Grand Strategy Crusader Kings III

[Stavrophore]

The game doesn't take itself seriously, it's basically a meme vessel for normies.

 

[Harthwain]

I have one stack of mounted units, upgraded to level 2 (so 200 units I believe).
Although, I may have upgraded it after this specific war.

There are buildings that increase troops effectiveness.

 

[Alienman]

Wouldn't it be more logical if defeated armies dispersed until reformed at home again. Battles would be more important and it would eliminate the whack a mole stuff.

It would still allow for comebacks.

That's... pretty much what shattered retreat does, duh. Except that the defeated army still flees like a singular entity, but you can't engage with them or control them if they are yours.

I mean they would disappear from the map and go back to the pool of men. Now if you defeat an invading army they don't flee back to their homeland, they retreat around your land just to turn around and attack your settlements again. If would make the crusades more clear where defeated armies actually gets taken away from the map (for a while at least).

 

[MajorMace]

I have one stack of mounted units, upgraded to level 2 (so 200 units I believe).
Although, I may have upgraded it after this specific war.

There are buildings that increase troops effectiveness.

I know there are buildings improving troops and stuff. But my issue remains, whether I'm effective at destroying fleeing enemies or not, I have to defeat the same army 5 times despite them having no supply. I find it a bit too much.

 

[cw8]

Is there a CK2 music mod for CK3 already? Not a fan of the music in CK3.

 

[Harthwain]

I know there are buildings improving troops and stuff. But my issue remains, whether I'm effective at destroying fleeing enemies or not, I have to defeat the same army 5 times despite them having no supply. I find it a bit too much.

I suspect it was done to prevent everything being decided after a single major battle. I just split off some sieging forces (1 or 2 regiments of siege equipment is good exactly for that) and keep the main army to watch for the enemy who's bound to come, allowing me to get a jump on them then. Makes winning wars much easier.

 

[Catacombs]

Is there a CK2 music mod for CK3 already? Not a fan of the music in CK3.

Yes: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2217750429&searchtext=music

 

[Tigranes]

I have to say, the Create Religion screen is quite exciting. I don't know yet how it pans out after you create a wacky spinoff Christian sect that rewards carnal celebrations and travelling scholastic debators, but it's one place you can point to and say "that shit was not there in CK2 at all and it looks pretty cool and significant". We'll see.

Ironically, it seems like given the high piety cost, you might need to be a pretty solid Christian to be able to pull it off (or get in some motherlode crusades).

 

[Axioms]

CK2 had a decent religious creation screen. Granted would have liked more than 4 features and more expansive options.

 

[jungl]

game mechanics are dumb. If county has different culture and religion then your ruler then its guaranteed rebellion when your ruler is vulnerable so if you playing rurik there literally nothing you can do but deal with rebellions constantly.

 

[muds_animal_friend]

There are two symbols -- one of which Paradox should have used -- representative of Insular Christianity:

But for some strange reason the fags at Paradox used neither. Do we have to pay extra for DLC not to have our cultural icons erased from history? Insular Christianity flavor pack 9.99 euros?

I would have refunded, but I was so busy trying to marry my son to his niece whom I fathered from a love affair with my daughter that I went over the two hours.

 

[IDtenT]

game mechanics are dumb. If county has different culture and religion then your ruler then its guaranteed rebellion when your ruler is vulnerable so if you playing rurik there literally nothing you can do but deal with rebellions constantly.

Convert to Russian and Slavic religion.

 

[Popiel]

Insular Christianity flavor pack 9.99 euros?

Why so sarcastic when we all know it's happenin' eventually.

 

[eater of pie]

Quit my previous two games because my wife cheated on me and apparently all my heirs were illegitimate. Heirs only get something like a 'disputed parentage' attribute but they remain part of your house & dynasty. I'm done playing this cuck simulator until some decent mods come in.

 

[rado907]

Fun game. Did a full playthrough as 867 Bulgaria. Offered fealty to Constantinople to prevent them from ravaging me, and went on to conquer the Balkans and "unite the South Slavs" and build an economic base in the Carpathians.

Then declared independence and founded a religion that had a temporal head (me), cheaper crusades, cheaper conversion, and better feasts. Basically we were spreading the good life.

Have to say, crusades are a huge crutch with foreign policy. In the space of a century, we conquered most of Europe. At one point, my vassal kings were doing most of the work on their own. A big Moslem blob dominated the rest of the map.

Had a great time. One thing that would be cool would be a beefier retrospective screen when you retire with stats and graphs and stuff.

 

[rado907]

1.0 protips if interested:

Spoiler

- The friendship diplomacy skill is great, you just befriend everybody and have far less hassle with rebellions and other shenanigans. This can even give you skill points and lower stress - both good things.
- Fabricating hooks from the intrigue tree is also useful. Very useful for managing vassals.
- The health perks in the philosophy lifestyle are also good, especially once your dynasty unlocks the bonuses for old rulers. I had guys live to 90+.
- Enemies can and will hire mercs who are stronger than levies. So if that juicy Papacy has 10k troops on paper, they are really 20k and can beat up your 40k peasants.
- If the Pope's army is in Croatia and you manage to capture him with an ingenious amphibious assault on Rome, you can enforce terms right there.
- To soften a nasty enemy, murder their ruler until a child takes charge. Then attack when someone rebels.
- For some reason, temple holdings upgrade themselves - at least for the Orthodox religion. That's huge money for you. So those holdings might be the best.
- Being head of church of my own religion seemed pretty OP. You get a crusade for kingdom casus belli that all your vassals mobilize for. You also get to approve your own divorces. Lol.
- Only ever do matrilineal marriages for your daughters to avoid silly game overs.
- Playing as a child character has its advantages in that you get to pick good traits.

