New article from usgamer expand on 12 questions

[Zhetone]

ck2 claim fabrication was extremely annoying especially because it could be the case that your chancellor had no chance of fabricating a claim due to stuff outside your control, which is invisible, and then just resetting the claim fabrication task would get your claim normally. it wasn't at all intuitive

 

[Ivashanko]

I like nearly everything I hear here! I'm not at all a fan of religions that can be radically changed, but I'd be alright if instead of actually changing the religion it simply spawns a heresy. The Church can then declare war on you, your nobles could rise up in rebellion, and foreign rulers can then take away all your land. That would work pretty well, and be a challenging aspect of the game to manage!

I'm worried they won't do that, that they'll make it too easy to change and that other characters won't be that reactive to the change (which, is to say, try and ruin your nation because of it).

 

[TheKingofWinter]

I like nearly everything I hear here! I'm not at all a fan of religions that can be radically changed, but I'd be alright if instead of actually changing the religion it simply spawns a heresy. The Church can then declare war on you, your nobles could rise up in rebellion, and foreign rulers can then take away all your land. That would work pretty well, and be a challenging aspect of the game to manage!

I'm worried they won't do that, that they'll make it too easy to change and that other characters won't be that reactive to the change (which, is to say, try and ruin your nation because of it).

this, this is the way to do it. its what happens when you embrace a heresy in ck2, and its what should happen. if you want an early reformation, youve gotta work for it.

 

[halbort]

When you change religion, they said everyone gets a cb against you for holy war. Second, ai only spawns historical heresies.

 

[Chlodio]

I agree, the skill & chance-based claim fabrication of CK2 was superior than the "click button, wait X months for the bar to fill up, get claim, repeat ad infinitum on next province". That system should be in games like EU, not CK.

Because it could take ages in CK2 and your chancellor could be bribed, you had to use other, somewhat more realistic means to get the land you were aiming at (marriage, Pope, finding another claimant to be vassal, biting the prestige and attacking anyway, etc.). Who would do that now if you could just keep trying to generate a claim every 6 months and eventually get it?

On one hand they are adding great RPG stuff like stat focus trees...and yet on the other hand they're taking it away by importing a streamlined map painting feature from other games. Just like that unnecessary character health bar in Imperator which gives you an exact estimate of when a character will die.

Uncertainty is an element of roleplaying and immersion.

I find fabrication of claims flavorless regardless of how if it's implemented. The historical way of doing such a thing would be to have the ability to buy claims from claimants.

 

[guinea prince]

I find fabrication of claims flavorless regardless of how if it's implemented. The historical way of doing such a thing would be to have the ability to buy claims from claimants.

I'm a weirdo that thinks less flavour for certain things has its place. Like tech advancements being vague, since there is no linear progression of advancement in real life, but certain innovations can give you a bit of a leg up in whatever form that takes.

Or claim fabrication. What does that even look like? I don't know, I'm over in the global imperial island of Sicily, not watching over my councilor like a hawk! Is he arguing some historical based on some folklore about my grandfather's grandfather's grandfather's goat? Is it some legalistic claim over muddy paperwork that promises this farm down yonder? Is he rallying the peasants and local lords about how our rulership is kinder than their horrible tyrant? Mathematical yes, all those things and more. All I need to know is: it's been a year and my 9 diplomacy diplomat isn't making any progress, so now I gotta wonder if he's making progress, compromised, or just a lazy goat, decision to be made appropriately based on how much I trust him and how much I need that county fabricated that way.

It's fun!

 

[Alehkra]

