Crusader Kings 3

Has anyone been able to have real success as a small to mid sized African Kingdom? I just finally got a good game going after a handful of failures, it just seems playing as jogger kings is rough because as soon as you take any initiative or move your armies to a task, you are immediately raided or declared on by a jogger opportunist.

Just started playing this game. Having never played any of the other games in the series, I have no fucking idea what I'm doing. I picked random for starting realm, king, got some off shoot tiny country in what is modern day Sicily, and managed to fuck myself six ways from Sunday. Allied with a bunch of other countries in the region and joined in their holy wars against the Muslims, got my ass kicked, two of my sons and my daughter were all killed, wound up dying at age 70 completely broke, with pretty much everyone in the region hating me, started a new religion that no one liked or supported, and left my kingdom to my 7 year old son, who was quickly overthrown and killed.

Needless to say, I will be doing the tutorial this weekend so I can figure out what the fuck to do. But even though my first try as a ruler was a complete disaster, I can see myself getting totally hooked on this game. It's like "Game of Thrones" the video game.

Its awesome man.

There is so much random shit that can happen. I murdered a homosexual wandering "doctor" which led to another homo in the court to lose favor and rise up against my rule, which then bankrupted me and eventually stressed me into madness.

I would do the same thing again.

Jozu said:

Its awesome man.

There is so much random shit that can happen. I murdered a homosexual wandering "doctor" which led to another homo in the court to lose favor and rise up against my rule, which then bankrupted me and eventually stressed me into madness.

I would do the same thing again.

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Am I missing something? Is this the fun part of the game?

Because what seems to happen is I build up the farms and the barracks and make sure everyone in my government is okay with me, and then I attack a neighboring county to conquer it and shit just goes haywire. My prince started murdering people and presenting their corpses to me. And then my vassal had an affair with his own wife, which somehow affected my reputation, and then a neighboring county attacked me.

Am I doing it wrong? Or is this the game. Is this supposed to be fun?

I think I need to give up on trying to turn Ireland into anything more than the shithole it is.

Campbell1oo4 said:

Am I missing something? Is this the fun part of the game?

Because what seems to happen is I build up the farms and the barracks and make sure everyone in my government is okay with me, and then I attack a neighboring county to conquer it and shit just goes haywire. My prince started murdering people and presenting their corpses to me. And then my vassal had an affair with his own wife, which somehow affected my reputation, and then a neighboring county attacked me.

Am I doing it wrong? Or is this the game. Is this supposed to be fun?

I think I need to give up on trying to turn Ireland into anything more than the shithole it is.

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Yes, the character relationships is the true shining star of this series. On its surface it seems to be a kingdom uniting and paint the map simulator, like some of Paradox's other titles. But what really makes CK stand out is that it tries to model all of the crazy things that can actually happen in reality, the random boons and misfortunes that caused real kingdoms to succeed or fail. At the start of the game (especially the earlier one) most of the world is highly decentralized, making it very hard to create sprawling empires, even if you are a military mastermind. The concepts and technologies to truly unite an empire's worth of people simply didn't exist yet. And the game properly simulates this. So, if you were expecting to unite say Ireland and have it successfully pass to your designated heir throughout the generations, well you can, but it will be a few hundred years. Eventually you do get to that point, while still dealing with crazy family members vying to overthrow you, and it will seem more manageable.

At least in Europe you shouldn't have any and everyone declaring war on you constantly like the rest of the world who are even less civilized. As Jozu is remarking and I myself started in Yemen, its all conquest all the time because the countries there are still Tribal and don't need real Casus Belli to declare war, and your brother is fucking your wife and trying to overthrow you on top of it all. Its really quite the challenge and very enjoyable.

I am playing with my brother who is another Yemeni Duke. His original character died far earlier than mine and he lost another two in quick succession. Then he had a murderer running rampant through his court, killing randoms at first, then eventually his kids and his wife. Turns out it was his son and heir all along, who eventually killed him. And now he is playing as the murdering asshole himself. Its truly good times.

etchazz said:

Just started playing this game. Having never played any of the other games in the series, I have no fucking idea what I'm doing. I picked random for starting realm, king, got some off shoot tiny country in what is modern day Sicily, and managed to fuck myself six ways from Sunday. Allied with a bunch of other countries in the region and joined in their holy wars against the Muslims, got my ass kicked, two of my sons and my daughter were all killed, wound up dying at age 70 completely broke, with pretty much everyone in the region hating me, started a new religion that no one liked or supported, and left my kingdom to my 7 year old son, who was quickly overthrown and killed.

