CK3: Is it *really* a complete failure, though?

[Stardance]

*Which isn't strictly true as I downloaded CK2 during its free weekend but only spent like ten minutes looking at the UI and decided to wasn't worth the effort as it was an incredibly off putting setup.

This. Exactly. Well put, and my reaction as well. CK2 wasn’t the best first impression for new players like me compared to CK3’s amazingly intuitive interface to help learn the game.

 

[x4077]

*Which isn't strictly true as I downloaded CK2 during its free weekend but only spent like ten minutes looking at the UI and decided to wasn't worth the effort as it was an incredibly off putting setup.

I find this interesting when compared with my experience when first installing CK3 on its release and finding it so difficult to get things done with the new UI compared to the CK2 UI because of the new UI missing critical pieces like character finder presets, map modes, and the ledger. Guess it goes to show that coming into something without any expectations can lead to different perceptions, and why people are so divided with their opinions about the game.

 

[Whizzer]

It's certainly not a complete failure. The technical backing of the game is much improved for modding and the current systems for religion and culture certainly are much more flexible than they are in CK2. Unfortunately, very little of all that potential is being put to use in CK3 right now. CK3 is not a challenging game for veterans, is not a balanced game and is not a cohesive game. To an extent, I would even say it's not a strategy game, since I only have to click my win-button of choice and the game will adjust accordingly, handing me my requested victory.

If you don't understand what I mean, enjoy this very well written semi-AAR.

Finally, consider it from my perspective, a veteran of CK2, with about 4000 hours played and likely about half that time spent modding on top of it: CK3 makes me want to play CK2. That's a failure.

Worth noting is that I don't mind some content missing in CK3 right now. Merchant republics and nomads shouldn't be ported 1-to-1, and societies didn't add anything worthwhile to CK2. I will also say that CK2 is also an easy game once you're intimately with all of its facets, so I only play with serious overhaul mods that make it more challenging and interesting, such as CK2+ and HIP, but at least I enjoy CK2 without mods. It has some challenge, it has some balance and it definitely is much more cohesive.

Final remark: I am disappointed in CK3 because I care so much about CK2 and want its successor to be better.

 

[Surimi]

Wow! Even as a relative newcomer, I sucked in a breath with that one.

I do want to check out I:R, simply because I have a feeling I'm trying to constantly do the Roman Empire thing, but in the Middle Ages.

I have a feeling its going to end up like Victoria 2, with a cult following of people who are really hardcore and passionate about it (including me). The narrative justification for whatever you're doing is very thin in I:R and it doesn't have a strong sense of immersion in the way some other games do. As a strategy game though, I think it is wonderful and if you can find a personal challenge that you enjoy you can easily get into doing it over and over again.

Ironically, I think it can be a frustrating game to play very wide in because you start spending a lot more time putting out fires (figuratively) which is a bit more reactive than I like to play. For me, the most fun achievements are forming small but powerful nations and trying to push them as hard as possible with limited territory and resources.

Basically, imposing limitations and then seeing how far you can go within those limitations is just extremely satisfying when you have the right mechanics to do it. That said, going full roman empire world conquest mode would be complex and challenging enough in I:R that a certain type of person would definitely be really into it.

What can be improved: add plagues. New governments, basic economic mechanics.

Plagues, sure, those were pretty fun and flavourful if a bit insubstantial.

Basic economic mechanics. Sure, the ones in CK2 did kind of feel like cheating sometimes. I would like to see the CK3 version be less scripted and something everyone can interact with rather than just free money for some regions.

New governments. Please, no.

Thematically, horse lords is my favourite CK2 DLC. I love nomads, it's a part of history I'm really interested in and would love to see represented properly. The problem is that nomads introducing a whole new set of mechanics that worked completely differently to everyone else was a mess. It never worked from a balance perspective and resulted in an incredibly easy and boring playstyle which completely glossed over the core gameplay that made CK2 enjoyable. To counter this, the limitations imposed on nomads didn't really solve the problem and were just annoying.

