Grand Strategy Crusader Kings III

[Axioms]

Rather than utilizing events, I wish the developers developed mechanics that allowed for emergent game-play which lets us emulate our favorite historical figures. William the Bastard's conquest of England and independence while being in a vassalage under the king of France (as the duke of Normandy) would've been a good excuse to implement multiple levels of ownership for a province/county. Furthermore, I am still sour that Paradox didn't see fit to implement an actual negotiation system into the game. I was following a mod for the game called Sue for Peace which allowed people to negotiate marriage in exchange for gold/land/treaties, land transfer, and more—which would have enabled more compelling stories and unique situations to develop. It is extremely disappointing that instead of expanding on diplomacy, Paradox saw it fit to instead simplify it into "marriage = alliance."

Also, being unable to call your vassals to war seems stupid to me. I know it's all about balance but larger realms should be difficult to conquer, and players should be incentivized to wait for a rebellion or conflict before conquering an empire with tons of vassals. I know that I'm being negative about the game, but I fail to see the 'depth and complexity' that reviewers gush about in the Steam reviews section of this game. You can't even suss out and stop seduction schemes against your own wife or keep your children from teleporting away from court!

They don't want to do negotiation type stuff because they aren't capable of making it viable for the dumbass AI.

 

[Average Manatee]

Also, being unable to call your vassals to war seems stupid to me. I know it's all about balance but larger realms should be difficult to conquer, and players should be incentivized to wait for a rebellion or conflict before conquering an empire with tons of vassals

Hold up, don't you get their levies to war with(their use being not much) and don't they get pulled when you call your allies to war?

Yes and even if levies were relevant it'd be crap because a king vassal will give you like 50 guys

 

[MrTerrible]

Also, being unable to call your vassals to war seems stupid to me. I know it's all about balance but larger realms should be difficult to conquer, and players should be incentivized to wait for a rebellion or conflict before conquering an empire with tons of vassals

Hold up, don't you get their levies to war with(their use being not much) and don't they get pulled when you call your allies to war?

Technically? But their contribution is minimal military-wise since they don't help you with their army. Also, I don't think you can call your (vassal) allies to war if it's external. Thankfully, there's a mod to fix this, but I really think it should've been a part of the base game since it's just plain more fun to see large kingdoms duke it out (and participate in these mega-wars.) Though I can see why performance might be an issue if poorly implemented.

 

[Minecrawler]

Tested both landless adventurers and byzantine families.
Byzantines can utilize more of base game mechanics and directly interact with each other. Of course it's all shallow as usual, but at least they don't rely entirely on made up "contracts", invisible to people who "issue" them.
Also despite how barebones vanilla CK3 was, there were still some correct game design decisions. Like repurposing existing currencies(prestige) for different government forms (tribes).
New policy is to create as many new manas and currencies as possible, while forgetting the old ones.

Like, what was even the thought process behind governor effectiveness? All separate stats that show how capable you are as a ruler/governor at different things are combined into one new single stat. Then this one stat decides how good you are at both commanding armies and developing your province. What's the point?
Why not repurpose useless prestige again instead of inventing influence?

 

[Minecrawler]

"Stop right there, criminal scum. Now get out of my kingdom or fight me in the Great Ragnarok War for all my titles." has to be the most sophisticated crime and punishment system I've ever seen.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Got the hotfix, courtesy of Steam Underground. Did a new game, some thoughts:

- The gold nerf was really necessary for Adventurers. Still, if you know what you're doing, you can make loads more gold than the average titleholder. Especially because the average count/duke/king has a massive garbo desmene - if you're a king with a single county to your desmene, unaliveth thyself.
- My camp followers being pretty much sterile is deeply annoying to me. I know the game doesn't want to have MORE people around, but it isn't like it isn't making random assholes for random-ass events unnecessarily. Look game, if I am marrying my best friend to a cute girl, it means I want them to have babies so my kids can adventure with them in the future. If they're going to make camp followers sterile, they could at least have characters that can pop up later going all "HI, I am your follower's so and so's kid!" Essentially, they have kids but on background.
- Provision Management is easy, most of the time. Most quests give you enough provisions not to worry. Provisions only become worrying when you have a large MaA army, say, +1K and beyond. Even then, that just means you will actually have to give a fuck. Like I said earlier, Provisions should be consumed over time, especially by MaA. I mean, wtf are my people eating, sunlight?
- It's really annoying that certain characters are eternally wandering, like shop traders and such. More than once I met a pretty crafter girl I wanted to romance but never could. Let me marry the blacksmith girl with big tiddies, game!
- I have the impression that Adventurer game is pretty much Adventurer -> King/Emperor. Don't bother with anything lower, because you make more money than the average duke.
- Adventurer MaA are still OP, holy fuck. If you have high martial and good retinues, you can legit beat x4 your numbers.

