There's a slight breeze and a comforting glow coming from the crack's in today's calendar door, the sound of merriment and many accents from all over the world. Better join in the campfire revelry, because whoever's there won't be staying for long.
]]>Fire up the Steam page for Stellaris, one of my favourite space sims, and you will see 28 pieces of DLC, ranging from free character portraits to £35 expansion passes that span a bunch of species and story packs. Stablemate Europa Universalis 4 has 37 DLC packs under its banner, while Cities Skylines is streets ahead with a whopping 62. Paradox Interactive have long built their core game business around putative forever-projects that trail an enormous mantle of paid expansions. It's seemingly this, as much as their institutional expertise with 4X, that justifies their commitment to grand strategy games, whose worlds and systems can be fleshed out for literal decades.
]]>We pitch our tents outside Constantinople and crack open the ale. In the light of the campfire I examine my travel companions as they party. There's an Ashkenazi rabbi, a Saxon serf, some French knights, a Czech spy, a German dwarf, and a pair of inseparable Italian peasants. This rowdy band of roustabouts I've collected in the Crusader Kings 3's Roads To Power expansion has the feeling of a found family, each fellow wanderer sporting their own ambitions and quirks. They won't all make it. Many of the people I'm looking at in the glow of these embers will fall on the road, victims of robbery, landslides, and animal attacks. One of them will sacrifice their life to save the rest of us. All will bring me a step closer to my goal: I am walking from Ireland to China.
]]>Okay, listen. The Roads To Power expansion coming to Crusader Kings III is focusing on the Byzantine Empire. But forget that. Because today developers Paradox revealed the ins and outs of another feature from the DLC that is way more exciting than some fusty old Greeks. It's called "landless adventurers" and it'll let you play as disgraced dirtbag travelling the world in a sort of medieval gig economy. You'll be making camp, gathering followers, taking random jobs from local rulers, and catching infectious diseases as you try to travel safely through war-torn regions. It sounds amazing.
]]>You will be able to arrogantly ignore the advice of your wife and councillors in whole new ways in Crusader Kings 3, thanks to a small but mighty update to the game's message settings. Players are due to be given much more granular control over what scrolls and missives appear on their troubled monarch's war table, thanks to the free update that will accompany the Roads To Power DLC. Paradox talk about this and other upcoming changes (including a new start date) in an update post on Steam. Some rulers among you will be excited by all the Byzantine bureaucracy that will headline the DLC. But real kings care about filtering information in extremely picky detail. Still don't know why this is big Crusader Kings news? Come with me, you insolent wretch.
]]>A Paradox game? Getting DLC? You are pure joshing, you are simply having me on. But no! It's true! Crusader Kings 3 is getting another year of updates, including two full expansions. The first of them, Legends Of The Dead, introduces the Black Death and will release on March 4th.
]]>Crusader Kings 3 is somehow three years old, and Paradox’s grand strategy game is celebrating in style - and with a lot of stats - by dropping the news that it’s sold over three million copies in that time.
]]>Many moon rotations ago, Crusader Kings 2’s sprawling grand strategy received A Game Of Thrones facelift thanks to a fan-made mod, replacing the political tensions of mediaeval Europe with the political tensions of Westeros. The AGOT mod was both huge and hugely popular, and now the team are back with a similar mod for Crusader Kings 3. It’ll be released in open beta tomorrow, April 14th.
]]>Crusader Kings 3's next expansion has been announced. Tours & Tournaments will introduce new events to the medieval grand strategy game including jousting events, grand weddings and the ability to send you ruler on a tour of their domain. All offer an opportunity to impress your subjects and rivals - or, I'd guess, to fall off your horse and die.
]]>Yesterday’s Paradox Announcement Show saw the reveal of some new games, including the turn-based strategy The Lamplighters League, and a sequel to their hit city builder Cities: Skylines 2. But, with a bucketload of ongoing games, Paradox weren’t content with the newbies, and announced a blast of DLC. Flagship historical grand strategies Crusader Kings 3 and Europa Universalis 4, as well as colony builder Surviving The Aftermath, are all getting expansions.
]]>Earlier this month, we asked you to vote for your favourite strategy games of all time to celebrate the launch (and glorious return) of several strategy classics this month, including Relic's WW2 RTS Company Of Heroes 3, Blue Byte's The Settlers: New Allies and Cyanide's fantasy Warhamball Blood Bowl 3. And cor, I've never seen such love for individual expansions and total conversion mods among mainline RTS games and 4Xs. As with all strategy games, however, there can only be one victor - and you can find out what that single strategy game to rule them all is right here. Here are your 50 favourite strategy games of all time, as voted for by you, the RPS readership.