I have given quite a lot of thought to how I'd personally like to see nomads done in CK2 when they get round to it, and I might make a suggestion at some point once I've hammered out those ideas, but one thing I'm absolutely certain about is that nomads should use the existing tribal government mechanics (with variant flavour). Those mechanics are fine, they work.

The same is kind of true of republics. I know republics had fans, and I know some people enjoyed playing them, but they were kind of a mess.

CK3 is not a challenging game for veterans, is not a balanced game and is not a cohesive game. To an extent, I would even say it's not a strategy game, since I only have to click my win-button of choice and the game will adjust accordingly, handing me my requested victory.

So, I see this a lot and I don't get it.

I have well over a thousand hours in CK2, enough that if I don't qualify as a veteran I don't know who does. CK2 is a game I find incredibly easy. The only fun I have ever had with it after the first few hundred hours is based on intentionally limiting myself and roleplaying. It is not difficult. At best, it has some basic anti-blobbing mechanics which CK3 doesn't have, but they're easy to overcome.

I don't get what people are doing in CK3 that is making it easy. Like, there are clearly unbalanced features, but nothing I would ever describe as a win button (other than maxing court amenities which is clearly not WAD). Overall things seem so much better. Even just the fact that it is so hard to get out of partition adds a huge amount of difficulty which was utterly absent from CK2 past the extreme early game on some starts. The stuff that does actually seem imbalanced mostly seems like a choice players are making, rather than something baked into the mechanics themselves.

I will happily concede that maybe I'm not good at CK3, but I seem to be good at CK2 so clearly it is possible to be a "veteran" and still find CK3 more challenging than CK2.

 

[toegut]

I would argue it is a failure although not a complete one (I mean, if there's someone somewhere enjoying the game, one can't say it completely flopped).

The CK series is usually described as a GSG with role-playing elements. CK3 is a failure because it underdelivers on both. It's not a good GSG because it is too easy, lacks deep interconnected mechanics and doesn't require much strategizing. All the tradeoffs are very shallow and easily circumvented. It advantages playing out your fantasies over historical simulation.

But it's not any better at role playing either. The recent satirical AAR thread showed that events are basically random and unconnected, often make no sense and many seem to exist purely for memes. Devs decided to go for very detailed event descriptions that are fun to read once or twice but after a while you realize they don't fit your character situation and completely break immersion (I had a 55 year old king try to sneak like a youth into a castle to romance a 40 year old woman, mind you, the woman was my courtier so the king was sneaking into his own palace).

so, to sum up, CK3 is much better at being a funny screenshot/reddit meme generator than a historical strategy game. If you first got into paradox games expecting the latter, steer away. Maybe it can be improved (I don't know how much shallow mechanics/RNG events are embedded into the engine) but so far the direction of development is not promising.

 

[Surimi]

But it's not any better at role playing either. The recent satirical AAR thread showed that events are basically random and unconnected, often make no sense and many seem to exist purely for memes.

So, almost exactly like CK2?

Now this one's gonna earn some rage. But it is true. CK2 events are mostly random and full of silly things that don't match your character situation. There are some event chains, but even those are mostly random. A lot of them are not tonally serious and/or based on memes.

And I know why, because tonal seriousness is death to any game based on emergent storytelling. It doesn't matter how carefully you script everything, there is going to be some kind of silly, immersion-breaking situation that crops up sooner or later. Leaning into it and intentionally establishing a silly tone is a way of making those moments less jarring.

I will agree that CK3 does it a lot, but it's not some night and day difference.

 

[quicklyrainbow]

So, almost exactly like CK2?

Now this one's gonna earn some rage. But it is true. CK2 events are mostly random and full of silly things that don't match your character situation. There are some event chains, but even those are mostly random. A lot of them are not tonally serious and/or based on memes.

And I know why, because tonal seriousness is death to any game based on emergent storytelling. It doesn't matter how carefully you script everything, there is going to be some kind of silly situation that crops up sooner or later. Leaning into it and intentionally establishing a silly tone is a way of making those events less jarring.

