Grand Strategy Crusader Kings III

[ERYFKRAD]

I gotta read all the Roads to Power diaries, what I saw seemed interesting

Yeah I stopped my playthrough for getting roads to power instead. Looks like I get really bored running kingdoms in whatever game I try them.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Embargo lifted for those that received RtP in advance as well, so there's more content to check out on YT too. On Monday we'll also be getting the patch notes one day before release.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I gotta read all the Roads to Power diaries, what I saw seemed interesting

Yeah I stopped my playthrough for getting roads to power instead. Looks like I get really bored running kingdoms in whatever game I try them.

Aaaand then I decided to try and let an empire run its course. Dammit, the events system is perfectly stupidly designed for a kingdom, empire, anything with more than two regions-
1. Plagues pop up multiple times, so you get the same exact decision event as many times. Bigger your domains, more they repeat, one after the other.
2. I can go to war, and also welcome my giftbearing vassal at home. I can be away at a tournament and still have some stupidass event that happens at home. I could be anywhere within the goddamned map and still somehow have events at home, with that kind of logistics skill I oughta be able to skip embarking costs forever just by issuing copies of ck3 to my entire fucking army.
3. I hate diplomatic distance solely because it is fucking impossible to score a redhead if you aren't anywhere near Europe. That's a petty one, but redheads dammit.
4. I get why there are so many impediments to starting a war- the AI can't fight them for shit. Gotta hand it to the retard who raised hundreds to fight my hundreds of thousands though, that took balls.
5. After a point I couldn't check my realm because it was too damn big and trying to manage it caused fuckhueg slowdowns. Hardware ain't a constraint mind you.

The way the game struggles with larger realms and the annoying events make me think this shit would be way more fun with having so much goddamn worthless overload. A smaller camp with fewer characters should be a less irritating playthrough than having an empire with tens of descendants and hundred more vassals. Had fun but that shit really dragged down in the end.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

And they've posted the patch notes here.

 

[Fedora Master]

No way the AI will be annoying as fuck with these new mechanics, right?

 

[Heroic Liberator]

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Liking the Scheme improvements, seems like Scheming will be better now.

Honestly, they should have released something like Roads to Power years ago.

 

[Dark Souls II]

CKIII is a very pleasant surprise, the incest mechanics are much more complex compared to CKII.

 

[Minecrawler]

Honestly, they should have released something like Roads to Power years ago.

Should have released it instead of Legends of the Dead this year.
Sometimes less is more.

 

[Axioms]

OPB's intense effort to not hate too much was fantastic.

Tarkus however was very disappointing. I used to respect him.

I guess if you get the DLC early and for free and you want to keep the freebies coming you gotta sell out.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Honestly, they should have released something like Roads to Power years ago.

Should have released it instead of Legends of the Dead this year.
Sometimes less is more.

Agreed. Through AFAIK, Legends of the Dead is a small content pack, from what I read in the dev diaries, they were both developed in parallel and once Legends of the Dead was finished, the team from it went to Roads to Power.

Reminder to everyone: Kodex Kritical Konsensus is that CKII was interesting but kind of mediocre up until The Old Gods expansion. That was when CKII started to truly shine.

Hopefully, RtP is going to be CKIII's own "The Old Gods".

One cool thing about the new Admistrative Government is that it might finally lead Pdox to experiment more with governments and give us some more different governments.
I would love to see pre-Feudal governments in-game, like the Carolinglian government before the rise of Feudalism.
One thing which I find lame is that Administrative is something you only get with Empire rank, when Administrative Kingdoms were totally a thing at the time.
I would love to see Administrative or something akin to it extended to Medieval Poland. Medieval Portugal might fit better under Administrative Kingdom, once it was centralized in the 13rd century, creating the first Nation-State of Europe.

-----------

What are you guys' first plays going to be?
I'm thinking mine will be some minor family in the Eastern Roman Empire, I really want to see how those Estate and Administrative mechanics work. ROME WILL RISE AGAIN MOTHERFUCKERS, BY MY HAND!

 

[Fedora Master]

You people talk about DLC as if it wasn't free? How odd.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

You people talk about DLC as if it wasn't free? How odd.

I am sorry you haven't learnt to pirate shit.

What are you guys' first plays going to be?

