I wish Paradox games took themselves more seriously

[Demony]

CK2 also suffered from overabundance of silly stuff. I feel that the devs maybe thought that because silly stuff gets all the upvotes on the CK subreddit, there is demand for that kind of content in large scale. But silly stuff is no longer funny if it happens routinely, it simply ends up boring and immersion breaking.

Oh but I think that in CK2 there was a balance between the silly stuff and the more serious historical flavored events. I mean events like Glitterhoof were funny and made up CK2 essence. I personally really hate non historical content and even for me it was the perfect equilibrium between fantasy and historical flavor. Another point is that I think that in CK2 devs were really trying to simulate history, while in CK3 you can see how important historical events such as the Crusades or Norman invasion of England rarely work.

 

[grommile]

while in CK3 you can see how important historical events such as the Crusades or Norman invasion of England rarely work.

The norman invasion of england in CK2 works nothing like it historically did (and was at least somewhat shonky anyway).

It doesn't show Billy the Bastard sitting on his duff in Normandy for months because of unfavourable conditions, or his first attempt to actually put out to sea resulting in men drowning in a storm and his ships having to come back home, or Harold sitting on the Isle of Wight with an army for months before disbanding it due to lack of provisiona shortly before the weather turned far enough in Billy's favour for him to cross the channel, or Harold doing a forced march from Stamford Bridge (having pushed Harald's face in) to the Sussex coast.

 

[ruzen]

I hope this dlc will fail, and devs will concentrate on making a serious strategic-rpg finally and start rewrite and redesign the whole game. Or i hope at least someone will make a game like that.

Knights of honor 2 is coming

 

[Delinard.]

Knights of honor 2 is coming

In 2025

For context, this game was announced like 2-3 years ago.

 

[cabesadaseituna]

I think that in the middle point is the key. For me, it is true that some events and jokes are unnecessary, but they are usually compensated with others.
Still, didn't you find CK2 a bit more serious? it may be because of the portraits

 

[Clophiroth]

Is the only choice between Game of thrones and trivial memes ? Why not take inspiration from Boccace's Decameron, the Song of Roland, Le Roman de la Rose, to cite only a few of the medieval classics. Sadly I'm not sure the content designers have ever opened one of these books to immerge themselves into the medieval cultural world, wich is very rich. We're left with the monoculture of memes and inclusion of contemporary social issues into the games. The big problem is the lack of culture and genuine interest for the period

What are "contemporary social issues"? Le Roman du Silence was written in the 13th century, but if you included the main plot of the book in the game a lot of people would consider it "contemporary social issue".

 

[Slepowron]

I think that in the middle point is the key. For me, it is true that some events and jokes are unnecessary, but they are usually compensated with others.
Still, didn't you find CK2 a bit more serious? it may be because of the portraits

Like, the demon child...? Or the giant bird hunting? Or immortality chain...? Nah, snark aside (apologies, too few hours of sleep last night), in my *personal* view, I don't consider either II or III as inherently more serious than the other.

Also, let's keep in mind that at the end of its life cycle, II had a bigger volume of events, so somebody's game could be full of silliness, while somebody else would see just a few silly events.

 

[Ivashanko]

CK3 may not be an accurate version of the Middle Ages, but it doesn't really try to, and often it gets the spirit

I disagree. It is far too easy to not care about the characters in CK3. Unless the most recent patch has changed the game completely, vassals barely matter, and non-land holding characters don't matter at all.

Even if everything else were perfect, the above alone would keep the game from capturing the spirit of the Mediaeval Ages.

 

[Baron Bratwurst]

Like, the demon child...? Or the giant bird hunting? Or immortality chain...?

All these events are optional and can be turned off via game rules.
You can't turn off medieval Tinder in CK3.

 

[Slepowron]

All these events are optional and can be turned off via game rules.
You can't turn off medieval Tinder in CK3.

Ah, fair point. I stand corrected

 

[Koba133]

What are "contemporary social issues"? Le Roman du Silence was written in the 13th century, but if you included the main plot of the book in the game a lot of people would consider it "contemporary social issue".

It's the way the theme is treated. If the plot manages to echo the medieval atmosphere in wich it was written (allegories, poetry...) I'm all for it

 

[Coplantor]

I think that in the middle point is the key. For me, it is true that some events and jokes are unnecessary, but they are usually compensated with others.
Still, didn't you find CK2 a bit more serious? it may be because of the portraits

It is really weird how this works for different people. After hundreds of hours of CK2 I find CK3 silly events not silly enough to stand out. Yeah there's a Shrek reference but the event itself is not that absurd. There's two or three fart events but as it was said before in this thread some prominent jesters were known for fart jokes, heck, history's oldest recorded joke is a fart joke and even the Divine Comedy has a few. Probably the worst offenders are not silly per se, but have at least one silly option to facilitate meme lord playstyle and I see noactual problem in that

OTOH on my very second CK2 campaign I discovered that my daughter was actually a polar bear. I lost count of how many times I defeated Cthulhu, got a horse named glitterhoof on my council, built a pyramid to bury my pet dog/cat, got entire branches of my dynasty extinguished because they turned into satanic cultists and devoured all their children. Twice per campaign I had to fight the literal incarnation of death, first during a chess game and then as a masked stranger during black death lockdown.

 

[johnty5]

All these events are optional and can be turned off via game rules.

What about the JFK ("lone bowman"/"grassy knoll") references in the CK2 assassination mechanics? What about multiple Star Wars references across various events? The Karate Kid reference? And the load of other similar silliness? That wasn't optional.

If you want a 100% serious medieval-era simulator, that’s totally fine - but CK's never been that and it's not honest to pretend it was.

