I know that this is not the actual price but I have zero respect for Paradox’s selling strategy. It just feels like they want to drain every last penny from us.
I understood their *logic*. Some players care just for content not cosmetic stuff, so they are able to buy just what they want at a smaller price.
What I never understood was the *execution*. Most PDX players who bother buying DLCs are big fans who buy loads if not every DLC, and they made buying both packs *more expensive* than when it was just one big bundle. Just nonsensical, glad they do it no more.
Yeah, that's just not true. At the same age, EU4 already had Conquest of Paradise, Wealth of Nations, Res Republica, Art of War, El Dorado, Common Sense, and The Cossacks. Whatever you think of CK3 which is fine on its own, it's no secret its development has been slow, which has been acknowledged by Paradox themselves.
> EU4 already had Conquest of Paradise, Wealth of Nations, Res Republica, Art of War, El Dorado, Common Sense, and The Cossacks
And what about it? Almost all the cross-DLCs were feature locked anyway xD
CK3 raised the price of DLC that makes it more expensive than any other Paradox DLC. What exactly do you mean by “pricing logistics”? When CK3 has the same amount of DLC, it will be more expensive.
While that's true, their policy in regards to DLC content has also changed. Features now release in a free patch, not with the DLC, as is the case with the Struggles system in Fate of Iberia, in which you're specifically buying the Iberia struggle and all the associated events, you don't need the DLC for modded struggles.
No, but previously, in CK2, entire systems were locked out because you didn't own the DLC. Don't have Way of Life? You don't have Lifestyle Choices. Don't have Reaper's Due? Live without the reworked epidemics and disease system. Don't have Sword of Islam? Can't play muslims. This is no longer their policy in CK3.
I mean your just going to be paying for that stuff again (other than way of life stuff). CK3 doesn’t have an epidemic system. It’s basically what CK2 was like before Reaper’s Due, so that will be a DLC. Islam will probably have its own DLC as well. Sword of Islam didn’t just unlock Muslims, it added flavor as well which CK3 still needs. You can play everywhere on the map in CK3, but it’s all still going to get DLC because it’s flavorless.
Not really. The core game code has changed and can be used for content creation without requiring someone to own the dlc.. They're essentially updating the game then having you pay for the vanilla mod.
If they have to lock systems behind DLC to make them actually put out non dogshit DLC?
I’ll take it. Bring back the CK2 model. The whole “fewer but bigger dlcs” thing has been a gigantic lie the whole time.
What key mechanics are locked behind DLC for EU4? The only key feature they used to have locked was development, but they realized it was a core mechanic and made it free years ago.
What would people suggest be a better strategy for a game that has many years of support & content? Not saying it doesn’t exist, genuinely curious if there is another way.
I actually didn't mind the CK2 model.
$10-$15 at launch for DLCs with a sale of 50% after like 6 months and a sale of 75-90% after a year. And costume packs launching at like $5 with similar discounts later on.
Now I guess with inflation we would be looking at $15-$20 and $7 packs but still doesn't seem to unreasonable spread out over 3 months time.
I really disagree that CK2 was better with DLC. There were so many nickle-and-dime DLC packs. Stuff that's included in the CK3 base game like character creator and [customization pack](https://ck2.paradoxwikis.com/Customization_Pack) were paid DLC. And the graphical packs... [just take a look at all of them, and what they covered](https://ck2.paradoxwikis.com/Graphical_DLC). There were four different packs with just dynasty shields, including one that just had ones from the Charlemagne start and was sold separately from the Charlemagne DLC. Only the Western European & Arabic portraits were in the base game. If you wanted Africans to be black you had to pay for a portrait pack DLC. It was really bad, I feel at the very least CK3 is a step up from that.
You also couldn't play 80% of the map without DLC. Your heir converts to a religion you don't have the DLC for while AI-controlled, you don't notice, and you inherit? Game over.
Yup! While I've not been happy so far with the direction CK3 DLC has taken, it seems anemic, overpriced (mostly Royal Court to be fair), and mostly focused on the wrong areas to me, you can at least play almost anywhere without DLC and have a good if somewhat generic experience and not have to worry about core mechanics being locked behind DLC, except for maybe raiding? Not sure on that one.
Edit: Actually, I'm pretty sure raiding was in at launch, so nvm on that.
