Grand Strategy Crusader Kings III

[darkpatriot]

Well as I'm sure everyone on this forum knows I'm a massive 3D model hater. In fact the minutes I saw them I decided not to buy the game, or any other Paradox game.

I think the 3D models are absolutely the right call and pretty cool tech, they do help in matters like immersion, being cinematic and such.
(also you can now decide to marry based on which women is hotter to you, which is kinda realistic ngl lol)
Plus they are moddable, its crazy awesome to see Guardians of Azeroth managed to use them to make Warcraft races.

Its just that the game has immense problems elsewhere.

Honestly, where I really want to see the 3D models is in Stellaris 2. You could really get crazy with customizable aliens, people modding their own alien races and posting them on the internet, etc etc. Paradox could easily dunk on Spore big time.

I am also a big fan of the 3D models. It allows more of the focus to be put on the characters. And I also agree fully with CK3s increased focus on the character and roleplaying aspects over the strategy game aspects. While people who are looking for a strategy game with more fleshed out characters may not like it, I am really digging the unique gameplay. So far the major DLCs have all been focused on beefing up the character and roleplaying aspects, so that seems to be the way Paradox as decided to take this game.

I think a robust RPG/life simulator within a strategy game simulation is a pretty fun model and I would like to see some others besides paradox try their hand at it. So far the more indie attempts, like star dynasties, failed because they still were making strategy games and there just wasn't enough role playing/life simulation content.

With CK2 it always seemed kind of silly to offer the ability to play landless characters, despite it being frequently requested. Too many of the mechanics were tied up in actually ruling lands and fighting wars, but I think CK3 may be able to allow it if they keep expanding the roleplaying focus. The main obstacle seems to be that they would theoretically need to generate even more characters that would need to generate events and make decisions which would impact performance (the reason rulers of baronies aren't playable), but if it is strictly limited to generating characters that are necessary for the landless player to interact with, it might just happen one day.

First they have pledged never to allow landless characters, in fact one reason they don't put in Republics and Theocracies is that it is at odds with the dynasty/family sequential character play.

Second you have it all wrong. The role play aspects suck. If the roleplay/character mechanics were deep and awesome I'd be happy. But they aren't. Characters barely interact, most characters are interchangeable and completely indistinguishable from any other character. You must be one of those DnD people who just creates everything in his head canon and doesn't care if the gameplay doesn't actually support anything.

Any game that attempts any kind of emergent storytelling that doesn't engage with and make use of player imagination is missing the entire point.

The mechanics don't need to fully simulate every aspect of something, only enough to provide a skeleton for imagination to take over. Human beings are natural storytellers and also naturally create stories from random and unrelated events. A game looking for any kind of emergent storytelling needs to leverage that in order to be successful.

CK3 is more than successful at this. The initial base game was still lacking in this regard, imo, but the DLCs have managed to add enough additional mechanical elements and events to more than adequately form the necessary skeleton at this point.


I am aware on their comments regarding landless characters, but they are also going to be supporting this game for a long time. And Paradox has never had any issue with deviating from their previous promises and statements in the past. I think there is a 50/50 chance we will see some kind of landless player character gameplay in the coming years. Probably not geared towards playing forever as a landless character, but to allow for some transitional gameplay. Either as a start where you don't start with land, or as a way to keep playing when you lose your land to let you try to get it back or gain new lands.

I want characters to have meaningful differentiation like hobbies, interests, talents, personality, social custom, and ideological preferences, and so on. If I am extroverted and like philosophy and so is another guy we can set up debates with ourselves and maybe a few others and then we are bros. If I like horseriding and nature and so does another guy we can go ride in the forest and do birdwatching or some shit. If we have nothing in common we can't be friends. Like you won't have specific speeches we give at the debate or w/e and the player is still imagining the specific bird we see or the plants in the forest but the characters are differentiated.

"We need 3D models but no social simulation" is a galaxy brain DnD theatre kid moron take.

