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Won't reply to get his attention but can moderators do something about this account? At least half of his past posts is AI made and all he does is rage baiting. No one in 2025 talks like that.
Glitch in the matrix...

Screenshot 2025-05-11 at 4.41.39 PM.png
 
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The only thing stress kinda does, which is, im pretty sure, not intentional, is make you somewhat hate living long coz your heir will get owned by stress and will accumulate bad traits coz of that.
But again, i dont think that's what it was intended for....
It's a minor issue for me because I actually don't mind having a shitty heir or one with a "quirky personality". What it does, however, is clearly highlight how the AI doesn't understand the mechanics of the game.

Let's take Prince Bob, the eldest son of king John. The king is a very pious man who spends his time building churches across the realm and praying. As he barely engages in warfare, let alone in person, king John has ruled for over 40 years now. This means that Bob has spent most of his adult life taking care of a small duchy, waiting for his father to kick the bucket.

Bob is genuinely a nice guy but he is a bit shy. His martial education and strong physique make him good at competing in tournaments. Life as a duke can be stressful so how does Bob manage his stress levels?

First of all by attending events all the time that stress him out, even spending his hard earnt cash on hosting them. As a child even he accompanied his father on pilgrimages and real inspectios, picking up quite some experience in the traveler trait - thereby making it easier for him to gain traveler perks - but he has never bothered going on a single hike! Now thirty years old, Bob is an alcoholic. Recently having one too many conversation at a feast made him mad and he started self-flagellating. Two years later Bob would die of an infected wound which was self-inflicted.

This was a very stressful event for king John but he manages to stay sane by engaging in activities he enjoys - which fit his personality. Eventually John was succeeded by Prince Roger - 20 and growing at in court with no stress whatsoever.

Now this is a typical CK3 story but what can we learn from this?

1) When AI characters gain a lot of stress, they almost never go for the option to scream in a pillow and deal with the stress for a while until they can engage in an activity which reduces their stress levels - a.k.a they almost always become drunks or profligate spenders. The long-term consequences of this, of course, are much worse.

2) The AI in general doesn't seem to interact with a lot of systems. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I'd forgive courtiers or barons for not doing so but Prince Bob was a playable, fully fleshed-out character.

3) The AI is very bad at changing their mind when it comes to focus trees even when it would make sense to switch temporarily. Instead, the AI prefers to focus on getting the peacekeeper trait from the gallantry tree with no conflict in sight rather than studying medicine during a plague. No living heir? But I'm too busy increasing development! And so on.

The game is full of great ideas but the AI doesn't seem to notice they are there for them to fiddle around with.
 
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I also feel confused about this notion that strategy and roleplaying as a medieval ruler are somehow mutually exclusive. How are you supposed to roleplay the Holy Roman Emperors if your vassals don't have the teeth to roll back your attempts at centralization? And being a backstabbing rascal comes with no consequences since the AI simply cannot marshall the economic, military and diplomatic resources to kick your teeth in ...
 
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I also feel confused about this notion that strategy and roleplaying as a medieval ruler are somehow mutually exclusive. How are you supposed to roleplay the Holy Roman Emperors if your vassals don't have the teeth to roll back your attempts at centralization? And being a backstabbing rascal comes with no consequences since the AI simply cannot marshall the economic, military and diplomatic resources to kick your teeth in ...
Uuuh sorry but CK3 is not JUST a rpg or strategy game, it's a SANDBOX!!11!! That means the game has to bend to my will with minimal effort /s

Now please ignore how pretty much every beloved sandbox game has very customizable difficulty, but is still willing to kick the player in the teeth if they dare relax too much. Kenshi, X4, Rimworld, ZombieSurvivalSlop, Mount&Blade, even most of the base/business builders/management games have fairly easy to get into death spirals.

I'm not saying all of those games are hard once you learn them, but they still generally try and expect you to respect them & their systems.
 