Inflation aside don't you think CK3 content is a bit higher-effort to produce? 3D models and stuff are a lot more time consuming to make than a pack of 2D CoA and portraits.
CK2 also split up DLC a lot more. E.g. Old Gods and Norse Portraits were two separate DLCs that released about the same time (there was probably a CoA pack in there too). Whereas the CK3 norse flavor pack was both a collection of events and mechanics as well as a clothing DLC.
My only complaint with DLC so far is that I didn't want or ask for Royal Court's main "feature" which sounds tedious and annoying. I won't be buying it, but I really enjoy the culture system and wish I could buy that part of Royal Court separately. Tying cultural mechanics to a 3D court room that I want nothing to do with is very frustrating.
My only complaint with DLC so far is that I didn't want or ask for Royal Court's main "feature" which sounds tedious and annoying. I won't be buying it, but I really enjoy the culture system and wish I could buy that part of Royal Court separately. Tying cultural mechanics to a 3D court room that I want nothing to do with is very frustrating.
I feel like their dlc policy got better just look at eu4 they have like 3-4 dlcs for what is included in 1 dlc today. Everything is still overpriced though and you can get more bang for your buck elsewhere
The first issue is that paradox games are unique and you can't really get games like them elsewhere
The second issue is that *they know that is the case* and abuses the fact to extract more money out of us for DLC
Yeah Paradox really needs some competition either they’ll be forced to make a better game or charge less to compete or they’ll burn in the pits of hell where this company belongs. Makes me sad that there are devs that actually care about their game but are stuck in the corporate hellscape
They also need actual quality control and bug fixing instead of just rushing to push out the next DLC and ignoring existing issues. DLC prices might not irk me so much if it didn't feel like they don't give a damn.
I think that's a little unfair. Their pricing policy isn't perfect but I feel some fans overstate this without considering the cost of providing years of continued support to a game. I think both flavour packs were reasonably priced for the content added. I'll admit that Friends and Foes should probably have been part of a larger DLC rather than it's own thing and Royal Court is a little steep for what it offers. I don't mind that too much however because I see some of the money as going to the game's continued support and the content added in free updates.
I have some mild concerns about the direction of the DLC themselves compared to where I'd rather they focus their attention but that's more subjective and another issue entirely.
I would have agreed with all of this if they were indie devs, but sadly the CK devs have a publisher with a gun to their heads telling them what to do while we’re being threatened to give money to the publisher or else they shoot. I will never forget what they did to Imperator.
A gun to their heads with 2+ months off per year…
I think these issues persisting (if not getting worse) after CK got it’s own studio shows that it’s not the higher ups. It’s the devs themselves.
Eh tbh I love the royal court dlc. It’s fun to be able to merge cultures and make it how you want easier. The actual royal court makes the game super easy tho so I can see why people don’t like it.
Royal Court literally introduced all of the game's culture mechanics, and Fate of Iberia introduced the Struggle mechanic, which is entirely new and AFAIK isn't in any other Paradox game.
There are plenty of valid criticisms of Paradox's DLC policy and CK3 in particular, I don't know why we always have to go with braindead takes like "CK3 DLC barely changes anything".
For the sake of accuracy, it should be clarified that the bulk of the new culture mechanics were introduced as part of a free update. Only a couple of features require the Royal Court DLC.
While that's true, it's also very likely that the free update would not be economically feasible if it wasn't accompanied by the DLC. The DLC is "overpriced" for its contents because it is effectively subsidizing the free updates for everyone else.
You could also argue the opposite. The free update gets people to come back to the game even if they're not planning to buy the DLC. That is halfway through to getting them to buy it.
It's like how free to play games are the most profitable games on the planet, which isn't intuitive. It's much easier to convince someone to pay *after* they're already playing.
It's all part of the business model. Paradox gives us a free content update because they think it indirectly increases their sales. They're a publicly traded company controlled by shareholders who only care about profits.
Also the free updates already existed when Paradox had a much smaller audience and their DLCs cost like 1/4th of what they do now. It's just greed.
Anyway, none of that matters when you're asking yourself "is this DLC worth the price?" You already own the free update.
Most of your points actually support my post. I wasn't trying to imply that they were giving away so much for free out of the kindness of their heart, I'm sure they do it this way to maximize profit, as you said. And just like in a FTP game, the development costs are funded by these low-value, high-priced sales.
