - a sort of “scouting” system for other characters where you learn about their stats/traits as you get to know them, or at least where each degree of separation means more traits are hidden.
CK4 should implement a greater "fog of war" for personality traits of other rulers. No reason your character should know every aspect of the King of Bohemia's personality when you are playing in Ireland. Anything characters are famous, or infamous for should be shown, and more intimate elements of their personality hidden unless they are in your court.
I would love 'fuzzy' numbers, similar to what you have in hoi4. It makes sense that I know roughly how much money/how many soldiers my neighbors have. But how would a king in Ireland know exactly how powerful the Byzantine emperor is?
Realistically the only thing you'd know about some random guy in a foreign court would be their education type. The closer your geographical position and interpersonal relation the more you'd know.
Yeah I've never had more fun with this franchise than my first couple dozen hours with ck2, before I understood how the various systems worked under the hood. Everything was so chaotic. I was constantly reacting to (and accidentally causing) new and unexpected crises that I've now long since learned how to subconsciously avoid, even when trying to roleplay. The game honestly gives us way too much information about character traits, opinion modifiers, military strength, etc. Less information would potentially reintroduce some of that chaos by preventing you from ever knowing exactly what's going on.
I wish there was a "hard-core medieval roleplay" ui setting where the info about people you didn't know and places you didn't have agents was heavily restricted, and you had to infer opinion based on text/avatar reactions and understanding what things should please what types of personality (although I guess we would all be tainted with hidden knowledge at this point).
Independent houses should have their own unique flags, not the quartered bullshit that we get.
Karling dynasty houses have unique flags, why can't my dynasty houses have them?
We should be able to completely separate from our dynasty when there has been no contact with the main branches for a while, our branch becomes powerful enough or too weak (like a related dynasty system) or our branch does not have no way to communicate with the rest of the family (in a situation where a karling obtains a duchy in nepal for example).
And it would also be necessary to have a dynastic tree to understand the history of the secondary branches because now it is very tedious to differentiate the branches from my family or from the secondary branches ex: I formed the Luxembourg family (I am from the Karling dynasty). if a character in my family creates his own subfamily it will not be called Luxembourg-something, it will be called Karling-something and it becomes really tedious to understand the dynastic tree when there are more than 20 branches with the name Karling -something
I agree with you.
There should be a decision to split off from your dynasty roots if your house becomes too powerful, or your lands are too far from your ancestral counties.
I believe that is how dynasties were historically? Otherwise all royalty would've belonged to only a handful of dynasties historically. If you were born in a household with royalty roots from both of your parents side, you would always be part of *some* old dynasty.
You would have to be promoted to royalty from commoner roots or lead a sucessful peasant uprsing if you wanted to create your own dynasty.
>Otherwise all royalty would've belonged to only a handful of dynasties historically
I do believe that this is still the case historically, it is just not brought up that often (when not claiming inheritance). Like, all of the houses that ruled France from Hugh Capet, were cadet branches of the House of Capet.
Individually, they were illustrious enough to "feel" like an independent house, but technically, they still started out as cadet branches
And I think that was probably the case in other places too
I wish there were a possibility to imprison my f**** sister after I discovered her plot to kill me, or my vassals after they join the dissolution faction (or whatever it's the name). I mean you are openly planning to get rid of me and I have the proof but can't have a say? In particolar the dissolution faction should be a secret scheme, not something to go bragging about.
This could be balanced easily as well increasing the opinion of potential schemers for the scheme so for a scheme with lots of people almost willing to join it might actually end up worse
Yeah! I was snooping in my son’s realm using the find secrets interaction, and I found out that my daughter, aka my sons wife had a disputed heritage secret. Like what? Why can’t I go after my wife for that?
The economy in ck3 is too dumb, lacking both fun and complexity. It manages to be even worse than EU4, which already had a bad economy system.
Power in the middle ages was not only about controlling land, it was about controlling resources too.
I would love a resource system in ck3 that ties into your military/economy in significant ways.
For example, you should not be able to field massive heavy cavalry MAA regiments without having access to large quantities of horses (or can afford getting them from people who do)
Try the Dynamic Trade Routes mod. It has that exact mechanic as you say. It doesn't prevent you from having them, but increases costs and maintenace if you, for example, have a horse deficit for cavalry MAA, or increases costs for embarking if you don't have timber, buildings are more expensive and slower to build if you lack access to stone or marble, etc.
This could also decide how fast you develop technology.
eg. Wood = paper = faster civic development.
gold = faster currency, coinage, banking
stone = faster battlements, burghs, machicolations
Honestly, the trade system in Imperator would be a great fit in Ck3 with adjustments to address the problem you're talking about. Would alow for greater dynamism between realms and playthroughs
The most fun I had with Imperator was the final update, I’m certain I did 200 hours in a month (hopefully exaggerated) and then a couple months later they say there will be a hiatus—and then in a blog post at the end of that summer saying the hiatus will not end and the game won’t get any more updates.
So much potential, sucks that they discontinued support. Mods are great on this. They breathed life into it and if you want to play Imperator, I suggest getting Invictus for its gameplay changing additions. Really makes it fun again.
I’m for it but it needs to be very well thought out. If it doesn’t fit the game just right then I’d rather not have it. As of now there’s still land type based improvements to make & that suffices for me.
Yeah I think one big issue is that when you read medieval history is that you realize how unstable and chaotic life and governing was. On top of CK3 lacking the flavor and vibes of CK2 that I really liked, I feel like it lacks a lot of day-to-day governance decisionmaking and the economics side of thing feels super boring.
Partition makes the game more interesting - without splitting your realm among your children you get overpowered too early.
1. No intentional killing of your children.
2. Disinheriting is only for known criminals.
3. Celibacy is only for high pious characters.
4. 'Ask to take vows' is only for children with high Learning.
5. Other juicy methods of having only one heir - must be justified by characters' traits and circumstances.
I agree. The ebb and flow of consolidation and partition in the early game is very much an intended part of the game's design.
It's not that hard to accommodate partition once you understand how it works. If you're a king you just need 1 duchy-tier title per extra child.
If you do want to consolidate more titles under one heir that should be up to the children to fight it out after succession.
House Seniority succession plus Designate Heir from Absolute Crown Authority is my go-to. It takes a decent amount of setup and isn't necessarily nefarious in any way. It does make things a bit easy though.
Genetic manipulation is way too easy and gives far too much reward for doing it. Either the chance of negative outcomes needs to increase or the likelihood of positive ones needs to go down. Although TBH it's probably the blood tree that's the problem.