So, there's a couple arguments in this thread so far that I'm having a bit of trouble with, myself. Firstly, the idea that CK3 needs to have all the features at launch that CK2 does at the end of its life cycle. I can understand the basic sentiment, in that of course I would ideally like to see all those neat little things I like from the game present and spruced up (I'm particularly saddened by the lack of nomad mechanics), but...I don't really understand how that's a practical or reasonable desire to actually demand from Paradox before I'm willing to support the title. Because I don't see how that demand could end in a way that actually ends up better for me, the player. CK2, between pre and post-release support, has had most of a decade's worth of development. Certainly I suppose you could argue that because they already laid the groundwork for the design they could implement all the old features in a smaller amount of time, but...what does that mean then? Do we get just the exact same game as CK2 with a new coat of paint and some snazzy character animations? Because...I'd rather just play CK2 than spend money on that, tbh. If it's actually going to be a sequel worth the name there has to be actual progress and development on core systems that makes the experience in some way worth the upgrade. Otherwise I can't see how development time doesn't just balloon all out of proportion as they at once try to enhance and deepen the core gameplay, while also implementing (and making functional alongside the new mechanics) some 6 years of CK2 patches and DLC feature creep. And while I'm reserving judgement on a few decisions (didn't play enough CK1 to have an informed opinion on going back to that naval style, abstraction of church lands into just one Archbishopric seems a bit odd, free-handed barony revocation certainly strikes me as overly gamey, etc...), there are some announced features which I already think are vast improvements over the current systems, while at the same time being very difficult to imagine implemented in CK2. The Stress mechanic by itself I think will hugely enhance roleplay, religions being made up of modular tenants is, imo, brilliant, and the love given to dynasty management and cadet branches seems promising. Some features, like the skill tree system, I can see either being huge duds or incredible additions, so we'll see how that goes. Either way, while they certainly don't seem to be building something as grand and spacious as late-life CK2, I'm not particularly bothered by that. I'm much more concerned with what sort of foundation for the future they're making, and so far I'm personally satisfied that they're taking that quite seriously.

Now secondly, is this objection to the claim system as somehow "removing randomness" from the game. I...honestly just don't understand this one. The bullet threw me for a second when I first read it, because it's worded as a fairly significant change (quite possibly I'm missing something significant), but honestly if I'm reading into this correctly, I don't see how it's actually really anything other than a UI change. We've gone from "every x ticks you have a chance to generate a claim, or fail and wait till the next chance", to...."every x ticks you have a chance to generate a claim, or fail, but now you can see when the next chance is (which you always could before, if you looked at the wiki)". The only real difference I can see is that it looks like there may be higher chances of being presented with some sort of event or choice instead of just nothing at all upon a failure.

 

[Metz77]

You know, I think the real issue vis-a-vis claim fabrication is that it wasn't as necessary in real life because often you could be like "my family held these lands at one point, I am entitled to them!" Meanwhile, the dynastic claims in CK2 are very limited and don't last long unless you press them in a war. So it might be better to add more casus belli based on who has held the land historically.

 

[SolarGuy]

Oh, well, yeah, that's fair. I thought you were saying you wanted them to code in an entire incomplete system for playable baronies that modders could enable and add to. My bad.

One of the devs on Reddit confirmed that they won't be hard-coded restrictions and can indeed be made playable by mods (theocracies too btw). It's just that they have no actual special mechanics or anything, so that's something modders would also have to provide or else it's probably going to be pretty bland and weird I assume. Isn't that basically what you described?

 

[Lordy's]

One of the devs on Reddit confirmed that they won't be hard-coded restrictions and can indeed be made playable by mods (theocracies too btw). It's just that they have no actual special mechanics or anything, so that's something modders would also have to provide or else it's probably going to be pretty bland and weird I assume. Isn't that basically what you described?

Oh, thanks that's great information. Really appreciate it.

 

[gekj]

ck2 claim fabrication was extremely annoying especially because it could be the case that your chancellor had no chance of fabricating a claim due to stuff outside your control, which is invisible, and then just resetting the claim fabrication task would get your claim normally. it wasn't at all intuitive

was better than click and wait x month to have 100% chance to have the claim like imperator

 

[LeSingeAffame]

was better than click and wait x month to have 100% chance to have the claim like imperator

I'll strongly disagree

 

[Cardolam]

You know, I think the real issue vis-a-vis claim fabrication is that it wasn't as necessary in real life because often you could be like "my family held these lands at one point, I am entitled to them!" Meanwhile, the dynastic claims in CK2 are very limited and don't last long unless you press them in a war. So it might be better to add more casus belli based on who has held the land historically.

In CK2 it is already too easy to grow territorially. After you attain a relatively modest size, you'll be able to grow indefinitely, unless you are really unlucky.
In my first CK2 game, while learning the ropes, I managed to end up with Ireland, Scotland, Iberia and a bit of North Africa, in my second game I had half of Europe in 250 years before quitting out of boredom. That's when I started approaching the game from its most valuable angle - role playing.