]]>Linda Tiger's career in gaming started two decades ago, in a test house in Glasgow. “I started in QA back in 2002. I worked on functionality and localisation testing. Eventually, I became a lead and then a QA manager at a studio,” she tells me, as we talk at India Game Developers Conference in Hyderabad, India. Now, Tiger is at Paradox Development Studio as the studio manager of Studio Black, and the former lead producer for Crusader Kings 3. She even stood in front of a suit of armor to drop the game's first tease.
An RPG-esque lifestyle system and neat backstab choices that deal with information round out Crusader Kings 3's host of improvements over its excellent predecessor. A court-themed expansion and a revamp of the game’s culture system after launch are a testament to Paradox’s resolve to deliver a refined plotting experience. Holy wars and illicit affairs go hand in hand in the world of Crusader Kings and the third iteration is no different. Weaving together systems to consistently deliver emergent gameplay is no simple feat, and it turns out that production also covers all manner of small but essential, and practical things. As the lead producer on a game as complex as Crusader Kings 3, Tiger had her work cut out for her.
]]>If you thought things could get awkward and tense in Crusader Kings 3 then just wait for the arrival of its Friends And Foes pack on September 8th. There’s also the upcoming free Bastion update, which introduces memory maps for characters, the loyal and disloyal traits, and revamps childhood events. Have a watch of the trailer for Friends And Foes below, old buddy, old pal.
]]>Paradox are dragging the Iberian peninsula into Crusader Kings 3’s grand strategy medieval world of backstabbing and throne-shagging on May 31st with the Fates Of Iberia ‘flavor pack’ DLC.
]]>With Crusader Kings III finally having invaded the console market - presumably, as a result of a club-footed Belgian mystic spending months fabricating a claim to it - now seems a fine moment to step back and see how the game looks, eighteen months into its reign on PC. The answer, with almost embarrassing simplicity, is: “great”.
]]>Cowboy horror RPG Weird West and visual novel Zero Escape: The Nonary Games are among the new additions arriving on the PC Game Pass subscription service in March.
]]>Official support for same-sex marriages will arrive in Crusader Kings 3 as part of Update 1.5, launching alongside the first expansion in February. It'll come as both a game rule for everyone and new options for modders to work with. It's taken longer than expected, but Paradox adding an option for same-sex marriage without using mods is more than they had initially planned, so that's nice.
]]>While Crusader Kings 3 is a great simulation of medieval political jostling, when this degenerate into war, it lacks a little pizzaz. Enter Crusader Blade, a new mod which lets you fight CK3 battles inside Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord. When it's time to rumble in CK3, it'll generate a Bannerlord battle based on your armies for you to fight in-person, then transfer the results back into CK3. Immensely impressive.
]]>Paradox are going to take longer than first thought to finish Crusader Kings 3's first DLC. Royal Court didn't previously have an announced release date, but it's currently aiming for 2022 as Paradox say they are "not, at the moment, entirely satisfied with Royal Court's progress."
]]>1240 Pepsi Max cans quaffed. 30 Toffee Crisps swallowed. 600 sneezes sneezed. These are the stats of my past year. Crusader Kings 3's past year offers bigger numbers.
To celebrate the kingdom sim's first year of release, Paradox have put out a set of in-game stats, which includes: 18 million marriages, 334 million children, and "4 million pets petted."
]]>Crusader Kings 3's Royal Court DLC, announced just now during the PDXCON reveal stream, is all about being a king. You'd think that was the case with Crusader Kings 3 anyway, given the game's title. But there's always room for more grandeur, and this expansion (the game's first, in fact, given that Northern Lords was dubbed a "flavour pack") will set out to deliver that - along with some correspondingly regal headaches to go with it.
As with most Paradox expansions, Royal Court will also ride onto your PC attended by a free patch. This free content will be no scurrying squire, however, dressed in tattered old sacks: it'll be a full overhaul of the game's culture system, which promises to make the dream of Viking Death Elephants real at last. I had a bit of a duck-billed chatypus with CK3's game director, Alexander Oltner, to find out what exactly will be in this big golden bag.
]]>“News from the emperor, my liege”, cringes the chancellor, as he loiters awkwardly before the door of his lordship’s privy. But the only answer he gets is the rhythmic thump of buttocks on wood: once again, the Duke is having intercourse. The chancellor is used to this sound, of course. It is the furtive drumbeat which underscores courtly life in this game of Crusader Kings 3, beneath the faint and ever-present cacophony of the War. And it is distinctly uncomfortable to listen to.
]]>It is the year 980AD, in a very odd game of Crusader Kings 3, and under the brassy gloom of a midwinter afternoon, Europe holds its breath. For one hundred and fourteen years now, the continent’s fortunes have been driven by the whims of a single, anvil-sized heart. But today, in a sprawling fortress-chapel beside the Thames, that monstrous drum is striking its final, furious beats.
The last of the succession parchments have been signed. The last threats have been sent to the East. In the great hall, beneath the alabaster snarls of Zeus and Demeter, a marsh of sick cools from the near-apocalyptic revels of the emperor’s farewell feast. And now, in the imperial bedchamber, with a wheeze like a ruptured bouncy castle being leaned on by thirty builders, the soul of a god escapes its prison of flesh at last.