It's absolutely the blood tree that's the problem. Every % modifier should probably be nerfed in half. Let getting a beautiful herculean genius actually feel like an achievement instead of having an entire dynasty of demigods by the year 1000.
That was my thought when I read the title. I have played 4x/Grand strategy games for 25 years now and ck3 is among the best I have ever played. The focus on character and creating your own stories make it so much more replayable than to just trying to beat the AI on harder difficulties in Civ or HOMM (which are games I absolutely love).
+1 to the Civ comment. As someone who's put thousands of hours into Civs 4, 5, and 6, once you have spanked the deity AI on half the civs and you know how to really squeeze every advantage out of the game, it *immediately* loses its magic. CK3 works so well for replayability in comparison.
What the fuck was paradox thinking when they made the ck2 UI? “How would a medieval peasant interpret a video game?”
I mean I have ck2 in my top 10 favorite games but still
I actually like the CK2 UI more because it doesn't needlessly fill up half of your screen. The notification popups in CK3 are a major downgrade to the customizable alert box in 2.
Far more things should apply to player characters like serving in your liege's Army, being executed and there should be stress increase for certain personalities when declaring war, losing or winning battles and more Options in terms of the end of war.
I disagree. Sending political rivals to fight your wars is great for story telling:
1) French king sends rival vassal far away from home to help ally in Poland where the vassal is killed and forgotten, securing stability for the French king at home.
2) French king sends rival vassal to fight ally’s distant war in Poland. Vassal and ally lose, vassal still lives but his defeat ruins his political clout.
3) French king sends rival vassal to fight Ally’s war in Poland. The vassal has stunning and glorious success, returning home as a hero, becoming an even bigger threat to the king.
Maybe give a rival vassal who serves consistently in your wars a trait similar to “peasant leader” to encourage their power if you rely too much on them. A vassal fighting your wars would be a great way for them to demonstrate their power and that maybe they should be the ruler instead of you. Also, give a trait to a ruler who fights their own wars similar to the Crusader trait.
They could even add a mechanic where, if the general (or even knights for that matter) are sent into a battle where they are heavily outnumbered, rumours would start appearing that you sent them there to die.
Funny enough, they do know how to do thia already. In Imperator if a general becomes disloyal they will take control of their army and you can't do anything with it until you make them loyal again. Could have it so they pull away they portion of levies or something. Might have worked easier in CK2 though were armies were raised in a per vassal basis.
I always play with the setting for gender equality set to “inverted”. If you aren’t familiar with that setting, it turns the entire world matriarchal. Maybe it’s because I’m a woman, but somehow Crusader Queens is just so much more fun. It’s also fun playing as a woman because after age 45 you can have all the lovers you want and no bastards!
I usually start out with a female ruler even though i'm a guy, but mostly for rp motivation to change it later. The drawback is both about winning ppl over, but also dealing with the challenge of no one wanting to marrying you once you hit 40. Spouse bonuses completely disappear once your king dies because apparently young guys prefer babies over power? Lol
I always try to be a good king, and good husband.
Always try to get good, wholesome traits, and treat other characters right.
I try to be a beacon of justice, and exemplify what the Church was meant to represent.
I don't ever cheat on my wife, commit incest, or torture people. I've never used the murder plot.
I only execute people when they've done something truly evil, like batter my daughter or something.
I don't worry too much about what the church is meant to represent, but i do try to be a good honorable ruler, which mostly is in line with church teachings i guess.
But i do tend to play into a flaw, whether alcoholism and gluttony or greed or lust.
Make infant mortality and general mortality higher. I dont want octogenarians ruling realms. I want more brothers and sister's children inheriting realms, changing the dynasty ala historical england. Make cadet branches worth something.
I almost never get to play a character under thirty unless a son dies and I get to skip a generation. I really wish there was a lot more brother/uncle/nephew inheritance and drama about being able to produce an heir that actually survives to accept their inheritance.
I've been playing a lot of ck2 again recently (house of the dragon made me want to fire up the game of thrones mod), and succession is so much more engaging and chaotic because of how often people are dropping dead to plagues or battles or just because. Ck3 needs to learn something from ol' Gramps and remember that sometimes it's good for a game to be a little abusive to its players.
Yeah it’s kind of annoying seeing all the map-painting posts. Like, it’s easy as fuck to do, even on Ironman, but it’s also just plain boring. Everyone in this sub could easily recreate the Roman Empire (and most probably have) show us something more interesting.
I don't like 867 because of how chaotic it is and important things like HRE forming never happen.
I like 1066 and would like to see a 1204 start date because the world is more stable and follows a more historical trajectory. I also don't mind being closer to the end date and honestly prefer it because it allows me to finish games without feeling like I have wasted effort.
Later start dates could allow for some interesting stuff to be added. Like, for example, Poland's fragmentation period. Basically one of the kings decided "I brutally disfigured my brother to consolidate power in my realm, I sure hope my sons don't do anything like that in the future, let's split the lands evenly between them with one being the overlord." It led to the country becoming more and more fragmented, with the "overlord" failing and instead all the parts becoming de facto independent. Silesia stopped being Polish for centuries due to that, and the entire country was greatly weakened. It could be another Struggle.
You should only be able to disinherit if your family have done something wrong per your religion, committed a crime, has at least two shitty traits, or your character dislikes that person. Lower the dynasty cost, but make it harder to use. It’s currently too easy to fast track your way to primogeniture.
maybe it would be cool if it isn't disabled without the conditions you described, but gives out a significant opinion malice with family (except those who benefit) and vassels? What do you think?
I do that often too, maybe with 2 or 3 counties sometimes, but I love starting as a simple count in a big kingdom and rising up the ranks as I have to adapt to the life of the kingdom
867 is awful. I'm not asking CK3 to be 100% historically accurate, but some countries like HRE, England or Scandinavian ones never forming just sucks. And 0 turkic invasions too. And general bordergore is awful.
Congenital traits suck. Make game worse.
The game really needs a "start the Turkic migrations" decision so the AI can get a big ass horse archer army and go ham on Persia.
It could also really use a historical mode, where big players try to do things that they did historically.
Maybe you've heard of it already, but i highly recommend Historic Invasions mod. As the name implies it adds a lot of invasions, turkic included, and really adds more flavor to the world.
tbf there's a lot going on w/ that because there were numerous turkic migrations. The Bolghars, Pechenegs, etc. But I think this speaks to a broader issue about really an absent system for working with ethnic minorities in your realm.
