Three Years, whats changed?

[grommile]

I think they were trying to make the point that the Victoria 3 team is more active in making improvements than the CK3 team is, but perhaps I misunderstood him.

Sure, but citing a questionably implemented, and not entirely well-received, purely cosmetic feature seems like a poor choice.

 

[DiplomaticIntrigue]

Because the CK2 implementations were adjudged too terrible to retain (like a number of other things, such as regencies which we have recently received an implementation of that is much more interesting than CK2's), and other things have been given priority.

And there have been significant mechanics changes.

Like, you can complain as much as you like about the events, but I'm curious to know how you'd implement "going from A to B involves going through X, Y, and Z where things of potential interest might or might not happen to you" without them.

I won't defend CK2 regencies, since they basically did nothing except prevent you from doing anything. But CK3 regencies are junk. Just more bars to fill to get slapped on bonus actions.

 

[grommile]

But CK3 regencies are junk. Just more bars to fill to get slapped on bonus actions.

That's still more interesting than CK2.

If you don't like it, describe something better.

 

[DiplomaticIntrigue]

That's still more interesting than CK2.

If you don't like it, describe something better.

Well here we get into the fundamental tragedy of CK3, and CK2 to a lesser extent. The core foundation of the game, the social simulation, is insufficient for any truly exciting feature.

I could describe a few potential Regency systems that would be good. Flavorful, dynamic and flexible, a little depth to play in even. But CK3 character interactions don't support that.

This same thing applies to cultures and religions. Why did they make AoW4/Civ style culture/religion and try to make up for depth and variety/distinctness with mix-and-match? Because that was all that the existing structure allowed. You'd need a full on Stellaris/Imperator 2.0 remake and perhaps a smaller map scope, to do better.

Some people will defend them on that basis. "Well they did the best they could". But to me that falls short the same way the defense of the Vicky 3 Land of the Setting Sun debacle falls short. Or the common defense of their DLC policy. "We made choices some time back at a high level of the company that capped the capability of our developers to create fantastic new features". That was still something Paradox itself did and wasn't caused by any law of the universe. "We wanted a bigger map with India and Central Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa and we also plan to add China so we can't allocate any of our performance/processing budget to deeper game sysems". Well okay but that was a choice.

 

[pquinn232]

I think the biggest problem with CKIII remains that it's a good game for the first 100 years of any playthrough - when alliances and interactions with other characters and political marriages actually matter and might be the difference between game over and survival.

None of the DLC's have addressed the fact that after a century, when you've stabilised your dynasty and piled up artefacts and outbuilt the AI in your demense and stacked your MAA with their bonuses.... the game's over. All that's left to do is either paint the map (boring) or try and push dynastic claims to get more bonuses that you don't really even need.

Even if you've a dunce ruler with bad traits, chances are you've enough artefact bonuses and court position bonuses and all the rest to have a minimum of 10 stewardship. Or you marry a high stewardship wife - and get no penalty for the fact that she's effectively running the Kingdom/Empire/Duchy for you.

It's too easy. The only wars you'll ever lose are ones that don't matter, like offensive crusades.

 

[nadwi]

I think the biggest problem with CKIII remains that it's a good game for the first 100 years of any playthrough - when alliances and interactions with other characters and political marriages actually matter and might be the difference between game over and survival.

None of the DLC's have addressed the fact that after a century, when you've stabilised your dynasty and piled up artefacts and outbuilt the AI in your demense and stacked your MAA with their bonuses.... the game's over. All that's left to do is either paint the map (boring) or try and push dynastic claims to get more bonuses that you don't really even need.

Even if you've a dunce ruler with bad traits, chances are you've enough artefact bonuses and court position bonuses and all the rest to have a minimum of 10 stewardship. Or you marry a high stewardship wife - and get no penalty for the fact that she's effectively running the Kingdom/Empire/Duchy for you.

It's too easy. The only wars you'll ever lose are ones that don't matter, like offensive crusades.

I find this to be a recurring issue in all PDS games, probably even in all strategy games. I rarely finish any campaigns beyond the initial 200 years in EU4, CK2, and CK3. While I can appreciate something like plagues to address mid/late-game challenges, by the time I reach that stage, I've already achieved my campaign goals and just become too strong and want to explore new ideas for new campaigns or just play another game. If I don't end the campaign altogether, my typical solution for this in EU4 and CK3 is to just switch to a different country/character to create a new goal, often involving my previous dynasty.

 

[DiplomaticIntrigue]

I think the biggest problem with CKIII remains that it's a good game for the first 100 years of any playthrough - when alliances and interactions with other characters and political marriages actually matter and might be the difference between game over and survival.

