• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

CK3 - Dev Diary #0 - The Vision

titus_gamevision.png


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!
 
  • 13Like
  • 5Love
  • 5
  • 2
  • 1
Reactions:
So... In other words, your going release it like Imperitor: Rome where I'm going to have to wait for a couple years and spend over $100 in "DLC" to make the game even remotely fun?

I'm pretty sure I've already spent over $120 on CK2 so I might just stick to that
 
Come on, we know it's a joke. What fool would remake a game they only just stopped working on that is as much complete as a game can be? What fool would buy a barebones sketch of a game when they can play a more or less complete one for free?

Someone who has reached the edge of what they can get the overloaded and bloated code that has 3 years of initial development and 7 years of layered updates might well declare it "finished", and move on to a new version that has most of the good points carried over, and has space to rework the areas that didn't work well, or turned out to make other areas of code harder to handle.


And "barebones" is hardly what they're suggesting we're going to get. A lot of the features will transfer over, with new ones to take the place of some of the things they're *not* bringing across.
Other things they're not bringing across can be handled in future expansions when they've written good versions that play nicely with the rest of the game.
 
So... In other words, your going release it like Imperitor: Rome where I'm going to have to wait for a couple years and spend over $100 in "DLC" to make the game even remotely fun?

I'm pretty sure I've already spent over $120 on CK2 so I might just stick to that
We haven't even seen any substantive dev diaries, and you're already saying it's going to be bad?

Sheesh! Let's see a few dev diaries first. Okay?
 
  • 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.

I know that what I ask for is totally cliche, but...... Can you make it easier to get in to *and* harder to excel at? CK2 was tricky to learn, but after learning all of the ins and outs it became almost too easy.
 
Are numbers going to be more accurate this time for the size of armies and garrisons?
Will there be playable theocracies?
How big map is going to be, of the size of Imperator map or disappointing?
Where is Vicky3?
the numbers used to be more accurate before Charlemagne patch nerfed total numbers in order to help with the same patches gimping of retinues.
 
Might be a little late, but, will certain religions be locked behind DLC like they were in CKII, or will they be fully developed enough with their own mechanics on release?
All religions will be available to play on release - more mechanics will likely be added later via DLC and updates, but none of them will be locked like pagans and Muslims were in vanilla CK II.
 
All religions will be available to play on release - more mechanics will likely be added later via DLC and updates, but none of them will be locked like pagans and Muslims were in vanilla CK II.

That's good, at least.

That's good. But hopefully, there are a lot more fleshed out/interesting events involving religion.

But yeah, CKII does flesh out a lot of the religions. I just hope that Catholic Christianity is the only one that has any sort of fleshing out to it.

I also hope that they use the Crusade System from Holy Fury.

(Correction, "Isn't the only one" derp)
 
Last edited:
That's good, at least.



But yeah, CKII does flesh out a lot of the religions. I just hope that Catholic Christianity is the only one that has any sort of fleshing out to it.

I also hope that they use the Crusade System from Holy Fury.

I'm unsure why I was disagreed with there. People dislike Holy Fury's Crusade System?
 
I'm unsure why I was disagreed with there. People dislike Holy Fury's Crusade System?
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.
 
Sounds promising, but I will wait for the "barons burden"-DLC ;)

Why people are so 'obsessed' with playing barons?

If you play as a baron three thing can happen, you lose the barony, you stay a baron for a long time or you became a count.

first is bad, second is boring, third is the game as usual.

After all a baron is essentially a vassal-less count with a single holding. what is so interesting about it? I'd understand wanting to play a bishop, or a landless mercenary, that would be different. But a baron is just less of the same.
 
About CK3 I am cautiously optimistic.

Some of the mechanics sound really interesting, like the new intrigue system or that vassals can have different contracts, it certainly open some cool possibilities. Other features are more worrying, like the skill tree, the new claims or the pay-4-boat system. But for both cases it is too soon to judge without seeing how these system will be implemented. Even EU4 estates sounded interesting and then turned in what they are.

So I'll wait, I'll read the DDs and in the meanwhile I'll keep playing CK2.
 
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.
 
I agree, and there are definitely times when sacrificing your independence in order to become the vassal of a neighbouring friendly state is a much better option than remaining independent and being conquered by someone else.