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Now please ignore how pretty much every beloved sandbox game has very customizable difficulty, but is still willing to kick the player in the teeth if they dare relax too much. Kenshi, X4, Rimworld, ZombieSurvivalSlop, Mount&Blade, even most of the base/business builders/management games have fairly easy to get into death spirals.
I would like to put out a game I do love very much into the mix. Mognaticum was a level I had to replay quite a few times before I finally got a water pipeline solution that allowed me to build up the senatorial villa zone and make progress ...
 
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Yeah I really, really hope realm maintenance updates will become a thing that happens at least once a year from now on. It isnt a lot, sure, but that's SOMETHING and it brings in at least some opportunity for older systems to be changed or fixed.

and a small nipick - court positions existed before 1.15, it's just that you probably never interacted with them past physician-caravan master-maybe hunt master.
We've been doing Realm Maintenance from the start; they just had their changes targeting a DLC release to go out as part of the accompanying free update. We're definitely interested in doing standalone Realm Maintenance updates like 1.15 Crown again in the future though, since it makes the fact that we're continuing work on the base game more visible than packaging them alongside DLC has done.
 
We're definitely interested in doing standalone Realm Maintenance updates like 1.15 Crown again in the future though, since it makes the fact that we're continuing work on the base game more visible than packaging them alongside DLC has done.
You really should, because that will alleviate the concern of many players, me included.
 
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We've been doing Realm Maintenance from the start; they just had their changes targeting a DLC release to go out as part of the accompanying free update. We're definitely interested in doing standalone Realm Maintenance updates like 1.15 Crown again in the future though, since it makes the fact that we're continuing work on the base game more visible than packaging them alongside DLC has done.
Doing it within bigger updates makes it a lot less visible for sure, not to mention that update prob re-breaks everything back...
 
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Doing it within bigger updates makes it a lot less visible for sure, not to mention that update prob re-breaks everything back...
That and the DLC gets reviews based on the update, not the DLC content.

It happened a few times in CK3. And it's (really) happening to Stellaris right now.

Biogenesis is a wonderful DLC full of content, the 4.0 patch has some great ideas.... And a leviathanic pile of bugs, as a result the biogenesis DLC, like most stellaris DLCs on their release days, is getting bombed by negative reviews that have nothing with the actual content of the DLC.
 
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getting bombed by negative reviews that have nothing with the actual content of the DLC.
Kind of hard to enjoy the new stuff from the DLC if bugs introduced with the DLC ruin your game. Paradox, to greater and lesser degrees, pretty much always promotes the free updates and changes with the DLC, with the free changes usually being relevant to the new stuff in the DLC so I don't think its entire unfair for people to give the DLC a bad score because you can't really untangle the DLC from the free update.

Also, said low review scores for DLC might, one day, maybe, convince Paradox to do better quality control for their new updates.
 
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Paradox, to greater and lesser degrees, pretty much always promotes the free updates and changes with the DLC, with the free changes usually being relevant to the new stuff in the DLC so I don't think its entire unfair for people to give the DLC a bad score because you can't really untangle the DLC from the free update.
It's not gonna be like that anymore because people who need to pay for air to appreciate it made sure to voice their negative opinion about how little DLC-locked content they got for their money. There was no appreciation for the benefits of this model (such as continuous development of free features vs abandoned DLC-locked stuff since they do not sell more copies).

Khans of the Steppe is a perfect example of this change. It will become stale just like all the other DLC-locked features.
 
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I have picked the game a while back with a discount and finally last week gave it a try. Beyond a few bugs, my impressions were:
1. I can see why people like CK3 as it is a fun and accesible game.
2. There is barely anything that it does better in concept than CK2, exacerbating some of the predecessor issues (stat inflation did become a bigger issue on 2 as more DLC released) or making downrigth downgrades like with the military system.

I don't think CK3 is a bad game, an graphical appeal while not something I care about matters to many users. Accesibility is excellent, while coming from Ck2 probably lessen the impact, having info of game mechanics in game makes it very easy to get going on it, specially in being less obtuse than 2.