None of the DLC's have addressed the fact that after a century, when you've stabilised your dynasty and piled up artefacts and outbuilt the AI in your demense and stacked your MAA with their bonuses.... the game's over. All that's left to do is either paint the map (boring) or try and push dynastic claims to get more bonuses that you don't really even need.

Even if you've a dunce ruler with bad traits, chances are you've enough artefact bonuses and court position bonuses and all the rest to have a minimum of 10 stewardship. Or you marry a high stewardship wife - and get no penalty for the fact that she's effectively running the Kingdom/Empire/Duchy for you.

It's too easy. The only wars you'll ever lose are ones that don't matter, like offensive crusades.

Yeah the interesting thing is Paradox doesn't care about this at all. They've *never even tried* to deal with this issue in a meaningful way. In fact instead they just pile on more bonuses. Look at Wards and Wardens for instance. Tier 5 education traits? Really?

 

[AdmiralAckbar]

My biggest problems with culture and religion as they are right now that there is very little player agency beyond superficial things like name, most of the modifiers are insignificant, and they don't really seem to have much resemblance in function to the things they are named after. For instance, religion doesn't spread without conquest except by event, and most of the time the game actually incentivizes you to not spread your own culture.

I think anyone saying 'the game is over after x years' is being dishonest if they say that wasn't an issue in CK2. I think you could say it took longer to get to this point in CK2, barring some hyper-meta country choice and play though. A lot of this stems from the AI just being incapable of getting past the 'early game' until tech is at a certain level and they become more stable, but this isn't an issue for any player with any remote knowledge of the mechanics, it can be done pretty quickly in just about any start regardless of tech.

 

[ozfighter]

I think the biggest problem with CKIII remains that it's a good game for the first 100 years of any playthrough - when alliances and interactions with other characters and political marriages actually matter and might be the difference between game over and survival.

None of the DLC's have addressed the fact that after a century, when you've stabilised your dynasty and piled up artefacts and outbuilt the AI in your demense and stacked your MAA with their bonuses.... the game's over. All that's left to do is either paint the map (boring) or try and push dynastic claims to get more bonuses that you don't really even need.

I get the feeling they introduced all these endless events and text boxes to create an artificial difficulty. The harder it is to actually play the real game by drowning the player in text walls the more it feels like you're doing something hard.

 

[grommile]

I get the feeling they introduced all these endless events and text boxes to create an artificial difficulty.

If this is how you feel about Paradox, why are you still here?

 

[ozfighter]

If this is how you feel about Paradox, why are you still here?

This is not how i feel about paradox, this is how i feel about crusader kings 3.

Also on another note, people on these forums need to stop telling people who don't like certain things about these games to simply stop playing, it stiffles legitimate criticism and hurts the product overall.

 

[WJS]

This is not how i feel about paradox, this is how i feel about crusader kings 3.

Also on another note, people on these forums need to stop telling people who don't like certain things about these games to simply stop playing, it stiffles legitimate criticism and hurts the product overall.

What also stifles criticism is acting like specific features that you would like to see are necessary, and claiming the developers are not doing their job when they are not implemented.

If there are things you want to see, say you want to see them. Open the discussion on what needs to happen to have them implemented. Consider mods. Be constructive.

You have not been constructive.

 

[xellez]

What also stifles criticism is acting like specific features that you would like to see are necessary, and claiming the developers are not doing their job when they are not implemented.

If there are things you want to see, say you want to see them. Open the discussion on what needs to happen to have them implemented. Consider mods. Be constructive.

You have not been constructive.

Are you the authority on what is constructive? He has a point the royal court or any other dlc wasnt received well beside the recent one. You might not agree with that, but if you have 3 years and out of that you come up with one good decent dlc then maybe that why you have journalist criticizing BG3. We should push the devs to create better dlc and flavor packs as they are not doing them for free. Harsher criticism when done fair makes for a better product. After a long time of waiting we got the royal mess dlc and people where not happy pdx knew if they butchered this dlc it wouldn't have cut it with the playerbase and so they delivered a way better dlc compared to the last one.

 

[WJS]

Are you the authority on what is constructive? He has a point the royal court or any other dlc wasnt received well beside the recent one. You might not agree with that, but if you have 3 years and out of that you come up with one good decent dlc then maybe that why you have journalist criticizing BG3. We should push the devs to create better dlc and flavor packs as they are not doing them for free. Harsher criticism when done fair makes for a better product. After a long time of waiting we got the royal mess dlc and people where not happy pdx knew if they butchered this dlc it wouldn't have cut it with the playerbase and so they delivered a way better dlc compared to the last one.

