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It is very bizzare how slow the development of CK3 has been. The content itself isn't what people hate (typically), it is the absurd development times and bad prioritization of content people are bothered by. Almost all the content released so far has felt like a flavor pack. I personally liked Royal Court but it lacked meat to feel like a real expansion. Weapons and gear were something I really wanted, but even that was done very shallowly. Like if you rolled up Royal Court, Friends and Foes, Fate of Iberia, Northern Lords, and T&T. Into just 1 expansion and 1 flavor pack, and they had all been released by Q1 2022 alongside the standard bugfixing and balance, people wouldn't be so upset.

EU4, CK2, Stellaris, and even HoI4 all had better communication and more consistent development than this has. And HoI4 is notorious for having slow development and bad communication.

Hell, even Victoria 3 in the last 6 months has had more development and communication than Ck3 has in the last year and a half.
 
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Hell, even Victoria 3 in the last 6 months has had more development and communication than Ck3 has in the last year and a half.
Vic 3 was on fire, though, so they kind of had to run damage limitation.
 
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Vic 3 was on fire, though, so they kind of had to run damage limitation.

True, but even still, throughout development communication has always been better. Which isn't surprising based on who runs the development team.

And after 1.2, V3 is no longer on fire, and yet they are already planning a 1.3. And yet CK3, can barely see a few text fixes in months of development. There are plenty of broken things in Ck3 since release.

Victoria 3's development will likely be more similar to Stellaris's than CK3. And Stellaris's was pretty good in terms of communication and consistency.
 
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Because it's still smouldering.

Not any worse than Ck3 on release or now. CK3 is rife with placeholder content and bugs. Also, you are missing my point. Victoria 3, even pre-release was more consistant and commucative than CK3. CK3 has always had that problem.


CK3 doesn't know what it wants to be. It's entire value comes from it's content and flavor, and yet it completely lacks content or consistent direction of it. Every other paradox title is mechanically focused. The game itself improves. But CK3 doesn't. It just throws more popups and events on top of everything without making the game itself more fun.

And it doesn't even do that well with these absurdly long release cycles. It is almost as if there is 1 developer on CK3 and 5 writers.
 
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Sorry, but I really can't agree with that. Yes, when I look at the list of added features, it's a pretty long list, but 90% of those features do almost nothing significant. The only interesting thing RC brought was the reworking of cultures, and that wasn't even the point of the DLC. And we got back court positions and artifacts in almost the same form they were in CK2, which just brings up the question of why they were actually cut from vanilla CK3 in the first place. The 3D courtroom itself is a completely useless random event generator. Everything it allows could be done in the 2D interface (displaying artifacts in the same way as personal artifacts). There is a lack of variety in both the models of the artifacts (which makes displaying them in a 3D interface useless, because everything looks the same) and the courtrooms themselves (a pagan tribal subsaharan king has the same courtroom as an Arab emperor). I really trusted the developers, which is why I bought the Royal Edition of CK3. And I was left disappointed and I consider this purchase as my big mistake, which I learned from, so now I am skeptical. I suspect that the reason the developers decided to go for something so unnecessary in the first DLC was that many players pre-ordered it as part of the Royal Edition, and thus, even though it was disappointing, they already had the money for it beforehand, so no harm done.
Spot on
 
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Vic 3 was on fire, though, so they kind of had to run damage limitation.

A customer in a job I had some time ago said something that really stuck with me; "its how you deal with problems that matters, not so much that problems occur".

That's the difference between Vic 3 and CK3 at the moment. The Vic 3 team has take note of the issues the community has identified, acknowledged the problems then offered solutions or made clear that any solutions they do not have time to provide in latest patch is clearly on their to o list to address at earliest opportunity. For example, community points out some of the following issues;

(1) Construction queue grows exponentially and requires excessive micromanagement
(2) Warfare lacks direction
(3) Severe performance issues in late game
(4) Diplomacy needs expanding

Vic 3 team does the following;

(1) Acknowledges and adds ways of reducing excessive construction management
(2) Acknowledges and provides goals for warfare so generals have some direction
(3) Acknowledges and improves performance
(4) Acknowledges and admits they do not have time to do this in latest patch but is high priority for nearby future patches

Vic 3 might have had an awful launch (which I strongly suspect was down to Paradox managers, not developers, demanding a release before xmas) but their post launch addressing of issues has been amazing. These above points are a small selection of community pointed out problems, but I see the Vic 3 team taking this approach of addressing concerns directly very often with other problems.