If you were talking about the base game at release, I would basically agree with you. But it sounds like you haven't actually played any recent versions. Most of those things were added in with Tours and Tournaments, along with many things that you didn't mention, but some of the mechanics and content to define your character, their relation to others, and various social interactions were added in Royal Court. And some of that was already set up in the base game, although not enough to really pull it off.

The 3D models are definitely helpful though. It allows a visual presentation of your character and other characters (Including their status, culture, and even some aspects of their history) during the scenes that are more expressive and even provide details about the characters that just wouldn't be possible with just a single picture, or even static 2D portraits.

You can argue till you are blue in the face that Crusader Kings 3 doesn't have these things, but I have played it (although not with wards and wardens yet) so I know that it accomplishes these things in a more than satisfactory manner. You can't tell me something isn't there when I have see it with my own eyes. There is still room for improvement, but it looks like this is an area that Paradox will be focus on for future mechanics and content. So there will be even more.

I understand how the folks who want a Grand Strategy game would be disappointed though. The direction they have taken and are taking CK3 in is moving it well out of the Grand Strategy wheelhouse and providing that experience. I am fine with that though. Because, while it isn't the most well represented genre, there are still numerous alternative Grand Strategy games to play, while CK3 is unique as I can think of no other game that does the type of gameplay that it does.

Absolutely none of those things were added in T&T. I think maybe you are just not understanding the scope of what I'm describing. Like you can find minor individual examples of something vaguely similar to the words I used or something. Like if I really squint I can sorta say well maybe he's talking about this really minor and simplistic thing and he lacks the context to understand how limited the implementation of it is.

I understand your love affair with deep simulations. But it is not necessary to accomplish the allowing those gameplay decisions for almost all instances.

There are numerous traits associated with various hobbies, talents, and interests. Some preexisting, but more added for T&T. In T&T they also added experience and different levels of many of those traits. And you can absolutely engage in those activities to interact with other characters to establish relationships and pursue other goals.

Personality has always been in the game, and has always been used in a meaningful way via the well-designed stress system. They effectively block you from doing many actions, or rewards you for others, in line with your personality. And this has continued for all the new events added since launch.

Philosophy has a handful of traits associated with it, mostly tied into the personality system, although it is also partly present in the Religious system and culture system. Which impact both the events and actions you have as well as the types of choices during them. Ditto for ideology and social customs.

While I am sure you imagine a deeply complex simulation where all of these are tracked with great granularity, that is just not necessary to accomplish what CK3 does.

It wasn't mentioned in our conversation so far, but the other thing that T&T did that greatly improved the roleplay aspect was the travel system which helps somewhat solve the issue of characters and events feeling floaty, random, and outside your control. Not everything has been tied into that fully, but updates appear to tie more to it. It looks like Wards and Wardens adds wards moving to different courts into the travel system if I am reading it correctly. IMO, tying more of the existing game mechanics to the travel system is more important than creating more types of traits and personalities to represent hobbies, interests, and philosophies.

 

[Axioms]

Well as I'm sure everyone on this forum knows I'm a massive 3D model hater. In fact the minutes I saw them I decided not to buy the game, or any other Paradox game.

I think the 3D models are absolutely the right call and pretty cool tech, they do help in matters like immersion, being cinematic and such.
(also you can now decide to marry based on which women is hotter to you, which is kinda realistic ngl lol)
Plus they are moddable, its crazy awesome to see Guardians of Azeroth managed to use them to make Warcraft races.

Its just that the game has immense problems elsewhere.

Honestly, where I really want to see the 3D models is in Stellaris 2. You could really get crazy with customizable aliens, people modding their own alien races and posting them on the internet, etc etc. Paradox could easily dunk on Spore big time.

I am also a big fan of the 3D models. It allows more of the focus to be put on the characters. And I also agree fully with CK3s increased focus on the character and roleplaying aspects over the strategy game aspects. While people who are looking for a strategy game with more fleshed out characters may not like it, I am really digging the unique gameplay. So far the major DLCs have all been focused on beefing up the character and roleplaying aspects, so that seems to be the way Paradox as decided to take this game.

I think a robust RPG/life simulator within a strategy game simulation is a pretty fun model and I would like to see some others besides paradox try their hand at it. So far the more indie attempts, like star dynasties, failed because they still were making strategy games and there just wasn't enough role playing/life simulation content.

