Grand Strategy Crusader Kings III

[Heroic Liberator]

how are armies this time? they still use the levy/retinue system?

 

[Heroic Liberator]

2nd Game - So far super-solid. Its the start tho

Which ruler did you pick this time around and what are your campaign goals?

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Once I get Religious Right: Protected and Sanctioned War Declarations, I plan on being the best vassal ever as I use my liege like a shield to conquer stuff and not get pounced by other muslims.

TL;DR, so maybe I've missed you mentioning it, but go for title protection first and religious rights second. The latter only protects against proselytizing by your liege, but he can still revoke your titles on religious grounds.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

More historical autism:


Dunno if y'all are into CK3, but it might still be interesting to watch - Zibniyat, Andhaira, daveyarsegallant.

Also this YTer's original critique(s) of the portrayal of Islam in CK3:

Spoiler

 

[karoliner]

I really enjoy these types of autistic videos.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

I really enjoy these types of autistic videos.

He also made a lets play of the game, but it's only one large stream:

 

[Zero Credibility]

So, after way too much time wasted on this game, here are (some) of my gripes with it, in no particular order.

1. Genetics game is way too easy. By year 1200 all of my children were guarantied beautiful herculean geniuses. And it wasn't just my children - this combination was very common in my entire dynasty as well. It got to the point where there are 200+ geniuses running around in the world, most of them also physical gods, and 99% of them are related to me in some way. My Übermensch blood has even started to spread into other kingdoms, when I see handsome genius king of Italy I know if I go back through his ancestors I'll run into someone from my dynasty, because the AI simply does not play this part of the game.

2. Making money is way to easy. By year 1200 I have an income of 200+ per month, 200k reserve and another 100k in my piggy-bank archbishop that I can break open at any moment. Now, that happened in CK2 as well, but the problems is, I have nothing at all to spend it on here. I've build every barony in my empire, fully upgraded my demesne, I hand out cash gifts like candy. Upgrading every building in the realm is just too tedious to contemplate, and there are no massive money sinks I could invest into.

3. AI is hopeless. I hold Britannia and coastline of France and have 120k of manpower. ERE holds most of Europe and Africa, is better developed than me and has 30k. How is that even possible? And how the hell is the Basileus so damn poor, what does he spend his cash on? Oh, and the Mongols are a joke. Got a warning about an unstoppable horde, I look it up, and they have 30k. So scary. 30 years later, Khan is dead, maybe they will stop their rampage now? I look it up again, they never even got close to Europe. Wow, such carnage.

5. The AI is also way, way too damn aggressive. Before I could raise my crown authority to put a stop to this, there was never, and I mean never a time without at least a couple of inter-vassal wars happening. Hideous internal borders, nobles killing each other in a giant free-for-all, countless armies running rampant all over my realm, everyone ganging up on any poor new guy I gave land to, it was awful. I had a smaller neighbor I shared my faith with - in a span of 50 years I had joined them at least 20 times to defend them against holy wars, before finally giving them up as hopeless. The AI sees someone with less men that they can declare for on - they do it, regardless of any other circumstance. Pope is another special (head)case here. Just how many times do I have to kick his crusading ass before he picks an easier target? The first time he at least had comparable numbers, but by now it's getting embarrassing - 15k vs 150k? I feel like I'm hitting a special needs kid.

6. The whole fervor mechanics should be thrown into trash. How the fuck does it make sense for winning over the infidel to make the faith weaker, and losing land and worshipers to make it stronger? Fortunately I made my religion pacifist to avoid this nonsense. No holy wars for my idiot vassals, no uppity vassals expanding their power base, or crashing down my fervor. Well, this way at least, don't get me started on that stupid sinful bishop event. Freaking 10%?! No wonder Catholicism is dying in every bloody game.

7. The AI is also fucking insane. God help you if you have sadistic assholes in your realm that decide to pick intrigue focus, because they can decide to start randomly murdering people. Like your heirs. I lost more than a couple heirs to this, and it's always the same story. I get a warning from my 30 intrigue spymaster that someone is plotting against my heir, 95% chance of success. Well, that's just great. The heir does not have any rivals, and neither do I. Nobody has claims on his or my stuff. It's not the spymaster, he's firmly in my pocket. People next in line for the throne are content and love both me and my heir. Hell, everybody likes us because of our traits and the way I set up our religion. Finally I use console to track down the bastard doing it, and it's always some random nobody asshole vassal with no possible motive whatsoever. And because in a large realm there are always at least a couple such high intrigue assholes around, both as vassals and as guests you can't stop coming to your court, there are always more than enough people around to join their inane plots.

There's probably more, but these are the things that came to my mind first.

 

[Norfleet]

That's where Guantanamo Bay Mode comes into play. They can't scheme and plot against you if they're all in prison.

 

[Axioms]

Imagine playing a CK game and actually having vassals. Username checks out.

 

[Norfleet]

They nerfed NK mode in the last major patch to the point where, while it is doable, it isn't really useful in anything but the very short term. Now it's all about Guantanamo Bay Mode.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Oh, just remembered another one.

8. The stupid meritocracy perk placed first on the stewardship tree. Who the hell thought giving such easy access to fabricating claim on liege's title to this AI was a good idea? Because this ends up exactly as you might think - AI sees a button, AI presses a button. Button gives him a claim he has no possible way to use because I could crush him like a bug, and he becomes my rival, pestering me with such idiocy as randomly launching diseased bodies at my castle. The fuck?! I swear, I dealt with this shit more times times than I can remember, and it always goes the same way: some nobody schemes his way to a claim to my empire -> I fabricate a claim on his title -> I revoke his title -> he rebels -> he gets crushed and throw in jail -> I revoke his ass and make him renounce his claim to avoid passing it to his kids. Repeat ad nauseam. You'd think my vassals would get the general idea after the first 10 times this happened, but no, they still keep at it.