Now compare with CK3. Among many issues that I have seen regularly asked to be addressed since launch, some are;

(1) Far too easy to snowball and a severe lack of challenge compared to CK 2
(2) Events almost all provide shallow bonuses such as +10 opinion with a vassal and have little impact on general gameplay
(3) Playing rulers in different regions of the world feels very similar
(4) Rulers can stack stats far too easily
(5) Warfare was a big part of the medieval period but is not represented well in game
(6) Council and law mechanics are shallow compared to CK2

CK3 team does the following;

(1) - (6) Barely acknowledges any of these after 2.5 years of release and gives you vikings, a 3D court and artifacts allowing you to stack more stats contrary to request (4), gives you some event packs with little impact on general gameplay (adding to existing problems in (2)) and a struggle mechanic that makes Iberian peninsula feel a bit different to rest of the world.

Their patches and DLC are widely off the mark. Decision making when it comes to patches seem arbitrary (a trait I really wanted to avoid in CK2!) and not very related to addressing existing game mechanics - sometimes even giving people more of what they have been asking not to have (such as point (2) and (4) in the above list). If the CK3 team are recognising some of these problems, they certainly aren't communicating it anywhere near as well as the Vic 3 team, nor showing much action or intention of addressing the issues.

I admit the DLC they have released does set the game up to realise some of its potential in future. For example the struggle mechanic in Iberia can clearly be applied elsehwere in the world to make regions feel unique. Fine. But its a feature that has been lumped onto the game whilst the many other concerns of the community are ignored. The game has always felt shallow compared to other Paradox games and it is still that way. Wide in terms of content available, but shallow in terms of what effect that content has.

Personally I stopped playing the game just before royal court came out. In theory CK3 should be the Paradox game I like the most - I see it as supposed to be a strategy game with realm management and interesting characters - a description it fails to achieve. I'll keep lurking on these forums looking for signs that the game will get some challenge, rulers will get some personality, events will have meaningful impacts etc. Am not so hopeful though.
 
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I believe the biggest problem with CK3 right now is that for the most part, it only gets updates when DLC/Expansions come out. And even worse, it only gets big gameplay changes during expansions. This with the god awful communication system this game has, makes the game feel stagnated.

One of the best decisions Paradox has made was the Custodians in Stellaris. Having an entire separate team focus on bugfixing, adding qol to the base game and preparing the game for future DLC's was a genius move and something that has made Stellaris skyrocket in quality, it being far better than the game it was before Custodians were announced.

I believe CK3 is in a dire need of a Custodian team, it has tons of bugs and problems that have existed since launch. CK3 certainly makes enough money to pay such a team, as Paradox outright bragged about how many copies of CK3 and RC they sold, so obviously money shouldn't be an option.
 
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I believe the biggest problem with CK3 right now, is that for the most part, it only gets updates when DLC/Expansions come out. And even worse, it only gets big gameplay changes during expansions. This with the god awful communication system this game has, makes the game feel stagnated.

One of the best decisions Paradox has made was the Custodians in Stellaris. Having an entire separate team focus on bugfixing, adding qol to the base game and preparing the game for future DLC's was a genius move and something that has made Stellaris skyrocket in quality, it being far better than the game it was before Custodians were announced.

I believe CK3 is in a dire need of a Custodian team, it has tons of bugs and problems that have existed since launch. CK3 certainly makes enough money to pay such a team, as Paradox outright bragged about how many copies of CK3 and RC they sold, so obviously money shouldn't be an option.
We dont even need a custodian team just ck3 doing old paradox model of mixing doc and free updates like in old ck2 and eu4
 
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A major argument I've seen is how CK3 compares to CK2. Some think it's better now then CK2 was at its end (which it's not, but that's besides the point). No, the issue is not that it's CK2 vs CK3. The issue is how much CK3 has improved since launch in comparison to how much CK2 had improved.

