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Crusader Kings III |OT| Per omnia saecula saeculorum

Bolivar687

Banned
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Enter the Middle Ages, the apex of all human cultural achievements. As the Dark Ages recede into the past, a new intercontinental encounter begins. It is a time for Saints and Sultans, legendary Viking raiders, and the ambitious men and women each seeking to leave their own mark on world affairs. Crusader Kings III is a DLC Simulator Grand Strategy game that goes beyond the genre’s penchant for trade and warfare to instead focus on the things that truly matter. God. Family. Legacy. Instead of a nation, you play as a dynasty, passing on your crown and scepter upon your current character’s death (natural or otherwise). What makes Crusader Kings unique among all gaming experiences is its creation of emergent gameplay and storytelling. While you must outwit your neighbors, vassals, and courtesans, they too have their own family and underlings scheming against them and each other. It’s entirely up to you how you will interject into this interconnected web of relationships and motives to change the course of history.

Will you answer the Roman Pontiff’s call to Holy War or will you set up an Anti-Pope of your own on the eve of the invasion? Can you bring yourself to imprison your younger brother to avoid a civil war? Will you disavow your family’s heresy for the good of the realm, or will you see where this storyline goes because it’s just so damn interesting? Choose wisely, because even your smallest decisions can have consequences for your descendants hundreds of years later.
  • The three main religions and governments return from Crusader Kings II – Feudal Christians, Tribal Pagans, and Muslim Clans (formerly Iqta).
  • Fully rendered and animated 3D character models bring the drama to life.
  • Lifestyle options are now included in vanilla base game with three skill trees each for fully personalized character development.
  • The original soundtrack includes more music at launch than any Paradox game to date, including recording sessions with the Budapest Scoring Orchestra.
  • Utilize robust modding resources programmed by some of the best modders of the CK2 community. Customize the interface, create new character events, and combine mods to deliver completely new CK3 experiences.
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Principally, you have to manage three elements: yourself, your court and your vassals.

When it comes to yourself, you get to choose your character's Lifestyle focus from the 5 main attributes: Diplomacy, Martial, Stewardship, Intrigue and Learning. Over time, through successful actions and events that arise, you unlock perk points to spend on various specializations within each of three trees within these lifestyles. These perks provide you with permanent bonuses and well as special abilities (such as two Chicks Schemes at the same time, for example).

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With your court, you decide who to appoint to major Council positions and what tasks they undertake, from collecting more taxes to fund your enterprises, all the way through to uncovering your rivals' secrets and plotting their demise. Invite characters to your court and, if they like you enough (more of that later), they might deign become your subject.

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On top of this, you must contend with your vassals - lords under your dominion who control Castles, Towns and Churches within your realm, contributing taxes and levies in exchange for your protection, but, if unhappy with your rule (or you personally), they can and will work against you.

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The not-so-secret sauce underpinning everything in Crusader Kings and making it distinct from other strategy titles is that you, as a character yourself, are constantly subject to other characters' opinions of you. Whether they have a positive or negative view of you is drawn from whether your traits are Sympatico with theirs, your cultural and religious differences, as well as your actions in the game and how they view them.

For instance, showing mercy to a prisoner caught during a conflict and releasing them without ransom would make them look very favourably upon you, and you could perhaps leverage that down the road by convincing them to become a willing conspirator in a plot. Conversely, refusing a ransom and executing that same prisoner would make every one of their family look disfavourably upon you, but would increase your character's dread, making people less inclined to work against you for fear of themselves ending up with their head on the block (if the plot is discovered).

The game is fueled by these considerations to the extent that even the mightiest ruler can come undone if they make enough enemies at home and away. Not only do you have to manage your side of things, but you also need to ensure that when you eventually do expire, your appointed heir is not only in a credible position to take up the reins, but that they are also strong enough to stave off all pretenders that might arise to dispute their rightful claim.

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The game allows you to play as any noble ruler, from a lowly Count up to an Emperor; from as far afield as Iceland in the far northwest, down to the coast of North Africa, across the Middle East to India, and up to the Steppes of Mongolia. Albeit not included at launch, the developers will add in the custom ruler designer down the road, so you can put yourself or your friends into the game if you so desire, and, best of all, this time it's going to be free.



