Honest Opinion from a CKII fan

[x4077]

I am kinda a fan of hiding a lot of menu options in right click sub menus. It's decluttering the UI and you find all the relevant and available options right where you need them.

I am not a fan of all these sub-menus at all, as now it forces multiple clicks for frequent actions while the context menu isn't even taking up 1/3 of the screen. Paradox has no problem at all having the left and right panels fill up the entire vertical space, yet they feel the need to save vertical space on a context menu?

 

[TheFeudalBavarian]

I am not a fan of all these sub-menus at all, as now it forces multiple clicks for frequent actions while the context menu isn't even taking up 1/3 of the screen. Paradox has no problem at all having the left and right panels fill up the entire vertical space, yet they feel the need to save vertical space on a context menu?

With all respect, but having all context relevant options and available actions available is by far the easiest and fastest way to do that. This makes this game really easy and quick to navigate. If you have a button with each action with sub menus at different areas of the screen...its just a mouse rolling and click fest in a negative way.

Now you just right click on any characters face and you get all possible actions right in front of you. often I see things I didn't even thought about....

 

[x4077]

With all respect, but having all context relevant options and available actions available is by far the easiest and fastest way to do that. This makes this game really easy and quick to navigate. If you have a button with each action with sub menus at different areas of the screen...its just a mouse rolling and click fest in a negative way.

I think you are misunderstanding me, the context menus themselves are fine. I just don't like that not every option is presented in them at the top level of the context menu, but that PDX only allows 2-4 menu entries on the top level for each category, then spawns a sub menu from the context menu for the rest. THAT is what I don't care for. Show me all of the items, and only spawn the sub menus off of the context menu if it is too big to fit on the screen.

 

[TheFeudalBavarian]

I think you are misunderstanding me, the context menus themselves are fine. I just don't like that not every option is presented in them at the top level of the context menu, but that PDX only allows 2-4 menu entries on the top level for each category, then spawns a sub menu from the context menu for the rest. THAT is what I don't care for. Show me all of the items, and only spawn the sub menus off of the context menu if it is too big to fit on the screen.

By heart only the right click on person context menu comes to mind and the list is by far longer the 2-4 entries. do you have any examples?

 

[x4077]

By heart only the right click on person context menu comes to mind and the list is by far longer the 2-4 entries. do you have any examples?

In the image below, notice the '1 more...' entry, and how it leads to a sub-context menu with more entries. Why couldn't those entries be on the main context menu? If you don't have debug mode on, there really aren't that many context menu options that they can't all be shown at once unless you are running mods that add a ton of character interactions. Even then, it isn't rocket surgery to figure out when the context menu is too big to fit on the screen and only start doing sub-menus when that would occur.

 

[Secuter]

You touch on all the points that I also take issue with in this game, and you said it excellently. I couldn't have said it better my self.

 

[zaboli]

You touch on all the points that I also take issue with in this game, and you said it excellently. I couldn't have said it better my self.

Yes, I wrote this thread not as a rant but as feedback from a CKII player. I don't hate CK3 but the game has very little to offer for veterans of CK2 and Grand Strategy fans. So I hope that future DLC will improve the Grand Strategy elements, instead of focussing on events and meme-like content.

 

[Quimera]

These are words but they don't mean anything when put together and certainly not in the context of what I wrote.

Also, please don't call people things like 'eurocentrist' because they think focusing on depth rather than breadth for game mechanics is a better idea...

But you get it wrong, that it is not because it feels the same to play at any site of the world, that is because it is lame to play without a deeper political system, and the only stuff assembles to those, are feudal contracts and vassal power/independence, that affect to all the world and not Europe, besides that is a lie, the world in CK3 is more living, with so many units, exclusive buildings and not to mention the improved religion system, that changes the whole playstyle at the difference of CK2. So you better check your mind before being so Eurocentrist.
Wrong, because you are doing there, it is to block behind a paywalls and/or years future regions to focus just in one single region/religion.