]]>One of the many things I love about the Crusader Kings games is their ability to maintain a relatively consistent tone when, strictly speaking, they should be all over the place. These are, after all, games about the acquisition of power. They model the full range of monstrous things which people are prepared to do to each other to get it, and they don’t shy away from the consequences.
But then, these are also games where spymasters can plot to murder themselves, and where a horse can become Pope. For all the thrill of forging a dynasty over the course of six centuries of roleplaying, there’s no denying that some of the finest moments in Crusader Kings come from those times when things get silly.
]]>Last month, Crusader Kings 3's 1.3 patch broke mods that allowed players to have same-sex concubine relationships in the medieval strategy game. Paradox Interactive told us they didn't intend to break mod functionality, however, and now they say there's a new patch in the works that should fix them. They plan on making same-sex marriages moddable for the first time in CK3 as well.
]]>The Vatican City, 1146 AD, and 90 years into a game of Crusader Kings III. As the doors of the conclave chamber are sealed, a ring of hangdog cardinals stare miserably at each other in the sudden gloom. It is time, once again, to choose a new Pope. Once, this would have been a gathering seething with the ambitions of powerful men. Now, it is a ritual of pure misery, attended by yokels who have barely even heard of Christ. They are all that is left.
Without a word, each of the defeated clerics step forwards to rummage in a velvet sack. Tokens rattle beneath their hands. When the sack is empty, the cardinals open their fists, and the chapel fills with murmured prayers of relief. Most of these men will live another year. But after the prayers subside, a lone sob continues to echo in the chamber. These are the tears of Pope Leo XXXVI, who has drawn the black token. And he weeps, for he will soon meet his God.
]]>After having a good go with it over the weekend, I can safely say that the Northern Lords DLC for Crusader Kings 3 is entirely what I had hoped it would be. That is to say, an utterly reasonable sell at just over £5, which does little to reinvent the game. That’s A-OK, in my book, because CK3 needs very little reinventing in the first place. It's ace. What Northern Lords does do, however, true to its branding as a "flavour pack", is offer a lot more mill-grist for those coming to the game with roleplay in mind.
]]>Paradox Interactive dropped patch 1.3 for Crusader Kings 3 this week, alongside a new Viking-themed DLC. However, it's not all good news, because the update has also stopped players from being able to mod in same-sex relationships into the medieval strategy game. Some fans are concerned about the reasons for this change, but Paradox tell us they didn't intend on deliberately barring same-sex relationships.
]]>While watching a Twitch stream of Crusader Kings III the other day, the chat was asked which starting nations and characters they've played as in the past. The vast majority of responses were: "Munster, Ireland" - the Petty Kingdom given to you by the game's tutorial for new players.
I'm fairly sure that says something about the unprecedented approachability of Crusader Kings III. An amazingly comprehensive set of tutorials, and a superbly clear and well-designed UI, both work alongside a host of other improvements to smooth out the mountainous learning curve of its predecessor. Never has it been easier for new players to jump into one of Paradox's legendary Grand Strategy titles.
]]>Crusader Kings 3 developers Paradox Interactive have been teasing a big free 1.3 update over the past month, one that would expand duels, bring snow, and throw down with randomly generated poetry.
Now we know that these additions are coming this week alongside the Northern Lords flavour pack, which adds Norse-themed content including new events and viking hair styles.
]]>Paradox Insider takes place tonight and will broadcast live on Twitch at 11am PT/7pm GMT/8pm CET. This is where Paradox Interactive reveal new information about games and updates they're planning on releasing in 2021. Will there be new information on Bloodlines 2? I doubt it, but you can watch the stream below to find out.
]]>Valheim, which is Old Norse for "Valerie is home", came out in early access last month to the roars of Viking-likers everywhere. It is a survival game about building a hut in the woods and then protecting that hut from friends who want to erect a gaudy temple next door, totally ruining the rustic ambience of the whole glade. I guess there's some monsters to fight too. But will any of this matter if you do not make it through cold nights full of dangers, and lean days without food? Just where does your Valheim viking fall on the bar chart of survivability? Here are the 8 toughest Vikings in PC games, a healthy exercise in comparison and shame.
]]>The release of Crusader Kings III in September was, as with many Paradox games, more like a rough sketch than a finished game. A big update is brewing with new features including winter and procedurally-generated poetry that can torture enemies, and now Paradox have detailed a big overhaul of the game's duels. Some problems can't be settled by sending out armies while you recline in your palace, growing fat on lark tongue and boiled owl.
]]>Crusader Kings 3 is a great strategic romp that lets you play out your kingmaking fantasies of intrigue and plotting. When it comes to pulling out the swords though, wouldn't it be cool if you could actually get down on the battlefield to fight your way to victory? Hold up, there's definitely a game for that. Well several, really, but this is about Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord. An upcoming mod will let you play out your crusading wars on Bannerlord's battlefields and then send the results back to your Crusaders campaign to continue strategising.
