I'd Call The Game Farcical but I'm Not Sure that Quite Captures the Essence of the Problem

[LebaneseDude]

I didn't play CK2 so I generally stay away from that conversation but often I see people quoting the good it had in comparison to CK3 while rarely acknowledging what CK3 does better, and I just find it hard to believe that CK3 has achieved little or nothing in that regard.

 

[Cymsdale]

I didn't play CK2 so I generally stay away from that conversation but often I see people quoting the good it had in comparison to CK3 while rarely acknowledging what CK3 does better, and I just find it hard to believe that CK3 has achieved little or nothing in that regard.

There are definitely things that are better in CK3 that don't get appreciated as much.
- Cadet Branches / Houses (something that was asked for in CK2 for a long long time)
- New Culture mechanics (these are seriously unappreciated)
- Religious Heresies have a ton more flavor (although I miss anti-popes).
- Technology (mixed IMO, it has a lot more flavor than CK2's version, but I don't like the mechanics of how it grows or that it's attached to culture in weird ways. I'd almost rather have a province tech path and a culture tech path that advance different things in different ways, basically a mix of both systems).

 

[Avil]

I didn't play CK2 so I generally stay away from that conversation but often I see people quoting the good it had in comparison to CK3 while rarely acknowledging what CK3 does better, and I just find it hard to believe that CK3 has achieved little or nothing in that regard.

- 3D looks cool, genetics look great. I wish devs introduced inventory that customizes character looks instead of court :| ;
- personality traits influence player character heavily compared to ck2, it's a great plus to me. I wish events stopped picking AI characters as random as they do, as well as AI would follow their character stricter (and had a shadow of personal agenda). Outright stupid events existing exclusively for giggles should be 100 times rarer!
- supply mechanic is great! Too bad war AI is dumb!
- religion customization and custom heresies are great. I dislike only that to make even a slight change you have to create a new religion. Also old good sinful priest (always the same dude) making -60 fervor all by himself;
- tbh culture traits and acceptance are great too. Forming new cultures and hybrids I would even call awesome.

 

[Tomray94]

I think this post could have used a bit of brevity, many parts of this were not necessary to describe the issue at hand. That being said, I completely agree on the lack of real responsiveness on the part of the devs. They released one dev diary, some patch notes that fixed a few more serious issues and they indirectly acknowledged a few more. That is too little.

What I don't see is a real attempt or post which deals with the vision for the game going forward. I want a thread where I know the developers are actually addressing:

* the lack of engaging events, the lack of flavor that isn't "quirky" potty humor
* how every culture almost feels and plays the same (even though the cultural and religious systems are so modular they should easily allow large differentiations)
* Why are characters acting in opposition to the very traits that should characterize them?
* Why are random people picked for events instead of there being a focus on the close environment of the player, those being their direct city/barony/abbey vassals in their personal counties, their dukes/counts/kings directly below them in the hierarchy, their family, friends, and courtiers (wanderers, travelers, and indirect vassals can appear in some events but should never take the focus away from the people closer to your character).

Almost no one I've seen in this forum making complaints says that CK3 has no potential, they accept that many of the systems brought in are good innovations. The argument being made is that those innovations are being wasted. In fact, the reason we have like 20 of these threads at this point is because there is very real anxiety that our concerns are going unheard. Nobody from the dev team is reaching out to us to let us know that they've at least read these points somewhere, let alone what they plan to do about them (if anything).

The game has an identity crisis and I don't think this is the result of the dual RPG/Grand Strategy genre that it has. It is as if the devs have decided the direction but just refuse to go into either path at any depth, they try to superficially puff up both sides and they fail at it, because a fusion would require two deep systems to interact. At the end of the day, we are stuck with this very "schizophrenic" form of gameplay.

 

[LebaneseDude]

- 3D looks cool, genetics look great. I wish devs introduced inventory that customizes character looks instead of court :| ;
- personality traits influence player character heavily compared to ck2, it's a great plus to me. I wish events stopped picking AI characters as random as they do, as well as AI would follow their character stricter (and had a shadow of personal agenda). Outright stupid events existing exclusively for giggles should be 100 times rarer!
- supply mechanic is great! Too bad war AI is dumb!
- religion customization and custom heresies are great. I dislike only that to make even a slight change you have to create a new religion. Also old good sinful priest (always the same dude) making -60 fervor all by himself;
- tbh culture traits and acceptance are great too. Forming new cultures and hybrids I would even call awesome.