I will agree that CK3 does it a lot, but it's not some night and day difference.

I don't know what the CK3 game rules are, but CK2's has ways to minimize a lot of that stuff - you can turn some percentage of the supernatural and absurd off and you can remove secret societies. That doesn't fix the jarring old-man-sneaks-into-own-castle stuff, but it does allow people to turn that serious/silly dial a bit more in the direction they want.

I think some portion of this is just people arguing over exactly where that dial is set by default, but I also do think a lot of it is driven by changes in what Paradox is trying to deliver. The game I've spent the most time in is Hearts of Iron 4, and it's kind of wild what was prioritized in that game compared to its theoretical design goal of being an hour-by-hour World War 2 GSG/simulator. We're talking about a game that had, until quite recently, more content for Portuguese Integralist Catholic world conquest runs, anarcho-communist Spanish Republic world conquests or North American civil wars than it did for playing Italy or the Soviet Union during a normal WW2 scenario. That's driven, I think, by a desire to emulate the big, successful community projects like Kaiserreich. And maybe we see that with events in CK3 being more like the sillier ones added later in CK2's lifespan or through successful mods like the VIET pack.

There's definitely been a philosophical change over the last decade. It's more noticeable in CK3, I think, just because it's been released at the end of that shift rather than the beginning.

 

[Gwydden]

But it's not any better at role playing either. The recent satirical AAR thread showed that events are basically random and unconnected, often make no sense and many seem to exist purely for memes. Devs decided to go for very detailed event descriptions that are fun to read once or twice but after a while you realize they don't fit your character situation and completely break immersion (I had a 55 year old king try to sneak like a youth into a castle to romance a 40 year old woman, mind you, the woman was my courtier so the king was sneaking into his own palace).

Good points here. Wordy event text is a common issue for games that are reliant on random events. I recall a developer from an indie studio saying his personal rule was no more than one paragraph before returning control to the player. More than that tends to be self-indulgent and defeat the purpose of an interactive medium, doubly so if the events repeat as in CK3. CK2 events usually follow this rule; CK3 events not as much. And CK's writing has always been perfunctory at best, compounding the issue. Moreover, giving procedurally generated characters dialogue (which CK3 does constantly) is usually a terrible idea that shatters the illusion that they are unique individuals who engage in distinct interactions with the player character(s).

 

[RynGM]

(I had a 55 year old king try to sneak like a youth into a castle to romance a 40 year old woman, mind you, the woman was my courtier so the king was sneaking into his own palace).

Oh man, I've lost track of the times I've seen a 65-year-old grandpa sneaking into a window to try and seduce someone a third his age.

"Damn it, Gregory, stop being horny on main!"

I would appreciate the option to do something in this event, like pour some water on him as he's climbing up the side of my castle.

... I mean, good on him for being mobile enough to climb at that age, though. I guess he took Whole of Body and skipped Restraint?

 

[Maziga]

There was an inherent tension in CK2, in that it was trying to cater to a variety of players with distinct interests.

I thought you were going somewhere else with this. To me, the thing about CK3 is that it's too smooth.

Maybe I'm just too good at the game (heh) but CK3 has never shocked me, or felt tense. Well, actually, that's a lie, there was a moment where I was scared my 70-year old would die before I could create an empire, but if old age is the best sort of danger you can come up with in medieval times, you're missing a trick.

In CK2, there was always the chance, even if things were going amazingly, that they might not. A battle might go suddenly wrong, even if you had 28 martial, and you end up maimed. Your genius, attractive heir would regularly bite the dust, leaving you searching for some way to not play as a slothful loser who's in the wrong type of marriage. I remember one evening I started howling into a cushion because my living saint-demigod got himself blown up in an inn.

In CK3, there seem to be far too many bonuses, for my taste. Everything gets a bonus. As you play more and more, all these bonuses get stacked, so the few blocks there are in the game get removed. I haven't played Royal Court yet, and I don't intend to, but I have heard from some that the expenditure does serve as a check, so that's probably good (although others have said that artifacts with massive bonuses are just too easy to get). CK2 did have the same problems, especially after Monks&Mystics, but you could just not engage with that part of the game if you wanted to.