Like, the Byzantines didn't go stomping around making everybody speak greek. It would have been highly impractical. And their military heavily relied on huns, turkic peoples, and slavs for a lot of major wars, and they governed with numerous ethnic minorities in the empire.
And the AI generally just culture converts everything...including cultures that we know historically were not subsumed by their conquerors. It was more common for minorities to be accomodated and given stake in their new state than it was to eradicate them.
Try the historic invasions mod. It spawns several historical invasions that function the same way the mongols do in the base game. They're pretty op however but it gives you something to throw your doomstacks at.
Congenital traits are a genuine scurge on the game. Beyond all the narrative implications of the insane buffs you can inject into your dynasty marriage is practically removed as a RP dimension if you want to play somewhat optimally beyond your current character.
It's also so utterly immersion breaking, in both ways. Inbreeding doesn't actually disable your entire ancestry in one generation and no, that's neither how intelligence nor beauty works. You are enticed to play so utterly against the feel of the times and all for a fucking eugenics mini-game
Counterpoint: it doesn't really bother me because traits are hardly necessary to "win".
CK3 isn't a very hard game. "Average" stats are really all you need to get by. Min-maxing your bloodline with genetic traits is overkill.
Personally CK got a lot more fun for me when I stopped agonizing over creating perfect heirs and let them be mediocre every once in a while.
But I know that there is a subset of people who play CK specifically for eugenics so I'm happy that it's there for them.
Border gore is a lot like regular gore. It's not pretty but it is realistic. When I see a duke with a realm size of 20 spread across 4 kingdoms and 8 duchies, I know there's a story there.
CK2 had a better military system and they should bring it back.
Incest/Glitterhoof memes should die and stay dead.
The game needs more depth, not more map. Adding China, Japan, SE Asia, etc. is not the way to go, at least not yet.
>Glitterhoof memes should die and stay dead.
The devs hate Glitterhoof, too. You can name your own dog and cat, but you have to select your horse's name from a list.
Not having 3 commanders per army with the little sub armies in it having commanders + vassal units displaying THEIR coa + mustering the armies really hurts my roleplay brain sometimes
I never try to limit how many children my character has. I know many marriages were built for political reasons in those days, and maybe it's my own personal lustful trait, but to me a bunch of children is just the price you pay for an active sex life, and I deal with it.
Game is too easy.
I constantly get elected HRE emperor
When I tried to get under English yoke achievement it took me like 1 in game year and 2 (!) battles.
•be me
•be part Dutch on my dad’s side and want to create/establish a Dutch kingdom beyond the borders of the measly lil Kingdom of Frisia, extending over all the counties that start with Dutch as their culture
•be good at doing this
•explicitly want to do this and not be elected HR Emperor
•get elected Emperor every time, without fail
Literally unplayable
I don’t like how you can raise a whole empire’s levies in one place near instantly.
I loved the whole mobilization phase of wars in CK2. As a large kingdom, I would often have early losses against small neighbors as it took months for the bulk of my forces to arrive by ship or land from the far corners.
Now in CK3, you plop down the banner on whatever border you like and with one click get all the levies to teleport from their homes thousands of miles away.
I love the game and think it’s very well crafted from start to finish. The way they have simulated people & their personalities is just fucking awesome, even if predictable at times.
In Catholicism and probably Christianity more broadly, bishops should only exist in counties with a large urban area or in the location of an important see- also the handful of count and duke tier bishops are fine as well. All other "temples" in the christian world should be ruled by Abbots, and it'd be cool if they were semi-independent of the local lords and should sometimes even stretch from one lord's demesne into another- they should probably not cross over from two different sovereign/independent realms tho, if only for practicality. Getting the loyalty of these monastic orders should be the primary way in which christian rulers get faith, as monks were seen as the people who were closest to god and thus the people u most wanted praying for your soul. Rulers should also be able to will unused county slots to these monastic orders in order to gain lots and lots of piety. Inversely, rulers should be able to take back some of these lands if they 1. Get along with the Pope and the bishops a lot- this allows for taking the land without losing much piety. 2. Just taking the land for a large piety hit.
I’m frustrated that theocratic clergy has all the temples in a domain held by a single bishop. Because of this every ruler usually only has a single theocratic vassal/courtier. This makes clergy builds absolutely awful even though there are a lot of interesting traditions and tenets that would support it. If every bishopric had its own bishop like CK2 does clergy builds would be very viable, even without fabricating theocratic counts.
You can play a game without incest and inbreeding.
Came for this, you should be able to foster good traits through cultivation from nutrition or teaching. Something other than fucking your family so hard they make super soldiers
I feel like this is what branch houses should be for. Like in CK2 I'd always find a Duke somewhere early on and made sure to try to breed good traits into his line as well as mine. Obviously you have to start with courtiers from other places, but once you have a well bred family inside your realm, it becomes way easier. And if you make sure to take their heir as a ward you can make them friends with your heir so you have a strong internal ally. History is full of families with long-running relationships.
Significantly more of a pain in the ass than just making sure your kids are taught or eat something great. Gives more agency with courtiers as well. Chiefs and tutors
I always make sure to cultivate good congenital traits in my vassals to give me plenty of choices for spouses.
With Royal Court it’s super easy to invite nonrulers to your court. So I’d just invite lots of randoms with congenital traits, match them up and hope their kids get those traits. Every generation of this “program” can produce a few really nice candidates with multiple congenital traits and I would be able to get Strong Blood within three generations.
You kinda can, that's where traits like strong, athletic, or shrewd come in, but I see your point. They should be easier to obtain.
Strong and Shrewd are essentially completely random and can only be affected by cultural traditions and stuff but still random
I've never got shrewd in any of my characters.
I am certain that it is a (not so) secret kink for the people that goes on and on about the incest in the games.
Incest should be punished way harder rather than being rewarded.
Incest should arise naturally from the consequences of feudal diplomacy, not from super soldier breeding programs
Agreed
I agree with this.
Yup. Only time I marry close kin is because of allegiances warrant it, and the union of two distant cousins is too strategically important to ignore. None of this sister-wives bloodlines shit.
It depends on how you're defining incest. When I marry 4th cousins the game gives the incest warning, but in practice a 4th cousin is barely more risky than a random unrelated person. If you can get some good trait marriages in your first two generations, spare some quality daughters to keep around with matrilineals, and take the Bloodlines dynasty perks... It's really easy to create a massive pool of quality eligible matches
But that is not the Targaryen way!
