I must say that I played CK2 for the third time now and all three times I got a feeling of emptiness because I missed the real feeling of medieval times. It comes down to conquering different colors on the map. Here is the list of several crucial things that i do miss in order to have this game above all others:
1) I miss real sense of cultures you have taken.
For example, new type of warriors, new breeds of animals, new knowledges, spices, minerals, wood, resources, relics, etc. etc. etc. Not just to do your best to assimilate them and convert them to your culture. Why not striving to take certain cultures in order to get e.g. fearsome warriors from the north, good horsemen from the steppes, etc. etc. etc, not just funny retinues and levies. So you have to explore a bit e.g. Polish culture and its aspects, learning something from history and using it to get Poles on your side. Not just assimilating them like hell as fast as possible to avoid rebellions.
For example, I watched a movie Kingdom of Heaven, and when they were embarking on ships to Holy Land, there were Muslims praying and actors gave some comments on that. So why not having problems of Muslim population infiltrating your provinces, as it was the case, so you have to give them certain freedoms, while taxing those freedoms. And in that way you know that if you take Sicily, you can expect these type of problems, while in Sweden completely other problems. In that way you can feel the differences between various parts of the world, with local problems everywhere, not universal ones, which concern your e.g. seducing ability. Things like that, which should give you the sense of each of provinces and cultures you play, so you really feel and learn about them and their problems.
2) I miss the real sense of provinces you have taken
For example, seeing towns on the map (not just one pathetic town and rivers that move), seeing infrastructure (roads, fortifications you have made) on the map, being able to distribute units and forts within the province giving it more of strategic aspect of each of provinces, not just chasing enemy units from Moscow down to Athens and back. Yes, it would include a lot of work for developers exploring each of the provinces, but just imagine how awesome it would be to be able to fortify certain parts of the provinces, spread troops or garrisons on the other and hire bandits on the third one, while other parts are needles to secure because of terrain (e.g. marshes, mountains, desert, etc).
Currently, you just gather all your units in one big unit and strike to the biggest one of the enemy. That's all about it. No ambushes, no strategic positioning, no usage of the terrain. There are some trivial attempts with rivers in Ruthenia and impassable mountains, but it really doesn't do the trick and gives almost funny aspect of strategy.
In one game I used to play, a very nice eye candy was a small symbol denoting big battles that took place during the game, giving the name of the battle (e.g. Battle of Belgorod) and year. But in that game you had only several chances to gather 20k+ soldiers and strike back to other 20k+. Here, in order to take any province you need to get all your levies, because they call allies. No taking border provinces with smaller forces or bands of riders. No barbarian intrusions to your border provinces, e.g. in steppes of the east. Or that you can hire bordering bands to ride for you further away so in that way you spread your influence. There is an attempt with Viking rides, but that is almost pathetic and very annoying - as soon as you raise your levies, hordes of Vikings attack you (probably to make game more difficult, but not giving anything interesting to it apart from annoyance).
Also, it would be nice to see small icons denoting other important events on the map that took place during the game - coronations, universities established, famous uprisings, Orthodox sabors that took place, etc. etc. etc.
Also, imagine having certain events triggered only once you conquer specific province or specific culture. Not just to have general ones - depending on your character and culture. What if you could see on your provinces Stonehenge, pyramids, some natural landmarks. In that way you could more enjoy in cultural differences of peoples you have conquered, or, when you conquer Bulgarians for example, you get certain set of events that are related to that culture and incorporating that culture in your empire/kingdom. Or, once you conquer certain province, you get set of events unlocked, which enable you to gather knowledge and resources for further advancements to next bordering provinces and cultures.
3) I miss the real striving to take certain provinces and not to take others.
It would be awesome to have trade routes, so you can control them once you take, e.g. Constantinople. Or sea routes, so you have to protect them. Or important rivers for which we know trading took place through. To protect caravans going through your territories or other sorts of trading parties. Or to allow building of caravan-sarays. Trade and resources, that is what the game lacks - spices, silk, amber, gold, silver, perfumes, fruits, timber, marble. Hiring masons from developed societies to make your courts and decorate your churches. As it was the case in medieval times. We know of amber from Baltics, spices from India, perfumes from Middle East, marble from Adriatic, good cloth from Flanders, horses from Arabia, silk from far east, etc. etc. etc. Why not also to include some ordinary commodities - it would be interesting to see lack of stone and good quarries in steppes of Russia. Lack of iron mines in certain provinces, lack of wood in desert provinces, etc. etc. etc.
Currently, if I take Constantinople, I actually see no real benefit. I will get better taxation and better levies, but no real benefit of taking center of medieval world (controlling trade routes, important relics, knowledge, scholars, etc. etc. etc.). In that way I do not strive towards taking certain provinces with purpose, as I wish to do, not just to conquer another color on the map.