This being said, if there are other ways to place player growth in check I am not against having more CB. Now, just making it all even easier to grow territorially, I think its a bad option and turn that aspect of the game even more unbalanced.

 

[JosunUrashima]

I'd like to say that I have a strange amusement at seeing people making posts that bring up legitimate issues, but then I see them with such high amounts of Respectfully Disagree's on them, and this is ultimately as someone who might not wind up having any skin in the game if things turn out enough that I decide I'm better sticking with CK2.

• Investiture system and antipopes will not be in at launch.

This is a problem if they want historical accuracy to be part of the idea.

Yeah, and when sigurd the crusader went to crusade from norway, he just called up some of his vassals ships, and went sailing with a fleet no problem, cause norway had a ton of ships. Thats the thing about this system. It caters to one specific situation(namrly those who need to hire ships) while ignoring the fact that shockingly enough, some nations actually did have tons of ships.

Looking at this as someone who had no experience with CK1...

It does nevertheless leave me again more worried that CK3 is going to wind up having as much of a flop of a launch as Imperator did, which I would hope Paradox would be aware makes it less likely for them to make more money from both an expanded and steady fanbase.

Have some faith that Paradox knows that the mechanics are inadequate and that they will strive to develop something down the road. I think that is the more reasonable thing to assume given little information, rather than assuming Paradox is going to just wipe their hands and use CK1's naval mechanics for good.

The problem becomes when what they decide to go with for the temporary winds up either handling bad or being unpopular and perhaps ends up serving as another tick against the game at launch.

They still expects thwir fans to just follow them blindly rather than give any overviews of their plans for the future. Naval mechanics, republics, retinues. All of these are things that should probably get an overhaul, and quite frankly, if paradox had actually learned from imperator rome, they would have released a short bulletpoint under each cut feature thats probably gonna come back, and given a short synopsis of their plans for it.

Wht they have done, is just cut things or leave it in a barebones state with no explanation, and just ask us to trust them and that theyll get around to implementing or fixing it.

They havent learned anything from imperator rome. At all.

I mean, to be fair to Paradox... most of their fanbase WILL continue to follow them blindly. I have issues with the game and I still find myself going "You know, I'll probably wind up pre-ordering this, or maybe get it shortly after launch"

As will like probably 95% of those who play CK2.

I'd actually argue that it's not that Paradox hasn't necessarily learned anything at all. It's that some of the fans might not have learned anything after Imperator.

ill believe that when i read that paradox themselves have confirmed that they will add an actual navy system. why do you and so many others believe that they will add naval combat? paradox hates naval combat, theyve made it clear time and again, that they despise it. that no matter how much we asked for it for CK2, we were not getting it. so why would it be different now? especially as theyve taken steps away from actually having any form of navy system.

I think one of the big problems here is alot of posters still have faith in Paradox that they'll pull through in the end, and that faith can be enough to let them wait even years for such if that's what it takes.

Whereas in your case their handling of Imperator has made it for you at least clear Paradox isn't to be trusted.

In CK2, the chancellor is rolling the dice to check if he forges a claim every twenty days. Only it is not displayed in the interface.

most people don't know that, and it can offer a bit of an illusion of such that one needs to be patient and bide one's time (or when they added the unconventional route, just take the hit and go for it that way.)

Just to make a contrast precisely about a deterministic game and how going that way is not the way to go. That will only lead to min maxing, abusing the game design, generate unbalanced scenarios and game the game.

To be fair and play devils advocate...

That's never stopped players of Paradox games from doing all that anyways.

I think people are being too dismissive of the "we don't like progress bars" faction. The *perception* of randomness is really more significant than the existence of said randomness. Obfuscation can make the system feel more 'magical' than it really is. I've found that in trpgs, comparing d100 systems (where the probabilities are clear and intuitive) with other dice systems where you've got some complicated probability distribution that most people can't hold in their head - the latter case increases the tension and the excitement, because they don't feel that they already know the outcome.
For a parallel effect in a completely different field, the perception of intelligence in robots (which we also see in complaints about game AIs ;-) ): a robot that moves in a random direction until it hits something, and pauses for a couple of seconds before turning, will be percieved as smarter than one which considers all the possible options in a split second to give a logical, deterministic result.

