Grand Strategy Crusader Kings III

[fantadomat]

Speaking of pause: did PDX, by any chance, finally discover the idea of hard, non-toggling pause key, or the game is still prone to ruin your campaign by plopping a game-pausing event at the instant when you are trying to press time-critical pause yourself?

That is exactly what happened in that screen shot. It constantly spam pointless events and fucks up your pause. Events autopause.

 

[mondblut]

My main issue with it is that its impossible to tech ahead of time. e.g. have fun being stuck with gavelkind until the tier 3 techs at 1050. I can see it getting really old to deal with in every, single, game. CK2's problem was that you only teched ahead in one or two categories but not being able to tech ahead at all kind of sucks.

Another reason to wait for a couple of years until DLCs bring back the non-retarded succession laws. Eldership FTW.

 

[Average Manatee]

Alright, some Protips™

- Stewardship is the Big Stat again. It's +1 demesne per 5 along with a hefty tax bonus. Getting a good spouse set to boost only stewardship and you can be rocking around 25 or so pretty easily, which means doubled demesne for most characters along with +40% or so to taxes ontop of it. Its also important because more demesne = more unit bonuses.
- The stewardship lifestyle with demanding payment for hooks and extort subjects is very good for easy money quick. All the stewardship lifestyle trees have pretty good bonuses in fact, but definitely start with those two. Other good early perks to skim through are the -50% casus belli cost in martial and Intrigue's ability to fabricate hooks and fertility bonus. If you are small then the +75% knight effectiveness ability in martial is very good, and the +4 knight capacity is only 2 steps further down the tree.
- You definitely want to breed a lot of family members since that's what gets you the legacy points, so try and set up dukes of your dynasty everywhere you can. Legacy-wise the first 3 blood bonuses are really, really good at letting you incest and breed constant geniuses. The -20% casus belli cost from warefare is very usefull, stack with the martial bonus so you can war and still wrack up the top-level prestige and piety ranks. The first two law bonuses are kind of only good if you are landing a lot of your dynasty members, otherwise they do nothing. Rest of the lines are pretty meh.
- Military wise it seems you want to focus on a single regiment type (aside from also bringing artillery for sieges). It's odd, because the game has a system where certain units counter other units, but the "counter" works less the more of that unit you bring. So if you are 100% Bowmen and you stack all bowmen building bonuses across all your demesne your archers will outmatch all but their "counter" easily and when fighting their "counter" will only get a penalty of like 5-10% because the AI won't specifically mass light cavalry. And the AI will never have a well-managed 10 or more demesne stacking all the same buildings to get uber units. I recommend archers because when archers have +50 atk/def the gap between them and heavy infantry with +50 atk/def is pretty marginal but the cost savings is always going to be there and be massive. Though Light Infantry might also work, they have pursuit stats so they'll annihilate a retreating enemy.
- Easymode succession: Dread. Specifically, capture a bunch of heathens in a holy war before succession then as soon as your heir becomes ruler, execute them. At least for Catholic (and I presume most other religions not specifically tolerant) this causes no opinion/tyranny hit with the realm, but gives +10 dread apiece. So your 1 year old emperor can have 100 dread and the whole realm quaking in their boots at the thought of his little finger pointing at them to be taken to the gallows. Not even joking this was my way out of having my emperor die just days after my first son was born (I had a really well-statted adult daughter too) There's probably a few other easy ways to get dread but this is what I found.
- Some culture groups have "hidden" techs that don't show up for other cultures and can't be gained by converting their region, only by culture swapping to them. From what I've seen most of them are just specific man-at-arms regiments (pretty good ones too, but always exceedingly pricey and therefore not worth it IMO). However there was one very important culture I noticed: Occitan/Basque/Aragonese/Catalan has "Visigothic Codes", which allows early usage of high partition and equal inheritance law from the tribal age. If anyone notices any other cultures with unique perks I'd be interested to hear about them.
- Development you can kind of ignore. Your vassals will develop and thereby keep your culture group's average dev high, and osmosis will cause your capital to sort of tag along. Use your steward for cultural conversion.
- The Chaplain is a bit of a problem. The pope calling crusades plummets your religion's fervor which causes heresies to spawn and your chaplain to become absolute shit at conversion. You really kind of need to create your own religion with yourself at the head to manage fervor. And definitely consider taking the Pentarchy reform if you don't have it.
- Technically, if you really wanted to min-max buildings, the best way to do it is to own a bunch of separate duchies and only hold their capitals alone. This is because there are also duchy-level buff buildings. e.g. if you held 10 duchy capitals and 10 archery grounds you'd have -60% men at arms maintenance and +150% damage/50% toughness. Which would obviously be fucking insane, and that's just level 1, level 3 would be -100% maintenane/+450% damage/+150% toughness. There's no penalty for holding lots of duchies that I can see other than that you'd suffer the normal -25 opinion with counts for desiring your duchy. This would trash your vassal limit pretty hard though.

