CK3 wish list

[EastonAugustus]

1: HRE regnal numbers are corrected: I want to see Emperor Charles IV, Ludwig IV, Lothair II!!!!! Maybe a system where you can set your own characters regnal number. Another thing that kinda upset me was when the Empire of Nicene was added into the game when you reformed Byzantium all the regnal numbers of the nicene emperors were lost, therefore messing up future start dates. Maybe a system where if the Latin Empire is formed the Byzatine Empire just changes name rather then nation to fix this issue.

2: I would like character development to feel dynamic not like your just putting points into traits. Make it realistic, people are molded by life events, not racking up points.

3: Cultural melting pots

4: Cities change with culture. If its 1337 and the Danish cities are still wooden huts. Not like in Imperator rome were a city could have 100% Roman culture and still look 100% Persian. Maybe a slow change over time like in Rome 2 or Attila total war.

5: More realm laws- If im the Emperor of the HRE why would I let some Duke Declare himself King of Lotharingia? There needs to be a more fleshed out system in this regard. Maybe allow a powerful duke declare himself King of something for as ton of gold, electoral vote, marriage, alliance, promise not to revolt, or just not let him and trigger a rebellion.

6: More balanced Crusade system for Muslims and Christians.

7: I was worried about the look of some of the characters in the early screen shots, a King should not look like a peasant.

 

[ChaosOnline]

Here's what I'm hoping for:

1. On-map China and Southeast Asia - Afroeurasia was a really interconnected place and having the map end arbitrarily makes the world feel small. I'd love to see China and Southeast Asia added to the map. They're both such interesting regions and would add a lot of fun and interesting gameplay opportunities.
   
   
2. The Roman Empire - The Roman Empire should be called the Roman Empire. Byzantine is an innaccurate anachronism. It was still the Roman Empire, it maintained Roman laws and customs, and it's citizens thought of themselves as Romans. Thus, the Roman Empire.
   
   
3. More flavor for India - I loved playing in India and I love Indian history and culture. I'd love to see the region given more features to flesh it out and make it even more period accurate and interesting
   
   
4. More fleshed out and accurate Muslims - Islamic characters are really fun and interesting to play as, but they're not really the most accurately portrayed. Some new societies, succession laws, and flavor would really help them to stand out more. Likewise, giving them more heresies and fleshing out the Shia would also help them to stand out.
   
   
5. Revamped bloodlines and artifacts - artifacts and bloodlines were fun to collect and have. For bloodlines, it was nice to have the game memorialize a character or ancestor I had that did great things, and it was fun having a room full of treasure that came from cool events that happened during my reign, but the way they're done is just a bit too much. Bloodlines having actual statistical effects, and you being able to collect and breed them into your family is pretty unrealistic and leads to some fairy immersion breaking eugenics programs. And while having a room of treasure is fun, it can get so full that it becomes meaningless over time. Plus having it provide so many statistical bonuses makes it super OP. Maybe it might be better limit bloodlines and artifacts some how? Make them much rarer so each individual one means more. Also make them a little less unrealistically OP.
   
   
6. Trade, culture, and economics - It feels like a lot of time all there really is to do in Crusader Kings II is conquest and plotting. I think it'd be interesting if you could have your ruler focus on economic pursuits like trade, or minting currencies. More than just trade routes, like you could have control over what you want traded or taxed. Or cultural ones, like sponsoring great works of art, architecture, or literature. Many great architectural triumphs like Angkor Wat or great epics like the Shahnameh, were created during this time period.
   
   
7. More cultures - Especially in the Middle East and East Africa. A lot of areas in the game are culturally homogeneous, when in real life they were incredibly culturally diverse. Also, giving cultures statistical differences would be bad, but giving them unique flavor, like music, languages, or festivals, might be really interesting and make different playthoughs feel more unique.
   
   
8. More fleshed out East Africa - West Africa got a lot of love and attention in some of the most recent patches, making it one of the most fun regions to play in. It'd be awesome to see East Africa get the same kind of love. East Africa is a region with a fascinating and unique geography and culture, with institutions, religions, philosophies that developed separately from those in Europe or the Middle East. Giving them some unique flavor to reflect that would add a lot to the region and make it feel more unique to play in.