And someone manages to hit the nail on the head!

In CK2 it is already too easy to grow territorially. After you attain a relatively modest size, you'll be able to grow indefinitely, unless you are really unlucky.
In my first CK2 game, while learning the ropes, I managed to end up with Ireland, Scotland, Iberia and a bit of North Africa, in my second game I had half of Europe in 250 years before quitting out of boredom. That's when I started approaching the game from its most valuable angle - role playing.

This being said, if there are other ways to place player growth in check I am not against having more CB. Now, just making it all even easier to grow territorially, I think its a bad option and turn that aspect of the game even more unbalanced.

This speaks volumes to my current game I've been doing as the Empire of the Emerald Isles *custom Irish Empire* where I've literally, LITERALLY made a point of going out of my way of ONLY controlling the territory of the British Isles and Iceland. Anytime I've gotten territory anywhere else on the map, I've done my damndest to give it away either to a Dynasty member, or just boot it out of my realm by making the vassals independent.

 

[TheKingofWinter]

I'd like to say that I have a strange amusement at seeing people making posts that bring up legitimate issues, but then I see them with such high amounts of Respectfully Disagree's on them, and this is ultimately as someone who might not wind up having any skin in the game if things turn out enough that I decide I'm better sticking with CK2.


This is a problem if they want historical accuracy to be part of the idea.



Looking at this as someone who had no experience with CK1...

It does nevertheless leave me again more worried that CK3 is going to wind up having as much of a flop of a launch as Imperator did, which I would hope Paradox would be aware makes it less likely for them to make more money from both an expanded and steady fanbase.



The problem becomes when what they decide to go with for the temporary winds up either handling bad or being unpopular and perhaps ends up serving as another tick against the game at launch.


I mean, to be fair to Paradox... most of their fanbase WILL continue to follow them blindly. I have issues with the game and I still find myself going "You know, I'll probably wind up pre-ordering this, or maybe get it shortly after launch"

As will like probably 95% of those who play CK2.

I'd actually argue that it's not that Paradox hasn't necessarily learned anything at all. It's that some of the fans might not have learned anything after Imperator.



I think one of the big problems here is alot of posters still have faith in Paradox that they'll pull through in the end, and that faith can be enough to let them wait even years for such if that's what it takes.

Whereas in your case their handling of Imperator has made it for you at least clear Paradox isn't to be trusted.



most people don't know that, and it can offer a bit of an illusion of such that one needs to be patient and bide one's time (or when they added the unconventional route, just take the hit and go for it that way.)


To be fair and play devils advocate...

That's never stopped players of Paradox games from doing all that anyways.


And someone manages to hit the nail on the head!


This speaks volumes to my current game I've been doing as the Empire of the Emerald Isles *custom Irish Empire* where I've literally, LITERALLY made a point of going out of my way of ONLY controlling the territory of the British Isles and Iceland. Anytime I've gotten territory anywhere else on the map, I've done my damndest to give it away either to a Dynasty member, or just boot it out of my realm by making the vassals independent.

maybe fans will just blindly follow no matter how bad things get. my point with bringing up How people DIDNT follow with imperator before they bent over backwards to regain player interest, was to illustrate that its not a guarantee at this point.

 

[Pied-Noir]

@TheKingofWinter

No offence, but I am curious - are all of your posts in this sub-forum going to follow this bitter, resentful tone?

We know some features would stay and some would go, and personally I'm surprised and disappointed that anti-popes and investiture are among the latter, but that's life. I suppose they have to draw the line somewhere.

I don't really understand what you're trying to achieve by incessantly posting about how shit you think I:R is and how shit you think CK III will be as a result.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

- As broken as CK1 could be at times, the AI still sometimes calculated distances correctly. If you ordered an army from Spain to go to Sweden, they'd automatically try to sail there by sea rather than march overland and take a year to reach. It was rare but it happened.

It did however make stupid decisions like deciding to go by sea from north wales to scotland rather than overland, or deciding to spend all the money on transport when walking was adequate.

- It generally represented history in a far better way - representing that commanders would often charter ships from merchants in coastal towns to ship their troops to a place. CK2 doesn't have that functionality beyond a few mercenary fleets which get hired by a few rich nations.

