Gaming Crusader Kings III (PC, Linux/2020)

balaks

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I *cough* downloaded it last night. Played through the tutorial which I thought was a great way to learn the basics. The interface is much, much improved from CK2. Really looking forward to starting my first proper game next week in Ulster as I always do and try to unite Ireland.
 

Cascarino

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The kid portraits on this thing have given me nightmares

I might be missing something, but I really miss the option of CK2 where you could remove all terrain and just see a simple clear map with clear border and with a minimum of disturbances. So far I haven't been able to locate this feature.


Setting the political realms and slightly zooming out gets rid of terrain and just gives you the rulers in different colours, though this goes when you zoom closer (you may have meant something else by this point, and I have all my graphics set to basically nonexistent as it’s the only way I can run it so it may look different for me in general)
 

Cascarino

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All in all I’m really enjoying it, some annoyances though

- Linking my army to an ally. There may be a way to do this but I’ve yet to discover it. It was handy in II to link them (especially when playing multiplayer) so you can focus on other stuff.
- No ruler designer. It’s apparently coming soon (and for free thank god) but I’ve always found it a lot more fun to create someone new. Mainly so I can be a giant and run a eugenics program where only the giants can inherit
-Inviting talent to court has been made harder. This is both a pro and a con, because it was too easy in the last one but also because I’m lazy
 

Vooon

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The kid portraits on this thing have given me nightmares

Setting the political realms and slightly zooming out gets rid of terrain and just gives you the rulers in different colours, though this goes when you zoom closer (you may have meant something else by this point, and I have all my graphics set to basically nonexistent as it’s the only way I can run it so it may look different for me in general)
Yeah, I figured it out eventually, it was hidden undeneath those map modes as an extra.

I also wonder where the mini-map has gone, I always used that on CK2. Now it's a scroll-o-rama going on, too slow!
 

PedroMendez

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My first impression after ~1-2h.
good:
- stress, dread, control. no idea if its properly implement for the long run, but I like the idea behind these mechanics.
- clean up of the UI
- council jobs seem slightly better designed and proper progress bars help to avoid frustration
- the new perk trees for your character. Some of the stuff existed already indirectly , but now its much more accessible and they expanded it.
- dynasty progress
- plotting + hooks/favors are slightly improved.
- having to make choices for buildings
- prestige / piety spending
- there are many (minor) changes that are hard to judge, but seem to make mostly sense. E.g. court/guests, inheritance, tech/culture, slight changes to casus belli
- I don't share the criticism of @Vooon about text/pop up sizes. The seem fine to me. The mouse-over delay time can also be customized.

negatives:
- some of the map modes, that i liked are missing. No idea why they cut them.
- the map for wars is really bad. Am I missing something or are the fighting countries just not properly highlighted. Its even worse for wars, where you are not involved. Same goes for armies.
- I appreciate the attempt to add a proper filter for character search, but why not go all the way and allow you to exactly customize searches. I am not sure if its a deliberate choice, because exact searches would be too powerful or just clumsy programming. regardless, a bit shitty.
- combat system: It needed a major overhaul, because the details were to arcane and most of it was hard to influence. I don't know how the new system works exactly, but they missed to trick to add depth to it. The AI also seems to be really really bad. Overall my impression is, that the whole game is rather easy and but I might have been just lucky.
- Cutting content: I understand that there was flavor/extra content that would need a re-work before re-introducing it to CK3. Stuff like merch republics/nomadic governments, silk road/sahara trade route or China interactions. Still, some of the cutting seems a bit strange to say the least. Iqta + imperial governments were totally fine. Same with societies, which were one of the better and more fleshed out extra mechanics. epidemics/diseases, great works, character builder. Some of these are going to come back with little changes as DLCs and thats just scummy.
- autopause/notifications: while the menu to customize autopause + pop-ups was terrible in CK2, it still allowed me to fine tune these settings to my liking. Either I am too dumb to find it or its just cut. I missed some events (e.g. call to arms) when a lot of other stuff was already happening. Its also annoying in war, where the game just continues after battles.