With CK2 it always seemed kind of silly to offer the ability to play landless characters, despite it being frequently requested. Too many of the mechanics were tied up in actually ruling lands and fighting wars, but I think CK3 may be able to allow it if they keep expanding the roleplaying focus. The main obstacle seems to be that they would theoretically need to generate even more characters that would need to generate events and make decisions which would impact performance (the reason rulers of baronies aren't playable), but if it is strictly limited to generating characters that are necessary for the landless player to interact with, it might just happen one day.

First they have pledged never to allow landless characters, in fact one reason they don't put in Republics and Theocracies is that it is at odds with the dynasty/family sequential character play.

Second you have it all wrong. The role play aspects suck. If the roleplay/character mechanics were deep and awesome I'd be happy. But they aren't. Characters barely interact, most characters are interchangeable and completely indistinguishable from any other character. You must be one of those DnD people who just creates everything in his head canon and doesn't care if the gameplay doesn't actually support anything.

Any game that attempts any kind of emergent storytelling that doesn't engage with and make use of player imagination is missing the entire point.

The mechanics don't need to fully simulate every aspect of something, only enough to provide a skeleton for imagination to take over. Human beings are natural storytellers and also naturally create stories from random and unrelated events. A game looking for any kind of emergent storytelling needs to leverage that in order to be successful.

CK3 is more than successful at this. The initial base game was still lacking in this regard, imo, but the DLCs have managed to add enough additional mechanical elements and events to more than adequately form the necessary skeleton at this point.


I am aware on their comments regarding landless characters, but they are also going to be supporting this game for a long time. And Paradox has never had any issue with deviating from their previous promises and statements in the past. I think there is a 50/50 chance we will see some kind of landless player character gameplay in the coming years. Probably not geared towards playing forever as a landless character, but to allow for some transitional gameplay. Either as a start where you don't start with land, or as a way to keep playing when you lose your land to let you try to get it back or gain new lands.

I want characters to have meaningful differentiation like hobbies, interests, talents, personality, social custom, and ideological preferences, and so on. If I am extroverted and like philosophy and so is another guy we can set up debates with ourselves and maybe a few others and then we are bros. If I like horseriding and nature and so does another guy we can go ride in the forest and do birdwatching or some shit. If we have nothing in common we can't be friends. Like you won't have specific speeches we give at the debate or w/e and the player is still imagining the specific bird we see or the plants in the forest but the characters are differentiated.

"We need 3D models but no social simulation" is a galaxy brain DnD theatre kid moron take.

If you were talking about the base game at release, I would basically agree with you. But it sounds like you haven't actually played any recent versions. Most of those things were added in with Tours and Tournaments, along with many things that you didn't mention, but some of the mechanics and content to define your character, their relation to others, and various social interactions were added in Royal Court. And some of that was already set up in the base game, although not enough to really pull it off.

The 3D models are definitely helpful though. It allows a visual presentation of your character and other characters (Including their status, culture, and even some aspects of their history) during the scenes that are more expressive and even provide details about the characters that just wouldn't be possible with just a single picture, or even static 2D portraits.

You can argue till you are blue in the face that Crusader Kings 3 doesn't have these things, but I have played it (although not with wards and wardens yet) so I know that it accomplishes these things in a more than satisfactory manner. You can't tell me something isn't there when I have see it with my own eyes. There is still room for improvement, but it looks like this is an area that Paradox will be focus on for future mechanics and content. So there will be even more.

I understand how the folks who want a Grand Strategy game would be disappointed though. The direction they have taken and are taking CK3 in is moving it well out of the Grand Strategy wheelhouse and providing that experience. I am fine with that though. Because, while it isn't the most well represented genre, there are still numerous alternative Grand Strategy games to play, while CK3 is unique as I can think of no other game that does the type of gameplay that it does.

Absolutely none of those things were added in T&T. I think maybe you are just not understanding the scope of what I'm describing. Like you can find minor individual examples of something vaguely similar to the words I used or something. Like if I really squint I can sorta say well maybe he's talking about this really minor and simplistic thing and he lacks the context to understand how limited the implementation of it is.

