Grand Strategy Crusader Kings III

[Catacombs]

CK-like character complexity and story-creation potential in a Total War game

That's asking for too much from any developer. It's a pipe dream, one I'm OK not getting my hopes up over.

 

[Spectral Pontifex]

The problem with Crusader Kings game series it's that just like any other paradox game it's a poor simulation and suffers from bad game logic. Series of static modifiers and events acts as gods touch, trying fix the mess caused by bad game logic.

My subjects should be concerned about my power over them, this would calculated differently according to their personality of course but no such thing. Why am I as a temporal caliph, allowed to divorce or disallow my subjects from divorcing to entire sunni realm? Or why Bulgarians and Serbs can't create their autocephalous churches, seperating themselves from Byzantines? Why can't pagans have proper Popedom where the election of pope is inclusive to entirety to their religious realm? Or concerned about popes keep getting elected from same dynasty and fearful of balance of power? Why can't religions have proper authority modifiers?

Like when the religion is weak, you override some religions rules which creates might make it right situation, which was quite the case for both Islam and Christianity. Like Otto I elected pope arbitrarily and elected priests for church lands in his realm unopposed, atleast tried if I remember it right.

Authority of religion and central church institution would simulate the situation early christianity in Britain well for example. Distant peripheries, especially when the central authority (if any) fails to consolidate power should be de facto allowed to do their things. Like celtic christianity meanwhile there was no formal authority of celtic christianity, this is just how we perceive it, it's just power of pope in Rome just failed to reach there, correct me if I'm wrong.

The boons of religion and culture shouldn't be static. I'm Khan of some nomadic steppe land, I conquered enough and I'm ready to settle down. I need to be fed from a greater civilizational aspect, so that the religion and their adherents culture would help me to settle down and build stuff. Merely adopting coptic christianity shouldn't provide me huge boon if the heritage of coptics and their intellectual centres are dead. Same logic for other aspects of course.

The game has no logic, it's series of railroaded static modifiers. It's like Hearts of Iron IV, you finish a focus and boom you get economic boons and half of Czechoslovakia. Of course since there are no better games for dynastic simulation I have to go with CK3. We desperately need competition for dynastic simulation games otherwise paradox and their retarded game engine will continue to release broken mess with a good paint job.

Have we played the same game, Ottoman?

Are subjects not concerned about your power? They very much are. Try to go over the demesne limit or over the duchy limit. There is also the crown authority mechanic which allows you to control your subjects more at the expense of their opinion. Every direct vassal has an individual contract with you that can be tweaked in various ways.

Behaviour of vassals is actually affected by their personality traits. You can bet that ambitious vassals will try to fuck you over. Rebellions upon succesion are a deadly threat early game.

Serbs and Bulgarians can easily create their own churches since the game allows you to create your own religion.

Culture is hardly static since the culture head can change its pillars and ethos, which affect gameplay a lot. You can also diverge from your parent culture and create a new one.

It's not a perfect game and Paradox DLC policy may very well be the most profitable scam since the Holocaust, but we should give credit where it's due.

 

[Axioms]

Well in that case you're shit out of luck.

I'm not missing out. I talked about *wishing* for Total War-like combat in CK2/3. Obviously, that's not at all possible from Paradox.

You should be wishing for CK-like character complexity and story-creation potential in a Total War game. 3k comes quite close with its character game. A reasonable studio would immediately follow up on that.

Are you high? CK3 character complexity is a joke.

AotSS shits all over it and Axioms, when I finish it, is well ahead of AotSS.

 

[Axioms]

God just imagine thinking the CK3 character sim is anything but a paper facade over a modifier stacking idle game just like EU4 is. When did the codex let in trash like this.

Also Alliance of the Sacred Suns is playable right now, even if you wanna blab about Axioms being vapourware or w/e. AotSS is published by Hooded Horse, and they ahve demos and betas and shit. You can look it up.