There's a difference between solution-proposing, criticizing, complaining, and whining.

For example, "It's been three years and we still don't have nomad government!" is a whine. There's no idea what the better game will look like other than having something called "nomad government." Based on CK2, that might not even be the best solution!

Think about what you want to see from nomad government. Do you want OP permanent men-at-arms that remove lots of basic mechanics to prevent conquest from non-nomads? I don't. That sucked. Also, given new mechanics in CK3, we might not need a whole separate government type anymore to properly model what we do want to see.

For example, the changes to the Horse Lords tradition and the Reaver trait allow for a more historical long-range raiding that the Magyars did across Europe, and that's a good thing. Now steppe raiders can actually steppe raid without losing their troops after traveling 100 km. One thing that would be good to model is migration. You used to have tribes crossing the map from one area to another all the time, but you can't model it well as of yet.

How would we do this? We've got the Varangian Adventure. If we implement something similar for Turks or Mongols, as an Innovation for cultures in the Steppe region in the Tribal Era, that would work. A count or duke level warlord can declare a migration to a new land. If the new land is depopulated enough (say, if it's Tribal or Development is less than 5, or "empty") then the culture (and religion?) is switched to the warlord's culture. This is kind of like what happens with the Magyar migration into Pannonia. The main question is, what happens to the culture of the old, abandoned land? In the Magyar case, it's hard coded to turn Pecheneg. But we couldn't do something like that.

So maybe the land is declared "empty", and neighbors can march their troops in, occupy it, and it will automatically switch to the culture of whoever occupies the county. Or maybe a local ruler of the old culture is generated, but the county now has a "depopulated" flag or modifier, meaning that if you conquer it, the culture immediately flips to yours and the flag disappears. You could start seeing mad scrambles between nomads for land throughout the steppe, a regular churning and chaos just primed for a powerful warlord to take over and become the new khan.

Now, is this a good solution? Maybe, maybe not. But now there's a proposal that can be debated and modified that can become a structure that the devs can evaluate on their own. Modders can decide if they're up to this challenge, or recommend what they've already produced. Players can talk about what they're looking for in nomadic gameplay.

You don't have to shut up, but you do have to step up.

 

[Karlington]

There's a difference between solution-proposing, criticizing, complaining, and whining.

For example, "It's been three years and we still don't have nomad government!" is a whine. There's no idea what the better game will look like other than having something called "nomad government." Based on CK2, that might not even be the best solution!

Think about what you want to see from nomad government. Do you want OP permanent men-at-arms that remove lots of basic mechanics to prevent conquest from non-nomads? I don't. That sucked. Also, given new mechanics in CK3, we might not need a whole separate government type anymore to properly model what we do want to see.

For example, the changes to the Horse Lords tradition and the Reaver trait allow for a more historical long-range raiding that the Magyars did across Europe, and that's a good thing. Now steppe raiders can actually steppe raid without losing their troops after traveling 100 km. One thing that would be good to model is migration. You used to have tribes crossing the map from one area to another all the time, but you can't model it well as of yet.

How would we do this? We've got the Varangian Adventure. If we implement something similar for Turks or Mongols, as an Innovation for cultures in the Steppe region in the Tribal Era, that would work. A count or duke level warlord can declare a migration to a new land. If the new land is depopulated enough (say, if it's Tribal or Development is less than 5, or "empty") then the culture (and religion?) is switched to the warlord's culture. This is kind of like what happens with the Magyar migration into Pannonia. The main question is, what happens to the culture of the old, abandoned land? In the Magyar case, it's hard coded to turn Pecheneg. But we couldn't do something like that.

So maybe the land is declared "empty", and neighbors can march their troops in, occupy it, and it will automatically switch to the culture of whoever occupies the county. Or maybe a local ruler of the old culture is generated, but the county now has a "depopulated" flag or modifier, meaning that if you conquer it, the culture immediately flips to yours and the flag disappears. You could start seeing mad scrambles between nomads for land throughout the steppe, a regular churning and chaos just primed for a powerful warlord to take over and become the new khan.

Now, is this a good solution? Maybe, maybe not. But now there's a proposal that can be debated and modified that can become a structure that the devs can evaluate on their own. Modders can decide if they're up to this challenge, or recommend what they've already produced. Players can talk about what they're looking for in nomadic gameplay.

You don't have to shut up, but you do have to step up.

Ideally criticism is constructive, but it doesn't have to be constructive to be useful. Sometimes people just dislike a feature, and want it removed. In that case they're obviously not going to propose a constructive alternative, they're just going to say some version of "I wish they'd remove <feature>."

