|OT| Crusader Kings III - An Heir is Born | The Royal Court DLC announced

prudis

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An Heir is Born in Crusader Kings III

Crusader Kings III is the newest generation of Paradox Development Studio's beloved medieval role-playing grand strategy game. Expand and improve your realm, whether a mighty kingdom or modest county. Use marriage, diplomacy and war to increase your power and prestige in a meticulously detailed map that stretches from Spain to India, Scandinavia to Central Africa.

But uneasy lies the head that wears a crown! Your cunning is your greatest weapon, and intelligence is the key to all successful strategy. Guard your life and the future of your dynasty, because enemies foreign and domestic envy your status. Engage in espionage, join political factions, punish heretics or use assassins to make sure your throne passes safely to the next generation.

Crusader Kings III is the medieval strategy role-playing experience that you have been waiting for.

  • Shape Your Dynasty: Guide unique characters through history, choosing lifestyles best suited to their personalities and your ambitions.
  • Rewrite Medieval History: Dynasties will change and adapt to changes in family and politics, swimming in a rich world of religious faith and royal pageantry.
  • Build a Mighty Kingdom: Use cold steel or warm words to expand your realm; war backed by cunning, and diplomacy that unites bloodlines.
  • Experience High Drama: Stranger than fiction stories leap off the screen, as characters plot against you and events push you to extremes.
  • Learn as You Go: Guided advice helps newcomers and veterans navigate a rich medieval world. In-game suggestions tip you off to paths you might not have considered.
  • The Usual Crusader Kings Fun: Keep a stubborn council in line, scheme against your overbearing uncle or marry rich duchesses for their land and legacy.
 
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Panda Pedinte

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Nice. CK II had great support through it lifespan and I hope they keep doing it with CK III.
 

Jared

Jared Mohammed
Oct 2, 2019
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Meanwhile us Victoria players are still waiting for the third entry in the Victoria series.

Anyways, jokes aside, I do hope this entry isn't filled with numerous DLCs like its previous iteration or not as barren as the vanilla version of Crusader Kings II.
 

Snakethesniper

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Anyways, jokes aside, I do hope this entry isn't filled with numerous DLCs like its previous iteration or not as barren as the vanilla version of Crusader Kings II.
It'll be exactly like that, every paradox grand strategy game does this lol
 
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prudis

prudis

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Greetings, and welcome to the first CK3 Feature Dev Diary!


As this is the first DD we want it to be extra juicy, and showcase something that we’re excited about – namely what we’re doing with Dynasties! Dynasties are immaterial yet fundamentally important things that make Crusader Kings what it is – your line must follow an unbroken line of members from your Dynasty; if your Dynasty ends, so does your game.


Now, the representation of Dynasties in CK2 was limited. A character belonged to a Dynasty, and that was that – you got a minor opinion boost with characters that were of the same one, and nothing more. In CK3, we really want to emphasize the power that Dynasties held, and their impact on the medieval world! We want you as the player to feel a bond with your Dynasty, and care for it. To achieve this, we’ve done a multitude of things!





Firstly something that we know will especially please CK2 players, we’ve redefined what a Dynasty actually is – not a monolithic entity, but a collection of Houses. No longer will Dynasties have just one name, one Coat of Arms, and one identity – instead several Houses (aka Cadet Branches!) will be collected under the umbrella that is the Dynasty, working together (theoretically…) towards bringing renown upon the Dynasty!

So, what is a House?
Each Dynasty will have a Founding House (usually of the same name as the Dynasty), which is the first House of that Dynasty. As the game progresses, ruling Dynasty members that are distant by blood to the current House Head (more on this below) may choose to create a Cadet Branch – effectively creating a new House under the Dynasty. Creating a Cadet Branch makes the character creating it House Head (with the most powerful House Head becoming Dynast), and by extension free from the direct influence of their old House Head. Making your own Cadet Branch requires quite a bit of prestige, that you do not stand to inherit your House Head’s titles, and that all of your Dynastic ancestors are dead (your father can’t be alive, for example). Cadet Branches/Houses come with a lot of flavor: their own names, Coat of Arms and Mottos, usually inspired by the location in which they are founded, and the founding character. For example, if a ruler of the Jimena Dynasty would create a Cadet Branch in southern France, they might be called the Toulouse-Jimenas, and so on.




Now, what is a House Head or a Dynast?
Within a House there is always a leader, a House Head, that wields power over the rest of the members. A House Head has the power to legitimize bastards, call House members to war, and demand that they adhere to their Faith (refusal to convert will result in them creating a new Cadet Branch). The House Head also has inherent leverage on all House members born after they were made head, by virtue of getting a Hook on them (more on Hooks in another DD). They also gain passive prestige based upon the number of members in their House. House leadership follows the succession of the House Head, so that if you’re the leader of your House you will most likely keep that title on succession.

