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Ck3 royal court11/28/2023 ![]() Royal Court isn't going to fix any of these fundamental problems. You should be able to look back on an entire campaign and say that your family, as the Counts of Anjou, got more done than most kings. ![]() A clever player should be able to control a kingdom without being the king. There needs to be mechanics revolving around using resources to quietly control the other political actors around you. There needs to be things to spend money on other than bulking up for the next map painting. This game needs a deep and engaging trade system (open to everyone, not just republics) where you attempt to acquire economic choke points so that you can monopolize lucrative trade routes. This needs to be deep and engaging enough that it is a valid way to occupy your time and attention during an entire campaign. The game needs a deep and engaging domain management system where you actually have to manage your personal lands and develop them. Let me say it again in bold so the main points gets across here: There is nothing to do in this game which is why 90% of us have stopped playing it. Don't tell me that this isn't a map painter. You can use marriages to get claims to get more land. The entire domestic game is constructing buildings which give you more resources to grab more land. You gain more land and you use that to get even more land. Ultimately, every campaign of CK3 ends up pretty much the same because it is a map painter. Player agency is strictly tied to what mechanics you have access to and the lower your rank is, the less mechanics you can use and the less agency you have. Royal Court is reinforcing this again by locking you out of its flagship feature unless you are a king or emperor. Being a small power vassal in this game is almost like a sort of fail state. I don't know how to have fun in this game as a vassal because there's no support for lower ranks at all. We all like to pretend that Crusader Kings is this epic Game of Thrones simulator about clever plots, backroom deals, and being the shadow power behind the throne, but it has never actually been this kind of game. Entire mechanics are locked out for you until you reach the king or emperor level. Your #1 goal as a duke in these games is to stop being a duke. Your #1 goal as a count in these games is to stop being a count. For those who didn't play CK1, playing a count in that game involved sitting around and doing nothing until the opportunity presented itself to gain a duchy. In many ways, playing a count in CK3 feels no different than playing a count in CK1. The game allows you to play the lower ranks but there seems to be little purpose in ever staying in these lower ranks as the lower you are, the less access to game mechanics you have. The game is so heavily built around this hierarchy that every country's political makeup is exactly the same with little to no room for deviation. These barons did not serve a count who served a duke who served King John. ![]() King John's barons were sworn to King John. Feudalism in this game is represented as a strange military hierarchy where actors of one rank serve the people of the rank above them. How does your game look after a few centuries? If I were to take an educated guess, I'd guess that almost every count serves a duke and almost every duke serves a king or an emperor. It is still wildly ahistorical, linear, and lacking in anything resembling attention to detail. The game's attempt at feudalism has not improved at all from Crusader Kings II. The developers seem to have really attempted to make the character upgrades their flagship feature and because it hasn't worked out, the player is left with a very, very shallow game where there is very little to do other than paint the map via warfare. ![]() These relationships are not interesting and I can't imagine them being what's supposed to keep me invested in a full campaign that lasts from the 9th to 15th century. In reality, these relationships can be broken down to an opinion number and some influences via having or not having specific traits. Let me start off on a positive note and say that I love this series and that my constructive criticism is coming from a place of love.Ĭrusader Kings III is a game that has been advertised and built around the idea that it is a relationship game and that the player is mainly tasked with managing these relationships.
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