Sorry to go back to these comment, but I'm late to this thread and it doesn't look like some one has made these point yet. Also, for the recoded I loved CK2 and played thousands of hours, but only was introduced to it when Horse Lords was about to come out. And I think CK3 is a overall more enjoyable game than CK2 (though there are some areas that definitely need to be fleshed out) and I think both of them are strategically easy (though I like that in both there are multiple ways to solve a problem).
I don't feel the same way as you. Events are only interesting the first time but afterward, I just read what the consequences are and click on the most beneficial decision. If events are coded in a way that they are significantly different each time it 'could' be interesting... Example: Event about a duel that gives a different description depending on the personality traits of the character. Like a kind character reluctant to kill an enemy and a sadistic character bulging out eyeballs. I know that there already decisions based on personality traits, but I specifically mean that the entire description of the event should be changed so you rarely read the same thing twice. It would be way too much work for little reward though and in the end, it just remains a scripted wall of text. For me, stories form because the strategic gameplay synchronizes with the characters. Here is an example:
- In CK3 there is an event about you as a child bonding with a pet, it was a fun read the first time around but I skipped reading it the 2nd time and just looked at the consequences of my decision. All the event did was just giving you a +1 in diplomacy, and some follow up events like the dog biting a council member, but it all felt very insignificant in the grand scheme of things. In other words, it didn't synchronize with the gameplay, the story of my characters didn't progress because I did something, the story progressed because it was scripted that this event has xx% of spawning. Events like this are fine, but they are not the reason why I am immersed because I didn't really do anything.
Here is an example of when I was immersed by character-driven gameplay in a PDX game. In CK2 I was playing as a duke in France, who had a lot of learning skill but was a misguided warrior. I went on a crusade were his martial skill slightly improved, and he eventually became a tough soldier, still I wasn't able to do much within the realm because I was one of the weaker dukes, I still had a lot of piety due to my learning skill and crusade experience. Than the Aztec invaded and conquered all of France, I was banished to 1 holding I had in Italy, but martial skill did increase again to skillful tactician because I was a commander in the French army. With the piety I got I recruited Holy orders to reconquer my holdings in France, once again I improved in martial to brilliant strategist, and eventually conquered all remaining holding in the French the jure making me king of France. I went from a weak misguided warrior to a martial legend. All of this happened without a single special event.
The second example is in a different series Imperator Rome. I was playing as Bactria and had a king + heir with really poor stats. The bad news was that both the Mauryans and Persians were at my doorstep. To strengthen my position I invaded the northern tribal kingdoms, and I received a new character with 15 Martial skill, admittedly during an event. But to be fair the event basically just said here is a good character do you want to recruit him? There wasn't really any story and it didn't hurt the experience. Anyway I used the character as a commander in my defensive wars against the Mauryans and he became more and more popular and I was getting attached to him. Eventually I adopted him, but my heir died, making him the new heir. He eventually became king and went from a nobody to the savior and king of Bactria, but not before a massive civil war broke between the other pretenders of the king.
Maybe an example from an entirely different franchise like Total War: Three Kingdoms. I wasn't immersed in the characters because of the events that fired during the game, I was immersed because the characters grew based on my decision. Liu Bei didn't form a friendship with Cao Cao in my campaign thanks to events, but because I put them together as commanders in many battles. Making it all the more spectacular when Cao Cao left my faction to join the enemy, I was actually in a situation where I dueled Cao Cao with Liu Bei later in a campaign. None of this wouldn't have felt as personal if it was just railroaded in events. I was hoping CK3 would be full with epic stuff like this, but it rarely happens in a natural way.
My point is that stories need to form organically in gameplay, and shouldn't rely just on events. Yes events can spice up things significantly because I wouldn't have received the martial character in IR without the help of events, but the way the story progressed was not because of events but because of the way I made strategic decisions throughout my campaign.
