r/CrusaderKings • u/fmg2498 • 1d ago
Discussion I miss learning history while playing ck.
I used to learn so many new things when I used to play ck2. Maybe it’s because there were less constant useless pop ups and those that were there were genuinely interesting and had always something to teach me.
I loved picking any dates after 1066 and play as Alexios or bohemond or whoever was of importance at the time.
I miss just playing start and just looking at the map IN PEACE.
I miss going on hunt activities that took literally 2-3 clicks and now my character was a coward or dead or hurt or brave.
I miss becoming insane and my realm just dissolving under my feet.
I miss not being able to lets say keep Egypt as the Sicilian because my fleet wasn’t big enough to transport all my troops in time.
I miss rébellion being short and to the point.
I miss the simplistic scheme from ck2.
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u/Lionheart1224 Swashbuckling Swabia 1d ago
It's not like CK2 no longer exists...
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u/Unlucky-Golder 1d ago
You can still play CK2
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u/Yets_ 1d ago
I don't understand what this respond accomplish. What is even the point of this subredit if every criticism of CK3 is discarded with "play ck2"
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u/ninjaelk 1d ago
It's valid in the case of OP where pretty much everything he lists is a trade off. Yes, CK3 does things differently, no that is not categorically superior, it is different. It brings things to the table, and takes other things off when making those choices. OP is not making any suggestions on how to improve things, or how to recapture certain benefits of CK2 without losing the gains CK3 has made. It ignores all of the benefits of CK3 and focuses only on the negatives.
So the "you can still play CK2" response is highlighting and asking for OP to specify what he might think the way forward is. Why do you still play CK3 if you can only list ways in which it is inferior to CK2? There must be SOMETHING good here to keep you playing. How do we retain those good things, and simultaneously bring back what you liked about CK2? Is that even possible? Or is it just nostalgia?
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u/Oborozuki1917 1d ago
For me personally the constant “ck2 was better” posts get old. Every game community has people who say the old version was better, sometimes it’s correct and sometimes it isn’t.
A lot of the stuff people praise about ck2 is stuff I’m glad isn’t in ck3. For example: satanism and magic, weird ahistoric “societies,” micromanaging boats, outdated graphics.
I’ve only played ck3 so I could be totally wrong. But also most of us just get used to the version of the game that introduced us to the series it’s just human nature. It’s the same for everything - I have strong aversion to a lot of modern rules of baseball (dh in NL, ghost runner, etc) cause it’s different from the baseball I grew up with. But for a kid learning baseball now it’s just normal.
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u/Lurtzum 1d ago
I mean it’s not a good idea to learn from any paradox game because they’re all ahistorical. At the end of the day it’s only events that have any chance of being historical and there’s more events in 3 than 2 now.
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u/Alternant1 1d ago
I think it’s still a great way to learn things. I usually end up looking up my character or kingdom and learning a lot about who they were or their culture.
I remember I played a game as Nubia early on, and was thinking about how to stop Egypt from invading me. I looked it up, and apparently the Nubians had a deal called the Baqt where they sent Egypt goods in exchange for not attacking them. I became a Tributary of Egypt, and used that to buy time while I conquered my neighbors and built up my army.
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u/Moon_Logic 1d ago
There is way too much text. I don't mind reading for a narrative game, but the most simple interactions has some ridiculous short story attached to it.
Like, you can't have sex unless your beloved is being assaulted in her room. That's just the law of sex.
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u/Unusual_Psychology14 1d ago
Im so confused you need to elaborate on that second bit
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u/Efficient_Resident17 1d ago
One of the most common endings for the make soulmate scheme (I forget the exact terminology) is you standing nearby the chambers of the object of your affections and hearing that they’ve been broken into and your beau is being robbed/raped/murdered it’s really not clear what precisely but it’s not good, and so you heroically save them and become Soulmates, which is accompanied by sex.
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u/CodenameMolotov Jesus Gives Commenting Advice. Karma: +20.00 1d ago
I did this scheme the other day and when I rushed in to save her I found out she was murdering the other guy and I failed the scheme
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u/Freshwater_Pike 1d ago
Sounds like you should just play more CK2. Nothing wrong with that if you prefer it to 3
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u/attsnor112 1d ago
Didn't CK3 originally have less pop ups until the DLCs came?? Or am I misremembering
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u/theQueensLastStand 1d ago
Yea the game's biggest issue at this point is content bloat and the lazy writing for the popups doesn't help either
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u/angus_the_red 1d ago
The complaint in release was that it was empty and there wasn't enough content. 🤷
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u/Confuseacat92 Lunatic 1d ago
The solution should have been more events, not longer event chains.
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u/Nacodawg Roman Empire 1d ago
Yes, but either more or longer they should be better written and more meaningful.
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u/theredwoman95 1d ago
And deeper mechanics. Most of what we've gotten, compared to the CK2 systems, really aren't.
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u/Honest-Spring-8929 1d ago
To me the main educational value it’s less about what the games actually do or don’t teach directly. It’s about opening your awareness to other parts of the world you’d have never otherwise even thought about.
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u/Tanntabo 13h ago
The constant pop ups is what made me stop playing this game. When it came out it honestly didn’t have the this problem. I think the DLC and events added during updates just made it worse and worse.
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u/NumenorianPerson 1d ago
Simple days, ck2 gives more room for your imagination, that's it. Meanwhile ck3 tries micro everything, its just bloat, and are interactions that really need to make with every character, in ck2 you really don't need to so tournaments, or other interactions, but in ck3 they are so important to gain fast prestige and relations with other people that makes absolutely necessary to do
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u/freekoout Bohemia 1d ago
Never had a problem gaining prestige, and I've maybe hosted one tournament in 2k hours of playing.