 

[zaboli]

But you get it wrong, that it is not because it feels the same to play at any site of the world, that is because it is lame to play without a deeper political system, and the only stuff assembles to those, are feudal contracts and vassal power/independence, that affect to all the world and not Europe, besides that is a lie, the world in CK3 is more living, with so many units, exclusive buildings and not to mention the improved religion system, that changes the whole playstyle at the difference of CK2. So you better check your mind before being so Eurocentrist.
Wrong, because you are doing there, it is to block behind a paywalls and/or years future regions to focus just in one single region/religion.

This isn't about being Eurocentrist or not. I don't really care on what region they focus on, if only India was fleshed out or only East Africa I personally wouldn't care. But because CK series originally is based around Europe and medieval feudal politics I thought it would have made sense to just focus on Christian Europe for launch.

Like I said I rather have 1 really fleshed out region than a broad focus but with a lack of depth for each region. The religions mechanics frankly haven't really changed since CK2, yes you can customize your own heresy now, instead of making your own reformed religion but that's it. In the end, Tibetans don't feel like Tibetans, Sub-Saharan Mansa's don't feel like Mansa's & Nomads certainly don't feel like Nomads. I have the same opinion in every other genre. If we just started out with a fleshed-out Europe, with even more content than CK2 Europe, we would have had a reason to play CK3 instead of CK2. The DLC policy would also have been more accessible than for newcomers, if players would like to play as a Muslim for example, they could just download the Muslim expansion instead of having a vague idea of what each expansion focuses on like in EU4.

I have the same opinion for every other genre. In fighting games, I rather have a smaller roster with interesting move sets than a really big roster who all feel the same. In an open-world action game, I rather have a smaller area with more content than a really big area with nothing but fetch quests.

 

[Quimera]

The religions mechanics frankly haven't really changed since CK2, yes you can customize your own heresy now, instead of making your own reformed religion but that's it.

That is a bold statement, the faiths, with doctrines and tenets change the gameplay core deeper, the way you interact, with warfare, vassals, heathens, heretics, vassals laws, titles, laws about inheritance, warfare units, holy wars, laws about equality, women and men, etc. Are you telling this really don't change the core of the gameplay? what do you expect? because in EU4 and CK2 every faction was the "same" and the only difference was the stats they get. Nothing innovative by technology or gameplay features.

Are you telling me the commerce or resources will make a more difference among the nations and families of the game? More than religion? I will tell answer you: not. Not at the moment.

I have the same opinion for every other genre. In fighting games, I rather have a smaller roster with interesting move sets than a really big roster who all feel the same. In an open-world action game, I rather have a smaller area with more content than a really big area with nothing but fetch quests.

Well, I will prefer a big roster with a good/decent average of different fighters that feel different and balanced, not OPs, rather than the two options, about a big or small map it depends on the genre, in ARMA/just cause franchise, I prefer to the map be big to manage different branches of the army, in a COD... well I will prefer the maps to be creatives and fun, or a little open-world like could be an AC.

 

[zaboli]

That is a bold statement, the faiths, with doctrines and tenets change the gameplay core deeper, the way you interact, with warfare, vassals, heathens, heretics, vassals laws, titles, laws about inheritance, warfare units, holy wars, laws about equality, women and men, etc. Are you telling this really don't change the core of the gameplay? what do you expect? because in EU4 and CK2 every faction was the "same" and the only difference was the stats they get. Nothing innovative by technology or gameplay features.

Never said that religion doesn't change the game. I said that religion in CK3 is almost the same as religion in Holy Fury. Customizing a religion in CK3 almost gives you just as many options as in CK2, the real difference is that you can now also customize heresies.

Are you telling me the commerce or resources will make a more difference among the nations and families of the game? More than religion? I will tell answer you: not. Not at the moment.

Actually yes. Religion gives flavor and economy gives strategy. If you don't have some form of an economy you simply can not, not even abstractly, represent the geopolitical situation in which a country was in.

Let's give an example. Imagine a scenario where both the religious and economic/trade mechanics are fleshed out. What elements of these two campaigns would make the playthroughs feel different?

A Pagan Finnish chief with very low development. You would have a unique religion that gives the following: No-claim conquest cassus belli, flavorful events, decision to give special festival and ability to sacrifice people to a god? Or trying to build up your tribe by capturing slaves from neighboring regions, having the ability to build more buildings by allying and trading with neighbors that have wood, or later in the game control the Danish provinces to have a monopoly on the baltic trade region.