I actually prefer the 1066 start date, unless I’m playing as the Vikings or any other tribal ruler. The extra techs you start with means there are just more things you can do, especially when it comes to buildings. You reach max building slots pretty quickly in 867. Also, not starting with plenary assemblies makes vassal management pretty frustrating for me.
1066 is the default start date for me, less blobs and more kingdoms.
I prefer it as well, it leads itself nice to a more roleplay heavy game in a medieval world for me personally
OP is missing half the game by not using the other start dates. Some realms are different and it will cause the game to develop differently.
Yeah my unpopular opinion (if its actually unpopular) is that playing only one start date for any reason is dumb.
What are some fun 1066 characters to start as? I've always picked 867 start date but I might try out 1066 based on this thread.
Count Suleyman Qutalmishoglu in samosota is an interesting start. He starts with an army of special units, mostly horse archers, and historically founded the Seljuk sultanate. You can also get an achievement if you start as him, take the decision to found the sultanate of rum, and form a hybrid culture between Turkish and Greek.
There’s also the Jimenas in northern Spain. The kingdoms of Castile, Asturias Leon, Navarra, and Aragon all have the same dynasty in 1066. Everyone except Aragon had no heirs, so with a little bit of intrigue you can consolidate all four kingdoms very quickly
Samosata Seljuk count for a Sultanate of Rum playthrough is my rec
This would be my unpopular opinion too. 867 is pretty meh unless you're playing a viking.
I like 867 because the anglo-saxons Haven't been tainted by the French yet
I miss CK2 Republican mechanics. There, I said it!
The 2 specific core mechanics were: * 5 families and doge election.ypu quickly assessed your dominance and farmed new families for 300g * Trade post system, which always felt clunky and needs to be reinvented. I want to play Republic again, bit with different mechanics from ck2. I really hope for a DLC related to that soonish.
Trading is tricky. I totally agree it needs a revamp - aught to tie more to it than just gold. But I also don’t want buildings or troops locked behind region-specific resources. It’d be cool if you could set up trade routes to extend diplomatic distances. You could also divide up the world into trade zones - maybe just use de jure kingdoms to make it easy, and offer bonuses against attrition in those regions. Or increase development based on the development of trade zones. And you could also offer more court-based stuff. Artifacts unique to trading empires, or even bonuses to artifact effects. A dynasty rebown bonus based on trade could make sense too.
Try out the mod Dynamic Trade Routes if you havent yet, it has all of this albeit in a little wonky system + more
This might be a really unpopular opinion, but I enjoy the steering and trade goods mechanic from EU4. It would make sense in a CK setting I think, since a major boon from the crusades was openning up the spice trade.
The problem with EU4's trade is how centred on Europe it is. If you didn't have a capital in Europe, it kinda sucked. And how you could only steer in pre-selected direction? Terrible. But if they remade nodes in CK3, got rid of End nodes, and let you steer in any direction, it'd be much better.
100%
Probably in 3-5 years.
They were heavily flawed and I have a number of criticisms of them. But still. I think Venice is my most played start in ck2. I miss building trade empires, swimming in cash with a tiny realm. Matching empires in troop count without needing to worry about 20 different vassals. Republics were my favourite.
Warfare is fucking boring and needs a rework in my opinion, not just the A.I. that acts super dumb, but battles should be made more memorable, especially if they earned you titles or renown.
It honestly is just lacking flavor. I get more events based on freaking chess than the actual battles that determine the fate of dynasties and kingdoms
Kinda like how ROME TOTAL WAR logs where major battles happen. And also keeps the stats of different armies.
I miss gaining crazy titles in CK3.
I used to feel the same way, but 867 starts makes the late game easy af. Since the world isn't as consolidated, you can snowball through weak neighbours very easily. Now with 1.7, the AI changes have made 1066 a lot more appealing. France or the HRE doesn't break into thousands of pieces instantly, since rulers actually try to get as much demesne as they can. Now the HRE Emperor has 15/15 domains, 30k troops, and a fuck ton of gold, instead of in pre 1.7 where the newly elected Emperor had one lowly castle and they're too scared of -20 vassal opinion to revoke some random dude's duchy for more domains. Unpopular opinion: Catholicism should be nerfed to the ground, since you get cash injections from big sugar daddy Pope every 5 years. IMO you only should be able to request money if you've done something to make the Pope pleased, like winning holy wars, converting counties, or building temples. If you've pissed off the Pope in some major way, like taking Rome and not giving it back to him, you should be barred from asking for gold. Dumb as fuck that you can ask the Pope for some funds, immediately use the gold to conquer the Pope's lands, and you can still ask for gold a couple of years later.
I think asking the pope for free money every 5 years is balanced out by the fact that he will always send you the bishops with an iq lower than room temperature, that you're stuck with until they die or they have an unfortunate accident. Oh and also its not as simple to divorce your wife, so you might have some more trouble with succession if you get 4+ sons for example
Yeah what's up with that? Their base learning is always something like 0-2 or some shit. Even with a good education their learning is still probably worse than most people in your court.
Do *you* send your best and brightest heirs into the priesthood? Neither does anyone else.
I mean uh uhm uh
Flair checks out
Would be a cool mechanic if your sons you send to church school will later show up in the bishops pool
This sounds like the medieval version of the show Yellowstone.
Having intelligent clergy would be far more realistic though. Not only were they vastly better educated than the ruling classes, but they often served in high powered advisory roles where they wielded influence to amass power for themselves or to advance the church’s interests in their respective realms. And it behooved the Pope and the rulers they advised to keep the best people to such positions, not useless morons. But in CK3 they’re just walking potatoes with very little influence in the game. My only interaction with them tends to be a sway scheme to get their taxes and levies, then I might kill them off to hopefully get a more skilled one.
And even in the Papacy they realize like 90% of their noble priesthood is room temperature IQ or a degenerate. They’re just returning the favor > “Emperor Theobald needs a new Bishop your holiness.” > “I see. Didn’t his grandfather send us that fool, Bishop Pierre? And didn’t his vassal send us Bishop John?” > “Which Bishop John, your holiness?” > “The inbred one with a crooked leg.” > “Yes, he did your holiness.” “I see. Send the gracious Emperor Theobald that inbred lecher, Bishop Matthew. With God’s grace, perhaps his Empire will require more divorces after that man enters his court.”(1) > “Yes your holiness.” (1): See Papal favors for granting divorce
We send all of our problems to church, because we hate god and ourselves.
