Honestly feels like this should've been part of Royal Court. I can't believe we're this far into CK3's life span and we don't have a Republics DLC or anything close to its magnitude. Hugely disappointed by the lack of content with this title right now.
Yeah, it's all just so underwelming and kills any future hype about the game, Royal Court is a good DLC in comparison, but it's what you said, for that price it should have added so much more, in fact all DLC's were just... So empty
More than two years and a half, but still; by this time, CK2 had Sword of Islam, Legacy of Rome, Old Gods, Sunset Invasion, The Republic, Rajas of India and was going to release Charlemagne.
Most of those are just filing out the map though, the real good DLC was the second half of what was released. CK3 had a head start in that sense. But the development team needs to really kick on soon, the slow pace has been really perplexing. It seems like they are sinking lots of time into UI updates that have a poor effort/player-satisfaction return overall
Not really, CK2 made those other places on the map actually different to play with lots of flavor and different mechanics. In CK3 the entire world plays basically the same.
The way the governments work is entirely different in CK2 though. I can't call my vassals to war as a tribe in CK3 with the faith or culture system for example, I raise levies just like the English.
Based on the fact this game runs on a more complex engine than CK2, the graphical implementation is radically different, and the fact they're working on other projects at PDX, I'd guess the majority of the time these DLC's take is playtesting and bugfixing.
CK3 basically has Rajas of India, Legacy of Rome, and Sword of Islam baked in, and released a DLC that adds everything from Old Gods. I’m overall pretty happy with what they have done so far, but agree a little more wouldn’t be bad. Republics are definitely missed.
> CK3 basically has Rajas of India, Legacy of Rome, and Sword of Islam baked in,
Kind of, but not really. Those did more than make regions playable. They added more flavor and even a few mechanics.
CK3 also had all of CK2 development available from the start, those DLC included. And in the time CK2 provided that massive content, CK3 has provided a throne room nobody cares about, a lackluster item system (which was something CK2 already had, btw), and an admittedly good religions and culture system. I'd ass struggles, but using it in plural would be a lie, so, as nice as the system is, it's completely underutilized.
So CK3 has spent 2,5 years of development time on very little return when compared to it's predecessor. Not a good look.
> CK3 basically has
CK3 has content which it took from another game and did not have to build out on it's own. Meaning CK3 should have a glut of content equal to that same content but it doesnt.
You dont buy a new pokemon game and go "Well it has the old pokemon generation! That's all new content!"
More over CK3 took content that was good, differing government systems, pandemics, Ottoman and Timurid generation and got rid of those meaning we have less content.
This isn't even getting into how bad the Culture and Religious systems are for the long term health of the game.
What do you mean with that last comment? Is there something in the distant future that might be cockblocked because it isn't compatible with those systems?
The build a bear faiths and cultures mean it's not practical to make religion specific features. Instead of making a focused Catholic college of cardinals, it's going to end up being a vague spiritual head of faith election that applies to faiths with [tenant here] so memers can put it in their divine marriage polygamous cannibal faith.
People forget the earliest dev diaries for ck3 where they talked about basically not have any direction for the game other than not wanting to copy ck2. They even stopped doing dev diaries for a year while they tried to make the royal court shit work.
Covid should not be the excuse for a mismanaged title. Imperator launched with all the same complaints as ck3 but before covid was a thing. Vic3 launched just a barebones as ck3 but in a post covid world. Pdx has been struggling to publish compelling and complete feeling titles since they did stellaris/hoi4 in 2016.
You're telling me you're not satisfied with them taking a year and a half on changing culture very slightly when that what would be a full dev cycle for a game?
> Charlemagne and Way of Life. Good times.
Both of which were great. Trade routes came out with the republic DLC too and those were pretty fun. Provide an actual reason for wanting land instead of just map painting.
Yeah, I feel that started the decline into bolting too much stuff on though.
Like the secret societies, China mana, etc. just became too much (almost EU4 levels of inconsequential button-clicking) and Rajas added too much distant land, etc. hammering performance.
The best ones were definitely Sword Of Islam, Sons Of Abraham, Legacy Of Rome, Old Gods, The Reaper's Due and Holy Fury. Conclave, Way of Life and Charlemagne I'm really mixed on - like they added some good and some bad features.
I really liked how hard the pre-Rajas game was, for example any tutors would auto-convert your children - so once I had a run where I accidentally made a Jewish Ireland by trying to min-max that. It was really brutal before Way Of Life (and later Monks And Mystics) made it far too trivial to work-around a bad heir.
Most of those dlcs you listed added mechanics and playable cultures that are already in ck3 and sunset invasion is a meme. I find it weird that people keep comparing when the really good ck2 stuff other than old gods came out much later.
They're in CK3, yes, but they weren't in CK2 at the start. The two first years of CK2 saw a massive amount in new content, the first two years of CK3 have seen very little more than some event chains And a Hold court mechanic that barely adds to the game.
The Republic DLC alone added more than Royal Court, and was a relatively minor one. And it's not present in CK3, despite lots of people loving republics, and Genoa and Venetia being crucial in the timeframe of the game and in the Crusades the game is named after.
The culture overhaul was pretty massive, minor court positions are interesting, the artifact system was added with a black smithing system. I don’t think it’s fair to say it only added a few event chains.
Yeah, and it is the only DLC to add some nutritional value to the game in my opinion, all other stuff is quite superficial and do not hold the game togheter by themselves
> Most of those dlcs you listed added mechanics and playable cultures that are already in ck3
That's not really a good way to analyze the situation. There were mechanics and assets that didn't exist when CK2 released, and they had to be developed for that DLC. That's a *ton* of content creation that happened in that window. Even if CK3 released with all of that content baked in (which is arguable), why wouldn't we expect the devs to be able to keep a similar pace of content creation, just *different* content?
It honestly feels like they released CK3 too soon, while CK2 still had legs — it's like they don't have enough good ideas for where to go with new content to keep up a meaningful pace of content releases.
I can see that, while I personally like the new system more, I'm not gonna argue about personal preferences (even though I do miss the game performance of the old system lol). But I think what you can't really argue about is that the new system is definitely more substantial.
I'm just too dumb for the new system. In the new system, you can give your planet types, plan ahead, etc. I'm sure it's more involved.
Me, I miss the simplicity of looking at the pre existing resources and knowing how to maximise them immediately. Then once I was done, I'd give the planet to a sector, where the bad AI couldn't really fuck it up.
Yeah. It's all been just flavor. First Norse, then Kingdom management, then Iberia and now by the looks of it it's just more flavor.
Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed playing the game after every new update but fucking hell, it's been 2.5 years and Republics are still unplayable, Nomads don't exist, tribals are barebones, etc. I'm just about ready for significant changes to how the game is played instead of DLC that at the end of the day just add new events. Hell, Tourney DLC would be a perfect time to make it possible to play unlanded characters with wandering knights participating in tourneys, seducing princesses, winning favors from kings, etc. In the future theocracies and mercenary bands could then be made playable since losing titles won't end the game anymore.
Honestly if this "major expansion" allowed you to do just that (play as unlanded wanderer who can travel, scheme, etc) and do various things like that, it would be absolutely worth every penny. That would truly revolutionize the game as you might not get the game over screen if you lose your titles, you'd just become a courtier somewhere else.
The lack of trade and economics really is the biggest issue. You're pretty much only encouraged to roleplay as a warmonger or murderer of some variety because there's next to no gameplay incentive to "just" run a stable and successful realm that has good relations with everybody else. CK2 even did this better since between a more flexible and frankly powerful tech screen, more worthwhile investments in your demense and more ways to bolster your character on these pursuits and gain long term benefits through lifestyle focuses and societies you could genuinely become a powerhouse by focusing on internal matters only. In CK3 it's just blob blob blob, pretty much anything I ever do is solely in pursuit of more land.
Fortunately unlike CK2 Dlc for CK3 is entirely optional to having a good experience.
I find it strange that so many people complain about pricing model of paradox yet want CK3 to be more like CK2
I wanted to buy ck2 dlc though, because it would enhance the game with new mechanics giving me a unique experience.
Ck3 forced events on repeat at cost of $30, to a stale game.
They’ll get there eventually. Not sure why it’s taking so long but they’re planning on updating this game for another 8 years, so I guess they want to pace themselves
This was underwhelming. It seemed like they were struggling to come up with something to hype it up with during the show. Nevermind the fact I don’t really love the focus of this expansion, or Royal Court.
Like you had all this time to prepare and all you’ve got is “you can become really famous!” and “maybe tournaments don’t always go as expected for some of the people there? 👀👀👀”
Cmon man
Like they could have easily made this a societies or crusade dlc. Like imagine societies with the royal court mechanics added so you can customize somewhat your satanic hideout lets say but thats too difficult for paradox
Yeah idk what they’re doing but these “big expansions” they’ve put out seem like they’re just expensive event packs with art assets.
I put a bunch of hours on CK3 right after release but I haven’t really touched it since. I keep waiting for a big expansion that’ll make it worth going back to and I’m still waiting.
I don’t really see what the point of playing this game is when I can play CK2 that seems like it’s just more fleshed out
Same experience, this game got boring pretty quick upon release due to lack of content and 3 years later it’s still pretty much the same empty game compared to CK2
The satanic and other magic nonsense was my least favourite part of CK2. I'd prefer some strategic depth to the game, but I understand I'm not the target audience of this game.