 

[Tigranes]

I started a Duke and played for 200 years and never had problems with Stress. Always feels like there's not very many places where you gain it unless you go out of your way to work against your traits, and then you have a lot of reliable ways to bring it down, including just going with a Mental Break. I wouldn't mind a Stress mod that gives it a wider range of horrible consequences & makes you gain it faster.

I did have a good time with a high intrigue dickface emperor who just went full Intrigue. There were peasant uprisings every few years, and every single time, I could just murder the leader to end it without lifting a finger. Could do the same with any errant vassals. Eventually nobody wanted to speak up to a full dread dynastic kinslayer murderer.

 

[Mortmal]

Fun game. Did a full playthrough as 867 Bulgaria. Offered fealty to Constantinople to prevent them from ravaging me, and went on to conquer the Balkans and "unite the South Slavs" and build an economic base in the Carpathians.

Then declared independence and founded a religion that had a temporal head (me), cheaper crusades, cheaper conversion, and better feasts. Basically we were spreading the good life.

Have to say, crusades are a huge crutch with foreign policy. In the space of a century, we conquered most of Europe. At one point, my vassal kings were doing most of the work on their own. A big Moslem blob dominated the rest of the map.

Had a great time. One thing that would be cool would be a beefier retrospective screen when you retire with stats and graphs and stuff.

Then you stop as you have beaten everything seen everything the game has to offer and every other country will play exactly the same for now ...

 

[Harthwain]

game mechanics are dumb. If county has different culture and religion then your ruler then its guaranteed rebellion when your ruler is vulnerable so if you playing rurik there literally nothing you can do but deal with rebellions constantly.

You can convert counties and increase control with councilmen. That's what I am doing at the moment.

The biggest issue with religions at the moment is that Catholicism is basically screwed, because there are so many things that kill fervor for it. This means heresy outbreaks are rampant and conversions back to Catholicism rarely - if ever - happen, which explains why Catholicism vanishes from the map. Even if conversions back to Catholicism do happen the now-Catholic rulers can't convert their own population back, because fervor of Catholicism is so low it literally never happens (no progress on the progress bar). The only way out of it is taking 3 perks from the Scholarship tree and sending your own priest to do it. That's the goal of my current Emperor: to make sure all provinces of Holy Roman Empire go back to Catholicism.

At the moment only France, Scotland, Norway, some English territories (scattered under many smaller Dukes), Papacy and Holy Roman Empire remained Catholic. Despite this fervor keeps dying (even after it goes up a little due to heresy outbreaks), probably because some idiots declare Holy Wars and Crusades and if they succeed, then fervor goes down massively. So the end result is that Orthodox and various Muslims have a lot more territory, but somehow keep their fervor at 50-85%, while mine ranges at 0-20% most of the time (mostly closer to 0).

Once all of Holy Roman Empire is properly Catholic, I will try to bring fervor up and then start the reconquista of Iberia once more, but this time Duchy-by-Duchy and making sure any Crusade Pope calls is doomed to fail. The good result of the last Crusade on Iberia was that it managed to break the former big Sultanate into a dozen of smaller Sultanates, so there is less cohesion and it's probably the only reason why France wasn't taken by the Muslims yet (since France is stronger as a single entity, even without some part that broke off and right now are making their way to me via sneaky marriages).

 

[Tigranes]

In my game Western Europe remains 95% Catholic, and I haven't interfered with them at all. I did establish a Kingdom of Jerusalem that managed ultimately to stay Christian and thrive, so I suppose that helped.

 

[Harthwain]

What year do you have? Mine is 1173, so a little over a hundred years from the starting date (started in 1066).

 

[Commissar Draco]

Do you have this bug where Pope is impossible to convert and/or to strip from titles? I colected all the Pentarchy seats except old Rome Comrades as true Roman Empire. Also religion creator is fun I created Biased Orthodoxy:

No Papacy No Sodomy No Cuckery and hot bitches for all faithful.

 

[Space Satan]

I have mixed feelings about Shattered Retreat. It is annoying to catch up with armies, but I still remember when I managed to wipe tens of thousands just folllowing them and constantly defeating them because they cannot regenerate morale. I'd say it is a necessary evil for the sake of gameplay.

 

[cw8]

So Primogeniture is now a late-game mechanic this time round, means we're stuck with shitty Gavelkind most of the game. The Byzantines start off right from the bat with Primogeniture instead of the Imperial Election system, which probably makes them OP. Muslims don't seem to have the child with most titles becomes heir thingy they had in CK2.

 

[Tigranes]

So Primogeniture is now a late-game mechanic this time round, means we're stuck with shitty Gavelkind most of the game. The Byzantines start off right from the bat with Primogeniture instead of the Imperial Election system, which probably makes them OP. Muslims don't seem to have the child with most titles becomes heir thingy they had in CK2.

OP for what? Conquering the entire continent? Sure, I guess, but that's a pretty boring way to play a game with such a shitty war system.

I've come to prefer Gavelkind to keep the game interesting and have nice interfamilial struggles over the years - going Primo I know usually means that familiar Pdox inflection point where your nation is totally stable and you cannot lose, and all victories are guaranteed, it's just a question of how long it takes.