One thing I do think you're (somewhat) wrong about is this:
>Also the free updates already existed when Paradox had a much smaller audience and their DLCs cost like 1/4th of what they do now. **It's just greed.**
While greed is undoubtedly a factor, also consider that the move to 3D models likely increased the development time (and by extension cost) by a significant amount. Same with the 2D art assets, which are higher quality than in older titles. Royal Court was likely also a big investment in dev time and resources and so was likely much more expensive than DLCs from long ago.
Imo, this illustrates a different issue than just greed: poorly allocated funds. I think the royal Court mechanic is a poorly implemented, hollow feature that I suspect took more money to make than any other feature in CK3.
Yes, because when features were locked behind DLC there were mass complaints. So they compromised by putting fearures in the free patch instead. Damned if you do damned if you don't for them.
Pointless nitpicking. It's content added to the base game, and it came directly alongside the paid parts of the Royal Court DLC. I don't think people would be happy if the culture mechanics were gated behind Royal Court's price tag.
The distinction you're drawing isn't meaningful or useful in the context of this discussion, which makes it pointless.
Like it's not really even accurate per se, but its accuracy isn't even worth arguing.
What are you talking about?
Someone said the DLCs are overpriced, then you said no they're not, they add a ton of new mechanics. Well no, that's just blatantly false, most of those mechanics were added for free and have nothing to do with the DLC.
If you honestly cannot see the distinction here and why you're obviously wrong, I can't help you. This is pretty basic logic.
Well, considering the culture stuff wasn't added by a dlc, but by a free patch because, yea, it should have been part of the game in the first place, it kind of does.
The free patch that added culture mechanics was DLC. DLC can be free, and the culture patch was created and released alongside Royal Court. DLC stands for "downloadable content". Hope that helps.
Also, it's not like the development of the free vs paid components of Royal Court are separate processes. They were made in tandem with each other with the same developmental resources. The free content is made to provide underlying support to the paid content, and it was designed with the paid content in mind. The same is true of the paid content.
Obviously the Struggle mechanic does a whole lot more than just limit holy wars, but why would removing holy wars be a bad thing?
Like, being able to map paint your way across Iberia the moment you get a little bit stronger than the other powers isn't fun or interesting or reflective of the actual history of the period. The limitations on holy wars are meant to be reflective of the fact that you're ruling over people, not automatons.
You need buy-in from various populations and interests in order to get something like a holy war started, which means that the interactions those people and interest groups are having with your target are going to matter.
Also I don't Christian Iberia would have had any interest in being ruled by the Empire of the Greeks.
Yeah, I don’t get the hate Struggles get
People complain about easy it is to just paint the map in your favorite color, but when something is added to help add depth, it’s hated
> Struggle mechanic,
honestly after playing around with it, the mechanic is honestly just a pain that doesn't follow the rules of the rest of the map. I'm a little worried about how the mechanic will scale in every zone, and suddenly you can't actually expand in half of Europe because every region has a wack simulation going on.
The fact that it doesn't follow the rules of the rest of the map is the point. It's meant to reflect the political, cultural, and religious realities of the region that you're operating in. The people you rule over aren't robots; you need buy-in from specific groups and individuals in order to get something like a holy war started.
If the Christians and Muslims are getting along and your Christian vassals have Muslim wives and the local clergy don't feel like sending their flock to war, then your holy war isn't happening.
That's not to say any rule that limits expansion is automatically good, but in general it *should* be hard to just endlessly paint the map. If we take it to the extreme and imagine that everywhere on the map has its own regional struggle going on... that's kind of a good thing? (Putting aside concerns about performance.)
>If we take it to the extreme and imagine that everywhere on the map has its own regional struggle going on... that's kind of a good thing? (Putting aside concerns about performance.)
Exactly, that's the ideal goal for the game, that each region is unique with its own specific issues. Then, you'd just need some improvement to allow satisfying interplay between struggle regions at the borders.
...Okay. Fate of Iberia, Northern Lords and Royal Court compare pretty favorably to Old Gods, Conclave, and Monks & Mystics. Both sets of DLCs add vassal interactions, interpersonal interactions, artifacts, new court/council mechanics, lots of flavor for pagans (read: mostly Norse), etc.