I understand your love affair with deep simulations. But it is not necessary to accomplish the allowing those gameplay decisions for almost all instances.

There are numerous traits associated with various hobbies, talents, and interests. Some preexisting, but more added for T&T. In T&T they also added experience and different levels of many of those traits. And you can absolutely engage in those activities to interact with other characters to establish relationships and pursue other goals.

Personality has always been in the game, and has always been used in a meaningful way via the well-designed stress system. They effectively block you from doing many actions, or rewards you for others, that are in line with your personality. And this has continued for all the new events added since launch.

Philosophy has a handful of traits associated with it, mostly tied into the personality system, although it is also partly present in the Religious system and culture system. Which impact both the events and actions you have as well as the types of choices during them. Ditto for ideology and social customs.

While I am sure you imagine a deeply complex simulation where all of these are tracked with great granularity, that is just not necessary to accomplish what CK3 does.

Not mentioned, but the other thing that T&T did that greatly improved the roleplay aspect was the travel system which helps somewhat solve the issue of characters and events feeling floaty, random, and outside your control. Not everything has been tied into that fully, but updates appear to add more in each update (It looks like Wards and Wardens adds wards moving to different courts into the travel system). IMO, tying more of the existing game mechanics to the travel system is more important than creating more types of traits and personalities to represent hobbies, interests, and philosophies.

Well I put out a detailed outline that was shockingly identical to what T&T did more than a year before it released, and the idea existed in less detailed form since back in 2014, so I totally agree that "traveling and grand events" are huge. T&T is, in a relative sense, easily the best CK3 DLC by several miles. I disagree, though, that the trainable traits meet the criteria for an interest or hobby system.

It seems like you are trying to tie your rejection of my argument for the game to do more of the work in story generation and interactivity to the separate disagreement about whether CK3 has the mechanics I described. Given you more specific claims to what mechanics you refer to, I consider the second argument resolved. CK3 does *not* have what I argue is necessary and you've basically conceded that but then motte and bailey'd back to the argument that it doesn't need that stuff. I'm not going to waste more time on that debate. DnD drones can't be reasoned with.

But the problem is that Paradox and its Drone Defenders aren't up front enough about the fact that the game doesn't support a more robust mechanical framework and more importantly the fact that, as you have shown so clearly here, they actively reject such a frame work. They could just solve this whole argument by admitting they reject that, but it is more business effective to vacilitate and dupe people and keep them on the hook that maybe someday they''ll add that. They sell more copies by being duplicitous and vague.

 

[darkpatriot]

Axioms

Like I said, I play the game and have no issue role playing characters or seeing how the different stats and traits differentiate them, how they interact with the world, and what the narrative of their life is.

There are more than enough events, both quasi random and player controlled, along with other game mechanics to interact with to establish the narrative of your character's life as a ruler.

You can tell me my eyes are lying all you want, it won't change anything. I understand that your own preferences are for a deeper simulation, but your own preferences are not objective fact.


For game design in general, deeper simulations are often very lazy design, even though it might seem like it is the opposite. It is lazy design because it is always easy to say, "well, we'll just make another statistic, attribute, variable to track X and add checks/mechanics for that" when faced with the desire to adjust the design in some way. But down that path lies an unworkable, broken, unbalanced, bug filled, unpredictable behemoth that has a poor ability to even communicate to the player what is happening and why. If players don't understand how X is causing Y, because it is actually A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, and X causing Y, it doesn't actually create any meaningful gameplay opportunity. Finding ways to adjust the design or add interesting choices without increasing the complexity (or even removing some if possible) is what good design is.

I know that personally from designing RPG systems and other similar board games that I then play with my friends. When I first started out I always tended towards just adding additional stats and mechanics to try to add some kind of gameplay choice. But that tended towards clunky systems where various things got quickly out of hand and behaved in distinctly unrealistic ways. And while designs for computer games are different in that they can handle the mathematical crunch for you, it doesn't change how much work would be needed to get so many systems working well together or the difficulties with communicating what is actually happening with the players. But you also have the added difficulty that you then have to create an AI that is supposed to navigate all those systems and use them effectively. Assuming you want to create a challenging game rather than just an interesting toy, anyway.