When CK3 launched, it had some features from all the games, but some. It was okay but that was to be expected. Then, in 2021, we got our first DLC, Northern Lords. Northern Lords was a slightly reworked part of the Old Gods CK2 DLC, and is probably the only CK3 DLC I've heard only praise for. Now, Vikings actually did Viking things and the 867 start became a lot more fun. By 2022, we get Royal Court, which introduced the court that gave you some new (but repeating) popups and let you ask your liege for favors. Sometimes, regardless of whether you knew the court language or not, you'd stumble upon your words while paying homage and lose 25 prestige. Chilling. Other than that, every single court felt the exact same other that aesthetics. Plus, cultures got reworked. Then, we got Fate of Iberia, where we first saw this really cool Struggle mechanic, and the Dev Team moved right along without extending that anywhere else or intending to use it anywhere else (the Holy Land?!?! For the Crusade game?!?!?); but hey, maybe a mod will do that for them. I'm not even gonna touch on Friends and Foes, which is $5 worth of popup events. Or Tours and Tournements, which isn't even out yet.

Meanwhile, CK2 was only Western Christendom upon release and by the end of its first year introduced Muslims and Byzantines. "But the Dev team wants to make an even better Imperial play in CK3." Well, they haven't done it yet, so this is currently the standard, and they couldn't even reach it. They also made Sunset Invasion in 2012, so two major DLCs and one weird one within the first year. By the end of 2013, they introduced Republics, gave Pagans a lot of love, and added more depth to the Abrahamic religions. CK2 by early 2014 was a much better game than it had started. By March that year they even touched on India.

Meanwhile, CK3 feels the same as it did since launch, other than Vikings in one start, Spain having a cool, if strugglesome feature tied only to that region, and a generic court and generic events you need to deal with. When comparing the progress from base launch to 2-3 years later, CK2 was the better maintained game.
Northern Lords
A major argument I've seen is how CK3 compares to CK2. Some think it's better now then CK2 was at its end (which it's not, but that's besides the point). No, the issue is not that it's CK2 vs CK3. The issue is how much CK3 has improved since launch in comparison to how much CK2 had improved.

When CK3 launched, it had some features from all the games, but some. It was okay but that was to be expected. Then, in 2021, we got our first DLC, Northern Lords. Northern Lords was a slightly reworked part of the Old Gods CK2 DLC, and is probably the only CK3 DLC I've heard only praise for. Now, Vikings actually did Viking things and the 867 start became a lot more fun. By 2022, we get Royal Court, which introduced the court that gave you some new (but repeating) popups and let you ask your liege for favors. Sometimes, regardless of whether you knew the court language or not, you'd stumble upon your words while paying homage and lose 25 prestige. Chilling. Other than that, every single court felt the exact same other that aesthetics. Plus, cultures got reworked. Then, we got Fate of Iberia, where we first saw this really cool Struggle mechanic, and the Dev Team moved right along without extending that anywhere else or intending to use it anywhere else (the Holy Land?!?! For the Crusade game?!?!?); but hey, maybe a mod will do that for them. I'm not even gonna touch on Friends and Foes, which is $5 worth of popup events. Or Tours and Tournements, which isn't even out yet.

Meanwhile, CK2 was only Western Christendom upon release and by the end of its first year introduced Muslims and Byzantines. "But the Dev team wants to make an even better Imperial play in CK3." Well, they haven't done it yet, so this is currently the standard, and they couldn't even reach it. They also made Sunset Invasion in 2012, so two major DLCs and one weird one within the first year. By the end of 2013, they introduced Republics, gave Pagans a lot of love, and added more depth to the Abrahamic religions. CK2 by early 2014 was a much better game than it had started. By March that year they even touched on India.

Meanwhile, CK3 feels the same as it did since launch, other than Vikings in one start, Spain having a cool, if strugglesome feature tied only to that region, and a generic court and generic events you need to deal with. When comparing the progress from base launch to 2-3 years later, CK2 was the better maintained game.
Northern Lords was a very bad DLC. It adds to few things, even for a focused DLC.
The Fate of Iberia was actually fun if you play in Iberia, and royal court did change the game, although maybe was not some people want.
And, excuse me, but most of CK2 DLC were really bad. Apart from a some of them that actually add gameplay (the reapers Due and the ones coming after it)
 
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this comment seems to downplay the variation in flavor and unique mechanics ck2 had over ck3. The Tenet system does not do a good job at making religions feel truly distinct.
 