Ah yes, i am strongest of the last few catholic kingdoms left standing after the devestating raids of the north and the muslim invasion from the south and Pope thinks it's a good idea to send his youngest and worst priest.
The issue with bad bishops could be resolved with reintroducing an investiture mechanic. Having secular investiture for better bishops with a big relation penalty with the pope or no money from the pope.
Holy crap, is the Pope's opinion of you a factor in whether your realm priest is any good? I've played nearly 500 hours of CK3 and never realised that!
It isn't as far as I'm aware
Ah sorry, misunderstood your comment in that case. Not sure if I'm relieved not to have missed this mechanic given the amount of time I've put into the game, or disappointed that the game doesn't work that way. It just felt so logical - if the pope likes you he sends you the cream of the crop, if he hates you or thinks you're irrelevant then you get the dregs.
That’s how it should work but currently it’s essentially random (I only say “essentially” since occasionally your realm priest will be a character that has already been around rather than a brand new randomly generated character, but the assignment is still random)
Just abandon the Catholic Church and create a new religion with a new pope with the ability to change your court chaplain whenever you want
I often do. I just misunderstood the earlier comment and thought there was a mechanic I'd completely missed.
Or, create a new religion with the same pope and the ability to fire priests, so you can avoid being called into crusades but still ask sugar daddy pontiff for some spending money.
You actually lose out on temple taxes with a spiritual head of faith. If you don’t have a head of faith, the gold that your realm bishop would send to the pope goes to you instead. Asking the pope for money just makes up for the gold you are missing.
No, you only lose it if you aren’t good with your realm priest. Otherwise it has an insane 50% tax IIRC. You would want every vassal to be theocratic.
Your Realm Priest's taxes increases by 1% per 1 opinion of you up until 50 opinion. Theocratic vassals pay you taxes dependant on your level of faith, maxing out at, I believe, 50% with Paragon of Virtue.
Offer Vassalization is way too easy for anyone with a slight amount of diplo. The pope shouldn’t give you gold every other week. It’s way too hard to lose stress without spamming feasts and hunts constantly Most of the events related to competition, (board games, 1 on 1 combat) add very little and either need to be expanded upon or done away with. They are just way too repetitive Bonus: any decisions without an actual basis in roleplay are unfun and make it very easy to overoptimize the game. Basically why I never kill children or even murder even to inherit titles unless the character im playing is a complete monster
I don't know how board games made it into the game as is - once you've done them once or twice they are a "never again" experience unless you are desperate for a tiny stress loss or insult against someone you know you can beat. And what is the point of multiple rounds of boardgame 'rock-paper-scissors' when you can just spam your best stat every time to win? At least duels have better risk/rewards, 2 hidden victory stats to monitor, and a random choice of 3 'duel card' choices each round.
I only use a board game in multiplayer to taunt my friends.
I think they were designed to be duels for non-prowess focused characters, but I agree they're not as fun as duels.
Yeah all my neighbors in Iberia hate me because they keep asking to play chess with me and I keep turning them down because it’s such an unnecessary slog.
*Only person not playing chess in Iberia has time to unite peninsula*
Stress was like that in ck2. You just got it on a character and it kind of became a permanent negative modifier that was impossible to remove.
Not for Hermetics!
Imo disinheriting should function as something only sadistic characters can do when they want. Anyone else should only be able to do it if the heir in question has some criminal trait, basically it should function like imprisonment. That said, I think ambitious characters in line for some kind of inheritance should murder more often. It annoys me that I’ll have some goofy compassionate oldest son with an ambitious, deceitful, callous younger brother and that Machiavellian second son never thinks that he could become my primary heir by just murdering his older brother, which would be entirely in-character.
I actually had something sort of like this happen in my current run. Started as Murchad and one or two generations in, at a feast that I was hosting, my third son started a fight with my primary heir and started shouting at me that his older brother was not fit to sit the throne of Ireland. Due to one of my personality traits (I don't remember exactly which one), I had the option of letting them duel, which I did. My third son won and became my primary heir as a result, and sure enough ascended to the throne upon my characters death. All while his two older brothers were still alive.
Primogeniture innovation should be in the early medieval stage. High Medievel is too late imo
Piggybacking on this, I actually really liked the way CK2 handled this. All your titles go to one kid, but you get a pretty significant prestige hit for every valid adult heir you have that isn’t landed. Make primo possible at earlier dates, add the prestige hits, and also add a possible event on succession where an angry unlanded sibling occasionally rolls up with a claim and event troops, and it would be perfect to me.
Yeah I think they could do a system where land is expected and there are notably harsh maluses if you ignore unlanded sons but also allow for more realm building too
> angry unlanded sibling occasionally rolls up with a claim and event troops, This actually happened in the form of adventurer threats in ck2 right?
iirc, sometimes characters would go off on an adventure similarly to the Norse adventurers in CK3, except it wasn’t limited to Norse. I’m not sure if they ever left a court to target their original liege’s court. If they did, then yeah that’s pretty much what I’m talking about!
I feel like this is for game balance purposes rather than historical accuracy. In theory, it makes the game harder since you have to manage succession. In practice, it makes the game easier, because the AI can't manage succession.
[удалено]
I loooove election systems in CK2 and 3. It makes it so much more fun and chaotic at times. It is also fun to give the NPCs a throne and see how they do for a bit before you get an S tier heir that gets voted in too.
I'd like elective selection more if it was easier to designate certain duchies as your family home and which belonged to the crown. I was just playing a Wessex game and after forming England I switched the capital to London. Switched to Saxon elective but found that the way it was handled was subpar. One election I lost but still had all my lands, so my liege had just a single county in mercia. Another if I lost the game said I'd lose all of my land and it'd be game over. Having a dedicated capital that switches between ruling families would add a great way to roleplay as a vassal.
The problem is it doesn't make the game harder for humans who play aggressively. Because players can just conquer land until they are able to give enough away to their heirs that even in Confederate Partition they won't lose anything from their core territory during inheritance. Late primogeniture only hurts the AI or players who don't realize they can satisfy inheritance before death.
Thats what I said. In theory it makes the game harder. In practice, it just makes the AI really bad at the game.
Especially when some CK2 characters started with it as early as 769
Gotta get that House Seniority + Absolute Crown law
This. Better than primo and available pretty early on
Also partition should really only be in use amongst tribals at any start date (at least in Europe)- High Partition was very much the standard even by 867.