I honestly really value the 3D characters even if it's downplayed a lot in the forums sometimes. I played Old World a while back (lovely game heavily recommend it) but one thing that really bothered me in terms of immersion is how the family portraits resembled nothing like one another. I had two swarthy Carthaginian parents give birth to a blonde blue eyed baby that later turned into a brunette brown eyed balding adult.

Small things like that I feel are not really brought up, but they do matter... to me at least.

Anyway thanks for indulging me.

 

[LebaneseDude]

There are definitely things that are better in CK3 that don't get appreciated as much.
- Religious Heresies have a ton more flavor (although I miss anti-popes).

I'm hoping for a flavor pack or expansion centered around faiths. I'd love to have a more active hand in affecting Rome for example.

I do love how I can turn my monks into warrior gods with the right culture and faith now tho so there's that. I'm planning on doing that in my current Norse run.

 

[TacticalRetreat]

Honestly, I love CK III and it's unique gameplay, there isn't another better or even comparable game out there, a dynasty sim with so much detail.

I really don't understand all the nitpicking and agonizing over every little detail.

 

[WJS]

Players are expected to play as vassals, but also expected to suddenly lose their entire domain through no fault of their own?

The problem isn't that this is bad design, it's that people are debating whether this is even the case. It would be trivial for a dev to clarify this. They choose not to.

It's not "no fault of their own", the impending revolt is right there on the liege's factions tab to see. Vassals need to pay attention to it and prepare to break free if they need to.

Also, what's the best choice? Do you want it so that if you're the top liege, the populist revolt asks your vassal the duke to break away instead of you?

Or do you want to have the choice and take it from the AI on both sides? Because that's weak.

 

[Tomray94]

It's not "no fault of their own", the impending revolt is right there on the liege's factions tab to see. Vassals need to pay attention to it and prepare to break free if they need to.

Also, what's the best choice? Do you want it so that if you're the top liege, the populist revolt asks your vassal the duke to break away instead of you?

Or do you want to have the choice and take it from the AI on both sides? Because that's weak.

I've had a hard time keeping up with the discussion on this particular issue, so feel free to correct me if I am making a mistake.

As far as I can tell, the issue seems to be that vassals who stand to lose land from the revolt are not actually called to the war, whereas in CK II you were called into a war waged against your liege over your lands or could join easily.

I have not had that happen to me, so I don't know what it's like, but if you truly cannot muster your troops and beat the rebels because " the war is not against you", then that is clearly bad design. There is no element of feudalism more clear-cut and fundamental than vassals defending their own territories with their own armies and lieges defending the territorial integrity of their realm.

 

[OnceSetCannotBeChanged]

It's not "no fault of their own", the impending revolt is right there on the liege's factions tab to see. Vassals need to pay attention to it and prepare to break free if they need to.

Also, what's the best choice? Do you want it so that if you're the top liege, the populist revolt asks your vassal the duke to break away instead of you?

Or do you want to have the choice and take it from the AI on both sides? Because that's weak.

For the first 9 months or so, it was not even in the tooltip. Now it's "right there for you to see" but there is nothing that you can do about it besides declare independence. Popular opinion of a county is separate for you and your liege.

I think the best solution is to give a Vassal Player (or any vassal) options to fight the uprising if it affects their land.

 

[OnceSetCannotBeChanged]

I've had a hard time keeping up with the discussion on this particular issue, so feel free to correct me if I am making a mistake.

As far as I can tell, the issue seems to be that vassals who stand to lose land from the revolt are not actually called to the war, whereas in CK II you were called into a war waged against your liege over your lands or could join easily.

I have not had that happen to me, so I don't know what it's like, but if you truly cannot muster your troops and beat the rebels because " the war is not against you", then that is clearly bad design. There is no element of feudalism more clear-cut and fundamental than vassals defending their own territories with their own armies and lieges defending the territorial integrity of their realm.

HA! It's even worse. Your liege gets petitioned and can capitulate without a war being declared. You can lose your domain that even had a positive popular opinion of you.