Also, as a serious historian, CK3 does seem more lighthearted than CK2. My kids don't ever seem to die - a weird complaint for a game that isn't called Crusader Kings, yes - but not really realistic. I haven't seen events like that one from CK2, where you have to choose between opening the gates to plagues (where are they in CK3 btw?) or getting craven, an absolutely terrible trait. It's all "choose between certainty of small bonus, or chance of large one", and that's where there's a real choice at all (I'm looking at you, 'choices' to back out for no reason at the end of a romance scheme or something).

I like CK3. I just think it had potential it's not using. I also think that CK2 fits my appetites better. So I'm playing it instead.

 

[RynGM]

My kids don't ever seem to die - a weird complaint for a game that isn't called Crusader Kings, yes - but not really realistic.

Yeah, you're not alone there. When I have 12 kids and all of them survive in 1100, I'm wondering what the heck is going on.

On the off chance they do get sick, I just kind of wait a year or two, and they're miraculously healed.

 

[Ian001022]

I would argue it is a failure although not a complete one (I mean, if there's someone somewhere enjoying the game, one can't say it completely flopped).

The CK series is usually described as a GSG with role-playing elements. CK3 is a failure because it underdelivers on both. It's not a good GSG because it is too easy, lacks deep interconnected mechanics and doesn't require much strategizing. All the tradeoffs are very shallow and easily circumvented. It advantages playing out your fantasies over historical simulation.

But it's not any better at role playing either. The recent satirical AAR thread showed that events are basically random and unconnected, often make no sense and many seem to exist purely for memes. Devs decided to go for very detailed event descriptions that are fun to read once or twice but after a while you realize they don't fit your character situation and completely break immersion (I had a 55 year old king try to sneak like a youth into a castle to romance a 40 year old woman, mind you, the woman was my courtier so the king was sneaking into his own palace).

so, to sum up, CK3 is much better at being a funny screenshot/reddit meme generator than a historical strategy game. If you first got into paradox games expecting the latter, steer away. Maybe it can be improved (I don't know how much shallow mechanics/RNG events are embedded into the engine) but so far the direction of development is not promising.

How is the old mean time to happen (MTTH) less random than CK3's event system?

 

[Gwydden]

I thought you were going somewhere else with this. To me, the thing about CK3 is that it's too smooth.

Maybe I'm just too good at the game (heh) but CK3 has never shocked me, or felt tense. Well, actually, that's a lie, there was a moment where I was scared my 70-year old would die before I could create an empire, but if old age is the best sort of danger you can come up with in medieval times, you're missing a trick.

Well, yes, this is another issue with CK3 respective to its predecessor. CK2 wasn't afraid to kill or maim your character. I think of some memorable stories from my time with CK2:

• Kind young king is rendered incapable fighting rebels. He gets massive stat penalties and an enforced regency, only to die a few months later with the war still raging. His cousin takes over and gives up half the kingdom to make peace.
• Another young ruler has to defend the realm following his father's death. He succeeds against overwhelming odds but dies in battle. His infant son is assassinated close to coming of age, almost certainly by his scheming, envious regent of an uncle, who then inherits the kingdom.
• The ruler with the best Martial score I ever had (40+) is successfully waging war on a neighboring kingdom. A distant relative raises enough followers to try to claim my character's throne for himself. My character meets the would-be usurper in the field and dies in what is otherwise a straightforward battle.

And there's nothing like that in CK3. The closest to an inconvenience I've had playing the game, which to give credit where it's due could only have happened in CK3, was when I had four straight generations with the Bleeder trait. All those rulers died relatively young of natural causes.

Another detail about the CK2 anecdotes I shared: none of them happened through events. They all emerged organically from the game mechanics. Events are great at adding flavor and additional twists, but CK3 is perhaps overly reliant on them.

