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CK3 - Dev Diary #0 - The Vision

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Greetings friends!

It’s my pleasure to finally be able to talk about what I’ve been working on ever since Stellaris came out (and before) - Crusader Kings III, of course! CK3 draws on the wisdom gained over CK2’s seven long years of expansions and patches - all the things we simply could not do in that game - and represents the natural evolution of Crusader Kings. Yes, CK3 is an evolution, not a revolution; it’s better across the board and does not alter the core CK experience. That said, we did not carry over everything from every expansion and update to CK2. Rather than trying to do full justice to the less appreciated systems, we decided to go deep rather than wide.

The main design goals with Crusader Kings III were:
  • Character Focus: Crusader Kings is clearly and unequivocally about individual characters, unlike our other games. This makes CK most suited for memorable emergent stories, and we wanted to bring characters into all important gameplay mechanics (where possible.)
  • Player Freedom and Progression: We want to cater to all player fantasies we can reasonably accommodate, allowing players to shape their ruler, heirs, dynasty and even religion to their liking - though there should of course be appropriate challenges to overcome.
  • Player Stories: All events and scripted content should feel relevant, impactful and immersive in relation to the underlying simulation. That way, players will perceive and remember stories - their own stories, not the developers’ stories.
  • Approachability: Crusader Kings III should be user friendly without compromising its general level of complexity and historical flavor. It’s nice if it’s easier to get into, but more than that, it should be clear what everything in the game is, what you might want to be doing, and how to go about it.
Now, you might say: “Cool, but I took the time to master CK2, bought all the expansions, and now it provides me an enormous breadth of options. Why should I buy CK3?”

That’s a fair question! As I mentioned earlier, we decided not to carry over all features from CK2, so if you play CK2 primarily for, say, the nomads or the merchant republics (the only faction types that were playable in CK2 but not in CK3), you might be disappointed. There are likely other features and content that will be missed by some players, but, in return, we believe that everyone will find the core gameplay far more fun and rewarding! To be clear, CK3 is a vastly bigger game than CK2 was on release.

I know this dev diary was short on details, but don’t despair - they will be revealed over the coming months!
 
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MiskoWaagosh said:
Will I be able to make my Messalian kingdom? How will love interest our relationships work in this as compared to ck2?
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I think so, they're really focusing on religions and heresies, and customizable heresies too, so you'll probably have the opportunity to play as Messalian and even customize your heresy/religion.
 
LukeCreed13 said:
I think so, they're really focusing on religions and heresies, and customizable heresies too, so you'll probably have the opportunity to play as Messalian and even customize your heresy/religion.
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That would be awesome, as currently when compared to Catholics you essentially are left with a dull experience if you go this route. It definitely would be nice to have much more flavor when choosing such routes.
 
Now that I think about it, the fact that they're slightly expanding the map not only slightly east but also a bit down south is already a signal that at some point they'll going to overhaul African regions. I can see the Mali Empire's southern borders being fully represented, and special events for Coptic Ethiopia, especially in regards to the figure of the mythical Prester John and "his" stance during the Crusades.
 
NFZed said:
But hopefully you will provide bloodlines? This is my favorite part of the game. Especially deciding who I marry to whom or to be more precise whom I am breeding with whom.
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Should be Player and Dynasty Progression Economy and Military should paramount. Progression so the whole timeline is filled with Drama. Blood lines are part of the Progression.
 
Please Logical and Historical Simulated battles Please. Terrain , Weaponry , technoghy , Leadership.
“An army of sheep led by a lion is better than an army of lions led by a sheep.”

― Alexander the Great
 
Pied-Noir said:
Events for people becoming witches or claiming they're demon spawn are fine, but actually obtaining immortality (as opposed to trying to and then dying as a result) is ridiculous and shouldn't be possible.
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If you push boulders that weigh as much as a man and they start rolling it don't matter if the fruit of life is real or not I'm guessing it's could crush you. If you drink some "potion" that some random witch gives you claiming it will make you live longer I'm guessing you could possibly die if you don't know what your drinking. So I think the events themselves are realistic its just the end result specifically being immortal that you don't agree with.

I for one love the supernatural events and have thousands of in game time and never get tired of it. Honestly I love the timeline I love history but at the end of a day it's a game and it offers at it's base many of the flavors I look for in a game with this period as it's focus. I feel that the supernatural events do add alot of flavor and it's a very fun mechanic.

Some people say the game is a soap of medieval shenanigans, but I say if you "want a game to the books" like you want it won't be as fun because the end result will almost always be "predictable". I'm a heavy board gamer and into some heavy (complexity) war games such as advanced squad leader and sometimes the game can be a drag as it starts to get predictable in the sense that the battles or events usually follow there historical outcomes. That's why such games that follow the same principle but use some random events really add to the excitement.

Overall though no matter there direction I will be excited for ck3 as long as it can be modded because at least we get a new ck game with a new engine that can be pushed even further even if the devs somewhat screw it up :) (but I'm hoping they don't).
 
Am I the only one who really liked CK2 DLC model? Where we got deep and detailed gameplay with only one faction (christian Europe) and then with DLC got other factions when playing base game started to be stale and the same?

Functional DLC never add much to mechanics because there is simply not enough space, just look at EU4. New playable faction on the other hand may offer completely different playstyle and new and fresh experience.
 
Resuming to topic, as we should probably keep off politics further lest this thread devolve, I do wonder exactly how far the character focus of ck3 will go as far as events are concerned, as if there's anything that disappoints me about ck2, is how few events I get, and how since I've gotten more DLC, certain events no longer fire for my characters at all, and I often just get loops of the same events over and over.

