Crusader Kings III The First: Designated Heir

[tonberrian]

With the last Crusader Kings 2 just in necro range, and the new game debuting tomorrow 1600 CEST, it's time for a new Crusader Kings thread. Looks real good so far! I'm going to stream my starter game tomorrow as... one of the counts in Iceland, 867, to a discord I'm in. Anyone else pick this up? What's your favorite new feature?

[Corvus]

All the reviews so far are very promising - lowest is an 8/10 by GameSpot.

GameSpot – 8/10
IGN – 10/10
PCGamesN – 9/10
Screen Rant – 4/5
ShackNews – 9/10
Wccftech – 9/10
PC Gamer – 94/100
TheGamer – 5/5
The Sixth Axis – 9/10
Trusted Reviews – 4.5/5
Multiplayer.it – 9/10
GameSkinny – 9/10
CGMagazine – 9/10

I pre-ordered but right now I'm not sure when I'll get it. There is an unfortunate problem with Australia for the game and no one is sure exactly what is happening. Paradox went through a third party (lawyers probably) to get it classified by the Australian Classification Board but the ACB hasn't seen anything yet apparently, which means it can't be classified and can't be sold. Pre-orders for Australia have been stopped and it isn't known when those of us who pre-ordered before the halt happened will get the game. It is annoying.

[IthilanorStPete]

I'm currently playing an EU4 game as Vijayanagar, but when I get bored of that I'll pick up CK3. Definitely looks good from what I've seen on Twitter!

[tonberrian]

Having fun as a tribe so far. County Conquest is a really great cb, but MAN is prestige hard to come by. It's scarce enough that it's an actual choice what to spend it on, and makes fighting wars for your allies actually quite good for you. You don't get prestige for winning wars anymore, you just gate fame (which all earned prestige feeds into as well). But most wars offer up at least 75 prestige to your allies as a consolation prize - something that Tribes need as much as they can get. It gets to the point where gold is rather worthless to tribes - you need a token amount to create titles and build buildings, but you're limited in the buildings you can build and the titles you can create, so you'll end up with hundreds of gold that just don't do anything for you. Prestige on the other hand is much rarer and used for buildings as well, causus belli against other religions, and your men-at-arms. And well... tribes feel a lot more similar to feudal than in CK2. Instead of having to call each of your vassals to arms and get their entire troops if they like you but none if they don't answer, you get the bare minimum out of them like a regular feudal ruler, just without the benefits of negotiating feudal contracts. And you get the same men-at-arms as regular feudals as well, just for prestige equal to twice the gold cost.

[Corvus]

Have been playing a little over in Makuria (Coptic Nubia.) Having fun though time is limited due to full time work and family.

For prestige, the August tree in Diplomacy lifestyle is the way to go. You can get a lot of it through that tree.

There is one slight issue that may ned a bit of work in the future - basically, unless you are playing the Byzantines (who get primo at the start for now), you are stuck with gavelkind until after 1200. And not a good kind of gavelkind. No, this one actively tries to break your realm up. If you are a duke and hold the de jure lands of two duchies but have only formed one of them, on your death it will form the second duchy, give it to one of your kids and then make him independent. You've got generations of kinslaying and infighting to look forward to until you can research the late medieval tech that allows primo.

And while some places allow tanistry, that isn't working to well either. You need to activate tanistry on each title (at a hefty prestige cost) otherwise you have a mix of tanistry and gavelkind that can lead to a game over. Your kids will be given your land and some some unlanded relative will be given the top tier title which leads to a game over.

[tonberrian]

I think Dynasty Head and Cultural Head successions are not working right now. Since I kinda need dynasty head to work to get the dynasty perks i want, I'm setting this aside until some more patches.

[Corvus]

What is going on with them? I haven't heard anyone else mentioned any problems with them yet.

There is a problem with fervour, specifically a return to the Catholic death-spiral of CK2 were its MA plunged to 0 most of the time, at least in the early game starts.

The exact same thing is being reported in CK3, except that Catholic fervour is now plunging to 0 all the time. That makes converting counties all but impossible and causes huge swathes of Catholic nobles either embrace heresies or just flip religions. People are reporting that the beneficiaries of the Crusade for Jerusalem are almost instantly converting to Islam all the time.