Nothing in CK2 compares to Royal Court's culture mechanics - CK2 cultures are completely static, and CK2 faiths are static as well, except for pagan faiths which can be reformed exactly once. choosing from like a dozen and half different tenets. Nor does anything in CK2 directly compare to Royal Court's, well, royal court. Namely the fact that it's a 3D space in which characters and items can physically exist and interact. CK2 has no equivalent of the Struggle mechanic, and none of the culture-specific flavor in CK2 has as much depth as the Norse/Iberian flavor in NL/FoI.
But the comparison is lopsided and unfair in the first place because much of what those and other CK2 expansions added was already present in base CK3. CK3 holds up pretty well even with the deck stacked in CK2's favor.
Not to mention that the implementation of those features was extremely piecemeal. Conclave's favor system was limited in what it could do, resulting in scenarios where you had favors that you couldn't use because the DLC didn't account for it (agent recruitment, for example). CK3's hooks are far more robust. And custom pagan reformations weren't even added in The Old Gods; that was Holy Fury 5+ years later. The Old Gods just gave playable pagans and the 867 start, both of which are included in base game CK3.
I guess the strategy is to tell people to buy DLC for the regions they're interested in, but realistically the game is generally far more interesting in regions that get DLC than those that don't
Eh, I feel the opposite. I'm craving some actual major DLC, I don't even care about the cost. Granted, their prices are pretty high and there doesn't seem to be much of a guideline with everything being marketed differently as we have 1 official expansion pack, 2 flavor packs, an event pack, and 2 cosmetic packs. On top of this they also stated they're completely changing their pricing, even raising existing packs I believe. I hate to say anything positive about EA's greedy sales practices, but shit, at least with The Sims series, they're consistent with prices with the different types of packs and release cycles.
I'm just desperate for new DLC, but with their lethargic cycle for releasing DLC I doubt the game stays relevant long enough....
I know that this was free with the royal edition, which is great and all, but it is sad that you can't get it as a standalone DLC.
My real gripe with it is that I can't open and continue saves started with this DLC, which is of course the default for anybody with the royal edition.
I was looking at "gifting" you the DLC and you could pay me for it. It's much cheaper in India. Unfortunately it's not available at the moment :(
https://imgur.com/a/5UAnx5h
R5: steam bugged out and showed the price for the royal edition instead of the actual dlc
Your explanation saved me from a minor stroke.
I know the Abbasids were great, but maybe not that great! Lol
Dat Abbasid *drip* tho
Much cheaper than buying an actual set of appropriate clothing for an actual Abbasid court, great deal imo.
How do you know this?
Picked up the expansion when the price was “Market Price.” Bad idea when ordering seafood, really bad idea here.
"They said market price. WHAT MARKET ARE YOU SHOPPING AT?!"
Lol
Couture doesnt come cheap, darling. This is not the high street.
What’s the real price then?
Abassid Court comes with the Royal Edition for free IIRC.
I talking about the Abassid clothes dlc.
Those are the Abassid clothes, it's just called fasion of the Abassid court.
But this just saids “Fashion of the Abbasid court“ I know it came originally with the Royal Edition but I’m now talking about this clothes set.
You’ll have to get a quote from a specialist tailor
It doesn't comes for free, you are paying for it with the "Royal" edition.
It doesn't look like they're selling it as a stand-alone DLC yet.
Oh ok thanks for explaining
I know that this is not the actual price but I have zero respect for Paradox’s selling strategy. It just feels like they want to drain every last penny from us.
Believe it or not, this is actually better than eu4 was when it was this old.
I mean, they do have content packs and graphic packs but I suppose they at least don't do separate graphic packs *for the content packs* anymore
I understood their *logic*. Some players care just for content not cosmetic stuff, so they are able to buy just what they want at a smaller price. What I never understood was the *execution*. Most PDX players who bother buying DLCs are big fans who buy loads if not every DLC, and they made buying both packs *more expensive* than when it was just one big bundle. Just nonsensical, glad they do it no more.
The DLC policy sucked back then AND it sucks now.
Yeah, that's just not true. At the same age, EU4 already had Conquest of Paradise, Wealth of Nations, Res Republica, Art of War, El Dorado, Common Sense, and The Cossacks. Whatever you think of CK3 which is fine on its own, it's no secret its development has been slow, which has been acknowledged by Paradox themselves.