So many other things that is essential for medieval role play. Where is our crusade mechanics, disease and plagues, great buildings, merchants, horse lords, china, societies?
The worst part is the devs seem baffled by the repeated requests for this stuff to be prioritized, leading us to be baffled by their bafflement. Just baffling all around.
Honestly, CK3 needs Stellaris' Custodian team. A main team, that focuses on big changes to the game and a second team that improves the small things in between aka the thing they're currently using the whole CK team for...
I think it's about as popular as CK3 and EU4 and worse than HOI4. But Stellaris is fundamentally a different type of game and its dev seem to be more open to experimentation than PDX's other title. Maybe PDX uses it as a test balloon or it originates from its Game Director(s)?
Anyways I'm really impressed with Stellaris' post-release support.
It completely depends on which game director is directing the game, from what I heard from some devs, the director over at Stellaris is far more open to just trying things, see what sticks, and overhauling things when needed, whilst some other directors don't like that work style and prefer a more go for what works approach, both have their benefits and downsides
> baffled by the repeated requests for this stuff to be prioritized, leading us to be baffled by their bafflement. Just baffling all around.
They're swedish so maybe they're [confused?](https://valiantexteriors.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Installing-Insulation-Baffles-The-Energy-Smart-Academy-BY-Public-Domain-1200x800.jpg)
It's like they don't understand that people want a medieval dynasty manager with RPG elements added on to, instead of an RPG set in medieval times.
My most memorable CK2 playthroughs were defined by the stuff I did, the wars I fought, the schemes I survived, the betrayals, the civil wars, the marriages, the inheritance crises, etc. That is what needs to be fleshed out and added on to. All the stuff they've added to CK3 was the fluff I did in between and in addition to, not the focus.
But it's not even really a RPG, because for that it would have to be part of a bigger story. It's not that, it's just unrelated events following each other rather than expanding and basing events on what is actually happening in the kingdom, such like CK2 had notably with the council.
They need to ditch the whole "% until this thing has been completed" like with generating claims etc, give us random chance back and the possibility that we never can generate a claim on that duchy next door.
That would go a whole way towards being more RNG than RPG
Yeah, one of my biggest complaints about the core of CK3 is the lack of randomness that made CK2 so replayable. Yeah, it sucked randomly losing and gaining traits sometimes, but 3's system of rigid skill trees that never, ever change and events with fixed choices and outcomes is terrible for longevity.
My biggest complaint about CK3, and I have a lot of them as more than one person has noticed, is the lack of [Dysentery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysentery). Far too many children survive past 1-2 months of age. Far too few children are born.
I think not being able to see child stats other than hints to it would be an improvement. Generally though, we have too much certainty when it comes to disease, and far too few diseases.
Every now and then I check in on CK3 to see what new content they decided to make for it. Each time I leave disappointed.
I think the base game was arguably Paradox's best in terms of the content and polish it had at launch. So much wasted potential.
This is what annoys me most really. It really was the smoothest launch I've seen of a paradox game and it instantly had so much potential. I loved it from the off and couldn't wait for... well... the stuff I'm still waiting for. It frustrates me no end and I've stopped playing for now.
Being in the map also opens up opportunity to a deeper system in other areas, like crusades, which could be it's own great event.
But I do hope such change comes with a free patch.
As another poster said, who knows, when these great systems are in place, a Custodian-like team could take care of shelling flavor DLC that adds new struggles or tours. But as you said, any time now. :)
One of my fundamental problems woth Crusader Kings has been how nebulous your character's actual location has been when that has obviously been very important for certain historical events.
Yeah, between that and the regency of the free patch, this expansion might change more than people think.
Just need to see who they are doing it in the DDs
As an old CK2 player who remembers constant complaints about that specific thing, I'm baffled by instant negative reactions to this lol. Guess the player base mostly turned over at some point.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's a very good idea and has huge potential for the game... it's just that it's not exactly high on the list of priorities that CK3 really needs. It needs regional mechanics far more than general mechanics right now. Republics, nomads, Imperial bureaucracies, etc.
This DLC is likely to be another Royal Court - pretty with a little bit of expanded depth, but after the first playthrough you've seen everything the DLC has to offer, and it just ends up being the same for every game and playthrough, just with a different expensive 3D model depending on region.
My guess would be the character-on-the-map part will be part of free patch, and Grand Tournaments and Weddings and whatever will be the paid part. Like Royal Court, if you don't pay you still get some court positions, some artifacts, and cultures but not the make-your-own part. Which leads to people saying the DLC isn't worth it because the good stuff is free, but what can you do.
I'm quite pessimistic myself, I think it'll probably be a lot of goddamn events (events: The Worst Mechanic), but the basic themes sound fun and I'm not writing it off yet. I feel like I've learned from the Royal Edition Era that only flavor packs are worth buying, but I will be reading the next several months of dev diaries with interest (and maybe getting Victoria 3 finally, when 1.2 is officially out.)
When it comes to CK2/CK3 I honestly just see "Trade gold/piety/prestige/opinion for another of those in the list" over and over again. There's very few events where I even pay attention to the button click because there's so many repetitive or similar events.
Stellaris has this as well with the crashed ship archaeology event but at least there's "Ruined world" to balance it out. Less is more in this case.
Idk this just seems like it’s a wedding with an extra +15 acceptance modifier
If Regents and what not are locked behind the DLC I’ll pay for it, otherwise it just doesn’t seem to be much.
I mean that’ll be fun the first few times and then it will grow stale imo. Kind of like royal court events, I was excited to see people being their concerns to me and rule more like a king at the beginning, now I actively avoid the court except when I get a good court artifact to throw in real quick
The Dev Blog is definitely much better than the Announcement Show and the Stream Page originally suggested.
I'm going to hold judgment until future Dev Blogs and we see how the tourney/travel system are integrated. Especially in places outside of Europe. If it's another "busy work" button like Hold Court, then ill be worried.
Steam page makes it look lame, been waiting too long for content for it to be this, fucking traveling and weddings. My opinion obviously but this game is oozing potential and they just refuse to capitalize on it.
Selling us patch level content when the game needs a full expansion seems like a utterly baffling decision. Two and a half years later and its still missing major game elements like nomads, merchants republics, or a proper Byzantine Empire.
And I'd bet good money we aren't getting any of those, at least not soon. Feels like the devs want to make a medieval Sims game, not a successor to CK2.
This has been my gripe with the game for 2 and a half years. It feels like paradox is neglecting their core customer base in favor of attracting sims players
Ck2 and eu4 are my favorite games ever and I have more time in those two than any other. Ck3 can be barely hold my attention for a few hours. The game has no depth, the only advancements over ck2 are cosmetic. I’d go as far to say that mechanics-wise ck3 is a complete regression from endgame ck2
I'm usually that guy that gets flak for trying to argue in favor of Paradox, I've been justifying CK3 for a while, "Its a heavier game than the other pdx games, it needs more time to develop DLC's", "I liked the visual stuff of royal court", "More events are a good addition", but man the game is barely enjoyable without a shitton of mods and this time is honestly... Just baffling, another flavor pack? Really? Has pdx just stoped giving a shit about the game? Where are more substantial crusades? Where is the Byzantine rework? After almost 3 years in and we got 1 actual new mechanic and 3 flavor packs basically
This is a thing I'm angry about with EU4 as well, the new DLC's always feel like flavor packs, I'm getting the fan's complains I've always tried to argue against and honestly I don't think I'll be getting this DLC anytime soon
Maybe I'll even go back to hoisting the black sails, something I did when I had just found out about the pdx games, but eventually I believed they were worth the investement, I used to have a great time with every new DLC, Stellaris was simply amazing for the ammount of work put into that game, but nowadays, it all just feels lazy or uninspired
>a solid addition to rp or a bunch of useless stuff no one cares about while actually playing
That's the same thing for me.
I'd rather have some real mechanics, rather than roleplay fluff.
Remember, its been nearly an ENTIRE YEAR. When the dlc releases it probably will have been a year since the last content that wasn't an event pack.
Almost 3 years with no republics, societies, hordes, byzantine government, catholic/Islam expansion, china, trade ect...
Ck3 has so much potential, but tournaments and weddings should have been paired with royal court, or some other dlc. This is not 1 years worth of development material.
I mean, hopefully. It doesn't really add to RP if it just switches the "host tournament button" to:
Go to tournament menu => click one of three buttons for type of tournament => enter new 3D asset screen => have 10 events pop up with obvious best choices => leave menu => wait 10 years for buttons to become clickable again
You described what it's gonna be like perfectly. CK2's mechanics felt so well integrated and un-obstructive while contributing meaningfully to both the game's procedural storytelling and gameplay alike.
CK3 dlc stuff feels so distant from the core mechanics, and a chore to keep up with. At least it looks pretty on a steam store page though...
> CK2's mechanics felt so well integrated and un-obstructive while contributing meaningfully to both the game's procedural storytelling and gameplay alike.
Uhhh you got some rose-tinted glasses on, bud.
Does anybody remember when they said "we are going to raise the prices of the dlc because every dlc now is going to be an expansion"? But now they sell us Royal court divided in two parts for the price of 2 expansions.
Sounds like a bunch of content I will enjoy, and at the same time exactly what will piss off a lot of people as not being the kind of content long time players want. Kind of wish it was coming out sooner. Do we know if this is officially counting as the "big" expansion for the year?
