Crusader Kings 3

Any of you all playing this?

I fired it up this afternoon, did a duke equivalent in central India, and immediately got intimidated and quit. I swear the marriage screen, ever since CK3, has just immediately made me want to quit any game I open it in. 1,000 options with no obvious rhyme or reason, need to use like 9 different filters, and you have to figure out who you are looking at is from and what the implications of their situation is on you. Bleh.

Anyway, I'll probably try again in Europe where I know what the titles mean a little bit more intuitively.

I have a little over 1200 hours logged in EU4, so it's safe to say that I am a "paradox game" type of person. It certainly means that I don't shy away from the "too many options in too many menus" approach to game design. But honestly, I have really no interest in the lineage management stuff that is the heart of Crusader Kings. I'm going to continue to be interested in your experience to see if I should stay away from CK3 or if I should give it a shot.

You'd think I'd like the Rome-themed game since I have a PhD in Classics, but I tried it during a free weekend, and it ended up just feeling like work.

Got into my groove finally playing the count of Milan. I formed the Duchy of Lombardy before his death... at which point his holdings were split between his *4 god damn sons.*

I take your point Cambyses, I played a solid amount of CK2 but never the truly obsessive amount like I have Stellaris. Which is much more traditional.

God damn, when you lose in this game by making bad decisions and getting your titles stripped, it fucking HURTS.

My next game is with Zurich, I believe. I've conquered a single other county and formed a dukedom but it hasn't done much.

So my ruler isn't really doing much but he *is* fucking everything that moves within a 2 county radius.

CK3 is weird.

Still playing a game of this with Zurich. Things were rough for the entire duration of my first ruler, but CK3 is all about *biding your time* for just the right moment when your ruler and/or your neighbors are weak. Now I'm reasonably powerful but am in a huge pickle.

At some point in my first ruler's reign, the Pope excommunicated me for no real reason other than that my diplomacy sucked and my King (West Francia) was mad at me. I dealt with it for about 10 years but it really fucking sucks. When "Lollardy" heresy popped up in Central Europe and got traction, I immediately jumped on. Not being Catholic has huge advantages---you can directly control your religious properties and make money from them, no more bullshit externally imposed bishops. Things were going swimmingly until Lollardism started to lose ground and the King of Bavaria, the bulwark of Lollardism, started to get Holy Warred by the Pope and lose ground. Now I'm in a real pickle. I've invested heavily in Lollardism, I'm doing quite well, but I'm still a vassal of the French King and our movement is on the run.

This game is great! Don't quit if you have a shitty ruler or 30-40 bad years where you're just hanging in.

King Pierre. Legendary.

What's the primary differences between CK2 and CK3 ?

It's pretty similar. My sense is that they streamlined and exposed more of the engine in a much friendlier way. It has gotten me way more into CK3 than Ck2, but I'm not sure vets need to get into it yet if they're happy with CK2.

One big addition which really works is a new stress mechanic. So, your personality traits don't just determine your stats. They also determine what event choices and actions are "stressful" to you, because they go against your nature. So stress points build up when you make your character do stuff they don't want to do. Stress is pretty dangerous and can even lead to death, it fucks you up and gives you bad traits beyond health effects.

Overall, I've finally gotten into the groove. The big thing is being super careful and always, always waiting until the right time. I have been waiting several short generations as the 3rd most powerful vassal of the West Francian king to finally take my chance and declare my independence, a faction I sat on for a long time. I picked such a good moment, he just straight up allowed me out!

On the flip side, you really need to be prepared to take the L in this game. You'll have shitty heirs and get into terrible situations and you have to roll with it. It is ok to get knocked back down to Duke or be forced to give into a faction who wants more liberty. You can build back up again. I find one of the biggest temptations I run into in this game is to take everything to the wall as if it's some sort of WWII existential political dispute/total war. If you play that way you're not going to have a good time with CK3 because in one of your first wars where you're just terribly outnumbered or otherwise long odds from your liege or vassals and you'll fight until you literally can't anymore... at which point you get stripped of your titles and otherwise reduced to very little. And you could have just submitted to whoever is kicking your ass.