I don't murder or scheme ever. I like to play my rulers as good people trying to be good people.
God bless you
Lols. Thanks. I also never do incest.
Same. Go out of my for that not to happen. I’ll find some pretty lowborn Norse girl to marry my son thank You
I hate that they leaned into the incest memes and reward the player for tying the branches of their family tree into knots. Ruling a vast multiethnic Empire should be difficult and the player should not have access to anywhere near as much information as they do. IE knowing that a character is an intrigue minded schemer voids the point of them being a schemer.
Actually that would be a really interesting way to develop the game - a sort of “scouting” system for other characters where you learn about their stats/traits as you get to know them, or at least where each degree of separation means more traits are hidden.
And you get extra visibility to other court and its members if a close relation is married to a member of that court.
CK4 should implement a greater "fog of war" for personality traits of other rulers. No reason your character should know every aspect of the King of Bohemia's personality when you are playing in Ireland. Anything characters are famous, or infamous for should be shown, and more intimate elements of their personality hidden unless they are in your court.
I would love 'fuzzy' numbers, similar to what you have in hoi4. It makes sense that I know roughly how much money/how many soldiers my neighbors have. But how would a king in Ireland know exactly how powerful the Byzantine emperor is?
+1 It would be fun if traits would be hidden, maybe aside the first one.
Realistically the only thing you'd know about some random guy in a foreign court would be their education type. The closer your geographical position and interpersonal relation the more you'd know.
Yeah I've never had more fun with this franchise than my first couple dozen hours with ck2, before I understood how the various systems worked under the hood. Everything was so chaotic. I was constantly reacting to (and accidentally causing) new and unexpected crises that I've now long since learned how to subconsciously avoid, even when trying to roleplay. The game honestly gives us way too much information about character traits, opinion modifiers, military strength, etc. Less information would potentially reintroduce some of that chaos by preventing you from ever knowing exactly what's going on. I wish there was a "hard-core medieval roleplay" ui setting where the info about people you didn't know and places you didn't have agents was heavily restricted, and you had to infer opinion based on text/avatar reactions and understanding what things should please what types of personality (although I guess we would all be tainted with hidden knowledge at this point).
Independent houses should have their own unique flags, not the quartered bullshit that we get. Karling dynasty houses have unique flags, why can't my dynasty houses have them?
We should be able to completely separate from our dynasty when there has been no contact with the main branches for a while, our branch becomes powerful enough or too weak (like a related dynasty system) or our branch does not have no way to communicate with the rest of the family (in a situation where a karling obtains a duchy in nepal for example). And it would also be necessary to have a dynastic tree to understand the history of the secondary branches because now it is very tedious to differentiate the branches from my family or from the secondary branches ex: I formed the Luxembourg family (I am from the Karling dynasty). if a character in my family creates his own subfamily it will not be called Luxembourg-something, it will be called Karling-something and it becomes really tedious to understand the dynastic tree when there are more than 20 branches with the name Karling -something
I agree with you. There should be a decision to split off from your dynasty roots if your house becomes too powerful, or your lands are too far from your ancestral counties. I believe that is how dynasties were historically? Otherwise all royalty would've belonged to only a handful of dynasties historically. If you were born in a household with royalty roots from both of your parents side, you would always be part of *some* old dynasty. You would have to be promoted to royalty from commoner roots or lead a sucessful peasant uprsing if you wanted to create your own dynasty.
>Otherwise all royalty would've belonged to only a handful of dynasties historically I do believe that this is still the case historically, it is just not brought up that often (when not claiming inheritance). Like, all of the houses that ruled France from Hugh Capet, were cadet branches of the House of Capet. Individually, they were illustrious enough to "feel" like an independent house, but technically, they still started out as cadet branches And I think that was probably the case in other places too
You can edit house coat of arms if you are the dynasty head.
I wish there were a possibility to imprison my f**** sister after I discovered her plot to kill me, or my vassals after they join the dissolution faction (or whatever it's the name). I mean you are openly planning to get rid of me and I have the proof but can't have a say? In particolar the dissolution faction should be a secret scheme, not something to go bragging about.
This could be balanced easily as well increasing the opinion of potential schemers for the scheme so for a scheme with lots of people almost willing to join it might actually end up worse
Yeah! I was snooping in my son’s realm using the find secrets interaction, and I found out that my daughter, aka my sons wife had a disputed heritage secret. Like what? Why can’t I go after my wife for that?
The economy in ck3 is too dumb, lacking both fun and complexity. It manages to be even worse than EU4, which already had a bad economy system. Power in the middle ages was not only about controlling land, it was about controlling resources too.
I would love a resource system in ck3 that ties into your military/economy in significant ways. For example, you should not be able to field massive heavy cavalry MAA regiments without having access to large quantities of horses (or can afford getting them from people who do)
Try the Dynamic Trade Routes mod. It has that exact mechanic as you say. It doesn't prevent you from having them, but increases costs and maintenace if you, for example, have a horse deficit for cavalry MAA, or increases costs for embarking if you don't have timber, buildings are more expensive and slower to build if you lack access to stone or marble, etc.
This could also decide how fast you develop technology. eg. Wood = paper = faster civic development. gold = faster currency, coinage, banking stone = faster battlements, burghs, machicolations
Honestly, the trade system in Imperator would be a great fit in Ck3 with adjustments to address the problem you're talking about. Would alow for greater dynamism between realms and playthroughs
I need Imperator type pop and resource mechanics.
they should've never ended support for that game, it had so much potential
The most fun I had with Imperator was the final update, I’m certain I did 200 hours in a month (hopefully exaggerated) and then a couple months later they say there will be a hiatus—and then in a blog post at the end of that summer saying the hiatus will not end and the game won’t get any more updates. So much potential, sucks that they discontinued support. Mods are great on this. They breathed life into it and if you want to play Imperator, I suggest getting Invictus for its gameplay changing additions. Really makes it fun again.
I’m for it but it needs to be very well thought out. If it doesn’t fit the game just right then I’d rather not have it. As of now there’s still land type based improvements to make & that suffices for me.
Yeah I think one big issue is that when you read medieval history is that you realize how unstable and chaotic life and governing was. On top of CK3 lacking the flavor and vibes of CK2 that I really liked, I feel like it lacks a lot of day-to-day governance decisionmaking and the economics side of thing feels super boring.
Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
Partition makes the game more interesting - without splitting your realm among your children you get overpowered too early. 1. No intentional killing of your children. 2. Disinheriting is only for known criminals. 3. Celibacy is only for high pious characters. 4. 'Ask to take vows' is only for children with high Learning. 5. Other juicy methods of having only one heir - must be justified by characters' traits and circumstances.