So I played a 1066 game as a custom Galician Catholic Adventurer, Gonçalo de Rangel. Gonçalo is a Brilliant Strategist/Zealous/Wrathful Martial/Prowess Beatstick, he's essentially made to lead armies, kill dudes and take their shit. Gonçalo went around Christian Iberia doing quests, mostly escorting people and artifacts, doing county control or protecting people. Mostly martial stuff. Gonçalo then started building his own MaA forces and fighting in a few wars.

But in his early late 50s and early 60s, his real claim to fame came when the Pope declared the Crusade for Andalusia. Gonçalo thought himself merely a bit player, and decided to support Catholic forces. This backfired because the Crusaders have numerical superiority but couldn't muster themselves in a few single beatstick stacks to start attacking enemy forces and sieging. So they just went to and fro like a bunch of total retards, while the Muslim armies grouped in 1-2 stacks and demolished them. The Crusade was almost lost, even through Christendom outnumbered the enemy 3 to 1. Seeing that following Crusader leaders was fucking over his army, Gonçalo pulled back, reinforced his retinues and enacted a simple plan: He was actually going to go alone, siege holdings himself and win the war. Gonçalo then did that while the Crusade's leaders did... whatever.

It was then that a massive fuck-off army of 8k screaming moors showed up to engage Gonçalo's forces of 1.8k MaA during a siege. Gonçalo army of pikemen, heavy cavalry and armored footmen proceeded to engage in what was one of the biggest curb-stomps on the Crusader... or should have been. Rather, Gonçalo and his "Hands of God" proceeded to narrowly beat the vastly larger heathen force, while the rest of Christendom just stood and watched. A second subsequent attack finally had the rest of the Crusade help, and Gonçalo managed to win the Crusade by actually sieging down land.

And that's how some random adventurer became King by the Pope's leave.

 

[jungl]

The crusades with adventurer is too funny. Park camp right where its going to kick off and rush down their armies before AI can blob. Take causalities? Its okay a few apples and cherries will replace all those armored horsemen and heavy infantry. Winning the crusade obtained 2000ish gold from pope on top of gold from being a lifelong criminal. 3k+ gold enough to dominate for remainder of life and heirs too. Whats the point of being good when a criminal can outlast the negative general opinion with gold?

 

[Fedora Master]

Whats the point of being good when a criminal can outlast the negative general opinion with gold?

Certainly one of the questions of our time

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Man I definitively have to try criminal, but I'm too nice.

A friend of mine invited me for a CKIII Megacampaign some guys he knows are running. I had said no but in the last moment I decided to check shit out, not like I had anything better to do.
We sadly did have two hours worth of hold ups and had to rehost at some point. We had over 20 players there, 22 at max I think.

I decided to go with an Adventurer, an Avarian Tengrii adventurer. Essentially a big ol' Martial Beatstick merc adventurer. Did some quests, got money, got some gifts from nearby players, brought me some Horse Archer MaAs and moved to Lisboa at another player's urging, as he wanted mercs. Right now I have over a thousand retinues split between Horse Archers and Light Cavalry, planning to recruit even more.

My friend had... a not so lucky game. You see, his plan was to create a Jewish country in France called Tzarfat. He started as a count with a few holdings. However, he then got super-unlucky: He caught leprosy, which nuked his fertility. Cue his pleading for us to please fuck his wife so he could pass off the undiscovered children as his. Everyone lined up to seduce his wife, a czech pagan. I tried but alas she broke it off. One of us managed to cuck him successfully, another was arrested, also some asshole tried to murder her. Then his ruler died of the sniffles when his physician botched a treatment. And then his daughter died and we decided to end the session then, as other people were already wanting to finish it.