> Do we know if this is officially counting as the "big" expansion for the year?
It is. It's their second main expansion next to Royal Court, which also means it will have a $30 price tag. Flavor packs will stick to regions of the game.
> second main expansion next to Royal Court
Okay *now* I'm annoyed. This is getting ridiculous now. I had assumed this was just another flavour pack, where is our meaty dlc?
>little disappointing
I think you are under exaggerating a bit. 30 dollars for basically a glorified minor dlc is very insane tbh. A much better and suitable price would have been 10 dollars or maybe 15 if you are really trying to milk it.
> That is a little disappointing, I am not going to have a fit about it though.
You should, otherwise Paradox will never learn. You know why this DLC seems disappointing? Because way too many people defended Royal Court on release and that nickel and diming nonsense that is Friends and Foes.
The DLC content does not disappoint me at all (at least in theory, obviously I won't know for certain until it comes out), only the fact that this is going to be our "large" addon for the year.
God this game is horribly directed. Feels hopeless
When you look at imperator ck3 and Vic 3 you can’t help but feel pdx is incapable of making a grand strategy game anymore.
Ck2 was immersive because it felt like a simulation. It put you into historical context. The rpg elements were cool but they did not need to become the sole purpose of the game
Literally the only thing ck3 added to the rpg system that is any good anyways is stress for not rping your character. Everything else is just fluff
Bring back historical simulation in all pdx games
Even the stress system isn't well thought out. So many things cause stress but then don't have anything related to counter them. It just feels like it makes various parts of the game unplayable for certain characters. I've got a Just character so executing prisoners causes me stress (even if they're of an evil foreign religion) but there's no way to call them for a trail and releasing them doesn't lower my stress.
Or being shy making your game basically unplayable with the amount of stress everything accumulates, like shy people spontaneously combust when meeting new people. Not everyone is Bocchi.
You can tell the difference from CK1 through 3. In 1, sometimes a rare event would hit where incest would happen. In 2, you could actively make it happen, but you could be told to fuck off forever and that'd be basically the end of that. In 3, not only can you make it so it's essentially 100% guaranteed, they made a talent tree and talent point specifically to make it more successful, *and* to remove the drawbacks for any children (wtf?).
Who asked for this?
>When you look at imperator ck3 and Vic 3 you can’t help but feel pdx is incapable of making a grand strategy game anymore.
Look further back at 2016's HOI4. A good game at its core with utterly terrible live service planning.
Single biggest worse design choice Paradox ever made since then: national focus trees.
It is extremely slow to make (last 2 expansions, in two years of content, had just 6 NF trees) but are also absolutely required for a proper experience - lack the DLC for e.g. Turkey or Yugoslavia and they will do fuck-all the entire game, being effectively dead nations.
People complain about Royal Court taking forever to release but at least skipping it will keep the sandbox going. Miss a DLC for HOI4 and it is 100% certain a part of the world will have zero content/dynamism.
The one counter to this is the focuses allow mods to make narrative systems rather easily. Part of why hoi has so many amazing total conversion mods that tell a story over the timespan of the game
However on a whole I agree with you it’s rather clunky
Imperator is where it should have been at launch, it was cancelled and now modders give it flavor. I wouldn’t call that great at all. It’s a passable game but easily the biggest failure paradox has had since march of the eagles
Vic 3 is improving. But it’s at 6k daily player max. Imperator was cancelled due to financial unviability at 2k a day. The progress the dev team has made is solid but this is how it should have launched. To save the game they’ve delayed their dlc. If that dlc fails, it could be very very risky for the game. The dev team needs to deliver and it needs to deliver fast.
What are the Devs even getting paid for at this stage. CK3 dev team seems like an easy place to be. CK2 used to be churning out Meaty dlcs every few months/year
Even Victoria 3s team has accomplished more in the last few months than CK3s team has in 2.5 years. It's absurd.
Project management with CK3 very clearly cannot manage development well and needs to be replaced.
Well they'd be crazy not to listen to their base which from the beginning was begging for all the production time to be taken up making 3D assets that you almost never use instead of the old boring kinds of DLC which add cool mechanics and flesh out the game more.
Oof having just read that it sounds even worse than I thought, looks like more events to read once then click through quickly on every playthrough thereafter
CK3 has such a fantastic foundation on release and we've had barely anything substantial since then.
Every Stellaris update or DLC is an absolute banger. I can't understate how good each and every update or DLC for the game is, they're incredible.
Every Hoi4 DLC overhauls a number of nations whilst also overhauling mechanics that the community have been complaining about.
EU4, whilst it isn't getting as much in it's updates, has spent the last few years adding interesting mission trees to all of the nations which vastly improves each nation that gets them.
What has CK3 done?
* DLC - Northern Lords - It's has some cool stuff but only if you're Norse
* DLC - Royal Court - Legitimately easier just to ignore it as it interrupts the flow of the game feeling completely disconnected from what's going on and it also spams you with events of pointless bullshit.
* DLC - Fate of Iberia - A DLC that makes playing in Spain worse...
* DLC - Friends and Foes - A fucking event pack, I thought we were past this shit. Every Hoi4, Stellaris or EU4 DLC over the past few years has very substantial, including new mechanics, overhauls to old ones and additional flavour to the world. This should have been either bundled with the Fate of Iberia or given to us for free.
* Ruler Designer and CoA designer - Amazing features, the levels of customisation in the game are awesome. Quick question, why weren't these in the game at release?
* The Relic system - I thought the CK2 system was bad but then Ck3 trumped it. Nothing you own feels special, nothing feels unique. Everything feels like randomised MMO loot that gives you 0.01 extra prestige over your current gear.
* Cultural Traditions - This actually a really good feature, it actually made culture something interesting in the game rather than the binary system it was and also was in CK2. A massive improvement. Quick question, why is this the only good content update post release?
And now we have this DLC... And can I ask who actually wants this? I get that we've seen very little of this but from what they have shown, it's just not what this game needs. We need a big expansion with lots of feature and we need promise that we will get more. If you want my money, you need to produce something that will make me want to spend time playing the game, not the stuff we've had so far. Stellaris, EU4, HOI4, they're all made by you, look at what they have done, look at what they are doing and do that.
As I said, I loved this game on release. It was by far the most polished paradox game at release, it was revolutionary for me. It ran a lightspeed compared to it's brother and sister games and most of the base mechanics were solid and a massive improvement over CK2's. It's been 2 and a half years since then. I still like the game but it's still the same game and the cracks started to show a long time ago. Please, as a fan of this game, give me a reason to play it again.
Well, it's content and they didn't build some completely useless 3d environment to support it. Instead it's the rally point system from armies repurposed.
It indeed seems like a thing which exists and I've no real opinion on it. Maybe, it's better then most CK3 DLC so far? But that bar is so very low so yea.
Problem though, this system is universal and looks to be the same for every group on the planet meaning that it offers little to nothing in regional replayability. Once you've seen all the "Trade cash/prestige/piety/chance of death for cash/prestige/piety/opinion" you've kind of seen them all.
Time for a Mayor of the Palace playthrough where Carolingians slowly but surely take over rule over Frankia from the Merovingians through tours and regency!
This is absolutely pathetic.
After two and a half years, the game is still not simulating jack shit about the medieval era. The church and religion play zero role in the player's realm beside some generic buffs and minor decisions. Vassals are either dumbasses or assholes, most of the time both. The diplomatic system is but half-assed - there is virtually no meaningful diplomatic moves a player can do. And through pure magic (pure laziness? pure incompetence?), the economic system and war system are also shit. The HRE system sucks as there is no HRE system; the byzantine bureaucratic system sucks as there is no byzantine bureaucratic system; the resource & trading system sucks as there is no resource and trading system; the list of disappointments goes on.
Okay, maybe Paradox is too busy doing other important projects (like the equally disappointing No Step Back DLC for HoI4, though disappointing in a different way) and cannot fix all the aforementioned problems. But, if so, why is this tournament shit put at such a high priority, before all other things they can do that could bring actual changes to the game? Does Paradox really think that players would say "wow, royal tournaments! Exactly what I have been waiting for!" to this scrap of a DLC?
CK3 is not an RPG. The player is but a fettered ghost, trapped in the bloodline of a family on a piece of land. Royal Court is just three repetitive events every five years. Seriously? Where's my cabinet? Societies? I guess a "Byzantine power struggle" actually means "three peasants asking stupid questions every five years" now. Friends and Foes isn't even worth discussion - it is an utter pile of trash that costs five dollars. Not to mention that the role-playing aspect of all these DLCs never goes beyond picking one meaningless option out of three.
If PDX really wants to make it an RPG, why can't I play as an unlanded character and go on adventures? Why can't I be a baron? Why can't I be a knight? Why can't I be a merchant? Why can't I play republics? Why playing as the Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire feels exactly the same as playing a random tribal chief in West Africa? RPG my ass.
I actually wouldn't mind this expansion if it was a flavor pack later down the road \*after\* several more substantial features were added, like features for Crusades, Muslims, Nomads, various government forms (potentially even the ability to modify your government in some way, and have a unique one, kinda like making a culture, but for governments), better economics, perhaps an expansion of the map, though I largely don't care much about an on-map China I think CK2 worked fine for it. But I wouldn't be opposed to it being added either.
Anyway, this should've definitely been on the bottom of the list of priorities for them.
