Inspired by this thread of mine in the general CK III forum: Suggestion to Paradox: One simple game rule than can make the game more challenging and enjoyable
***
Hello everyone!
For the last few weeks I've been googling questions like "how to make CK3 more challenging/difficult". In my view, it can be achieved by encouraging players to consistently make sub-optimal decisions. I think there's something Paradox can do to make us play sub-optimal.
Let me explain. First of all, let me ask you this: are you enjoying the duel system in CK3? Me, personally, yes.
Do you see anything peculiar about the way the information is presented to the player? Well, the player doesn't know the exact values of Likelihood of Success and Risk of Injury! They are hidden between rather vague words like VERY HIGH (how high?) or LOW (how low?). It makes players follow the text clues the game gives to them, and it allows for the suboptimal play (because we don't know what the optimal solution is!). In duels, making suboptimal decisions could lead to your character's injury or death which in turn may lead to a crisis for your dynasty and/or realm. And that's perfect for story-telling since a crisis can make a good story great.
Outside of the duel system, i.e. in the rest of the game, the player 1) knows the EXACT chances of winning/losing in all interactions 2) knows EVERYTHING about EVERYONE. Therefore, the player can consistently find optimal solutions to most of the in-game problems, e.g. breaking up factions before they can press their demands or striking AI opponents when they are at their weakest point. That a) breaks immersion and b) turns CK3 into a spreadsheet game(="find/calculate an optimal solution and apply it").
Case in point #1:
There are two issues here: 1) How would a medieval ruler know the exact probability of the success of this mission (61%)? That's an immersion breaker. 2) Finding an optimal solution is trivial - we just need to spend as little gold as possible to bribe another agent(s) who can push the probability of success to 95%.
Now imagine that instead of giving us an exact number, it would say that the probability of success is "Above average" (which could be somewhere between 60%-70%, for example). Then I wouldn't know the optimal solution. I may spend more gold than needed to bribe extra agents (suboptimal, I won't be able to use that gold for other projects) or may not push the probability of success high enough (let's say, only to 90%, which is suboptimal too since it doubles the chance of failure 5%->10%).
Case in point #2:
There's plenty of events with the outcomes like:
A. 60% chance you get 100 gold and 40% chance you get 50 gold.
B. 100% chance you get 75 gold.
A rational player, who plays optimally, will tend to pick option A since the expected value is higher: EV = (100*0.6 + 50*0.4) = 80 > 75. Why not hide the exact percentages? The game already does that for other events, e.g.:
How low is Low chance? I don't know and I don't want to know.
How poor is poor? I don't know.
Case in point #3:
At any given moment of time, the player knows the exact military strength and wealth of every foreign power. How is my ruler supposed to know that the Byzantines have exactly 12653 troops under their command (breaking the immersion)?
This knowledge forces the player to play optimally. If Duke X is an alliance with Duke Y and together they can muster (X + Y) troops < Z where Z are my troops, I will attack Duke X. Because that's optimal.
Now imagine that instead of giving us the exact values, the game would simply say "Duke X forces are inferior to yours" and "Duke Y forces are inferior to yours" or "Duke X has 1-3k troops" and "Duke Y has 2-4k troops". Then I won't be able to know whether X+Y < Z or X+Y > Z. I only know that X < Z and Y < Z, i.e. individually they are weaker than me, but together they still might be stronger. So I will have to think twice before declaring war. Maybe I would try to hire better generals or finish that military building to tip the odds in my favor. If I know for sure that X+Y < Z then I essentially know the outcome of the war before it's even started.
If I know the AI wealth, I can easily deduce how many mercs it can hire. It eliminates the element of surprise.
With the AI military strength and AI wealth being obscured, we could get to some interesting consequences:
Case in point #4:
You know exactly who would make the best councilor. But why? We should only learn of their actual skill value once he or she is appointed to the council position. Let us discover that information in-game! The game already classifies character's attributes using adjectives such as Good, Excellent, etc when hovering over them in the character window.
Making a sub-optimal decision here encourages the roleplaying: I'm appointing the Steward here not because he's marginally (1-2 skill points) better but because I, as player, like him more. Same thing applies to marriages.
DLC material: A spymaster may be used to reveal other characters' stats.
Case in point #5 (that's more like a DLC material):
You know exactly what's happening in the whole world. Always. A Norse chieftain in 867 knows everything about the Han characters on the eastern edge of the map. Why? Let us discover the world through in-game means (events, innovations, expeditions). "Please, tell me more about this mythical realm of Hindustan".
When the Mongol Horde arrives, don't tell us exactly how strong they are and what holdings they're currently sieging. Keep the player in suspense - "will they show up at my doorstep? how can I get prepared? should I sign more alliances"? Everything outside of the diplo range should be terra incognita.
SUGGESTION:
Add a set of game rules to hide some of the in-game information from the player. e.g.:
- Game rule to hide the exact troops number of a) all AI rulers, or b) AI rulers not sharing the border with the player, or c) AI rulers outside top liege's realm.
- Game rule to hide the exact probabilities of success for events
- Game rule to hide exact the stats of characters a) outside of one's court, or b) outside of one's realm, or c) outside of top liege's realm, or d) outside of diplomatic range.
Let the player make the call based on their own observations, like in this event:
There, it's up to us to decide whether Physician's skill/traits/opinion are sufficient enough to get the desired outcome. The game doesn't spoon-feed us the exact probabilities.