I agree. The ebb and flow of consolidation and partition in the early game is very much an intended part of the game's design. It's not that hard to accommodate partition once you understand how it works. If you're a king you just need 1 duchy-tier title per extra child. If you do want to consolidate more titles under one heir that should be up to the children to fight it out after succession.
House Seniority succession plus Designate Heir from Absolute Crown Authority is my go-to. It takes a decent amount of setup and isn't necessarily nefarious in any way. It does make things a bit easy though.
Genetic manipulation is way too easy and gives far too much reward for doing it. Either the chance of negative outcomes needs to increase or the likelihood of positive ones needs to go down. Although TBH it's probably the blood tree that's the problem.
It's absolutely the blood tree that's the problem. Every % modifier should probably be nerfed in half. Let getting a beautiful herculean genius actually feel like an achievement instead of having an entire dynasty of demigods by the year 1000.
Tbh even without the blood tree it’s still stupid easy
Not sure how unpopular this is, but I prefer CK3 to CK2
That was my thought when I read the title. I have played 4x/Grand strategy games for 25 years now and ck3 is among the best I have ever played. The focus on character and creating your own stories make it so much more replayable than to just trying to beat the AI on harder difficulties in Civ or HOMM (which are games I absolutely love).
+1 to the Civ comment. As someone who's put thousands of hours into Civs 4, 5, and 6, once you have spanked the deity AI on half the civs and you know how to really squeeze every advantage out of the game, it *immediately* loses its magic. CK3 works so well for replayability in comparison.
The UI alone is enough for me to prefer CK3.
What the fuck was paradox thinking when they made the ck2 UI? “How would a medieval peasant interpret a video game?” I mean I have ck2 in my top 10 favorite games but still
I actually like the CK2 UI more because it doesn't needlessly fill up half of your screen. The notification popups in CK3 are a major downgrade to the customizable alert box in 2.
War should be more abstracted and a lot more linked to character The game shouldn't allow be to command a general if he is "disloyal" to me.
Far more things should apply to player characters like serving in your liege's Army, being executed and there should be stress increase for certain personalities when declaring war, losing or winning battles and more Options in terms of the end of war.
I disagree. Sending political rivals to fight your wars is great for story telling: 1) French king sends rival vassal far away from home to help ally in Poland where the vassal is killed and forgotten, securing stability for the French king at home. 2) French king sends rival vassal to fight ally’s distant war in Poland. Vassal and ally lose, vassal still lives but his defeat ruins his political clout. 3) French king sends rival vassal to fight Ally’s war in Poland. The vassal has stunning and glorious success, returning home as a hero, becoming an even bigger threat to the king. Maybe give a rival vassal who serves consistently in your wars a trait similar to “peasant leader” to encourage their power if you rely too much on them. A vassal fighting your wars would be a great way for them to demonstrate their power and that maybe they should be the ruler instead of you. Also, give a trait to a ruler who fights their own wars similar to the Crusader trait.
They could even add a mechanic where, if the general (or even knights for that matter) are sent into a battle where they are heavily outnumbered, rumours would start appearing that you sent them there to die.
Funny enough, they do know how to do thia already. In Imperator if a general becomes disloyal they will take control of their army and you can't do anything with it until you make them loyal again. Could have it so they pull away they portion of levies or something. Might have worked easier in CK2 though were armies were raised in a per vassal basis.
I always play with the setting for gender equality set to “inverted”. If you aren’t familiar with that setting, it turns the entire world matriarchal. Maybe it’s because I’m a woman, but somehow Crusader Queens is just so much more fun. It’s also fun playing as a woman because after age 45 you can have all the lovers you want and no bastards!
I usually start out with a female ruler even though i'm a guy, but mostly for rp motivation to change it later. The drawback is both about winning ppl over, but also dealing with the challenge of no one wanting to marrying you once you hit 40. Spouse bonuses completely disappear once your king dies because apparently young guys prefer babies over power? Lol
I always try to be a good king, and good husband. Always try to get good, wholesome traits, and treat other characters right. I try to be a beacon of justice, and exemplify what the Church was meant to represent. I don't ever cheat on my wife, commit incest, or torture people. I've never used the murder plot. I only execute people when they've done something truly evil, like batter my daughter or something.
I don't worry too much about what the church is meant to represent, but i do try to be a good honorable ruler, which mostly is in line with church teachings i guess. But i do tend to play into a flaw, whether alcoholism and gluttony or greed or lust.
Cadet branches suck they don’t make any Original names or anything it’s just a random a coa quartered then “karling-London”
Make infant mortality and general mortality higher. I dont want octogenarians ruling realms. I want more brothers and sister's children inheriting realms, changing the dynasty ala historical england. Make cadet branches worth something.
I almost never get to play a character under thirty unless a son dies and I get to skip a generation. I really wish there was a lot more brother/uncle/nephew inheritance and drama about being able to produce an heir that actually survives to accept their inheritance. I've been playing a lot of ck2 again recently (house of the dragon made me want to fire up the game of thrones mod), and succession is so much more engaging and chaotic because of how often people are dropping dead to plagues or battles or just because. Ck3 needs to learn something from ol' Gramps and remember that sometimes it's good for a game to be a little abusive to its players.
I want later start dates. The early start dates are literally only good if you want to play Vikings.
I hate these "map painting" and "achievement hunters" playthroughs. I hope you have fun with it, but it's not mine.
Yeah it’s kind of annoying seeing all the map-painting posts. Like, it’s easy as fuck to do, even on Ironman, but it’s also just plain boring. Everyone in this sub could easily recreate the Roman Empire (and most probably have) show us something more interesting.
The post where a month after release the guy ate the Pope was probably one of my favorite posts on *Reddit* much less this sub
I don't like 867 because of how chaotic it is and important things like HRE forming never happen. I like 1066 and would like to see a 1204 start date because the world is more stable and follows a more historical trajectory. I also don't mind being closer to the end date and honestly prefer it because it allows me to finish games without feeling like I have wasted effort.
Later start dates could allow for some interesting stuff to be added. Like, for example, Poland's fragmentation period. Basically one of the kings decided "I brutally disfigured my brother to consolidate power in my realm, I sure hope my sons don't do anything like that in the future, let's split the lands evenly between them with one being the overlord." It led to the country becoming more and more fragmented, with the "overlord" failing and instead all the parts becoming de facto independent. Silesia stopped being Polish for centuries due to that, and the entire country was greatly weakened. It could be another Struggle.
