Artifacts: The Good, The Bad, and The Broken

[Jia Xu]

With artifacts coming, can we please have a discussion on how they were completely unbalanced in CK2? Before I get into that, I will say nice things about artifacts.

Artifacts allow you to customize your character and add a nice RPG element to character building. With CK3's new 3D characters, dressing them up will probably be fun. Artifact hunting also provides you with long-term goals to pursue which is always a good thing in a game spanning almost 600 years.

Unfortunately, Artifacts, on the whole, were quite disruptive and balance breaking in CK2. Artifacts were permanent gains to all personal stats, general opinion, piety, prestige, health, fertility, and all kinds of other things. They were straight up a handicap in the player's favour because the AI was never smart enough to collect them the way that a player would. The introduction of artifacts were no less than a massive power shift in the player's favour that was never needed. After getting a full set, all of your rulers, for the rest of the game were between low 30s in stats to high 40s. Artifacts essentially deified all of your characters for the rest of the game with no additional cost after acquiring them.

I hope the developers are reading this and thinking about ways to not have artifacts break the balance of the game in CK3. Given how easy it is to acquire more money than you can possibly spend in CK3, there's a real danger of artifacts completely trivializing the entire game if they look anything like artifacts from CK2.

 

[Dayvit78]

The devs have mentioned that they are keeping in mind stat creep, and that's the best we can hope for. If something is too OP, they'll rebalance it.
For example, they've already toned down some previous stat creep areas - like bonus from # of friends is limited to 5. (I remember I had a king with 72 diplo from having about 30 friends)

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

In practical terms, does a straight-up handicap in the player's favour via boosted stats really matter vs. the AI, though?

Whether CK2 or CK3, any competent human player has an insurmountable advantage over the AI, regardless of stats, so the only real issue I can see with artifacts is whether the other game mechanics are balanced around the player having the artifact DLC or not -- and frankly, it is not that big a concern since game balance, such as it is, already has to deal with the huge difference in character potential of the players that genetically engineer a super dynasty via focusing on blood early on and those that do not.

As a counterbalancing feature, the game already has the nice property that the larger and more powerful realm you control, the less the ruler's stats matter to the capabilities or performance of the realm.

 

[Torredebelem]

I hope the developers are reading this and thinking about ways to not have artifacts break the balance of the game in CK3. Given how easy it is to acquire more money than you can possibly spend in CK3, there's a real danger of artifacts completely trivializing the entire game if they look anything like artifacts from CK2.

The balance of the vanilla game is already broken with ubber characters and easy expansion left and right. Artifacts, while a nice feature, should be very balanced to not create ubber-ubber characters.

 

[GeorgeVVBush]

I want to have books that will contain sample texts in it. Kind of like in TES games, like Skyrim, where you press the book and it will open up and show the content.
Not a major mechanism, but it will be a satisfying feature, imho.

 

[GeorgeVVBush]

Also, it would be nice, if one wouldnt get bonuses by simply having a book equipped, like it was in CK II, but rather should actually read and study it over time (with learning skill being an important factor in actually comprehending the contents of the book), kind of like in Mount&Blade.
Also, since the languages are being implemented in the game, this could be neatly tied in with this matter. Books should be written in a certain language and a character should know the language to actually read it. Translation mechanisms could also be implemented: If a character knows several languages, one could translate a book, with translation being of a different quality depending on a difficulty. Difficulty would be, in turn dependent on heritage, cultural acceptance and the learning skill of the translator. For example, a Georgian character should have an easier time translating Greek and Armenian texts, with whom it shares common heritage and has better understanding of that culture, than, say, Italian or Ethiopian ones. We might even get a "translator" trait, too.
Also, I think that they will implement it in some way, but it would be nice, if books won't be mashed up with other artifacts, but will be separate "library" or something like that.

Come to think of it, there's so much that can be done with the books.

 

[Idleray]

Stat creep doesn't mean anything.