 

[x4077]

For the first 9 months or so, it was not even in the tooltip. Now it's "right there for you to see" but there is nothing that you can do about it besides declare independence. Popular opinion of a county is separate for you and your liege.

Since when? The first image below is a picture of a county in my realm, the Kingdom of Arabia from the POV of the vassal that controls it. The second is the same county from my perspective as the King. The third is a picture of that same county from the perspective of my liege, the Abbasid Emperor. Note that every single one of them has the same popular opinion, even though the Emperor, the vassal, and myself do not share the same culture or faith.



Try it yourself, start the game in debug mode and you can easily swap from character to character with ctrl-click and investigate the situation.

As for things you can do about it, those are many. You can change the local ruler for the county to be one of the same faith and culture as the county and that will drastically reduce those penalties to popular opinion. Or you can do like myself and just mod out the option for the liege to give away the territories without going to war for them, thereby always giving you the opportunity to fight to keep them.

 

[WJS]

Or you can do like myself and just mod out the option for the liege to give away the territories without going to war for them, thereby always giving you the opportunity to fight to keep them.

Actually, that's a good question. What is the AI rule on capitulation?

 

[OnceSetCannotBeChanged]

Since when? The first image below is a picture of a county in my realm, the Kingdom of Arabia from the POV of the vassal that controls it. The second is the same county from my perspective as the King. The third is a picture of that same county from the perspective of my liege, the Abbasid Emperor. Note that every single one of them has the same popular opinion, even though the Emperor, the vassal, and myself do not share the same culture or faith.

View attachment 817109 View attachment 817110 View attachment 817111

Try it yourself, start the game in debug mode and you can easily swap from character to character with ctrl-click and investigate the situation.

As for things you can do about it, those are many. You can change the local ruler for the county to be one of the same faith and culture as the county and that will drastically reduce those penalties to popular opinion. Or you can do like myself and just mod out the option for the liege to give away the territories without going to war for them, thereby always giving you the opportunity to fight to keep them.

In discussing this issue, people have assumed that it's separate due to issues like in the below screenshots. The Giresun's popular opinion of me is -38, but the popular opinion in the revolt screen says -46. It's either a bug or they have separate popular opinions. I had popular revolts in an Armenia game as a vassal of the Abbassids where I lost counties with a positive popular opinion of me.

Those suggestions would be helpful but this happens when you ARE of the religion and culture of the county that you lose. It happens a ton if you're playing an Armenian game.

 

[grommile]

Also, what's the best choice? Do you want it so that if you're the top liege, the populist revolt asks your vassal the duke to break away instead of you?

I want it so that a top liege can only capitulate to populists if 100% of the provinces to be lost are in his direct demesne or if he actually loses the war. (Yes, that does mean I should be banned – or, at the very least, devastatingly punished in terms of vassal opinion, such that I have a more-or-less 100% chance of being on the sharp end of a claimant or forced-abdication faction even if all my vassals loved me before – from surrendering above -50% warscore.)

 

[Slow Bathroom]

I didn't play CK2 so I generally stay away from that conversation but often I see people quoting the good it had in comparison to CK3 while rarely acknowledging what CK3 does better, and I just find it hard to believe that CK3 has achieved little or nothing in that regard.

The only real gameplay improvement CK3 has is hooks. CK2 had favors which were like hooks except you just straight up bought them with gold so they were stupid and unbalanced. There's a lot of other crappy things in CK2, but CK3 didn't improve them it just removed them and replaced them with nothing.

 

[Ghost12345]

I didn't play CK2 so I generally stay away from that conversation but often I see people quoting the good it had in comparison to CK3 while rarely acknowledging what CK3 does better, and I just find it hard to believe that CK3 has achieved little or nothing in that regard.

At release and still now in some parts I see CK3 not as a step forward more like a step to the side, sure there are things CK3 does better like the religion reformation system(at the cost of other religious stuff being discarded like that pope voting system), some UI elements are better, characters models are a huge upgrade in my opinion. I am sure I am leaving out other small features that are improvements in some parts.