4) Big and important decisions that made big rulers, not funny events that have questionable outcomes to your personality.
What if we could have options to do things like big rulers did - reform the law and judging system, reform trade, education, found monasteries, schools, universities. Other events that shouldn't be just pure events with funny outcomes and trivial penalties to your personality. But with real benefits for your provinces and your culture. Adopting certain reforms, etc. Both nationwide and related to certain provinces. Improving sanitation in towns which would have direct impacts to the population. Or laws and universities which would have to have benefits for the whole empire/kingdom.
I have read somewhere that Germans, for example, were the first to introduce sharp rules for beer making. Or in some texts I read about some rulers which banned adding sand to the bread to make it heavier. Small things that would improve living conditions of the locals, so they love you more and rebel less, since they are better protected. If I could choose in those times, I would rather live under Byzantine, than under Mordvins, because I would feel more protected.
Politics should be mentioned here too. So far, all that concerns politics is whom you will marry. Expelling Jews was a nice addition. More things like that. What about Inquisition, about other political maneuvers, visits to neighboring courts and rulers, which did take place. Giving protection to some cities/tribes/provinces, making them your protectorate, or things like that (which took place in reality, of course).
We all know that in reality not all provinces had the same status. So why limiting options then through only one crown authority rule. If I manage to take half of Europe and so many different cultures and customs, it would be normal to set complex and diverse set of rules for each of them, so giving some freedoms to ones, and other to others. Not to all cultures the same things were important and not everywhere the same model of vasalship was possible. In Victoria 2 there is almost perfectly nice representation of different ruling models. Something in that manner should be done in CK2, according to historical records, of course.
If I want to take control of Cumanian vast areas, for example, for sure I will not establish two forts and two cities and one church and then control the whole of province, assimilating local culture to Serbian in matter of 20 years. No, I would have to do it differently first, copy-pasting local Cumanian culture and customs and then slowly, very slowly, assimilating them to the culture of forts and towns (and only if I could find stones and metals), which should probably require different type of ruling the Cumans at first, not immediately the same as ruling e.g. Bavarian provinces. So you, for example, have authority over them, you can ask them for certain number of soldiers, but with their type of warriors, which can be very useful in certain environments and completely useless in others. And other aspects of ruling them, which should differentiate from ruling Vikings, French, Arabs, Indians, etc. etc. etc.
5) Entropy of the game is too high.
I "love" when some of my vasals inherit provinces far away in Byzantine Empire, near Persia, for which I find out only when Persia declares war on me in Bavaria?!?!?!?! or when I cannot disband my levies, although I manually disbanded all of them one by one.
It was all local then, why to make it possible that my prince gets woman from Nubia and if I kill them all in lineage, I get provinces in Nubia. In medieval Europe they barely knew of Nubia.
Wouldn't it be better to make game more "localized". So you go step by step. Learning about nearby provinces, their culture, customs, pros, cons and only then taking them or considering marriages, etc. In order to go and take Mali, first you reach Morocco, then you get local knowledge about the desert, mountains, climate, tribes, cultures around, then you incorporate local knowledge and local warriors to your strategy or hire local bands somehow (not Pecheneg band from other end of the world) and slowly come into position to take Mali.
The same is with steppes to the east. You learn about new breeds of horses, tactics, tribes, riders, etc. and then you consider conquering Tatar tribes with appropriate tactics - probably dividing them first, taking some on your side, incorporating them into your cultural and army patterns. Not by assembling big army in Germany and marching them all the way to Turkmenistan, suffering a bit of attrition and then striking all the army Turkmenistan was able to assemble.
E.g. almost whole medieval history of Serbia was related to Byzantine empire. So why giving an option to strike Byzantine Empire from south, through Nubia, simply by arranging marriages hundreds of miles across. No, you should consider Hungarians, Rome, Bavaria, Venice and other nearby peoples for plotting your politics and making alliances. Rarely you go beyond, to e.g. France (which was the case with Serbia at one point), but never to Nubia or Sweden or England.
Other thing is that I become an emperor. Then I divide the empire to kingdoms and everything is nice at first. Then, after ten years, I see Kingdom of Poland with provinces in Italy, Kingdom of Pannonia with provinces all over Lithuania, Kingdom of Bavaria with provinces in Kiev. I spend 20 years and a lot of negative points to retract vasalages and provinces in order to get them back in nice order. After 10 more years it was all in vain again - Pomerania has provinces in Italy, as well as Bohemia.
It would be ok to see them growing on expense of neighboring kingdoms and duchies, but not taking inherited provinces miles away.