Ran the vagrant life for about an hour, it's definitely got some things going for it.
Not having a steady income definitely keeps you sweating, and being able to annoy your past clients for gibs is also a good touch. Will be handy when you're desperate.
So far the provision cost seems too generous , started with about 2500 of them and it only cost me 300 or so to move about two states/ eight regions away. They don't decay with time either so hard to tell if it's easy or not.
Gonna have to try this out in more detail over the weekend but so far it's ok.

 

[Fedora Master]

I am sorry you haven't learnt to pirate shit.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Ran the vagrant life for about an hour, it's definitely got some things going for it.
Not having a steady income definitely keeps you sweating, and being able to annoy your past clients for gibs is also a good touch. Will be handy when you're desperate.
So far the provision cost seems too generous , started with about 2500 of them and it only cost me 300 or so to move about two states/ eight regions away. They don't decay with time either so hard to tell if it's easy or not.
Gonna have to try this out in more detail over the weekend but so far it's ok.

Seems interesting, Adventurers seem to be fun.
I'm just waiting for my Alternative Distributors to obtain the DLC.
Did you manage to get yourself some land?

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Crusader Kings 3 Patch 1.13 "Basileus" Notes: What They Actually Mean CK3

Spoiler

Expansion Features (Paid)​

• Added Administrative Government: A new government heavily inspired by the Byzantine Empire which introduces a completely new playstyle focused around [checks notes] bureaucracy. That's what you guys are into, huh? Bureaucracy? Do you know that "Byzantine" has become a byword for something that's really intractable and frustrating to understand? Seriously, this is what you spend your free time on? Look at yourselves. Do you know you could just become an accountant or a tax attorney and actually get paid to do this stuff? Lord...
• Noble Families: Families are ranked and put into three categories depending on whether or not they could afford to get their kids a PS2 for Christmas, or if you're the kind of family whose kids have to go over to someone else's house to play it.
• Influence: A new resource representing, for the most part, how good you are at lying to make people give you stuff.
• New Succession Law: Appointment, by which you may spend influence or honestly just murder everyone who is more popular than your kids to secure governorships.
• New Succession Law: Acclamation, in which you can spend a buffoonish amount of resources and call in a bunch of favors to paint a giant target on your own forehead just so you get to wear the fanciest clothes for a little bit until you're murdered by one of your own bodyguards.
• Estates: Added player housing before World of Warcraft.
• Governors: Kind of like vassals except they actually have to do their job.
• Provincial armies can be recruited and raised by governors, which will definitely never cause any serious problems down the line.
• 14 new Political schemes such as telling your governors to actually do their jobs, or temporarily enabling PvP on your fellow admin families.
• New obligation types: Have your vassals govern their provinces in the way you want with six new obligation types, or if the emperor is AI, you get the thrill of seeing which absolutely fucking random card he's going to deal you (and it's probably military)
• Imperial Bureaucracy: A new law that replaces crown authority. You weirdos probably like that shit, huh? Mm yeah give me more forms to fill out. Yes Daddy Basileus make me keep track of more census officials.
• Added a new chariot race activity for you to click through after you've seen it a few times.
• Added an exclusive Map Table that reflects the nauseating excess of Byzantium.
• Added new Men-at-Arms including the Ballista, which is worse at being an archer than other archers and at the same time worse at being a siege engine than other siege engines.
• New Greek Cultural traditions with tooltips that are each have like eight bullet points and are at least the length of a small novel, which really makes you wonder if the kinds of things we're now trying to do with Cultural traditions have completely outgrown that entire system.
• New Norman Cultural tradition to make them as annoying as they were historically.
• We now distinguish between Eunuchs who got an early start and those who just pissed someone off later down the line.
• A bunch of new Greek-specific interactions and decisions that are honestly pretty fucked up.
• Added new mechanics, a dynamic story cycle, and multiple possible endings for Crusaders who want to stop pretending this was ever about the Holy Land and mostly just wanted to wear those fancy clothes.
• 26 unique new variants of byzantine clothing, 8 unique new variants of byzantine cloaks, 22 unique new variants of byzantine headgear, 12 unique new hairstyles, and 4 new beards to be murdered by your own bodyguards in.
• 7 new artifacts including "Statue of A Roman Woman" (jar not included)
• Added Co-Emperors, a type of diarch who shares power with you in a way that is really poorly-defined and confusing to navigate, as it was historically.
• Co-emperors and their senior emperors can now do the Spider-Man pointing at Spider-Man thing whenever something goes wrong.
• A Co-emperor can be removed from their position by cutting their balls off.
• Co-Emperors can demand to be made Despot of a Kingdom-tier title within the realm, which is really a sign that it's probably time to cut their balls off.
• You may now pacify a faction by appointing their leader as Co-Emperor, which sounds like maybe the worst idea of all time, but you do you.
• If you have the right Cultural traditions, you may now appoint one of your children as Co-Emperor just to stick it to that powerful family that bought theirs a PS2.
• Co-Emperors can now request a powerful new CB to expand the realm and place it under their control, which would be the worst idea of all time if it hadn't been for the thing two bullet points ago.
• Added the ability to play as poor people.
• Added quests poor people can go on to make money since they don't even have any lands to leech off of.
• Provisions are a new type of resource for poor people to represent that they need to feed themselves since they don't even have servants to do it for them.
• Added camps, which is this thing where poor people sleep outside in a tent because they don't even have a castle to live in.
• Poor people who cause too many problems will now be labeled as Gallowsbait so you can put them to death without too much fuss.
• Poor people now get their own lifestyle perk trees that have to do with, I don't know, hunting squirrels or rolling around in the mud or whatever it is they're up to out there.
• Added a bunch of ways to become poor, and even keep playing after you become poor, if you have so little dignity.
• Historical characters may appear as poor people, allowing you to switch to playing as them, because the one thing this game was missing was the ability for Hildegard von Bingen to sweep across Europe in a tide of charnel devastation.
• Poor people who pull themselves up by their bootstraps and stop being poor can now buy some land and try to act like they earned it.
• Poor people with an inflated sense of importance can try to take some lands by force.
• Poor people must recruit more soldiers every time some of them die because they don't even have any peasants to conscript.
• Poor people can visit your holdings, generally stinking up the place, to buy supplies or maybe take some ne'er-do-wells off your hands.
• Added 7 new Major Decisions for landless adventurers, a couple of which are actually good.
• Added content for founding The Assassins, just in time for the expansion that's all about going to points of interest on your map and doing the same activities over and over.
• Added an interaction for expelling poor people from your realm.