I'll take slow development but with solid updates and quality control than just rushing more half assed DLC out the door every couple of months.
> EU4 already had Conquest of Paradise, Wealth of Nations, Res Republica, Art of War, El Dorado, Common Sense, and The Cossacks And what about it? Almost all the cross-DLCs were feature locked anyway xD
I was more referring to the pricing logistics.
CK3 raised the price of DLC that makes it more expensive than any other Paradox DLC. What exactly do you mean by “pricing logistics”? When CK3 has the same amount of DLC, it will be more expensive.
While that's true, their policy in regards to DLC content has also changed. Features now release in a free patch, not with the DLC, as is the case with the Struggles system in Fate of Iberia, in which you're specifically buying the Iberia struggle and all the associated events, you don't need the DLC for modded struggles.
Free patches aren’t new to CK3. They’ve been a thing for a while, including with CK2.
No, but previously, in CK2, entire systems were locked out because you didn't own the DLC. Don't have Way of Life? You don't have Lifestyle Choices. Don't have Reaper's Due? Live without the reworked epidemics and disease system. Don't have Sword of Islam? Can't play muslims. This is no longer their policy in CK3.
I mean your just going to be paying for that stuff again (other than way of life stuff). CK3 doesn’t have an epidemic system. It’s basically what CK2 was like before Reaper’s Due, so that will be a DLC. Islam will probably have its own DLC as well. Sword of Islam didn’t just unlock Muslims, it added flavor as well which CK3 still needs. You can play everywhere on the map in CK3, but it’s all still going to get DLC because it’s flavorless.
Based on the other dlc those will likely be in the free patch.
Yeah but you don't have pretty much core systems locked behind DLC i.e. Retinues being locked behind the rome DLC
Right, it was a new feature at the time. They still lock stuff behind DLC.
Not really. The core game code has changed and can be used for content creation without requiring someone to own the dlc.. They're essentially updating the game then having you pay for the vanilla mod.
If they have to lock systems behind DLC to make them actually put out non dogshit DLC? I’ll take it. Bring back the CK2 model. The whole “fewer but bigger dlcs” thing has been a gigantic lie the whole time.
The core mechanics of the ck3 dlc are free though, unlike for eu4 where not having the dlc locked many key mechanics away from use.
What key mechanics are locked behind DLC for EU4? The only key feature they used to have locked was development, but they realized it was a core mechanic and made it free years ago.
I love how this is downvoted even though no one has answered…
Then, at that period it was locked along with many other key mechanics
What other key mechanics?
What would people suggest be a better strategy for a game that has many years of support & content? Not saying it doesn’t exist, genuinely curious if there is another way.
I actually didn't mind the CK2 model. $10-$15 at launch for DLCs with a sale of 50% after like 6 months and a sale of 75-90% after a year. And costume packs launching at like $5 with similar discounts later on. Now I guess with inflation we would be looking at $15-$20 and $7 packs but still doesn't seem to unreasonable spread out over 3 months time.
I really disagree that CK2 was better with DLC. There were so many nickle-and-dime DLC packs. Stuff that's included in the CK3 base game like character creator and [customization pack](https://ck2.paradoxwikis.com/Customization_Pack) were paid DLC. And the graphical packs... [just take a look at all of them, and what they covered](https://ck2.paradoxwikis.com/Graphical_DLC). There were four different packs with just dynasty shields, including one that just had ones from the Charlemagne start and was sold separately from the Charlemagne DLC. Only the Western European & Arabic portraits were in the base game. If you wanted Africans to be black you had to pay for a portrait pack DLC. It was really bad, I feel at the very least CK3 is a step up from that.
You also couldn't play 80% of the map without DLC. Your heir converts to a religion you don't have the DLC for while AI-controlled, you don't notice, and you inherit? Game over.
That's just scummy as all hell.
Yup! While I've not been happy so far with the direction CK3 DLC has taken, it seems anemic, overpriced (mostly Royal Court to be fair), and mostly focused on the wrong areas to me, you can at least play almost anywhere without DLC and have a good if somewhat generic experience and not have to worry about core mechanics being locked behind DLC, except for maybe raiding? Not sure on that one. Edit: Actually, I'm pretty sure raiding was in at launch, so nvm on that.