 

[Slow Bathroom]

CK2 was great but it was also a huge mess of mechanics just piled on top of each other. I was excited for CK3 because I thought it would be a chance for them to take all the ideas they came up with for CK2 and put them together coherently but instead CK3 is probably even more broken. And now we've got crap like language learning that awkwardly uses the scheme mechanic and has no effect on how characters interact with each other.

 

[Ian001022]

Well, yes, this is another issue with CK3 respective to its predecessor. CK2 wasn't afraid to kill or maim your character. I think of some memorable stories from my time with CK2:

• Kind young king is rendered incapable fighting rebels. He gets massive stat penalties and an enforced regency, only to die a few months later with the war still raging. His cousin takes over and gives up half the kingdom to make peace.
• Another young ruler has to defend the realm following his father's death. He succeeds against overwhelming odds but dies in battle. His infant son is assassinated close to coming of age, almost certainly by his scheming, envious regent of an uncle, who then inherits the kingdom.
• The ruler with the best Martial score I ever had (40+) is successfully waging war on a neighboring kingdom. A distant relative raises enough followers to try to claim my character's throne for himself. My character meets the would-be usurper in the field and dies in what is otherwise a straightforward battle.

And there's nothing like that in CK3. The closest to an inconvenience I've had playing the game, which to give credit where it's due could only have happened in CK3, was when I had four straight generations with the Bleeder trait. All those rulers died relatively young of natural causes.

Another detail about the CK2 anecdotes I shared: none of them happened through events. They all emerged organically from the game mechanics. Events are great at adding flavor and additional twists, but CK3 is perhaps overly reliant on them.

Are you kidding me? Assassinations in CK2 are event driven, wtf else do you think those plot events are doing? And killed in battlefield literally pops up an event to inform player their character's death. Do you even understand how events work in both CK2 and CK3? Plus, why did I remember that before CK3 was announced, random death on battlefield received quiet a lot complaints. Maybe, just maybe, not all CK2 players enjoy that?

 

[Azhcristokos]

New governments. Please, no.

I think nomads were a bit...much, and I never liked republics, but we do need variety in governments. I really would like to play a Byzantium whose government is not the exact same as that of feudal France. Though as I mentioned in my post, there will always be hard limits on what they can do with governments.

 

[Tomaster]

Absolutely cannot agree with you more. I've played CK2 before CK3, but felt that CK3 is way, wayyyy better for me personally. I feel as though the core map painter gamers are a bit upset with all the focus on RPG stuff but personally bro, I'm in heaven.

I think this is a dramatic misrepresentation of the reasons behind the displeasure seen a lot on these forums (and to a lesser degree, elsewhere like reddit). I loved CK2 for its blend of RPG and grand strategy. I don't mind a greater focus on it, I mind the fact that its all half-baked.

The main feature in Royal Court is a 3d room with about 100 or so events, that you will no doubt see multiple times a playthrough. There are 4 different throne rooms for the entire game map, and... that's about it.

The game is severely lacking in depth and content compared to its predecessor, even at equivalent points in their development now.

Again, I don't care if they want to focus more on RPG style content. But that shouldn't be an excuse to sacrifice necessary historical elements in a history-based game. Just look at all the other threads on this subject and you will see the vast majority of them aren't just upset map painters who don't want to waste time with RPG stuff.

 

[RynGM]

CK3 is both the first Crusader Kings and Paradox game I've ever played* and my opinion about the game after having played 100 hours is different from having played for 500 hours and is massively different than having played for over 1,000 hours. When someone says that you may be missing something because they have played the game for longer than you, while that doesn't invalidate your opinion, they aren't exactly wrong either. CK3 is a complex game and while I'm sure some people can fully grasp the game with only 100 hours of play, most people can't and you are only going to discover/learn certain things after having played it for a long enough time. I'd be willing to wager that is the major and most common difference between people who like the game and who are left wanting.

*Which isn't strictly true as I downloaded CK2 during its free weekend but only spent like ten minutes looking at the UI and decided to wasn't worth the effort as it was an incredibly off putting setup.