Free Features (For the Poor People)​

• Added new game rule to use the correct name for the Eastern Roman Empire
• Added a game rule for replacing Murchad in 1066 with Toirdelbach Mac Tadg as ruler of Munster, which is information that was even available on wikipedia in 2012 but for some reason we got that one wrong and didn't fix it for over a decade.
• Added a game rule to railroad the Conquest of England scenario so you can make sure William eats shit and dies alone.
• Added a game rule that kinda sorta acknowledges the fact that the Eastern Roman Empire was not the only administrative state that existed anywhere on our map for the entire 500-year period.
• Added a new start date, 1178, that might actually allow you to make it to 1453 without getting bored.
• Added the 'Conqueror' feature, granting large boosts to strength and aggression to certain historical and dynamically generated characters, that might actually allow you to make it to 1453 without getting bored.
• Added the Vassal Directives feature where you can at least vaguely suggest that your feudal vassals do their jobs.
• Choose a New Destiny: When you die, you now get the opportunity to switch to another character of your Dynasty who is not your garbage oldest son with 4 diplomacy and all antisocial personality traits.
• If you own Roads to Power, one of your options might be a poor person.
• You can now select a Favorite Child who will always appear on the New Destiny screen, or just to make it clear to those other little shits who you like the best.
• You may only Choose a New Destiny if you have a valid heir, for reasons that make sense as long as you don't think about them too hard.
• Character of the Week: Let us tell you who to play as when you can't think of any good campaign ideas, instead of just playing a different game.
• Rebalanced the scheme system to be actually good (up from not very good)
• Putting a scheme together is now more like Ocean's 11 where you have to put a team together that are all good at different things, instead of seeing how many conspirators you can possibly get on your side as mostly a flex on how hated your target is.
• Different roles in the scheme may now do different things, such as having someone who is in charge of telling everyone to shut the fuck up at the feast so the target doesn't find out what you're up to, or keeping everyone on task so the murder isn't left with dozens of open tickets that need to be resolved before we can ship.
• If Rodrigo still won't shut the fuck up, he can totally blow it a couple of times before the whole scheme is a wash.
• Some schemes like sway/romance/seduce still use the old scheme system. No wingmen/wingwomen in CK3.