The Dynast, on the other hand, wields significantly more power than a House Head – with their power encompassing the members of all Houses of the entire Dynasty! The Dynast is always the most powerful House Head of a Dynasty, with leadership being updated on the death of the old Dynast. In addition to everything the House Head can do, the Dynast can also Disinherit/Restore Inheritance, Denounce/Forgive members of the Dynasty (which affects opinion in a major way), personally Claim titles held by Dynasty members, and make Dynasty members end wars they have against each other. All of these powers work against every member of the Dynasty, not just the House they’re a part of. The Dynast also gains prestige for every living member of the Dynasty. Being the Dynast is very powerful indeed, but you have to carefully weigh the powers against other benefits, as they cost Renown.

So what is Renown?
Renown is a resource accumulated by a Dynasty, and is used for several things. Firstly, all renown earned by a Dynasty counts towards its Level of Splendor. The Level of Splendor is the outward perception of the Dynasty, how well it is perceived in the eyes of the world, and affects the prestige you get on birth, the prestige when marrying into it, and the maximum long reign opinion you can get. Having a high level also makes it much easier to arrange marriages, especially with Dynasties below your level. Regardless of if Renown is spent or not, the Level of Splendor won’t decrease. The higher your Dynasty’s Level of Splendor, the more impressive its Coat of Arms frame will look. Peasant Dynasties will start at a negative Splendor level, which means that you’ll actually lose prestige for marrying them.


Renown itself is a spendable currency, representing the clout your Dynasty holds over itself. Its use is twofold; firstly it can be used for the most powerful Dynast interactions (getting claims, disinheriting, etc.) and secondly for unlocking Dynasty Legacies (more on this below).


The way you get Renown encourages you to mimic a ‘playstyle’ that was common in reality, but that wasn’t very practical in CK2 – spreading your Dynasty far and wide! You will gain renown for every ruler of your Dynasty that isn’t a subject under another member of your Dynasty. This is based on tier, which means that a King will give more Renown than a Duke, and so on. Marrying in such a way that your Dynasty ends up on the throne of a foreign realm is therefore useful for other reasons than to just murder them until you inherit their lands. Having your Dynasty spread out will give you more Renown, and thus a more powerful Dynasty overall. For example, if you’re playing as the King of England you will NOT gain renown from your landed vassal brother, but you WILL gain renown from your Dynastic cousin ruling a Duchy in the Holy Roman Empire. You will also gain renown from marrying away your dynasty to be spouses of powerful rulers, symbolizing your newfound influence in their realms. This gives you a reason to carefully plan the marriages of your kinsmen, even if you are not in need of an alliance!


So, what are Dynasty Legacies?
We all know that the playing field in Crusader Kings is a very volatile one, you might be Emperor of the World as one character, while being reduced to Count of Norfolk as the next. Dynasty Legacies offer some permanence in this otherwise very wild world, in the form of modifiers and unlocks that affect every member of your Dynasty. Essentially, by using Renown you get to shape what your Dynasty is known for. There’s a myriad of Legacies to choose from, all divided into tracks with an appropriately thematic name, such as ‘Kin’, ‘Guile’ or ‘Blood’. These aim to represent notions the world had (or has) about certain dynasties, i.e., that the Seljuks are warriors, the Abbasids lawmakers, the Habsburgs diplomats (and, ahem, prone to marrying their own kin), etc. Each Legacy track contains five unlocks, each costing a progressively higher amount of Renown to unlock.



In this Dev Diary we will go into details on one of these tracks, “Blood” (which also happens to be my favorite). This track is designed for those of you who enjoy breeding traits into your family line, with the first few unlocks all focusing on increasing the chance of inheritance, emergence, and reinforcement of genetic traits (more on genetic traits in another DD). The last few unlocks will reduce the chance of negative traits appearing (essentially allowing for more.. ‘risky’ marriages), give you the chance to choose a genetic trait to be more common among your kin (i.e. beautiful, intelligent and strong… but also giant or dwarf. No matter how much I pleaded with art I couldn’t get a ‘Habsburg chin’ trait, though!), and finally rounding off with an increase to your Dynasty members Life Expectancy (which increases both their average age, and average fertility – this even means that women of your dynasty remain able to bear children for longer!).Legacies take a long time to unlock, and you will have to work hard toward unlocking even one full track – though their power more than makes up for the wait. Legacies are chosen and unlocked by the Dynast, so make sure that you’re in control of your Dynasty.


That’s all for this time! We won’t spoil any more of the Legacy tracks for now, but rest assured that they all offer very interesting opportunities for you to shape your dynasty as you would like it!




To give you a good idea of the increased province density, here is a comparison of the British Islands in CK2 and CK3, being on the left and right side, respectively:


Hello everyone!


I would like to take a moment to talk about the map of Crusader Kings 3, what the vision for the map is, and how it is different from Crusader Kings 2.