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most tenets are something like "-20% cost to build buildings in a forest province", or "+15% conversion speed". Even one of the "wacky" ones like carnal exaltation is just a fertility boost. They rarely fundamentally change how the game plays.
In the devs defense: That is on the player. Not every tenet can be unique and not all of them can be balanced out. Sometimes some things just need to be there, so you can roleplay.

And I think this is one of the major flaws of the game. The game doesn't really allow you to roleplay. They throw popups and events at you. Events that are the same in every region of the game, with minor local adjustments. That isn't roleplay. You know everything about every character in the world at any time. Why exactly do we need a spymaster to discover secrets? Why have events that give us the numbers, so we always pick the best option?

While it is true that CK3 came with a lot of content that CK2 added with DLC's it is also fair to say that people expect more from a sequel and so far CK3 has put the focus on the wrong things. They mainly focus on visuals and events, with minor mechanics like the struggle or the new travel mechanic. In itself all of that is great, but it always feels flawed, unfinished or just isn't what the community wanted. The struggle mechanic is great! I avoided it for a long time, since I don't really have an interest in Spain, but it is great. Sadly it only applies to one region. Which is why a custodian team of sorts would make sense. Take such a mechanic and regularly apply it to other regions of the game. Instead I wonder, if we ever get to see it again.
CK2 added India with DLC's, CK3 had all of that from the start. Great. Sadly it just feels like Europe. The steppe? If you care about historical accuracy or immersion, you can't play there. And that involves half of the map. Should we talk about Africa?

CK3 is in itself a good game, but the devs are not adressing what the players want, they add DLC's (rarely) anybody asked for and put focus too much on optics, rather than actual content. The fact that the dev cycle is rather slow and communication is horrible doesn't help either.

Do I expect CK3 to deliver the same DLC's that CK2 gave us? No. It isn't the Sims after all. Then again, what meaningful content did we get after three years (!) of development. Three years is more or less half of a games lifespan. By that speed, we'll get nomads by 2030. There are way too many big issues and expanions to be had that they even adressed in their floorplan, that I can't see how and when they're going to adress all of that. I do believe that they have a plan in mind, they even gave us a floorplan, but considering what is missing and what people have been asking for and at what speed we'd been given things, one has to ask the question, whether or not they care about what players want.
 
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most tenets are something like "-20% cost to build buildings in a forest province", or "+15% conversion speed". Even one of the "wacky" ones like carnal exaltation is just a fertility boost. They rarely fundamentally change how the game plays.
What's sad is that you don't even really need hardcore changes to the way the game plays as different religions. You just need activities that make you feel as though your character is an actual believer in the religion. For some reason, right now that is really limited to religions that have an active component, like Norse or Bori, and for everyone else, your religion is just a passive set of modifiers. Like you can't throw religious festivals, or hold respective coming of age ceremonies within a religion, or interact with your religious head. All of these are fairly simple additions, which could do a lot to flesh out each religion.
 
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What's sad is that you don't even really need hardcore changes to the way the game plays as different religions. You just need activities that make you feel as though your character is an actual believer in the religion. For some reason, right now that is really limited to religions that have an active component, like Norse or Bori, and for everyone else, your religion is just a passive set of modifiers. Like you can't throw religious festivals, or hold respective coming of age ceremonies within a religion, or interact with your religious head. All of these are fairly simple additions, which could do a lot to flesh out each religion.
Please tell me you play with RICE! Religious festivals, regional decisions and flavor...delightful!
 
tl;dr 3D models were a mistake and are holding CK3 development back
I disagree with you as the Portraits are better than the 2D ones of CK2 (espescially the Altaic and the Russian ones are haunting me, but also the West African ones weren't great) but also raise this:

I think it was a mistake to release two roleplay-heavy packs after another and not focus on the overhaul of dire mechanics like Governments, Religions and Warfare. I am a famous critic of the Royal Court who stated that it was much too early for another bolted mechanic that needed their own 3d-assets instead of mechanical overhauls. T&T seems to try to avoid the same mistake with not going the same route (like having Tournament minigames or a Click and Point Tournament Screen like the Court).

But still I see it as necessity that CK3 overhauls Religion and Governments (which seem to be done in specific flavour packs except Imperialism which they want to tackle in a Major) in the future. For both Roleplaying and Strategy.
 
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