Crusader Kings 3 - Its Crusader Kings 2 with a paint job

[Swine Schwein]

Motherfucker, those Danish King Emperors (my lieges, I still have to suck their cocks and it's not changing anytime soon) aren't fucking around. Each one is more of a conquering madman than the last. Somehow they figured out the perfect succession. Their Empire of Scandinavia is now the biggest realm on the fucking map and it keeps expanding, there's always at least two expansion wars going on.

Gladly my vassal-duchy is not a border land anymore, so my life is peaceful, although shameful and it's hard to expand since everyone has the same liege.

My King-Emperor-Tyrant made me his spymaster though. I realized I could start a "claim throne" scheme against him. How does it work, do I just get an unpressed claim with that? Better not try, I have no forces, factions or even good allies

 

[TheArtilleryman]

Motherfucker, those Danish King Emperors (my lieges, I still have to suck their cocks and it's not changing anytime soon) aren't fucking around. Each one is more of a conquering madman than the last. Somehow they figured out the perfect succession. Their Empire of Scandinavia is now the biggest realm on the fucking map and it keeps expanding, there's always at least two expansion wars going on.

Gladly my vassal-duchy is not a border land anymore, so my life is peaceful, although shameful and it's hard to expand since everyone has the same liege.

My King-Emperor-Tyrant made me his spymaster though. I realized I could start a "claim throne" scheme against him. How does it work, do I just get an unpressed claim with that? Better not try, I have no forces, factions or even good allies

You will get a pressed claim on his realm if you succeed the caim throne scheme. From there you can start a faction to install yourself as emperor. Speccing in to diplomacy and befriending the other powerful leaders in the realm would be a good idea at that point, they may join the faction and fight alongside you as an ally when the time comes. Alternatively go down the intrigue path and just keep assassinating and sewing chaos until the realm fractures, allowing you to pick up the pieces.

 

[TheArtilleryman]

Israel run is on fire rn.

Spoiler: More shit

Working on putting every title underneath me in the hands of my dynasty members before transitioning to administrative government. Polygamy, unrestricted marriage and a mod that raises your chilld limit to 99 means its already more accurate to call us a breed.


The mod I used to add Star of David to the emblem editor also added an AK-47 and I am only human....




Judaism, my first divergent faith from Rabbinic served well. Chosen People (Communal Identity) is actually underrated if you're trying to revive a dead culture. Once you've converted a county to your religon it then becomes much faster to convert it to your culture too, which normally takes a very long time. Divine Marriage to get piety from the inbreeding I was already doing was obvious, and I had set a side goal to see if I can populate the whole nation with 1 dynasty directly descending from a single Israelite, as is traditional.
Communal Possessions backfired as I came in to power not through a peasant rebellion but through buying a county, so I missed out on the peasent leader perk (the original reason for this run) and the opportunity of said perk being virtuous.

Switched to Kabbalah (esotericism) and Exaltation of Pain for 3 easy virtues in the Wise Man, Flagellant and Sadistic. The Wise Man trait and its associated events start spawning often with Esotericism (Kabbalah its called for Jews ingame), Flagellent you can get through having a mental breakdown, and Sadistic you can get through torturing people. Sadistic is also the best perk in the game for stress management, as well as succession management, allowing you to assassinate unwanted kids. Paired with Exaltation of Pain, Sadistic also becomes a virtue that gives you both piety and stress loss from torturing prisoners, and you still have the option to ransom or do whatever else is needed of them afterwards unlike Ritual Sacrifice/Blot.

The Assassins idea is for the next character to schism in to.


I started as Hebrew, which was completely dead with no technology, Israeli is a devergent culture from that.



I think I'll stop expanding once I take the rest of Arabia, Baghdad and also maybe East Africa and Zanzibar as they'll be easy pickings then. Build tall for another 1 or 2 generations, fend off The First Crusade and then become adventurer as a lesser descendent upon succession. Move east to create Bene-Israel, or to the Steppe and do the Greatest of Khans thing as a Jew. Maybe Zionist China?

Edit: The buffs from Jewish holy sites plus there close proximity makes them very powerful once established. Switching the Halakkah authority doctrine to Toraic also makes the scholar trait from the learning tree a virtue which is pretty neat.

I gotta keep this save. Jewish superpower rivalling the Eastern Romans before 1000 AD is a wild setup.

 

[TheArtilleryman]

Formed Rome once more, was hunting the achievement for becoming Eastern Roman Emperor as a Palaiologos dynasty member starting in 1178. The "hack" for ensuring the jump to Hellenism goes smoothly is to create a new Orthodox faith first that is pluralist and has Syncretic Folk Traditions, thus making them mostly tolerant of pagans whilst themselves still remaining tolerated by other nearby Christian faiths.