I think the devs got a lot of things right, because some of the newly introduced/changed mechanics could be interesting and seem sensible. They also cut out a lot of things that were at times frustrating, like the RNG during sieges, plots or the creation of claims. I like the new interface. I am surprised about some of the UI/option/map/filter short-comings, but they could get fixed fairly easily. They missed a major chance to be much more ambitious when it combat system. Despite a lot of complaints, I am positively surprised. CK3 is certainly in a pretty solid state for a paradox game.
I always thought that CK2 late-game was boring and I usually ended my campaigns once I blobbed to a certain size. Hopefully they made it a bit more interesting or at least harder to get there.
 

Vooon

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My first impression after ~1-2h.
good:
- stress, dread, control. no idea if its properly implement for the long run, but I like the idea behind these mechanics.
- clean up of the UI
- council jobs seem slightly better designed and proper progress bars help to avoid frustration
- the new perk trees for your character. Some of the stuff existed already indirectly , but now its much more accessible and they expanded it.
- dynasty progress
- plotting + hooks/favors are slightly improved.
- having to make choices for buildings
- prestige / piety spending
- there are many (minor) changes that are hard to judge, but seem to make mostly sense. E.g. court/guests, inheritance, tech/culture, slight changes to casus belli
- I don't share the criticism of @Vooon about text/pop up sizes. The seem fine to me. The mouse-over delay time can also be customized.

negatives:
- some of the map modes, that i liked are missing. No idea why they cut them.
- the map for wars is really bad. Am I missing something or are the fighting countries just not properly highlighted. Its even worse for wars, where you are not involved. Same goes for armies.
- I appreciate the attempt to add a proper filter for character search, but why not go all the way and allow you to exactly customize searches. I am not sure if its a deliberate choice, because exact searches would be too powerful or just clumsy programming. regardless, a bit shitty.
- combat system: It needed a major overhaul, because the details were to arcane and most of it was hard to influence. I don't know how the new system works exactly, but they missed to trick to add depth to it. The AI also seems to be really really bad. Overall my impression is, that the whole game is rather easy and but I might have been just lucky.
- Cutting content: I understand that there was flavor/extra content that would need a re-work before re-introducing it to CK3. Stuff like merch republics/nomadic governments, silk road/sahara trade route or China interactions. Still, some of the cutting seems a bit strange to say the least. Iqta + imperial governments were totally fine. Same with societies, which were one of the better and more fleshed out extra mechanics. epidemics/diseases, great works, character builder. Some of these are going to come back with little changes as DLCs and thats just scummy.
- autopause/notifications: while the menu to customize autopause + pop-ups was terrible in CK2, it still allowed me to fine tune these settings to my liking. Either I am too dumb to find it or its just cut. I missed some events (e.g. call to arms) when a lot of other stuff was already happening. Its also annoying in war, where the game just continues after battles.

I think the devs got a lot of things right, because some of the newly introduced/changed mechanics could be interesting and seem sensible. They also cut out a lot of things that were at times frustrating, like the RNG during sieges, plots or the creation of claims. I like the new interface. I am surprised about some of the UI/option/map/filter short-comings, but they could get fixed fairly easily. They missed a major chance to be much more ambitious when it combat system. Despite a lot of complaints, I am positively surprised. CK3 is certainly in a pretty solid state for a paradox game.
I always thought that CK2 late-game was boring and I usually ended my campaigns once I blobbed to a certain size. Hopefully they made it a bit more interesting or at least harder to get there.
I agree with most of these points. Totally agree with the CK2 late game!

I found a mod which adressed the small text issue i had. Regarding the pop ups I also found options for these, but I'd like an option wich disables the mouse over completely and force you to click on the stuff you want more information on. The way the boxes are popping up literally everywhere now makes me nuts. It's a complete mess in my opinion.

