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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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Blackwhitecavias said:
The game has been announced for 2020, so I expect it will come out at earliest around May and probably later.
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Eh, I'd love to have it on may, but it was made clear at the announcement that the game might slip into 2021. I wouldn't bet on anything before next september.
 
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Cla168 said:
Yes please. Culture is one of the few things CK2 doesn't do justice to. Allow us to shape the culture of our realm the same way the Normans shaped the culture of Anglo-Saxon England, but in a dynamic way as opposed to pre-determined. It would be great to see a Swedish ruled Russia slowly create a mixed Slavic-Scandinavian culture, and stuff like that.
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I hope culture has a larger impact in CK3, in CK2 %90 of cultures were "no special features". Maybe they could have something like the new religious system except you have to combine cultures over time rather than just making a new heresy by dropping piety.
 
Nocx said:
I hope culture has a larger impact in CK3, in CK2 %90 of cultures were "no special features". Maybe they could have something like the new religious system except you have to combine cultures over time rather than just making a new heresy by dropping piety.
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I mean, if they're worried about Deus Vult being in the game, I'm not sure how in this day and age they can do much more to cultures than what we had in CK II. It was hard enough doing India and China without offending anyone, and for balance reasons you can't just give Israelites economy bonuses or nerf Bedouin's and Mongol's construction stats.

I like the idea of more integration between cultures and religions, as that would add a huge amount of flavour, and with the added 3D models, they can really spend time making the characters look and feel like the people we're playing as. Things like their clothes changing when they go travelling (for Hajj) or their posture changing when they go into hiding or seclusion would be great, but they have to absolutely nail the character creator. In 3D they will have nowhere to hide, and if the cultures look "off" or "wrong", there's gonna be a whole bunch of pissed off people.
 
A couple (very important :p) questions come to mind:

-On which day of the week will the dev diaries be coming out?
-Why are we going "deep", not "tall"? Are we going to Hell?

That said, looking forward to reading more about the game.
 
PedroLuiz said:
that's an oxymoron right there

paradox still wants to be percieved as a reasonable company, and letting their players eat children seems kinda wrong
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Nonsense! Better to eat them young than old!

The old taste funny.
 
I really hope CK III was designed with a "simulation systems" mindest approach from the ground up.

What do I mean by that... for example, a coherent "simulation" of trade (i.e. flow of goods and money) was basically absent from CKII and trade basically lacked any sort of coherent design philosophy in CKII and later on it was "dirty fixed" by a handful of dlc hack jobs, but it never approached anything even close to good design.

So if CK III makes a half-assed attempt at implementing trade which turns out to be too "high level" and abstract, then you bet your ass it will never ever get properly implemented via dlc after the fact. This is one of the reasons I have little belief that Rome can ever be comprehensively fixed.
 
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Olterin said:
A couple (very important :p) questions come to mind:

-On which day of the week will the dev diaries be coming out?
-Why are we going "deep", not "tall"? Are we going to Hell?

That said, looking forward to reading more about the game.
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Deep means fleshed out mechanics, tall means that you cannot expand your realm without getting screwed over by arbitrary limitations.

(sorry, I may be a little scarred by the trainwreck that is Civilization V)
 
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To be honest everything that's been announced is quite positive to me.

My understanding of a 'dynastic perk' system would be totally positive if it was a 'dynastic reputation' system rather than a perk, something like a bloodline but for historical achievement, that affects only the perception of outsiders. Bloodlines as implemented in CK2 were, to my understanding, not meant to represent inherent ability but instead outside perception, and a dynastic perk system might be a less mechanically finicky way of implementing that idea.

As for within-lifetime perks, I'm actually very positive about those. One of my perennial nitpicks with CK2 is that the rule of a peaceful monarch who builds a lot does not feel especially different from the rule of a warmonger; the way I was raised and the stats I end up with pretty much determine what I'm good at, and the 'philosophy' of my rule doesn't necessarily change the bonuses I get/affect the game as much as I'd expect. Ambitions (and their rewards) come closest to capturing that. Having my choices as an individual character affect that a lot more really appeals to me and also feels pretty plausible.

My absolute guess would be that intrinsic stats affect how quickly you gain experience (which makes sense to me), but that event choices/whatever other options exist ingame can also affect that experience, so a less skilled steward might be able to overtake a more skilled steward through focusing on that as a path. I actually really like that as a vehicle for telling a story about e.g. a new King nobody thinks much of, who proves to be a more capable ruler than anyone expected.

As somebody who really enjoys 'playing to character', I'm quite optimistic.
 
JakeTheDoge said:
I mean, if they're worried about Deus Vult being in the game, I'm not sure how in this day and age they can do much more to cultures than what we had in CK II. It was hard enough doing India and China without offending anyone, and for balance reasons you can't just give Israelites economy bonuses or nerf Bedouin's and Mongol's construction stats.
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Yeah the backlash from anything they represent wrongly would be pretty bad. Ah well, I guess it's fine if it doesn't have much mechanical use other than deciding who's a foreigner.

JakeTheDoge said:
I like the idea of more integration between cultures and religions, as that would add a huge amount of flavour, and with the added 3D models, they can really spend time making the characters look and feel like the people we're playing as.
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I didn't really mean integration between religion and culture, but now that you brought it up, that does sound cool.
 