A Zunist Afghan in the mountains with a religion that gives the following mechanics: the ability to create a pope or caliph like figure, having sun festivals, holy war cassus belli & flavorful events. Would this make the playthrough feel different for you? Or the unique economic mechanics like: rushing to control the silk road provinces, controlling a region that produces horses to compete with the nomads to the north, allying and trading with Indian rulers to have access to war elephants so you have an advantage against caliphate & cutting of the trade flow of the silk road to sabotage caliphate.

There aren't really any wrong answers here. People may not agree with me that focussing more on economy & warfare instead of events, skill trees and making everyone playable from the start would have made CK3 better. But I hope you at least understand why I think that this was a huge missed opportunity.

 

[Kriegsspieler]

I'm kind of late to this party, and the discussion has moved on, but I just want to thank the O.P. for a thoughtful and insightful analysis. As is usual with Paradox these days, the first thing they do is analyze what the majority of the crowd wants, and in this case the crowd wants a medieval version of The Sims. Witness that the first major update includes a "design your own ruler" feature. What next? A detailed castle builder, complete with specific alcoves for assassinations and love-making? Grand strategy games do not appear to be of interest to them anymore. Fortunately, if we wait long enough some modder will do the job for them.

 

[DavidBrewster]

I'm not really sure what "depth" from CK2 is missing here. I do largely the same things in both games, but in CK3 I have the addition of hooks, secrets, vassal contracts, and other improvements. Could people elaborate a little on the deep grand strategy plays they were making in CK2 that cannot be replicated in 3? Was there some massively nuanced grand strategy going on in CK2 that I just bypassed somehow?

Here are a few flaws I will admit for CK3:

• It's too easy to get claims, which dilutes the importance of planning out marriages. "Meritocracy" as an early perk in the stewardship tree is far too simple a way to claim your liege's title.
• Dread itself works well in my opinion, but it's far too easy to reach 100 dread without needing a plan or the right kind of character. As a result as long as you can find enough peasants to put on the chopping block your vassals will probably never rebel

Most of these aren't "streamlining" issues, in my opinion, but rather certain tools being too easy. I think a mechanic like "meritocracy" could have a place in the game - it just needs to be really, really hard to pull off. Here's how I would adjust it:

• Move it to end of the stewardship tree
• Increase the difficulty of the claim title plot so that it is only possible against extremely inept lieges, or with exceptionally talented characters
• Maybe add some contextual requirements as well, such as requiring that your character have some manner of family connection with the liege's family

Dread would be even simpler to fix - it just needs to be harder to obtain. For starters I would make dread gain very small for actions taken against non-vassals. No way you should be able to hit 100 dread every time you get 5 nobody prisoners from sieging down a county.

 

[Lordy's]

I'm not really sure what "depth" from CK2 is missing here. I do largely the same things in both games, but in CK3 I have the addition of hooks, secrets, vassal contracts, and other improvements. Could people elaborate a little on the deep grand strategy plays they were making in CK2 that cannot be replicated in 3? Was there some massively nuanced grand strategy going on in CK2 that I just bypassed somehow?

Here are a few flaws I will admit for CK3:

• It's too easy to get claims, which dilutes the importance of planning out marriages. "Meritocracy" as an early perk in the stewardship tree is far too simple a way to claim your liege's title.
• Dread itself works well in my opinion, but it's far too easy to reach 100 dread without needing a plan or the right kind of character. As a result as long as you can find enough peasants to put on the chopping block your vassals will probably never rebel

Most of these aren't "streamlining" issues, in my opinion, but rather certain tools being too easy. I think a mechanic like "meritocracy" could have a place in the game - it just needs to be really, really hard to pull off. Here's how I would adjust it:

• Move it to end of the stewardship tree
• Increase the difficulty of the claim title plot so that it is only possible against extremely inept lieges, or with exceptionally talented characters
• Maybe add some contextual requirements as well, such as requiring that your character have some manner of family connection with the liege's family

Dread would be even simpler to fix - it just needs to be harder to obtain. For starters I would make dread gain very small for actions taken against non-vassals. No way you should be able to hit 100 dread every time you get 5 nobody prisoners from sieging down a county.