But there is so much content that is cut from CK3 that were in CK2.
Combat is overly simplified, no more flanks and such, no more fleets you need to raise and perhaps not having enough boats to ship your entire army in one go.
Council is cut down compared to CK2 conclave dlc which is a huge step back even with the feudal contract system we got now in CK3.
It took us one and a half year to get artifacts again now with Royal court, we still don't have societies to join and do fun stuff with.
There is really a huge lack of events and lack of choices in them that isn't hardwired to be bad ones.
We can't play republics as there is no true goverment type of it, nomads do not exist properly. all tribals play the same, clans are basic and the feudal system is the same across all of europe and india.
Diseases and outbreaks of diseases does not exist like it did with the reapers due dlc in ck2.

I am sure I am missing lots of other content from CK2 because its been a while since I last played it.
But I mean going onto the next game should be a step forward not a side step and make us buy all the same DLCs that we bought for the previous game. Content that is DLC for CK2 should've been incorporated into the base game of CK3 yet it was not and if it was it is in its most basic state.

And in my opinion its all just to make us spend money to pay for the same stuff that we paid for in the previous game. This is why you might see us old CK2 players being grumpy about CK3's current state

 

[x4077]

In discussing this issue, people have assumed that it's separate due to issues like in the below screenshots. The Giresun's popular opinion of me is -38, but the popular opinion in the revolt screen says -46. It's either a bug or they have separate popular opinions. I had popular revolts in an Armenia game as a vassal of the Abbassids where I lost counties with a positive popular opinion of me.

Those suggestions would be helpful but this happens when you ARE of the religion and culture of the county that you lose. It happens a ton if you're playing an Armenian game.

View attachment 817113View attachment 817114

Read the tool tips in your screenshots. The popular opinion in the county is one number. It is based on the culture and faith of the county vs the culture and faith of its direct ruler. This number is then modified by any local county modifiers such as 'Upset over conversion' or offensive war opinion. This number doesn't change regardless of who you view it from, as the screenshots in my prior post show.

The number in the Faction panel is pretty much meaningless, as it doesn't show anything but the modifiers that would apply to the popular opinion IF that person was the liege of the county. This can be easily observed on any county that has a local modifier such as 'Upset over Conversion'. The modifier will not show up in the Faction display for the faction when it should. In the images below, notice that the local popular opinion has several modifiers, Upset Over Conversion, the Holy Site Ellora, etc, while the faction panel shows only the modifiers for the top liege's cultural acceptance and faith penalty.



Also, it doesn't matter if YOU are the same faith and culture as the county, what matters is the faith and culture of the direct ruler of that county. If those differ, then the popular opinion will get penalties. So if you are appointing vassals of a different faith or culture than the county is then expect populist revolts until the county can be converted to match the ruler.

 

[x4077]

Actually, that's a good question. What is the AI rule on capitulation?

From events/factions/faction_demands.txt.

The chance starts at 0, increases up to 50% based on the army size of the faction vs the army size of the ruler, increases up to another 37% based on the AI boldness factor. From there, being in debt will increase the chances further, while having allies that are larger than the faction will reduce it.

Spoiler: events/factions/faction_demands.txt

        ai_chance = {
            base = 0
            compare_modifier = { # Stronger factions increase the chance of an AI ruler capitulating; at 200% ruler army strength, this maxes out at +50% chance to accept demands.
                value = {
                    value = scope:faction.faction_power
                    subtract = 100
                    multiply = 0.5
                }
                max = 50
            }
            compare_modifier = { # Craven rulers can get up to +37% chance to accept demands.
                value = ai_boldness
                multiplier = -0.5
            }
            modifier = {
                factor = 0.1
                any_ally = {
                    NOR = {
                        target_is_liege_or_above = root
                        target_is_vassal_or_below = root
                    }
                    max_military_strength > root.max_military_strength
                }
            }
            compare_modifier = {
                value = debt_level
                multiplier = 25
            }
        }

 

[Flockingbird]

Content that is DLC for CK2 should've been incorporated into the base game of CK3 yet it was not and if it was it is in its most basic state.

Spouse was in game development for years; he’s often told me that’s simply not possible (it’s a very common player demand when sequels are made.) This has been discussed on this forum over and over and over, so you can find previous threads about this, or perhaps someone else will be so kind as to explain the reasons why, again. But basically, it’s a fresh start, the work has to be done, and the devs(etc.) have to be paid so they can buy food, pay rent, etc.