So disappointed in this game...

[Doomjazzer]

I haven't played Crusader Kings 3 in about four years. The first time I played it I hated it. I thought it was so dull and easy compared to the RNG of CK2 where danger lurked around every corner. CK3 simply had no tension whatsoever. Returning to it recently...sadly it's even worse than before.

I played an adventurer from the middle east who travelled to Japan, and many hours of tedious gameplay later just before I had enough money to click on the 'procure estate' button I got hit by the 'endlessly travelling with camp' bug which ended my campaign. (I was playing in Iron Man mode, so all out of luck)

"Highlights" of my campaign:

I encountered no danger on my journeys, no bandits, no misfortune, nothing.
I never ran out of provisions while travelling.
I never failed a single contract.
I never had a single stress mental break.
I romanced a woman who became my wife instantly on the first attempt.
I won every game at a grand tournament. (wrestling, chess, archery, apparently I'm the best at ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ everything?)
Everyone on the planet has positive opinion modifiers towards me. Everyone. People who I share nothing in common with on the other side of the planet love me.

What an absolute joke of a game.

I should have tried the Dark Ages mod, it's been on my radar for a while, but I stupidly thought maybe the devs had added a modicum of difficulty into the vanilla game in the last 4 years to address the complaints of a tiny minority not obsessed with power fantasy.

What is the point of this game? If you never encounter any roadblocks at all? I might as well have painted the walls around my house, it would have been more entertaining.

In the future I will give CK3 one last chance, and will definitely be trying the Dark Ages mod.

[luftatmer]

Originally posted by Doomjazzer:

What an absolute joke of a game.

Look, you wrote extensively in 2022 how much you dislike this game. You created a negative review about the game in 2024. And now an other rant here in 2026. We get it: You very much dislke the game. That's alright, no game is for everyone.

Why talk about it again and again? Play a game that suits you, no need to chastise yourself.

[Madmanx]

if you only play one character it seems fair.

[Doomjazzer]

Originally posted by luftatmer:

Originally posted by Doomjazzer:

What an absolute joke of a game.

Look, you wrote extensively in 2022 how much you dislike this game. You created a negative review about the game in 2024. And now an other rant here in 2026. We get it: You very much dislke the game. That's alright, no game is for everyone.

Why talk about it again and again? Play a game that suits you, no need to chastise yourself.

Well if you're so good at stalking me you'd know I enjoyed CK2. I can discuss how I feel about CK3 as a comparison, it's still a free country last I checked. Even the devs themselves acknowledged the game's flaws by adding new 'difficulty' settings and 'nerfing' things like stewardship.

So if everyone listened to your advice to shut up and say nothing when unhappy with the game, then the devs wouldn't have felt compelled to address feedback like they have. (not enough change by a long shot, but at least they tried)

[Mepho]

I'd love a properly balanced game, but if I had to choose between too easy and RNG "problems out-of-ass", especially if deadly, I'd take the too easy route.

I agree that the game is too easy once you have the knowledge of how it works.
I absolutely do not want RNG obstacles.
I'd love an organic, strategic challenge, but this never was, as you said.

My first playthrough has beenn with the italian girl in Tuscany. I knew nothing about the game yet my first son became the boss of the HRE almost incidentally.
I savescummed at one point because the pope seduced me and gave me a number of bastards. I went with it because I found it funny, but did a reload once I saw the consequences of such a family.
I don't think there ever was a pretense of challenge, it really is a pure sandbox.

I only wish the AI were more competent.
Stuff like plagues spam or RNG cockblocks I utterly dislike.

[edit]
Btw I understand it is beyond the scope of developers merits, but mods add to this game way more than any DLC or patch can. Since you own the game anyway you could try browsing the workshop.
At worst you can even script the RNG events you'd like pretty easily, the game files aren't even encrypted nor compressed if I remember properly.
I myself removed the player's limit to children after my first concubines run. I noticed after hitting 40 or so I had not had child in years despite 100% fertility and 4 fertile women under my sheets. So I went and removed the cap pretty easily.

[Doomjazzer]

Originally posted by Mepho:

I'd love a properly balanced game, but if I had to choose between too easy and RNG "problems out-of-ass", especially if deadly, I'd take the too easy route.

I agree that the game is too easy once you have the knowledge of how it works.
I absolutely do not want RNG obstacles.
I'd love an organic, strategic challenge, but this never was, as you said.

My first playthrough has beenn with the italian girl in Tuscany. I knew nothing about the game yet my first son became the boss of the HRE almost incidentally.
I savescummed at one point because the pope seduced me and gave me a number of bastards. I went with it because I found it funny, but did a reload once I saw the consequences of such a family.
I don't think there ever was a pretense of challenge, it really is a pure sandbox.