It's certainly not my intent to invalidate the opinions of those who have played the game longer. But I do question the assertion that playing the game for longer (or if you played CK2) makes you more qualified to rule if the game is a complete failure or not.

I think this is the heart of the misunderstanding. From my point of view, when someone calls something a complete failure that needs to be reworked from the ground up, they're saying it failed to hit the mark for nearly everyone involved.

Imagine there are three scenarios:

• Player 1 has played CK3 for 200 hours*
• Player 2 has played CK3 for 500 hours
• Player 3 has played CK3 for 1,000 hours

(*Switched to 200, since this was one playthrough for me, personally)

There is an unspoken assertion that this is all the same player, just in different stages of their CK3 journey. Player 1 will get to 1,000 hours, and though they may be happy with it now, they'll be as disappointed with the game's failings once they get to the same stage.

In this scenario, if Player 1 got on to the forum and said the game was great, they'd be seen as naive by Player 3.

But what if Player 1 only wants to play a game for 200 hours, or Player 2 only wanted to play the game for 500 hours?

At this stage, they quit the game - not because they're unhappy, but because they're satisfied. They perhaps come back when each new DLC drops.

This is what a lot of people do with games like Civilization - play the new stuff for a while, then come back when there's something new. For them, CK3 is not a failure, it's a success.

What I guess I'm trying to say is that comes into when people make a statement about if a game is a complete flop or not. Specifically, one that should never have been released as is.

However, does someone who has played the game longer have more knowledge of individual flaws that come up if you play the game a long time or great perspectives on how things could be better compared to other titles? In my opinion, absolutely.

 

[Surimi]

I think nomads were a bit...much, and I never liked republics, but we do need variety in governments. I really would like to play a Byzantium whose government is not the exact same as that of feudal France. Though as I mentioned in my post, there will always be hard limits on what they can do with governments.

I mean, right now this is kind of handled through the Greek culture, which is in some ways a better way to do it. A hypothetical Byzantium ruled by French conquerors would likely end up the exact same as feudal France.

But here's the other thing. A historical Byzantium would not be particularly fun to play. It would mean arbitrarily losing the Empire title because a military commander is popular, or because your heir has a club foot. It would mean facing constant revolts from random people who think they should be Emperor for no particular reason. It should mean massive civil wars every other succession as half the army just decides they can get a better deal elsewhere. In a realistic Byzantium, holding the Empire title for more than a handful of generations should be basically impossible, as should having any chance of coming back once you've lost the Empire title.

If we're going to go down this route, the logical outcome is just to make the Byzantine Empire unplayable. It's not a feudal government so it doesn't fit into a game about feudalism. Of course, noone wants that.

 

[Gwydden]

Are you kidding me? Assassinations in CK2 are event driven, wtf else do you think those plot events are doing? And killed in battlefield literally pops up an event to inform player their character's death. Do you even understand how events work in both CK2 and CK3? Plus, why did I remember that before CK3 was announced, random death on battlefield received quiet a lot complaints. Maybe, just maybe, not all CK2 players enjoy that?

We have different notions of what event driven means, because I don't consider assassinations to be such in either CK2 or CK3. That descriptor would suggest that the mechanic takes place entirely or mostly through events, but assassinations mainly consist of starting a plot/scheme, inviting/bribing co-conspirators, assigning your spymaster to support you, etc. None of that is event based. Battlefield death also triggers from a specific gameplay action (a character engaging in battle). Chance of death is built into every battle the player participates in. I don't think there's even an event pop-up for it, though I could be misremembering. Again, stuff that happens directly and reliably as a result of the player engaging with the core mechanics doesn't qualify as "event based" in my book.

No, it has never occurred to me that people can have different preferences; thank you for bringing that to my attention. I will be sure to make a note of it for future reference. You have my gratitude also for remaining civil despite our disagreement. It is unfortunate when folks behave in a hostile manner over differing opinions on a video game, so I am glad we were able to avoid that.