The problem is caused by two things - winning holy wars causes fervour to drop and I believe the Crusade causes a bigger than usual drop. But the other main factor is the corrupt priest event. Each time that triggers it drops fervour by 10 and given the sheer number of realm priests in Catholic lands, it triggers far too often causing Catholic fervour to plunge to 0 very very quick.

[tonberrian]

House Heads seem to follow Primogeniture rules no matter what, at least in my experience. So they'll go to the firstborn of your firstborn, even if you have a primary heir that's different (thanks scandinavian elective!). And then it's nigh impossible to get back. As for Cultural head, i dunno what's up, but being the king of sweden and the norse cultural head means that it shouldn't go to a vassal of mine!

Edit: Ah, dev got back to me. Apparently I did not experience a bug, but underage kids cannot be cultural heads.

[Spacewolf]

I think house head is done by person with most prestige.
And Culture is done by who owns the most provinces with that particular culture.

[Leecros]

So uh.....Game....Do you want to explain to me how my 1 year old nephew killed the King of France's 17 year old Nephew in a fist fight?

Spoiler

Show

[Keltest]

So uh.....Game....Do you want to explain to me how my 1 year old nephew killed the King of France's 17 year old Nephew in a fist fight?

Spoiler

Show

He fell down some stairs. Its no wonder he's trying to make it your fault! That would be amazingly embarrassing.

[Leecros]

He fell down some stairs. Its no wonder he's trying to make it your fault! That would be amazingly embarrassing.

I'm not sure what's worse. Falling down the stairs or being murdered by a toddler.

[Vinyadan]

With the last Crusader Kings 2 just in necro range, and the new game debuting tomorrow 1600 CEST, it's time for a new Crusader Kings thread. Looks real good so far! I'm going to stream my starter game tomorrow as... one of the counts in Iceland, 867, to a discord I'm in. Anyone else pick this up? What's your favorite new feature?

I would have expected them to debut it 1453 CE.

IGN has generally been spot on with certain heavily flawed games whose theoretical excellence and/or pedigree doesn't translate into a good experience (Hotline Miami 2, Isolation), so, unless I see something heavy here, I'll assume that the 10 was probably well deserved.

How do you like the interface? Is it very different?

So uh.....Game....Do you want to explain to me how my 1 year old nephew killed the King of France's 17 year old Nephew in a fist fight?

Spoiler

Show

Well, he does say, "a dishonest brawl"...

[tonberrian]

I miss CK2's interface a lot. I knew where everything was there. But i don't know if that's just nostalgia talking.

[Keltest]

I miss CK2's interface a lot. I knew where everything was there. But i don't know if that's just nostalgia talking.

In general, i have a significantly easier time finding everything here.

Except the totally new stuff like cultural tech and stuff that wasnt in the tutorial. I still kind of struggle with that.

[Leecros]

How do folks feel about the longer adventure to get out of Gavelkind (Partition*) now? It used to be that most of the nations started with Primogeniture in 1066 and it wasn't that difficult to obtain it relatively quickly even before then, but now it seems like you won't be getting it until the 1200s.

I'm kind of split on the matter. On one hand it can be frustrating to spend decades consolidating your domain only to have all of your provinces split apart and then when you're back down to only a few provinces is when your vassals (who will be grumpy at having a new ruler) will all join up on factions and rebellions against you.

On the other hand, it does tend to maximize the drama that makes Crusader Kings stories interesting and it stops you from becoming powerful in the early game and just rolling everyone over. with that said, it does dissuade some of the more salacious options since you technically don't want many children.

[Keltest]

How do folks feel about the longer adventure to get out of Gavelkind (Partition*) now? It used to be that most of the nations started with Primogeniture in 1066 and it wasn't that difficult to obtain it relatively quickly even before then, but now it seems like you won't be getting it until the 1200s.

I'm kind of split on the matter. On one hand it can be frustrating to spend decades consolidating your domain only to have all of your provinces split apart and then when you're back down to only a few provinces is when your vassals (who will be grumpy at having a new ruler) will all join up on factions and rebellions against you.