A weird experience but definitively a fun one.

 

[Üstad]

Rather than utilizing events, I wish the developers developed mechanics that allowed for emergent game-play which lets us emulate our favorite historical figures. William the Bastard's conquest of England and independence while being in a vassalage under the king of France (as the duke of Normandy) would've been a good excuse to implement multiple levels of ownership for a province/county. Furthermore, I am still sour that Paradox didn't see fit to implement an actual negotiation system into the game. I was following a mod for the game called Sue for Peace which allowed people to negotiate marriage in exchange for gold/land/treaties, land transfer, and more—which would have enabled more compelling stories and unique situations to develop. It is extremely disappointing that instead of expanding on diplomacy, Paradox saw it fit to instead simplify it into "marriage = alliance."

Also, being unable to call your vassals to war seems stupid to me. I know it's all about balance but larger realms should be difficult to conquer, and players should be incentivized to wait for a rebellion or conflict before conquering an empire with tons of vassals. I know that I'm being negative about the game, but I fail to see the 'depth and complexity' that reviewers gush about in the Steam reviews section of this game. You can't even suss out and stop seduction schemes against your own wife or keep your children from teleporting away from court!

They won't do it as paradox fanbase is cancer and satisfied with current state of things. Don't expect strategy in this game, it's an "incest lolrandumd glitterhoof lmao" meme game like CK2.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Man I definitively have to try criminal, but I'm too nice.

A friend of mine invited me for a CKIII Megacampaign some guys he knows are running. I had said no but in the last moment I decided to check shit out, not like I had anything better to do.
We sadly did have two hours worth of hold ups and had to rehost at some point. We had over 20 players there, 22 at max I think.

I decided to go with an Adventurer, an Avarian Tengrii adventurer. Essentially a big ol' Martial Beatstick merc adventurer. Did some quests, got money, got some gifts from nearby players, brought me some Horse Archer MaAs and moved to Lisboa at another player's urging, as he wanted mercs. Right now I have over a thousand retinues split between Horse Archers and Light Cavalry, planning to recruit even more.

My friend had... a not so lucky game. You see, his plan was to create a Jewish country in France called Tzarfat. He started as a count with a few holdings. However, he then got super-unlucky: He caught leprosy, which nuked his fertility. Cue his pleading for us to please fuck his wife so he could pass off the undiscovered children as his. Everyone lined up to seduce his wife, a czech pagan. I tried but alas she broke it off. One of us managed to cuck him successfully, another was arrested, also some asshole tried to murder her. Then his ruler died of the sniffles when his physician botched a treatment. And then his daughter died and we decided to end the session then, as other people were already wanting to finish it.

A weird experience but definitively a fun one.

Your friend was definitely playing a frenchman if not a Jew.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Man I definitively have to try criminal, but I'm too nice.

A friend of mine invited me for a CKIII Megacampaign some guys he knows are running. I had said no but in the last moment I decided to check shit out, not like I had anything better to do.
We sadly did have two hours worth of hold ups and had to rehost at some point. We had over 20 players there, 22 at max I think.

I decided to go with an Adventurer, an Avarian Tengrii adventurer. Essentially a big ol' Martial Beatstick merc adventurer. Did some quests, got money, got some gifts from nearby players, brought me some Horse Archer MaAs and moved to Lisboa at another player's urging, as he wanted mercs. Right now I have over a thousand retinues split between Horse Archers and Light Cavalry, planning to recruit even more.

My friend had... a not so lucky game. You see, his plan was to create a Jewish country in France called Tzarfat. He started as a count with a few holdings. However, he then got super-unlucky: He caught leprosy, which nuked his fertility. Cue his pleading for us to please fuck his wife so he could pass off the undiscovered children as his. Everyone lined up to seduce his wife, a czech pagan. I tried but alas she broke it off. One of us managed to cuck him successfully, another was arrested, also some asshole tried to murder her. Then his ruler died of the sniffles when his physician botched a treatment. And then his daughter died and we decided to end the session then, as other people were already wanting to finish it.

A weird experience but definitively a fun one.

Your friend was definitely playing a frenchman if not a Jew.

And people say Jews don't try to fit into the local culture!

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

They won't do it as paradox fanbase is cancer and satisfied with current state of things.

