Grand Strategy Crusader Kings III

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Guy on reddit has a Paradox moment: https://www.reddit.com/r/CrusaderKi...omfg_the_khan_became_buddhist_and_asked_if_i/

Omfg, the Khan became buddhist and asked if I wanted to become one too, i said yes and i forgot that i didnt have the expansion. I haven't saved for a while so all for nothing??

 

[Fedora Master]

You know what I say about PDX DLC.

 

[Red Hexapus]

Guy on reddit has a Paradox moment: https://www.reddit.com/r/CrusaderKi...omfg_the_khan_became_buddhist_and_asked_if_i/

Omfg, the Khan became buddhist and asked if I wanted to become one too, i said yes and i forgot that i didnt have the expansion. I haven't saved for a while so all for nothing??

Had a similar thing happen to me at one point (but not because of my fault). Was playing Carloman, doing really well. Suddenly the pope decides to die and for whatever fucking reason the cardinals decide I would make a great pope. Which lead to GAME OVER, because "fuck you, you cannot play as pope in CK2"...

 

[Mikeal]

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...velopment-in-ck3.1567812/page-3#post-28795420

 

[Turrul]

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...velopment-in-ck3.1567812/page-3#post-28795420

I can maybe handle farting jokes as "historically accurate", but memey fake drama events are straight bullshit.
You have several events (Royal Court Events especially) adding a random bullshit trait like Sadistic, Drunkard etc. to your offspring and then courtiers complaining about it. It's like they're doing the things in wrong order, instead of conflicts between personalities causing drama, they create fake drama out of thin air to fuel an artificial conflict.

 

[Fedora Master]

This is the same game that will randomly turn your Kind, Humble and Pious heir into a murderer for "drama".

 

[Heroic Liberator]

This is the same game that will randomly turn your Kind, Humble and Pious heir into a murderer for "drama".

It's due to the way in which their shitty event system is set up. The events are detached from what sorts of characters that you have in your court, so the random events that fire have to make use of preexisting characters regardless of whether there are any whose traits fit or not for the events in question. Putting the cart before the horse tier game design.

 

[Axioms]

This is the same game that will randomly turn your Kind, Humble and Pious heir into a murderer for "drama".

It's due to the way in which their shitty event system is set up. The events are detached from what sorts of characters that you have in your court, so the random events that fire have to make use of preexisting characters regardless of whether there are any whose traits fit or not for the events in question. Putting the cart before the horse tier game design.

Paradox has to rely on events because the structure of the game caps the complexity that is possible. You can't have a truly deep character system because the AI can't handle it in real time.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

It's due to the way in which their shitty event system is set up. The events are detached from what sorts of characters that you have in your court, so the random events that fire have to make use of preexisting characters regardless of whether there are any whose traits fit or not for the events in question. Putting the cart before the horse tier game design.

Paradox has to rely on events because the structure of the game caps the complexity that is possible. You can't have a truly deep character system because the AI can't handle it in real time.

It's not (only) the issue that they have to rely on events, but that they have detached the event system from the characters. Events themselves have an estimated time to fire rather than characters having them depending on their traits (a.i. ideally you'd have particular events being tied to particular character statuses and traits hence some events not occurring at all if you do not meet the prerequisites within whatever character pool, such as your court or your family, is being targeted for them). I guess it's to avoid overtaxing your CPU, but this sort of stuff doesn't seem *that* intensive given the permutation powers of modern CPUs (unless the devs want to lower the minimum requirements for their games, which they probably do, in order to expand their possible customer base to those playing on older rigs).

 

[Axioms]

It's due to the way in which their shitty event system is set up. The events are detached from what sorts of characters that you have in your court, so the random events that fire have to make use of preexisting characters regardless of whether there are any whose traits fit or not for the events in question. Putting the cart before the horse tier game design.

Paradox has to rely on events because the structure of the game caps the complexity that is possible. You can't have a truly deep character system because the AI can't handle it in real time.

It's not (only) the issue that they have to rely on events, but that they have detached the event system from the characters. Events themselves have an estimated time to fire rather than characters having them depending on their traits (a.i. ideally you'd have particular events being tied to particular character statuses and traits hence some events not occurring at all if you do not meet the prerequisites within whatever character pool, such as your court or your family, is being targeted for them). I guess it's to avoid overtaxing your CPU, but this sort of stuff doesn't seem *that* intensive given the permutation powers of modern CPUs (unless the devs want to lower the minimum requirements for their games, which they probably do, in order to expand their possible customer base to those playing on older rigs).

So there are a 5 digit number of characters that have to make decisions and then you have events. So they don't give characters meaningful differentiation. Like they don't have interests, or desires, or ideology. They have generic personalities that don't do much. Like ambitious characters all act the same as far as things related to being ambitious. You can't have like 5 ambitious characters work together, not that characters can really do anything complex enough to need to work together but still.

 

[dsndo]

they create fake drama out of thin air to fuel an artificial conflict.

Most of the event writers are women and people write about what they know.

 

[AdamReith]

Discovering the shallowness of the event engine is what killed CK2 for me too. I went on to build a few prototypes for a "true" event engine but since each individual event is hand written I found it really limits emergent interactions. Either you go all out simulation ala Dwarf Fortress and rely on the users own imagination to fill the gaps or you accept that the whole thing is just an illusion.

Without serious expansion (probably beyond the limits of CK3's engine) it's nothing more than a funny card game where you draw a good or a bad card every now and then with some crappy flavour text. Though in my opinion CK3 failed to make even that aspect of it fun with constant cringe writing and lazy interactions. Jamming their shitty events into your scenario without any threshold of compatibility is so bad but I have a feeling they do it because they are so sparse that you might only get a few through a whole game if they waited for appropriate contexts.