I took Alexandran Cathecism, Communal Identity and Syncretic Folk Traditions, theocratic clergy but with no head of faith, temporal revocable realm priest, pluralist attitude and polytheist. "Neo Christo Romanus", an intensely Roman nationalist sect of Christianity that incorporates the Greek Pantheon in to the Christian canon, somehow.

Convert as much of The Eastern Roman Empire to this new faith first before then taking the reform true Roman Empire with Hellenism decision. It makes more sense too, easing in to it with a halfway point thats essentially a Christian sect that has abolished the head of faith and drifted toward older local religious traditions. More realistic. I'm now trying to find a way to adopt mandala government to become God Emperor of Rome (without commands).

 

[TheArtilleryman]

Big autism incoming: Conquering China as The Roman Empire and seeing what happens if you then take the "cleave the empire" or "sieze the Mandate of Heaven" decisions.

Spoiler

It took a lot of optimising, but I finally managed to make a stable Roman Empire even after taking the harder decision that gives you access to the empire level Roman Invasion CB but also spawns an early Mongol Invasion, level 3 plagues and peasent revolts.

Spoiler: How

The key was to ease in to it with precursor faiths that made most of the realm tolerant of pagans prior to the switch to unreformed Hellenism, building hospices and other plague reducing buildings in holdings early (tip: the water management line of buildings you unlock from the "waterworks" silk road innovation is extremley OP for development and plague control), and for the peasent revolts you just have to move your rally points around and spawn mercs to deal with them as needed. It takes too long for your own troops to muster anywhere once the realm reaches a certain size, mercs are just much faster and slaughter much higher their number in peasent revolt units easily.

Spoiler: Faiths

Christus Romanus, a decentralised Christian faith whose main purpose was aforementioned pagan tolerance through Syncretic Folk Traditions and pluralism. Turns out you can take the "Mend The Schism" decision as any Christian faith, including a completely made up one of your own design, which is somehow both polytheist and Christian at the same time. This then converts most Catholic and Orthodox holdings to [your Christianity} holdings.


My reformed Hellenism took Adaptive to further ease tensions with the more dogmatic vassals that hadn't become Roman-Christian yet, and once most of realm had stabilised and become reformed Hellenic, I then achieved my final goal of PAX ROMANA



Astrology for random 25% boost in lifestyle exp through stargazing (also faster naval speed), Household Gods makes being The Emperor of Rome a virtue (via the Augustus trait) whilst also giving you more influence, faster conversion speed and no opinion penalty with other faiths, and Megalithic Constructions for big development boosts in temples via megalithic buildings.

Spoiler: Cultures

First diverged culture was Romanus, because the game doesn't let you pick "Roman" (the actual in-game Roman culture is dead on all start dates and is missing the uniquely Roman-esque flavour content that the Greeks received, so it's better to just make psuedo-Roman with a divergence from Greek). I went with Industrious in the divergence and then Storytellers through a reformation later. You get the option to adopt the Latin language and heritage through a legend seed you gain access to after restoring Rome.


Vaticanus is a hybridisation of Romanus and Dutch that also marked the relocation of the capital from Constantinople to Rome. This was purely for the sake of replacing Storytellers with Agrarian, and then siezing all the farmlands in Italy to turn them to this new culture. Headcannoning it as Dutch irrigation and land management techniques being adopted and becoming a large boon to the Roman economy.


These farmlands are also, conveniently, my personal domain counties. Money is no longer an object in this campaign.

Cleaving The Empire:



Despite how uneven it looks I still have about 10k more troops than the new Eastern Roman Emperor.


Claiming the Mandate of Heaven:



Turns out you get both hegemoneys, but The Roman Empire remains your primary title. It also gives you primogeniture succession and turns the whole realm to celestial government.



It relocated the capital to Zhingshao too, which I immediately fixed:



So you do get to be Emperor of both Rome and China simultaneously, though unfortunately you then have to play China's rules (celestial government), which I still haven't even tried.

It fucked my vassal limit up bad:

Another key part of stability at this size is doing my best to keep all kingdom and empire titles to myself and have only have duchy level vassals. Once you reach vassal limit, give one of the smaller insignificant kingdom titles within the de jure of your primary title to a dynasty member (one with no claim on your primary title) and transfer them the respective dukes. (Moldavia, Burgundy, Brittany, kingdoms that are small and insignificant and scattered enough to pose no real threat if they unite against you). Duke level vassals are much easier to deal with than kings or emperors, so minimise the latter until you reach vassal limit, then make sure they are relatively weak and scattered once you are forced to give out higher titles. Level 4 administrative government let's you have 400 vassals before buffs, which in my experience can cover most of western europe, Britain, Africa, Arabia and Persia before you start needing to divy out some of your kingdoms to vassals.

I'm going to reload back to just Rome and continue the world conquest without forming China.