We have a decision to commandeer boats if you desperately need to.

Conscript Merchant Ships
Requirements

• Ruler has holding overseas
• Ruler is at war

• 50 gold

- There was still no naval combat, but neither did CK2.

With tweaks and some modern additions, CK1 system is miles ahead of CK2's fleets.

I disagree, largely because of how often armies would decide to go by sea, eating up your gold, rather than going overland when it made little to no difference to travel time.

 

[TheKingofWinter]

@TheKingofWinter

No offence, but I am curious - are all of your posts in this sub-forum going to follow this bitter, resentful tone?

We know some features would stay and some would go, and personally I'm surprised and disappointed that anti-popes and investiture are among the latter, but that's life. I suppose they have to draw the line somewhere.

I don't really understand what you're trying to achieve by incessantly posting about how shit you think I:R is and how shit you think CK III will be as a result.

not all, there are things i like about the new game. just not nearly as many as i feel is a massive mistake.

as for doing as you say, and just shutting up about any mistakes and flaws, i didnt do it back when shattered retreat killed CK2 for me all the way until i had the option to turn it off, and im not going to do it now. i suppose you would rather that all those who pointed out the problems of Imperator rome at the launch should have shut up and meekly praised the game instead of leaving a halfbaked and misguided game behind?

also, i havent been posting how shit i think imperator rome is. ive been posting how shit it was at launch.

 

[Pied-Noir]

i suppose you would rather that all those who pointed out the problems of Imperator rome at the launch should have shut up and meekly praised the game instead of leaving a halfbaked and misguided game behind?

I've absolutely no problem with people complaining about a game being broken, shallow, disappointing or otherwise bad after it launches, but we're at least 6-9 months away from that point, and so I think your cynicism is misplaced.

I heard pretty bad things about Imperator and I thought most of the dev diaries for it gave a good impression as to how bland it would probably be at launch, so I never bothered buying it. In that sense, I have no regrets - I had no expectations for the game, the launch reviews confirmed what I had long assumed, I saved my money and I'll probably never try it.

With CK III, of course I have misgivings about the announced details so far - no anti-popes/investiture/inventory/great works - but I also understand that the devs have to draw a line somewhere, and I'm glad that they're cutting features I disliked (such as republics and nomads) and focusing more on the core feudal mechanics and more of a focus on role-playing. To me, that's all good.

I understand that you have reservations about CK III because you feel burned by Imperator, but that doesn't mean you should post your feelings across multiple threads every day. I can't tell you how to behave, I can only politely suggest that your behaviour will become a problem if you continue, and people will probably start reporting you for it. My advice (for what it's worth) would be to give the game a chance - you may even be pleasantly surprised. If you're wrong then you'll have got yourself a great game, and if you're right and at launch it turns out to be terrible, then feel free to say 'I told you so'.

 

[TheKingofWinter]

I've absolutely no problem with people complaining about a game being broken, shallow, disappointing or otherwise bad after it launches, but we're at least 6-9 months away from that point, and so I think your cynicism is misplaced.

I heard pretty bad things about Imperator and I thought most of the dev diaries for it gave a good impression as to how bland it would probably be at launch, so I never bothered buying it. In that sense, I have no regrets - I had no expectations for the game, the launch reviews confirmed what I had long assumed, I saved my money and I'll probably never try it.

With CK III, of course I have misgivings about the announced details so far - no anti-popes/investiture/inventory/great works - but I also understand that the devs have to draw a line somewhere, and I'm glad that they're cutting features I disliked (such as republics and nomads) and focusing more on the core feudal mechanics and more of a focus on role-playing. To me, that's all good.

I understand that you have reservations about CK III because you feel burned by Imperator, but that doesn't mean you should post your feelings across multiple threads every day. I can't tell you how to behave, I can only politely suggest that your behaviour will become a problem if you continue, and people will probably start reporting you for it. My advice (for what it's worth) would be to give the game a chance - you may even be pleasantly surprised. If you're wrong then you'll have got yourself a great game, and if you're right and at launch it turns out to be terrible, then feel free to say 'I told you so'.

If paradox bans me for giving my honest opinion then so be it. Little i can do about that.