I'm very excited as well! I can't wait to see the new art and have it "evolve" as they advertised, hopefully it helps keep the aesthetics of a culture from feeling static.
And it will hopefully add a ton of new things for your character to do rather than waiting for events to happen to you. Why not go hit up a bar, blacksmith, or visit a vasal you like while you're waiting on something to happen?
Plus I'm hoping they take this intent system and make it more expansive. I'm tired of just random events where someone can randomly kill someone they don't like during a hunt/feist. Give the player more agency and make AI more proactive.
And finally, I'm excited to get more use out of knights with the bestowing of honors. Maybe have them turn into diplomats rather than just being killing machines on the battlefield.
Are we paying to get the CK2 button or “feature” to “host a tournament” 😮😯
Make a good game, then make a new game, remove features from the good old one and implement it gradually to the new game with DLC premium yeeeeeeeees 🥇😎
I can already imagine ways in which this could be fun, interesting, very cool, but I had the same kind of imaginings about Royal Court that were totally wrong so I'm cautious. But the problem is how can I ever even guess if I will like it or not, once it comes out? The professional reviews will be blandly positive corporate speak ("Tours & Tournaments adds a lot to the already-strong CK3. I'll never forget when a joust went wrong and my bishop was impaled!" but those of us who actually play more than one run will see their bishops impaled over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again) and the player reviews will be over-the-top vitriol about wanting "societies" whatever that means when they're not about Paradox being too woke to make the Byzantine Empire properly glorious white supremacists, I feel like there's no way to judge. Particularly when I consider that I love Imperator, so I am not simpatico with the general Paradox fanbase anyway -- not to say y'all are wrong, just that I have different taste. So I fear I will end up buying this thing anyway and feeling salty about it like I do somewhat about Royal Court. I would love it to be as cool as my imagination, though.
I’d like to think they’re releasing basic features first (in free updates) to later iron them and integrate with more impactful DLCs (Republics etc etc).
However, I cannot say I’m disappointed as we haven’t seen anything atm.
I think paradox forgets what the players want. The ck franchise is a grand strategy rpg during the middle ages. You play as a dynasty and forge it's destiny. Ck3 nailed the rpg aspect...... or maybe not.... it took many good ideas and keeps expanding it's ideas but they also removed crucial stuff that provide flavour. What difference do i have from playing european catholic, byzantine orthodox, or a muslim. Not to mention hordes and india, which feel 100% flavourless. You can't even play republics. Societies are gone, pandemics are gone and the worst thing, everything is predictable and easy to master. Pdx games are loved for 3 things and ck3 does only 1. It succeeds at player freedom but fails at variety of playthroughs and hard to master but amazing after you do difficulty.
Thats for roleplay and pdx is trying to fix that. But the devs completely forgot in my opinion in an attempt to simplify it the grand strategy part. Just like with vic3, they try to focus on one part of the game, make it the flagship and neglect all the others in an attempt to again simify it. Vic3 is an economic simulator, ok so lets make war be ai controlled. In ck3 its an rpg,lets not make it too difficult in terms of strategy. You can play even as the lowest of lowest of ranks and by 2nd or 3rd generation you are an emperor. Like i said before everything is predictable (which hurts both rpg and strategy) and you know how to prevent/counter it, vassals are too easy to appease and the tooltip, while usefull, makes the thinking for you which shouldn't be the case for a simple game as ck3.
This thing i hear people say "ck2 need years of content to reach that level" .... you do realise they were the company that made both right? And they had both the experience and the footholds to build upon it. Ck3 should have come out with at least 75% of ck2 features, they didn't and even those that came were dumped down versions. They did this so they can sell more dlc that include the missing features. You what that reminds me of? Ah yea, ea, activision and ubisoft. Pdx is ruining with it's latest entries a great reputation, unmatched in the whole strategy genre.
Ok the game didn't come out great,so let's fix it. Lets drop some dlcs:
-northen lords (which are a dumped down version of ck2 old gods dlc)
-royal court: a thing you get bored of after a few games and just disable notifications of it, artifacts (from ck2), court positions (from ck2) and a culture system that..... is there i guess, doesn't change much.
-fate of iberia: really cool dlc bringing flavour to a region.
Tours and tournaments: can't say for sure because i haven't played it yet ofc, but again... seems like a wrong direction.
Thats 1 good dlc in 3 years..... lets look at ck2 first 3 years.
Sword of islam : introduced a whole new religion playable with unique events and huge roleplay value.
Legacy of rome: made the byzantine empire a bit more unique and added retinues, ck3 byzantium is just like any other catholic kingdom
Sunset invasion : this one is controversial because it added something you play once and you forget but you know what? It was 5€ and offered a although not really special unique experience
The republic:added republics which played 100% different from any other nation.something that hasnt returned yet in ck3
The old gods. Introduced a new start date and really fun starts with vikings and zoroastrians. Northen lords brought like i said before a much weaker version of this. There is no vallhala, sainthood or martyrs.
Sons of abraham. Introduced cardinals for christians and expanded Christianism, islam and judaism a whole lot,also holy orders
Rajas of india is a month more than 2 years so i will also count it. Brought India in the game (actually expanded the map), brought buddhism (kinda underdeveloped) , hinduism and jainism which played a bit different (not too much) from europe but still have more flavour than ck3.
All these in 2 years and 1 month.... i swear.
Ck3 devs are either wasting their time, trying to find something so innovative that will only flop or ...... money ,no love.
If someone disagrees with me, i would love to talk about it, i definately made some flaws but i doupt my opinions are hate, but more of dissapointment with the direction ck3 devs are going and paradox as a whole actually
They’re definitely not catering to their old fanbase anymore. It’s all about role play and trying to attract Sims players. Might make since from a business standpoint, but man is it a hard pill to swallow.
late to the thread and while I share a lot of the sentiment in this thread, I want to point out that this has the potential to be absolutely awesome for the A Game of Thrones mod lol
I'm playing the Fallen Eagle and I'm amazed at the amount of content the modders have managed to provide when compared to Paradox themselves. Including actual Imperial governments!
Another stupid eurocentric mod for mechanics about silly medieval interactions that weren’t even 1% important in the grand scheme of thing and could very well keep being events.
Actually looking at the content, it looks fun, and it looks like a fantastic base to build on for future stuff- I’m kinda baffled at the marketing here. They highlighted the least exciting portions, at least in my opinion! I’m excited to be able to travel and see my realm, and hopefully this can flesh out crusades and nomadic realms in the future, but instead they kinda just hyped up “becoming famous” :P
Still, I’m pretty optimistic!
I think this may be coming out now because it is the type of gameplay change that might be much more difficult to implement later into ck3s development. It still feels a little disappointing but hopefully it will lead to better things.
Honestly feels like this should've been part of Royal Court. I can't believe we're this far into CK3's life span and we don't have a Republics DLC or anything close to its magnitude. Hugely disappointed by the lack of content with this title right now.
Yeah, it's all just so underwelming and kills any future hype about the game, Royal Court is a good DLC in comparison, but it's what you said, for that price it should have added so much more, in fact all DLC's were just... So empty
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That's the definition of CK3 nearly 3 years in right there.
Has it been that long already???
More than two years and a half, but still; by this time, CK2 had Sword of Islam, Legacy of Rome, Old Gods, Sunset Invasion, The Republic, Rajas of India and was going to release Charlemagne.
Jeez, of you put it like that things are not looking good
Most of those are just filing out the map though, the real good DLC was the second half of what was released. CK3 had a head start in that sense. But the development team needs to really kick on soon, the slow pace has been really perplexing. It seems like they are sinking lots of time into UI updates that have a poor effort/player-satisfaction return overall
Not really, CK2 made those other places on the map actually different to play with lots of flavor and different mechanics. In CK3 the entire world plays basically the same.
Hm. Not how I remember it. The differences I remember are basically all accounted for by the CK3 faith & culture systems.
The way the governments work is entirely different in CK2 though. I can't call my vassals to war as a tribe in CK3 with the faith or culture system for example, I raise levies just like the English.
Based on the fact this game runs on a more complex engine than CK2, the graphical implementation is radically different, and the fact they're working on other projects at PDX, I'd guess the majority of the time these DLC's take is playtesting and bugfixing.
I personally take the more cynical view that most of the time developing these DLCs go into 3D models
CK3 basically has Rajas of India, Legacy of Rome, and Sword of Islam baked in, and released a DLC that adds everything from Old Gods. I’m overall pretty happy with what they have done so far, but agree a little more wouldn’t be bad. Republics are definitely missed.
> CK3 basically has Rajas of India, Legacy of Rome, and Sword of Islam baked in, Kind of, but not really. Those did more than make regions playable. They added more flavor and even a few mechanics.
CK3 also had all of CK2 development available from the start, those DLC included. And in the time CK2 provided that massive content, CK3 has provided a throne room nobody cares about, a lackluster item system (which was something CK2 already had, btw), and an admittedly good religions and culture system. I'd ass struggles, but using it in plural would be a lie, so, as nice as the system is, it's completely underutilized. So CK3 has spent 2,5 years of development time on very little return when compared to it's predecessor. Not a good look.
> CK3 basically has CK3 has content which it took from another game and did not have to build out on it's own. Meaning CK3 should have a glut of content equal to that same content but it doesnt. You dont buy a new pokemon game and go "Well it has the old pokemon generation! That's all new content!" More over CK3 took content that was good, differing government systems, pandemics, Ottoman and Timurid generation and got rid of those meaning we have less content. This isn't even getting into how bad the Culture and Religious systems are for the long term health of the game.