 

[MuffinBun]

When did the codex let in trash like this.

It's nice you took time off writing your ideaguy blogposts to share that thought. I suggest you go back immediately - you're bleeding fans hungry for more Axioms as we speak.

imagine thinking the CK3 character sim is anything but a paper facade over a modifier stacking idle game just like EU4 is

That's an entire different issue. The system itself is more complex than in most tw titles, regardless of whether that complexity influences the game to a satisfactory degree(or whether it is wasted on modifier stacking). 3K has a similar idea but in its case it affects the game in a more elegant and transparent way, as I mention seconds later. But you're free to hang up on a sentence, interpret it in bad faith, create a strawman and then get mad because you supposedly know better, all while promoting your shitty game.

 

[Axioms]

When did the codex let in trash like this.

It's nice you took time off writing your ideaguy blogposts to share that thought. I suggest you go back immediately - you're bleeding fans hungry for more Axioms as we speak.

imagine thinking the CK3 character sim is anything but a paper facade over a modifier stacking idle game just like EU4 is

That's an entire different issue. The system itself is more complex than in most tw titles, regardless of whether that complexity influences the game to a satisfactory degree(or whether it is wasted on modifier stacking). 3K has a similar idea but in its case it affects the game in a more elegant and transparent way, as I mention seconds later. But you're free to hang up on a sentence, interpret it in bad faith, create a strawman and then get mad because you supposedly know better, all while promoting your shitty game.

I also listed a published game, granted in EA, with a superior system. Of course other parts of AotSS are still needing refinement but it is getting there.

TW arguably had a better system than Clauseqitz games for years until they introduced trust or w/e. TW games had a reliability tracker that Paradox games didn't have.

 

[Axioms]

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/ck3-changes-to-flavor-pack-pricing.1538700/

God bless whoever is the new decision maker at Paradox. Clearly picked up the "Greed" trait in an event.

 

[Average Manatee]

Someone at Paradox realized that the CK3 team has only released half as much DLC as they were supposed to and figured this was the only way to hit revenue targets I guess?

 

[KörangarTheMighty]

Lmao, Paradox pulled the same shit years ago in CKII. Same "muh increase in market value" excuse too. Community rebelled, they recanted but in revenge they just decided to cease putting the older DLC on sale for 75% off going forward, which had the same effect as a price hike because you'd have to be retarded to ever pay full price for Paradox DLC. I doubt their paypigs have the fight in them this time to even get them to cave again.

 

[Alienman]

Seems like another company in war with their customers... for some reason.

 

[HeroMarine]

Imagine playing CK3 instead of CK2.

 

[HeroMarine]

Yikes.

 

[thesecret1]

I pity the modders that jumped on the bandwagon for CK3. Must be hard to make a good mod when the base is dogshit

 

[gerey]

The reason CKIII feels like a hollow game that is taking forever to get new features... is because it IS a hollow game taking forever to get new features.

Question is, why?

I'm no expert on Paracuck, but my impression is that CK is their flagship franchise, the one that has the broadest appeal and popularity. Why are they unable to patch and churn out content for, arguably, their biggest new release?

Why did they leave CKIII to rot? If what that forum poster said, Paracuck is bigger now than it was when CKII released, and outside of Victoria 3 they don't have any other big project they're working on (I am operating under the assumption that patches and DLC for their other titles do not require large teams).

 

[thesecret1]

Yeah, I don't get it either. It's not like the base game being shit has ever stopped them from churning out content anyway, and while they did say they're moving away from jewing you in 100+ DLCs, letting their flagship title (in fact, THE flagship title, given that Crusader Kings is their perhaps most successful franchise) lay about is puzzling to say the least.

 

[HeroMarine]

Management is likely strip mining the company.