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With the initial release, there are two historical start dates to choose from: 867 AD and 1066 AD. Both of which are notable when it comes to the state of the political landscape. In-depth details about these very different eras in the Middle Ages are covered extensively in the videos below:



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Crusader Kings III includes an entirely new game map that is slightly larger and four times more detailed than CK2. Individual regions have been broken down into physical baronies, with terrain differences determining what kind of armies will perform better. Context sensitive map filters allow you to bring up different menus with a click, depending on which map mode you are using (religion, dynasty, realms, etc.)

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  • A new Religion system has been built from the ground up with modability in mind. Within the major world religions are a total of 99 different faiths with their own attributes and flavor. Faiths have Tenets and Doctrines that dictate how they are played, some of which can be changed through your actions.
  • The new Renown system allows you to exert more influence over the actions of the members of your Dynasty. Family members within a dynasty can now create Cadet branches that act independently of their parent Dynasty.
  • Unlock powerful "Legacies" to define how your Dynasty plays for the rest of the game.
  • Factions and Civil Wars have been overhauled to differentiate the kind of associations formed against you in your realm. When lords are displeased with your rule, they'll join different kinds of factions depending on what their grievance is. For example, vassals looking to secede from the realm might join the Independence Faction, whereas those who are just looking for a change in leadership might support a pretender and join a Claimant Faction. These different kinds of groups now present unique challenges and strategies compared to CK2.
  • How you build your armies is a lot more important now. Hired men-at-arms are much more powerful than the peasants you raise as levies, while knights now play a much bigger role. Small armies of men-at-arms will sometimes perform better on different terrain than large armies of levies.
  • Under the new Dread system, your cruel actions can have in-game benefits for controlling other characters instead of just making them dislike you (btw, you're a terrible person).
  • The game's audio adapts to your in-game actions. Ambient noises will play depending on your camera locatin's region on the map, while other sounds play to represent the setting of each character interaction event
  • The AI armies now coordinate with you and eachother much more than CK2 to assist their allies during wars rather than acting independently.
  • New Stress system rewards you for roleplaying according to your character traits, while going against your their personality will create inner conflict to your detriment.
  • Player-generated heresy.



 
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ToadMan

Member
This doesn’t look much different to CK2 in the gameplay vids I’ve seen ....

It’s on gamepass though so can try it without dropping full price. I guess paradox aren’t confident it will sell that well at full price.
 
I came into CK2 too late, too much dlc, out of date tutorials everywhere didn’t know where to start, still played it for a bit but just too overwhelming. So looking forward to jumping into this at the start of its life, currently reading Churchill’s history of English speaking people so quite interested in the time period it’s set.
 

Kadayi

Banned
Bolivar687 Bolivar687 Good stuff :messenger_sunglasses:


Pretty disappointed to find out it is a 6PM CEST release. Thought it would be midnight local time.

I was a bit annoyed that they didn't opt for a Friday release, esp given it's a bank holiday for a lot of people, but I dare say the date was agreed upon a long time back ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This doesn’t look much different to CK2 in the gameplay vids I’ve seen ....

Being the third game in the series it's an evolution versus a revolution in terms of the broad game-play, but there's an absolute tonne of changes going on, from the reworking of mechanics, a complete rethink of the UI from the ground up, breaking down counties into physical baronies with their respective settlements shown etc etc

SirPenetrator from the paradox forums put together a handy manual of all of the developer diaries (Original Post here ) which comes in at a whopping 289 pages going into great detail about what's changed and how

https://www.docdroid.com/ZlLouue/first-version-final-1-pdf

It’s on gamepass though so can try it without dropping full price. I guess paradox aren’t confident it will sell that well at full price.

One of the most notable aspects of CKIII versus CKII is that the game does a much better job of keeping you the player informed as to what is going on and providing you with hints and tips throughout. Popular as CKII has been Paradox recognised that the learning curve on the title was like the north face of the Iger and just as unrelenting and they wanted to address that problem I wouldn't say the game is any less complicated than before (there's no dumping down per se, versus some much-required rationalization and clarity on systems) but it's going to be much easier for people to pick up and get into and consequently it makes sense to put it on Game Pass because that way people who might be on the fence about it or unsure can dip their toes into the whole experience without having to front the full purchase price. Not everyone is going to be sold on it for sure, but I think that people who are will likely look to buy the full game once they've spent some time with it.
 