On the other hand, it does tend to maximize the drama that makes Crusader Kings stories interesting and it stops you from becoming powerful in the early game and just rolling everyone over. with that said, it does dissuade some of the more salacious options since you technically don't want many children.

Not a huge fan. If i work to conquer all of scandinavia, i want to keep that land darn it! Especially if im invading from England or something.

[Narkis]

How do folks feel about the longer adventure to get out of Gavelkind (Partition*) now? It used to be that most of the nations started with Primogeniture in 1066 and it wasn't that difficult to obtain it relatively quickly even before then, but now it seems like you won't be getting it until the 1200s.

I'm kind of split on the matter. On one hand it can be frustrating to spend decades consolidating your domain only to have all of your provinces split apart and then when you're back down to only a few provinces is when your vassals (who will be grumpy at having a new ruler) will all join up on factions and rebellions against you.

On the other hand, it does tend to maximize the drama that makes Crusader Kings stories interesting and it stops you from becoming powerful in the early game and just rolling everyone over. with that said, it does dissuade some of the more salacious options since you technically don't want many children.

I admit I'm a bit odd, but I'd often deliberately switch to Gavelkind in CK2. It was a right of passage, a fun way to start every new reign. If I couldn't murder my uppity siblings and consolidate the empire again, then I didn't deserve to keep it. Though I made sure to always keep a single highest title so that the realm doesn't split on succession.

[Silfir]

I don't think I've seen a realistic side of it; I started playing as a Basque count and it turns out you get instant access to High Partition that way. High Partition is not Primogeniture, but close enough to make it work as long as you only have one top level title. I've been super lucky by accident really; I made several duchies not thinking about the potential consequences but managed to become a king just before I died, then a hundred years I conquered a bunch of kingdoms with some claims I got through marriage, formed an empire, and got murdered only shortly after. Once you are an emperor with at least Partition law you can keep painting the world your color, though since you can't realy on personal income alone (as your capital duchy will still get split up and there's only so many buildings you can stick in your realm capital) every succession means some serious work consolidating your realm.

I got good results out of heavily specializing within the Martial and Stewardship trees, but when an Amateurish Plotter somewhat suddenly rose to the throne at the age of 17 I opted to dabble in multiple trees and also got good results. It's possible that Golden Obligations is just too good. Right now there's not much of a reason to build a healthy economy if you can fund your massive regiments through blackmail alone. (Interestingly, Amateurish as he was, what he didn't have was a personality trait that caused stress whenever he used blackmail for hooks or converting hooks into money - so he was ideally suited for his particular style of rule, unlike his much better educated predecessors.)

If they weren't going to change things up compared to CK II they needn't have bothered with bringing out a proper sequel. There are still bugs and balancing issues they really need to sort out (such as tribal realms falling into a massive hole if they decide to go feudal, since their tribal buildings get replaced by practically nothing), but as far as I'm concerned the game as they envisioned it works very well. If you own CK II and the many expansions that found their way into CK III into a streamlined and enhanced form that's not going anywhere.

[Corvus]

The UI seems better, though it is just a manner of getting used to it. I never did the tutorial so I may be missing a thing or to, but I do miss the old opinion map. I'd like to know which of my neighbours hate me (all of them) and which just dislike me.

I wouldn't call it a 10/10 game though. It is very good but there are a few issues that still need fixing. The aforementioned Catholic fervour death spiral for one.

Another is the tribal to feudal conversion. As it stands right now you do not want to do it under any circumstances. It crippled your economy and trashed your army to such an extend that you are left fair game to everyone. The main problem is that when you transition, every single tribal holding building is trashed and replaced with nothing. CK2 gave your replacements when you did that so you weren't as badly off but people are saying they are loosing 80-90% of their economy and army when they convert.

The other big one is the ridiculous OP state of Vikings in 867. Basically they have a lot of event troops, longship tech and coastal conquest CBs leading to hit and smash conquests all over the map with their superior numbers leading to the most ridiculous border gore in existence. When you see Sweden with holdings in Italy, Scilly, North Africa, Spain, Ireland, England, France, Russia and anywhere else they sense weakness, it is a bit silly.