The idea that CK3 is significantly more unserious or "meme-y" than CK2 simply doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

 

[cristofolmc]

It is really weird how this works for different people. After hundreds of hours of CK2 I find CK3 silly events not silly enough to stand out. Yeah there's a Shrek reference but the event itself is not that absurd. There's two or three fart events but as it was said before in this thread some prominent jesters were known for fart jokes, heck, history's oldest recorded joke is a fart joke and even the Divine Comedy has a few. Probably the worst offenders are not silly per se, but have at least one silly option to facilitate meme lord playstyle and I see noactual problem in that

OTOH on my very second CK2 campaign I discovered that my daughter was actually a polar bear. I lost count of how many times I defeated Cthulhu, got a horse named glitterhoof on my council, built a pyramid to bury my pet dog/cat, got entire branches of my dynasty extinguished because they turned into satanic cultists and devoured all their children. Twice per campaign I had to fight the literal incarnation of death, first during a chess game and then as a masked stranger during black death lockdown.

I feel like that kind of nonsense was more optional. I like roleplaying so i try to play faithfully to the middle ages and therefore i never encountered that kind of nonsense in ck2 therefore it felt quite serious to me or more than ck3 with the constant cliches about middle ages. You'd think theyd hire experts on the middle ages for the game and no GoT fans with no history background whatsoever.

 

[grommile]

therefore i never encountered that kind of nonsense in ck2

Did you never find the Epic +2 Axe?

 

[cristofolmc]

Comments like the one written here by cristofolmc reminds me of those people who actually don't know the first thing about the daily life in the middle ages, but are persuaded to be very knowledgeable because they know of some very serious stuff like battles and laws. CK3 may not be an accurate version of the Middle Ages, but it doesn't really try to, and often it gets the spirit, much more so than CK2 ever did.
In fact, the issue we have is that this community takes itself way too seriously for a bunch of nerds playing games. If you want history, then do history, don't play games.

So you're basically saying you didnt read my post. Because you agree with my post at the beginning of your post regarding GoT which is what i complained about and then you put things in my mouth that I never said like middle ages should be grim. I never claimed that. Serious doesnt mean grim. Ive never asked to go to grim. In fact Im not even that annoyed about the fart. Im annoyed that out of all the important elements about the middle ages they only choose to represnrt the jokey ones, the false stereotioes or juat copy paste GoT.

And I dont think nobody here is rising up in arms because of one joke. Its just about the general direction of the game design which is straying further and further away from a middle ages and more and more into a meme GoT mod based on europe. I dont mind the jokes, I dont mind some stereotypes about the false "dark ages", but this game is a constant of it. Nobody whats it to become a history manuscript, but its a pdx game. You expect an amount of seriousness and fidelity of history. This only happens with ck3. The other titles have memes and jokes and but over all the remain quite serious and feithful to the period. Somehow I doubt Victoria III will be a joke represntation of the XIX century, but its still a good game and not a boring history book.

 

[Serenity84]

CK2 did have quite a bit of nonsense, but aside from being able to turn off much of it, it's also stuff that was added over time. Some of it was always there and then it became emphasized more and more. It's clear that the devs noticed that people were responding well to it and then thought it's what the game should be about at its core. There were also seemingly normal events that were really unimmersive, like a king drowning his sorrows in the town tavern. And increasingly a lot of anachronisms. But instead of taking a good look at the overall tone of the game, CK3 then leaned into the exaggerated and the absurd completely. It's there in great numbers right from the start.

But it's not just the absurd events themselves. It's also how a lot of the events are written. They often have this whimsical, light-hearted tone that can even turn more serious things into a parody. You can just feel that the writers don't take the setting seriously. Some fun here and there is fine, but it can't just all be a comedy or it loses its impact.

 

[Turean]

Why is everyone suddenly surprised by this? Paradox games, and for that matter modern society, has become all about memes. "We will save you from capitalism, comrades", "Stalin's Paranoia", etc. in HOI4. All the incest memes and animal rulers in CK2. Stellaris is basically just a sci-fi trope simulator. Clearly that's what people are into, so why get away from what's making you money?

 

[Kazanov]

I know CK2 had a lot of meme stuff, but personally I would prefer if CK3 aimed more for a realistic medieval immersion and not too much comical content like the fart events and that kind of stuff.

I hope that Vic3 will have a much more serious tone.

Supply and demand
Paradox discovered that people follow the creators that make memes on their channel.
Memes are free publicity.
Free publicity attracts more consumers
Consumers give money to the company.
So you most make your games meme-able to earn more money, its simple.

For example the first DLC for CK3 was a nordicist content pack to satisfy an infamous section of our playerbase, but did not added nothing useful to the game in general.
Then Royal Court its all about creating memes, added some small QOL things to improve the game in the long run. While not fixing most of the issues the game has.

The old era of GSG ended a while ago, but we still have these threads, games are made to make money. And companies generally dont care about their "old customers" as much as they care about expanding into new niches, CK3 has more RPG elements than its predecessor.....and we know this from day 1.

Name 1 (one, una) company that makes realistic historical games, only 1 (one, una), and tell me how successful it is. Sadly, memes are the future of gaming, not historical accuracy.

 

[grommile]

For example the first DLC for CK3 was a nordicist content pack to satisfy an infamous section of our playerbase, but did not added nothing useful to the game in general.

And was never advertised as anything else; the more or less explicit intent is that if you like buying your DLCs individually, and you're not into Vikings, you don't need to buy it.

It did accompany a free patch, of course, and I seem to recall that had good, generally applicable updates to game mechanics in it.

(Honestly, the behaviour of a noisy and intemperate minority of the anti-RC posters has me tempted to buy the expansion pass precisely because they're being annoying brats about it.)