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Kadayi

Banned
Also, the developers did a series of 5 streams showing off the game with a campaign in Iberia (Spain to you and me) that if anything demonstrates both the range of what can be achieved as well as the audacity of the lead developer to go for broke and not panic when things go sideways

 
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Kadayi

Banned
For those like me patiently waiting Cartman style

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for this and (and apparently no pre-load because it's only 8GB...)

Some YouTubers are allowed to stream from today. Albeit not one of the big boys, I quite like One Proud Bavarian (who did a bang-up job with coverage of all of the dev diaries) Stream starts imminently as per the time of posting : -


 
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Kadayi

Banned
Rocking a 91 on Metacritic

 
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D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
Super hyped for this one. I've been into a Holy Roman Empire history kick recently, so the timing is perfect.

I could never quite get into Paradox grand history games despite spending many hours trying. I'm hoping this will be the one that finally clicks for me.

Some YouTubers are allowed to stream from today. Albeit not one of the big boys, I quite like One Proud Bavarian (who did a bang-up job with coverage of all of the dev diaries) Stream starts imminently as per the time of posting : -

Thanks for linking the stream. Wow, the interface looks so much better than in CKII and the streamer is going on and on about how easy this should be to play even for beginners. Also mentioned that the tutorial is good (!!). Really looking forward to this.

It's on PC Game Pass by the way!

Pre-loading now.
 
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Bolivar687

Banned
Pretty disappointed to find out it is a 6PM CEST release. Thought it would be midnight local time.

This time (12pm over here) seems like the norm for most PC games I play, and it's sadly an area where they're behind how consoles handle launches. I can't imagine being in that region waiting until 6pm.

Who are you guys going to play for your first campaigns? I'm thinking Sweden's royal family in 1066 for myself, since I've always found it one of the most interesting geographical spaces in the game world.
 

Bwesh

Member
I want this. But knowing the history of the game and Paradox, there will be tons of DLC and all of them worth half the game each. This game is what MS should tout with their game pass. A triple A strategy game for "free".
 

Sakura

Member
This time (12pm over here) seems like the norm for most PC games I play, and it's sadly an area where they're behind how consoles handle launches. I can't imagine being in that region waiting until 6pm.

Who are you guys going to play for your first campaigns? I'm thinking Sweden's royal family in 1066 for myself, since I've always found it one of the most interesting geographical spaces in the game world.
Probably gonna play as the Welsh, kick out the Anglo-Saxons
 

Kadayi

Banned
This time (12pm over here) seems like the norm for most PC games I play, and it's sadly an area where they're behind how consoles handle launches. I can't imagine being in that region waiting until 6pm.

Yeah, it's kind of annoying. Also, I know some people on bad internet aren't pleased about the lack of pre-load on Steam.

Who are you guys going to play for your first campaigns? I'm thinking Sweden's royal family in 1066 for myself, since I've always found it one of the most interesting geographical spaces in the game world.

I'll do the Ireland thing as that's the tutorial area anyhows and I've always enjoyed that for testing out mechanics anyways, and I want to familarise myself with the new UI and everything, but I do see myself doing a campaign in somewhere central like Bohemia for a change of scene afterwards.
 
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Kadayi

Banned
I love this kind of game, but what kills me in this game is the dlc thing...

And i bought almost every dlc in CK2.

TBH CKIII is coming with a lot of what was DLC content in CKII for the most part. Obviously there's going to be DLC, but I don't think it's a case that you're buying a basic game here versus CKII at launch and its pretty clear that Paradox is really leaning into the RP elements of what make CKII with things like Way of life so great. I mean certainly, there's no Monks or mystics, Reapers Due or Holy fury, but I expect we will see those things implemented down the road but hopefully not to the oftentimes game-breaking extent as in CKII.
 

Kadayi

Banned
Paradox has never failed at challenging the player; from skills to wallet.

Honestly, with every major DLC (as opposed to flavour) I've bought I've carved out at least 100+ more hours of gameplay minimum. One might baulk in retrospect at how much one has spent in total overall on the series, but in the grand scheme of things I'd be hard-pressed to find a cash outlay equivalent that afforded me as much entertainment value save books. I'm not excusing the DLC train, just I think things need to be put in some perspective somewhat.
 