I have to disagree here, from what I read in Pdox Plaza and the subreddit, the fanbase is in general agreement that the game has quite many issues in its fundamentals. The biggest things I hear:
- AI
- Vassal Management (or lack thereof)
- Military

Vassal Management also ties to the Military issue, in that players don't give a fuck to what the vassals think. I mean, what are they going to do, revolt? Yeah, have fucking fun fighting the Top Liege's massive MaA stacks. Everyone complained about Retinues in CKII being OP, but at least levies weren't totally useless until mid/late-game CKII, when you had enough gold income to shift your forces from being levy-based to being retinue-based.

I do like the Advantage System, through, it really makes it possible to beat bigger numbers.

The diplomacy system is also really needing some upgrading.

 

[Üstad]

They won't do it as paradox fanbase is cancer and satisfied with current state of things.

I have to disagree here, from what I read in Pdox Plaza and the subreddit, the fanbase is in general agreement that the game has quite many issues in its fundamentals. The biggest things I hear:
- AI
- Vassal Management (or lack thereof)
- Military

Vassal Management also ties to the Military issue, in that players don't give a fuck to what the vassals think. I mean, what are they going to do, revolt? Yeah, have fucking fun fighting the Top Liege's massive MaA stacks. Everyone complained about Retinues in CKII being OP, but at least levies weren't totally useless until mid/late-game CKII, when you had enough gold income to shift your forces from being levy-based to being retinue-based.

I do like the Advantage System, through, it really makes it possible to beat bigger numbers.

The diplomacy system is also really needing some upgrading.

Just because people complain about something doesn't mean they care about it. They'll make some noise but pre-order the next DLC. The game basically has less fundamentals than CKII, they took a step towards to become a new Sims game rather than Crusader Kings game yet the game sell pretty well.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

They won't do it as paradox fanbase is cancer and satisfied with current state of things.

I have to disagree here, from what I read in Pdox Plaza and the subreddit, the fanbase is in general agreement that the game has quite many issues in its fundamentals. The biggest things I hear:
- AI
- Vassal Management (or lack thereof)
- Military

Vassal Management also ties to the Military issue, in that players don't give a fuck to what the vassals think. I mean, what are they going to do, revolt? Yeah, have fucking fun fighting the Top Liege's massive MaA stacks. Everyone complained about Retinues in CKII being OP, but at least levies weren't totally useless until mid/late-game CKII, when you had enough gold income to shift your forces from being levy-based to being retinue-based.

I do like the Advantage System, through, it really makes it possible to beat bigger numbers.

The diplomacy system is also really needing some upgrading.

Just because people complain about something doesn't mean they care about it. They'll make some noise but pre-order the next DLC. The game basically has less fundamentals than CKII, they took a step towards to become a new Sims game rather than Crusader Kings game yet the game sell pretty well.

Why would you complain about something you don't care about?
Pdox paypigs definitively exist tho.
I think the Sims thing is a bit radical, but I agree that so far the game has gone too much towards the RPG Aspects and has left the strategic aspects neglected.

Did you play the release version of CKII? I did. That game was the very definition of "Nice potential, but in many aspects feels barebone as fuck and still doesn't do a lot of shit the OG did". Hell, we took years until we got Friends and Rivals!
So it might be a tad unfair to compare CKIII now to CKII Holy Fury. You should be comparing it to idk, Sons of Abraham or Rajas of India. Far as I remember CKII, it went like this:
- Release CKII: Has potential but barebones.
- Legacy of Rome: Finally something that can be considered playable.
- The Old Gods: Peak Early CKII. CKII finally came on its own, doing things the original game would never dream of.
- Way of Life/Horse Lords: The nadir of CKII, game ran into so much tech debt that it was defacto unplayable due to performance issues. Game almost died around here. Everyone blames India, but the game was unplayable even if you deleted India.
- Reaper's Due: Rebirth of CKII. Performance issues started to be adressed here.
- Jade Dragon: Excellent revamp of the East.
- Holy Fury: Excellent last song. Finished game.

Still... I think it's worth acknowledging that Paradox was cooking with Roads to Power. They definitively have something good in their hands, and RtP is getting incredible notes. The question is wherever they will seize the momentum and continue to improve the game, or wherever they will release some whatever gay event-based shit.