Balance Changes​

• The Peasant Leader trait now gives you a bit of extra siege, since poor people know a lot more about masonry and other filthy shit like that.
• Disinherited characters may now keep their claims, even though they should just accept their new life among the poors.
• Introverts can now lose stress at parties if they're drunk enough (can confirm)
• Your marriage proposals will now carry a bit less weight if your capital is under siege and the parent of your beloved thinks you might just be doing this to get his armies to come save you. Tell me one thing you like about her, seriously.
• Most courtiers can now only fall in love with someone they have a complementary personality to unless they're a horny deviant like all of you.
• AI will be less likely to divorce their cousin in clan realms just to make their family mad.
• Made the AI desire younger female concubines, more like Patch 1.13 "DiCaprio" am I right
• Compassionate characters no longer gain stress when kicking poor people out of your house.
• Sending a child to university no longer costs like three times as much as building an entire city. Tuition wouldn't reach that point historically until the 21st Century.
• A child without a guardian is less likely to grow up to be a dumbass as long as you are employing a court tutor.
• Spouses with a religious objection to polyamory will now be less shitty to your side pieces.
• The Pope will no longer be so willing to give you gold or claims if you're a huge piece of shit, even if you're his huge piece of shit.
• Your courtiers should no longer throw you a surprise birthday party every year and keep expecting you to be surprised.
• It's now easier to romance someone if you're already banging.
• Told Rodrigo to shut the fuck up again, reducing the chance of a secret being exposed at a feast.
• Carps are now more unpredictable, making the reigning champion worst event in the game even worse.
• Your dog should no longer be constantly trying to get as far the fuck away from you as possible every time you let them outside. You're not that bad. You even let the poor people live sometimes.
• Taught rulers who are into religiously-motivated S&M some safety tips so they'll be less likely to disfigure themselves when whipping their own bodies for Jesus.
• You now only gain stress from siblings dying if they weren't a piece of shit who always blamed everything on you and got more attention from mommy.
• Roman rulers should no longer be as interested in fulfilling Justinian's other dream of conquering Uzbekistan.
• Reduced the Prestige and Piety level requirements of many CBs by one step, hastening the point at which you get bored of your save and abandon it.
• AI should be less likely to hold a murder feast just because they find someone mildly annoying.
• The ruler installed by a claimant faction now gets a Legitimacy boost so the same vassals don't immediately turn against them in favor of a new claimant.
• Rebalanced Embrace English Culture decision, so AI Normans will be less likely to adopt the ways of those filthy Teutonic peasants
• Reminded the AI how absolutely trash levies are in this game.

Interface​

• Added a new icon for when a character's health is really, really bad. Like, holy shit dude you really need to get that checked out.
• Alerts are now color coded. Green are benefits, red are problems, and purple are opportunities, which is what you call a problem when you want to make it seem like the thing you did wasn't really that bad.
• New tooltip type for explaining what in the seven hells a hieromonachos is.
• Fixed a bug where the Combat Prediction Map Icon where it would not count allies already in the province when predicting the battle outcome. The UI was assuming that, as usual, they would not participate at all. But if they're already in the province where the battle is happening, they generally will.

Art​

• Council members will now switch animations when some tasks are active, to at least try to look like they're doing something productive.
• Taught characters how a lantern works.
• Lesser nobles and mayors got atomic dunked on by the menswear guy on twitter and are now less likely to wear poor people clothes.
• Higher-ranked commanders will now wear helmets when at war, despite what every piece of popular media has told you.

Game Content​

• Characters should no longer be like, "Wait, hon, did we lose a kid in childbirth? I wouldn't remember my own head if it weren't nailed on!"
• Added a decision for the EREmperor to be like, "You know what? Screw Sicily."
• Added interaction for war participants to switch sides in a war, when they show up and realize how screwed you truly are.
• Added a State Faith to Administrative governments that can differ from that of the emperor, so all Orthodox don't immediately become considered heretics the second your overpowered Asatru varangian ultrachad you spent 5000 points on in the ruler designer gets elected.
• Added the Gallivanter trait for characters who want to remain poor forever.
• Unimportant characters trying to form rivalries with important characters will now find that the important character doesn't really think about them at all.
• Added additional nudity because we know what you freaks are about.