For CK2 most of the events weren't really that organic (the infamous your character just randomly changed traits come to mind). Plus most event in CK2 had an obvious right answer, pretty much every time an event popped up in CK2 I knew which option to pick as it was the same as last time I got that event. This is in contrast to CK3 where I will regularly pick a different option for an event based on what I need in the moment (either due to the new stress system or because there are often multiple good options to pick from).
Where CK2 out shines CK3 is in sheer number of events, but that is understandable given the very different amounts of time that these two games have been developed. And I think it's maybe the sheer number of events that helps hides that the CK2 events, while having some good flavour, were mechanically boring.
Honestly reading the only CK2 example you gave above, I get the feeling that you prefer the CK2 systems where you can take any character and with enough time make them great at whichever stat you want. While I do agree that character growth is somewhat lacking in CK3, I hardly found the CK2 system any better as it was just too easy to make your character a living god (though I can understand that might be other people's cup of tea).
I agree I also didn't expect CK3 to have the same amount as content as CK2, I am not asking the impossible of the devs. But like I mentioned numerous times, I don't like in what direction the 'depth' has gone. The depth is in the form of skill trees and events, I don't care too much about either of these TBH. Skill trees feel restricted, rail-roaded and forced. It is kind of like the national focusses in HOI4 you just wait till you unlock a button so you can do something. Players should DO something to unlock something instead of waiting. Look at the coronation decision in CK2, you actually have to do a mission for the pope before you can be coronated. Why aren't we allowed to actively do something with our character before we unlock new perks? For example winning 3 wars to unlock a perk, in the strategy skill tree. And even though doing something would a significant improvement, it would still be kind of lame because I always know exactly what to expect in every playthrough.
I agree more can be done to improve the trees and have more sources from where you can gain experience for the trees. But CK2 isn't really any better. The trees in CK3 are essentially the way of life lifestyle events redone as a skill tree. Mechanically they are very similar, you choose a lifestyle and then wait until you unlock the various benefits, it's mostly the presentation that has changed (a presentation that facilitates more strategic thinking for players, especially new ones, as one can actually way their options).
Ultimately my reading of CK3 is that it is a good base that will hopefully be fleshed out nicely in the future (and currently I'm optimistic about it's prospects). But even despite it's flaws, I find it to be a more enjoyable game than CK2 already. This is because even though I deeply enjoyed CK2, CK2 was a very flawed game. In a weird way, I think one of the "faults" of CK3, is that because it does a better job of presenting itself, so it also does a better job of presenting it's flaws than CK2 did.
As both games have their benefits and flaws, so I can understand liking CK2 more as a point of personal preference. But I do find it weird to hold up CK2 as an example of a strategically well balanced game as, if you knew how to work the interface, it was pretty easy to break the game.
I also decided to give some feedback to your ideas for what you'd like to include in the game. Note, this is not to say I think you are wrong (as most of my disagreements are just a difference of personal preference after all), but that I found them interesting and so wanted to give my thoughts.
But if I had to make the game just for the extremely niche-strategy audience I would have taken the game in an entirely different direction. I am not a game developer so I don't know how realistic my ideas are and how an AI can handle these mechanics:
- First of all, I would have focussed just on Christian Europe for the release version, so we would have had 1 really fleshed out region instead of a very broad map but with hardly any regional flavor.
While this could possibly had made for a better initial release, I think this creates more problems down the road as plenty of mechanics would have to be reworked as the map expands.
Plus I think having the map being more broad encourages choices like having religions have the more generalizable mechanics such as tenets/doctrines and having events be tied to those. Instead of a smaller initial map, which would encourage the CK2 system where events and mechanics were more religion specific. While I think CK3 could use more religion/faith specific events/flavour, the problem with building the game around this is that it doesn't allow for more dynamic options. There's a reason heresies in CK2 were so boring, to make them anything but, the devs would need to make personalized events/mechanics for each heresy. Where as in CK3, if I create a faith the devs never envisioned it will still have some events/mechanics associated with it as it has the tenets and doctrines to work off of (though again CK3 could benefit from more of these, especially fun synergies).
