I've got to call out forum members here... for being amazing & making this game playable

[jpinard]

Paradox does itself no favors when it comes to teaching people how to play its games. The manuals started out good, then got worse and more useless as DLC's went on. When Conclave came out, they apparently just gave up. Ironically Conclave really needed a how-to guide more than many of the previous DLC's. YouTube videos that were the gold standard of teaching have become rather irrelevant as so much of the game has changed since 2012 when many of them came out. Same goes for written guides. The wiki, while very helpful, is still lacking if you're trying to learn the game. So I'd like to thank the following people who have taken their own time to help me, and a ton of other people on these forums. Without you, this game (especially Conclave) would have remained impenetrable and not fun. You've made a world of difference in this community and should be commended. Thank you!

Dragatus
Finnway
Zsrai
Xinkc
Robert II
Humanoid Typhoon
Furrytale
Ragingnorman
Bernard95
Starsword
Heinrich4u
Yourworstnightm
Thrake
Ragnarak246
Holyone
Iron Chariots
Jfoytech
Indika_tates
Sergeant Flutter
Matthias_Wlkp
Vicodin_Addict
Simmy93
Sunspawn
Many, many other people as well.

Thank you Paradox for a great game. But Paradox should thank you all as well for providing so much support to so many people. Without you there'd be a lot of lost sales of people who just give up on these games. I'm really starting to enjoy my fully DLC'd game

 

[Sergeant Flutter]

The pleasure was mine!

In my opinion, Conclave was just a DLC that was misunderstood.
Many players didn't see all the potential nor how it was fun.

Out of all the DLCs, Conclave is definitely in my top 5.

 

[jpinard]

The pleasure was mine!

In my opinion, Conclave was just a DLC that was misunderstood.
Many players didn't see all the potential nor how it was fun.

Out of all the DLCs, Conclave is definitely in my top 5.

Now that I know how to call for law changes when not the king/ruler, how favors work, and the fact they're two step processes, not just one, and I've been on both sides of council mechanics - I enjoy it. But nothing about how it was implemented made sense for a long time. Also the lack of consistency was confusing. Sometimes you get to directly vote, other times you don't. Likewise with seeing them. A simple how-to guide would have saved a lot of us much frustration. And now that I see how council mechanics fits into other parts of the game, like factions, it's nice. But part of the job of a game developer is to make it clear how this stuff works. They suffered a lot of bad reviews because of confusion and misunderstandings.

Thanks again for all your help Sargeant Flutter (and others)

 

[Bernard95]

I appreciate the word of thanks. Whenever I can I try to help out newer players when I see them. First thing I usually say is to watch Arumba's old tutorial despite being outdated, then play in 1066 as a duke for your first game, and finally that these forums are easily one of your best resources.

Best of luck in your future campaigns, and should you ever need a multiplayer partner by all means send me a PM.

 

[Hector of Troy]

I agree that Paradox is now big enough to have someone in charge of constantly updating tutorials, manuals and tool-tips. They've already lost a lot of potential customers in the past due to this problem. I hope they've learned from it and won't make the same mistake again, especially with more complicated games like the Hearts of Iron series.

I've learned on my own how to play HOI3, constantly going to the forum to look for whichever tips I could get, and I can say it's definitely not fun. That said, PDS has the tendency to add new mechanics on top of new mechanics, sometimes even to the point of bloating their games with more than is needed, and consequently making them look rather obscure, counter-intuitive and very unappealing to get into.

 

[Redwulf_Storm]

I'm glad you are having a more positive experience with CK2, may it last for years to come for all of us. At least until CK3 shows up.

 

[Vicodin_Addict]

For me Conclave bring more depth as well as challenge and also a significant change to my playstyle.

All in all I do love the new perspective that Conclave bring, rather than blob, change CA to Medium, continue to blob and then quit before 100 years of time-frame because I'm bored.
Right now Conclave make me pay full attention to domestic balance of power and politic, something I rarely done before, as I just assigned random guy to new duchy conquered and leave him be.
Something that still bothered me up until now and minor feedback to PDX team might be about the AI ambition. I feel that AI MR or Feudal, expanding into steppe which is basically empty lands is stupid and inefective from cost standings, as you basically need to build that county from ground up, as well as Nomad nerf which make something hilarious like the Satrap of Derbent expanding into Volga Bulgaria holding 10 empty counties in his demesne.
I used to play as Isaac, Khagan of Saray or Kurush, Khan of Yoishta. But now they are unplayable since they don't even stand a chance against mature feudal/MR and often times ended up being conquered by tribal. Well there goes my favorite characters

I'm honored nonetheless to be one of the guy on the list. Thank you for your appreciation.

 

[Dragatus]

I'm honored to be at the top of the list. I've always enjoyed both showing off my knowledge and helping people so it's been a pleasure answering all your questions.

 

[jpinard]

I'm honored to be at the top of the list. I've always enjoyed both showing off my knowledge and helping people so it's been a pleasure answering all your questions.

You deserve it

 

[szmik]

So you wanted attention instead of using PMs?

 

[Thrake]

It certainly does not help that there is no up to date manual (to my knowledge they stopped doing it since Rajas) and that most in-game tips are out-dated. Nor that the game has been patched so much; only way to keep up to date looks like to check out dev diaries and at least major changes of patch notes. Wiki helps too but is not always up to date.

I'm glad I could help you enjoying the game more though

 

[jpinard]

So you wanted attention instead of using PMs?

The forumites here deserve open recognition for the amount of time and effort they put in to helping everyone on this game. A simple pm of "thank you" which I have done at times does not elicit the kind of respect they deserve. I also think Paradox should see an open thank you as well so they know how important the members of this forum are to the success of their game.

Thrake - Thanks

 

[Jayavarman]

Good to see the forum still stimulates you after 15 years.

 

[Runite]

CK2 is not a hard game. The only thing separating a veteran and newbie is knowledge. You don't need a guide to figure out these mechanics. However, the tooltips are deceptive as they fail to mention any other possible outcomes.

Maybe this is Paradox's strategy of forcing their players to a place where they can find the answers to their life problems.

Modders make the game playable for a good portion of players. I wonder if there are statistics somewhere to find the exact numbers.

 

[Jayavarman]

CK2 is not a hard game. The only thing separating a veteran and newbie is knowledge. You don't need a guide to figure out these mechanics. However, the tooltips are deceptive as they fail to mention any other possible outcomes.

Maybe this is Paradox's strategy of forcing their players to a place where they can find the answers to their life problems.

Modders make the game playable for a good portion of players. I wonder if there are statistics somewhere to find the exact numbers.

IIRC, Paradox tracks your mod choices and playing time.

 

[Audoucet]

I agree that Paradox is now big enough to have someone in charge of constantly updating tutorials, manuals and tool-tips.

That would mean finding someone understanding the game. I don't know how they would do that.

 

[RelVleDy]

IIRC, Paradox tracks your mod choices and playing time.

Oh god, really!? Paradox, I'm sorry for playing Sexual Crusaders, Dark World, and "assassinate your children" mods! They accidentally got installed, I swear!

 

[jpinard]

Oh god, really!? Paradox, I'm sorry for playing Sexual Crusaders, Dark World, and "assassinate your children" mods! They accidentally got installed, I swear!

hahahahahah! Too funny