 

[Catacombs]

Getting a good spouse set to boost only stewardship and you can be rocking around 25 or so pretty easily, which means doubled demesne for most characters along

I have a spouse with high stewardship, and I let her manage my domain and the payoff has been great.

 

[Mortmal]

Alright, some Protips™

- Technically, if you really wanted to min-max buildings, the best way to do it is to own a bunch of separate duchies and only hold their capitals alone. This is because there are also duchy-level buff buildings. e.g. if you held 10 duchy capitals and 10 archery grounds you'd have -60% men at arms maintenance and +150% damage/50% toughness. Which would obviously be fucking insane, and that's just level 1, level 3 would be -100% maintenane/+450% damage/+150% toughness. There's no penalty for holding lots of duchies that I can see other than that you'd suffer the normal -25 opinion with counts for desiring your duchy. This would trash your vassal limit pretty hard though.

-10 opinion penalty for every duchies above 2, so it's hefty penalty but doable, kinda playing north korea mode, i guess they wont offer you any levee nor tax .

 

[Alienman]

Finally managed to play, and what can I say... I think the engine is a big improvement. The UI seems improved as well, don't really see the problem with it like some here? Otherwise I don't know, seems very basic so far, set up for countless dlcs down the line. Kinda felt bored after an hour or two, and that is not a good feeling playing a new game, but then again it could be explained by that I already have 400 hours in CKII. It's just too similar I guess.

 

[Theodora]

Regardless of the sometimes awkward character models and the questions about the merits of the UI, the art direction of the game more generally is great. (Craig Mullins' work on the loading screens at least is something special.)

But one thing I'm really loving is the religious symbols, as well as how they're no longer centralised around heresies and a dominant version of a faith.

And an awkward one that defies alignment:

I guess Paradox is getting good at this what with HoI4 having a million similar such icons, but it's still way nicer than a few symbols along with a buncuh of red filter recolours. One that stood out especially was the iconoclast symbol, based on the Hagia Irene, one of the few remnants from the period we have. It's a nice touch.

Spoiler

 

[Average Manatee]

Alright, some Protips™

- Technically, if you really wanted to min-max buildings, the best way to do it is to own a bunch of separate duchies and only hold their capitals alone. This is because there are also duchy-level buff buildings. e.g. if you held 10 duchy capitals and 10 archery grounds you'd have -60% men at arms maintenance and +150% damage/50% toughness. Which would obviously be fucking insane, and that's just level 1, level 3 would be -100% maintenane/+450% damage/+150% toughness. There's no penalty for holding lots of duchies that I can see other than that you'd suffer the normal -25 opinion with counts for desiring your duchy. This would trash your vassal limit pretty hard though.

-10 opinion penalty for every duchies above 2, so it's hefty penalty but doable, kinda playing north korea mode, i guess they wont offer you any levee nor tax .

Could have sworn I had more than 2 duchies and didn't see an opinion penalty. Is it delayed by a few months like the penalty for going over demesne?