]]>Crusader Kings 3 will soon let players send randomly generated poems to their friends and enemies. Whether you fancy a little romance, or want to send a sick diss to some lord who wronged you, there's a poem for it all. You'll even be able to use your witty verse to torture prisoners. Truly, what else is poetry for?
]]>Put on your hat and mittens, because Crusader Kings 3 is planning on dropping some snow on your medieval kingdoms. Paradox Interactive have revealed that winter is on the way in the strategy game's 1.3 patch, which will cover your map in a smattering of the white stuff as the season progresses. Winter isn't just about the aesthetics, though, the severity of season will affect how well your loyal subjects cope.
]]>Never mind your calendar. E3 is a state of mind, not a date on your wall. Announcements and game reveals and trailers can happen in any month—like March, for instance. That's when Paradox Interactive will be coming back with another one of their Paradox Insider video showcases to tell you about all the games they've got coming up. You'll be able to catch it on March 13th.
]]>If you somehow don’t already know about Handforth Parish Council, then it brings me great pleasure to be the one to bring you up to speed. The story is this: in the UK county of Cheshire, there is a place called Handforth, whose local governing body has gone completely berserk. It seems a man named Brian is doing his level best to elevate himself to the status of a tyrant in this village of 6,000 people, and has chosen to pursue this ambition from his seat as chairman of the parish council.
The whole story plays out so elegantly, in this YouTube upload of a meeting from last month, that it’s staggering to remember it wasn’t scripted. All of human life is here: there’s roaring, there’s banishments, there’s an impassioned paraphrasing of Gandalf, and there’s a bit where a man loses his mind and growl-hisses “we’re trying to have a Teams meeting you fool” to someone off-camera. There are even accidental opening credits. If you’ve not watched it yet, drop everything and do so, and then I will tell you how this remarkable story should be adapted for the world of videogames.
]]>What's up gamers? It's 2021 and that means it's time to round up the team's favourite games of 2020. You'll already know our selections if you read our annual Advent Calendar, but this post gathers all those words and games together in one convenient package.
]]>What's the point of conquering medieval Europe if you can't do it as yourself, your mate, a minor television celebrity e.g. Noel Edmonds, or Shrek? Thankfully, Crusader Kings 3 today adds a 'Ruler Designer' in a free update, giving plenty of options to customise your starting character's appearance, personality, skills, and such. It has some pretty in-depth and gruesome customisation options so I look forward to seeing truly hideous lords and ladies. I'm already dreading the inevitable Minions.
]]>Strategy games is an enormous genre in PC gaming, with real-time, turn-based, 4X and tactics games all flying the same flag to stake their claim as the one true best strategy game. Our list of the best strategy games on PC covers the lot of them. We like to take a broad view here at RPS, and every game listed below is something we firmly believe that you could love and play today. You'll find 30-year-old classics nestled right up against recent favourites here, so whether you're to the genre or want to dig deep for some hidden gems, we've got you covered. Here are our 50 best strategy games for 2023.
]]>Six weeks after the release of Crusader Kings 3, and there are already over 1200 mods, tweaks, and more to download. Paradox's grand soap opera is as much fun to fix as it is to play, it seems.
A lot of the more extensive mods are still heavily in development, so I've steered clear of most total conversions (aside from one that I couldn't not highlight) and stuck to more general upgrades and rules for your kings and queens.
]]>What to do when you've completed a Crusader Kings 3 campaign? You could start over as a new ruler in a new place, I suppose, but isn't that negligent? A truly responsible leader would steer their nation through the middle ages, the Victorian era, and World War 2. And you can do that thanks to a tool which transfers a CK3 world into Europa Universalis 4, picking it back up in the Paradox grand strategy game set in the following era. You could also then use another tool to take that from EU4 into Victoria 2, then into Hearts Of Iron 4 with yet another tool, converting the same world across one millennium-long 'megacampaign'.
]]>Medieval conquer 'em up Crusader Kings 3 will be pushing out a huge patch to fix all sorts of bugs and AI oddities. Really though, it almost feels like some of these bugs deserve to stay. They're hard-working bugs, folks. The strategy simulation is adding fixes for overzealous spymasters, children with poor role models, and Popes with a taste for the flesh of the faithful.
]]>Having trouble launching Crusader Kings 3? Crusader Kings 3, with its army-raising, dynasty-creating, and kinslaying, can keep you occupied for hours on end. That's why it came as a terrible surprise when my version of the game wouldn't open. Terrifying stuff. I fixed it though! Here's how to fix Crusader Kings 3's launch issues.
