Grand Strategy Crusader Kings III

[Average Manatee]

I think Brave does increase chance of combat deaths. At least it did in CK2 and this was entirely unlabled. The thing is you just... don't have your king fight in combat, because even if craven has 1/10th the chance of dying as Brave, why would you risk it? And every commander becoming Craven after fighting a few battles in CK2 was just annoying bullshit honestly.

 

[IDtenT]

I've always found Brave a benefit.

 

[Tigranes]

In every iteration, as far as I can recall, Brave has been overwhelmingly positive. And obviously same goes for Ambitious, etc. There's an argument to be made as to whether all traits should have interesting pros and cons such that you are choosing between different types of characters, or whether it's more about having a lot of traits that might be great to terrible but you can't control which you pick up so you have to roll with the punches. CK2/3 does a bit of both, of course, but it tends to be very easy to control your child's education and genetic traits - even without spending a lot of lifestyle points on it. So if we're going to give players so much easy control, then I would suggest that all/most traits should come multiple-edged.

I think Brave does increase chance of combat deaths. At least it did in CK2 and this was entirely unlabled. The thing is you just... don't have your king fight in combat, because even if craven has 1/10th the chance of dying as Brave, why would you risk it? And every commander becoming Craven after fighting a few battles in CK2 was just annoying bullshit honestly.

Well, that's why I think it shouldn't be such a given that your King living until 90 every time is a great thing, and Brave is always better than Craven, and so forth. IMO it's really jarring and boring to have your realm's history reading "King X the Brave, ruled from age 16 to 80, kept his 25 Martial all the way through, succeeded by King Y the Ambitious, ruled from 20 to 70..." which is what happens easily even if you aren't trying to munchkin.

If, for example, a Brave king acquired massive stress from not being out on the field, and you had to choose to put him at some personal risk of injury / craven / etc, and stress actually mattered more, then we'd also have a game where a lot of your characters do pick up multiple stress traits if they've been around for decades and it really does crimp your style. As opposed to now, when I get a Mental Break and I'm just like whatever, half the time it just gives me more bonuses.

All of these mechanics already exist in CK3 and did in CK2 - they just stay at a very mild level so you can lean into that and larp your flawed King, but the base mechanics essentially sit there and say "do whatever you want Oblivion style and be great at everything and live forever!"

 

[Harthwain]

Your realm priest gives you all he can at >0 opinion.

Not to my knowledge:

When a ruler's religion has the Theocratic Doctrine, temples are leased to a realm priest. The realm priest provides their liege with taxes and levies based on their opinion. The minimum is at 0 opinion, where no taxes or levies are provided, and the maximum is at 50 opinion, where 50% of the taxes and 100% of the levies are provided.

 

[Average Manatee]

That's incorrect, check the nested tooltips for your vassal taxation and you'll see it broken down. Only Clans work on opinion (aside from getting no theocratic contribution at <0). Feudal/republics always have the same base value, theocratic is based on devotion rank, tribe is based on prestige rank, clan is based on opinion. Feudal/republic ends up massively weaker than the other 3 when they are at high levels. Which is why you should build church holdings in your demesne rather than cities or castles, you get way, way more out of them.

EDIT: actually if you go to the theocracy tab on the realm screen it just flat out states as much.

 

[Harthwain]

That's incorrect, check the nested tooltips for your vassal taxation and you'll see it broken down. Only Clans work on opinion (aside from getting no theocratic contribution at <0). Feudal/republics always have the same base value, theocratic is based on devotion rank, tribe is based on prestige rank, clan is based on opinion. Feudal/republic ends up massively weaker than the other 3 when they are at high levels. Which is why you should build church holdings in your demesne rather than cities or castles, you get way, way more out of them.

EDIT: actually if you go to the theocracy tab on the realm screen it just flat out states as much.

From the in-game Realm Priest tooltip:

Realm Priests provide their Liege with Levies and Taxes if they have a positive Opinion of them. The higher the Opinion of their Liege, the more they will provide.

 

[Average Manatee]

Where are you seeing that?

I see

Spoiler

And the same is listed on the wiki https://ck3.paradoxwikis.com/Government#Theocracy

If a character's opinion matters it will say something like this

Spoiler

EDIT: OK wait, it's weird. Apparently if clergy LEASE holdings from you, its not a theocratic government, and the rules work as you say. Which is incredibly OP, like you have a county where you own 1 castle but then get 100% of the levies and 50% of the income from 5 churches. And you don't even need devotion, just sway your Chaplain.

 

[Harthwain]

Where are you seeing that?

I see

You are looking at individual vassal-priests who have their individual holdings outside of your domain (but are still under your influence):

Spoiler

I am talking about the realm priest - capo di tutti capi of bishoprics in your personal demesne:

Spoiler

He has 7 titles. All of them are from Bohemia-Moravia, where I rule.

Here is the text itself:

Spoiler

 

[IDtenT]

So the conclusion is build lots of temples in any free holding?