Oh, and there is an event that rewrites paternity. When it fires, it decides that the initial parent wasn't the actual parent after all and has actually led to the ludicrous situation were one player found out that they were their own father.

Being stuck as gavelkind for so long may get old after a while, especially given there aren't really any alternatives at the moment (except the ERE). Even places that have other styles, like tanistry, also use gavelkind mixed in, making them even worse. With tanistry, it is possible for all you holdings to be given to your kids and the electors to pick an unlanded relative leading to a game over.

I can understand why they used it as it was historical to split up lands between your kids (which lead to things like the break up of Francia and also the North Sea Empire) but was it universal all over the known world - Asia, India, the Middle East, Africa and Europe?

Those issues aside, I am really enjoying it. My ironman Makuria run is going well, even with a few mistakes made. It is a learning process after all.

867 Makuria starts you as a 17 year old with a wife and child. Your traits and education are completely random so you can restart to get something you like. Mine was a chaste, shy, greedy 3 star learning character, who was also married to a shy wife. Somehow they managed to have 7 kids together - 4 girls and 3 boys. The eldest girl was married off to an ERE Doux and another to an ERE count. The other two girls were married matrilineally to breed more members for the dynasty.

The Coptic faith is really nice. The first tenet gives all Copts a +20% boost to learning experience, so even if you have a different education you can still afford to grab a few perks. And if you have a learning education it stacks so you can make a lot of progress in the learning tree fast. The second tenet makes conversion faster if either your faith or culture match, but slower if neither match. The best part though is it also provides a +10 opinion to all Copts. And the last one, Monasticism, allows you to ask people to take vows and also makes temperate a virtue and gluttony a sin. I never actually used hat one as I believe you can't use it on your first or second born sons.

I have found the learning lifestyle really good. The first tree improves you health, fertility, your court physician and other related matters. The second (scholar) gives your wards a chance at bonus skills, increases development and cultural fascination, gives people of different faiths and cultures an opinion bonus to you, and has one of the best perks in the game, one that gives you 20% of your councillors primary skills. So if you have a 25 diplomacy chancellor you get +5 diplomacy. The third one improves conversions, piety gain, realm priest opinion and level of devotion effects.

With all that piety and other opinion modifiers, your realm priest and the Coptic pope are going to love you, meaning you get the max amount of taxes and troops from the church and you can hit up the pope for gold all the time. And generally everyone else of the faith is going to love you. I was actually able o not bother with powerful vassals on my council and they still loved me.

Anyone, the king lived to 76, conquered a bunch of land around so his primary holdings wouldn't get broken up, founded a holy order and oversaw the development of the nation and founded the Kingdom of Nubia. In addition, on one of his pilgrimages, at the cost of a pile of gold and stress, he lost the greedy trait and picked up compassionate.

He did, sadly, loose a daughter to sickness, his second son was murdered by unknown hands and his eldest son died in battle. Then his wife died of old age. He remarried and I forgot to pick the celibate option, resulting in a son his old age just before he died. Oops.

When he died, his 8 year old grandson inherited but two other kingdoms broke away - Darfur in the west with the only living son of his first wife and Blemmiya in the east under another grandson. He also had 44 living family members after starting with only one child and unlocked the first dynasty perk.

The new king turned out arbitrary (the choices were arbitrary, craven or lazy), ambitious and brave with a 2 star diplomacy education. So there is a little bit of fear there but at the same time respect. He reconquered Blemmiya but left Darfur alone. The problem was that half of his grandfather's holdings in the core duchy had gone to his 2 year old uncle and he wasn't having that. He forged claims on those holdings, tried to revoke (and you don't get any tyranny hit if you revoke with a claim), fought the inevitable war and imprisoned his uncle and a duke who had joined in. Revoked the titles and then ransomed off his uncle (who hates him) and brought the duchy holdings back together.

He also married off his sister to a ERE prince so he know has an alliance with the ERE Emperor.

I'm definitely going to do a Makuria AAR once I've played a bit more and gotten a hang of it. Compared to CK2 there is a lot more to do in the region and a lot more opportunities.

