Has CK3 changed the least since launch of the mainline PDX games?

[Sarsante]

Yeah I’ve seen that conclusion bandied about too and that’s maybe part of it but just seems too simple and binary to me. And I don’t even think strategy and role play are entirely separate categories either, and the developers are smart enough to know they can play around in that middle area where they overlap. But, Occam’s razor and all that, so maybe you’re right…

It exist people between both extremes but it just hard to subdivide further. How would we go about people that like both but don't think they're equally important like 90-10, 80-20, 70-30 from both sides?

And imho only way to satisfy both extremes is have a ton of game rules because each extreme wants an objectively different game.

If you make a game really hard and in depth strategy that takes 200hs to learn one extreme will be happy. The other extreme will play for 10hs fail miserably and never touch it again.

Same way when the game it's like it's right now one extreme loves it because they can do whatever they want and the other extreme complain that it's too easy, AI it's too bad, there's no balance...

Then we go back to what it's more popular? What have a broader audience? It makes sense why the game it's the way it's now.

 

[Sarsante]

I think the traveling system has been a nice addition and it is basically the single thing that meaningfully distinguishes it from the launch version.

It does, it added a very shallow layer of strategy, that being the danger and how easy you get it to 0.

It also added a power fantasy side (lifestyle exp) further improved a bit in RtP (free gold and free skills) and more power fantasy with WN (free perks, free skills, free prowess and more).

And it added a side that if you want to do an activity right now you can't invite anyone or you have to wait locked out a lot of things waiting for like 8 months.

"You're invited for Thanksgiving. I'm sitting at the table right now February 28th and I will be waiting for you" type of nonsense we've in the game.

 

[Citizen Caen]

You guys give Stellaris way too much praise. The difficulty system in this game is a joke, and the AI is completely incompetent. I could list plenty of issues, but this thread isn't about that. As my friend put it: 'A beer in one hand, a mouse in the other, and I'm watching my alloy and science stats as I try to min-max them

Stellaris is fundamentally a much better game today. than it was at launch and it’s not even close. That’s what people are praising. You might not like 2.0 & 3.0 Stellaris but It’s leaps and bounds better than 1.0 Stellaris with its tiles, sectors, Non-existent diplomacy, and awful warfare systems.

The equivalent changes to CK3, would be to fundamentally rip out and replace the economic system and military system, massively expand diplomatic options and vassal contracts, and add a shit ton of flavor to the entire map to accommodate dozens of different playstyles.
Which hey wouldn’t you know it? That’s all the things everybody in this thread is asking for

 

[Bisonmask]

If in the next CK3 update, the AI gets +100% to gold and prestige production, and the AI army receives +200% to damage dealt, we would get a difficulty level similar to Stellaris.

Yes. Yes I desperately want this. I want this more than any other change that this game has seen so far

If you have a way to make the CK3 team do this please please please make them do it. Also make them double the bonus for kings and triple it for emperors, and add influence to the bonus while forcing landed admin rulers to use half of their yearly influence on promoting a successor

Additionally, if 90% of the interactions between the AI and the player are removed from CK3, we would then have a situation similar to Stellaris. Are you sure you want this?

That wouldn't be great given atm the only time I interact with the AI past 100 years is in tournaments, events, and wars I start

 

[heliostellar]

Just thinking off the top of my head here, V3 and Stellaris have undergone deep structural changes over their lifespans (capitalist auto-construction and the the FTL system respectively come to mind for those games). HOI I can't speak to since I've only dabbled there, but I get the sense that at least the AI has greatly improved since launch. EU4 is so old and I haven't played it in so long that I'm not including it here. But the major mechanics as they existed at launch feel mostly the same in CK3 (marriage, dynasty management, politics, war). Lots of fun bells and whistles have been built around these, but these core mechanics haven't really been touched as I see it - I wonder if there's a reticence to do so, or if the powers that be think theres no need?

Anyway, what do you all think about this observation? Am I way off? If this assertion is accurate, what does it say about CK3? IDK just some thoughts I had while sitting thru a Zoom meeting!

V3 has undergone major structural changes because it shipped in Alpha form.

 

[klopkr]

Addition: The AI in Stellaris is essentially the same as in CK3. The only difference is that, since the player has very little interaction with it, the AI problems seem almost nonexistent

I don't even know what you mean by this. The AI is completely fundamentally different in Stellaris , it by definition has to be. It has a whole different war system, has to consider movement in different ways, has to move fleets on the star map, has to deal with pops, has to deal with an economy of adjustable districts and buildings, and has completely different systems for alliances, vassals and diplomacy. Not to mention all the mechanics CK3 just doesn't have a comparison point to.