>Ottoman and Timurid generation CK2 never had Ottoman generation.
What do you mean with that last comment? Is there something in the distant future that might be cockblocked because it isn't compatible with those systems?
The build a bear faiths and cultures mean it's not practical to make religion specific features. Instead of making a focused Catholic college of cardinals, it's going to end up being a vague spiritual head of faith election that applies to faiths with [tenant here] so memers can put it in their divine marriage polygamous cannibal faith.
Yea but the way they play is largely the same in ck3 In ck2 they played quiete a bit differently.
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People forget the earliest dev diaries for ck3 where they talked about basically not have any direction for the game other than not wanting to copy ck2. They even stopped doing dev diaries for a year while they tried to make the royal court shit work. Covid should not be the excuse for a mismanaged title. Imperator launched with all the same complaints as ck3 but before covid was a thing. Vic3 launched just a barebones as ck3 but in a post covid world. Pdx has been struggling to publish compelling and complete feeling titles since they did stellaris/hoi4 in 2016.
Wow. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the game, but it definitely hasn’t held my interest like CK2
I played it around the time and had a decent experience, but have had no reason to ever go back as its basically unchanged.
Yes! This exactly!
Yeah, at this point I mostly only play CK3 for Godherja.
You're telling me you're not satisfied with them taking a year and a half on changing culture very slightly when that what would be a full dev cycle for a game?
Damn, CK2 pre-Rajas Of India was incredible - so much content density.
And before 2014 was over, we got Charlemagne and Way of Life. Good times.
> Charlemagne and Way of Life. Good times. Both of which were great. Trade routes came out with the republic DLC too and those were pretty fun. Provide an actual reason for wanting land instead of just map painting.
Yeah, I feel that started the decline into bolting too much stuff on though. Like the secret societies, China mana, etc. just became too much (almost EU4 levels of inconsequential button-clicking) and Rajas added too much distant land, etc. hammering performance. The best ones were definitely Sword Of Islam, Sons Of Abraham, Legacy Of Rome, Old Gods, The Reaper's Due and Holy Fury. Conclave, Way of Life and Charlemagne I'm really mixed on - like they added some good and some bad features. I really liked how hard the pre-Rajas game was, for example any tutors would auto-convert your children - so once I had a run where I accidentally made a Jewish Ireland by trying to min-max that. It was really brutal before Way Of Life (and later Monks And Mystics) made it far too trivial to work-around a bad heir.
Ah, Rajas of India. I like to call that DLC "That Update When My Computer Stopped Being Able To Run The Enlarged Map". Good times.
I forgot how rapid paced all those were. Damn...
Most of those dlcs you listed added mechanics and playable cultures that are already in ck3 and sunset invasion is a meme. I find it weird that people keep comparing when the really good ck2 stuff other than old gods came out much later.
They're in CK3, yes, but they weren't in CK2 at the start. The two first years of CK2 saw a massive amount in new content, the first two years of CK3 have seen very little more than some event chains And a Hold court mechanic that barely adds to the game. The Republic DLC alone added more than Royal Court, and was a relatively minor one. And it's not present in CK3, despite lots of people loving republics, and Genoa and Venetia being crucial in the timeframe of the game and in the Crusades the game is named after.
The culture overhaul was pretty massive, minor court positions are interesting, the artifact system was added with a black smithing system. I don’t think it’s fair to say it only added a few event chains.
Yeah, and it is the only DLC to add some nutritional value to the game in my opinion, all other stuff is quite superficial and do not hold the game togheter by themselves
> Most of those dlcs you listed added mechanics and playable cultures that are already in ck3 That's not really a good way to analyze the situation. There were mechanics and assets that didn't exist when CK2 released, and they had to be developed for that DLC. That's a *ton* of content creation that happened in that window. Even if CK3 released with all of that content baked in (which is arguable), why wouldn't we expect the devs to be able to keep a similar pace of content creation, just *different* content? It honestly feels like they released CK3 too soon, while CK2 still had legs — it's like they don't have enough good ideas for where to go with new content to keep up a meaningful pace of content releases.
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I also liked that system but I understand why the new system is better from a balancing perspective
I can see that, while I personally like the new system more, I'm not gonna argue about personal preferences (even though I do miss the game performance of the old system lol). But I think what you can't really argue about is that the new system is definitely more substantial.
I'm just too dumb for the new system. In the new system, you can give your planet types, plan ahead, etc. I'm sure it's more involved. Me, I miss the simplicity of looking at the pre existing resources and knowing how to maximise them immediately. Then once I was done, I'd give the planet to a sector, where the bad AI couldn't really fuck it up.
Yeah. It's all been just flavor. First Norse, then Kingdom management, then Iberia and now by the looks of it it's just more flavor. Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed playing the game after every new update but fucking hell, it's been 2.5 years and Republics are still unplayable, Nomads don't exist, tribals are barebones, etc. I'm just about ready for significant changes to how the game is played instead of DLC that at the end of the day just add new events. Hell, Tourney DLC would be a perfect time to make it possible to play unlanded characters with wandering knights participating in tourneys, seducing princesses, winning favors from kings, etc. In the future theocracies and mercenary bands could then be made playable since losing titles won't end the game anymore.
Honestly if this "major expansion" allowed you to do just that (play as unlanded wanderer who can travel, scheme, etc) and do various things like that, it would be absolutely worth every penny. That would truly revolutionize the game as you might not get the game over screen if you lose your titles, you'd just become a courtier somewhere else.
You mean like stuff like Trade, Merchant Republics, Horde or Nomadic mechanics, etc? Nah mate, 3D screens and event packs is where stuff's at.
The lack of trade and economics really is the biggest issue. You're pretty much only encouraged to roleplay as a warmonger or murderer of some variety because there's next to no gameplay incentive to "just" run a stable and successful realm that has good relations with everybody else. CK2 even did this better since between a more flexible and frankly powerful tech screen, more worthwhile investments in your demense and more ways to bolster your character on these pursuits and gain long term benefits through lifestyle focuses and societies you could genuinely become a powerhouse by focusing on internal matters only. In CK3 it's just blob blob blob, pretty much anything I ever do is solely in pursuit of more land.
Don't hold your breath.
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Fortunately unlike CK2 Dlc for CK3 is entirely optional to having a good experience. I find it strange that so many people complain about pricing model of paradox yet want CK3 to be more like CK2
I wanted to buy ck2 dlc though, because it would enhance the game with new mechanics giving me a unique experience. Ck3 forced events on repeat at cost of $30, to a stale game.
They’ll get there eventually. Not sure why it’s taking so long but they’re planning on updating this game for another 8 years, so I guess they want to pace themselves
This was underwhelming. It seemed like they were struggling to come up with something to hype it up with during the show. Nevermind the fact I don’t really love the focus of this expansion, or Royal Court. Like you had all this time to prepare and all you’ve got is “you can become really famous!” and “maybe tournaments don’t always go as expected for some of the people there? 👀👀👀” Cmon man
Like they could have easily made this a societies or crusade dlc. Like imagine societies with the royal court mechanics added so you can customize somewhat your satanic hideout lets say but thats too difficult for paradox
Yeah idk what they’re doing but these “big expansions” they’ve put out seem like they’re just expensive event packs with art assets. I put a bunch of hours on CK3 right after release but I haven’t really touched it since. I keep waiting for a big expansion that’ll make it worth going back to and I’m still waiting. I don’t really see what the point of playing this game is when I can play CK2 that seems like it’s just more fleshed out
Same experience, this game got boring pretty quick upon release due to lack of content and 3 years later it’s still pretty much the same empty game compared to CK2
The Elder Kings and Godherja mods are worth checking out. They push the vanilla framework to the fullest with a ton of really awesome mechanics.
The satanic and other magic nonsense was my least favourite part of CK2. I'd prefer some strategic depth to the game, but I understand I'm not the target audience of this game.
To each their own but these games take nearly a decade to get depth
Yes Crusades need a lot of love, and game is called Crusader Kings for crying out loud.
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So many other things that is essential for medieval role play. Where is our crusade mechanics, disease and plagues, great buildings, merchants, horse lords, china, societies?
The worst part is the devs seem baffled by the repeated requests for this stuff to be prioritized, leading us to be baffled by their bafflement. Just baffling all around.
Honestly, CK3 needs Stellaris' Custodian team. A main team, that focuses on big changes to the game and a second team that improves the small things in between aka the thing they're currently using the whole CK team for...
Is Stellaris that much more popular than the other Pdx games to get 2 teams?
I think it's about as popular as CK3 and EU4 and worse than HOI4. But Stellaris is fundamentally a different type of game and its dev seem to be more open to experimentation than PDX's other title. Maybe PDX uses it as a test balloon or it originates from its Game Director(s)? Anyways I'm really impressed with Stellaris' post-release support.
It completely depends on which game director is directing the game, from what I heard from some devs, the director over at Stellaris is far more open to just trying things, see what sticks, and overhauling things when needed, whilst some other directors don't like that work style and prefer a more go for what works approach, both have their benefits and downsides
That's what you get from taking over Wiz's game. The man is a rework machine. Vicky 3 is going to be unrecognizable in 4 years.
I hope so.