It might also be the case of people wanting a better alternative to something, but not knowing exactly how that alternative would work. I don't think it makes sense to require/expect people to provide fully working alternative solutions any time they want to criticize something. Heck, developers who are paid to work on games full-time sometimes require weeks, even months, to design solutions to problems. We forumites aren't always going to be able to whip up even the bare outlines of complex solutions on the spot, heh.

As long as it's expressed politely and without malice, I don't see a problem with criticism, even if it can't necessarily be considered "constructive." If a lot of players hate the way something works, that is very useful information for a gaming company, and lets them know that they need to work on improving or reworking that aspect of the game.

Sure, they may have to start building the solution from the ground up without constructive player input on potentially viable solutions, but hey, that's what they do for a living. They are professionals and undoubtedly better at it than us random forumites (except the rare few forumites who are professionals in the field themselves).

 

[xellez]

There's a difference between solution-proposing, criticizing, complaining, and whining.

For example, "It's been three years and we still don't have nomad government!" is a whine. There's no idea what the better game will look like other than having something called "nomad government." Based on CK2, that might not even be the best solution!

Think about what you want to see from nomad government. Do you want OP permanent men-at-arms that remove lots of basic mechanics to prevent conquest from non-nomads? I don't. That sucked. Also, given new mechanics in CK3, we might not need a whole separate government type anymore to properly model what we do want to see.

For example, the changes to the Horse Lords tradition and the Reaver trait allow for a more historical long-range raiding that the Magyars did across Europe, and that's a good thing. Now steppe raiders can actually steppe raid without losing their troops after traveling 100 km. One thing that would be good to model is migration. You used to have tribes crossing the map from one area to another all the time, but you can't model it well as of yet.

How would we do this? We've got the Varangian Adventure. If we implement something similar for Turks or Mongols, as an Innovation for cultures in the Steppe region in the Tribal Era, that would work. A count or duke level warlord can declare a migration to a new land. If the new land is depopulated enough (say, if it's Tribal or Development is less than 5, or "empty") then the culture (and religion?) is switched to the warlord's culture. This is kind of like what happens with the Magyar migration into Pannonia. The main question is, what happens to the culture of the old, abandoned land? In the Magyar case, it's hard coded to turn Pecheneg. But we couldn't do something like that.

So maybe the land is declared "empty", and neighbors can march their troops in, occupy it, and it will automatically switch to the culture of whoever occupies the county. Or maybe a local ruler of the old culture is generated, but the county now has a "depopulated" flag or modifier, meaning that if you conquer it, the culture immediately flips to yours and the flag disappears. You could start seeing mad scrambles between nomads for land throughout the steppe, a regular churning and chaos just primed for a powerful warlord to take over and become the new khan.

Now, is this a good solution? Maybe, maybe not. But now there's a proposal that can be debated and modified that can become a structure that the devs can evaluate on their own. Modders can decide if they're up to this challenge, or recommend what they've already produced. Players can talk about what they're looking for in nomadic gameplay.

You don't have to shut up, but you do have to step up.

Wrote a whole paragraph just to say nothing. You are not the authority on how others should express themselves you dont like it move on. Expecting the consumer to come up with the solution is bizarre and frankly unreasonable. Imagine if your car crashes and the airbag doesnt go off. Do you think it is reasonable for the owner that was in the crash to go to the company of the car report the issue (which is fair), but then also fix it for them or tell them how to fix it?.

Also we are very tired of give constructive criticism just to be ignored/no mentions and most of the time the devs give this non answers like we cant have this because we have another vision. You see it doesnt matter if we give them a good answer to the problem if they dont want it or perceive the issue as non existence. Why put time and effort into figuring out the core of the issue and then try to solve said issue if it is not wanted. Lastly it is their job to do that problem solving is a core pillar of any programmer/dev and most of them want to solve the issue by their own methods. All they need is for the community to point them at the issue and that is it figuring out why or how to solve it is not part of the customers job.

Ideally criticism is constructive, but it doesn't have to be constructive to be useful. Sometimes people just dislike a feature, and want it removed. In that case they're obviously not going to propose a constructive alternative, they're just going to say some version of "I wish they'd remove <feature>."

It might also be the case of people wanting a better alternative to something, but not knowing exactly how that alternative would work. I don't think it makes sense to require/expect people to provide fully working alternative solutions any time they want to criticize something. Heck, developers who are paid to work on games full-time sometimes require weeks, even months, to design solutions to problems. We forumites aren't always going to be able to whip up even the bare outlines of complex solutions on the spot, heh.