What do you think AI is? What do you think they actually have in common?

There's honestly not that much overlap between stellaris and CK3 AI.

 

[DeanTheDull]

I guess for me, there’s an interesting disconnect between “the forums” (whether we are a useful group of datapoints is up for debate of course) and the development strategy. If you went with the loudest voices among we the unwashed masses making posts, the game is in need of of some pretty deep mechanical changes (I love the game and more or less agree).

The question is why pay particular attention to the forums, as opposed to other places.

Just as a general point, the official company forums are never representative of the 'average' consumer of anything, since average consumers don't spend their free time not-playing the thing on the forum. It's very weird or exceptional fans who do. In turn, *these* forums are even more non-representative- if you compare them with, say, the CK reddit, the entire tone and tenor is quite different. Similar with Steam, or youtube, or so on.

The people in charge clearly don’t think so, while other development teams have been much quicker to pull the trigger and play around with their games guts with some frequency. I’m just interested in why that disconnect exists - whether it’s a mirage, whether it’s a function of personalities and philosophy among the CK3 designers and developers vs. their peers over in Stellaris land, or what!

Audience demand and incentives.

A general point is that in CK3, the dominant continent demand for the last few years has been [things], not fundamental system changes. After the post-COVID disruption, early CK3 DLC was very much more focused on fundamental systems / systems that could be more fundamental (culture, struggles, travel), and there was very vocal demands for more regional stuff to do than fundamental reworks. The CK3 dev team still clearly wants to meddle with fundamental systems as a means to deliver tailored content- see Roads to Power which is both a regional-focused and a universal government system update- but there's a reason the current update cycle is on the 'knock out the hanging chads of things CK2 did but we want to do differently,' like nomads. There's still 'things to add,' and 'fundamental' changes (like RtP) can be done in the way of implementing them.

By contrast, in some respects Stellaris has started hitting the softer limits of 'what sci-fi tropes do we want to go into' design space. The opening years were themes of tropes (racial pacts, federations, etc.) that could become gameplay mechanics, but we've also started to hit the point where they're increasingly just revisiting previous stuff, like how they've had two robot-themed packs. That's not an issue in and of itself, but in this case the... let's not call it 'running out of ideas,' but 'we need to revisit older ground' starts to work towards mechanical review. Especially since the Stellaris late-game could get notoriously bad with the lag.

 

[Citizen Caen]

In turn, *these* forums are even more non-representative- if you compare them with, say, the CK reddit, the entire tone and tenor is quite different. Similar with Steam, or youtube, or so on.

This part I don’t really agree with. There’s pretty widespread dissatisfaction with CK3’s game development on Steam and Reddit. Really it’s only YouTube that’s somewhat positive and that’s only because YouTubers are a lower form of life addicted to click bait “I BROKE CK3 WITH..” and thus live for slop

Paradox forums are probably the most negative though (sometimes to an unfair degree I will admit). Followed by Steam, then Reddit. But even with Reddit I’ve noticed an uptick in front page posts expressing overall disappointment with the game’s direction.

 

[Arcvalons]

This part I don’t really agree with. There’s pretty widespread dissatisfaction with CK3’s game development on Steam and Reddit. Really it’s only YouTube that’s somewhat positive and that’s only because YouTubers are a lower form of life addicted to click bait “I BROKE CK3 WITH..” and thus live for slop

Paradox forums are probably the most negative though (sometimes to an unfair degree I will admit). Followed by Steam, then Reddit. But even with Reddit I’ve noticed an uptick in front page posts expressing overall disappointment with the game’s direction.

Reddit will upvote memes but the commentrs are usuallu complaints about the mechanics that led to the meme being possible.

 

[BaliorPal]

Stellaris is fundamentally a much better game today. than it was at launch and it’s not even close. That’s what people are praising. You might not like 2.0 & 3.0 Stellaris but It’s leaps and bounds better than 1.0 Stellaris with its tiles, sectors, Non-existent diplomacy, and awful warfare systems.