Honestly, CKIII feels like it needs a Custodian team. Custodian Initiative is pretty much what saved Stellaris from becoming Imperator 2

 

[Üstad]

Why would you complain about something you don't care about?
Pdox paypigs definitively exist tho.
I think the Sims thing is a bit radical, but I agree that so far the game has gone too much towards the RPG Aspects and has left the strategic aspects neglected.

Did you play the release version of CKII? I did. That game was the very definition of "Nice potential, but in many aspects feels barebone as fuck and still doesn't do a lot of shit the OG did". Hell, we took years until we got Friends and Rivals!
So it might be a tad unfair to compare CKIII now to CKII Holy Fury. You should be comparing it to idk, Sons of Abraham or Rajas of India. Far as I remember CKII, it went like this:
- Release CKII: Has potential but barebones.
- Legacy of Rome: Finally something that can be considered playable.
- The Old Gods: Peak Early CKII. CKII finally came on its own, doing things the original game would never dream of.
- Way of Life/Horse Lords: The nadir of CKII, game ran into so much tech debt that it was defacto unplayable due to performance issues. Game almost died around here. Everyone blames India, but the game was unplayable even if you deleted India.
- Reaper's Due: Rebirth of CKII. Performance issues started to be adressed here.
- Jade Dragon: Excellent revamp of the East.
- Holy Fury: Excellent last song. Finished game.

Still... I think it's worth acknowledging that Paradox was cooking with Roads to Power. They definitively have something good in their hands, and RtP is getting incredible notes. The question is wherever they will seize the momentum and continue to improve the game, or wherever they will release some whatever gay event-based shit.

Honestly, CKIII feels like it needs a Custodian team. Custodian Initiative is pretty much what saved Stellaris from becoming Imperator 2

Umm what? That's oddly sentimental and I didn't ask anyone to stop playing this game, if you enjoy it go ahead continue to enjoy it. But I have right to criticize the game, it's one of the reasons why this forum exists.

I do agree CKII at the release was even more barebones than CK3 by the way, but the company is bigger now and they understood what sells, apparently that's not something I quite enjoy. My subjective opinions aside, they barely add any strategical depth. Let's talk about the DLC focusing on Eastern Roman Empire, they added bureaucratic/imperial governor system which is nice which also represents some of the muslim empires such as Abbassids to a degree. But what about going even further and going back in time where civilian and military governance more strictly seperated? Byzantines were not always ruled by 'theme' system, the reason it existed is because the constant military threats they're exposed from the east. If those threats are gone or we think we can somehow manage without themes why can't we do it? Why can't we empower the senate and fuck over the palace bureaucracy for example? Because it'd actually take some serious work to implement a complex political system. There is a reason why you could not play as a guy or a family but as entire country itself in Imperator Rome game. They can't even properly implement medieval politics which is way simpler than bureaucratic and republican one.

To clarify myself, this is not me ranting about some niche stuff that is not implemented, rather the Paradox's ideas are more often than not have potential but they're almost always superficially implemented, this not just because Paradox is shitty company with goofy ass workers, it's also has to do with the customer base.

 

[Axioms]

Roads To Power was a joke, as expected. Sure the casuals and the paypigs liked it but it was basically a mid-list text adventure stapled on to CK3 and not a flexible and dynamic system tightly integrated with the core game.

 

[sser]

Kinda interesting, but my game bugged out hard:

My adventurer mercenary agreed to help a faction in return for a duchy.

Fight the war and win it.

The game wigs out and strips me of adventurer status, dumps me back in my starting zone, and then... that's it.

I basically don't "exist" within the game, just have a portrait in limbo somewhere. Even my 'court' of kids are gone.

 

[Rieser]

Kinda interesting, but my game bugged out hard:

My adventurer mercenary agreed to help a faction in return for a duchy.

Fight the war and win it.

The game wigs out and strips me of adventurer status, dumps me back in my starting zone, and then... that's it.

I basically don't "exist" within the game, just have a portrait in limbo somewhere. Even my 'court' of kids are gone.

It's a sneak peek of the next major dlc: the peasant experience aka Road to Peasant.

 

[MrTerrible]

So it might be a tad unfair to compare CKIII now to CKII Holy Fury. You should be comparing it to idk, Sons of Abraham or Rajas of India.