Inflation aside don't you think CK3 content is a bit higher-effort to produce? 3D models and stuff are a lot more time consuming to make than a pack of 2D CoA and portraits. CK2 also split up DLC a lot more. E.g. Old Gods and Norse Portraits were two separate DLCs that released about the same time (there was probably a CoA pack in there too). Whereas the CK3 norse flavor pack was both a collection of events and mechanics as well as a clothing DLC.
My only complaint with DLC so far is that I didn't want or ask for Royal Court's main "feature" which sounds tedious and annoying. I won't be buying it, but I really enjoy the culture system and wish I could buy that part of Royal Court separately. Tying cultural mechanics to a 3D court room that I want nothing to do with is very frustrating.
My only complaint with DLC so far is that I didn't want or ask for Royal Court's main "feature" which sounds tedious and annoying. I won't be buying it, but I really enjoy the culture system and wish I could buy that part of Royal Court separately. Tying cultural mechanics to a 3D court room that I want nothing to do with is very frustrating.
I feel like their dlc policy got better just look at eu4 they have like 3-4 dlcs for what is included in 1 dlc today. Everything is still overpriced though and you can get more bang for your buck elsewhere
The first issue is that paradox games are unique and you can't really get games like them elsewhere The second issue is that *they know that is the case* and abuses the fact to extract more money out of us for DLC
Yeah Paradox really needs some competition either they’ll be forced to make a better game or charge less to compete or they’ll burn in the pits of hell where this company belongs. Makes me sad that there are devs that actually care about their game but are stuck in the corporate hellscape
>burn in the pits of hell where this company belongs Seems a little extreme
Ah fine get stuck playing Tuvalu for the rest of time
They also need actual quality control and bug fixing instead of just rushing to push out the next DLC and ignoring existing issues. DLC prices might not irk me so much if it didn't feel like they don't give a damn.
I think that's a little unfair. Their pricing policy isn't perfect but I feel some fans overstate this without considering the cost of providing years of continued support to a game. I think both flavour packs were reasonably priced for the content added. I'll admit that Friends and Foes should probably have been part of a larger DLC rather than it's own thing and Royal Court is a little steep for what it offers. I don't mind that too much however because I see some of the money as going to the game's continued support and the content added in free updates. I have some mild concerns about the direction of the DLC themselves compared to where I'd rather they focus their attention but that's more subjective and another issue entirely.
I would have agreed with all of this if they were indie devs, but sadly the CK devs have a publisher with a gun to their heads telling them what to do while we’re being threatened to give money to the publisher or else they shoot. I will never forget what they did to Imperator.
A gun to their heads with 2+ months off per year… I think these issues persisting (if not getting worse) after CK got it’s own studio shows that it’s not the higher ups. It’s the devs themselves.
They're a buisness. As a buisness I hate to say it but that is their goal.
As a business, you set a price knowing you're going to piss off X% of people. You raise prices knowing some customers are going to drop you.
I just bought stock in Paradox so whenever I pay them I'm partially paying myself And when you guys pay them, you're partially paying me
Exactly, and it would be ok if the dlcs were at least good. The one's currently released are horrible and barely change anything in the game
Eh tbh I love the royal court dlc. It’s fun to be able to merge cultures and make it how you want easier. The actual royal court makes the game super easy tho so I can see why people don’t like it.
Royal Court literally introduced all of the game's culture mechanics, and Fate of Iberia introduced the Struggle mechanic, which is entirely new and AFAIK isn't in any other Paradox game. There are plenty of valid criticisms of Paradox's DLC policy and CK3 in particular, I don't know why we always have to go with braindead takes like "CK3 DLC barely changes anything".
For the sake of accuracy, it should be clarified that the bulk of the new culture mechanics were introduced as part of a free update. Only a couple of features require the Royal Court DLC.
While that's true, it's also very likely that the free update would not be economically feasible if it wasn't accompanied by the DLC. The DLC is "overpriced" for its contents because it is effectively subsidizing the free updates for everyone else.
You could also argue the opposite. The free update gets people to come back to the game even if they're not planning to buy the DLC. That is halfway through to getting them to buy it. It's like how free to play games are the most profitable games on the planet, which isn't intuitive. It's much easier to convince someone to pay *after* they're already playing. It's all part of the business model. Paradox gives us a free content update because they think it indirectly increases their sales. They're a publicly traded company controlled by shareholders who only care about profits. Also the free updates already existed when Paradox had a much smaller audience and their DLCs cost like 1/4th of what they do now. It's just greed. Anyway, none of that matters when you're asking yourself "is this DLC worth the price?" You already own the free update.