I also agree on the war issues. I too find it hard to know where the fighting is going on, how many soldiers I'm up against, and the way that your allies are fighting is just confusing. They also need to highlight allied and enemy troops way better. I found a map which highlights most of the counties where fighting is going on, but then I lost control of my own forces. Sometimes your ally seem to partly follow your lead, other times they're just bouncing around like maniacs with no apparent plan. I also think many of the issues I have with war is that the maps are too messy at the moment. I really miss the clean map options of CK2 where borders between counties, duchies, countries and empires were easy to see. The status right now are a bunch og map modes which fills like 70% of my needs.

Right now, after around 12 hours of playing time, I think they've made some good improvements from CK2, but they've also made som pretty annoying mistakes in my opinion. Overall I think the current game have too many annoying issues to consider it a better version than CK2, but hopefully they'll sort things out in the coming weeks and months. I guess I also need to better grasp some of the new concepts they've introduced.
 

PedroMendez

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I agree with most of these points. Totally agree with the CK2 late game!

I found a mod which adressed the small text issue i had. Regarding the pop ups I also found options for these, but I'd like an option wich disables the mouse over completely and force you to click on the stuff you want more information on. The way the boxes are popping up literally everywhere now makes me nuts. It's a complete mess in my opinion.

I also agree on the war issues. I too find it hard to know where the fighting is going on, how many soldiers I'm up against, and the way that your allies are fighting is just confusing. They also need to highlight allied and enemy troops way better. I found a map which highlights most of the counties where fighting is going on, but then I lost control of my own forces. Sometimes your ally seem to partly follow your lead, other times they're just bouncing around like maniacs with no apparent plan. I also think many of the issues I have with war is that the maps are too messy at the moment. I really miss the clean map options of CK2 where borders between counties, duchies, countries and empires were easy to see. The status right now are a bunch og map modes which fills like 70% of my needs.

Right now, after around 12 hours of playing time, I think they've made some good improvements from CK2, but they've also made som pretty annoying mistakes in my opinion. Overall I think the current game have too many annoying issues to consider it a better version than CK2, but hopefully they'll sort things out in the coming weeks and months. I guess I also need to better grasp some of the new concepts they've introduced.
I played a few more hours and I agree with you. There are many many many things that need to get fixed. A.I. army movement should be at the top of the list and they havn't included army attachment. Its painful to fight with allies, but thats just the tip of the iceberg. They did a good job marketing the game to the community with their outreach programs to streamers/gamers...
 

altodevil

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I've got CK2 up to conclave, Way of life etc. Worth getting this, or getting a full-pack CK2? Remove price consideration.
 

Tiber

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I love Hearts of Iron 4, but never really cared for the combat of CK2 that much. I have heard a lot of good things about CK3, but it doesn't look a lot different than CK2 to me so I am slightly cautious about picking it up
 

PedroMendez

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Anyone else played it a bit more? I'll end my first game after blobbing out of control and and will wait for a couple of patches to give it another go.

The biggest difference to CK2 is imo, that distances are far less relevant, because the whole army can be spawned in any county with a ~30day delay (+everyone has access to ships). Its easy to fight wars all over the place without much hassle. The A.I. takes advantage of it and is also way more aggressive. That makes the game way more dynamic, fun and far less tedious at times but also way easier.
 

Tiber

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I signed up for a month of Xbox PC gamepass for a £1 to play this.

Playing my first game as Munster (Irish nations are apparently a good way to learn the ropes) I was having a good time playing as my original king, finishing off the last of his rivals at the ripe old age of about 70 when my heir suddenly dropped dread. Noticed that his young heir is a spineless lackey with absolutely dreadful traits. I was able to disinherit him (he is so spineless that he still loves me) and rolled the dice on his younger brother who was around a year old.

Ended up with a king with 25 martial skill and his stats are ambitious, temperate, patient, brilliant strategist, flexible leader and holy warrior. Fascinating how much difference making that one change made to the next stage of the campaign!

Very interesting game. Its not all that different to CK2, just everything is just smoother and better.
 
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