The equivalent changes to CK3, would be to fundamentally rip out and replace the economic system and military system, massively expand diplomatic options and vassal contracts, and add a shit ton of flavor to the entire map to accommodate dozens of different playstyles.
Which hey wouldn’t you know it? That’s all the things everybody in this thread is asking for

Honestly, I’ve been familiar with Stellaris for about 3–4 years, so I didn’t experience the game at launch. However, I’ve seen plenty of "it was better before" comments regarding the old tile system and the previous ship movement mechanics. In the 3–4 years I’ve played, I can’t say there have been any significant improvements. The new 4.0 update brings some hope, but mainly in terms of performance optimization rather than adding depth to the gameplay. Espionage is dead, there’s no real internal politics, diplomacy is lacking, the Galactic Community is disappointing, and the military system (which was reworked about a year and a half ago) is still bad—they just replaced one meta with another.

Yes. Yes I desperately want this. I want this more than any other change that this game has seen so far

If you have a way to make the CK3 team do this please please please make them do it. Also make them double the bonus for kings and triple it for emperors, and add influence to the bonus while forcing landed admin rulers to use half of their yearly influence on promoting a successor


That wouldn't be great given atm the only time I interact with the AI past 100 years is in tournaments, events, and wars I start

Then we have completely different views on good game design. I consider all of the above to be a very poor way of creating difficulty. Honestly, I don’t even want to go into detail about the issues with this kind of artificial challenge, but to put it briefly: the game is absurdly difficult at the start and just as easy in the mid and late game. For the first 20–40 years (as in Stellaris), you are practically unable to wage war against the AI, but after around 40 years, you gain such an advantage that the AI becomes completely powerless. Some bonuses for the AI might be acceptable, but only if it can still pose a threat without them.

I don't even know what you mean by this. The AI is completely fundamentally different in Stellaris , it by definition has to be. It has a whole different war system, has to consider movement in different ways, has to move fleets on the star map, has to deal with pops, has to deal with an economy of adjustable districts and buildings, and has completely different systems for alliances, vassals and diplomacy. Not to mention all the mechanics CK3 just doesn't have a comparison point to.

What do you think AI is? What do you think they actually have in common?

There's honestly not that much overlap between stellaris and CK3 AI.

I'm not the first to compare Stellaris' AI to CK3's AI. The AI in Stellaris is terrible at warfare, inefficient at constructing buildings, poor at managing its population, and completely clueless when it comes to diplomacy. I agree that it's not entirely fair to compare the AI in Stellaris and CK3 since they function differently and have little in common. However, once again, I wasn’t the one who started comparing these largely unrelated AIs or claiming that one is better than the other.

Is it even appropriate for me to discuss Stellaris' issues on a CK3 forum? Obviously, the Stellaris forum would be the right place for that. However, in this case, I’m simply trying to provide a well-reasoned response—which is impossible without delving into Stellaris' flaws—explaining not just why Stellaris is far from perfect, but why its design philosophy is something I believe CK3 should not follow. In my opinion, that approach is flawed.

 

[Sarsante]

I'm not the first to compare Stellaris' AI to CK3's AI. The AI in Stellaris is terrible at warfare, inefficient at constructing buildings, poor at managing its population, and completely clueless when it comes to diplomacy. I agree that it's not entirely fair to compare the AI in Stellaris and CK3 since they function differently and have little in common. However, once again, I wasn’t the one who started comparing these largely unrelated AIs or claiming that one is better than the other.

I dont think anyone said Stellaris AI it's good, but you've game rules to make the game way harder than what it's by default and that's done by their bonuses.

In ck3 you don't have anything besides tune up to everyone is a scourge of the gods which it's basically the same thing you're complaining that it's bad game design. I've my own problems with scourge of the gods because most of their bonuses are still not enough to make them really hard to beat in battle and the only real threat they offer it's how fast their army move and siege if the conqueror has martial t5 education and strategist tree. They lose one battle but they can outrun your army stopping to siege and keep running which it's one of the most lame things I've ever seen in this game.

 

[Citizen Caen]

Honestly, I’ve been familiar with Stellaris for about 3–4 years, so I didn’t experience the game at launch. However, I’ve seen plenty of "it was better before" comments regarding the old tile system and the previous ship movement mechanics. In the 3–4 years I’ve played, I can’t say there have been any significant improvements. The new 4.0 update brings some hope, but mainly in terms of performance optimization rather than adding depth to the gameplay. Espionage is dead, there’s no real internal politics, diplomacy is lacking, the Galactic Community is disappointing, and the military system (which was reworked about a year and a half ago) is still bad—they just replaced one meta with another.