Oh well. I guess you don't really need it to make super soldiers. Just 10+ demense and 2 duchy-level buildings supporting it is pretty insane, you're looking at archers that are like 5-15x as strong as their number in levies.

 

[Smoker]

Serious lack of rivals and friends despite all the shit going on. How are two guys that maimed each other not rivals. Or multiple wars against each other with heirs killed and imprisoned. Or winning a ton with the same commanders and knights. Or always answering the allies calls.

 

[Smoker]

 

[Space Satan]

90k peak players FFS

 

[RobotSquirrel]

I will say Paradox hid a lot of things in the game rules and settings. One thing that stood out is that you can make the entire world gay.

 

[Rieser]

Serious lack of rivals and friends despite all the shit going on. How are two guys that maimed each other not rivals. Or multiple wars against each other with heirs killed and imprisoned. Or winning a ton with the same commanders and knights. Or always answering the allies calls.

Some odd stuff there. I mean, raiding foreign kings, kidnapping their wives and forcing them to be your concubines doesn't even make the kings mad - much less rivals. I guess Christians are cucks in CK 3.

 

[Theodora]

Serious lack of rivals and friends despite all the shit going on. How are two guys that maimed each other not rivals. Or multiple wars against each other with heirs killed and imprisoned. Or winning a ton with the same commanders and knights. Or always answering the allies calls.

Sounds like a balancing issue, so probably temporary.

 

[Avarize]

There seem to be a lot of balancing issues, especially with religions.

 

[IDtenT]

It's because Religion to PDS is a means to control.

It has little to do with why some faiths are better than others.

 

[Xamenos]

The AI has... issues. I started my second game as a random Count in Byzantium. Manufactured a claim on my neighbouring Count and attacked him. 2 counties each, I had numbers, he had quality (better knights and retinue). I lose the first fight, as I should. My men retreat past the other side of my county. I wait almost a year until they've replenished, and use the time to hire better knights. In that time the AI does not pursue and does not even try to siege my capital. His army is frozen at a city in his main county. After my army is full, I march back down and the AI allows me to start sieging his capital unopposed. And instead of just marching one barony over, he embarks his army and amphibiously attacks. That penalty turned what should have been a close battle into a slaughter for no reason at all.

I uninstalled. Might check it out again after a couple years, just out of morbid curiosity of the bloated, retarded mess it's gonna be.

 

[Fedora Master]

I assume they balance tested this shit via office mp sessions.

 

[Popiel]

It's because Religion to PDS is a means to control.

It has little to do with why some faiths are better than others.

CK3 is, sadly in that context, a game, and religions needed to be gamified because of that.

By the way, I wonder which faiths you consider better and why...

 

[JarlFrank]

PDX really likes to balance for multiplayer rather than for singleplayer.

 

[Kruno]

By the way, I wonder which faiths you consider better and why...

Judaism! Anything else is heresy!

 

[Average Manatee]

Tried a bit of pagans and its the exact opposite problem with religion. If you aren't declaring holy wars (and you can't as an unreformed pagan), your fervor can only go up. Without the -50% piety cost to reform from low fervor you'll never reform your religion. It costs 4350 for the cheapest options and I make 2.6 per month on my current ruler. I'd have to die, take up a child heir, completely min-max all the appropriate traits to get something like 5 piety a month, ontop of pilgrimaging constantly and I might be able to reform by my 50s. And if I actually want to start changing things about the religion the cost goes up from there.

 

[DemonKing]

Fiddled with this but can't say it's for me - being time poor I prefer games which I can play in short chunks and feel like I've achieved something. A game with no real objectives or goals that can go on endlessly just doesn't work for me at the moment.

Too bad as it looks like there are some interesting systems buried in this.

 

[Avarize]

By the way, I wonder which faiths you consider better and why...

They've all been empirically tested in the real world. Let's just say the results are not inconclusive.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

How do i fight this?