Lastly given how unfleshed out most of the world is and that most the CK3 title history is taken from CK2. I don't think shrinking the map for the CK3 release would actually have given the devs that much more development time. Especially when the people who would be coming up with new mechanics and systems are probably not also the people that had to place all the baronies (and again most of this research was already done by the CK2 team).
- I would have introduced an economy and trade system. Trade goods would give you access to certain retinue units similar to Stellaris and IR. Trade would be similar to Civ 6 where you can send merchants to other kingdoms to create trade routes.
This here is a great example of what I was referring to above. A trade system with a reduced map would work very differently from a trade system with the entire map as they would have to figure out what to do with off map resources or re-balance trade when off map resources get added to the game.
Plus I'm not a fan of the Civ/Stellaris/IR style trade. I don't find it very interesting or realistic. Plus I don't think it would work well with the multiple levels of government that exist in CK. I'd prefer a more organic way for resources to move around the map, focused more on building the structures to facilitated trade.
- I would have completely reworked the combat system. The new system in IR looks great where you have a combination of levies and retinues. With the trade goods system where you have access to different units, regions would feel entirely different. In Germany, you would have heavy infantry that is slower but tankier and in the steppes you'll have large mobile cavalry armies.
This I could get behind. I hope, like they are adding to IR, they eventually make different cultures and/or terrain supply different types of levies.
- I would also have reworked the peace deal and cassus belli system. Where peace deals are more similar to EU4, but way more restricted in how much land you can take. Make it incredibly costly to take provinces that you don't have a claim on. Just a system where you are not forced to take an entire nation on its knees for 1 exclave province and were there are actual consequences if your entire country is occupied by the enemy
While maybe not the most popular opinion, but I'm not a fan of EU4 style peace deals for CK3 (outside of some peoples suggestions of having more non-land related options, such as marriage contracts as part of ending a war). For fixing the all out war problem, I think the war system should be modified to have owning the war goal greatly increasing war score/ticking war score such that wars are overall shorter and focused, especially if over a single county. Plus levies should take longer to regenerate to make wars more costly. The only major change I'd really like to see is that the defender can declare their own war goal (similar to Stellaris) such that the attacker can lose land if the defender has a claim they can press and wins the war.
- I would make the faction system deeper, where new kinds of factions spawn depending on your playstyle. Do you have a lot of merchant republics as vassals? Maybe there will be a merchant faction that 8wants to transform the kingdom into a republic. it would also be great if you could do interactions with factions. Like for example making a deal with factions that supports a pretender, where he gives up his claims if you agree to conquer a neighboring province for him. Make the factions a more dynamic part of the game, that can give you a lot of benefits and headaches, instead of an alternative rebel system.
While I like the the idea, I don't agree with the republic example. I'm personally a fan of more along the idea of your second suggestion, where factions push you to expand or changing things about your realm in certain ways (almost like a short term quest with either a carrot and/or stick encouraging you to do it).
- I would introduce more options to personalize your kingdom. There was for example a mod in CK2 where you could customize your own palace, why not introduce that into the game? Give us the ability to found military orders, where we can customize them as we wish. You could create your very own Varangian Guard or janissaries. They could then later appear as a faction into the game. Maybe a system where we can place a character into the canon of a kingdom, immortalizing them as a legend. Kind of like mix between the deitify function in IR and the bloodline system in CK2. Too summarize more nation-building functions, so there is more of a sense of personalization, progression and accomplishment in the late game.
Only merchant republics could personalize the palace in CK2. And that was essentially what you can do in CK3, choosing what buildings to build in your capital (and CK3 is more strategic in this regard as you can't build every building in your captial). Edit: Sorry didn't catch you were talking about a mod.
Plus you can personalize your military in the form of MaA, sure it's not called something special, but that's functionally what they are (though the idea of your MaA having a role in your internal politics is intriguing). Lastly the ability to some how mark a character as particularly important to the history of your family/realm I could get behind.