MHubert

Member
Honestly, with every major DLC (as opposed to flavour) I've bought I've carved out at least 100+ more hours of gameplay minimum. One might baulk in retrospect at how much one has spent in total overall on the series, but in the grand scheme of things I'd be hard-pressed to find a cash outlay equivalent that afforded me as much entertainment value save books. I'm not excusing the DLC train, just I think things need to be put in some perspective somewhat.
I was just joking, and agree 100%. I honestly wouldn't expect them to keep adding content for free and just the fact that they support their games as much as they do makes the investments worth it.
 
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Kadayi

Banned
So far it seems to be the highest rated Paradox release ever. I never expected IGN to give it a 10/10 but here we are.

I had a feeling it was going to do well on the reviews. They've worked really hard on the tutorial & advice aspects in order to make the game extremely accessible to new players without necessarily dumping down the complexity and I think it is going to pay dividends because they are going to grow the player base as and when people pick this up. Right now with 10 weeks or so to CP2077 is a good time to get a decent PC title out there as well.
 

DKehoe

Gold Member
Fantastic OP, Bolivar687 Bolivar687 thanks for the work you put into that.

CK2 is one of my favourite games ever and 3 is looking fantastic. I really like the lifestyle tree stuff I’ve seen. The character models and the way they age and change to reflect their experiences seems well done too.

It’s a boring answer but I’ll probably go with the typical Ireland start to get a feel for things first.
 

Bkdk

Member
Hopefully this is as good as the professional review claims, with this, wasteland 3 and flight this is a few weeks remind me of gaming's golden age, wow. All 3 on MS PC gamepass as well. I would never have thought MS could be so on point on picking thier partners for their PC releases, perhaps they really need to think hard on just half giving up console as they just can't do that right.
 
Hopefully this is as good as the professional review claims, with this, wasteland 3 and flight this is a few weeks remind me of gaming's golden age, wow. All 3 on MS PC gamepass as well. I would never have thought MS could be so on point on picking thier partners for their PC releases, perhaps they really need to think hard on just half giving up console as they just can't do that right.

?? Gamepass almost assures MS will sell a ton more consoles this generation alone.

It's always cyclical. Sony's lack of effort on and basing their success on the success of the PS4 sounds like they will recreate the PS3 IPO. They are 3 years behind Microsoft on functionality and customer interactions.

Not everybody wants new single player games every week. Some of us actually have friends.

See Madden sales vs Dark souls ;)

*shrugs shoulders.
 

Kadayi

Banned
Hopefully this is as good as the professional review claims, with this, wasteland 3 and flight this is a few weeks remind me of gaming's golden age, wow. All 3 on MS PC gamepass as well. I would never have thought MS could be so on point on picking thier partners for their PC releases, perhaps they really need to think hard on just half giving up console as they just can't do that right.

The Youtuber One Proud Bavarian I linked to earlier in the thread when he started his stream said straight up that after having put over 250 hours into the game during the testing, it was without a doubt a new benchmark for Paradox as far as their games in terms of raising the bar. He said it wasn't perfect (and he talked about some issues like Byzantium being feudal) but there wasn't much that he felt that he wasn't sure wouldn't be addressed either with patching in balance or future DLC in terms of content. I think it's the real deal. I do think it's right to be sceptical of the big sites, but with something like a Paradox title it isn't necessarily going to get unrelenting praise versus certain AAA brands unless it actually earns it.
 
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Bolivar687

Banned
Fantastic OP, Bolivar687 Bolivar687 thanks for the work you put into that.

Thanks. Gotta give a lot of credit to Kadayi Kadayi for a lot of the write up, headers, structure, and overall how to make better OTs on GAF.

All 3 on MS PC gamepass as well. I would never have thought MS could be so on point on picking thier partners for their PC releases, perhaps they really need to think hard on just half giving up console as they just can't do that right.

You gotta hand it to Microsoft, it really was a brilliant move. Get a bunch of people to play the sequel to that crazy Crusader game they kept hearing about on Windows Store, and now that's going to be where they buy all the DLC from.
 

Kadayi

Banned
Thanks. Gotta give a lot of credit to Kadayi Kadayi for a lot of the write up, headers, structure, and overall how to make better OTs on GAF.