 

[TheArtilleryman]

Humerous unforeseen consequence: I'm pretty much unable to host feasts any more as they always take at least three years to start. This is because I have to wait for a couple of Chinese guests to make their way across the entire known world to join me before it can begin.

 

[Caesare]

Saw something a little unusual in my current CK3 game. A peculiar situation involving a young lord from a noble House in the eastern frontier of the Realm.

Somehow, this young gentleman had the gall to go behind his own back, two-timing himself via the seduction of his own wife.

So you do get to be Emperor of both Rome and China simultaneously, though unfortunately you then have to play China's rules (celestial government), which I still haven't even tried.

I was reading about the new administrative government varieties that were added for China + the Orient and some of the new possibilities sound like fun. I hadn't checked yet, but I hope there is a way to enable these options so non Oriental realms can use them as well.

 

[TheArtilleryman]

Saw something a little unusual in my current CK3 game. A peculiar situation involving a young lord from a noble House in the eastern frontier of the Realm.

Somehow, this young gentleman had the gall to go behind his own back, two-timing himself via the seduction of his own wife.


Ver archivo adjunto 9063352


I was reading about the new administrative government varieties that were added for China + the Orient and some of the new possibilities sound like fun. I hadn't checked yet, but I hope there is a way to enable these options so non Oriental realms can use them as well.

I landed many Chinese nobles to increase cultural acceptance and hybridise with them (immediately unlocking all silk road tech), but upon doing so many of them would immediately turn their counties and duchies in to the celestial government, even though their liege and neighbours are administrative or feudal. I think they have a decision to do it for free as part of their culture or the confucianism faiths. Even after bribing them to switch to administrative, they would just take the money then immediately convert back to celestial again. Bastards.

Anyway, I think ceding your title to a Chinaman, letting him switch the government type and then overthrowing him again should work. Alternatively you can get a Chinese courtier to educate your heir from childhood and convert their culture, then allowing said heir to reap the benefits of Chinese unique content before switching back to the culture of the realm capital via decision later.

If neither of these work then you might just have to swear faelty to China first, adopt celestial then break away again.

 

[TheArtilleryman]

My own based and autistic little globohomo regime cont.




It's all Rome, baby. Only a couple of holdouts and islands left. The game is chugging really slowly now, every in game day takes a couple of seconds, especially so when at war. The different game speeds no longer matter, it takes however long the game needs to process it.



Hybridised culture with Han Chinese in order to unlock all silk road innovations quickly, and also to take Cultural Primacy, Court Machinations and Intensive Farming. Having 20 concubines is pretty wild. I'm not doing the game's performance any favours with these numbers.



The mashup of Roman and Chinese aesthetic has created some funny looking citizens, though I must admit that Reichskrone + Chinese general's armor goes hard.



The Imperial army is almost entirely handgunners and siege engines, with a few cataphracts for tradition's sake. At this rate, we would probably already have multiple Mars colonies by 1800 if it was IRL.

The goal now (other than finishing the conquest) is hybridising with the Japanese for Ephemeral Grace, and also to see just how much weirder I can make this culture aesthetically.



Lastly, R.I.P. to Imperator Caeser Augustus Franciscu The Scholar, the coolest ruler I've ever played.

 

[Fat Camp Intern]

Is this shit any good? Can't see it surpassing CK2

 

[TheArtilleryman]

Is this shit any good? Can't see it surpassing CK2

Nah it's trash

 

[Smack Patrick]

It's all Rome, baby. Only a couple of holdouts and islands left. The game is chugging really slowly now, every in game day takes a couple of seconds, especially so when at war. The different game speeds no longer matter, it takes however long the game needs to process it.

What's with the random Welsh language court down in Africa?

 

[TheArtilleryman]

What's with the random Welsh language court down in Africa?

I have no idea. Most of the world is administrative so presumably some Welshman won an election down there and ruled long enough for his language to become the norm before Latin crept over from the mainland.

Edit:



It's because Igbo-Benue was one of the few kingdoms I let the natives rule. They then went and lost it to a Breton descendant of the Karlings. I might just leave him there.

Edit 2: So about 60 years ago, an ambitious Breton waltzed in to Africa, took control of a county within a recently imploded duchy in bumfuck niggerland and bided his time, as did his son, until the time came that the grandson rose and took the whole Kingdom. I'm keeping an eye on these guys.

 

[Snekposter]

On succession, I'm going to establish another offshoot faith of Judaism that's the same but with Pursuit of Power, Divine Marriage and Sacred Murder. No head of faith and righteous instead of pluralist, all for the sake of expansion, Jewish assassins basically. "Mitnakshim" it will be called.

What, no indirect subversions, only stabbing?