]]>How do I develop counties in Crusader Kings 3? Counties are the smallest kind of domain you can hold in Crusader Kings 3, and as such you'll need to manage them carefully. In particular, your county control and development are vital for the output of both gold and levies, so it's well worth improving them where you can. Here's how to increase county control and development in Crusader Kings 3.
]]>How do I stop my vassals from fighting in Crusader Kings 3? If you fancy taking over large swathes of land in Crusader Kings 3 you'll need to have vassals under your control. Vassals are the middle managers of the middle ages: nowhere near the dynasty leader in terms of power, they're nevertheless the most important person your run-of-the-mill peasant or plebian is ever likely to see.
This is all well and good if they're all doing their jobs and paying taxes and levies to their rightful liege, but in Crusader Kings 3, your vassals have minds of their own — they're medieval leaders after all. What if they start petty infighting for seemingly no reason? You'll have to keep tabs on them to make sure they're in check. Well, here's how to stop your vassals from fighting each other in Crusader Kings 3:
]]>What are the minimum and recommended system requirements for Crusader Kings 3? Crusader Kings 3 is a pretty demanding game specs-wise. With about a thousand things going on at all times, CK3 can be taxing on your machine. With that in mind, here's how good your PC or Mac will need to be to run it.
]]>How do I recruit and manage knights in Crusader Kings 3? Knights are the elite fighters in your Crusader Kings 3 army, often providing a vital turning point for you in battles against weaker foes. They have various names, like Fāris, Shoorveers, Champions, or Baghaturs, but under the hood they all serve the same purpose across all of the game's various cultures./p>
]]>How do I use cheats in Crusader Kings 3? Crusader Kings 3 can be customised at will in debug mode, using cheats and console commands. This is done in different ways depending on where you bought CK3 from. Here's everything you need to know about debug mode in CK3 for PC, and all the console commands and cheats.
]]>One of the main reasons I'm not super into games like Crusader Kings 3 is that they're based on proper history. I know, I know, how uncultured of me. What can I say? Magic and dragons in medieval settings just fire me up a bit more. That excuse won't fly much longer, though, because some CK3 fans are making a mod inspired by the likes of Dragon Age, The Witcher, and Forgotten Realms.
The setting is called Anbennar, and it's already become a popular Europa Universalis IV mod.
]]>What is the North Korea strategy and how do I use it in Crusader Kings 3? The unofficially titled 'North Korea strategy' has returned for Crusader Kings 3, and it lets you completely dominate the world if pulled off correctly. This style of play was already a thing in the previous version of the game, but has been made even stronger and more viable in CK3, remaining an enduring player favourite well into the lifetime of the third release.
Here's how to do the North Korea strategy in Crusader Kings 3 and become supreme leader.
]]>One of the strange things about Crusader Kings 3 is that the sheer size of the world means that even the mightiest empire will still operate in perhaps a quarter of the map at most. When you're a small realm, or one squished into a corner like Ireland or Kham, you can spend the entire game without proof that most of the world even exists.
It's a good thing. I like it. Sometimes I like to pause and scroll around the world to see how it's doing while I was busy taking Yorubaland to the regionals. And that's when I noticed something about all the AI dynasties.
They have mottos. They have randomly generated mottos. And yet, they have no independent body to evaluate the best ones and give them appropriate awards. Well, we'll just have to fix that.
]]>Who is the best starting character in Crusader Kings 3? There are a huge number of rulers to choose from in Crusader Kings 3, and looking at the map it can get a bit overwhelming. Of course, choose the character who most resonates with you - if you want to shag your way to a horny gang of Estonian giants, no one's stopping you.
We've put together some suggestions if you're stuck though. Here's the best rulers to pick at the start of CK3, in both 867 and 1066.
]]>How do you get rid of an unwanted heir in Crusader Kings 3? In Crusader Kings 3 nobody is immortal, which means that producing and training up an eligible heir is an important part of building a lasting dynasty. Of course, this method of hereditary rule doesn't necessarily guarantee a successor who's competent, or even likeable from the point of view of a player who's about to step into their shoes for many in-game hours.
Yeah, it's not a great look. Hear me out though. Sometimes your heir is just destined to be a rubbish ruler and you have to get them out of the way. With the medieval laws of CK3, you're forced to pass your hard work down to your descendants and even play as that useless little kid if you're unlucky. Wouldn't it be nice then, if you could kill your offspring to make room for a more appropriate leader? Look, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
So, here's how to disinherit or, yes, even kill your character's child in Crusader Kings 3.
]]>Freestyle skating and global politics have a lot in common: when you pull off big tricks you feel like king of the world, but muff it and and you can crash hard. It's only natural, then, that Crusader Kings 3 and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 come together in a new CK3 mod, 'Tony Hawk's Pro Crusaders 1 + 2'. In a most radical rewriting of history, it lets your rulers also be skaters and hit the park as hard as the royal court - but will you sk8 or die?
The mod's creator explains: "My friend Gary couldn't decide whether to play Tony Hawk or Crusader Kings 3, so I made this mod to help him out."