Dude just trust me here, anyone who says that the tile system was better is completely blinded by nostalgia. The most common description of the 1.0 Econ was “cookie-clicker syndrome” and it wasn’t an exaggeration. Mid game gameplay was about clicking the upgrade arrow 15 times for every planet you owned. It was awful.

The old ship movement mechanic was cool, with the three different sci-fi FTL methods, but the problem was starbases couldn’t stop fleet movement. Meaning that every war was about chasing down the enemy fleet with an ai that did everything it could to run away and snipe your planets. War was awful.

The things you list are certainly problems that I agree with, but there’s no denying that the apocalypse and megacorp patches were huge game changers that ensured Stellaris has lasted ten years instead of a sad death aka Imperator.

 

[klopkr]

Honestly, I’ve been familiar with Stellaris for about 3–4 years, so I didn’t experience the game at launch. However, I’ve seen plenty of "it was better before" comments regarding the old tile system and the previous ship movement mechanics. In the 3–4 years I’ve played, I can’t say there have been any significant improvements.

You can play the old patches on steam. I recommend you open them up just to see. It's a cool feature of paradox games and It's really fun to see how different things are. I enjoyed a lot of OG stellaris and bought it when it launched. It definitely was different and its old system had some cool mechanics and quirks. It's certainly different. I wouldn't say it was bad, but I much much prefer the new stellaris. The movement was neat but it was fundamentally unbalancable and it made the 'terrain' of the galaxy worthless so it didn't feel like something that could really 'grow' and the AI was inifnitly more terrible at war. Did you know in OG stellaris you didn't take systems like tiles but instead had this negulous 'sphere of influence' that you were always pushing against your neighbours with. It didn't happen often but you could actually lose systems just out of that mechanic or have your empire pinched off. Also it allowed for systems to be owned by multiple empires at the same time (which new stellaris could tottaly do).

The new 4.0 update brings some hope, but mainly in terms of performance optimization rather than adding depth to the gameplay. Espionage is dead, there’s no real internal politics, diplomacy is lacking, the Galactic Community is disappointing, and the military system (which was reworked about a year and a half ago) is still bad—they just replaced one meta with another.

I don't disagree.

Then we have completely different views on good game design. I consider all of the above to be a very poor way of creating difficulty. Honestly, I don’t even want to go into detail about the issues with this kind of artificial challenge, but to put it briefly: the game is absurdly difficult at the start and just as easy in the mid and late game. For the first 20–40 years (as in Stellaris), you are practically unable to wage war against the AI, but after around 40 years, you gain such an advantage that the AI becomes completely powerless. Some bonuses for the AI might be acceptable, but only if it can still pose a threat without them.

I don't think these changes made the AI dumber. I think the AI has always been abysmally dumb. Infact it's really hard to make AI's and overloadings AI's can be a real performance bottleneck. I do agree they can do better. I think Stellaris AI is just not as abysmal as CK3 AI. I think the fact that its AI calculates a lot less is part of what allows them to do more interesting things than CK3 AI. They are very apples and oranges though. And CK3 AI have a pretty different design philosophy, with the personalities of characters actually influencing them to make actul 100% objectivly bad desicions. In Stellaris it's more like the AI has a few very basic personalities that don't get modified much by civics and the economy system is too complicated (it's not I blame the devs on this one) that it's economic AI is so bad it has to be given massive bonuses. But in comparison CK3 has no economy system. AI just collects gold and spends it and if they're lucky it'll be on a permanent building upgrade. The CK3 systems are so small that the AI mostly wasts its time deciding what man to cuckhold (it's always you), then it has a different war AI which is so gamey that losing wars is something that should really stop you and make you wonder if you fell asleep at the wheel. It barely understands any of the rules of the game and is intentionally going to act out bad decisions based on personality and will never compete with the player. And the closest thing to getting them to compete is an absurdly over powered conquerers trait and magical doomstacks.

I'm not the first to compare Stellaris' AI to CK3's AI. The AI in Stellaris is terrible at warfare, inefficient at constructing buildings, poor at managing its population, and completely clueless when it comes to diplomacy. I agree that it's not entirely fair to compare the AI in Stellaris and CK3 since they function differently and have little in common. However, once again, I wasn’t the one who started comparing these largely unrelated AIs or claiming that one is better than the other.