These are all I can think of right now. I know it's a lot, but some of these changes would go a long way into making the game world feel more fleshed out and interesting!

 

[LeonOfOddecca]

I recently made a post in the Ck2 forum, prior to the announcement of Ck3, about what I'd like to see in a sequel. Here is my wishlist for Ck3, pasted from that thread, some of which has in fact been confirmed at PDXcon:

• Secret traits and fake public traits. In ck2 if a character is cruel or greedy, everyone knows about it. If you're kind everyone knows about it. And you simply can't fake kindness. I think it would be cool if a character's traits weren't automatically public knowledge, and what is considered public knowledge, needn't always be the case. Perhaps your publically chaste wife is in fact lustful; your son is a psychopath, but you've managed to convince everyone he is kind, etc. As characters interact they learn each other's true natures, and have some ability to affect overall public opinion.
• Psychological health as incentive for RP. Acting against your character's traits should come with a penalty to their psychological well-being in the form of stress / depression. Events should pit pragmatic options against options that match the character's current traits. Traits like pride should make characters feel good when others play to their ego. Happiness and stress should be dynamic and scalar properties of a character rather than enduring 'traits' (though character traits like 'melancholic' or 'anxious' could modify those scalar properties).
• More sycophants; more nepotism. Of course this exists in part already, but not nearly enough. To some extent these kinds of character interactions have been expanded in Imperator Rome, but IR doesn't come close to CK2 in terms of character-relations simulation. I should have to appease my powerful vassal by giving his idiot nephew a cushy job. I should have to earn my wife's affection by placing her brother in a position of power, etc.
• Puppet rulers. You may lack a claim on the kingdom, but that doesn't mean you can't control the kingdom by controlling the king. It should be possible to install a claimant that, for one reason or another, you have significant influence over.
• Cabals. Something between a faction and a plot, it would be cool to be able to form a group of like-minded individuals who aim to achieve some devious end through underhanded means, perhaps via a series of sub-aims. For example, assassinating the king might require a series of steps of installing members of the cabal, or their agents into important positions. This should obviously come with significant risk of treason. Basically I'm suggesting a deeper plot system.
• More character focused UI elements. I'd like to feel as if the characters are more part of the world rather than just a spreadsheet. I want to see the court, or the council chambers. I want characters to appear on, and move through the game map.

 

[Weyird]

• It should be harder. Not more complicated to play - it should be harder to do well.
  
  
• Castles should cost maintenance. You should be incentivised to let a once-powerful and important castle on your borderlands fall into ruin when it's now deep in the bowls of your empire, far from any wars
  
  
• There should be a HUGE variety of character models. It should be rare for characters to look the same
  
  
• No teleporting characters
  
  
• You should only be able to control an army if your ruler is personally leading it (Autonomous, although maybe you should be able to give general commands to armies led by other generals like "join up with my army" or "go siege castles in this region" or "go after so-and-so's army", but if that character doesn't like you they should be able to do whatever they want instead)
  
  
• Short event writing (don't make me read a paragraphs that I am just gonna click past after I am familiar with it). This is tricky, because it should be long enough to be interesting, but not long enough to be a slog to read.
  
  
• Piety and Prestige should matter more. Instead of just being a resource that you almost ignore, characters should treat you differently based on how pious or prestigious you are. And if I'm the super prestigious emperor of the holy roman empire, single county characters should stop asking me for my daughter's hand in marriage
  
  
• A much more interesting system for the HRE. Not just "generic empire with votes for emperor."
  
  
• Many things to do and focus on besides warfare. And warfare should have an economic impact so that it's not always an obvious choice.
  
  
• Cultural uniqueness. Slight mechanical differences (that become large mechanical differences the further you are geographically), as well as unique art for different regions (but that can be added later in flavour pack DLC's)
  
  
• Urbanization and rural development. It seems like there's gonna be castles/cities/churches like in CK2. But the vast majority of territory was rural farming areas with some small villages between farms. CK seems to ignore these rural areas, even though it is where the vast majority of the population lived.