Paradox games are already very much towards the complex end of things and already suffer from a lot of those problems. They already derive much of their enjoyment from being toys (deep simulations can be appropriate for toys) to try interesting things in rather than games to overcome challenges in. Adding much more complexity is not a productive move for CK3. Finding ways to add in additional interesting choices while minimizing the increase in the complexity is the way to go.

 

[Axioms]

Axioms

Like I said, I play the game and have no issue role playing characters or seeing how the different stats and traits differentiate them, how they interact with the world, and what the narrative of their life is.

There are more than enough events, both quasi random and player controlled, along with other game mechanics to interact with to establish the narrative of your character's life as a ruler.

You can tell me my eyes are lying all you want, it won't change anything. I understand that your own preferences are for a deeper simulation, but your own preferences are not objective fact.


For game design in general, deeper simulations are often very lazy design, even though it might seem like it is the opposite. It is lazy design because it is always easy to say, "well, we'll just make another statistic, attribute, variable to track X and add checks/mechanics for that" when faced with the desire to adjust the design in some way. But down that path lies an unworkable, broken, unbalanced, bug filled, unpredictable behemoth that has a poor ability to even communicate to the player what is happening and why. If players don't understand how X is causing Y, because it is actually A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, and X causing Y, it doesn't actually create any meaningful gameplay opportunity. Finding ways to adjust the design or add interesting choices without increasing the complexity (or even removing some if possible) is what good design is.

I know that personally from designing RPG systems and other similar board games that I then play with my friends. When I first started out I always tended towards just adding additional stats and mechanics to try to add some kind of gameplay choice. But that tended towards clunky systems where various things got quickly out of hand and behaved in distinctly unrealistic ways. And while designs for computer games are different in that they can handle the mathematical crunch for you, it doesn't change how much work would be needed to get so many systems working well together or the difficulties with communicating what is actually happening with the players. But you also have the added difficulty that you then have to create an AI that is supposed to navigate all those systems and use them effectively. Assuming you want to create a challenging game rather than just an interesting toy, anyway.

Paradox games are already very much towards the complex end of things and already suffer from a lot of those problems. They already derive much of their enjoyment from being toys (deep simulations can be appropriate for toys) to try interesting things in rather than games to overcome challenges in. Adding much more complexity is not a productive move for CK3. Finding ways to add in additional interesting choices while minimizing the increase in the complexity is the way to go.

You keep saying this. No one is telling you that "your eyes are lying". I'm saying the opposite actually. In fact in this specific post you are literally agreeing with what I was saying but the difference is you think that that is good. Which is a valid opinion. But it is just as subjective as mine.

Additionally you are doing an extremely common and traditional strawman about "complexity". No one is saying raw complexity is good by itself. I absolutely agree that "finding ways to add in additional interesting choices while minimizing the increase in the complexity is the way to go". I want as little excess complexity as possible. That is not the same as what you are saying implying in the rest of your post though.

Additionally I think there is a huge problem in that Paradox games are *absolute dogshit* at efficiently conveying information to the player. So to me "Paradox games already have trouble conveying the detail of the existing simulation" is a vacuous argument because the issue is driven by the shit tier UI and not the simulation detail, which is minimal and shallow.

Adding more information should have a specific thematic goal and it should be conveyed well. Sometimes you want the game to simulate a specific thing and that thing just requires a lot of simulation detail. So the choice isn't add gameplay complexity for no reason or make a simple and elegant design. It is represent the thing you want to represent or don't represent the thing.

You don't care if the game meaningfully represents thematic potential effectively and you prefer to construct an elaborate head canon sandcastle instead of having the game have a robust simulation. And that is fine. People can have preferences. Other people have different preferences which they also want to advocate for. That is also fine.

In any case I think we are done here. I'm actually going to put you on ignore in fact. Because I don't think we have anything meaningful to say to each other. We have different game preferences and that is not going to change.