 

[KörangarTheMighty]

As of right now their flagship is actually Stellaris imo. Much more freedom to take it in any direction they want resulting in roughly two DLC per year since 2016. It seems clear to me after spending so much time fleshing out CKII that their hearts aren't in it anymore and they should have opted for a much, much longer interim between the end of development of CKII and the release III. If this is as I suspect I wouldn't blame them. Essentially they're spending most of their time reiterating old systems and features trying to meet the minimum expectation of filling Dad's shoes rather than designing new ones. Add on to that the internal demoralization they've no doubt suffered since they cucked to social activism and it isn't any wonder why they aren't champing at the bit to release Crusading content when the phrase Deus Vult (so I've heard) has become all but verbotten in the company. What exactly is there to be excited for? There's also the utter failure of Imperator to take into account which is another blow to morale. It's quite clear to me two years on from launch that CKIII never lived up and will never live up to its predecessor, the buzz around it didn't last past a month or so.

I found CKII and learned to play it almost solely due to Arumba's YouTube channel back in 2013 or so. For those who are unaware, he was one of their biggest fans and his channel was more or less dedicated to their games. It's my understanding Paradox basically disavowed him in some way, snubbing him from further invitations to their conventions after saying "remove kebab" on stream or some shit. They seem utterly ignorant or indifferent to all the meme culture that had built around the cultural idiosyncrasies of these games. This ribbing was never even malicious. It's no wonder there is no buzz when these soy-swillers happily alienate their core audience and largest promoters to please whiners.

 

[Fedora Master]

What exactly are they revolting over? Just CK3 not getting content? Because that's the least of the games problems.

 

[Agame]

HOI4: Not just long in the tooth, its clearly an optimization disaster and staffed by a skeleton crew. Also becoming a borderline meme game. Good modding tho.

HOI4 has been most played of their games since 2018, but for some reason, as you say feels like it has had a skeleton crew/interns working on it, glacial pacing for DLC. Utterly bizarre strategy by Paradox for what they focus on. Feels very corporate style, shovel all money into new products and milk the actually successful ones while giving them minimum viable support.

I wish there was a single good competitor for Paradox as I hate this company more and more over time and the direction they are going with their games.

 

[JamesDixon]

The fanbase is pretty much in Rebellion inside the CKIII Pdox forum. I haven't seen this much a Fanbase Revolt in Paradokkkkz Plaza since the entire Stellaris fanbase multined over the massive garbage performance. Which has given good results and led what is probably the best thing that happened to that game, the Custodian Initiative.

An interesting thread reply:

You're not wrong that something feels hollow. Though I can't quite place my finger on what. Going public is, however, always a bad thing for the consumer/customers of whoever went public. It ends badly sooner or later. Often slowly one bit at a time.

I wouldn't fully agree with that CK3 devs don't communicate, they have. And they did make changes based on community feedback back during before CK3 was released. One notable change was the Feudal Contracts got expanded from the original version. I will say there has been a lot less communication since then, and that the general mood of the community right now is one of discontent. Due to lack of bug fixes (mostly caused by flavour packs seemingly), lack of changes to mechanics that direly need them and generally the unaddressed shallowness of CK3 that has only been touched with surface level polish that the Flavour packs have done.

There is also the elephant in the room of the speed of development that many take issue with. I will not comment much on it, but it has felt a bit on the slow side. I was personally not a fan of making such comparisons in the first year but it has dragged on so let us see what CK2 had in the same period of time.
2020-09-01 CK3 Release
2021-03-16 Northern Lords - Small Flavour Pack
2022-02-08 Royal Court - Expansion
2022-05-31 Fate of Iberia - Flavour Pack
Today: 716 days

2012-02-14 CK2 Release
2012-06-26 Sword of Islam - Expansion
2012-10-16 Legacy of Rome - Expansion
2012-11-15 Sunset Invasion -Immersion Pack
2013-01-15 The Republic - Expansion
2013-05-28 The Old Gods - Expansion
2013-11-18 Sons of Abraham - Expansion
Same time: 2014-01-30 (716 days)

We got 1 expansion, 1 tiny flavour pack that was overpriced and is now very over priced and another flavour pack.
In CK2 we got 5 expansions and 1 immersion pack.
Expansions back then did add less that much is true, but PDX is bigger now too. And asking for more money as well.
Even if we say Royal Court is worth 2 or 3 expansions it's still short. Especially since in that time we got The Republic which gave us a new government type to play as. Royal Court had some great additions that do effect the whole map but NL isn't worth it and FoI seems to have a struggle mechanic that is only valid for Iberia. So it just effect that part of the world.