...Why? CKIII had CKII to work off of. CKII was working with close to nothing. Also, they wasted a lot of time on developing the disaster that was the Royal Court DLC. The dev team and management fucked up, despite having had their homework done for them already with CKII.

It's just baffling to me how unambitious the devs were for this game in both the strategy and role-playing front. The most innovation they could come up with is a pseudo-level up system for stats and abilities.

 

[Axioms]

So it might be a tad unfair to compare CKIII now to CKII Holy Fury. You should be comparing it to idk, Sons of Abraham or Rajas of India.

...Why? CKIII had CKII to work off of. CKII was working with close to nothing. Also, they wasted a lot of time on developing the disaster that was the Royal Court DLC. The dev team and management fucked up, despite having had their homework done for them already with CKII.

It's just baffling to me how unambitious the devs were for this game in both the strategy and role-playing front. The most innovation they could come up with is a pseudo-level up system for stats and abilities.

Right? People act like CK3 started from scratch. All the development on CK2 gave them so much information, lots of metrics, and plenty of practice for CK3.

 

[vota DC]

Hotfix released today, Adventurers got pretty nerfed

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/update-1-13-0-3-changelog.1705646/

Hello everybody! We’re releasing a small hotfix today to address some of the issues reported to us by the community since the release of Roads to Power and the 1.13.0 “Basileus” Update on Tuesday. Most notably, Adventurers have received a few balance adjustments to their military strength and income.

If you encounter any issues after today’s update, please check our Known Issues list and submit a bug report if your issue isn’t already listed there. We hope this hotfix improves your enjoyment of new content!

---

PC Update 1.13.0.3 Changelog​

Balance​

• Fixed an issue that would frequently cause adventurers using the Refill Men-at-Arms interaction to be told they were going to be charged significantly more gold or provisions than they were; this has meant removing scaling provision costs based on maximum army size, so the overall cost of refilling with provisions has been boosted by about 25% to compensate
• Rebalanced buffs to Adventurer MaA from officers and Buildings; they should now be much more consistent between unit types (moved additive bonuses to be multiplicative by-and-large) and on average lower. Adventurers will still be very powerful (esp. early on) but should not crush enemy armies into a fine powder with just a handful of upgrades.
• General contract gold rewards decreased by about ~30%
• Travel contract gold rewards decreased by about ~25%
• Crime contract gold rewards decreased by about ~16%
• The “Settle Boundary Dispute” contract had its gold rewards significantly decreased (~50%), due to it being so much easier than most other contracts
• Provision contract rewards decreased by approximately 1 tier:
  • 500 -> 250
  • 750 -> 500
  • 1250 -> 1000
  • 2000 -> 1500
• "Free Provisions" in the Visit Settlement decision has been nerfed
  • Halved the amount you would gain from trying to charm the salesmen
  • Halved the amount you would gain from trying to steal provisions
• The refund for aborting your Rite of Passage now matches the initial cost. Changing your mind should not conjure up gold and prestige from thin air.
• Nerfed the "Reinstated the Theodosian Borders" modifier gained from the decision to re-establish said borders. The Renown gain has been removed. It was, frankly, quite insane to give everyone in your dynasty a 10% boost. You'll gain a flat amount of Renown by taking the decision instead.
• Significantly reduced the amount of AI's willing to leave their realms behind to become adventurers, as it became almost impossible to manage a realm under some scenarios because your vassals kept packing their stuff up and leaving