 

[vnth]

• making legitimacy actually matter. if you are the first-born, you are god's chosen and vassals shouldnt arbitrarily prefer your younger brothers simply because they liked them somewhat more. if you are second-born, you are not interchangeable with any of your other younger siblings. the legitimate line, once usurped, should always retain a strong claim to the title. vassals generally shouldnt spam overthrow factions without very good reasons, like exceptions for scheming bastards.
• jure uxoris
• actual regency

 

[Ellionas]

My wish list:

1 / Keep the random events, and the traits that result, and add a lot! (It's simple, if this part is not kept, CK III will interest me much less ...)

2 / Keep the system of lines and equipment by improving and expanding it.

2 / More possibilities of intrigues. (Blackmail, foment rebellions in more advanced ways, intimidation, advanced espionage, double agent, etc.)

3 / Many more possibilities in the composition of armies.

4 / Economic and merchant system much more successful. With resources giving bonus / penalty. (Ex: very good quality iron giving a bonus to the armies, marble giving a bonus to construction or prestige, gold, wines, very fertile land, etc.) Having the ability to negotiate and conclude trade agreements.

5 / Utopic: Advanced reward system on AI. (Rewarding a vassal specifically for a well-waged war, or other exploit, taking into account this datum by him, thus intervening in his behavior and motivating him.)

6 / Taking into account the terrain and the more advanced climate for battles, construction and events. (Severe winter = famine, torrential rain = disease, swamp = additional construction costs, etc.)

7 / Laws relating to the people, with events at the keys. (Laws on poaching, salt tax, etc.)

8 / Dynamic and customizable laws.

9 / Possibility of adoption, for certain laws of inheritance, with malus.

10 / Even more random!

Secret traits and fake public traits. In ck2 if a character is cruel or greedy, everyone knows about it. If you're kind everyone knows about it. And you simply can't fake kindness. I think it would be cool if a character's traits weren't automatically public knowledge, and what is considered public knowledge, needn't always be the case. Perhaps your publically chaste wife is in fact lustful; your son is a psychopath, but you've managed to convince everyone he is kind, etc. As characters interact they learn each other's true natures, and have some ability to affect overall public opinion.

Ooooh yes !

 

[Rockphed]

1) Being able to play as anyone who either holds a position of power (even courtiers who are marshals or spy-masters) or has enough resources to maintain a noble lifestyle. Game over comes when your family runs out of money and power.
2) More than 5 levels of nobility. With higher technology it is possible to pack nobles more tightly. (So at base tech you can have barons (1) under counts (6) under dukes (11) under kings (16), but the HRE and ERE start out as level 20 emperors.
3) I like the concept of holdings in imperator. Use similar mechanics to allow constructing income, troop, and defense buildings in provinces. Some holdings should only give benefits to the liege, some should give both to liege and holder, and some should only give benefit to the holder (e.g. an orchard would give income to the holder while a guard barracks would allow the liege to raise some troops and a chapel might give piety to both the holder and liege).

 

[Kopciuszek]

I hope cultures and religions receive more love in CK3. In CK2 playing Polish doesn't feel much different from playing Finnish for example. Also, I feel like some religions like Islam were a little bit neglected compared to Christianity or Germanic Paganism.

 

[Six-Toed Sprocket]

Here's what I'm hoping for:

1. Revamped bloodlines and artifacts - artifacts and bloodlines were fun to collect and have. For bloodlines, it was nice to have the game memorialize a character or ancestor I had that did great things, and it was fun having a room full of treasure that came from cool events that happened during my reign, but the way they're done is just a bit too much. Bloodlines having actual statistical effects, and you being able to collect and breed them into your family is pretty unrealistic and leads to some fairy immersion breaking eugenics programs. And while having a room of treasure is fun, it can get so full that it becomes meaningless over time. Plus having it provide so many statistical bonuses makes it super OP. Maybe it might be better limit bloodlines and artifacts some how? Make them much rarer so each individual one means more. Also make them a little less unrealistically OP.

Bloodlines should be massively increased and it should affect opinion in both positive snd negative ways. You are an Polish King crushing Ruthenian revolts and executing leaders? Your dynasty should get a malus ("Butcher of Ruthenia") making it harder for your dynasty to appease Ruthenian characters and rule Ruthenian provinces. Bloodlines should be more natural as well, so every action can have ramifications for a successor.

Same goes for artifacts. You pillaged some icon from Rome? Catholics should hate you for having it while it grants some other benefit. You should be able to sell or display them.

