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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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Doomdark said:
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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Well... I'm disappointed. I don't always play them, but I like having these governments that operate differently from the usual feudal affair.
 
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karl2025 said:
Well... I'm disappointed. I don't always play them, but I like having these governments that operate differently from the usual feudal affair.
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Given that the devs were never quite happy with the way they'd made them, I expect they're going to attempt to do them better, and that means focusing an entire dev cycle on them instead of including them as a side feature in the base game.
 
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I have a desire that is not fulilled by CK2: a mode where "fantasy events" can occur but only because people believe in them. He thinks that he saw a dragon, he thinks that he really signed a pact with the demon after killing children (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_de_Rais).

Also I want oliphants, an artefact type strangely missing in CK2, ancient books, or medieval compilation like the "facts and deeds of the Romans", a compilation of Roman history that was super popular in the late middle ages. Great libraries did that to a certain extent but it could function in relation with erudite advisors and scriptoriums instead.

Those are just some things to ponder, good luck.
 
thinking_waffle said:
I have a desire that is not fulilled by CK2: a mode where "fantasy events" can occur but only because people believe in them. He thinks that he saw a dragon, he thinks that he really signed a pact with the demon after killing children (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_de_Rais).

Also I want oliphants, an artefact type strangely missing in CK2, ancient books, or medieval compilation like the "facts and deeds of the Romans", a compilation of Roman history that was super popular in the late middle ages. Great libraries did that to a certain extent but it could function in relation with erudite advisors and scriptoriums instead.

Those are just some things to ponder, good luck.
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No inventories at the moment, so probably no artifacts either.
 
I’m in strong agreement with Metz77 and a few of the others who have expressed similar sentiments. I’m fine with fewer government types on launch if it gives them the chance to make the ones that are in it at launch feel much more varied and diverse. I want them to take their time building this game properly so we don’t get locked into mechanics that in the end don’t really meld with the game. I think that happened to an extent with CK2 with some of the mechanics and I’d rather we avoid those mistakes this time around since hopefully this game will also be around for nearly a decade (or at least avoid the old mistakes and just make new ones instead lol).

And that’s where the feeling of “those mechanics may be developed but not for this game” comes from. Yes, merchant republics have been developed. But they weren’t developed for CK3, which is going to have changes in it. It may not be a revolution but evolution does imply changes will be made. And maybe they have big ideas for making these government types more unique and interesting, but they want to make sure they get the base types of government right first.

I think in general, everyone should just calm down a little bit about what is and isn’t going to be in the game. The team will reveal more about the game through Dev Diaries and the game is still months away. That’s not to say people don’t have a right to ask questions or to be disappointed if their favorite features aren’t included. I’m sure we’ll know everything about the game long before the time it comes out, and the team is probably still decompressing from PDXCon. I’m looking forward to the start of regular DDs, and I feel like that’s when we’ll get a good look at the game.

And it’s definitely true that maybe my optimism is misplaced, but I’ve put in so many enjoyable hundreds of hours into CK2, so I am hopeful that CK3 will be enjoyable as well. If not, I’ve always got CK2 and it’s fantastic modding community.
 
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Looking forward to more info on CK3 and what it has to offer over (t)rusty CK2. I'm especially curious what the new game engine is capable of. Hopefully you do a devdiary on that too!
I must admit i have a wait and see attitude but its far too early to make a judgement.
 
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BurnBird said:
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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To add to this, people seem to forget that it's not to the game is in the hands of the players that pds will start to get good feedback about what is really needed and what needs to change. If you spent 10 years making a game with loads of content but the public Don want that content on release bit something else you've wasted a lot of time. By releasing a good core experience with plenty of old favourites in a reasonable time span pdx can start to see what WE want and how WE play the game. Development can be tailored from there.
 
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The art style may be a touch exaggerated but I think that's just an adjustment thing. I love, love, LOVE how different the characters look and how they hang out on the main screen. As you said, CKII is a game about characters, and I never knew I wanted an upgrade to how I looked in-game before now. I hope you wear armor when at war, too. Hopefully, you can actually see that +2 axe you're wielding. :)
 
As much as I would love to see CKII simply continue for infinity,

I fully understand that this over 7 years old game is finally reaching it's limit, and a redo is necessary (both from a design and technical perspective).

Looking forward to see what comes off it, but be advised that you better make this a pilot project for properly staffed QA.
 
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FleetingRain said:
If you're removing the supernatural events, at least keep the Spawn of Satan and Immortality ones.
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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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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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I'd like to see it added back as a game rule down the line, but yeah, they said they want to focus more on plausibility for the initial release and I'm down for that.
 
So looking forward to this. Hopefully, see a fully fleshed outline of game in following weeks.

To all those are who are moaning about game & what might or might not be in it, can we at least wait for the developers to explain details, until criticising or praising them. There is no point ranting about something in numerous threads if it is either going to be in game or not happening.
 
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I just hope that we get Merchant Republics in a DLC for CK3 down the line. I really do prefer playing as such in CK2, so the lack of their inclusion is disappointing to me, though I'm excited for quite a bit for the new character interfaces.
 
Well, fulfilling players' fantasies yes, but only if they're feudal it seems...
 
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