Stats don't do much and the limiting factor on the player is never how much gold you make/levy you raise/opinion you have etc.

The limiting factor for late game play has always been UI/UX friendliness, number of clicks to get things done, tediousness of army management during warfare, pop-up fatigue and most of all the terrible AI which never competently keeps a realm stable enough to be a formidable "boss"-type opponent.

Those are the things that I notice during the mid-late game play. You can cut my stats in half or by 3/4 for all I care and the AI will still never be a challenge, and the interface, messages and pop-ups will still get in the way.

 

[Torredebelem]

Stat creep doesn't mean anything.

Wrong.

Stat creep takes off immersion from the game, in spite of what you claim it significantly increases the powers the characters have, it is used in all sorts of game implementations to allow/disallow/modifying all sorts of stuff from appearing/happening and it is utterly boring to play successively super characters with super stats that doesn't mean a thing in the overall scheme of things.

Now, if for you the game is an exercise in min/maxing, detaching and abusing in all forms possible the mechanics from the immersion the game should (and do) provide I understand your point of view, but that is not my stance on what the game is, nor on what the game should be and not in what direction it should go.

Regarding your other criticisms, while I sympathize with many of them, again its clear they come from someone who min/maxes to his/her heart content and has no interest in the emergent story being told, just in the math and techniques necessary to do the most mechanically in the less time possible.

Just for instance, for me there should not be "boss type" opponents. Just other characters with their own agendas and different levels of power attained dynamically in a simulation of the medieval times. And this includes the inability for most characters (exscept those rare ones with very high stats) to attain a very large blob for a long time and specially over different generations, thus voiding the concept of "boss type" opponents. I can only hope that is the direction the game designers take for the future.

 

[Hospodar]

Come to think of it, there's so much that can be done with the books.

On that note, they could also be displayed as being held by the character.

Come to think of it, one way to ensure that the stacking of bonuses from the different artifacts won't grow too out of hand, they could be split between passive and active benefits. A passive benefit is granted by simply owning an artifact (e.g. piety for a relic, prestige for a fancy armor, renown for a commissioned epic), while an active benefit is granted for equipping a particular artifact and having it be visually displayed upon your character (e.g. pieces of clothing and jewelry, objects held in one's hands). The active benefits would naturally be stronger than their passive counterparts (e.g. a theological book granting faster religious conversion in held counties, a type of scepter significantly increasing dread among one's vassals, a shield greatly reducing the chances of getting injured while commanding an army). As for the passive effects, the stacking of benefits from unequipped artifacts should naturally come with diminishing returns over a certain amount of collected artifacts which boost the same thing.

This way, you'd be incentivized not only to go for the few artifacts which interest you for their unique active benefits, but also to collect artifacts for their own sake given the stackable passive effects. Not to mention that it'd be easier for the devs to make sure that all equipable artifacts are balanced without making their effects too tame as to counter the effects of stacking. Naturally, there should also be artifacts designed specifically for one's court that function in a similar manner: you either display them within the limited space of your throne room for potent active benefits or you just hold onto them for some stacking passive bonuses as part of your character's cultural estate.

 

[Riamus]

Regarding stat creep, they mentioned that artifacts will affect grandeur. It sounds like that's the only stat you'll see on them, though it isn't entirely clear on that point. If it only affects grandeur, then it's not such a problem as it was in CK2. I definitely agree that the stats on CK2 artifacts was bad. After all, having a weapon for yourself shouldn't make all your infantry or cavalry or whatever more skilled.

 

[Tiax]

So far, Paradox's design strategy seems to be to just keep piling on more bonuses. Look at cultural ethos and traditions - every character will now have several new positive modifiers, and there doesn't seem to be any concern about rebalancing other modifiers or baseline stats. The problem is only going to compound, and I have not yet seen any reason believe Paradox takes the issue seriously. I suspect the same from artifacts and grandeur.