I'd also like "ruling through terror" being made more viable. Right now, it is very hard if not impossible. Rebelling against a murderous tyrant ahould be harder (fear of joining s revolt you might lose) but have higher stakes (eg a new dynasty). A more kinder ruler might face more revolts but with much lower stakes (law changes)

 

[Arona]

Intriques would be very intresting part and it should realy matter. And there should be more intrigue options what can be part of bigger plans, like hire a cortsan or handmaiden to seduce your enemy son and have them bastard destabize a realm, or seduce enemy wife and use it to blackmail her to join your other plots.

Different secrets should have different values for characters, if you catch someone from stealing propably he will not join plot to kill his liege, but might join a plot to poison enemy supply and hinder his army.

Plots should go on alot faster, so you dont have to waith month or years to kidnap enemy son or seduce his daughter.

Also there should be loyality, honor and fear system. Thouse systems should dominate personal opinion, so if player with high loyality to you but you have wronged him or he does not like your traits he will not still betray you neither try to sleep with your wife or daughter. Or if someone hates you to guts but also fears you he will not try to cross you

 

[Limbojack]

• Psychological health as incentive for RP. Acting against your character's traits should come with a penalty to their psychological well-being in the form of stress / depression. Events should pit pragmatic options against options that match the character's current traits. Traits like pride should make characters feel good when others play to their ego. Happiness and stress should be dynamic and scalar properties of a character rather than enduring 'traits' (though character traits like 'melancholic' or 'anxious' could modify those scalar properties).

This is already confirmed, and the new stress system will be what causes things like getting the lunatic trait and what not.

 

[Imnotwhatiam]

One thing I would love to see but I doubt will ever happen is getting away from the fixed settlement type system city<>castle<>church.
I think it makes no sense to have a fixed system like that expecially in this time frame.
What I would like to see is an evolution of each settlement according to context and player interaction.
A settlement might as well start-off as a monastery and, over the centuries, turn into a flourishing city or start as a military outpost and become a religious centre.
This sould allow for a more dynamic feel of the landscape and also avoid some situations like what happened when you conquered Rome in CK2 where half the holdings where churches and thus of fairly limited use to most players.

I think it would also tie in pretty nicely with some dynamic aspects of internal and low level vassal management.
You might have a vassal baron (mainly a military commander or an expression of a military aristocracy in feudal Europe) but the land he/she controls might become more of a "city-like" or "church-like" (meaning that the relative importance of economic or religious affairs in the settlement become more relevant than military affairs) that basically make the power of the "military" representative irrelevant and thus make more important to have a strong relationship with the head of the "burghers" or "religious" class therefore transforming dyanmically a settlement brom a "castle" into something else.

As I said I do not think that settlements were in general fixed into one type and they had always a mix of different functions and, especially over time, this "balance" would shift and change with different factors.
E.g. being on the frontier between two countries and being subject to continuous wars would naturally push the importance of the local military establishment. The player might influence this by building particular structures or, in a more "EU4-style", investing in a particular type of development.
This would also favor the chance of representing different major conflicts in the different phases of the game:

• During the early dark ages you would find mostly a military aristocracy with undisputed power
• moving to the high middle ages you would see more power shifting to the church leading to something like the investiture controversy
• in the latest parts of the game you might see the rise of an urban burghers class changing the political agenda of the main countries

Moving away from this fixed scheme of settlement types would also allow to better represent different cultures where the scheme "city<>castle<>church" does not really fit well no matter how hard you try to "reskin" it.

 

[Reidy]

Dynamic Skills

I would like there to be a system where you dont quite know the skills of other characters to begin with, more you find out just how talented they are as time goes by if you give them a role.

For instance say I give a character a small tole on the army on a flank then as he serves in the army or takes part in battles he will slowly increase in recognition or hone his skills (maybe have his skills already known to the game, but it has to be built upti?). This way you wont know a character is a godly battle commander until hes been in a few battles.

or say a character is the little finger of your country, then if hes given a position as a baron or a small council position or a minor title then as time goes on his stewardship skills will come to the forefront and be recognized for his expertise and talent.

This way the talent you have got actually matters and if they betray you further down the road you will feel proper emotion because you watched them come into their own and helped them get where they got to.

More devastating wars.