***
Hello everyone!
For the last few weeks I've been googling questions like "how to make CK3 more challenging/difficult". In my view, it can be achieved by encouraging players to consistently make sub-optimal decisions. I think there's something Paradox can do to make us play sub-optimal.
Let me explain. First of all, let me ask you this: are you enjoying the duel system in CK3? Me, personally, yes.
Do you see anything peculiar about the way the information is presented to the player? Well, the player doesn't know the exact values of Likelihood of Success and Risk of Injury! They are hidden between rather vague words like VERY HIGH (how high?) or LOW (how low?). It makes players follow the text clues the game gives to them, and it allows for the suboptimal play (because we don't know what the optimal solution is!). In duels, making suboptimal decisions could lead to your character's injury or death which in turn may lead to a crisis for your dynasty and/or realm. And that's perfect for story-telling since a crisis can make a good story great.
Outside of the duel system, i.e. in the rest of the game, the player 1) knows the EXACT chances of winning/losing in all interactions 2) knows EVERYTHING about EVERYONE. Therefore, the player can consistently find optimal solutions to most of the in-game problems, e.g. breaking up factions before they can press their demands or striking AI opponents when they are at their weakest point. That a) breaks immersion and b) turns CK3 into a spreadsheet game(="find/calculate an optimal solution and apply it").
Case in point #1:
There are two issues here: 1) How would a medieval ruler know the exact probability of the success of this mission (61%)? That's an immersion breaker. 2) Finding an optimal solution is trivial - we just need to spend as little gold as possible to bribe another agent(s) who can push the probability of success to 95%.
Now imagine that instead of giving us an exact number, it would say that the probability of success is "Above average" (which could be somewhere between 60%-70%, for example). Then I wouldn't know the optimal solution. I may spend more gold than needed to bribe extra agents (suboptimal, I won't be able to use that gold for other projects) or may not push the probability of success high enough (let's say, only to 90%, which is suboptimal too since it doubles the chance of failure 5%->10%).
Case in point #2:
There's plenty of events with the outcomes like:
A. 60% chance you get 100 gold and 40% chance you get 50 gold.
B. 100% chance you get 75 gold.
A rational player, who plays optimally, will tend to pick option A since the expected value is higher: EV = (100*0.6 + 50*0.4) = 80 > 75. Why not hide the exact percentages? The game already does that for other events, e.g.:
How low is Low chance? I don't know and I don't want to know.
How poor is poor? I don't know.
Case in point #3:
At any given moment of time, the player knows the exact military strength and wealth of every foreign power. How is my ruler supposed to know that the Byzantines have exactly 12653 troops under their command (breaking the immersion)?
This knowledge forces the player to play optimally. If Duke X is an alliance with Duke Y and together they can muster (X + Y) troops < Z where Z are my troops, I will attack Duke X. Because that's optimal.
Now imagine that instead of giving us the exact values, the game would simply say "Duke X forces are inferior to yours" and "Duke Y forces are inferior to yours" or "Duke X has 1-3k troops" and "Duke Y has 2-4k troops". Then I won't be able to know whether X+Y < Z or X+Y > Z. I only know that X < Z and Y < Z, i.e. individually they are weaker than me, but together they still might be stronger. So I will have to think twice before declaring war. Maybe I would try to hire better generals or finish that military building to tip the odds in my favor. If I know for sure that X+Y < Z then I essentially know the outcome of the war before it's even started.
If I know the AI wealth, I can easily deduce how many mercs it can hire. It eliminates the element of surprise.
With the AI military strength and AI wealth being obscured, we could get to some interesting consequences:
Case in point #4:
You know exactly who would make the best councilor. But why? We should only learn of their actual skill value once he or she is appointed to the council position. Let us discover that information in-game! The game already classifies character's attributes using adjectives such as Good, Excellent, etc when hovering over them in the character window.
Making a sub-optimal decision here encourages the roleplaying: I'm appointing the Steward here not because he's marginally (1-2 skill points) better but because I, as player, like him more. Same thing applies to marriages.
DLC material: A spymaster may be used to reveal other characters' stats.
Case in point #5 (that's more like a DLC material):
You know exactly what's happening in the whole world. Always. A Norse chieftain in 867 knows everything about the Han characters on the eastern edge of the map. Why? Let us discover the world through in-game means (events, innovations, expeditions). "Please, tell me more about this mythical realm of Hindustan".
When the Mongol Horde arrives, don't tell us exactly how strong they are and what holdings they're currently sieging. Keep the player in suspense - "will they show up at my doorstep? how can I get prepared? should I sign more alliances"? Everything outside of the diplo range should be terra incognita.
SUGGESTION:
Add a set of game rules to hide some of the in-game information from the player. e.g.:
- Game rule to hide the exact troops number of a) all AI rulers, or b) AI rulers not sharing the border with the player, or c) AI rulers outside top liege's realm.
- Game rule to hide the exact probabilities of success for events
- Game rule to hide exact the stats of characters a) outside of one's court, or b) outside of one's realm, or c) outside of top liege's realm, or d) outside of diplomatic range.
Let the player make the call based on their own observations, like in this event:
There, it's up to us to decide whether Physician's skill/traits/opinion are sufficient enough to get the desired outcome. The game doesn't spoon-feed us the exact probabilities.
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