 

[Harthwain]

So the conclusion is build lots of temples in any free holding?

Not quite.

• Castles provide the most levies and the most garrisons and fort levels.
  
• Cities give you the most gold and increase development. Development increases supply limit plus taxes and levies (0.5% increase per point of development).
• Temples are in-between castles and cities in terms of levies and gold (more gold than castles, more levies than cities) and increase control. Every point of control below 100 reduces taxes by 1% and levies by 0.5%. Also, if you have 100 control in a county, it will provide extra levies and taxes if you have Absolute Control perk.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Are they joining factions or rebellions when you try to imprison/revoke something? In the latter case maybe they like the person you are going after a lot?

The latter, I'm triggering a rebellion by trying to revoke a county from a bitch of a countess. It was a good idea, them liking her even more than me. But no, they don't even like her, the three high opinion vassals that join her have -10 opinion of her, where they all have 85+ opinion of me, 100 in case of my sons in laws.

It's also not a faction thing (the three are not in any factions), or a religion thing (she's the one with a different religion here), or a culture thing (different culture as well), or traits (the three have different traits, but none of them are ambitious, deceitful, arbitrary or something like that), or hooks (none of them have any as I just gave them land). I had a thought that maybe it's a family thing - AI sees themselves, their spouse or their kid somewhere in that line of succession of my kingdom, and will try whatever stupid thing it can to push that name one more place to the top. But no, that does not appear to be the case either, I tried disinheriting my daughters before triggering the war to remove that motive, and my idiot sons in laws happily join the rebellion all the same. And this would not explain not-family high opinion vassals that do the same thing.

I guess some people just want to see the world burn? Or it's bugs, can't ever rule that one out with Paradox.

 

[Average Manatee]

So the conclusion is build lots of temples in any free holding?

Yes, always build temples because you get more from them. And keep the tenet that has you lease churches to the priest.

So the conclusion is build lots of temples in any free holding?

Not quite.

• Castles provide the most levies and the most garrisons and fort levels.
  
• Cities give you the most gold and increase development. Development increases supply limit plus taxes and levies (0.5% increase per point of development).
• Temples are in-between castles and cities in terms of levies and gold (more gold than castles, more levies than cities) and increase control. Every point of control below 100 reduces taxes by 1% and levies by 0.5%. Also, if you have 100 control in a county, it will provide extra levies and taxes if you have Absolute Control perk.

This ignores that while e.g. cities generate slightly more base cash, you can only get a maximum of 25% of it while you can get 50% of the churches. Same goes for levies, 100% of church vs. 25% of castle.

Cities/churches/castles are all actually really close to the same amount of total levies and cash they get as a base amount. Unlike CK2 where everything had different buildings, in CK3 they have the same buildings except for 1. The max level church only gives 0.4 gold per month less than the max level city, and the church gives piety gain as well. So by far the most important point is how heavily you can actually tax the vassal in question.

Just make sure you have theocratic tradition rather than lay clergy, since lay clergy actually basically disables theocratic vassals and makes them all nobles with noble-level taxation. Also, again, clans/tribes have their own better than feudal taxation systems.

 

[Deflowerer]

The game runs fine but as has been pointed out, nobody cared about West Africa and India in CK2 and nobody does now with even less content.

I want master races of Asia, China and Japan, but agree that kangs can gtfo.

 

[Hace El Oso]

I want master races of Asia, China and Japan, but agree that kangs can gtfo.

Make them their own game. Oriental Kings.

 

[Deflowerer]

Make them their own game. Oriental Kings.

Paradox can't even give us Vicky III, what hope is there for a fully fleshed out chink-wapan game?

 

[Hace El Oso]

Paradox can't even give us Vicky III, what hope is there for a fully fleshed out chink-wapan game?

Probably none, but at least there could be a game about Crusader Kings.

 

[Tigranes]

All of you are currently playing Crusader Kings, totally ignoring the outer fringes of the map with the fringes never affecting your kingdom in any way, unless you purposefully scroll over there and stoke yourself into outrage

 

[Hace El Oso]

All of you are currently playing Crusader Kings, totally ignoring the outer fringes of the map with the fringes never affecting your kingdom in any way, unless you purposefully scroll over there and stoke yourself into outrage

All the time spent modeling those areas of the map, modeling faces and clothes, creating made-up kingdoms, could be spent adding some measure of variety and depth to the area from which the name of the game derives. That’s to say nothing of all the inevitable expansions and flavor packs that will also be wasted adding a thin coat of paint to the entire planet rather than focusing on anything coherent.

If one cares about Indus Kings or Oriental Kings or Bantu Kings then one would want them to have their own game with mechanics and depth that actually immerses one in those places. But instead, for example, we get a world filled with ‘temples’. Not churches, mosques, monasteries, sacred groves(or whatever) . How about an expansion devoted to Christian monastic communities, and then another one devoted to jihadis? Islamic piracy? No? Alright, let’s add generic global secret societies(satanists xD) and the gobi desert(and gobi desert faces) .

