Anybody else think the culture/tech game play is a bit too dull?

[Sonny65]

I love the idea that tech is attached to culture, but gameplay-wise all player can do is to wait, no matter you are culture head or not.

Also, it punished players who play wide rather than tall by correlate growth with development, which further discourages player's involvement.

 

[hajutze]

I dont really see any difference between wide and tall.

You put your steward in the capital and forget about it.

 

[Six-Toed Sprocket]

TBH, i tend to play tall. Techs are actually really good. I like the idea that a culture progresses, not an individual.

Could it be enhanced a bit? Probably. But, Id prefer relics, bloodlines, and more dybastic customisation options.

 

[Six-Toed Sprocket]

I love the idea that tech is attached to culture, but gameplay-wise all player can do is to wait, no matter you are culture head or not.

Also, it punished players who play wide rather than tall by correlate growth with development, which further discourages player's involvement.

If you can master the early succession, it's always better playing wide than tall. Also, techs punish genocidal takeovers, of undeveloped provinces. You can always take land and not culture shift it.

 

[grommile]

Also, it punished players who play wide rather than tall by correlate growth with development, which further discourages player's involvement.

Only if you are expanding into and culture converting land with lower development than your culture's current average.

 

[Sopbucket]

I think it makes sense to have it be a passive system, increasing development and such should be seen as long term investments. I think it's a little unbalanced with the very small cultures, like Norse in Iceland and Cornish in Cornwall at the 1066 start, and I'd like to see more dynamic effects around development in general, but overall it works pretty well.

Expansion doesn't actually hamper technology unless you are actively converting all the counties you gain to your culture. You can avoid doing that and still play wide pretty effectively.

 

[grommile]

Expansion doesn't actually hamper technology unless you are actively converting all the counties you gain to your culture.

Depending on your starting culture, expand-and-convert can actually improve your tech gain.

(Irish, for example.)

 

[DominusNovus]

I say it is one of the mechanics that is definitely better in CK3 than CK2. It also makes intuitive sense for this time period.

EDIT: Though of course it could be fleshed out more. I also think it could be interesting if more than just the 'cultural head' got to influence innovations. It would probably be too taxing, though.

 

[Rubidium]

Depending on your starting culture, expand-and-convert can actually improve your tech gain.

(Irish, for example.)

Also depending on where you expand. Spanish Catholics, for instance, have decent starting development, but still can benefit a lot from culture converting the even more developed Andalusian counties once they conquer them.

 

[Less2]

Depending on your starting culture, expand-and-convert can actually improve your tech gain.

(Irish, for example.)

You can also just convert your culture to gain their tech.

 

[sterrius]

Actually i really like the system.

its simple only at first glance.

When you start to see the math, how development of provinces works, etc you can see the system is actually very good.
my favorite part of CK3 so far. Specially compared to CK2.

 

[Black_Shade]

Actually i really like the system.

its simple only at first glance.

When you start to see the math, how development of provinces works, etc you can see the system is actually very good.
my favorite part of CK3 so far. Specially compared to CK2.

Cannot disagree more. The system IS incredibly simplistic. There's zero player interaction. There's no planning involved, or thinking about trade offs between rushing one tech ahead of time or choosing something else. The best choices and order you should pick techs is incredibly straight forward. And that's even if your cultural head. If you're not, there's no point in even checking it ever. And if you're behind in tech, you just switch cultures to someone who isn't, which is ridiculous. The tech system in CK2 was not good. It's leagues ahead of CK3, though. It's by far the weakest aspect of the game, aside from all of the bugs that currently render it unplayable like AI not building buildings. But bugs are short term problems. This was a clear design decision which we are likely stuck with, and it's terrible.

 

[Vanhal]

Cannot disagree more. The system IS incredibly simplistic. There's zero player interaction. There's no planning involved

Compared to what, CK2? Lol.

 

[Black_Shade]

Compared to what, CK2? Lol.

Sadly yes.

 

[Riamus]

The CK2 tech system is worse, imo. It was so incredibly boring. Set it and forget it and you had a specific path to follow pretty much regardless of where you start. At least in CK3, the system offers some variety in what you might want to do based on where you start. Yes, it's a set and forget system, but so was CK2. If anything, I look into CK3 innovations more often than I ever looked at CK2 tech.

Even so, the innovation system really is a bit dull and could use some improvement and variety.

The main thing to remember is that it really isn't a tech tree even if that is what everyone seems to treat it as and therefore not like it because it doesn't work like a typical tech tree would since that isn't what it is to begin with. It's a cultural innovation tree, which when you consider the difference between the two things starts to make more sense as to why it works the way it does. The problem is that they included "tech" in there and it makes it feel a little bit like a tech tree and so everyone wants to think of it as a tech tree and that just makes people look at it the wrong way and expect it to be something it isn't.

 

[Mgoblue201]

I prefer it for two reasons. First, the system is unobtrusive most of the time and allows you to focus on other important realm matters in the game. Second, I like the flavor aspect of it. I'm not just researching improved keeps but specific building practices of the era. And the culture-specific techs are neat.

 

[Atalvyr]

I definitely think it could do with some events tied to the innovations your cultural head is currently fascinated with. Just some sort of flavor, perhaps with some random boosts to the research progress, to indicate that your culture is currently experimenting with mangonels or trying to institute a common currency. Have some foreign engineers be hired for a cost to help train your siege engineers (giving progress) or have the lords of the realm squabble over what form the common currency should take and how it should be minted (opinion loss etc.).

The events do not have to be overly powerful, but just some little bits of flavor to show how your culture is evolving over the ages. Much like how the lifestyles each have their own events to keep you feeling like your ruler is actually living that lifestyle. Perhaps also take inspiration from lifestyles in letting events from other undiscovered innovations pop up at a very low chance to signify that sometimes fortunate circumstances kickstart certain innovations outside the control of the cultural head.

 

[Bill Kang]

I like it because it's fair to AI.

 

[Zarine]

My main concern is the number of innovations (which I think is a bit too low) and the total absence of interactions.
I would love events around innovation to give a 10% chance boost for one during few years or maybe set-backs to reduce the progress.
I would love that the average total learning of the cultural members or of more specific characters affect the rate.
Could be nice to have mutually exclusive innovations. It might not be easy to find cases like like but why not something like "focus on infantry" vs "focus on cavalry", t's usually linked with culture

 

[hajutze]

My main concern is that the optimal way to level the tech is to have about 1 duchy worth of your culture lands (One of the perfect locations would be Bohemia I guess). Heck I would say your capital alone is the best if you're tribal until you manage to catch up, after which you can convert your personal holdings but nothing else. 1 province means that the average dev is the dev in that province.

The easiest way to tech up as Ghana that I found was to convert all the Bozo stuff other than Jenne (which is technically 3 provinces), convert to Bozo and tech up.