]]>How do I increase my army in Crusader Kings 3? Whether you're an old CK3 pro by now or a new player brought in by the recent console release, one of the most important things in your game of Crusader Kings 3 is your army. Without soldiers, you'll be a prime target for invasion by warmongering neighbouring Jarls, as well as being unable to expand your territory by force.
Here's how to raise and replenish your levies and armies in Crusader Kings 3.
]]>How do I create a custom character in Crusader Kings 3? Upon its initial release, Crusader Kings 3 had quite limited character customisation options compared to its predecessor, only allowing you to edit existing rulers and their family members via the Barbershop. However, the Version 1.2 update in November 2020 re-added (for free, no less) the popular Ruler Designer, which gives you more options for creating a brand-new character from scratch.
On this page, we'll explain how to access both character customisation features in Crusader Kings 3.
]]>New to Crusader Kings 3 and wondering where to start? When you boot up Crusader Kings 3 for the first time, it might seem a little daunting. The huge map, all the different borders, and the huge number of menus could be enough to turn some people off entirely. Well, fear not! It's a pretty rough ride to begin with but you'll manage easily enough with this guide.
Here's how to get your dynasty off to a good start in Crusader Kings 3.
]]>If I hadn't got in on Crusader Kings 2 shortly after it came out, I would have taken one look at its list of DLC (currently going for £184.65 on Steam, and that's with a discount) and noped right the hell out. Fortunately, the base game was already outstanding enough that I gladly supported it for our best games of the 2010s list. Most of the DLC was cosmetic after all, or was for realms I wouldn't play as.
But anyway. ANYWAY. Crusader Kings III is out now, and while it couldn't possibly incorporate eight years of add-ons, I wanted to see how it compares to vanilla CK2. Does a non-feudal ruler play any differently? Is it possible to thrive outside the default setting of kingly Europe? What's it like to start out as an obscure chief at the distant edge of the enormous world map? Let's find out.
]]>Three months ago, Paradox Interactive signed a collective agreement, to better establish workplace rights with the unions in their company. In an industry where we hear so many horror stories about underpaid and poorly treated employees, unionisation can be an important tool in giving workers a bigger voice, and providing support when it comes to negotiating their rights.
This moment has only come after months of negotiations, however, and for some employees, comes too late. I've spoken to several current and former employees at the Swedish studio, and they all paint a picture of a rapidly growing company clinging to an outdated image of itself, at which quality assurance workers in particular are exploited and underpaid.
]]>Good news, Aussie pals. After some issues with the Australian ratings board, Crusader Kings 3 is now available to you on the Microsoft Store, and it's coming to Steam later today.
When Paradox Interactive's medieval strategy game launched on September 2nd, it didn't come out in Australia because the Classification Board outright refused it a rating, effectively banning it. While no one's really sure what went wrong, fortunately it all seems to be resolved now.
]]>Regicide is once again a topic at dinner, thanks to the release of Crusader Kings III. Your aunt passes you the gravy, and asks about council matters. Your mother comments on the rise in guillotine stocks. Your father, the king, chews his mutton with a rueful and distant glare, probably thinking about war. A cloaked advisor enters and hands you a note on parchment. “The ten worft kingf and queenf in gamef,” it reads. You cough politely, put it in your pocket for later, and continue pushing poisoned food around as if you are eating it.
]]>Crusader Kings 3 sounds absolutely lovely, but the harsh reality I'm currently facing is that I just won't play it. I still need to finish Yakuza Kiwami 2, start Spiritfarer, and earn a crown in Fall Guys.
I simply cannot fathom fitting medieval strategy onto my list of shame but I am riveted by the stories other folks are telling about their wayward conquering. I just want to funny bits of emergent storytelling without the centuries of campaign preceding them. Fortunate for me, then, that Crusader Kings 3 tales are almost best when stripped of surrounding context. Here, I'll show you.
]]>Yesterday, I dived into the magical world of themed Crusader Kings III playthroughs, with this sobering exploration of what a man's life might look like if he cared for nothing except banging giants. I may return to my nightmare re-imagining of C12th Estonia at some point, but not today. You see, today, there's science to be done.
CK3 is, emphatically, all about planning for the long game. The fact you play as the successive inheritors of a medieval throne means you're always thinking centuries ahead. Even within the lives of your individual rulers, you'll almost always want to ensure a long and healthy reign, as that'll give you more time to work on goals that benefit both your current king and their descendants. Indeed, even Andyamo the giantshagger cultivated a secondary interest in medicine, so that he could extend his titan-tupping career well into his seventies. But what happens if you play with utter contempt for longevity? Playing as recklessly as possible, I want to find out just how quickly a king can get themselves killed.