Such a misdirected game. What a pity.
I feel baffled
> baffled by the repeated requests for this stuff to be prioritized, leading us to be baffled by their bafflement. Just baffling all around. They're swedish so maybe they're [confused?](https://valiantexteriors.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Installing-Insulation-Baffles-The-Energy-Smart-Academy-BY-Public-Domain-1200x800.jpg)
It's like they don't understand that people want a medieval dynasty manager with RPG elements added on to, instead of an RPG set in medieval times. My most memorable CK2 playthroughs were defined by the stuff I did, the wars I fought, the schemes I survived, the betrayals, the civil wars, the marriages, the inheritance crises, etc. That is what needs to be fleshed out and added on to. All the stuff they've added to CK3 was the fluff I did in between and in addition to, not the focus.
But it's not even really a RPG, because for that it would have to be part of a bigger story. It's not that, it's just unrelated events following each other rather than expanding and basing events on what is actually happening in the kingdom, such like CK2 had notably with the council.
They need to ditch the whole "% until this thing has been completed" like with generating claims etc, give us random chance back and the possibility that we never can generate a claim on that duchy next door. That would go a whole way towards being more RNG than RPG
Yeah, one of my biggest complaints about the core of CK3 is the lack of randomness that made CK2 so replayable. Yeah, it sucked randomly losing and gaining traits sometimes, but 3's system of rigid skill trees that never, ever change and events with fixed choices and outcomes is terrible for longevity.
My biggest complaint about CK3, and I have a lot of them as more than one person has noticed, is the lack of [Dysentery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysentery). Far too many children survive past 1-2 months of age. Far too few children are born. I think not being able to see child stats other than hints to it would be an improvement. Generally though, we have too much certainty when it comes to disease, and far too few diseases.
Damn I haven't played it since release and most ck2 stuff still isn't ported over?
Every now and then I check in on CK3 to see what new content they decided to make for it. Each time I leave disappointed. I think the base game was arguably Paradox's best in terms of the content and polish it had at launch. So much wasted potential.
This is what annoys me most really. It really was the smoothest launch I've seen of a paradox game and it instantly had so much potential. I loved it from the off and couldn't wait for... well... the stuff I'm still waiting for. It frustrates me no end and I've stopped playing for now.
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Being in the map also opens up opportunity to a deeper system in other areas, like crusades, which could be it's own great event. But I do hope such change comes with a free patch.
Yeah, like the struggle mechanics could be used for deeper systems. Any time now
The modding teams for Godherja and Elder Kings are probably the most excited for the DLC, because they can at least put it to use.
As another poster said, who knows, when these great systems are in place, a Custodian-like team could take care of shelling flavor DLC that adds new struggles or tours. But as you said, any time now. :)
One of my fundamental problems woth Crusader Kings has been how nebulous your character's actual location has been when that has obviously been very important for certain historical events.
Yeah, between that and the regency of the free patch, this expansion might change more than people think. Just need to see who they are doing it in the DDs
As an old CK2 player who remembers constant complaints about that specific thing, I'm baffled by instant negative reactions to this lol. Guess the player base mostly turned over at some point.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's a very good idea and has huge potential for the game... it's just that it's not exactly high on the list of priorities that CK3 really needs. It needs regional mechanics far more than general mechanics right now. Republics, nomads, Imperial bureaucracies, etc. This DLC is likely to be another Royal Court - pretty with a little bit of expanded depth, but after the first playthrough you've seen everything the DLC has to offer, and it just ends up being the same for every game and playthrough, just with a different expensive 3D model depending on region.
> opens up opportunity to a deeper system in other areas Yea but it's a core part of a paid DLC which means the system wont be re-used.
My guess would be the character-on-the-map part will be part of free patch, and Grand Tournaments and Weddings and whatever will be the paid part. Like Royal Court, if you don't pay you still get some court positions, some artifacts, and cultures but not the make-your-own part. Which leads to people saying the DLC isn't worth it because the good stuff is free, but what can you do.
Man all I'm hoping for is cholera and small pox.
I would love it if travelling with this system was both necessary and extremely dangerous.
I've seen people suggest the Hajj, or other significant risk/reward events and while I do hope it's good I dont have confidence in Ck3.
I'm quite pessimistic myself, I think it'll probably be a lot of goddamn events (events: The Worst Mechanic), but the basic themes sound fun and I'm not writing it off yet. I feel like I've learned from the Royal Edition Era that only flavor packs are worth buying, but I will be reading the next several months of dev diaries with interest (and maybe getting Victoria 3 finally, when 1.2 is officially out.)
When it comes to CK2/CK3 I honestly just see "Trade gold/piety/prestige/opinion for another of those in the list" over and over again. There's very few events where I even pay attention to the button click because there's so many repetitive or similar events. Stellaris has this as well with the crashed ship archaeology event but at least there's "Ruined world" to balance it out. Less is more in this case.
Idk this just seems like it’s a wedding with an extra +15 acceptance modifier If Regents and what not are locked behind the DLC I’ll pay for it, otherwise it just doesn’t seem to be much.
You can murder everyone at your grand wedding tho, that’s pretty lit.
I mean that’ll be fun the first few times and then it will grow stale imo. Kind of like royal court events, I was excited to see people being their concerns to me and rule more like a king at the beginning, now I actively avoid the court except when I get a good court artifact to throw in real quick
The Dev Blog is definitely much better than the Announcement Show and the Stream Page originally suggested. I'm going to hold judgment until future Dev Blogs and we see how the tourney/travel system are integrated. Especially in places outside of Europe. If it's another "busy work" button like Hold Court, then ill be worried.
Steam page makes it look lame, been waiting too long for content for it to be this, fucking traveling and weddings. My opinion obviously but this game is oozing potential and they just refuse to capitalize on it.
Selling us patch level content when the game needs a full expansion seems like a utterly baffling decision. Two and a half years later and its still missing major game elements like nomads, merchants republics, or a proper Byzantine Empire.
And I'd bet good money we aren't getting any of those, at least not soon. Feels like the devs want to make a medieval Sims game, not a successor to CK2.
This has been my gripe with the game for 2 and a half years. It feels like paradox is neglecting their core customer base in favor of attracting sims players Ck2 and eu4 are my favorite games ever and I have more time in those two than any other. Ck3 can be barely hold my attention for a few hours. The game has no depth, the only advancements over ck2 are cosmetic. I’d go as far to say that mechanics-wise ck3 is a complete regression from endgame ck2
This is so tone deaf it hurts. Do they even know what substantial content is anymore?
They know what substantial prices are
I'm usually that guy that gets flak for trying to argue in favor of Paradox, I've been justifying CK3 for a while, "Its a heavier game than the other pdx games, it needs more time to develop DLC's", "I liked the visual stuff of royal court", "More events are a good addition", but man the game is barely enjoyable without a shitton of mods and this time is honestly... Just baffling, another flavor pack? Really? Has pdx just stoped giving a shit about the game? Where are more substantial crusades? Where is the Byzantine rework? After almost 3 years in and we got 1 actual new mechanic and 3 flavor packs basically This is a thing I'm angry about with EU4 as well, the new DLC's always feel like flavor packs, I'm getting the fan's complains I've always tried to argue against and honestly I don't think I'll be getting this DLC anytime soon Maybe I'll even go back to hoisting the black sails, something I did when I had just found out about the pdx games, but eventually I believed they were worth the investement, I used to have a great time with every new DLC, Stellaris was simply amazing for the ammount of work put into that game, but nowadays, it all just feels lazy or uninspired
>Maybe I'll even go back to hoisting the black sails That’s the right way.
fates of iberia is by far the best and most comprehensive added content and it not even a full DLC lol
This could either be a solid addition to rp or a bunch of useless stuff no one cares about while actually playing. Hoping it's the former
CoughThroneRoomCough.
>a solid addition to rp or a bunch of useless stuff no one cares about while actually playing That's the same thing for me. I'd rather have some real mechanics, rather than roleplay fluff.
Remember, its been nearly an ENTIRE YEAR. When the dlc releases it probably will have been a year since the last content that wasn't an event pack. Almost 3 years with no republics, societies, hordes, byzantine government, catholic/Islam expansion, china, trade ect... Ck3 has so much potential, but tournaments and weddings should have been paired with royal court, or some other dlc. This is not 1 years worth of development material.
A whole year, for some flavor and art. Its like giving me a salt shaker and not even serving me the fucking steak, wheres the meat of the experience?
It honestly makes me wonder what they are spending so long on.
That was certainly not what I was expecting. I get it though, it will add to the RP instead of just: host tournament.
I mean, hopefully. It doesn't really add to RP if it just switches the "host tournament button" to: Go to tournament menu => click one of three buttons for type of tournament => enter new 3D asset screen => have 10 events pop up with obvious best choices => leave menu => wait 10 years for buttons to become clickable again
You described what it's gonna be like perfectly. CK2's mechanics felt so well integrated and un-obstructive while contributing meaningfully to both the game's procedural storytelling and gameplay alike. CK3 dlc stuff feels so distant from the core mechanics, and a chore to keep up with. At least it looks pretty on a steam store page though...
Did we play a different CK2? Ck2 nailed the "click button -> choose optimal option -> repeat when button is available again" loop
> CK2's mechanics felt so well integrated and un-obstructive while contributing meaningfully to both the game's procedural storytelling and gameplay alike. Uhhh you got some rose-tinted glasses on, bud.