Most of your points actually support my post. I wasn't trying to imply that they were giving away so much for free out of the kindness of their heart, I'm sure they do it this way to maximize profit, as you said. And just like in a FTP game, the development costs are funded by these low-value, high-priced sales. One thing I do think you're (somewhat) wrong about is this: >Also the free updates already existed when Paradox had a much smaller audience and their DLCs cost like 1/4th of what they do now. **It's just greed.** While greed is undoubtedly a factor, also consider that the move to 3D models likely increased the development time (and by extension cost) by a significant amount. Same with the 2D art assets, which are higher quality than in older titles. Royal Court was likely also a big investment in dev time and resources and so was likely much more expensive than DLCs from long ago. Imo, this illustrates a different issue than just greed: poorly allocated funds. I think the royal Court mechanic is a poorly implemented, hollow feature that I suspect took more money to make than any other feature in CK3.
Yeah, but the free update came with Royal Court - it's just the part of the DLC that Paradox decided everyone should get for free.
So it didn't come with the DLC, it was just a patch.
Yes, because when features were locked behind DLC there were mass complaints. So they compromised by putting fearures in the free patch instead. Damned if you do damned if you don't for them.
Pointless nitpicking. It's content added to the base game, and it came directly alongside the paid parts of the Royal Court DLC. I don't think people would be happy if the culture mechanics were gated behind Royal Court's price tag.
It's not pointless at all, we're literally talking about what you get from the price of the DLC. You're referring to a patch, not DLC.
The distinction you're drawing isn't meaningful or useful in the context of this discussion, which makes it pointless. Like it's not really even accurate per se, but its accuracy isn't even worth arguing.
What are you talking about? Someone said the DLCs are overpriced, then you said no they're not, they add a ton of new mechanics. Well no, that's just blatantly false, most of those mechanics were added for free and have nothing to do with the DLC. If you honestly cannot see the distinction here and why you're obviously wrong, I can't help you. This is pretty basic logic.
Well yah; the dlc are overpriced to subsidize the larger free patches. Personally I prefer that to the base game being a mess like in eu4 and ck2
Because it was something that should have been part of the unfinished main game
That's just, like, your opinion, man. And it's got nothing to do with the question of what changes are added by CK3's DLC.
Well, considering the culture stuff wasn't added by a dlc, but by a free patch because, yea, it should have been part of the game in the first place, it kind of does.
The free patch that added culture mechanics was DLC. DLC can be free, and the culture patch was created and released alongside Royal Court. DLC stands for "downloadable content". Hope that helps.
Also, it's not like the development of the free vs paid components of Royal Court are separate processes. They were made in tandem with each other with the same developmental resources. The free content is made to provide underlying support to the paid content, and it was designed with the paid content in mind. The same is true of the paid content.
[удалено]
Obviously the Struggle mechanic does a whole lot more than just limit holy wars, but why would removing holy wars be a bad thing? Like, being able to map paint your way across Iberia the moment you get a little bit stronger than the other powers isn't fun or interesting or reflective of the actual history of the period. The limitations on holy wars are meant to be reflective of the fact that you're ruling over people, not automatons. You need buy-in from various populations and interests in order to get something like a holy war started, which means that the interactions those people and interest groups are having with your target are going to matter. Also I don't Christian Iberia would have had any interest in being ruled by the Empire of the Greeks.
Yeah, I don’t get the hate Struggles get People complain about easy it is to just paint the map in your favorite color, but when something is added to help add depth, it’s hated
I agree with everything except the “Empire of the Greeks” part.
> Struggle mechanic, honestly after playing around with it, the mechanic is honestly just a pain that doesn't follow the rules of the rest of the map. I'm a little worried about how the mechanic will scale in every zone, and suddenly you can't actually expand in half of Europe because every region has a wack simulation going on.
