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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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Pied-Noir said:
I find this entire debacle quite comical, and it's not something I'd really blame Paradox for. I don't understand the sort of journalist who'd choose to devote an entire paragraph to such an asinine topic. It's a red flag to me, and reeks of someone far more interested in the politics of video games than video games themselves. I've heard some questionable things about RPS but based on that awful CK III article alone I'd give them a wide berth.
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I agree that this is most likely something that RPS is at fault for, rather than Paradox. There’s some serious problems in game journalism these days, but thats another topic. Since Paradox is the group that has to deal with this fallout, it really would be best for them to just deal with it head on. Rip off the bandaid, so to speak.
 
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Sanny said:
Also I hope I don’t see CKIII being an Epic exclusive somewhere down the line. ;)
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Yeah, don't worry about that - it'll be on Origin for the first year. :p
 
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Doomdark said:
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.
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Are the characters themselves still playable though? Some interviews have mentioned that would-be nomads are ordinary tribals (for the time being), will merchant republics be some sort of feudal variation or unplayable at launch?
 
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It looks promising and interesting. The focus on character interest me.

Like some already asked : it would be a dream if there was at last some fantasy content. For example things like the elder scroll world mod !
 
Coldfire4134 said:
How long has the game been in development?
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"I’ve been working on ever since Stellaris came out (and before) - Crusader Kings III"

Stellaris was released on 9 May 2016 (victory day) ;)

So playing the guessing-game I would assume that the planning phase started around 2016 already.
Don't ever think we would get a clear answer for how long it's been under development since it's ambiguous.

Is it under development during the planning phase or when they write the first line of code?
 
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Unlike some people here, I am really happy that they're not adding nonsensical supernatural stuff. I hated that in CK2. Sure, I could turn it off, but then there was practically no content for societies. I hope resources won't be wasted on that in the future.
 
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Dolin said:
So all I see and read is CKIII will have more 3D animations, in-depth dynasty upgrades but about 50% (a guess when it's stated you can't even play two government types only in the first diary) less features compared to CKII?

Got 900+ in this game over the past years, and surely can live without 3D. But with so many features missing... Not sure.
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You should really read more announcements. They pretty much stated that they are only removing things that werent working good enough. Merchant Republics arent necessary and maybe they will do a DLC with improved mechanics for it in the future.

Base CK3 has so many more features than CK2 would have at launch and CK3 seems to include much content from DLC's as well, like the old gods startdate, so that will probably mean vikings, probably lots of QoL changes and Holy Fury crusade mechanics most likely.
 
Utik said:
Unlike some people here, I am really happy that they're not adding nonsensical supernatural stuff. I hated that in CK2. Sure, I could turn it off, but then there was practically no content for societies. I hope resources won't be wasted on that in the future.
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I just hope that in future patchs,the immortal trait will come back.Apparently,it will not be at launch.
 
Dolin said:
So all I see and read is CKIII will have more 3D animations, in-depth dynasty upgrades but about 50% (a guess when it's stated you can't even play two government types only in the first diary) less features compared to CKII?

Got 900+ in this game over the past years, and surely can live without 3D. But with so many features missing... Not sure.
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I agree, those smelly 3D modellers could've done content design instead and brought back our features!
 
Pbhuh said:
You should really read more announcements. They pretty much stated that they are only removing things that werent working good enough. Merchant Republics arent necessary and maybe they will do a DLC with improved mechanics for it in the future.
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Well, not only things that were lacking are being removed. We're losing also dynamic diseases for example. Sure, it will come back some day in a more awesome way, but it seems it will not be at launch despite working well in CK2
 
Nobody987 said:
Game should be bigger than final CK2, not CK2 on release...
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Dude, Ck2 was in development for 7 years, so if you want a game that is even larger, it would take a decade to develop and would have to release at an insane price to get its money back. Sure, I don't want Ck3 to be a boring, empty husk, like Imperator on launch, but you also have to be realistic. Hopefully, Ck3 will have a foundation that is better to build upon that Ck2 currently is.
 
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So there won't be Merchant Republics and Nomads, but will there be differences between certain factions? Or will the feudal catholics, iqta muslims and the tribal pagans play all the same way? Is it final that we won't be able to play republics or hordes?

And I really dislike the removal of supernatural and absurd events of the game. Just do what you did on CK2 and add the option of turning it off for those who dont like it.
 
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Fofotron said:
So there won't be Merchant Republics and Nomads, but will there be differences between certain factions? Or will the feudal catholics, iqta muslims and the tribal pagans play all the same way? Is it final that we won't be able to play republics or hordes?
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They will be differences, for example Christian levies not longer depends on opinion of the vassals while the Muslim levies does
 
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Although Merchant Republics are my favorite way of playing CK2, it's not like I don't have fun with feudals or tribals (which are my second favorite way of playing).
I'm so HYPED for CK3. What I have seen, read and heard about the features so far sound SO awesome. And the fact that this game has been in development for over 3 years now gives me SO much hope.
 
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