[snowblizz]

When you see Sweden with holdings in Italy, Scilly, North Africa, Spain, Ireland, England, France, Russia and anywhere else they sense weakness, it is a bit silly.

To paraphrase Vaarsuvius, I fail to see the problem with that.

[Silfir]

Vikings should probably doing a tad more raiding and less actual conquest, at least in the Mediterranean. Though it's not that implausible historically, there were Norman colonies in Italy and Sicily.

[Vinyadan]

Vikings should probably doing a tad more raiding and less actual conquest, at least in the Mediterranean. Though it's not that implausible historically, there were Norman colonies in Italy and Sicily.

I think it depends on what you want to portray. A Viking/Norman leader could simply raid (Lindisfarne etc), acquire a territory and make it his own land (like Rurik in Eastern Europe), become the vassal of the local authority (Normandy and also Southern Italy, where they were officially vassals of the Pope), or conquer a territory under his king (in the way Norway expanded in the Scottish Isles).

[Corvus]

Few more interesting bits and pieces and tips I've seen or heard about.

In the August tree of the Diplomacy Lifestyle, there is a perk called Writing History, which allows you to commission an epic every 10 years. It is incredible. Yeah you can spend a bit of money on it (but going into debt isn't too bad), but what it gives in return is worth every piece of gold. You get a number of choices along the way that can give various bonuses and you can choose at the start whether it is about you (for prestige), your family (for renown) or the faith (for piety.) While it is being written you get +2 prestige per month. I've always gotten the best results for throwing money at the thing, and at the end it gives you +75 renown (if you chose family, which I always do) and +5 prestige a month. For ten years.

And having unmarried females in your court, even if they aren't of your house, is great. I use them all the time to matrilineally marry outside of my realm to bring in the best knight candidates - you can regularly find 20+ prowess candidates. Even if they are of the wrong religion, it doesn't matter too much. Most are willing to convert. If they die in battle, it is no big lose - just use the female courtier to bring in another candidate. And given knights tend to get maimed/killed a lot, it is better to have some unlanded schmuck take the it rather than an important vassal. I was loosing far too many dukes this way before I tried to bring in outsiders to die instead.

And camelries are great if you live in north/east Africa. It is a basic holding that buffs your light cav MAA regiments but more importantly gives you +1 knight even at the first level building. Eventually it goes up to +4 knights and +5% knight effectiveness per building in the holdings you own. So if you have 6 holdings of the appropriate terrain type, that is +24 knights at +30% effectiveness and a big pile of bonuses to your light cav (+8 damage/+4 toughness per building.)

[Silfir]

My impression of the Lifestyle system is that every tree has some really overpowered stuff going on. Sometimes you have to spend some time to get it, sometimes you get it right at the top of the tree.

It can be a bit of an annoyance when every king you get ends up with the same education type, even if you're in the mood to explore some other playstyles. Somehow mine are all scheming bastards.

[Yuki Akuma]

25 XP per month means you get a perk every 40 months (or three years and four months).

35 XP per month, the maximum you can get from education, means you get a new perk every 29 months (or two years and four months).

That's not really a huge difference.

[Silfir]

25 XP per month means you get a perk every 40 months (or three years and four months).

35 XP per month, the maximum you can get from education, means you get a new perk every 29 months (or two years and four months).

That's not really a huge difference.

In what way is that not a huge difference? That's eleven months per perk.

Assume you get a solid thirty years of rule, which is not a given. That's 360 months. Without any bonuses, you're looking at nine perks, which is just barely enough to finish one tree. (You can get extra lifestyle experience points through events, but those require you to actually have good stats in the lifestyle for the best results, so a solid education makes that more effective, too.) With 35 XP per month, you get three more over the same timespan, and you reach each perk earlier, which allows you to actually make use of it while it matters. But it seems silly not to spend most of your life on something that you're good at.

There are a good number of perks early on in the trees that reward you greatly for waiting the extra months, such as Golden Obligations. I had an Amateurish Plotter once who opted to diversify (I think he had Quick or even Intelligent) and was very effective as well; he became the first emperor. In a sense, 1 star educations are quite liberating. You suck at everything, so you might as well become a jack of all trades.