]]>Blood is a powerful tool in the political maneuverings of medieval strategy game Crusader Kings 3, but it's an even more vital resource when your ruler is an actual vampire. Yup, that's sure a thing you can do thanks to the Princes Of Darkness mod that lets you scheme, plot, and rule as a vampire from the Vampire: The Masquerade setting. It's the successor to a Crusader Kings 2 mod of the same name, now bringing your bloody scheming to the newest game.
]]>Wait, you don't know the Party Baron of Crusader Kings 3? Aw, mate, he's only an absolute ledge. Best bants in all the kingdom, I tell ya, throws the best parties from here to the Holy Roman Empire. While it looks like he's scarpered from the game's final release, tales of the legendary host (and some fantastic placeholder art) appear to have helped shape the grand strategy's tangle of plots, intrigue, and colourful characters.
]]>High Chieftain Andyamo doesn't ask for much in life. In fact, he wants only two things. To live forever, and to bang every giant in Christendom.
Crusader Kings 3, which comes out today, is a game where you very much get out what you put in. You get something, anyway. The sheer density and interconnection of the medieval RPG's many simulations mean that, pretty much whatever you do, some consequence will come back to surprise you many years down the line. A butterfly flaps its wings; moments later, it is the pope.
]]>Dynastic scheming and disgruntled courtier disposal simulator Crusader Kings 3 is finally out. It is of course a sequel to the legend that welcomed many newcomers to the world of grand strategy games back in 2012, and the first game since then to really cover the same ground.
]]>The way I'd summarise Crusader Kings 3 depends heavily on where you're coming at the game from. If you never played Crusader Kings 2, but were always interested, then I heartily recommend this extremely long, in-depth strategy/RPG hybrid about managing the successive lives of a dynasty of medieval problem people. It's very complex, but it does a better job than its predecessor of explaining itself, and offers more rewards along the learning curve. Similarly, if you tried CK2 but bounced off, now would be your cue to come back for another bite of the turkey leg.
If you have played CK2, however, then I honestly don't know what to say to you. You might find that CK3 preserves the best of CK2, while losing some of the irritations. Or you might find that it has preserved the general structure, while losing the magic. Which end of that spectrum you skew towards will depend on what details of CK2 your particular devils resided in.
]]>The first stream of Crusader Kings 3 started with a classic moment last week. It managed to surprise the developers by revealing their sister as their lover which, hearteningly, shocks them. Any game that can make the creator do a double-take is good by me. The whole 47 minutes is a surprisingly breezy look at the regicide and intrigue at the heart of their upcoming grand strategy sim. Even when they killed their brother with a duck.
]]>As we draw closer to the release date of Crusader Kings 3 on September 1, Paradox has started a series of videos to get you up to speed with their grand strategy game. First up is a look at how characteristics shape your regal avatar. It begins with the story of Erik the Heathen, a greedy, brave, and zealous Viking. Despite ruling Sweden, he is not chill.
]]>Paradox Interactive, the makers of Crusader Kings and Stellaris, have announced the "impending completion" of a collective bargaining agreement with the labour unions for its employees in Sweden. By the end of this month, Paradox employees should have a formal way of influencing their pay, benefits and responsibilities, and be generally better protected by the unions they're part of. If you're a little confused on what all this "collective agreement" business means though, bear with me while I have a go at explaining it.
]]>Paradox Interactive today announced a release date for Crusader Kings III: September 1st. It's been eight years since CK2 launched and Paradox have stretched the medieval dynasty-building strat-o-RPG to breaking point with expansions and updates, so here comes a clean slate with some solid changes. Our Nate recently got to play a preview version and came away dead impressed.
]]>Crusader Kings 3 is coming on September 1st, and after having access to an early build for a few days, I’m seriously impatient to get back to scheming, disinheriting, and declaring myself the new pope. It’s got that terrible magic that leads to all-day-and-half-the-night sessions, and that’s largely because, secretly, it’s two games at once. It’s a strategy game, obviously. But it’s also a roleplaying game, and a really good one at that. So was 2012’s Crusader Kings 2, of course. But developers Paradox have been shrewd in identifying what made that weird hybrid work as it evolved through fifteen expansions, and have put it front and centre in CK3 from day one.
As it stands, CK3 is one of the few RPGs I’ve played that genuinely compelled me to try thinking like my character would, rather than just pushing for optimal outcomes. And it swiftly achieved what CK2 only managed at its best, in making me feel more invested in my pretend family of medieval gits, than I did in the nation they were ruling. And on top of all that, CK3 simply does a much better job of explaining itself than most of Paradox’s historical titles do. I think it’ll succeed in bringing previously reticent newcomers into the subgenre, but not by sacrificing complexity or depth. It is, quite straightforwardly, a well-designed game.
]]>Big ol' kingdom manager Crusader Kings 3 has put out another development update and it's a chunky one. This month, Paradox Interactive developers take a really deep dive on all of the Lifestyles—like classes, but for your management self, not combat self. There are five different Lifestyles that your ruler can specialize in, all with different perk trees and focuses that let you decide how you'll keep an iron grip on your land and lords and all.