I think they're doing completly different things, I think that CK3's emobdies it's design more but I think CK3 is a fundementally easier game and easier to game the AI in. The AI mildly keeps up with your economy because the economy system is so simple in this game but other than that I can't say they're competant at anything. The stellaris AI needs massive across board ecenomic bonuses but imo it plays fine with the bonuses and through the design systems can pose a challange for a long time in game. In CK3 I only reset because my dynasty dies out of the flu, In Stellaris i have to reset because I was spawned near the wrong empire and it ate me before I could compete.

Is it even appropriate for me to discuss Stellaris' issues on a CK3 forum? Obviously, the Stellaris forum would be the right place for that.

As long as we relate it back to CK3 should be fine right?

However, in this case, I’m simply trying to provide a well-reasoned response—which is impossible without delving into Stellaris' flaws—explaining not just why Stellaris is far from perfect, but why its design philosophy is something I believe CK3 should not follow. In my opinion, that approach is flawed.

This is fine. I vehemently disagree dispite also sharing a lot of critiques of stellaris, but I would say that my main reason is that I really really liked the last few full game overhauls. The pop system and the FTL system, while not perfect, were things I remeber pitching and arguing for well before their updates and I think both were really good upgrades despite both being flawed too. We don't have to argue that if you disagree. But that is why I'm very positive about deep structural updates. Actually I'll say I've really liked all the deep structural update patches to paradox titles. I'd consider things in that group like the supply system in HoI or the fixing of Imperator. I even liked Rajas of India in Ck2 though that one was controversial.

I also like the custodian because their updates have felt pretty harmless and it was nice to have older content touched.

 

[BaliorPal]

You can play the old patches on steam. I recommend you open them up just to see. It's a cool feature of paradox games and It's really fun to see how different things are. I enjoyed a lot of OG stellaris and bought it when it launched. It definitely was different and its old system had some cool mechanics and quirks. It's certainly different. I wouldn't say it was bad, but I much much prefer the new stellaris. The movement was neat but it was fundamentally unbalancable and it made the 'terrain' of the galaxy worthless so it didn't feel like something that could really 'grow' and the AI was inifnitly more terrible at war. Did you know in OG stellaris you didn't take systems like tiles but instead had this negulous 'sphere of influence' that you were always pushing against your neighbours with. It didn't happen often but you could actually lose systems just out of that mechanic or have your empire pinched off. Also it allowed for systems to be owned by multiple empires at the same time (which new stellaris could tottaly do).


I don't disagree.


I don't think these changes made the AI dumber. I think the AI has always been abysmally dumb. Infact it's really hard to make AI's and overloadings AI's can be a real performance bottleneck. I do agree they can do better. I think Stellaris AI is just not as abysmal as CK3 AI. I think the fact that its AI calculates a lot less is part of what allows them to do more interesting things than CK3 AI. They are very apples and oranges though. And CK3 AI have a pretty different design philosophy, with the personalities of characters actually influencing them to make actul 100% objectivly bad desicions. In Stellaris it's more like the AI has a few very basic personalities that don't get modified much by civics and the economy system is too complicated (it's not I blame the devs on this one) that it's economic AI is so bad it has to be given massive bonuses. But in comparison CK3 has no economy system. AI just collects gold and spends it and if they're lucky it'll be on a permanent building upgrade. The CK3 systems are so small that the AI mostly wasts its time deciding what man to cuckhold (it's always you), then it has a different war AI which is so gamey that losing wars is something that should really stop you and make you wonder if you fell asleep at the wheel. It barely understands any of the rules of the game and is intentionally going to act out bad decisions based on personality and will never compete with the player. And the closest thing to getting them to compete is an absurdly over powered conquerers trait and magical doomstacks.


I think they're doing completly different things, I think that CK3's emobdies it's design more but I think CK3 is a fundementally easier game and easier to game the AI in. The AI mildly keeps up with your economy because the economy system is so simple in this game but other than that I can't say they're competant at anything. The stellaris AI needs massive across board ecenomic bonuses but imo it plays fine with the bonuses and through the design systems can pose a challange for a long time in game. In CK3 I only reset because my dynasty dies out of the flu, In Stellaris i have to reset because I was spawned near the wrong empire and it ate me before I could compete.


As long as we relate it back to CK3 should be fine right?