Bugfixes​

• Fixed an issue where loading an old save into 1.13 would cause armies to number in the billions
• Fixed an instance where the player’s Adventurer camp could get ‘cleaned up’ because their heir wasn’t cool enough, this should no longer happen and the player should be able to continue on their merry way!
• Fixed an issue where Bookmark adventurers wouldn’t inherit from landed rulers properly (they would break free from realms rather than stay subjects as intended)
• Fixed an issue where your vassals would gain Strong Blackmail Hooks on you without you having a say in it
• Fixed some Administrative-specific events firing for non-Administrative rulers
• Fixed the issue with the lingering Eunuch story cycle, even after the Eunuch left court.
• Made sure you couldn't inherit any titles with the Gallivanter trait.
• Adventurers who win Crusades should now adopt a more logical government (more often Feudal instead of Clan)
• Fixed the 'Not Content to Serve' achievement not triggering when playing as Alexios (if you’ve already started a game as him before the update you need to restart unfortunately)
• Fixed a crash that occurs when loading old saves with mismatching provinces.
• Fixed guests showing up as blank agent spaces in the Agent selection window for Hostile Schemes.
• The estate/domicile window will now close rather than crash when the estate ceases to exist due to the character dying.
• Fixed the issue where you would occasionally try to settle down peacefully as the Champion of a Culture, and fail to receive any land.
• Ensured that you aren't petitioning your liege repeatedly in an infinite loop.
• You can no longer recruit a hooded figure infinitely from the tavern.
• You can no longer create Custom Rulers as Landless Administrative Vassals, as that would cause the game to crash.
• Fixed the issue where you could be asked if you wanted land in an Administrative realm, but not receive anything besides a Duchy title (and not transferring Counties), leaving you as a non-ruler
• Ensured that there is only one estate per Noble Family. This should also fix the issue where Estates could reset on inheritance.
• Fixed a crash when trying to calculate the number of free building slots in holdings.
• Fixed a crash in vassal contracts that could occur when loading an older save
• Fixed an OOS that could occur when Hotjoining
• Fixed the LotD soundtrack not showing in the Music Player

Interface​

• The decision menu will now close itself when taking certain decisions; Visit Settlement, Gather Provisions, etc. This should make the flow smoother.
• The Relationship Reason icons will now be visible for other characters again in the relationships tab, so you can see the reason why two characters are friends, rivals, etc.

But why? Took a couple years to improve the relation of a random nigga king for less than 50 gold and companions got stressed and flagellated themselves to death.
Just like making a hook on the pope....he died before finishing It, then did with the next one and three agents died of old age.

 

[Dvd22]

It was then that a massive fuck-off army of 8k screaming moors showed up to engage Gonçalo's forces of 1.8k MaA during a siege. Gonçalo army of pikemen, heavy cavalry and armored footmen proceeded to engage in what was one of the biggest curb-stomps on the Crusader... or should have been. Rather, Gonçalo and his "Hands of God" proceeded to narrowly beat the vastly larger heathen force, while the rest of Christendom just stood and watched. A second subsequent attack finally had the rest of the Crusade help, and Gonçalo managed to win the Crusade by actually sieging down land.

Yeah, combat changes made that possible. From the Roads to Power release patchnotes:

Advantage now affects battles by a factor of 10 (up from 2), this makes having the right commanders/fighting in the right terrain much more important, allowing smaller armies to beat larger ones more consistently.

So now, for example, an advange of 30 in combat (defending across a strait) means 300% more damage alone, without accounting commanders and other sources of advantage. Wining 1:10 may now be feasible.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Why would you complain about something you don't care about?
Pdox paypigs definitively exist tho.
I think the Sims thing is a bit radical, but I agree that so far the game has gone too much towards the RPG Aspects and has left the strategic aspects neglected.

Did you play the release version of CKII? I did. That game was the very definition of "Nice potential, but in many aspects feels barebone as fuck and still doesn't do a lot of shit the OG did". Hell, we took years until we got Friends and Rivals!
So it might be a tad unfair to compare CKIII now to CKII Holy Fury. You should be comparing it to idk, Sons of Abraham or Rajas of India. Far as I remember CKII, it went like this:
- Release CKII: Has potential but barebones.
- Legacy of Rome: Finally something that can be considered playable.
- The Old Gods: Peak Early CKII. CKII finally came on its own, doing things the original game would never dream of.
- Way of Life/Horse Lords: The nadir of CKII, game ran into so much tech debt that it was defacto unplayable due to performance issues. Game almost died around here. Everyone blames India, but the game was unplayable even if you deleted India.
- Reaper's Due: Rebirth of CKII. Performance issues started to be adressed here.
- Jade Dragon: Excellent revamp of the East.
- Holy Fury: Excellent last song. Finished game.

Still... I think it's worth acknowledging that Paradox was cooking with Roads to Power. They definitively have something good in their hands, and RtP is getting incredible notes. The question is wherever they will seize the momentum and continue to improve the game, or wherever they will release some whatever gay event-based shit.

