Crusader Kings III The First: Designated Heir

[Sian]

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.

I did KttSG in several sittings so ...

[ForzaFiori]

Started a game as bjorn Ironside, formed sweden before he died to prevent any independent siblings, his grandson created a custom empire (The High Kingdom of The North, consisting of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Ireland, Scotland, and Brittany) before dying, again to prevent any independence (though it wound up not mattering, since I didn't lose any kingdoms that succession). Next High King reformed the faith and finished conquering the British Isles. Since then It's been a push to consolidate, convert, and spread the nose culture across my realm (I firmly control all of scandanvia, northern Russia, the british isles, and acquitaine, control most of France, Spain, and pomerania, and have holdings in Italy, north Africa, central asia, Oman, and even India) so I can set some border countries loose, because I don't really want to run all of Europe, I just want every king to be of my dynasty.

I have to absolutely agree with the "norse are overpowered" statements. Thanks to the religion being pro-war, I've basically been warring nonstop for the entire game, and my vassals do the same. Because of that, I've spread my dynasty everywhere I've captured, and have been solving the inheritance issue by stacking all of the young members of my dynasty with land that I've recently conquered while I'm young and my vassals dont like me (and are therefor usually voting for an older uncle or brother to succeed), and then when my vassals are properly cowed or bought (also with land and plunder from wars) I pick the best member of my dynasty from my sons and grandsons, all of whom usually control at least one duchy, and make them my heir. It has led to my capital moving all over however. I've had two capitals in Sweden, then it moved to Argyl in Scotland, then Paris, then Anjou I think.

My vassals have been completely outrageous though. They have been almost entirely responsible for the conquest of Ireland, Aquitaine, Spain, Italy, and all of my holdings outside of Europe. By the time I created my empire, I had four or five vassals that were each as powerful as most independent realms, and they started picking off weak countries left and right.

I've also completely shattered Western Europe religiously - I conquered Rome, so the Pope is gone, Catharism and Waldensianism both have large followers across France and Germany, most of Northern Europe is Asatru or old Asatru, but there are still Catholics left in England, and the other pagans are proving harder to convert than I expected. The Byzantine Emporer is a Catholic Bulgarian, and is quickly becoming the only Catholic nation with any power: almost all the rest are surrounded by or soon to be conquered by me.

I've also found that having such a culturally and religiously fragmented nation is really helping with the peasant rebellions. The game appears to track the strength of the populist rebellions based on culture and religion. Because of this, despite owning territory all over, I have had almost no uprisings. Instead of one or two rebellions gathering strength, I have like 20 that constantly sit at like 10%, because the french Catholics wont work with the Italian Catholics or the french cathars, even though I'm a Norse pagan.

Over all though, I'm really liking the game. I just wish I had more time to play it.

[Corvus]

Couple of more issues have cropped up that are hopefully being looked into.

Firstly the AI is having real problems with matrilineal marriages. As in it is not doing them. All this means dynasties are loosing their holdings hen they really should not be. This is compounded by the amount of male characters dying in combat leading to a to more female rulers.

The other is that AI is apparently having problems with saving up enough money to upgrade their holdings (except for the archbishops who tend to have a lot of money.) So holdings are staying at low development which means they fall behind players a long way the further the game progresses.

[ForzaFiori]

Firstly the AI is having real problems with matrilineal marriages. As in it is not doing them. All this means dynasties are loosing their holdings hen they really should not be. This is compounded by the amount of male characters dying in combat leading to a to more female rulers.

I agree. For female rulers, getting a matrilineal inheritance needs to be weighted a lot heavier. Not only has it been incredibly easy to put my dynastly pretty much any throne with a female ruler, the one time chance really rolled against me and my son's wife (the queen of Estonia) died before having a son, my granddaughter (the new queen) kept trying to marry herself off patrilineally, and to people with no major claims either - counts and dukes, not like she's marrying the byzantine emperor or something. By the time I found someone with good stats that wasn't going to inherit something, and that would come to my realm, I had had to kill off like 2 betrothed and a husband.

[chainer1216]

So, what do you guys think of this game for someone who's never played a game in this genre before?

[tonberrian]

So, what do you guys think of this game for someone who's never played a game in this genre before?

I'd say that I'd still recommend CK2 base over CK3 base. CK2 base has the fun fact of being free, and CK3 still needs another round or two of patching before I can really recommend it. If you like CK2 though CK3 is right there and you should invest in that over CK2 expansions.

[Corvus]

I'd still recommend CK3 over CK2 for a new player. CK3 is much easier to get into. It does have a proper tutorial for starters and generally a better UI.

I saw someone make a suggestion to deal with the rampant seduction and all the illegitimate children it makes, plus having to throw half your female vassals or the wives or your male vassals in prison all the time - you can change sexual distribution in the game settings from default over to asexual, which makes 89% of the population asexual and impossible (or near impossible) to seduce. (On the other hand, if you want even more rampant seduction, you can change it to bisexual so 89% of the population is bisexual.) And it is still ironman compatible.

[Corvus]

Until a few bug fixes are done, I'm just messing around a bit, doing a few quick achievement runs, testing things out kind of thing.

Did a run with the sister of the three Spanish kings (and lover of one) for a few intrigue achievements, including murdering her brother/lover's wife. She eventually died from stress.

Then jumped over to Ireland for the Emerald Island achievement. Did it in the lifetime of the first ruler. Its fairly easy. Interestingly, Insular Christianity allows for multiple wives. So he married for a bunch of alliances and ended up pumping out a lot of kids. He starts with a son, but followed up with daughter and daughter after daughter. 8 daughters followed, then finally a second son, and then 2 more daughters. So 10 daughters, 2 sons. made succession a little bit easier.

Now trying to work out where to play next for more achievements.

[Sian]

got a very nice Mother of Us All run going, and are 45ish years in



Pushed east early on (via True Ruler and Forced Vassalation) to grab Empire rank asap, and noticed an Independent Egypt early on, deciding to keep pushing through Nubia and Invasion-CB them and effectively win the war before Daurama died.

After the war, i Provoked my {scrubbed}rulers to revolt and easily mopped them up jailing them all and demanded conversions, leaving them easily able to support converting the lands before Development raises enough to be an issue. My next target is going to be snatching Idrisid's, followed by locking up rest of Northern Africa, and possibly pushing down the coastline towards Somali to lock out Arabia, before I return to the interior