]]>A new Crusader Kings 3 video developer diary explains how Lifestyles are going to work in this third instalment of the series. It's a new and improved system that's pretty different from Crusader Kings 2 - featuring proper skill trees so you can better shape your character to be the way you want them to be.
]]>Over the break we had a chance to do some serious scientific study of this business we call games, and it turns out that games are actually good. 2020 in particular has a healthy mix of big budget bonanzas and smaller indie plates to suit everyone's discerning tastes. And, as you know, the RPS treehouse is the most discerning, so to make it easier for you we've got a big ol' list of the games we're most looking forwards to this year. It's traditional.
]]>It's good to be King. This week, Crusader Kings 3 game director Henrik Fåhraeus donned a crown and cloak to lay out his vision for the big ol' threequel. It's the first in what Paradox say will be a monthly series of video diaries diving into the creation of a political powerhouse. Episode one is all about the big picture, and how the team want to bring some contemporary grandeur to the sprawling, occasionally awkward series.
That kinda thing requires a certain regal flair, don't you think?
]]>The Crusader Kings franchise has always had a massive Game of Thrones vibe. Indeed, the first two games in the series got their own Westeros mods, and our own Adam Smith called CK2’s “such a blindingly obvious combination of worlds and mechanics that it simply had to exist”. Now, however, looking into the new dynasty mechanics for Crusader Kings 3, it’s clear what Paradox are doing: they’re basically putting that stuff in from day one.
OK, it’s still a historical game, so there’ll be work for modders in adding maps, character names and probably dragons. But in terms of feuding cadet houses, bastard offshoots and needlessly intense family mottos -- not to mention the new ‘Dread’ mechanic, wherein the more of a monster you are, the more your vassals are scared to disobey you -- you can have it all. There’s still plenty about CK3 to be revealed, but while we wait for flaying and seventy-seven course meals to be confirmed as features, here’s everything we know about the new dynasty system.
]]>Although we won’t be able to play Crusader Kings 3 until next year, last weekend I got to try the next best thing - a massive game of Crusader Kings 2 without a single PC involved. As part of the celebrations at PDXcon, Paradox turned the interior of the Nalepastrasse radio station (formerly the broadcast hub for communist East Germany) into a vast map of Europe, and gave 250 or so players the chance to swindle, excommunicate, marry and assassinate their way to the top of the feudal world.
I was curious to see what on earth would happen if you replaced CK2’s vast array of simulated bastards with real people, and how the sheer, breathtaking amorality of medieval power-grabbing would play out when you had to look people in the eye while doing it. As such, I enlisted the help of freelancer Rosh Kelly, and entered the melee for five hours of profound chaos. Here’s how it went down.
]]>Crusader Kings 2 isn’t the easiest game to define. It mixes Paradox’s grand strategy formula with a big bucket of RPG flavour, creating something that’s just as playable as an emergent storytelling toy as it is as a wargame. Crusader Kings 3, its freshly-announced sequel, has this same mix of ingredients. But from what we’ve seen so far, it looks like it might just have edged over the line from “a strategy game with RPG elements” to “an RPG you play on a map”.
Let’s be clear: it’s still very much a strategy game. Crusader Kings 3 is about exploiting a range of interlocking systems -- from military power to succession law to church doctrine -- to grab big metal gauntlets full of power, and rise to the top of the medieval world. That world is now bigger, too. Four times the size, in fact, which brings it to a par with the vast map of Imperator: Rome. And the mechanics used to manipulate it are as varied as they ever were. More than in CK2, however, all of them are affected by who your ruler is as a character.
]]>A few minutes ago, Crusader Kings 3 was announced at PDXCon in Berlin, with an actual choir of hooded figures, and this splendidly grim trailer. Predecessor Crusader Kings 2 is still going strong after nearly eight years, with its last expansion launched last November, but now it's time for that old warhorse to be put to pasture. Or perhaps become pope. Either way, it's free to play now.
But what's in store for budding Dukes, Caliphs, and Holy Roman Emperors in CK3? Luckily, I spent the start of the month with Paradox in Stockholm, where even a thematically appropriate run-in with blood poisoning couldn't stop me soaking up all there was to know about the grand strategy behemoth under construction. I’ll be posting some longer pieces getting into the meat of the game in the weeks to come, but for now, here’s a summary of what we know so far:
]]>To restate the blimming obvious: yes, Paradox will one day turn away from Crusader Kings II expansions and make a full sequel to their historical lord management simulator. The company's current approach to making strategy games is to expand, rework, and patch 'em for yonks before eventually jumping to a sequel when they want to make changes that would involve fiddling with the foundations. CK2 has held out longer than many Paradox series--six years and going strong--but CEO Fredrik Wester recently said (as I'm sure he has several times before?) that yes, one day the bell will toll for it too. It sounds like the time is drawing nearer, but still not here quite yet.
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