History Databases​

• Consulted one person who speaks Arabic.
• Made Italy somewhat more moist.
• Added an introductory event to Emperor Basileios in 867, clarifying that he's just murdered his predecessor to fully take the throne, just in case you were unclear about how things work around here. Just don't tell Rodrigo anything that actually needs to be kept secret and you should be fine.

 

[TheKing01]

Roads to Power, dare I say it, is the best damn DLC Paradox has ever released.

Playing an adventurer/mercenary that roams the world just getting into random shit has been the most highly requested feature since CK1.

Now all that remains is for the TC mods to integrate this update.

 

[Zariusz]

Roads to Power, dare I say it, is the best damn DLC Paradox has ever released.

Playing an adventurer/mercenary that roams the world just getting into random shit has been the most highly requested feature since CK1.

Now all that remains is for the TC mods to integrate this update.

So CK3 now has a pseudo mount and blade mode but without combat heh, considering that many mod M&B to have more land mangement and diplomatic options like CK (for example Banner Kings) you could say that it has come almost a full circle...
Actually with the mod that allows you to fight battles in Bannerlord it literally would be a full circle.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Did you manage to get yourself some land?

Played just for an hour, bud. Not planning on getting land anyway. Just roam until bored and then attack Rome.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Did you manage to get yourself some land?

Played just for an hour, bud. Not planning on getting land anyway. Just roam until bored and then attack Rome.

Informative.
Also, damn dude, you're going straight for the big prize. Absolute madman.
Based and Fuck Poppery Pilled

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Also, damn dude, you're going straight for the big prize

Rome is the natural nemesis of every barbarian dude. I gotta go for it on sheer principle.

 

[darkpatriot]

You people talk about DLC as if it wasn't free? How odd.

I am sorry you haven't learnt to pirate shit.

What are you guys' first plays going to be?

Ran the vagrant life for about an hour, it's definitely got some things going for it.
Not having a steady income definitely keeps you sweating, and being able to annoy your past clients for gibs is also a good touch. Will be handy when you're desperate.
So far the provision cost seems too generous , started with about 2500 of them and it only cost me 300 or so to move about two states/ eight regions away. They don't decay with time either so hard to tell if it's easy or not.
Gonna have to try this out in more detail over the weekend but so far it's ok.

Provisions are really only a concern if you have a moderate to large sized army.

I have been building up a military as I wander around, and now that I have more than 2,000 it is starting to make some journeys much harder, especially through bad terrain.

I think most adventurers can forgo having a military though. You only need it if you want to do mercenary work or are building one up to attack someone/convert to landed. Another edge case is if you are criminal (which is what I am trying out). In that case having a more powerful army than the country your camp is in can prevent them from kicking you out.

But aside from that, having a military seems to just be a drain on provisions and sometimes gold. I have yet to see any contracts (besides mercenary contracts) or events that made use of an army. Even the coming under attack by bandits event seemed to have forgotten I had an army to repel them. Although, I can't 100% recall if that was while I was traveling with the camp or not. So maybe it does come up as an option or that event doesn't trigger if you have an army and are traveling with your camp.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Even the coming under attack by bandits event seemed to have forgotten I had an army to repel them. Although, I can't 100% recall if that was while I was traveling with the camp or not.

This one seems to specifically happen during escort quests.

 

[Axioms]

Roads to Power, dare I say it, is the best damn DLC Paradox has ever released.

Playing an adventurer/mercenary that roams the world just getting into random shit has been the most highly requested feature since CK1.

Now all that remains is for the TC mods to integrate this update.

This would be true if the DLC wasn't shallow and bland... Ah well.

 

[Old Hans]

Roads to Power, dare I say it, is the best damn DLC Paradox has ever released.

Playing an adventurer/mercenary that roams the world just getting into random shit has been the most highly requested feature since CK1.

Now all that remains is for the TC mods to integrate this update.

This would be true if the DLC wasn't shallow and bland... Ah well.

thats the main problem with crusader kings. it needs systems that dont rely on the same handful of encounters repeating over and over for several hundred years.