 

[darkpatriot]

You keep saying this. No one is telling you that "your eyes are lying". I'm saying the opposite actually. In fact in this specific post you are literally agreeing with what I was saying but the difference is you think that that is good. Which is a valid opinion. But it is just as subjective as mine.

No, I still definitely disagree with your statement that Crusader Kings 3 doesn't have a system for tracking the hobbies, traits, personalities, philosophies, etc. of characters and then using those to inform and drive gameplay and character relations. It clearly does. That is what I mean by the "lying eyes" things. It clearly does have those things, because I see them with my own eyes as I play the game. It just doesn't track that all in granular enough detail to suit you. But it absolutely does have them, and have them to a more than adequate enough level of detail. Certainly enough for myself and the other people who enjoy the game.

I mean, your example was your character having a hobby and then going to do that hobby with your friends to develop relationships. That was not only already in the base game in a somewhat limited format (limited to hunting and feats), but was greatly expanded in T&T and also expanded a bit in other DLC. Like the poetry hobby/mechanic, for example, which was introduced in Northern Lords, IIRC.

 

[Forest Dweller]

 

[Space Satan]

Here execution should be beating with stone dildos!

 

[Forest Dweller]

My pope called a crusade against Catholics while they were already fighting a crusade against me. Result: double-whammy!

 

[Barbarian]

Is this game still shit after the dlc and patches so far? Or it half-decent now?

I mean at least as good as ck2 was(which wasn't much to begin with)

 

[janior]

its a paradox cookie clicker that looks like shit, IS IT GOOD GUISE

 

[Average Manatee]

I haven't played CK3 with all the recent DLCs, but while they've fixed a few things significant parts of the game still feels too... gamey. It's hard to explain in a way that doesn't involve a wall of text, but CK2 is still far superior whether you're roleplaying or metagaming, because it's a better at roleplaying and if you want to metagame then you want to do it in a game where you feel like you're getting an edge by doing so rather than just playing as intended.

 

[darkpatriot]

I haven't played CK3 with all the recent DLCs, but while they've fixed a few things significant parts of the game still feels too... gamey. It's hard to explain in a way that doesn't involve a wall of text, but CK2 is still far superior whether you're roleplaying or metagaming, because it's a better at roleplaying and if you want to metagame then you want to do it in a game where you feel like you're getting an edge by doing so rather than just playing as intended.

That is why I really dislike the perks system. It is the gamiest system in the game. Once you know your general gameplay style, you almost always go for the same key perks with every dude you manage. There is very little variation in how I develop character's perks. And they even let you respec them for stress cost if a character you take over playing hadn't been developed the way you like.


I would really like to see the whole perk system removed, and all the current gameplay options it unlocks tied to other character/religious/culture traits in some way. That because is would encourage you to use gameplay options you normally don't use if a character happened to have them and be good at them.

 

[DesolationStone]

While I was "infirm" for the game, I was able to (in no particular order)
- Conquer literally 3/4 of the Middle East
- Fuck my wife hard and get her pregnant
- Make a pilgrimage to Rome, starting in Tbilisi, crossing the Costantinopole, landing in Albania, crossing the Tyrrhenian Sea to land in Puglia, reaching the Vatican, and then walking back from Egypt to Georgia.
- Make a hunt
- Have a giga party with all my vassals in Jerusalem
- Kill my worst rival in combat
- Lead like 10/15 battles as a leader
I mean, Paradox, if I have the INFIRM trait, maybe, ehm, I'm infirm?

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

That's literally abelism though. The infirm should be able to do anything you can do. It's not as if they're incredibly ill or anything /s

 

[Average Manatee]

Do you not get put under a regency when unfirm like CK2?

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

I mean at least as good as ck2 was(which wasn't much to begin with)

It's better than CK2, in that it isn't broken by 100 DLCs. (Yet.)

 

[Hace El Oso]

I mean at least as good as ck2 was(which wasn't much to begin with)

It's better than CK2, in that it isn't broken by 100 DLCs. (Yet.)