Yes, that's the most prevalent issue. The game has some systems that could be really decent (like dread), but that are just so imbalanced. Of course there's no depth when it's super easy to get to the top (one character count to emperor) and similarly easy to stay on top (kill 10 heathens every now and then) and there are no external threaths (because MAA are OP in the hands of a player). Also we already have stat inflation for character stats and MAA stats...

I'm kind of late to this party, and the discussion has moved on, but I just want to thank the O.P. for a thoughtful and insightful analysis. As is usual with Paradox these days, the first thing they do is analyze what the majority of the crowd wants, and in this case the crowd wants a medieval version of The Sims. Witness that the first major update includes a "design your own ruler" feature. What next? A detailed castle builder, complete with specific alcoves for assassinations and love-making? Grand strategy games do not appear to be of interest to them anymore. Fortunately, if we wait long enough some modder will do the job for them.

Hm, I think I'd be in favour of a castle builder... Or even better, a whole village building game in the game (Medieval Skylines - Towers, Churches and Castles).And then integrate the Anno series with their lovely logistics system. And medieval II tw for the combat. Finally upgrade the world map to Outerra.

 

[Torredebelem]

Never said that religion doesn't change the game. I said that religion in CK3 is almost the same as religion in Holy Fury. Customizing a religion in CK3 almost gives you just as many options as in CK2, the real difference is that you can now also customize heresies.


Actually yes. Religion gives flavor and economy gives strategy. If you don't have some form of an economy you simply can not, not even abstractly, represent the geopolitical situation in which a country was in.

Let's give an example. Imagine a scenario where both the religious and economic/trade mechanics are fleshed out. What elements of these two campaigns would make the playthroughs feel different?

A Pagan Finnish chief with very low development. You would have a unique religion that gives the following: No-claim conquest cassus belli, flavorful events, decision to give special festival and ability to sacrifice people to a god? Or trying to build up your tribe by capturing slaves from neighboring regions, having the ability to build more buildings by allying and trading with neighbors that have wood, or later in the game control the Danish provinces to have a monopoly on the baltic trade region.

A Zunist Afghan in the mountains with a religion that gives the following mechanics: the ability to create a pope or caliph like figure, having sun festivals, holy war cassus belli & flavorful events. Would this make the playthrough feel different for you? Or the unique economic mechanics like: rushing to control the silk road provinces, controlling a region that produces horses to compete with the nomads to the north, allying and trading with Indian rulers to have access to war elephants so you have an advantage against caliphate & cutting of the trade flow of the silk road to sabotage caliphate.

There aren't really any wrong answers here. People may not agree with me that focussing more on economy & warfare instead of events, skill trees and making everyone playable from the start would have made CK3 better. But I hope you at least understand why I think that this was a huge missed opportunity.

Without the negativity you harbour towards events that for me form an essential aspect of the gameplay and have nothing to do with experiencing or not a developed economy when in fact they should interact together, I fully agree with your post.

 

[Torredebelem]

Dread should come with an increased risk to the neck of the character indulging in it, be it through extra schemes or through controlled events. In this way Dread would balance itself.

 

[mrinku]

I haven't bought CkIII nor intend to do it because it doesn't appeal to me; however I wouldn't call CK2 hard by any metric, specially with DLC that make the game easier and easier (artifacts, societies, life focuses , just keep adding bonuses after bonuses).

Why are you on this forum, then?