 

[normie]

we want

SENGOKU: SENGOKU

 

[Tigranes]

All of you are currently playing Crusader Kings, totally ignoring the outer fringes of the map with the fringes never affecting your kingdom in any way, unless you purposefully scroll over there and stoke yourself into outrage

All the time spent modeling those areas of the map, modeling faces and clothes, creating made-up kingdoms, could be spent adding some measure of variety and depth to the area from which the name of the game derives. That’s to say nothing of all the inevitable expansions and flavor packs that will also be wasted adding a thin coat of paint to the entire planet rather than focusing on anything coherent.

If one cares about Indus Kings or Oriental Kings or Bantu Kings then one would want them to have their own game with mechanics and depth that actually immerses one in those places. But instead, for example, we get a world filled with ‘temples’. Not churches, mosques, monasteries, sacred groves(or whatever) . How about an expansion devoted to Christian monastic communities, and then another one devoted to jihadis? Islamic piracy? No? Alright, let’s add generic global secret societies(satanists xD) and the gobi desert(and gobi desert faces) .

I agree, and if I were on the dev team, I would have argued against including sub-Saharan Africa or India. But I don't see it as something that "ruins the game" that people keep talking about over and over again.

Beyond the work of modeling the map and filling in the data, it's pretty clear that the core gameplay mechanics are entirely built for Catholic feudal states, and indeed, it's pretty clear that in every Pdox game regardless of map scope, Pdox do not have the ability/willingness to properly model more than one system per game. Hence the Rome games basically assume every single state is some watered down amalgam of Greco-Roman states with some flavour changes, and every state in Victoria is also a kind of paper thin state on the cusp of industrialised optimisation.

So, for example, if I'm on the dev team, I'd say, "what's the point of adding India that isn't even done properly? This game should focus on rendering Republics better" (or the Papacy, etc), but whether they do or don't include India, the result is probably that Republics aren't done properly. (Until the Republic DLC or whatever.)

 

[vonAchdorf]

I miss the conflict about free investiture (and since the bishop is more powerful in this game, it would actually make more sense to risk conflict with the pope to keep the right).

 

[Harthwain]

I agree, and if I were on the dev team, I would have argued against including sub-Saharan Africa or India. But I don't see it as something that "ruins the game" that people keep talking about over and over again.

My guess is this was done so places like North Africa, Middle East and East have to contend with neighbouring powers who aren't limited by map borders. It also gives a good starting point for the Mongols, without it spawning literally out of nowhere in huge numbers. In that context I am fine with it.

I miss the conflict about free investiture (and since the bishop is more powerful in this game, it would actually make more sense to risk conflict with the pope to keep the right).

Same. I would also love for cardinals to matter. Also, they need to make Holy Orders to spawn at some point, because right now I am the only one who made a Holy Order and it's way past time period in which other Orders did appear historically. It would be a good idea to increase requirements to hire a Holy Order too, because right now everyone is hiring them, so they are literally never free to hire, meaning I never get to use them (and I was their founder). Either that or some sort of player-specific time-pausing notification.

 

[wwsd]

Are they joining factions or rebellions when you try to imprison/revoke something? In the latter case maybe they like the person you are going after a lot?

The latter, I'm triggering a rebellion by trying to revoke a county from a bitch of a countess. It was a good idea, them liking her even more than me. But no, they don't even like her, the three high opinion vassals that join her have -10 opinion of her, where they all have 85+ opinion of me, 100 in case of my sons in laws.

It's also not a faction thing (the three are not in any factions), or a religion thing (she's the one with a different religion here), or a culture thing (different culture as well), or traits (the three have different traits, but none of them are ambitious, deceitful, arbitrary or something like that), or hooks (none of them have any as I just gave them land). I had a thought that maybe it's a family thing - AI sees themselves, their spouse or their kid somewhere in that line of succession of my kingdom, and will try whatever stupid thing it can to push that name one more place to the top. But no, that does not appear to be the case either, I tried disinheriting my daughters before triggering the war to remove that motive, and my idiot sons in laws happily join the rebellion all the same. And this would not explain not-family high opinion vassals that do the same thing.

I guess some people just want to see the world burn? Or it's bugs, can't ever rule that one out with Paradox.

This was a thing in CK2 as well, not sure if the mechanic is exactly the same though. In CK2, if someone refuses a title revocation, they start a war against the tyranny and they seem to give all the vassals the option to join. I got this prompt many times when playing as a vassal and it was just a binary yes/no thing. I wonder if there is any rhyme or reason to the AI choosing to join or not, either in CK2 or 3.

 

[Fedora Master]

Jesus, playing on the Isles during the 800s start is a pure nonstop buttfuck from burly Viking men.

 

[IDtenT]

Jesus, playing on the Isles during the 800s start is a pure nonstop buttfuck from burly Viking men.

Just to keep pumping men-at-arms, while allying with strong nations around you.