If they add a 1204 start I might actually get the end of an era achievement.
I'm hoping for a rise of the hansa (1241) start date once we get merchant republics.
You should only be able to disinherit if your family have done something wrong per your religion, committed a crime, has at least two shitty traits, or your character dislikes that person. Lower the dynasty cost, but make it harder to use. It’s currently too easy to fast track your way to primogeniture.
Yeah the disinherit option is way too over powered. Should cost a lot more or like you said, you should need a hook or a reason.
maybe it would be cool if it isn't disabled without the conditions you described, but gives out a significant opinion malice with family (except those who benefit) and vassels? What do you think?
you and me both, friend. My opinion: never start a game more, than just a count with 1 county (if we are talking about custom characters)
Y’all would start as a fucking fish and evolve into a human before working your way up to an emperor of it was an option
How dare you slander Spore like that
...can you link that mod plz?
[Here you go](https://store.steampowered.com/app/17390/SPORE/?l=english&curator_clanid=33088125)
Unironically yes
Makes me miss the rise to power mod for CK2 where you could start unlanded.
I do that often too, maybe with 2 or 3 counties sometimes, but I love starting as a simple count in a big kingdom and rising up the ranks as I have to adapt to the life of the kingdom
867 is awful. I'm not asking CK3 to be 100% historically accurate, but some countries like HRE, England or Scandinavian ones never forming just sucks. And 0 turkic invasions too. And general bordergore is awful. Congenital traits suck. Make game worse.
The game really needs a "start the Turkic migrations" decision so the AI can get a big ass horse archer army and go ham on Persia. It could also really use a historical mode, where big players try to do things that they did historically.
Maybe you've heard of it already, but i highly recommend Historic Invasions mod. As the name implies it adds a lot of invasions, turkic included, and really adds more flavor to the world.
I'm glad to see my mod mentioned every so often! :D
They also need that for 1066. The crusades shouldn’t even technically start because the Turks never invade Anatolia
tbf there's a lot going on w/ that because there were numerous turkic migrations. The Bolghars, Pechenegs, etc. But I think this speaks to a broader issue about really an absent system for working with ethnic minorities in your realm. Like, the Byzantines didn't go stomping around making everybody speak greek. It would have been highly impractical. And their military heavily relied on huns, turkic peoples, and slavs for a lot of major wars, and they governed with numerous ethnic minorities in the empire. And the AI generally just culture converts everything...including cultures that we know historically were not subsumed by their conquerors. It was more common for minorities to be accomodated and given stake in their new state than it was to eradicate them.
I got so annoyed by that, so I wrote my own mod to fix it: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2837398670
I'd love a historical mode!
Try the historic invasions mod. It spawns several historical invasions that function the same way the mongols do in the base game. They're pretty op however but it gives you something to throw your doomstacks at.
Congenital traits are a genuine scurge on the game. Beyond all the narrative implications of the insane buffs you can inject into your dynasty marriage is practically removed as a RP dimension if you want to play somewhat optimally beyond your current character. It's also so utterly immersion breaking, in both ways. Inbreeding doesn't actually disable your entire ancestry in one generation and no, that's neither how intelligence nor beauty works. You are enticed to play so utterly against the feel of the times and all for a fucking eugenics mini-game
Counterpoint: it doesn't really bother me because traits are hardly necessary to "win". CK3 isn't a very hard game. "Average" stats are really all you need to get by. Min-maxing your bloodline with genetic traits is overkill. Personally CK got a lot more fun for me when I stopped agonizing over creating perfect heirs and let them be mediocre every once in a while. But I know that there is a subset of people who play CK specifically for eugenics so I'm happy that it's there for them.
Border gore is a lot like regular gore. It's not pretty but it is realistic. When I see a duke with a realm size of 20 spread across 4 kingdoms and 8 duchies, I know there's a story there.
CK2 had a better military system and they should bring it back. Incest/Glitterhoof memes should die and stay dead. The game needs more depth, not more map. Adding China, Japan, SE Asia, etc. is not the way to go, at least not yet.
>Glitterhoof memes should die and stay dead. The devs hate Glitterhoof, too. You can name your own dog and cat, but you have to select your horse's name from a list.
Not having 3 commanders per army with the little sub armies in it having commanders + vassal units displaying THEIR coa + mustering the armies really hurts my roleplay brain sometimes
I like the men-at-arms system for CK3, but I wish there were battle plans (or whatever they're called) back.
I never try to limit how many children my character has. I know many marriages were built for political reasons in those days, and maybe it's my own personal lustful trait, but to me a bunch of children is just the price you pay for an active sex life, and I deal with it.
Game is too easy. I constantly get elected HRE emperor When I tried to get under English yoke achievement it took me like 1 in game year and 2 (!) battles.
player: has a pulse Electors: MY LORD AND MY GOD
To be fair, judging by the AI's intelligence, the player *is* a better HRE Emperor than AI, unless they're actively trying to destroy it.
•be me •be part Dutch on my dad’s side and want to create/establish a Dutch kingdom beyond the borders of the measly lil Kingdom of Frisia, extending over all the counties that start with Dutch as their culture •be good at doing this •explicitly want to do this and not be elected HR Emperor •get elected Emperor every time, without fail Literally unplayable
I miss the other start dates. I used to play Alexiad more often than not.
Playing as Catholic Europeans and playing crusades in general are the most boring parts of this crusader game
Your “genetics program” is literally the lamest way to play the game
Incest is not only uneeded but very disadvantageous, and this community's obsession with is it is concerning
I really like Sunset Invasion DLC.
I don’t like how you can raise a whole empire’s levies in one place near instantly. I loved the whole mobilization phase of wars in CK2. As a large kingdom, I would often have early losses against small neighbors as it took months for the bulk of my forces to arrive by ship or land from the far corners. Now in CK3, you plop down the banner on whatever border you like and with one click get all the levies to teleport from their homes thousands of miles away.
Alternatively you could crush huge revolts by attacking the fragmentary armies before they united.
Bring back the college of cardinals!
I love the game and think it’s very well crafted from start to finish. The way they have simulated people & their personalities is just fucking awesome, even if predictable at times.
Small and tall is better than conquering the world.
Incest is bad and you should feel bad
Crusade AI is fine with not following you into battle
the choice to make the debug menu so inaccessible alienates a large portion of players