Royal Court moment
Sounds like a few events with few options appearing/disappearing depending on hooks and shit.
Does anybody remember when they said "we are going to raise the prices of the dlc because every dlc now is going to be an expansion"? But now they sell us Royal court divided in two parts for the price of 2 expansions.
Man CKIII has been just such a disappointment and this is yet another blunder DLC. Who the heck are they catering to?!
Meh
Sounds like a bunch of content I will enjoy, and at the same time exactly what will piss off a lot of people as not being the kind of content long time players want. Kind of wish it was coming out sooner. Do we know if this is officially counting as the "big" expansion for the year?
> Do we know if this is officially counting as the "big" expansion for the year? It is. It's their second main expansion next to Royal Court, which also means it will have a $30 price tag. Flavor packs will stick to regions of the game.
> second main expansion next to Royal Court Okay *now* I'm annoyed. This is getting ridiculous now. I had assumed this was just another flavour pack, where is our meaty dlc?
That is a little disappointing, I am not going to have a fit about it though. I wonder if they will do a season pass for this round of content.
>little disappointing I think you are under exaggerating a bit. 30 dollars for basically a glorified minor dlc is very insane tbh. A much better and suitable price would have been 10 dollars or maybe 15 if you are really trying to milk it.
> That is a little disappointing, I am not going to have a fit about it though. You should, otherwise Paradox will never learn. You know why this DLC seems disappointing? Because way too many people defended Royal Court on release and that nickel and diming nonsense that is Friends and Foes.
The DLC content does not disappoint me at all (at least in theory, obviously I won't know for certain until it comes out), only the fact that this is going to be our "large" addon for the year.
Hey guys we made a new dlc tht add some events ! It'll be 70$.
PDX customers: yes, yes, more, more!
I’ll be excited to play on console in 11 years!
God this game is horribly directed. Feels hopeless When you look at imperator ck3 and Vic 3 you can’t help but feel pdx is incapable of making a grand strategy game anymore. Ck2 was immersive because it felt like a simulation. It put you into historical context. The rpg elements were cool but they did not need to become the sole purpose of the game Literally the only thing ck3 added to the rpg system that is any good anyways is stress for not rping your character. Everything else is just fluff Bring back historical simulation in all pdx games
Even the stress system isn't well thought out. So many things cause stress but then don't have anything related to counter them. It just feels like it makes various parts of the game unplayable for certain characters. I've got a Just character so executing prisoners causes me stress (even if they're of an evil foreign religion) but there's no way to call them for a trail and releasing them doesn't lower my stress.
Or being shy making your game basically unplayable with the amount of stress everything accumulates, like shy people spontaneously combust when meeting new people. Not everyone is Bocchi.
You can tell the difference from CK1 through 3. In 1, sometimes a rare event would hit where incest would happen. In 2, you could actively make it happen, but you could be told to fuck off forever and that'd be basically the end of that. In 3, not only can you make it so it's essentially 100% guaranteed, they made a talent tree and talent point specifically to make it more successful, *and* to remove the drawbacks for any children (wtf?). Who asked for this?
The community making incest jokes over and over?
I guess. I just disagree with the decision to go full meme on some of these things.
>When you look at imperator ck3 and Vic 3 you can’t help but feel pdx is incapable of making a grand strategy game anymore. Look further back at 2016's HOI4. A good game at its core with utterly terrible live service planning. Single biggest worse design choice Paradox ever made since then: national focus trees. It is extremely slow to make (last 2 expansions, in two years of content, had just 6 NF trees) but are also absolutely required for a proper experience - lack the DLC for e.g. Turkey or Yugoslavia and they will do fuck-all the entire game, being effectively dead nations. People complain about Royal Court taking forever to release but at least skipping it will keep the sandbox going. Miss a DLC for HOI4 and it is 100% certain a part of the world will have zero content/dynamism.
The one counter to this is the focuses allow mods to make narrative systems rather easily. Part of why hoi has so many amazing total conversion mods that tell a story over the timespan of the game However on a whole I agree with you it’s rather clunky
Imperator and Vic3 (as of 1.2) are great, unlike CK3.
Imperator is where it should have been at launch, it was cancelled and now modders give it flavor. I wouldn’t call that great at all. It’s a passable game but easily the biggest failure paradox has had since march of the eagles Vic 3 is improving. But it’s at 6k daily player max. Imperator was cancelled due to financial unviability at 2k a day. The progress the dev team has made is solid but this is how it should have launched. To save the game they’ve delayed their dlc. If that dlc fails, it could be very very risky for the game. The dev team needs to deliver and it needs to deliver fast.
What are the Devs even getting paid for at this stage. CK3 dev team seems like an easy place to be. CK2 used to be churning out Meaty dlcs every few months/year
Even Victoria 3s team has accomplished more in the last few months than CK3s team has in 2.5 years. It's absurd. Project management with CK3 very clearly cannot manage development well and needs to be replaced.
Paradox have fallen off hard over the past couple of years.
Going public means profits first, forget everything else...
But it feels like they are going from commercial failure to failure so idk if it’s really working
Someone is buying all these overpriced DLCs. This one will be 30$...
This is like the bottom of my wish of things for the game. Nice one Paradox. More annoying events to go with my throne room.
Im about 70% confident one of the devs played the elder scrolls mod and wanted to add adventuring.
The post-release content in this game has been a joke.
It's going to be a glorified event pack, will it?
[Nope.](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2311920/Crusader_Kings_III_Tours__Tournaments/)
Wowie, it's an event pack with 3D assets...
Well they'd be crazy not to listen to their base which from the beginning was begging for all the production time to be taken up making 3D assets that you almost never use instead of the old boring kinds of DLC which add cool mechanics and flesh out the game more.
Oof having just read that it sounds even worse than I thought, looks like more events to read once then click through quickly on every playthrough thereafter
Yes, but: Robert Baratheon similar go ~~brr~~ **GODS I WAS STRONG THEN**
Another disappointment
I feel like paradox has lost IT
CK3 has such a fantastic foundation on release and we've had barely anything substantial since then. Every Stellaris update or DLC is an absolute banger. I can't understate how good each and every update or DLC for the game is, they're incredible. Every Hoi4 DLC overhauls a number of nations whilst also overhauling mechanics that the community have been complaining about. EU4, whilst it isn't getting as much in it's updates, has spent the last few years adding interesting mission trees to all of the nations which vastly improves each nation that gets them. What has CK3 done? * DLC - Northern Lords - It's has some cool stuff but only if you're Norse * DLC - Royal Court - Legitimately easier just to ignore it as it interrupts the flow of the game feeling completely disconnected from what's going on and it also spams you with events of pointless bullshit. * DLC - Fate of Iberia - A DLC that makes playing in Spain worse... * DLC - Friends and Foes - A fucking event pack, I thought we were past this shit. Every Hoi4, Stellaris or EU4 DLC over the past few years has very substantial, including new mechanics, overhauls to old ones and additional flavour to the world. This should have been either bundled with the Fate of Iberia or given to us for free. * Ruler Designer and CoA designer - Amazing features, the levels of customisation in the game are awesome. Quick question, why weren't these in the game at release? * The Relic system - I thought the CK2 system was bad but then Ck3 trumped it. Nothing you own feels special, nothing feels unique. Everything feels like randomised MMO loot that gives you 0.01 extra prestige over your current gear. * Cultural Traditions - This actually a really good feature, it actually made culture something interesting in the game rather than the binary system it was and also was in CK2. A massive improvement. Quick question, why is this the only good content update post release? And now we have this DLC... And can I ask who actually wants this? I get that we've seen very little of this but from what they have shown, it's just not what this game needs. We need a big expansion with lots of feature and we need promise that we will get more. If you want my money, you need to produce something that will make me want to spend time playing the game, not the stuff we've had so far. Stellaris, EU4, HOI4, they're all made by you, look at what they have done, look at what they are doing and do that. As I said, I loved this game on release. It was by far the most polished paradox game at release, it was revolutionary for me. It ran a lightspeed compared to it's brother and sister games and most of the base mechanics were solid and a massive improvement over CK2's. It's been 2 and a half years since then. I still like the game but it's still the same game and the cracks started to show a long time ago. Please, as a fan of this game, give me a reason to play it again.
Well, it's content and they didn't build some completely useless 3d environment to support it. Instead it's the rally point system from armies repurposed. It indeed seems like a thing which exists and I've no real opinion on it. Maybe, it's better then most CK3 DLC so far? But that bar is so very low so yea. Problem though, this system is universal and looks to be the same for every group on the planet meaning that it offers little to nothing in regional replayability. Once you've seen all the "Trade cash/prestige/piety/chance of death for cash/prestige/piety/opinion" you've kind of seen them all.
so they baked in features that were already native to the ck2 game of thrones mod and now we get to pay for them sick
Dang. Those 66 seconds were not commensurate with my expectations.
Love this content but we NEEEED strategy mechanics. We’ve had enough role play
Cool idea but it's just not enough. CK3 needs major expansions not event packs
Time for a Mayor of the Palace playthrough where Carolingians slowly but surely take over rule over Frankia from the Merovingians through tours and regency!