As long as it's expressed politely and without malice, I don't see a problem with criticism, even if it can't necessarily be considered "constructive." If a lot of players hate the way something works, that is very useful information for a gaming company, and lets them know that they need to work on improving or reworking that aspect of the game.

Sure, they may have to start building the solution from the ground up without constructive player input on potentially viable solutions, but hey, that's what they do for a living. They are professionals and undoubtedly better at it than us random forumites (except the rare few forumites who are professionals in the field themselves).

I fully agree with this ^

 

[opellulo]

To me, the main problem with this game is its conflicting visions: on one hand, it wants so badly to be a social simulation that borders on role-playing, and on the other hand, it still retains its grand strategy roots, where the only thing that matters is numbers that go up. The fact is that these are "genres" that attract very different players, so any move in one direction or the other is going to upset people.

I like roleplaying and silly sceaanrios, so I find reductive the idea that I can choose any three responses to a given situation no matter what character I am in charge of, BUT unpredictability is also frustrating, so I find solace in being able to play "off-role" when it better suits my plans. Same with kingdom management: it's all dukes and claims until a caliph or crusade is called against you, so it's comforting to have your elite MaA and knights to back up your plans.

No amount of changes, DLC, and mods will change this simple fact: players say they want to have fun BUT they really want to win.

 

[xellez]

To me, the main problem with this game is its conflicting visions: on one hand, it wants so badly to be a social simulation that borders on role-playing, and on the other hand, it still retains its grand strategy roots, where the only thing that matters is numbers that go up. The fact is that these are "genres" that attract very different players, so any move in one direction or the other is going to upset people.

I like roleplaying and silly sceaanrios, so I find reductive the idea that I can choose any three responses to a given situation no matter what character I am in charge of, BUT unpredictability is also frustrating, so I find solace in being able to play "off-role" when it better suits my plans. Same with kingdom management: it's all dukes and claims until a caliph or crusade is called against you, so it's comforting to have your elite MaA and knights to back up your plans.

No amount of changes, DLC, and mods will change this simple fact: players say they want to have fun BUT they really want to win.

The issue you are representing is not there. Nobody would care if the game was purely role-play instead of grand strategy roots. The problem is it is neither.

Role-play for dynasty: you can select who marries who, force them into alliances, and select dynasty perks.

Where is the control of the dynasty? Imagine if you had rules that marriage between close family members was forbidden or you know the motto of the family mattering. If the dynasty is brave-like, they like heirs with brave traits and dislike craven as you have with religion, but now with dynasty. There is a lot more you can do that is not there to further the role-play. Instead of having the same alliance system, they could add a family alliance unrelated to war, like helping out with money or troops without being directly involved.

Role-play for vassals: you can join/reinforce a faction and be on the council.

Why cant the vassals ever affect a decision made? For example, if the vassal wants to join the war of the liege or if they are affected by the result of the war, they might help. Having a voting system where if you break it results in revolts or unhappy vassals might be a fun thing to have in the game. Tie it to the inner conflict of the empire, where some vassals are plotting to help rival kingdoms take over in hopes of getting better titles. This one has so much stuff that can be added that would enhance the role-play aspect. Getting demoted could also be a thing where you can climb back up or flee to another kingdom with the promise of serving them if they reinstall them to their old title. Invite claimant's decision is similar to this. It should not be game over for players, but you have the option to seek help from a best friend who is king to have you in his court, and then he can give you that title back or have you become his vassal instead.

I could create a full list of these missing futures from this core systems purely on role-playing alone. You have an alliance system, dynasty, war, kingdom/empire, scheme, etc. The issue is they are all shallow. They are there, but not really. There is crucial stuff, such as diplomacy, that is so non existence you will find it at the bottom of the sea with the other stuff that is scrambling for air.

 

[SectorsAreOkay]

You can control marriage within the dynasty, at least with nearby generations.

 

[Minxfiver]

How is it that Nomads/Republics/Tribal aren't playable yet. (Yes i realise tribal is actually playable, but in effect it plays no different to feudal.)

Why is paradox continually releasing DLC that just spams you with events instead of meaningful gameplay or mechanics changes.

Yeah my thought exactly. I remember during these three years that the reviews said stuff like: "CK3 is a great foundation for PDX to work on" and honestly they did do some work with throne rooms etc. But the game hasn't moved forward in almost any way when it comes to mechanics. It's still the same kinda bland game with a lot of dress up. It has so much potential but it feels like the devs want to focus more on dressing up the systems instead of expanding them or creating new ones.