Hope we get something that seeks out the sweet spot between CK2 and full on simulations in the future though. Might give it another whack myself at some point. Does make me wonder what a full on simulation with a ChatGPT style layer contextualizing events might play like though.

 

[Axioms]

Discovering the shallowness of the event engine is what killed CK2 for me too. I went on to build a few prototypes for a "true" event engine but since each individual event is hand written I found it really limits emergent interactions. Either you go all out simulation ala Dwarf Fortress and rely on the users own imagination to fill the gaps or you accept that the whole thing is just an illusion.

Without serious expansion (probably beyond the limits of CK3's engine) it's nothing more than a funny card game where you draw a good or a bad card every now and then with some crappy flavour text. Though in my opinion CK3 failed to make even that aspect of it fun with constant cringe writing and lazy interactions. Jamming their shitty events into your scenario without any threshold of compatibility is so bad but I have a feeling they do it because they are so sparse that you might only get a few through a whole game if they waited for appropriate contexts.

Hope we get something that seeks out the sweet spot between CK2 and full on simulations in the future though. Might give it another whack myself at some point. Does make me wonder what a full on simulation with a ChatGPT style layer contextualizing events might play like though.

Paradox games are limited by an engine that was really more optimized for EU4 than anything else. EU4 doesn't really play at being a simulation and it is obvious it is an idle game with a map game on top. And it is arguably the best Paradox game IMO.

As far as a simulation version of CK2, I'm relatively close to finishing a game that is adjacent to that. I started on the idea prior to knowing about CK2 and there are significant core differences like being turn based, fantasy, and containing significant character simulation and citybuilder/mmo economic mechanics plus a much deeper set of RPG elements(since it is fantasy). But you could turn off magic and make a historical mod that closely followed the CK2-3 map that would play like superior turn based CK2. Of course many Paradox fans are obsessed with RTWP and fancy graphics so I'm not sure if such a mod would really take off.

I feel like a lot of PDox fans claim to want a superior historical simulation but they aren't willing to sacrifice the things they'd need to to get there and they'll just limp along in CK3 always whining but never accepting that it is limited at the core.

 

[HeroMarine]

CK2 is so much better than this shit.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

 

[thesecret1]

Yes, that's what I want in my medieval history simulator. A content pack giving my character a wardrobe.

 

[Axioms]

Yes, that's what I want in my medieval history simulator. A content pack giving my character a wardrobe.

How about meaningful and interactive banditry/piracy/raiding with state sponsored bandits and pirates and interaction between that stuff and intrigue and diplomacy and also meaningful realm administration which also interacts with that stuff? Not in CK3 though. Where the titular feature doesn't even work and would still be trash if it did.

 

[Spectral Pontifex]

Yes, that's what I want in my medieval history simulator. A content pack giving my character a wardrobe.

How about meaningful and interactive banditry/piracy/raiding with state sponsored bandits and pirates and interaction between that stuff and intrigue and diplomacy and also meaningful realm administration which also interacts with that stuff? Not in CK3 though. Where the titular feature doesn't even work and would still be trash if it did.

PRE-ORDER AXIOMS NOW 20% OFF

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Axioms]

Yes, that's what I want in my medieval history simulator. A content pack giving my character a wardrobe.

How about meaningful and interactive banditry/piracy/raiding with state sponsored bandits and pirates and interaction between that stuff and intrigue and diplomacy and also meaningful realm administration which also interacts with that stuff? Not in CK3 though. Where the titular feature doesn't even work and would still be trash if it did.

PRE-ORDER AXIOMS NOW 20% OFF

Nah, pre-order sales imply the real price is illegitimate. I opposes sales for games unless it is like a 10 year anniversary sale or something.

 

[Axioms]

This is dumb as hell. How is this related to the game at all?

Also re the part at the end, nothing modern Paradox does can ever be "unbeatable value".

 

[Alienman]

Don't get what is so bad about tournaments, seems to fit the setting.

 

[Axioms]

Don't get what is so bad about tournaments, seems to fit the setting.

Is there anyone who objects to tournaments in the game? Some people would prefer a different focus and some would prefer a different implementation but no one outright rejects them.

 

[Average Manatee]

Tournaments were fine as a short event chain in CK2, a full DLC about them is a waste of time. Can't wait for more decisions about which of 3 people I've never seen before and who are irrelevant to me should get that juicy +20 opinion bonus for 5 years though.

 

[thesecret1]

Paradox will go to any lengths to avoid adding meaningful content to their flagship title. I expect a DLC that'll be all about your pets, letting you pamper them as much as you like, cats, dogs, horses, pigs, and maybe even a platypus (how did a platypus get into medieval Europe? Shut up.)! Maybe followed by the Sex & Debauchery DLC which will be basically softcore porn in text form, all the while carefully avoiding being explicit enough to be marked as mature on the store page. You can even turn your ruler trans in it (Shut up bigot, it's historical, Elagabalus was trans). Then, it may come the time where the unwashed hordes of filthy customers get unruly, and demand some (may Allah forgive me for uttering the word) mechanics. That's when Paradox will pull out their trumph card – Sunset Invasion for CK3! And even better than in CK2, as it won't be the Aztecs invading you, it will be the strong and fierce Amazons (yes I know the Amazon rainforest and the Amazons from myth have exactly zero connection bar the name, shut the fuck up you nerds)! They'll arrive with a doomstack of about 50 million troops (immune to attrition) and force any country they invade to switch to a strict matriarchy. Also they'll all be lesbian, and will help any women they encounter find out they're lesbian as well. Only for $29.99.