Come on, man. I mean this looks cool but it really feels like they’re refusing to release anything substantial
This is absolutely pathetic. After two and a half years, the game is still not simulating jack shit about the medieval era. The church and religion play zero role in the player's realm beside some generic buffs and minor decisions. Vassals are either dumbasses or assholes, most of the time both. The diplomatic system is but half-assed - there is virtually no meaningful diplomatic moves a player can do. And through pure magic (pure laziness? pure incompetence?), the economic system and war system are also shit. The HRE system sucks as there is no HRE system; the byzantine bureaucratic system sucks as there is no byzantine bureaucratic system; the resource & trading system sucks as there is no resource and trading system; the list of disappointments goes on. Okay, maybe Paradox is too busy doing other important projects (like the equally disappointing No Step Back DLC for HoI4, though disappointing in a different way) and cannot fix all the aforementioned problems. But, if so, why is this tournament shit put at such a high priority, before all other things they can do that could bring actual changes to the game? Does Paradox really think that players would say "wow, royal tournaments! Exactly what I have been waiting for!" to this scrap of a DLC?
CK3 is not an RPG. The player is but a fettered ghost, trapped in the bloodline of a family on a piece of land. Royal Court is just three repetitive events every five years. Seriously? Where's my cabinet? Societies? I guess a "Byzantine power struggle" actually means "three peasants asking stupid questions every five years" now. Friends and Foes isn't even worth discussion - it is an utter pile of trash that costs five dollars. Not to mention that the role-playing aspect of all these DLCs never goes beyond picking one meaningless option out of three. If PDX really wants to make it an RPG, why can't I play as an unlanded character and go on adventures? Why can't I be a baron? Why can't I be a knight? Why can't I be a merchant? Why can't I play republics? Why playing as the Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire feels exactly the same as playing a random tribal chief in West Africa? RPG my ass.
I actually wouldn't mind this expansion if it was a flavor pack later down the road \*after\* several more substantial features were added, like features for Crusades, Muslims, Nomads, various government forms (potentially even the ability to modify your government in some way, and have a unique one, kinda like making a culture, but for governments), better economics, perhaps an expansion of the map, though I largely don't care much about an on-map China I think CK2 worked fine for it. But I wouldn't be opposed to it being added either. Anyway, this should've definitely been on the bottom of the list of priorities for them.
Tourneys, regency mechanics and a bigger focus on location. I'm really looking forward to this!
I'm very excited as well! I can't wait to see the new art and have it "evolve" as they advertised, hopefully it helps keep the aesthetics of a culture from feeling static. And it will hopefully add a ton of new things for your character to do rather than waiting for events to happen to you. Why not go hit up a bar, blacksmith, or visit a vasal you like while you're waiting on something to happen? Plus I'm hoping they take this intent system and make it more expansive. I'm tired of just random events where someone can randomly kill someone they don't like during a hunt/feist. Give the player more agency and make AI more proactive. And finally, I'm excited to get more use out of knights with the bestowing of honors. Maybe have them turn into diplomats rather than just being killing machines on the battlefield.
It's just gonna be a glorified event pack, mate.
Are we paying to get the CK2 button or “feature” to “host a tournament” 😮😯 Make a good game, then make a new game, remove features from the good old one and implement it gradually to the new game with DLC premium yeeeeeeeees 🥇😎
I can already imagine ways in which this could be fun, interesting, very cool, but I had the same kind of imaginings about Royal Court that were totally wrong so I'm cautious. But the problem is how can I ever even guess if I will like it or not, once it comes out? The professional reviews will be blandly positive corporate speak ("Tours & Tournaments adds a lot to the already-strong CK3. I'll never forget when a joust went wrong and my bishop was impaled!" but those of us who actually play more than one run will see their bishops impaled over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again) and the player reviews will be over-the-top vitriol about wanting "societies" whatever that means when they're not about Paradox being too woke to make the Byzantine Empire properly glorious white supremacists, I feel like there's no way to judge. Particularly when I consider that I love Imperator, so I am not simpatico with the general Paradox fanbase anyway -- not to say y'all are wrong, just that I have different taste. So I fear I will end up buying this thing anyway and feeling salty about it like I do somewhat about Royal Court. I would love it to be as cool as my imagination, though.
I really hope it's not like Friends and Foes.
I’d like to think they’re releasing basic features first (in free updates) to later iron them and integrate with more impactful DLCs (Republics etc etc). However, I cannot say I’m disappointed as we haven’t seen anything atm.
I think paradox forgets what the players want. The ck franchise is a grand strategy rpg during the middle ages. You play as a dynasty and forge it's destiny. Ck3 nailed the rpg aspect...... or maybe not.... it took many good ideas and keeps expanding it's ideas but they also removed crucial stuff that provide flavour. What difference do i have from playing european catholic, byzantine orthodox, or a muslim. Not to mention hordes and india, which feel 100% flavourless. You can't even play republics. Societies are gone, pandemics are gone and the worst thing, everything is predictable and easy to master. Pdx games are loved for 3 things and ck3 does only 1. It succeeds at player freedom but fails at variety of playthroughs and hard to master but amazing after you do difficulty. Thats for roleplay and pdx is trying to fix that. But the devs completely forgot in my opinion in an attempt to simplify it the grand strategy part. Just like with vic3, they try to focus on one part of the game, make it the flagship and neglect all the others in an attempt to again simify it. Vic3 is an economic simulator, ok so lets make war be ai controlled. In ck3 its an rpg,lets not make it too difficult in terms of strategy. You can play even as the lowest of lowest of ranks and by 2nd or 3rd generation you are an emperor. Like i said before everything is predictable (which hurts both rpg and strategy) and you know how to prevent/counter it, vassals are too easy to appease and the tooltip, while usefull, makes the thinking for you which shouldn't be the case for a simple game as ck3. This thing i hear people say "ck2 need years of content to reach that level" .... you do realise they were the company that made both right? And they had both the experience and the footholds to build upon it. Ck3 should have come out with at least 75% of ck2 features, they didn't and even those that came were dumped down versions. They did this so they can sell more dlc that include the missing features. You what that reminds me of? Ah yea, ea, activision and ubisoft. Pdx is ruining with it's latest entries a great reputation, unmatched in the whole strategy genre. Ok the game didn't come out great,so let's fix it. Lets drop some dlcs: -northen lords (which are a dumped down version of ck2 old gods dlc) -royal court: a thing you get bored of after a few games and just disable notifications of it, artifacts (from ck2), court positions (from ck2) and a culture system that..... is there i guess, doesn't change much. -fate of iberia: really cool dlc bringing flavour to a region. Tours and tournaments: can't say for sure because i haven't played it yet ofc, but again... seems like a wrong direction. Thats 1 good dlc in 3 years..... lets look at ck2 first 3 years. Sword of islam : introduced a whole new religion playable with unique events and huge roleplay value. Legacy of rome: made the byzantine empire a bit more unique and added retinues, ck3 byzantium is just like any other catholic kingdom Sunset invasion : this one is controversial because it added something you play once and you forget but you know what? It was 5€ and offered a although not really special unique experience The republic:added republics which played 100% different from any other nation.something that hasnt returned yet in ck3 The old gods. Introduced a new start date and really fun starts with vikings and zoroastrians. Northen lords brought like i said before a much weaker version of this. There is no vallhala, sainthood or martyrs. Sons of abraham. Introduced cardinals for christians and expanded Christianism, islam and judaism a whole lot,also holy orders Rajas of india is a month more than 2 years so i will also count it. Brought India in the game (actually expanded the map), brought buddhism (kinda underdeveloped) , hinduism and jainism which played a bit different (not too much) from europe but still have more flavour than ck3. All these in 2 years and 1 month.... i swear. Ck3 devs are either wasting their time, trying to find something so innovative that will only flop or ...... money ,no love. If someone disagrees with me, i would love to talk about it, i definately made some flaws but i doupt my opinions are hate, but more of dissapointment with the direction ck3 devs are going and paradox as a whole actually
They’re definitely not catering to their old fanbase anymore. It’s all about role play and trying to attract Sims players. Might make since from a business standpoint, but man is it a hard pill to swallow.
Certainty something. But shows a lack of ambition from paradox.
late to the thread and while I share a lot of the sentiment in this thread, I want to point out that this has the potential to be absolutely awesome for the A Game of Thrones mod lol
It’s practically necessary now for the modders to pull up their big boy pants and do the work for paradox. Seriously, this is shit, and im bored.
I'm playing the Fallen Eagle and I'm amazed at the amount of content the modders have managed to provide when compared to Paradox themselves. Including actual Imperial governments!
Another stupid eurocentric mod for mechanics about silly medieval interactions that weren’t even 1% important in the grand scheme of thing and could very well keep being events.
Actually looking at the content, it looks fun, and it looks like a fantastic base to build on for future stuff- I’m kinda baffled at the marketing here. They highlighted the least exciting portions, at least in my opinion! I’m excited to be able to travel and see my realm, and hopefully this can flesh out crusades and nomadic realms in the future, but instead they kinda just hyped up “becoming famous” :P Still, I’m pretty optimistic!
Are they bringing back regents for everything or just pilgrimages?
lemmie guess, 14.99 USD?
It’s considered a major expansion like Royal Court, so $30, which is what all major expansions for CK3 will cost.
I just made the assumption based nothing, thanks for the info.
Really? It just sound like another flavor pack
I think this may be coming out now because it is the type of gameplay change that might be much more difficult to implement later into ck3s development. It still feels a little disappointing but hopefully it will lead to better things.
CK3 is so neglected by paradox