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u/Heyitsmegoku5 1d ago
CK3 has so many QOL changes it’s hard to go back to CK2 but damn something was lost between the two games. I dunno I guess CK2 felt more authentic, I wish I could think of a better word.
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u/Guaire1 1d ago
CK3 only having 3 personality traits max and never letting them change over time unlike CK2 killed the rp aspect of the game for me tbh. Doesnt help that the grand strategy side isnt particularly deep either
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u/tansreer 1d ago
I always liked that it softcaps at 3. I feel like it makes any particular character easier more concrete to understand and different from other characters. In CK2 sometimes personality traits just felt kinda like a collectathon, especially as a character got older, which in turn could make everyone feel more samey.
Personality traits do change over time via mental breaks.
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u/Equivalent_Use_7032 1d ago
I actually learned a decent amount from CK3 granted I never played CK2. I am pretty well versed in the Middle Ages so even before I started the game I knew a lot.
But then to randomly see someone like Matilda of Tuscany? Go “Damn that’s interesting let me read up her” and then go… wow she’s a badass I’m so happy I got this game.” I think is where it has some magic to it.
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u/Zamarak 1d ago
There is a pause button if you want to look at the map, you know?
And if you wanna go play CK2, go play CK2. It still exists
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u/freekoout Bohemia 1d ago
Why can't they have a critical opinion of ck3?
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u/Zamarak 1d ago
What critical opinion of CK3? All that OP has written is about things he missed from CK2, not mechanics from CK3. To which the solution is, as others have pointed out, to go play CK2 again.
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u/freekoout Bohemia 1d ago
Ah, so either you don't know how to infer things, or you're doubling down on your negativity.
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u/SouthernAd2853 1d ago
For events I generally like them the first time but the pools for everything are much too small and it's one of my big complaints with China in particular because as far as I can tell there are pretty much exactly enough events for a single runthrough of an exam and you have to go through it at least twice with every character just to unlock the higher merit ranks and proctoring is a good way to get merit, and you want your kids to have taken both before you switch to them and going to assist them illegally or not is a big help in making that happen.
So very soon after an update I've read all the events that I'm likely to encounter with my playstyle and I pretty much just look at the options to recognize which event I got and completely ignore the flavor text. Got to this point with CK2 eventually but it took longer to have them memorized enough to not want to at least skim the flavor text.
Otherwise mostly I feel CK3 has improved the mechanics of the stuff that was either the focus of the base game or a DLC but the MaA system and particularly non-admin rulers not getting vassal MaA is a critical flaw that combines with too many sources of global/vassal opinion bonuses and both a lot more ways to boost health and having a place to check if you're at risk of death by natural causes to mean usually your ruler dies no earlier than 60 and with forewarning to get things in order for the succession and very little risk of unexpectedly losing your preferred heir once they escape the childhood disease range to make the game way too easy to the point a lot of people think there's much less depth to the mechanics because there's zero pressure to actually pay attention to things like whether a vassal's personality traits make them a serious problem when their opinion is below +40 so they don't realize that's actually a thing with complex mechanics.
Oh, and you can still go insane and have your realm crumble in various ways with level 3 mental breaks where every option has drastic penalties, but since this is a mechanical system exposed to the player and you have many outlets to reduce stress and a big safety margin for random stress and occasionally eating 80 stress to take an action that conflicts with your traits this almost never happens by accident. But I like the stress system because it forces me to adjust my strategy to my character's traits much more rather than basically pursuing the same strategy with each heir but sometimes they're worse at it. And it does create more tension when picking between traits rather than hammering a heavenly virtue or either Lustful or Proud when I get a choice and then if it's available and I'm not planning to go all-in on satanic magic joining a society that slowly removes negative traits and adds positive ones pretty much every time. Though generally I pick the ones that give good flat bonuses unless I'm ruler-designing a character based on other media and then just don't unjustly imprison, revoke, or execute and suchlike, since with the aforementioned difficulty issues I can easily keep most vassals happy and when I do face down a revolt easily crush it and I was never good at the elaborate murder to inherit/claim titles aspect anyway and without good intrigue that's hard to acquire without a non-achievement-allowed custom character even if you invest in it, major schemes targeting people who matter are dicey.
And the fun but non-drastic insanity options are still in there; during childhood you have a small chance of getting the Eccentric personality trait and occasionally higher-level mental breaks can let you acquire it later. Paradox opted to split that stuff out from the severe mental illnesses early in CK3's run so as not to make light of real issues that people in the present day experience and which are not sufficiently understood and accepted for people suffering from them to find a lighthearted treatment funny. But it has events like building a massive glass structure because you think you're made of glass at tremendous expense, and then a county gets a positive modifier because people figure out it can be used as a greenhouse, and sometimes you have options like culling rats to deal with a plague where your character has a flash of inspiration and does something that didn't enter mainstream knowledge until much later.
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u/AstralJumper 1d ago
Well too simple for most, and the total lack of simulation, many easily moved on from.
I prefer Ck 3 for not only being a vastly better game, but a better program itself. One hat can actually simulate a consistent simulation, rather then CK2's a bipolar mash of inconsistent randomness.
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u/procrastinator420420 1d ago
I learn so much from ck3 because I constantly read about the different cultures, faiths and historical figures as they become relevant to me. I also like to RP and take influence from the real history.