I am aware that we won't be getting MTTF events in CK3, but I do wonder to just what extent the event-based-event chains will bring to the table, though I assume we will be waiting for gameplay to be available to be for sure. Hopefully at the very least, going forward, DLC won't reduce the amount of available content as has happened in some cases in CK2.

Alternatively, I may merely be oddly unlucky when it comes to event triggers, though I don't really know.


Testeria said:
Am I the only one who really liked CK2 DLC model? Where we got deep and detailed gameplay with only one faction (christian Europe) and then with DLC got other factions when playing base game started to be stale and the same?

Functional DLC never add much to mechanics because there is simply not enough space, just look at EU4. New playable faction on the other hand may offer completely different playstyle and new and fresh experience.
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I do generally like the CK2 DLC model, but I prefer Stellaris', which is similar, but gameplay mechanics are added to the base game and DLC are purely flavor on top. CK2 really needed retiunes added to the base game, as one example.
 
Testeria said:
Am I the only one who really liked CK2 DLC model? Where we got deep and detailed gameplay with only one faction (christian Europe) and then with DLC got other factions when playing base game started to be stale and the same?

Functional DLC never add much to mechanics because there is simply not enough space, just look at EU4. New playable faction on the other hand may offer completely different playstyle and new and fresh experience.
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I don't like DLC systems in general just because you never get near enough features for the price point. I always wait until 50% off or better sales and even then they are still usually a rip-off. To make the comparison easier, think about a game like Mortal Kombat. You can pay $60 for the whole game and get 30+ fighters plus the entire game. Then a DLC comes out for $5 or $10 for a single new fighter. How is there any value in that?

Usually they put in one needed feature that can totally change the game and make you feel you need it or be left behind. EUIV, for example, added Artillery Barrage in their Mandate of Heaven expansion. It's the only feature I cared about. Wasn't going to pay $20 to breech the walls even though that feature would be game changing.
 
Evaris said:
Something I hope to see, is AI accepting offers to be vassals.

If I'm a king with a sizeable military, with +100 relations with a duke, who just lost a war and half his territory to another kingdom nearby he has a sour relation with, there should be at least a decent chance of him accepting such an offer.

Right now, the option to offer vassalization is only useful in multiplayer matches or if you turn on yesmen, and that annoys me.
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It is fairly handy for rapidly uniting same culture and same religion provinces though. On shattered world starts it's borderline overpowered because large monolithic culture blobs like Orthodox Greeks can be rapidly united by it.
 
I think my personal issue with CK2's DLC is the following:

1. Playing Muslims and Pagans was gated off with DLC. The game just seems extremely limited without them. Really wish PD would have them for free now that the game itself is free, but whatevs. Would really help people get into more though.
2. Too many small chunks that price #10~$20. That adds up. Would much rather bigger expansions at $20 or even $30. But, I know that might be more difficult to manage.

That's not exactly "abhorrent" to me (and I don't shy away from calling out crappy business practices), but it does put a damper on some things.

EDIT: Forgot to say! CK3 has fixed the first issue! So, that sounds very good.
 
I would like to see a little more fog in regards to diplomacy and actions. It always bothers me when you know 100% for sure if an action will be accepted or declined. Maybe good advisors would lower the potential range of acceptance.
 
WhiskyGlen said:
I don't like DLC systems in general just because you never get near enough features for the price point. I always wait until 50% off or better sales and even then they are still usually a rip-off. To make the comparison easier, think about a game like Mortal Kombat. You can pay $60 for the whole game and get 30+ fighters plus the entire game. Then a DLC comes out for $5 or $10 for a single new fighter. How is there any value in that?
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Depends on how much You play with it. If that fighter give You more then two hours of fun it is probably worth the price of cinema ticket, is it.



WhiskyGlen said:
Usually they put in one needed feature that can totally change the game and make you feel you need it or be left behind. EUIV, for example, added Artillery Barrage in their Mandate of Heaven expansion. It's the only feature I cared about. Wasn't going to pay $20 to breech the walls even though that feature would be game changing.
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This is exactly why I prefer CK2 model then EU4. In CK2 when there is new faction to play (tribes, muslims, horse riders) it grant You almost new game (I played more than 1000 hours with Old gods alone!). Purely mechanical expansions like EU4 or even Holy Fury can offer me just few games at most, because they do not change enough in the game. In HolyFury I created panslavic green empire with custom religion, reactivated hellenistic religion twice and that's mostly it. Good value for 20$ but nowhere near what I got from tribal or Muslim expansions.

As to EU4 I only bought Dharma with more then 25% of the full price and Dharma was not worth the full price for me - didn't even finished my Mugal campaign...
 
DreadLindwyrm said:
Probably the "I just hope that Catholic Christianity is the only one that has any sort of fleshing out to it" thing.

Most people will want *all* the religions to be fleshed out.
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*Facepalm*

Correction

I just hope that catholic christianity ISN'T the only one that has any sort of fleshing out.

lol, sorry about that.
 
Well sorry for being negative but

->“Cool, but I took the time to master CK2, bought all the expansions, and now it provides me an enormous breadth of options. Why should I buy CK3?”

This dairy absolutely don't answer to this question.

Moreover, as somebody who owns CK2 since day one, the statement of CK3 having more features then CK2 at launch don't impress me. Because it isn't hard at all.

The statement of making the game more approachable is more alarming to me then an argument to buy it.

Not convinced at all by all this stuff, just hoping for more informative diaries then this merely disguised ad.
 
Streletz said:
->“Cool, but I took the time to master CK2, bought all the expansions, and now it provides me an enormous breadth of options. Why should I buy CK3?”
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why should CK3 try replacing CK2 instead of trying to be worth the 60 bucks for it's own sake?
if it did wouldn't you feel robbed by having to pay 60$ for the same game?
 
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