Doomdark said:
We want to cater to all player fantasies we can reasonably accommodate
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Poland being able to research rocket science and shoot down an alien observation post is confirmed.

I'm way too excited for this game already!! I'm very much liking the idea of going less wide and more deep with the features. Hope that means the release day version will be fun and diverse to play already (every religion/culture being playable from the start brought my hopes up from the start).

Question: Will there be cool silly stuff the way CK2 has, like the lunatic trait's events, child of destiny, or the dragon bloodline posthumously making you a dragon?
That said, will there be dragons?
 
SolarGuy said:
Poland being able to research rocket science and shoot down an alien observation post is confirmed.

I'm way too excited for this game already!! I'm very much liking the idea of going less wide and more deep with the features. Hope that means the release day version will be fun and diverse to play already (every religion/culture being playable from the start brought my hopes up from the start).

Question: Will there be cool silly stuff the way CK2 has, like the lunatic trait's events, child of destiny, or the dragon bloodline posthumously making you a dragon?
That said, will there be dragons?
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At the moment, fantasy elements aren't being included. I hope they make a comeback in the future as optional game rules, personally.
 
Metz77 said:
At the moment, fantasy elements aren't being included. I hope they make a comeback in the future as optional game rules, personally.
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Eh, considering the new 3D graphics, I can understand why. Making a glorious immortal Glitterhoof in its best armor may not be the focus at release, but I'm sure we'll get him in time.
 
Altonym said:
My understanding of a 'dynastic perk' system would be totally positive if it was a 'dynastic reputation' system rather than a perk, something like a bloodline but for historical achievement, that affects only the perception of outsiders. Bloodlines as implemented in CK2 were, to my understanding, not meant to represent inherent ability but instead outside perception, and a dynastic perk system might be a less mechanically finicky way of implementing that idea.

As for within-lifetime perks, I'm actually very positive about those. One of my perennial nitpicks with CK2 is that the rule of a peaceful monarch who builds a lot does not feel especially different from the rule of a warmonger; the way I was raised and the stats I end up with pretty much determine what I'm good at, and the 'philosophy' of my rule doesn't necessarily change the bonuses I get/affect the game as much as I'd expect. Ambitions (and their rewards) come closest to capturing that. Having my choices as an individual character affect that a lot more really appeals to me and also feels pretty plausible.
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It seems like some dynastic perks will be based on a combo genetics/reputation thing? Since the genetics system will be more in-depth. If there's more deep roleplaying, I'm hoping to see character motivations shift over time, with a more interesting system for stuff like "stressed" and "depressed" affecting how characters actually interact with each other (A depressed character may be easier to push around, or a stressed character may be more likely to act out of anger and paranoia)

I'm mostly hoping for a lot of improvements to inter-court and intra-court intrigue and diplomacy, with a lot more interactions based on how one manages the court.

Akhy said:
I’m sure nomad or merchants republic will arrived in a future extension
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Hopefully, governments become more dynamic, just like how they're dealing with heresies and doctrinal rules! If that becomes the case, than maybe we can get systems that create stuff like the Swiss cantrefs, or nuanced monarchy systems which change based on treaties made with rebellious barons a la Magna Carta. If that happens, then maybe we could get merchant republics eventually by just having new rules added to the dynamic system? LIke - instead of just having feudal and republic, have several steps in between, like elective feudal systems, or pseudo-republics like mercenary military dictatorships, church rule.

Also hoping for a more nuanced approach to church appointments for dynasty members, where you can craft a dynasty that lives off its church appointments like some of the Roman families, or the Borgias.
 
Also, on another note, one of my favorite things to do in CK2 was manage a group of early-game unlanded courtiers and turn them into massive dynasties with holdings across my lands, and even negotiate some positions and holdings for them outside my realm. Balancing the power between the Great Names of my court, and bringing in new blood through bastards or recently un-seated nobles from nearby kingdoms made the game a lot of fun. So will there be some kind of dynastic loyalty/relations mechanic? Like if a dynasty has always served another dynasty with distinction, or the player's dynasty has provided a formerly unlanded dynasty with lands and power, will there be improved relations between characters of those dynasties?
 
Immortal88 said:
I really hope CK III was designed with a "simulation systems" mindest approach from the ground up.
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Sadly i believe they are building it with an RPG systems mindset.

And while I think the best part of CK2, and why to me it's leagues above every other paradox game, the simulationist aspects of it are a very large part of the appeal.

Being able to play an individual character in an RPG manner, in a simulated medieval world is insanely appealing. I love their current approach for CK3, but it scares me that they'll get tunnel vision and the simulationist aspects that are very much integral to the RPG experience (in my honest opinion) will be neglected.

What's the fun of being a character when the world itself is lacking? When the world doesnt react to what you do all that much? When you can't change the world a lot? It's why I want more detailed government. Being able to change it more would be amazing. At the very least I hope they didn't scale back the ability to alter your nation with laws.

Pretty much all I want of CK3 is more character stuff, better simulation of the world. That's a match made in heaven. A bigger world, or adding china, to me has absolutely no appeal as it doesnt enhance the core experience.
 
There is a question everyone is asking.

Will the codes used for CK3 be the same as for CK2? in summary is what our mod on CK2 will be transposable without much modification to bring on CK3

it would be cool to have an answer
 
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