However playing it just make me wonder why shouldn't I just play Ck2 instead. Beyond novelty, the gamplay just feels....simplified to a degree that it doesn't need to be. Realm laws being such a simplification (and realms politics as well), battlefield duels apparently not being a thing, the whole warfare aspect in general....like it makes me wonder why there was a need to change then in the first place. And some changes that could be possible like limiting personality traits seem to not matter at all as modifier stacking is somehow even worse than 2, which tbh just make me think less of the characters I'm playing of as interesting characters, instead being vehicles of power fantasy projection like the average teen novel cliché main character: overpowered and with a world that bend to their will.

Ps: Also one thing that annoyed me: wife getting pregnant being a notification instead of a pop up. CkIII male player character is such an egoist chad that doesn't let's the condition of her wife distract him from his fundamental aim: to seduce her sister-mon to form the perfect genetic offsping.
 
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I have picked the game a while back with a discount and finally last week gave it a try. Beyond a few bugs, my impressions were:
1. I can see why people like CK3 as it is a fun and accesible game.
2. There is barely anything that it does better in concept than CK2, exacerbating some of the predecessor issues (stat inflation did become a bigger issue on 2 as more DLC released) or making downrigth downgrades like with the military system.

I don't think CK3 is a bad game, an graphical appeal while not something I care about matters to many users. Accesibility is excellent, while coming from Ck2 probably lessen the impact, having info of game mechanics in game makes it very easy to get going on it, specially in being less obtuse than 2.

However playing it just make me wonder why shouldn't I just play Ck2 instead. Beyond novelty, the gamplay just feels....simplified to a degree that it doesn't need to be. Realm laws being such a simplification (and realms politics as well), battlefield duels apparently not being a thing, the whole warfare aspect in general....like it makes me wonder why there was a need to change then in the first place. And some changes that could be possible like limiting personality traits seem to not matter at all as modifier stacking is somehow even worse than 2, which tbh just make me think less of the characters I'm playing of as interesting characters, instead being vehicles of power fantasy projection like the average teen novel cliché main character: overpowered and with a world that bend to their will.

Ps: Also one thing that annoyed me: wife getting pregnant being a notification instead of a pop up. CkIII male player character is such an egoist chad that doesn't let's the condition of her wife distract him from his fundamental aim: to seduce her sister-mon to form the perfect genetic offsping.
Why is this being disliked? It's a useful first impression.
 
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Do we have an explanation for why these still aren't in? I've been waiting like four years to play PoD because rulers can't act as knights for no reason

Is it an issue with game flow?

Like, pausing the game for "duel events" in battles would bog the game down.
 
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Do we have an explanation for why these still aren't in? I've been waiting like four years to play PoD because rulers can't act as knights for no reason
Is it an issue with game flow?

Like, pausing the game for "duel events" in battles would bog the game down.

I could not for the life of me be able to find the post, but the reasoning was that it would disrupt the flow of multiplayer. A few months later they released Tours & Tournaments which introduced activities that bombard you with events.

I'm pretty sure the post was by someone who has left the team, but used to constantly post on the forums. Unfortunately can't remember their name.
 
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Is it an issue with game flow?

Like, pausing the game for "duel events" in battles would bog the game down.
Especially in multiplayer.
Also, let's be real, everyone who engaged in duels in this game knows they SUCK. If battlefield duels were to be introduced the whole duel system would need a touch-up, to say it lightly, it at least should provide SOME feedback to options (i tried reading the event and it doesnt seem like text in there has any correlation to the actual state of the duel).
 
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Do we have an explanation for why these still aren't in? I've been waiting like four years to play PoD because rulers can't act as knights for no reason
Because if you get in a duel you might lose and the prime core design philosophy of this game appears to be that you aren't allowed to lose, so it doesn't fit.
 
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