This is fine. I vehemently disagree dispite also sharing a lot of critiques of stellaris, but I would say that my main reason is that I really really liked the last few full game overhauls. The pop system and the FTL system, while not perfect, were things I remeber pitching and arguing for well before their updates and I think both were really good upgrades despite both being flawed too. We don't have to argue that if you disagree. But that is why I'm very positive about deep structural updates. Actually I'll say I've really liked all the deep structural update patches to paradox titles. I'd consider things in that group like the supply system in HoI or the fixing of Imperator. I even liked Rajas of India in Ck2 though that one was controversial.

I also like the custodian because their updates have felt pretty harmless and it was nice to have older content touched.

Honestly, I have no desire to respond to all the arguments (many of which I agree with) when my similar arguments are simply ignored in the discussion. I have already written that in Stellaris, there are a MAXIMUM of 50 AIs simultaneously, while in my games, there were at most 15 AIs at the same time. In CK3, there are several thousand characters and a few hundred rulers simultaneously.

Moreover, there was a mod for Stellaris (which has stopped being updated) that SIGNIFICANTLY improved the AI's capabilities while having almost no impact on performance.

Stepping away from the topic, it really frustrates me that in Stellaris, you spend 99% of the game confined within your own state, with almost no interaction with your neighbors. If the entire game world beyond my borders were deleted and only reappeared when I opened the "diplomacy" window or was declared war on, the game wouldn't lose anything.

Even in its broken state, CK3 offers much deeper interactions between states and/or with your vassals. I hope that the trade system, which is promised for 2026 in CK3, will be very similar to what was implemented in EU5—oh, sorry, Project Caesar.

 

[Benismann]

This part I don’t really agree with. There’s pretty widespread dissatisfaction with CK3’s game development on Steam and Reddit. Really it’s only YouTube that’s somewhat positive and that’s only because YouTubers are a lower form of life addicted to click bait “I BROKE CK3 WITH..” and thus live for slop

Paradox forums are probably the most negative though (sometimes to an unfair degree I will admit). Followed by Steam, then Reddit. But even with Reddit I’ve noticed an uptick in front page posts expressing overall disappointment with the game’s direction.

Unrelated but for EU4 we (outsider community, in no way representative of the whole non-forum community) have always thought that pdx forums were very.... let's say positive about the game.
But that's somehow not the case for CK3.... So either we were wrong, or something is very off about CK3.

 

[Benismann]

I hope that the trade system, which is promised for 2026 in CK3, will be very similar to what was implemented in EU5—oh, sorry, Project Caesar.

Uhhh, who's gonna tell them?

 

[Voidian]

I agree but from the business perspective they dont need to for the reasons I said above. On steam RtP sits at 85% positive reviews, so the vast majority dont care about balance or strategy they like power fantasy.

No, RtP is perhaps the only actual strategy expansion, and the best they've ever released.

Sure it's inbalanced and had bugs but it was the very first time paradox released a DLC with actual content for this game, before that the "best" DLC was just the okay-ish Tours & tournaments, an entire "big" DLC focused on nothing but side content.

It took them almost half a decade to finally start adding mechanics and new government types to the game instead of nonsense nobody asked for in all of the previous seasons.

 

[Citizen Caen]

No, RtP is perhaps the only actual strategy expansion, and the best they've ever released.

Sure it's inbalanced and had bugs but it was the very first time paradox released a DLC with actual content for this game, before that the "best" DLC was just the okay-ish Tours & tournaments, an entire "big" DLC focused on nothing but side content.

It took them almost half a decade to finally start adding mechanics and new government types to the game instead of nonsense nobody asked for in all of the previous seasons.

CK fans at release:
“Wow this game has a great base, little low on content/mechanics and tribal + clan governments seems like more of a place holder, but I’m sure Judging by CK2’s development they’ll get right on that! Can’t wait for it to all be fleshed out in a couple years”

Paradox planning 3D diorama throne rooms for first expansion (dev time - 1.5 years):

 

[costevie]

Royal Court definitely feels weirder and weirder as time goes on

 

[klopkr]

I'm still unhappy that tours and tournaments and royal court use the entire screen and take you away from the map so it's terrible in multiplayer and absolutely breaks up the whole game.

I find myself avoiding those screens like the plague. The tournaments are especially egregious because it has these strange slow 'loading' issues that make you sit around just to click through an event, usually an incredibly repetitive event. And don't get me started on needing to babysit the tournament map to visit the tournament grounds as often as possible.