Needless to say, I will be doing the tutorial this weekend so I can figure out what the fuck to do. But even though my first try as a ruler was a complete disaster, I can see myself getting totally hooked on this game. It's like "Game of Thrones" the video game.

Click to expand...

Knowing nothing of the series, I wondered if this game is worth buying...I think you helped me with that.

Alright, I'm starting to pick up what you guys are saying.

I chose to play as a duchy of France in the 867 start. And it is truly more satisfying than being the king of the whole country. I can just sit in my duchy and improve my lands and if I want, I can join a war and get some military points.

I also learned how to disinherit heirs, but now I have a baby as my heir and I'm like 60 because my dumb-fuck son had to run off to Italy and get himself stabbed in the face. On top of that there is duke who is like 19 who keeps trying to gobble up my territories, so my duchy now resembles a militarized farming community. Fields and barracks everywhere.

Edit: I managed to last 156 years starting as the Duchy of Austeria, or something like that, in northern France. Things were going great. I had just become the pre-eminent duke when I died and became an old woman. Apparently, you can't have people switch from one family to another. Seems pretty fucking stupid that you wouldn't be able to convince your son, a count of some minor province on the other side of the country, to become the heir to the strongest dukedom of all of France.

I had a lot of fun, but I can't help but feeling like I lost and that the last 6 hours of my life were for nothing.

That has happened to me like 4 times already.

It is fun, but seems somewhat dissatisfying unless you start to advance to the mod to late game period as far as talent trees go and construction advancement etc. I havent been able to secure a strong dynasty, as homosexuals and other unfortunate things have disrupted my advancement and I just end up starting over.

Assuming that this carries over from ck2, there are ways to get around realm shattering succession laws besides changing them. One way is to marry a woman near or in her early 30's to reduce the amount of heirs that you'll have. Another way is to marry an old woman, go on seduction focus and invite single women to your court; make them your lovers and choose the best bastard to legitimize.

This game is pure RNG. No skill involved.

Don't try to convince me otherwise. I had an intelligent and robust king (I played with genetics like some Nazi doctor) with high military ability, and he got cucked by one of his lords that someone managed to raise an army larger than mine, despite the fact I had 2 counties and he had 1.

Pure RNG.

Im telling you there might be deeper problems with the AI here.

Because I too ran a strong martial campaign with a pretty well rounded andloyal council. I secured my succession (a son well protected from subversion) and didn't wait to declare on a weak neighbor. I successfully toppled 2 lesser states and absorbed them into mine, putting me over my allowed amount.

This was a minor hindrance as I had coin, but after the homosexual uprising my gay brother broke allegiance to me and became leader of half my kingdom. This lead to a huge loss in men and money, and my vulnerable position left me open to raids and eventually was declared on and stomped by my homosexual neighbor and his massive ally with 3k (gay?) men.

That's why I was asking if aafrica is different in that sense where they are more likely to attack and do wild shit, than say western Europe.

Yeah, there is obviously something very wrong with this game.

I realize now it is more of an RPG than a kingdom builder. And that's fine. I can play a RPG. But I am playing as Tuscany right now, and my character just decided they needed to start a liberation war against the Holy Roman Emperor.

I didn't get to decide that. The character did. I was forced into a war against an opponent I couldn't beat. Something is off here.

I feel like stress is too abundant.

This shit honestly sounds almost nothing at all like CK2.

I like the stress mechanic. it adds a layer to the game that is needed IMO. Without it, you have a Total War type gambit going on where your 3 assassins are leveled up proper and are assassinating every King, noble or general in their fucking range, which leads to a monotonous catch a spy fest, that devolves into simply who can build more spies and who can do it faster.

Stress gives a penalty to righteous characters who try to do underhanded shit. Or makes you think twice about being an asshole to otherwise innocent actors who dont deserve it. It adds weight to the character traits, even if its somewhat annoying, its needed IMO.

Yea, but if you play pokemon with traits you can get into situations where every choice gives stress, so you have to constantly pour money into feasts and hunts, and schemes to make sure you're invited to others' feasts. Ambitious alone gives you stress when you grant titles even if they're to your primary heir.

I feel like any time I go from over my domain or title limit to the appropriate limit my stress should go down more than any other goes up. If I'm at 9/6 domain and 4/2 duchy and hand off 3 counties and 2 duchies, I ought to be pacific. I had basically the ubermensch go melancholic/drunkard because feasts/hunts don't cool down quickly enough and I was #winning. Taught me to do less #winning.