I would also like the outcomes of wars to be more devastating to the country. For instance if I had my army attack an army stupidly and suffered a devastating defeat then that should be felt at home with less people to man the fields and defend the lands. And the take longer for it to recover

If memory serves one of the main reasons early islam spread so quickly was because the byzantine and sassanids had just had an extremely bloody war that severely depleted their power (and the war didnt even achieve anything). I'd like a way for this to be modeled in game where you actually felt the consequences of an ill thought out war and other powers could easily take advantage of your weakened state or people at home could turn rebellious.

Obviously itd need balanced because it could essentially ruin your game after a single war but yeah... . Itd certainly make you think twice.

 

[Surimi]

Improved military/levy system

CK2 had a surprisingly complicated and interesting battle system which in practice didn't actually come into play often because the reliance on mixed levies meant tactic selection was mostly random. Conversely, if you could get a homogenous flank (like hordes, or retinues pre-nerf) it was absolutely devastating because of reliable tactics selection. I hope that we can retain the levy system and some of the complex battle resolution in CK3 while also making army setup a bit more predictable and strategic even when using levies.

Less reliance on "gimmick" mechanics

I think a feature of how CK2 was built upon and marketed through DLC is that you end up with a system that gave each religion its own gimmick or special mechanic. Religions thus ended up as homogenous blobs which used mechanics that were often quite culturally inappropriate (i.e. all Muslims using turkish succession, all zoroastrians being into close kin marriages). I think having a more flexible religion system, which seems like it's happening, is a great start towards changing this, but ultimately (and I could be in a minority) I think it's okay if religions play similarly as long as they have enough variant flavour.

Turkish succession and close kin marriages should still be in the game, of course, but I don't think they should be treated as universal features of a particular religion group.

More interaction with religious politics/authorities

I think this should be where the mechanical differences between religion come in. I think the natural replacement to having religion be defined by a set of bonuses and gimmicks is to have religious politics be far more important. I feel like there were attempts to do this in CK2 with the college of cardinals for Catholics and better papacy interactions, but by necessity they were kind of tacked on. CK3 seems like a good chance to intergrate these kinds of interactions more closely into the game itself. The papacy should be important for catholics, caliphal succession should be important for Muslims, interaction with priests, ulema or other religious authorities should be important for everyone.

Religion is the dominant cultural force of the time period, and I think it should be a part of the core game of medieval politics rather than confined to its own minigames on the side.

 

[EU3NOOB]

Hopefully the Custom Character Feature is in CKIII.

I used that feature heavily in CKII.

 

[Dogukan91]

1. Populations
2. More map space = More holding options = HOLDINGS ON ACTUAL SPACES ON MAP (+along with the population system)
Think of it like the building a city option in imperator!

3. Assuming the rest of the game development will have all the genius of CK2+DLCs(especially the hordes), include GHULAMS for Muslim some political systems.

4. The horde system was pretty cool, next time, allow federative tribes where multiple ethnic groups(hopefully pops) can mix in together!

 

[Tibi088]

For graphics:
1. A map heavily inspired by Imperator - with added Russia.
2. Charachter portraits heavily inspired by Imperator.

 

[Reidy]

HOLDINGS ON ACTUAL SPACES ON MAP

Im pretty sure this is actually already in. I seem to recall reading or hearing that all the baronies/holdings etc are on the map itself.

 

[EU3NOOB]

Assuming the rest of the game development will have all the genius of CK2+DLCs(especially the hordes), include GHULAMS for Muslim some political systems.

We know Merchant Republics and Nomads are out for 1.0.

 

[Six-Toed Sprocket]

We know Merchant Republics and Nomads are out for 1.0.

MRs were buggy as hell for years. Your entire MR could collapse because your successor held similar tier title in a different realm. I can understand why they are holding back. I hope they have ideas to give MRs a fresh feel in CK3.

Nomads as a player were fun but AI nomads were poorly implemented in CKII (like China). Russia never forms and become tengri in like 50 years from 769.

My only concern is the start date. My main fear is we'll be looking at 1000s again, and miss the pagan stuff. Crusader Kings 2 largely changed from "FIGHT IN THE CRUSADES" to "MAKE A WEIRD INCESTUAL DEVIL CULT IN LAPLAND, KIDNAP ROYALS, RAID AND PILLAGE ON THE HIGH SEAS"