Dove in on this again this week. I missed it, don't know why I stopped playing. Just one of the best games in existence, especially if you are an experience gamer who loves narrative. I think a lot of people here can relate to that.

It's very intimidating to start a game even if you know the mechanisms, I think, is the main thing. Each time you start you enter an unknown situation, with unknown neighbor and ruler relationships. It takes about an hour of play to get into the skin of your ruler and their particular challenges and get your schemes and plans in play. So once you do that hour of "where the fuck am I, politically?" you are in a place, time, and situation that is eminently readable because the state evolves over time but you're never just thrown into a completely new state. So your learning is extremely high up front, but then is an extremely pleasurable low to medium that I could truly just play for twelve hours at a time without stopping. It helps now that CK3 has gotten out of its own way and everything works and is documented---the most bizarre and difficult to parse cruft of CK2 is gone.

My story for today is that I had a very illustrious Gascon duke who made immense sums and built up the two dukedoms he controlled hugely, but he was actually in love with his skilled and accomplished wife so he had like 8-10 children. When he died, that meant every one of his holdings was split equally between his male children. The main challenge was my now brother that I had gone to war with to get both dukedoms back under control in a succession war ripped straight from the history books. Ultimately, that brother remained a powerful count throughout my whole reign, with us despising each other and me refusing to give him any positions or power in the court or the like. 5 years before I died, I discovered that this motherfucker was a honest to god *cannibal* and tried to blackmail him. He refused, I put the secret out in the open and then crushed his rebellion, imprisoned him, and decided ultimately to execute him for cannibalism. Just fucking Real Drama, so good, all super non-scripted created by the gears within gears systems of this game in a coherent way.

The duke of Gascony finally died in his bed during a Crusade he joined, generously sending one of his brothers in his stead to lead the army in the middle east which was being absolutely crushed by an Arab ruler.

I'm going to dump the continuing adventures of the king of Arabia and Yemen here.

I had some all time classic Crusader Kings III moments this weekend. My favorite was taking Jerusalem and the holy land finally (my kingdoms are quite powerful) from a fellow Muslim ruler... and then immediately having a crusade called on me by the pope. I and a few of the petty emirs in the region manage to defeat the Pope and his minions in detail as they arrive on-shore in the holy land... I captured a whole bunch of Christian dudes before I realized that they were like 75% Italian mercenaries. The Pope must have gotten a lot of monetary commitments from the rulers of Western Europe but relatively little troop commitment. Anyway, they were all lucky because ultimately the character I'm playing is "compasionate" so he takes a bunch of stress for throwing people into dungeons or chopping their heads off. Otherwise the Med shore would have been littered with object lessons.

Then, later, I installed my heir son into a shiekdom (count in Europe; one territory province) to give him a little experience ruling before he took over. Sometimes your characters who just sit in your court and stagnate skillwise, so I sometimes give them a little bit to do to buff stats and such. Anyway, he is quickly overthrown and replaced by his own son, my 13 year old grandson! I did a double-take... I was like, where is my heir???????? He's serving as some minor advisor for my grandson who has usurped him!

Ultimately, I decided to pull my heir back to my own court to be sure I can protect him, upon which time I decide to take on the education of my grandson myself. Clearly the cream of my genetic crop.

I started playing again too! I am way less experienced at this kind of stuff, so I just started the tutorial up in Ireland again. But after watching a lot of Youtube videos I understand how the gears are turning a bit better.

I'm on my third ruler now. The first guy united his own petty kingdom (what duchies are called in Ireland), but then died at age 49 leaving his extremely martial son on the throne. He was able to nab a couple more counties, and declare the Kingdom of Ireland. Surprisingly, I was able to muscle the remaining petty kingdoms to become my vessels, perhaps because my military was a lot stronger than theirs. Now that guy's heir is on the throne, but it's been slower going for him. My ultimate goal is to be emperor of all of Britannia, so I'm trying to get a foothold into Wales and Scotland. It's happening slowly, but I've had some setbacks.

Also my current ruler is "Shy," so he takes on stress whenever he invites someone to court. Also feasts don't work to lower his stress. More of a hunting man I guess.

One of my guys was actually invited to join the Crusade. I politely declined and sent some money. Probably money that was used to send those mercenaries, Gary Sax.