Shh!! I was never there

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You gotta hand it to Microsoft, it really was a brilliant move. Get a bunch of people to play the sequel to that crazy Crusader game they kept hearing about on Windows Store, and now that's going to be where they buy all the DLC from.

I'm not sure how it works with game-pass. I would have thought people if they dig it on there will likely spring for it on Steam if not after a while then maybe when it goes on sale in the future.
 

Dargor

Member
1.2k hours clocked in on CK2, still not tired of playing it, hope CK3 doesnt disappoint like Imperator Rome did, I don't think I would be able to get over it, this time its one of my favorite games of all times.

edit: original was a bit confusing, hope its clearer that I'm more invested in ck3 than in Imperator Rome.
 
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Kadayi

Banned
My review in progress whatever,.
Just hilarious and awesome deep gameplay


I was wondering if you were going to have a look at it Karak Karak glad you did. sounds like you went through the wringer a bit at times. Definitely going to be a time vampire until CP2077 lands.
 
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Kadayi

Banned
I may have not sure if that's not normal or what. But I was laughing through ALL of it

CK will knock you out of leftfield all the time. It's part of its charm. I had one game in II where my son was all set to inherit everything and through some quality breeding had turned him into someone destined for absolute greatness (insane stats), only for him to get murdered, not by a bitter brother, or hostile king with designs on my land, but by some lowly courtier who had a childhood rivalry with him and who I'd married off to a foreign court. All my hopes and schemes were just undone by some miserable rat fuck thousands of miles away I hadn't factored in. It was a painful lesson, but nevertheless an instructive one. After that, I was like...you know what... I'm keeping more of an eye on how the kids are doing and who their friends are and who they know, who will suffer a tragic mishap before they come of age. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


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At the end of the day, what separates CK from the other strat games though it is all about that emergent narrative and how the systems bring that to life. Underneath you know mentally it's just numbers coupled with some good old RNG factored in doing their thing, and it's just business not personal, but fuck it if I was going to let that rat fuck SOB get away with that shit. He may have been in a foreign court but I went full Keyser Soze on him, his immediate family and relations

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wiped out his entire dynasty (not that many of them to be fair), because when they've gotta go, they've gotta go. Probably set myself back 10-15 years in terms of furthering my realm, because plotting on people so far away takes time and lots of gold, but totally worth it in terms of personal satisfaction at the time. The second son didn't turn out too bad in the end, but not a patch on his brother ( I like to think my bitter old man of a king reminded him daily of that ). Them's the breaks, gotta roll with them.
 

Dargor

Member
So, any idea when can I download this game?

edit: sorry folks, didn't see this had already been covered in the topic.
 
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Burger

Member
I'm getting pretty sick of games advertising they come out on day X, then on the day it changes to say it comes out at like 8pm.

Why would a game unlock in the evening? WHY
 

Kadayi

Banned
I'm getting pretty sick of games advertising they come out on day X, then on the day it changes to say it comes out at like 8pm.

Why would a game unlock in the evening? WHY

It's sadly always the case with these things, unfortunately. I long since stopped thinking 'I'll take the launch day off' because invariably it's 6 CST. Should have taken Wednesday off though, and more importantly not agreed to go to the cinema that evening to see Tenet either...I maybe sat there watching Nolans latest cinematic masterpiece, but in reality I'll actually be cogitating on how to scheme away my brother's lands

ABS

Always Be Scheming

:messenger_grinning_smiling:
 

Burger

Member
It's sadly always the case with these things, unfortunately. I long since stopped thinking 'I'll take the launch day off' because invariably it's 6 CST. Should have taken Wednesday off though, and more importantly not agreed to go to the cinema that evening to see Tenet either...I maybe sat there watching Nolans latest cinematic masterpiece, but in reality I'll actually be cogitating on how to scheme away my brother's lands

ABS

Always Be Scheming

:messenger_grinning_smiling:

As far as I can tell it's only the PC and Switch that choose to do this. PS4/Xbox - if it says day X then it's 12:00am on the dot. Switch Digital releases sometimes won't even tell you when it unlocks.

And it's a choice to do this right? It's a choice by the publisher/developer. Usually a morning release for the Americans, and Europeans can eat a fucking dick.
 
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