Hell is Other People
Ged is still frozen in time, forced to watch as his life is systematically explained and deconstructed as part of a terrible grand game between cosmic entities. It is only going to get worse for him today.
Before that however, a bit of housekeeping from the prior toll. Whilst it is indeed true that Crusader Kings III is a beautiful game in many aspects, especially the Map (oh God, the Map!), at some point in the process something went terribly wrong and the monster that redesigned the forums got out of their prison. Thanks no doubt to the brave sacrifice of many Swedes, the damage was mitigated to one tiny, minuscule area of the game-play.
Unfortunately, that small piece was the text boxes for the entire game.
Scholars are as yet undecided on how a sapient mind can conceive of deciding upon grey text upon greyer background, yet it takes a kind of demented genius to not only do that, but have a slightly darker shade of grey text kick in for random paragraphs.
When the Great Day of Reckoning arrives, whoever okayed that decision will be put to the wall alongside the guy who wrote Fallout 3’s ending and everyone involved in creating Echo the Dolphin.
Watch out for 'accidents' and 'terrible disease'!
Anyway, we were discussing Ged, were we not? So easy to forget him in the vastness of the game engine, isn’t it? The
PTM remembers however, and does not like what they see. Ged is mortal and death is certain. We have covered this previously, but
PTM feels the need (dare I say, the desire?) to spell it out for us. Not to worry, for children are there for parents to live through.
Brian inherits everything, but why not show me how screwed I'd be if he didn't?
PTM is breaking out the exclamation marks again, which never bears well for Ged. They are particularly gleeful when describing how you may find out that your new character murdered your old one and got away with it. What fun! Anyway, Ged has only managed to sire and raise one son, and he is a gigantic disappointment.
It better not be identical to the CK2 system when it comes out...
Similarly, pay no mind to the fact you can’t play as a republic yet, even though it was one of the first things added to CK2.
What a mess. Not just the inheritance. The screen is so dark when the UI is in use
Believe it or not, Ged’s actually very fortunate he did not sire more useless children, as
PTM reveals we have the worst inheritance law in the game (presumably, unless they’ve come up with another one…). If Ged dies, as he certainly will, the realm will be torn apart by his surviving male babies. I suppose the fact that Ged is worthless and only has one county to his name works in our favour.
Remember Ged, marriage sucks!
Of course, this one benefit of our present terrible situation is a tiny light in the dark
PTM swiftly moves to extinguish. Ged is reminded that he is alone in the world, unloved and unlovable. His son hates him (allegedly). His vassals do not like him. Marriage, what should be that most noble and sacred of institutions, has been bastardised into a sham of political manoeuvring and behind-closed-doors abuse. Ged is indeed fortunate that his ex-wife is so dead that she never technically existed.
I'm making you do it anyway!
PTM immediately afterwards forces a marriage. CK3 has buffed up the genetics of characters to the extent that it has never been easier to commit a centuries-long eugenics programme with your own children as test subjects. Naturally, the wise player will carefully select from the choicest of potential fruits (the tastiest kind of fruit), bearing in mind political ramifications and benefits against promoting or degrading the family bloodline.
A pretty gene that makes you more attractive and fertile...
Presumably then this will spread like syphilis through the continental aristocracy
Naturally, in the spirit of the game, I pick the first pretty woman I see. Apparently, her name is Urraka and she’s a content atheist. These two facts and her pretty gene are all we need to know going forward.
Now everyone will live unhappily ever after! A least until someone dies...then we start again!
Ged doesn’t need to suffer alone however, and so we force his stupid son into marriage with a quick-witted girl, just to see what happens. The game and the wife (for some reason) wish Ged a long and fertile marriage. I’m sure he’ll enjoy shacking up with this random stranger for the rest of his life. Still, at least his son Brian is in much the same position.
We say 'technically' because our system is one size fits all and we're damned if we're changing it now
PTM then decides to tell us all about their pyramid scheme, or in common-parlance, feudalism. Just to affirm their lack of respect for Ged, they also talk about how ‘usually’ rulers have vassals but of course there is no way to guarantee say, Dukes, having control over their
de jure realm. The tutorial isn’t even going anywhere with this until much later.
PTM brings this up seemingly just to mock Ged’s tiny spread.
It takes three years for Irish tribesmen to build a wall and ditch around their capital in 1066 AD.
It also takes the entire Kingdom of Ireland in the 14th century three years to build canon-proof walls
Holdings however, have been changed as well. Now with the county split on the Map, the Player can directly select their holds with greater ease. Of course,
PTM is still spouting heretical nonsense about what you build ‘doesn’t really matter’ but we need not listen to their lies. We shall build an incredibly ambitious (and exceedingly a-historical) set of bastions and curtain walls around our wooden shack. The game cheerfully informs us we can upgrade these beauties all the way up to resisting canon fire (whatever those are). Who knew the Irish were such great builders?
If you are thinking differently, especially if you are thinking of
that Faulty Towers episode, you’re being racist.
Yes, the earl is a viking. No, the county itself is not Norwegian.
Yes, he does suddenly decide in a few years that he's actually Irish
We then meet our vassals for the first time, after being told the utmost importance of keeping them happy. Needless to say, like everyone else, they shit on Ged. I’m not sure what he did to these people (or why a Norwegian Viking is pretending to be landed gentry) but I’m sure it was justified. If we go down that rabbit hole, we’ll start wondering why tribal Irish leaders are being called ‘Earls’ in 1066…
Not a particularly loyal or competent bunch. A fairly good example of typical CK councils
PTM then introduces us to even more people who don’t like Ged all that much. The new council system has the wife of the ruler in her own place, and switched things around so the Bishop of your council is the one going around committing active fraud by fabricating title claims. This rather impressively makes the Church even more fundamentally corrupt than in CK2.
Time to do the masochism tango. The only language these priests understand is interpretive dance!
For some reason, even though we have an absurd amount of money and have already been told how to bribe people,
PTM forces us to ‘sway’ with Bishop Fernando instead. You may wonder why they didn’t have it so bribing council members (something everyone does all the time in Crusader Kings) and influencing family members (ditto) wasn’t the order of the tutorial, rather than the opposite. We all wonder, for there is much to wonder about in this sick world.
Ged is wrathful and temperate, and now can be wholesome and a blackmailer. Variety is the spice of life in CK3
Although swaying with characters is a more ‘wholesome’ way of scheming, according to
PTM, they then enthusiastically talk about all the blackmail material you can gain on some sucker by doing it. Perhaps this is why we had to target the bishop, as
PTM has already set it so they are doing something unspeakable we can use against them (I genuinely do not know if this is the case. If it is, it hasn’t come up yet). If religious figures didn’t like Paradox already, they certainly aren’t winning any friends here.
So, what have we learnt today?
Well:
- There is no end to Ged’s suffering.
- Someone at the Dev Office needs to say no to that designer.
- Eugenics is perfectly acceptable as long as you know you are doing it.
- Republics are impossible. Can’t be done. *cough* Got any change, gov’na?
- The medieval Irish possessed at least the theory of sloped artillery forts.
- Do not believe the vicar’s lies.
Next Time, Ged enters the wonderful world of warfare! Marvel at the death and destruction, as well as the inherent class-discrimination of the medieval battlefield. Till then, venerable readers, goodnight, and pray for Ged.