We could really use more new mechanics and after over 2 years it is starting to feel like things are a bit slow to come out and covids hardly an excuse as everyone has generally learned how to work in such an environment.

So... it has been over two years and CKIII has not only released fewer expansions and DLC than CKII, it has also released less and inferior content.

The reason CKIII feels like a hollow game that is taking forever to get new features... is because it IS a hollow game taking forever to get new features.

The difference is that the CK2 development team were not whiny zoomer babies that can't take criticism and actually worked. I remember when the CK3 team went on vacation. When they came back they congratulated themselves for it while claiming they worked hard. They didn't do shit for a full year except piss off their customers and ban those that were vocal about their practices.

 

[KörangarTheMighty]

Wow I remember Arumba. That guy loved their games and did so much cool exploitey shit with them.
Wait they disavowed him for that kind of shit? That's total meme.

It had been some time, apparently he called some guy a faggot in his chat for being an annoying retard, i mixed the stories up (but it is true that you'll eat a ban on their forums for writing "remove kebab" or similar) but according to Arumba that wasn't the reason. Supposedly they ghosted him for making a video critiquing some mechanics after a major patch, citing "Uncivil behavior", ergo no more invites to Paradox con.



Personally, I think they were just looking for an excuse to get rid of him or he's omitting parts of the email relating to violating the leftard blasphemy laws. Arumba was always a bit of an edgyboi and probably spooked the Paracucks. Typical "pattern of behavior" excuse too.

 

[Hace El Oso]

Honestly, I haven't looked at CKIII's modding much, but considering some of the things it has over CKII, plus the fact its probably the best optimized optimized Paradox game in like, ever, I suspect CKIII is actually a very good base.

This just isn’t the case, and it’s easily demonstrated by the fact that zero of the HIP and CK2+ people have moved, or are interested in moving, to CK3. The guy who made the ‘Somewhat More Historical’ map module for CK2 HIP was initially working on a CK3 version of it and has now dropped it due to lack of interest in CK3.

I can’t remember many of the specific details of why they were so turned off of CK3 in terms of code, but I do remember that a great many things that could be easily modded before no longer can be in CK3, like men-at-arms and cultural units.

 

[Alienman]

Probably serious management issues. Considering their failures with stuff invested outside of Paradox.

 

[None]

CK3 devs are on record saying they barely pay attention to the forums nowadays because of the responses they get and have shifted almost entirely to their Discord. I recall a community manager or something saying they brought it up to the team and dev activity seems better, but at the start of this year you could go a dozen pages deep into the forum and not see a single post from a developer (excluding moderators, community managers, etc). They've retreated into their echo chamber and adopted what is essentially a masturbatory development practice, don't be surprised if you get more of the same.

 

[gerey]

The only thing I can think of is that the guy running their dev team is an incompetent who has no idea where to take the game forwards.

I'd argue that it is they have grown complacent. They have no actual competition, so regardless of how much they fuck up, all the addicts needing their fix will eventually come crawling back.

I can’t remember many of the specific details of why they were so turned off of CK3 in terms of code, but I do remember that a great many things that could be easily modded before no longer can be in CK3, like men-at-arms and cultural units.

It's strange, because I remember seeing someone actually implementing a Darkest Dungeon into CK3. My guess is that the POX developers saw mods as a threat to their bottom line and decided to limit what modders could work on - since cultural unit DLCs are the bread and butter of POX kikery.