Honestly, CKIII feels like it needs a Custodian team. Custodian Initiative is pretty much what saved Stellaris from becoming Imperator 2

Umm what? That's oddly sentimental and I didn't ask anyone to stop playing this game, if you enjoy it go ahead continue to enjoy it. But I have right to criticize the game, it's one of the reasons why this forum exists.

I do agree CKII at the release was even more barebones than CK3 by the way, but the company is bigger now and they understood what sells, apparently that's not something I quite enjoy. My subjective opinions aside, they barely add any strategical depth. Let's talk about the DLC focusing on Eastern Roman Empire, they added bureaucratic/imperial governor system which is nice which also represents some of the muslim empires such as Abbassids to a degree. But what about going even further and going back in time where civilian and military governance more strictly seperated? Byzantines were not always ruled by 'theme' system, the reason it existed is because the constant military threats they're exposed from the east. If those threats are gone or we think we can somehow manage without themes why can't we do it? Why can't we empower the senate and fuck over the palace bureaucracy for example? Because it'd actually take some serious work to implement a complex political system. There is a reason why you could not play as a guy or a family but as entire country itself in Imperator Rome game. They can't even properly implement medieval politics which is way simpler than bureaucratic and republican one.

To clarify myself, this is not me ranting about some niche stuff that is not implemented, rather the Paradox's ideas are more often than not have potential but they're almost always superficially implemented, this not just because Paradox is shitty company with goofy ass workers, it's also has to do with the customer base.

Odly sentimental? Odd.

I didn't say you didn't have to criticize the game.

Yes, they are bigger now.
I agree with the lack of strategic dept.
That is a reasonable issue with the theme/governorship system. Its an issue with Crusader Kings feudalism in general, it takes one type of feudalism specifically and applies it everywhere. CKII was pretty much buckling under that issue.
Different government modes are a step in the right direction, and CKIII was made from the onset to support, but they should have been doing that from much earlier.

Yes, I always thought Imperator's biggest fuck-up is that you can't play as a guy or a family. Imperator should have been a game about the biggest players of the Republic sharing turns at the driving wheel, while planning to take ultimate power (or trying to save the Republic).

I feel the DLC model also does not help in the regard of properly connecting systems and despicting them. Like I said elsewhere, CKIII needs a Custodians Team stat.

Kinda interesting, but my game bugged out hard:

My adventurer mercenary agreed to help a faction in return for a duchy.

Fight the war and win it.

The game wigs out and strips me of adventurer status, dumps me back in my starting zone, and then... that's it.

I basically don't "exist" within the game, just have a portrait in limbo somewhere. Even my 'court' of kids are gone.

It's a sneak peek of the next major dlc: the peasant experience aka Road to Peasant.

You joke, but Roads to Power has the same acronym as the original CKII Landless Gameplay mod, Rise to Power.
And that mod actually included the option to start as a peasant.
Peasant gameplay could actually be cool:
- Choose a profession, like blacksmith, baker, criminal thug, clergyman, farmer, professional soldier, scribe etc
- Meet local nobles and clergymen sometimes, create links, make contacts
- Meet other peasants, talk, have relationships, build a family
- Get recruited as a levy and fight in your overlord's wars
- Move to a city and try to make your fortune there, but mind all the plagues and the bustle!
- Go to church, meet the local clergy

(btw, Literacy should totally be a Levelled Skill. It's ridiculous that all CKIII characters are able to read and write. Yeah almost all of them are nobility, but even among nobles there were illiterates)

Imagine going from peasant to getting enobled, or even making your own peasant revolt.

This would be especially relevant when you consider the possibility of China getting added to the game.

Might be better done after Republic gameplay becomes a thing, because it would allow things like Peasant Communes.

 

[Dark Souls II]

So tl;dr, is the adventurer thing actually good? I remember that sort of thing was actually possible back in CK2, you could start as a single county holder in a large empire, work your way up the ranks, become a spymaster or something, and eventually betray your liege and become the sovereign yourself.

What did they add in CK3? Also, how does it interplay with the dynastic mechanics? AKA, can you first work on building your dynasty, and then elevate your entire your family into power? It would be cool, as that's how it worked for the Borgias or the Julio-Claudians.