But neither do vassals who are terrified of you, and so fear has its place too.

Playing generally benevolent monarchs, I found the most powerful button in the game was the “befriend” interaction: vassals who are also your friends will not join factions against you. I think what the new mechanics do best is represent Machiavelli’s dictum that rulers need to be loved, feared, or ideally both. Note the Genius and Hale traits, together with the monster stats!ĬK3’s new mechanics, such as stress, the lifestyle tree, and the hooks system, and its significant tweaks to existing rules such as succession, come on top of this familiar core. My final character in my CK3 Dunkeld playthrough. The world feels similar, too: Northwest Europe is still a Viking playground in 867 large AI empires still grow until they sprawl over the map and in the hands of a human player, Haesteinn of Nantes can still make it all the way to India 1. New rulers are most vulnerable when they ascend just because you control territory on a map does not mean you command the obedience of the people who actually run the place it is worth accepting setbacks - such as conceding to powerful vassals - if doing so strengthens your hand in the long run and strategic marriages, opportunistic expansion, and shrewd vassal management are still the keys to a long and successful reign. Most of the mechanics are similar, the overall flow is the same, and lessons from CK2 still carry over. The core of the game is recognisably the same as Crusader Kings II. The end of my CK3 playthrough as the House of Dunkeld, who started as kings of Scotland and finished as the most powerful monarchs in Europe. And once I learned my way around CK3’s new, improved UI, I found a familiar experience: this is still a character-driven game about the rise and fall of dynasties, in which a loyal son can become the next generation’s rebellious brother and a well-placed friendship can be worth thousands of swords.

I’ve played three games - two unsuccessful in 867, the first as Alfred the Great and his descendants, the second an attempt to establish a Norse realm in India and a final, successful run that took me from King of Scotland in 1066 to emperor of Britannia and Francia. Crusader Kings III is a successful evolutionary sequel to the game I called “the most significant strategy game of the last decade”.

Ck2 alfred the great