 

[MatthewP]

I think making artifacts mostly useless or cosmetic is not the right solution. This is basically what folks want when they talk about avoiding stat creep I think. After all, something can’t be useful and not useful at the same time. This approach seems like throwing the baby out with the bath water.

so, what to do about artifacts making the player more powerful?

1) don’t worry about it all that much. The bonuses are unlikely to compare with the ones already available from breeding, let alone skill trees.

2) rather than eliminate the usefulness of artifacts, have them come with an added challenge to balance it. Have a powerful artifact? Great, most of your vassals will admire you. But greedy and/or ambitious ones will instead want it for themselves. People will try to steal it (requiring you to spend money on vaults and/or steal it back). If you took it from someone, guess what? They and their heirs have a cb on you to retrieve it.

I’m sure we and the devs can come up with other ideas that add flavor, difficulty and depth to the game without making artifacts just a nothing mechanic. As an added incentive to get on board with this idea if you’re not convinced, consider how unlikely it is that paradox will actually go with weak/cosmetic artifacts given their other design choices.

 

[Tuo]

It has been mentioned that the effects of artifacts will weaken over time and ultimately disappear entirely - this already should go a long way in preventing ludicrous stacks of artifact bonuses.

EDIT: Relevant quote

Like all things, artifacts decay over time. You might want to reforge or retire them and keep them as an heirloom. You will need an Antiquarian for the latter, which is one of several new Court Positions joining others like Seneschal, Food Taster, and Court Tutor in the free update accompanying Crusader Kings III: Royal Court.

 

[bodhi]

Didn't they nerf the number of artifacts you could have active at any one time, towards the end of CK2? Anyway, they were powerful but, as others have said, their overall effect was a drop in the ocean compared to base player power creep. The player is always going to be OP.

I haven't read anything on what they plan for it but the artifacts don't have to all provide simple stat buffs. They could also open up new functions to the player. I don't know, say, a book created by an ancestor which "describes advanced arts fealty" could open knowledge of how to establish a Tributary, or maybe a Protectorate State: enabling our characters to negotiate such treaties with smaller neighbouring realms.

Lots of interesting stuff they could do. Endless possibilities...I love it.

 

[Frydendahl89]

From the way they have been discussing them, it sounds like you need to hire people to your court to maintain your 'active' artifacts, or you can eventually 'retire' them as family heirlooms for a passive grandeur bonus. So basically the more artifact stat boosts you want, the more maintenance you're going to pay - this seems to me to be a fairly easy way to prevent them from just being a series of passive bonuses that keep piling up during the game.

 

[Karlington]

On that note, they could also be displayed as being held by the character.

Come to think of it, one way to ensure that the stacking of bonuses from the different artifacts won't grow too out of hand, they could be split between passive and active benefits. A passive benefit is granted by simply owning an artifact (e.g. piety for a relic, prestige for a fancy armor, renown for a commissioned epic), while an active benefit is granted for equipping a particular artifact and having it be visually displayed upon your character (e.g. pieces of clothing and jewelry, objects held in one's hands). The active benefits would naturally be stronger than their passive counterparts (e.g. a theological book granting faster religious conversion in held counties, a type of scepter significantly increasing dread among one's vassals, a shield greatly reducing the chances of getting injured while commanding an army). As for the passive effects, the stacking of benefits from unequipped artifacts should naturally come with diminishing returns over a certain amount of collected artifacts which boost the same thing.

This way, you'd be incentivized not only to go for the few artifacts which interest you for their unique active benefits, but also to collect artifacts for their own sake given the stackable passive effects. Not to mention that it'd be easier for the devs to make sure that all equipable artifacts are balanced without making their effects too tame as to counter the effects of stacking. Naturally, there should also be artifacts designed specifically for one's court that function in a similar manner: you either display them within the limited space of your throne room for potent active benefits or you just hold onto them for some stacking passive bonuses as part of your character's cultural estate.