Except there’s no HIP mod for CK3 (and never will be) to take that DLC bloat, delete India and the Orient, and make a game out of the rest.

 

[Delterius]

and the Orient

crusader kings are indeed famous for going anywhere but the east

 

[Hace El Oso]

crusader kings are indeed famous for going anywhere but the east

Of course I use the term in the later sense. Saladin, not Fu Manchu, is what CK needs.

 

[Delterius]

crusader kings are indeed famous for going anywhere but the east

Of course I use the term in the later sense. Saladin, not Fu Manchu, is what CK needs.

I don't think any portrayal of the holy land is complete without Persia and Central Asia. And the general area of the East only became more immersive with Jade Dragon. I also believe that the East is the central protagonist of any story set in the crusades. Until of course DLCs about northern crusades and such like come knocking.

I dislike India only in so far that it feels like it is set up to be it's own isolated domain. But I've had great fun uniting India as both a muslim nomad and a tamil nestorian. Wouldn't want that experience removed from any CK game I play.

In short, whenever people say 'It's called CRUSADER KINGS' I just think that, precisely, which is why I want the map to at least reach the steppe. It would be very mid otherwise.

 

[Barbarian]

crusader kings are indeed famous for going anywhere but the east

Of course I use the term in the later sense. Saladin, not Fu Manchu, is what CK needs.

Early CK2 where Genghis Khan and other horde conquerors were simply spawns close to easternmost Anatolia made much more sense than when they added later with part of China being on the map.

They got to a point where they legit ignored the game title. Even a fantasy aztec medieval invasion of europe was added.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Adding the East was just better, that old CK/CKII map straight out deleted like 1/3 of the Eranshah, and Persia is a massively important player in world history.

It also made Zoroastrian games WAY more interesting, because before you would just have muslims stomping around and having to fight Muslims. Now the East is a free-for-all between muslims, tibetans, hindus, Western Protectorate and nomad hordes.

The real issue is that India just feels weirdly detached from the rest of the game-area most of the time, except perhaps Tibet, Western Persia and Central Asia. Sometimes you get the odd Super-India blob coming out of the subcontinent, that's interesting. Even subsaharan Africa has more contact with the rest of the gameworld than India.

 

[Hace El Oso]

It makes no sense to attempt to depict nomadic/steppe societies in a game that is based entirely around arbitrary lines on a map, ownership of the towns, cities and abbeys within those spaces and the static populations that inhabit them. That requires a different game, and this one barely tries to do what it says on the tin already.

Mongols, Huns, Timurids, they’re meant to fulfil the gamified version of their real function for people from Krakow to Baghdad which is huge, demonic doomstacks of slavering foreigners threatening to engulf the whole world. Crusader Kings doesn’t even make a serious effort to simulate Holy Orders or proper medieval civilization like the Hanseatic League, why would I give a damn about Curry Kings and the Last of the Mohicans out in Tibet?

 

[deuxhero]

The Core Expansion will, among other features, introduce something that has been frequently requested by you in the community. Without saying too much, it will definitely make the game more challenging - and we’ve spent a lot of time making sure that it’s as dynamic and immersive as possible, while also presenting you with new ways to strategize. We’re also going to introduce a feature dripping with medieval flavor, a system that can be used by clever players to really make their mark on the world. All in all, this expansion will lean more towards the systemic side of the game.

As with the Core Expansion, the Major Expansion will focus on several things that have been requested by you in the community for ages - some of what we’re choosing to do has been asked for since the early days of Crusader Kings as a game series. One of the feature sets comes up very frequently when we see you discuss what you’d like to see in expansions - and another is brought up now-and-again as a powerful player fantasy. No matter what, we promise that this expansion will provide several new and fresh perspectives, and should please you regardless of which style of expansion you prefer, systemic or roleplay-focused. We can barely wait until you get your hands on this one, and personally, I can say that it’s one of the expansions I’ve been wanting to make since my early days working on CK2 - its time will soon come!

Any idea what this is? I've heard unlanded play suggested by commenters which would fit "powerful player fantasy.

 

[Delterius]

It makes no sense to attempt to depict nomadic/steppe societies

loved playing them tbh