Connected to this is the main reason for why you need to get out of tribal asap: a vassal with a claim can simply challenge you to a duel for your title, with your only options being to duel or refuse and surrender title. And this can happen regardless if your ruler is a martial god, a feeble old woman that can't lift a sword or a 1 year old kid. Oh, and did I mention you get no claim if you lose your title that way? That's right, no way to reclaim it back, apart from going scheming yourself I guess. Ugh.

 

[Norfleet]

None of this happens in Guantanamo Bay Mode.

 

[thesecret1]

This shit, while sad, is unsurprising. They'll rework half (probably more) of this shit from the ground up sooner or later, just like with CK2. I know it's been ages since then, but CK2 had many glaring issues as well when it came out (anyone remember the literal rebel popamole before they added factions?). I mostly hope they'll actually give you the option to play tall, and that the modders will be able to turn it all into something good. The greatest danger right now is that Paradox will decide to content bloat instead of adding important shit

 

[Average Manatee]

Tall is incredibly overpowered already, the only reason the game is playable is because the AI is completely incapable of playing tall and almost never builds buildings.

 

[gogis]

I don't know how people able to enjoy game which is so easy. There is literally no challenge in any aspect of the game. At least I remember how scary gavelkind successions were in CK2. Here you breeze through the game yawning at every corner. Blobbing is easy, genetics is easy, warfare is beyond easy (who would have thought that making stacking MaA bonuses would not break the game?). I'll shelve it for a looong time. I have no hope in Paradox, honestly (and I should stop buying their games)

 

[Norfleet]

Also I suspect that Confederate Partition will be a pain in my ass for a good time.

Remember the Distinguished Admiralty from CK2, where you made unwanted heirs into admirals and sent them to patrol the seas of northern Iceland for pirates?

Well, CK3 has its own counterpart to this: Make anyone you don't want around into a knight, and send them off to suppress a few rebellions solo. The yolo solo tends to get you rid of them.

I don't know how people able to enjoy game which is so easy.

CK was never about challenge, but about larping.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Well, CK3 has its own counterpart to this: Make anyone you don't want around into a knight, and send them off to suppress a few rebellions solo. The yolo solo tends to get you rid of them.

That or dip two points into one of the Learning trees and get the decision to embrace celibacy which you use after getting a male heir.

 

[Axioms]

CK3 doesnt have enough systems for tall to work. There just isn't anything to do.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

CK3 doesnt have enough systems for tall to work. There just isn't anything to do.

Agreed. I think that an economy DLC implementing a trade system, expanding upon development mechanics and probably adding merchant republics since it would be a thematic fit should be their top priority in terms of planned content.

 

[Tigranes]

Zero Credibility all of it comes down to the fact that they made CK3 even harder to fail than CK2 - it's specifically designed so that you can change your mind and do anything you want on a whim and still get your candy. CK2 was like this too, but lifestyle perks make it even easier to get the swiss army tools that you need, and the dread system allows you to control your vassals by being nice or being mean in equally easy ways.

I enjoyed larping with it but play it with even half a mind for optimisation and you're just going to end up with uberempire, because the game essentially plays in god mode.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Yeah, but not to worry, I'm sure mods will fix it. Or at least make it slightly less silly. What I'm more worried is streamlining of warfare. Now granted, CK2 with it's over-complex systems that the player had little to no impact on was hardly great in this regard, but this seems like instead of fixing it, they just stripped everything to a bare minimum they could get away with. Two things come to mind:

1) The way levies (do not) work now. Now granted, the way it used to work in CK2, with needing to raise individual levies, combine them, then send them where you wanted them was an annoying exercise to repeat in every single war. But I'm not sure being able to just summon them in wherever part of your realm you want, no matter how far or how isolated is a good idea. It makes playing a huge sprawling realm even easier, and isolated enclaves far more defensible. But the worse part is that past early game, levies are absolutely worthless: Man at Arms not only upgrade dramatically, but they can literally teleport across your entire realm. You can teleport an army right in the path of a moving enemy stack, completely destroy them because of how powerful MaA are, then raise them the same day on the other part of the realm to repeat the same.

2) Instead of finally adding naval battles and blockades, they completely stripped away that part of the game by making armies walk across water. Besides how stupid it is for there to always be enough ships around for everyone to hire, even if they are in massive debt, even in the middle of nowhere, even in hostile territory, even if they are broken and running, even if they are a fucking peasant revolt, this change has a massive impact on warfare now. AI uses ships to a ludicrous degree, sailing great distances simply because it's slightly faster than walking, constantly landing at your capital, and after defeated running away to sea with no way for you to stop them, making it even more important to field MaAs, because only they can cause enough casualties to avoid having to repeat the same thing again and again. I cannot emphasis enough how much I hate what they have done with this.

Combined these two changes make the map feel small and distances inconsequential. A landlocked Bavaria should have trouble getting troops to help their ally in Ireland, that was a good thing for fuck sake. Now it feels like everyone is right next door and can send their armies everywhere at a drop of a hat. Seriously, fuck this shit.

 

[Norfleet]

Repeating the asskicking a bunch can actually be good, though.

If you repeatedly crush a stack, but most of them live and run away only to regroup and fight again, you get battle score every time you kick their ass. If you wipe them out to the last man and erase from from existence, you get battle score...once. Now that your opponent no longer has an army to fight you with, you're forced to siege his shitty castles, which takes WAY too long, for clay you don't even want.

 

[fantadomat]

 

[Jenkem]

I want to know what the first flavor pack is going to be about

 

[Preben]

I want to know what the first flavor pack is going to be about

Something about milking the playerbase.