All in all, really good game, but it lacks "the magic" so that you feel taken back to medieval times and more importantly - learn something. Even better - many of mechanisms I talk about here are already present in other games (Victoria II, EU IV).
1) I miss real sense of cultures you have taken.
For example, new type of warriors, new breeds of animals, new knowledges, spices, minerals, wood, resources, relics, etc. etc. etc. Not just to do your best to assimilate them and convert them to your culture. Why not striving to take certain cultures in order to get e.g. fearsome warriors from the north, good horsemen from the steppes, etc. etc. etc, not just funny retinues and levies. So you have to explore a bit e.g. Polish culture and its aspects, learning something from history and using it to get Poles on your side. Not just assimilating them like hell as fast as possible to avoid rebellions.
For example, I watched a movie Kingdom of Heaven, and when they were embarking on ships to Holy Land, there were Muslims praying and actors gave some comments on that. So why not having problems of Muslim population infiltrating your provinces, as it was the case, so you have to give them certain freedoms, while taxing those freedoms. And in that way you know that if you take Sicily, you can expect these type of problems, while in Sweden completely other problems. In that way you can feel the differences between various parts of the world, with local problems everywhere, not universal ones, which concern your e.g. seducing ability. Things like that, which should give you the sense of each of provinces and cultures you play, so you really feel and learn about them and their problems.
2) I miss the real sense of provinces you have taken
For example, seeing towns on the map (not just one pathetic town and rivers that move), seeing infrastructure (roads, fortifications you have made) on the map, being able to distribute units and forts within the province giving it more of strategic aspect of each of provinces, not just chasing enemy units from Moscow down to Athens and back. Yes, it would include a lot of work for developers exploring each of the provinces, but just imagine how awesome it would be to be able to fortify certain parts of the provinces, spread troops or garrisons on the other and hire bandits on the third one, while other parts are needles to secure because of terrain (e.g. marshes, mountains, desert, etc).
Currently, you just gather all your units in one big unit and strike to the biggest one of the enemy. That's all about it. No ambushes, no strategic positioning, no usage of the terrain. There are some trivial attempts with rivers in Ruthenia and impassable mountains, but it really doesn't do the trick and gives almost funny aspect of strategy.
In one game I used to play, a very nice eye candy was a small symbol denoting big battles that took place during the game, giving the name of the battle (e.g. Battle of Belgorod) and year. But in that game you had only several chances to gather 20k+ soldiers and strike back to other 20k+. Here, in order to take any province you need to get all your levies, because they call allies. No taking border provinces with smaller forces or bands of riders. No barbarian intrusions to your border provinces, e.g. in steppes of the east. Or that you can hire bordering bands to ride for you further away so in that way you spread your influence. There is an attempt with Viking rides, but that is almost pathetic and very annoying - as soon as you raise your levies, hordes of Vikings attack you (probably to make game more difficult, but not giving anything interesting to it apart from annoyance).
Also, it would be nice to see small icons denoting other important events on the map that took place during the game - coronations, universities established, famous uprisings, Orthodox sabors that took place, etc. etc. etc.
Also, imagine having certain events triggered only once you conquer specific province or specific culture. Not just to have general ones - depending on your character and culture. What if you could see on your provinces Stonehenge, pyramids, some natural landmarks. In that way you could more enjoy in cultural differences of peoples you have conquered, or, when you conquer Bulgarians for example, you get certain set of events that are related to that culture and incorporating that culture in your empire/kingdom. Or, once you conquer certain province, you get set of events unlocked, which enable you to gather knowledge and resources for further advancements to next bordering provinces and cultures.
3) I miss the real striving to take certain provinces and not to take others.
It would be awesome to have trade routes, so you can control them once you take, e.g. Constantinople. Or sea routes, so you have to protect them. Or important rivers for which we know trading took place through. To protect caravans going through your territories or other sorts of trading parties. Or to allow building of caravan-sarays. Trade and resources, that is what the game lacks - spices, silk, amber, gold, silver, perfumes, fruits, timber, marble. Hiring masons from developed societies to make your courts and decorate your churches. As it was the case in medieval times. We know of amber from Baltics, spices from India, perfumes from Middle East, marble from Adriatic, good cloth from Flanders, horses from Arabia, silk from far east, etc. etc. etc. Why not also to include some ordinary commodities - it would be interesting to see lack of stone and good quarries in steppes of Russia. Lack of iron mines in certain provinces, lack of wood in desert provinces, etc. etc. etc.
Currently, if I take Constantinople, I actually see no real benefit. I will get better taxation and better levies, but no real benefit of taking center of medieval world (controlling trade routes, important relics, knowledge, scholars, etc. etc. etc.). In that way I do not strive towards taking certain provinces with purpose, as I wish to do, not just to conquer another color on the map.