We had a similar system in CK2. Some artifacts were passive, and always gave a bonus. Some needed to be equipped in a limited amount of slots to give a bonus, and didn't give any bonus when not equipped.

Didn't help with stat creep, unfortunately.

 

[x4077]

Stat creep doesn't mean anything.

Stats don't do much and the limiting factor on the player is never how much gold you make/levy you raise/opinion you have etc.

The limiting factor for late game play has always been UI/UX friendliness, number of clicks to get things done, tediousness of army management during warfare, pop-up fatigue and most of all the terrible AI which never competently keeps a realm stable enough to be a formidable "boss"-type opponent.

Those are the things that I notice during the mid-late game play. You can cut my stats in half or by 3/4 for all I care and the AI will still never be a challenge, and the interface, messages and pop-ups will still get in the way.

While to a certain extent I feel this is true as well, the fact is that the higher your attributes are the quicker you transition from early-mid game play to mid-late game play, thus more quickly putting the AI in the rear view mirror.

With artifacts coming, can we please have a discussion on how they were completely unbalanced in CK2? Before I get into that, I will say nice things about artifacts.

On the topic of artifacts as well as stat creep in general, so much of it could be controlled/mitigated by just limiting the amount of stacking going on. Instead of bonuses for an artifact stacking, just have the highest one for each property apply. The same could be apply to all modifiers, by either having diminishing returns on any stacking of stats from different sources, or by having different categories of bonuses ( perks, artifacts, events? ) and only having the highest one of each category apply.

Another option is to apply a stacking penalty to each bonus/penalty after the 1st one to a given stat. The highest bonus would apply at 100%, the second highest would only apply 66% of its value, and the third only 33%, and any after the third would be ineffective.

The best part of either of these mechanisms it allows the creation of content to continue with much less concern about each individual piece of content's impact on the game as a whole.

 

[MarkFranz]

OP post

Don't worry, even vanilla CK3 character stats can be bloated to that level where CK2 artifacts looks like are child toys.

 

[LukeCreed13]

My preferred option would be simply limiting the number of "active" artifacts you can have, to, let's say, 3 per character. Active artifacts give you all their bonuses, while the deactivated ones just give each a tiny amount of additional prestige or renown. They could even limit the choice of active artifacts, so that instead of switching between them whenever you need, you can only choose them once, and then you're stuck with them until your heir takes over or one of your active artifacts is destroyed or lost (though this might be too extreme of a solution). It's a gamey solution, but it would be effective enough in limiting the OPness of artifact stacking imho.

That's something they could also do with bloodlines and bloodline stacking, if\when they add them to the game.

 

[Riamus]

I think making artifacts mostly useless or cosmetic is not the right solution. This is basically what folks want when they talk about avoiding stat creep I think. After all, something can’t be useful and not useful at the same time.

For me, I like artifacts more for their RP value than for a stat boost. I'd much rather have artifacts that don't affect stats (or preferably only stats related to prestige, piety, renown, or grandeur as those are all stats that make sense to possibly increase depending on your artifact), but instead are there visually for your royal court or on your character portrait and potentially allow for artifact-related events or changes to events if you have a specific kind of artifact. There are many possibilities to make artifacts interesting and also make them mean something to the player without them having to give you stats. So yes, it can be "useful" without stats.

If all they do is give you stats like in CK2, do you really care about them if you can just replace them with other items that give the same stats? I had so many artifacts in CK2 and if I were to lose one, I'd have another there ready to go with the same stats. There wasn't any reason to care about any of them.

My hope is that they'll do something with artifacts to make them valued by the player for more than just stats. An example would be if your dynasty (possibly you, possibly another) got a crown artifact for the first dynasty member who becomes a king (or perhaps emperor). It would be something that is entirely about your dynasty and something that shows an important event in your dynasty. If you were to get the white stag, it can be an artifact (mounted head or whatever) showing your success in that event. These are much better options than just hiring someone to make an artifact that can be made repeatedly by anyone who has the money and artisan to do it.