Let’s start with our ambitions. CK2 had several parts of the map that was outdated, and to be frank, a bit underdeveloped. When we started to update the map for CK3, we knew that we wanted to take a pass at everything, do additional research, and update the different areas accordingly. This goes for the entire De Jure title hierarchy, so there are several new kingdoms and duchies present. In terms of scope, the map will roughly match that of CK2. I know I will disappoint those of you hoping for China, but, sadly, it will not be on the map. We will however, have a few new additions: the entirety of Tibet will be present, unlike CK2 where the most eastern parts were excluded, and sub-Saharan Africa is also extended, where we’ve gone all the way to the Nigerian coast.


When setting the map visuals, province layout, rivers, and more, the focus has always been on clarity. The map should be easy to read and get information from. For example, you should be able to read most of the terrain simply by looking at the map, without the need to click on the province, or tooltip it, in order to find that out, while rivers should be easy to see and let you know if you will cross one when moving armies around.


We represent the map on three different zoom levels. When zoomed far out, the map will turn into an actual paper map, allowing for an easy overview and stylish screenshots. Zoom in a bit and you will have the 3D map, with the typical political overlay, great for interacting with your vassals and other realms. Zoom in even further and you’ll see the names of all the counties along with the terrain, as we strip away the realm colors. Perfect for moving armies around and knowing where to pick your battles, without the need to switch around to different map modes (but don’t worry, we still have several map modes for easily accessing different information).


One of the most notable changes is how we handle Baronies. In CK2, Counties were the smallest entity we had on the map, a province if you will, with several Baronies represented through the interface of the County view. In CK3, we took the next logical step and made Baronies into their own provinces. We have been able to create a map with much more granularity and better accuracy. Most Counties will normally consist of two to five Baronies, with some exceptions. The amount of provinces will be noticeable when waging war, as it offers a larger degree of movement for you armies (more on that in the future).


To give you a good idea of the increased province density, here is a comparison of the British Islands in CK2 and CK3, being on the left and right side, respectively:


Before you all go nuts about playable baronies: No. You cannot play as a Baron. The lowest playable rank will still be that of a Count. The emphasis will therefore be on the Counties rather than the individual Baronies. As such, Baronies exist with a few things in mind. For example, they can never leave a county. This means Counties stay the same over time, avoiding weird splits where a single barony goes independent or to another realm (reducing that hideous border-gore ever-so-slightly). The number of Baronies within a County is one factor that represents its wealth and how “good” it is. Another important factor is the terrain. A County with a lot of Desert will not be as beneficial as one with a lot of Farmlands for example.


Speaking of terrain, we have several different terrain types spread out across the map. Instead of having a single terrain spread out across large areas of the map, we differentiate between similar terrain types by separating them, such as Forest and Taiga, or Plains and Drylands. Not only does it make the map look and feel distinct in different parts of the world, they also have a different impact on gameplay.








Then we have Impassable Terrain. These are far more frequent, and in many cases much larger, than you will be used to from CK2. We’ve essentially used these for any area that we consider uninhabited enough to warrant it not being part of an existing County. Some areas have plenty of smaller impassable provinces, such as the mountains surrounding Bohemia, while others have fewer and far larger pieces of inhospitable land, such as the deserts of Arabia and Syria. Impassable Terrain cannot be traversed by armies, often creating bottlenecks that you’ll have to pass through or perhaps even choose to go around, should it be heavily fortified.


That’s it for now. I hope you enjoyed this early sneak peak of the map and I’ll be sure to show more to you in the future!

 
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prudis

prudis

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prudis

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The realm rejoices! Crusader Kings III ascends to the Throne today, the time has come for you to chart your own course through the Middle Ages!


Are you brave enough to live the life of a viking ruler? Write your own saga in Crusader Kings III: Northern Lords, available March 16.


Gather your comrades around the fire to share tales of adventure and songs of victory. Live the life of a Norse ruler in Crusader Kings III: Northern Lords.
 
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prudis

prudis

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How will you rule when your subjects come to you with their complaints? Building the grandest court in the world may please your vassals and attract interesting people, but it also gives your complaining courtiers a place to find you. Make decisions that will smooth the troubled waters in your kingdom, while impressing visitors with your collection of masterpieces and relics.

The Royal Court expansion to Crusader Kings III adds new ways to interact with the characters in your kingdom or empire, as well as major changes to the cultural system of the game, adding greater dynamism and historical fluidity.

Features of Crusader Kings III: Royal Court include
  • Throne Room
    A visual representation of your royal court will reflect all the accumulated majesty and prestige of your dynasty.
  • Hold Court
    Interact with vassals and courtiers as they come to you with their problems, seeking a royal judgment.
  • Grandeur
    Increase the quality of life at your court with fancier trappings and better food, all the better to impress your rivals and attract higher quality guests.
  • Inspired People
    Talented artists, craftspeople and thinkers can work on new projects, adding treasures and artifacts to your court.
  • Hybrid Cultures
    Make the most of a multicultural realm, developing a new way of life that is specifically adapted to your population and geography.
  • Cultural Divergence
    Split from your traditional culture, adapting it into something new that better fits your aspirations.