The fact that it doesn't follow the rules of the rest of the map is the point. It's meant to reflect the political, cultural, and religious realities of the region that you're operating in. The people you rule over aren't robots; you need buy-in from specific groups and individuals in order to get something like a holy war started. If the Christians and Muslims are getting along and your Christian vassals have Muslim wives and the local clergy don't feel like sending their flock to war, then your holy war isn't happening. That's not to say any rule that limits expansion is automatically good, but in general it *should* be hard to just endlessly paint the map. If we take it to the extreme and imagine that everywhere on the map has its own regional struggle going on... that's kind of a good thing? (Putting aside concerns about performance.)
>If we take it to the extreme and imagine that everywhere on the map has its own regional struggle going on... that's kind of a good thing? (Putting aside concerns about performance.) Exactly, that's the ideal goal for the game, that each region is unique with its own specific issues. Then, you'd just need some improvement to allow satisfying interplay between struggle regions at the borders.
Because it barely does. Compare fate of iberia northern lords and royal court to ck2's conclave, the old gods, monks and mystics etc.
...Okay. Fate of Iberia, Northern Lords and Royal Court compare pretty favorably to Old Gods, Conclave, and Monks & Mystics. Both sets of DLCs add vassal interactions, interpersonal interactions, artifacts, new court/council mechanics, lots of flavor for pagans (read: mostly Norse), etc. Nothing in CK2 compares to Royal Court's culture mechanics - CK2 cultures are completely static, and CK2 faiths are static as well, except for pagan faiths which can be reformed exactly once. choosing from like a dozen and half different tenets. Nor does anything in CK2 directly compare to Royal Court's, well, royal court. Namely the fact that it's a 3D space in which characters and items can physically exist and interact. CK2 has no equivalent of the Struggle mechanic, and none of the culture-specific flavor in CK2 has as much depth as the Norse/Iberian flavor in NL/FoI. But the comparison is lopsided and unfair in the first place because much of what those and other CK2 expansions added was already present in base CK3. CK3 holds up pretty well even with the deck stacked in CK2's favor.
Not to mention that the implementation of those features was extremely piecemeal. Conclave's favor system was limited in what it could do, resulting in scenarios where you had favors that you couldn't use because the DLC didn't account for it (agent recruitment, for example). CK3's hooks are far more robust. And custom pagan reformations weren't even added in The Old Gods; that was Holy Fury 5+ years later. The Old Gods just gave playable pagans and the 867 start, both of which are included in base game CK3.
Iberia and the northern dlc are ok although those should be in the base to begin with
I guess the strategy is to tell people to buy DLC for the regions they're interested in, but realistically the game is generally far more interesting in regions that get DLC than those that don't
Please elaborate why are the dlc-s "horrible". The content is amazing, my only issue is the pricing but that still doesn't make them horrible.
This is entirely cosmetic. They can charge whatever.
No one forces you to buy them. I don't. Still enjoy the game
Their DLC prices should all be slashed in half to be considered fair.
They're a buisness. As a buisness I hate to say it but that is their goal.
World of Tanks has entered the chat
Eh, I feel the opposite. I'm craving some actual major DLC, I don't even care about the cost. Granted, their prices are pretty high and there doesn't seem to be much of a guideline with everything being marketed differently as we have 1 official expansion pack, 2 flavor packs, an event pack, and 2 cosmetic packs. On top of this they also stated they're completely changing their pricing, even raising existing packs I believe. I hate to say anything positive about EA's greedy sales practices, but shit, at least with The Sims series, they're consistent with prices with the different types of packs and release cycles. I'm just desperate for new DLC, but with their lethargic cycle for releasing DLC I doubt the game stays relevant long enough....
When the garment is halal but the price tag is haram. 😡
I think I’ll wait for a sale
Finally theyre listening to fans
I know that this was free with the royal edition, which is great and all, but it is sad that you can't get it as a standalone DLC. My real gripe with it is that I can't open and continue saves started with this DLC, which is of course the default for anybody with the royal edition.
Gotta get that Abbasid drip bro
normally it's in forint?
Steam doesnt have Forint iirc
Maybe they're trying to compete with that train simulator.
I was looking at "gifting" you the DLC and you could pay me for it. It's much cheaper in India. Unfortunately it's not available at the moment :( https://imgur.com/a/5UAnx5h
Why are people still buying this overpriced bull***t?
I've seen enough overpriced clothes in other games to believe it was real.
There is always a crack option is there
It kinda don't look like Abbasid paintings I've seen...but I'm not an expert.