A bad cupbearer or food taster could have also exacerbated things. Just keep an eye on generally villainous individuals you notice at court, wolf boy must have had some traits or claims that caused the game to make him kill you. Hostile schemes work the same way for the CPU as it does for you: success chance relies on close confidants disliking you or having ulterior motives/ruthless traits making them willing to join. One or more people very close to your character acted as agents for the scheme.

Ah, reminds me of that meme where your spymaster has discovered a plot against you lead by himself.

 

[TheArtilleryman]

What, no indirect subversions, only stabbing?

Ah, reminds me of that meme where your spymaster has discovered a plot against you lead by himself.

There is a tenet called Sacred Lies now that you mention it... it would be appropriate alright. I'll have to revisit that save once By God Alone releases, see if I can work in some antisemitic (yet accurate) virtues through councils, assuming they aren't exclusive to Christianity.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

I feel contempt every time I see people talking about playing Crusader Kings 3 and then I realize was a small, autistic mean little person I am.

 

[TheArtilleryman]

I feel contempt every time I see people talking about playing Crusader Kings 3 and then I realize was a small, autistic mean little person I am.

I benefit from having arrived really late to the series, I played CK2 only for a couple of months before CK3's Roads To Power released, so I don't have that mental comparison between CK2 and CK3's life cycles to seethe about (and I also don't care about any of their other game series....yet). CK2 was already finished when i started, but 3 still had new stuff coming out, so I thought I better move up so as not to miss out on that also.

I'm confident that I will eventually switch back to CK2 again and get just as autistic about it as I am now for CK3, but as it stands I'm still really enjoying CK3, and it is still (arguably) being updated actively, so why not.

 

[Caesare]

Is this shit any good? Can't see it surpassing CK2

I think so, though I don't think many share my opinion, at least on this forum iirc.

I do remember ppl complaining about the missing features when ck3 first released, but I thought that wasn't really fair, as the features mentioned didn't exist when that game released, And imo a lot of them ppl referenced were kind of catered to a person's individual preferences (playing republic's or arabs) rather than a feature that we would be missing out on if we didn't have it from the very start. Then there were those odd dlc's which made the ck2 noticibly less enjoyable (injuries and disease) when used.. I think injuries/disease was a good idea though, Functioned just fine in ck3, but I felt like it needed more of work in ck2. It would make the whole world eyepatched, legless, armless, cancer ridden, with a stubbed toe within a few years. And I didn't try it on release. This was how poorly it worked 3-4 years after it released.

I'm confident that I will eventually switch back to CK2 again and get just as autistic about it as I am now for CK3, but as it stands I'm still really enjoying CK3, and it is still (arguably) being updated actively, so why not.

I think they got better at their dlc additions over time. They still come out day one with a few kink in some of the new systems they add in, but on the whole it feels like more of the optional post release additions are denser and arguably more polished. People give paradox plaza a lot of shit for their, let's say, prolific dlc catalogue, but I think they are one of the rare few who do it right most of the time. Specifically, that their larger dlc releases feel like worthwhile expansions for the more hardcore fans. I don't get the feeling that they're purposely removing necessary features from the vanilla release just so they can screw over the player and charge another 20 dollars in 3 months as dlc, though I'm sure some would argue against this point, And I can't remember, at least at this particular moment, any specfiic dlc's that felt like you were getting a handicapped experience if you didn't buy it.

I'm confident that I will eventually switch back to CK2 again and get just as autistic about it as I am now for CK3,

It truly is the entertaining experience that will bring out the autism in every fan. I've been known to spend 10 minutes designing a coat of arms for a random npc underling's dynasty, just to see how many new ways I can draw swastika's on them.

 

[TheArtilleryman]

I think they got better at their dlc additions over time. They still come out day one with a few kink in some of the new systems they add in, but on the whole it feels like more of the optional post release additions are denser and arguably more polished. People give paradox plaza a lot of shit for their, let's say, prolific dlc catalogue, but I think they are one of the rare few who do it right most of the time. Specifically, that their larger dlc releases feel like worthwhile expansions for the more hardcore fans. I don't get the feeling that they're purposely removing necessary features from the vanilla release just so they can screw over the player and charge another 20 dollars in 3 months as dlc, though I'm sure some would argue against this point, And I can't remember, at least at this particular moment, any specfiic dlc's that felt like you were getting a handicapped experience if you didn't buy it.

Is it true everyone just disabled Conclave? I remember thinking that a huge pain in the ass. Also I was really pissed once when I randomly lost a great ruler to an event where I had to play a game of chess with Death himself. I'm not opposed to some fantastical events but that was ridiculous.

Honestly it was Roads to Power that brought me over, playing a landless adventurer was a very exciting idea that wasn't at all in CK2, so I had to check it out and it's just been CK3 since.

 

[Smack Patrick]

where I had to play a game of chess with Death himself.

That fucking event. I had it happen to me 4-5 times in a run I had going.
Disabled that shit and never looked back.