 

[Adaman5280]

In regards to economy and trade system:
Trade was much less a big deal in the middle ages than you think. Production of goods was mostly localized and trade happened mostly on a local level (county, maybe dutchy level). Yes, in the high middle and late middle ages there was some international trade picking up.....with the north Italian traders, the German Hanse later in the 1300s, and Spice trade with the middle East. Kings didn't involve themselves too much into trade details, they might have giving certain rights (rights to hold markets, etc.) to guilds or people but they wouldn't have micromanaged it. England for example only had one real export commodity and that was wool/fabric which was not really on a monarchs radar until King Henry I who figured out if he builds good relationships with the trade/wool guilds and support their trade, he then could tax the hell out of them to finance his wars. Maybe the most important trade item was salt....it was needed for preservation almost everywhere. What kind of economy and trade system would you like to implement that is somewhat historical correct and wouldn't change the scope of the game (this is not a ANNO game). Trade happens, but you don't really deal with it, it happens passive and you receive the proceeds from taxes. From that money you finance your levies and MaAs. What is very realistic. Also, the game has special units for different cultures (Landsknechte and Camel Cavalry for example). A more detailed trade and economy system would only make sense if you can play Mayor City republics because than trade is pretty much the only thing you can do. Cities didn't go conquering the world, but they made alliances with other towns and cities to counter the power of nobility and competing cities with the intention to increase their trade and income.

Don't forget, Paradox is not only trying to make a fun grand strategy game, they also try to make a game that fits as good as possible in the historical correct context. Its not a fantasy world where they can come up with whatever game mechanic that is fun, they also try to make it realistic and authentic in a way. They did a pretty good job. If someone very knowledgeable about medieval history and society they will notice over and over again during playthroughs how many details in the game are historically correct or at least approximated as good as possible. This gives the game its special charm and is one of the main reason I am spending so much time with the game.

I get your point about focusing the game on christian Europe first and flesh this out. But I don't know if this is possible, considering that this game is called "Crusader Kings" and where would you do your crusades if you only have Christian Europe? You kinda would be limited on the Iberian peninsula....

The economic system doesn't have to be a huge thing at all by any means

This, this, this!!!

I do care about my MaA and in the first generation as I carefully try to counter the enemy's, using mercs with Pikemen to fight off Caballeros for example. But a bit later I have all the counters on my army anyway, and the levies out muscle everything so much that it doesn't even matter anymore. I can make a siege with an army of only levies with one single commander. If I lose men, they replenish so fast it never really mattered.

We need army management, terrain, tactic and commanders/knights to be hugelly more important! And this point deserves a thread by itself, if someone with a better skill for words than me would make it.

commanders and knights need to be nerfed slightly if MAA and terrain are to be taken seriously. better commander+ all your knights (good or bad sometimes) usually results in a win even sometimes with less soldiers at least from what I've seen. Biggest issue is like the other lad said The sheer numbers are enough to win almost 90% of the time even when enemy's are defending in castles or hills and that's rather silly

 

[TheFeudalBavarian]

commanders and knights need to be nerfed slightly if MAA and terrain are to be taken seriously. better commander+ all your knights (good or bad sometimes) usually results in a win even sometimes with less soldiers at least from what I've seen. Biggest issue is like the other lad said The sheer numbers are enough to win almost 90% of the time even when enemy's are defending in castles or hills and that's rather silly

Don't let you fool you by the "sheer numbers will always win". I ran in a fair amount of battles with a larger army thinking that's a done deal, but lost due to strong enemy leaders, many and good knights, MaA makeup, and terrain. Yes, 90% of the time you win with larger army, but it is not guaranteed. Talking from experience! Sometimes that computer AI actually knows when to fight with smaller army.....and the AI is actually talking terrain into consideration (more than I do at least).

 

[MatthewP]

Don't let you fool you by the "sheer numbers will always win". I ran in a fair amount of battles with a larger army thinking that's a done deal, but lost due to strong enemy leaders, many and good knights, MaA makeup, and terrain. Yes, 90% of the time you win with larger army, but it is not guaranteed. Talking from experience! Sometimes that computer AI actually knows when to fight with smaller army.....and the AI is actually talking terrain into consideration (more than I do at least).

Yeah, if anything CK3 may err too far towards quality. Anyone who is having trouble finding examples of smaller armies beating larger armies, try keeping your men at arms and knights in an army by themselves and dropping them in front of an enemy (using the teleportation feature) once they are movement locked onto a mountain or other good defensive terrain. It's not just that men at arms and knights are super strong, though they are; keeping them in a smaller army by themselves actually makes them stronger still because of combat width.