It's a roleplaying concern, too. This guy was trained to be a magnificent plotter and schemer, and has the evil traits to match. Who am I to try to pretend he's an entirely different person?

[Corvus]

There are quite a number of boosts to lifestyle XP and not just from your education.

Quick/Intelligent/Genius provides 10/20/30% boost. Possessed gives + 10% learning boost oddly.

Some of the special buildings also give lifestyle boosts - The House of Wisdom in Baghdad gives +15% to all and Stonehenge gives +15% to learning for example.

Being on your liege's council also gives a boost to the appropriate lifestyle.

And being Coptic also gives you a +20% learning lifestyle boost.

Being a Genius Mastermind Theologian Copt who controls Baghdad would give you a +105% boost to learning, or a learning perk in less than 20 months, not counting any special events.

And now a few other things.

If you inherit as a child, don't forget to give yourself a guardian. I've done it twice and it seems that not having a guardian leads to really bad traits. At least from what I've seen. Both times I've kept getting bullied and have been given the option of lazy/craven/arbitrary. The second time the event popped twice. Not fun.

As for filling in empty holdings in your counties, I'd stick clear of baronies. Unlike CK2, it is best just to have the county barony and any lesser baronies be given to vassals. But I wouldn't build one to start with. They do produce the most levies though I don't think that makes up for what you loose if you build a city or temple holding.

City holdings provide the most tax, which is to be expected. In addition they can build a special guild building chain which provides a good tax income but also a monthly development boost. Given each holdings is held by a seperate individual, they may initially need a boost to help start building up their city given they won't have a lot of money to start with.

Temples fall between cities and castles in terms of tax and levies. They also have a special monastery building chain which gives a bonus to monthly control and piety. If you have a realm priest, they control all of those temple holdings and as a result generally are sitting on a big pile of money so they have no trouble upgrading any newly built temples.

Mayors, who control the cities, provide a flat 20% tax, regardless of opinion but don't have contracts so they can't have the tax rate modified. The realm priest provides tax and levies based on opinion. Below 0 it is nothing, but it scales depending on how high. At +100 opinion you get the max amount of gold and levies possible. And it can be a very big chunk of your income and levies.

I tend to like a mix of both in my counties as they both have useful benefits.

[Sian]

started playing this weekend and is already on my second campaign.

I'm the type that in this type of sand-boxy games need a big achievement to define my game-plan as to not lose focus/interest, so my first one was Kings To The Seventh Generation (as Eudes of Anjou, become King of France) which for a hard achievement was almost embarrassingly easy (managed to get the crown before Eudes died, although he was a Lunatic with Great Pox, having already killed two wives from sleeping around and infecting them with assorted STDs.

Now I've had a good start with my second game, that being Mother To Us All, where I'm currently in late 899, and have just reformed Borii, and are just needing a few more provinces (got loads of Prestige to burn for war-decs), before I'm able to become Empress of Kanem-Bornu

Grabbing Pedagogy from Scholar and Groomed to Rule from Family Hierarch is a surprisingly decent combo to get well-stated kids

[tonberrian]

started playing this weekend and is already on my second campaign.

I'm the type that in this type of sand-boxy games need a big achievement to define my game-plan as to not lose focus/interest, so my first one was Kings To The Seventh Generation (as Eudes of Anjou, become King of France) which for a hard achievement was almost embarrassingly easy (managed to get the crown before Eudes died, although he was a Lunatic with Great Pox, having already killed two wives from sleeping around and infecting them with assorted STDs.

Now I've had a good start with my second game, that being Mother To Us All, where I'm currently in late 899, and have just reformed Borii, and are just needing a few more provinces (got loads of Prestige to burn for war-decs), before I'm able to become Empress of Kanem-Bornu

Grabbing Pedagogy from Scholar and Groomed to Rule from Family Hierarch is a surprisingly decent combo to get well-stated kids

There's a bug with achievements that require certain starts at the moment - you have to do them all in one sitting, no loads, or you won't get them.