4) Big and important decisions that made big rulers, not funny events that have questionable outcomes to your personality.
What if we could have options to do things like big rulers did - reform the law and judging system, reform trade, education, found monasteries, schools, universities. Other events that shouldn't be just pure events with funny outcomes and trivial penalties to your personality. But with real benefits for your provinces and your culture. Adopting certain reforms, etc. Both nationwide and related to certain provinces. Improving sanitation in towns which would have direct impacts to the population. Or laws and universities which would have to have benefits for the whole empire/kingdom.
I have read somewhere that Germans, for example, were the first to introduce sharp rules for beer making. Or in some texts I read about some rulers which banned adding sand to the bread to make it heavier. Small things that would improve living conditions of the locals, so they love you more and rebel less, since they are better protected. If I could choose in those times, I would rather live under Byzantine, than under Mordvins, because I would feel more protected.
Politics should be mentioned here too. So far, all that concerns politics is whom you will marry. Expelling Jews was a nice addition. More things like that. What about Inquisition, about other political maneuvers, visits to neighboring courts and rulers, which did take place. Giving protection to some cities/tribes/provinces, making them your protectorate, or things like that (which took place in reality, of course).
We all know that in reality not all provinces had the same status. So why limiting options then through only one crown authority rule. If I manage to take half of Europe and so many different cultures and customs, it would be normal to set complex and diverse set of rules for each of them, so giving some freedoms to ones, and other to others. Not to all cultures the same things were important and not everywhere the same model of vasalship was possible. In Victoria 2 there is almost perfectly nice representation of different ruling models. Something in that manner should be done in CK2, according to historical records, of course.
If I want to take control of Cumanian vast areas, for example, for sure I will not establish two forts and two cities and one church and then control the whole of province, assimilating local culture to Serbian in matter of 20 years. No, I would have to do it differently first, copy-pasting local Cumanian culture and customs and then slowly, very slowly, assimilating them to the culture of forts and towns (and only if I could find stones and metals), which should probably require different type of ruling the Cumans at first, not immediately the same as ruling e.g. Bavarian provinces. So you, for example, have authority over them, you can ask them for certain number of soldiers, but with their type of warriors, which can be very useful in certain environments and completely useless in others. And other aspects of ruling them, which should differentiate from ruling Vikings, French, Arabs, Indians, etc. etc. etc.
5) Entropy of the game is too high.
I "love" when some of my vasals inherit provinces far away in Byzantine Empire, near Persia, for which I find out only when Persia declares war on me in Bavaria?!?!?!?! or when I cannot disband my levies, although I manually disbanded all of them one by one.
It was all local then, why to make it possible that my prince gets woman from Nubia and if I kill them all in lineage, I get provinces in Nubia. In medieval Europe they barely knew of Nubia.
Wouldn't it be better to make game more "localized". So you go step by step. Learning about nearby provinces, their culture, customs, pros, cons and only then taking them or considering marriages, etc. In order to go and take Mali, first you reach Morocco, then you get local knowledge about the desert, mountains, climate, tribes, cultures around, then you incorporate local knowledge and local warriors to your strategy or hire local bands somehow (not Pecheneg band from other end of the world) and slowly come into position to take Mali.
The same is with steppes to the east. You learn about new breeds of horses, tactics, tribes, riders, etc. and then you consider conquering Tatar tribes with appropriate tactics - probably dividing them first, taking some on your side, incorporating them into your cultural and army patterns. Not by assembling big army in Germany and marching them all the way to Turkmenistan, suffering a bit of attrition and then striking all the army Turkmenistan was able to assemble.
E.g. almost whole medieval history of Serbia was related to Byzantine empire. So why giving an option to strike Byzantine Empire from south, through Nubia, simply by arranging marriages hundreds of miles across. No, you should consider Hungarians, Rome, Bavaria, Venice and other nearby peoples for plotting your politics and making alliances. Rarely you go beyond, to e.g. France (which was the case with Serbia at one point), but never to Nubia or Sweden or England.
Other thing is that I become an emperor. Then I divide the empire to kingdoms and everything is nice at first. Then, after ten years, I see Kingdom of Poland with provinces in Italy, Kingdom of Pannonia with provinces all over Lithuania, Kingdom of Bavaria with provinces in Kiev. I spend 20 years and a lot of negative points to retract vasalages and provinces in order to get them back in nice order. After 10 more years it was all in vain again - Pomerania has provinces in Italy, as well as Bohemia.
It would be ok to see them growing on expense of neighboring kingdoms and duchies, but not taking inherited provinces miles away.
All in all, really good game, but it lacks "the magic" so that you feel taken back to medieval times and more importantly - learn something. Even better - many of mechanisms I talk about here are already present in other games (Victoria II, EU IV).
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