I only wish the AI were more competent.
Stuff like plagues spam or RNG cockblocks I utterly dislike.

We disagree on this because honestly I'd love being afraid of RNG, just like in CK2, especially the first half of the game's lifecycle before powercreep made its way into it towards the end. In the early days you can see youtubers Let's Plays where they're desperately trying to pump out one baby or they'll get game over. It was great.

But even now when I play the game there is tension to it. Anything can happen. You can die randomly, your kids can die leaving you scrambling to find an heir, a plague can wipe everyone out and derail all your plans, sometimes you spend hard earned money on something then five minutes later you realise you badly needed it because of a random pop-up with agonising choices that screw you over.

In CK3 there is no sense of uncertainty. It's like the game anticipates everything for you. Need money? The game will throw it at you. Need to de-stress? You don't even need to press the 'go fishing' button, the game will throw a random event at you stripping all that stress away. The game is relentless with this, I just felt like nothing I did even mattered, like I'm in the back of a self-driving car.

So I'm hoping the Dark Ages mod can just bring back the tension of CK2. And I'm not a minmaxer type of person, I don't consider myself a pro at this game, I don't get involved in weird breeding programs, I don't try to recreate the Roman Empire, I don't marry for traits at all. I just like to roleplay and take it easy, but even to me CK3 is so easy it's frustrating.

Like just one thing about Dark Ages mod appeals to me: the further away your vassals are the less they will like you and are more likely to give you less taxes or just screw with you in some way. Just this one thing attempts to both provide a semblance of realism to the game while making it challenge that doesn't feel punishing or tedious.

[Godofredo de Bouillón]

Originally posted by luftatmer:

Originally posted by Doomjazzer:

What an absolute joke of a game.

Look, you wrote extensively in 2022 how much you dislike this game. You created a negative review about the game in 2024. And now an other rant here in 2026. We get it: You very much dislke the game. That's alright, no game is for everyone.

Why talk about it again and again? Play a game that suits you, no need to chastise yourself.

Well said

[brownacs]

Originally posted by Mepho:

My first playthrough has beenn with the italian girl in Tuscany. I knew nothing about the game yet my first son became the boss of the HRE almost incidentally.

There are some quite difficult starts - Aella of Northumbria in 867 might be one of the better known very hard ones - but the difficulty's only going to last a quite short amount of time before you manage to surmount the initial challenge. To use an analogy, there's a bit of a hill you've gotta push it up before the snowball can start rolling.

[Zalzany]

So wants a challenge picks easiest playthrough he can, wants balance again picks easiest setup he can. Bro you can 100% make this game easy or hard based on how you set up the start. Its so funny "I picked easiest way to play I could its too easy..." Ok try a harder playthrough. "I want balanced." So you want medium? "No I want easy but to feel like I did something hard."

Like you can 100% play this hard, easy or inbetween and you went out of your way to do easiest way you could and complain, like were suppose to be like "so cool you did it, you did adventure mode under easy circumstances you beat the hardest part of the game!" Or we suppose to go "I know right when I pick an easy start I hate it when its easy too!"

[Mepho]

Originally posted by brownacs:

There are some quite difficult starts - Aella of Northumbria in 867 might be one of the better known very hard ones - but the difficulty's only going to last a quite short amount of time before you manage to surmount the initial challenge. To use an analogy, there's a bit of a hill you've gotta push it up before the snowball can start rolling.

Yeah I reckon you can also customize a very bad character and start in a very bad place, I was mainly trying to make a point about the general gameplay.

I'd say the main difficulty is driving events towards what you personally want, survival is basically a given unless you really ♥♥♥♥ up.

[Doomjazzer]

Originally posted by Zalzany:

So wants a challenge picks easiest playthrough he can, wants balance again picks easiest setup he can. Bro you can 100% make this game easy or hard based on how you set up the start. Its so funny "I picked easiest way to play I could its too easy..." Ok try a harder playthrough. "I want balanced." So you want medium? "No I want easy but to feel like I did something hard."

Like you can 100% play this hard, easy or inbetween and you went out of your way to do easiest way you could and complain, like were suppose to be like "so cool you did it, you did adventure mode under easy circumstances you beat the hardest part of the game!" Or we suppose to go "I know right when I pick an easy start I hate it when its easy too!"

There is no 'hard' way to play the game, I already explained how the game is extremely forgiving, literally every character in the game will love you because of the insane rate you can accumulate buffs and positive modifiers from pop-up notifications, artifacts and whatnot.

And besides, if starting unlanded is 'easy' mode, what does that say about the game's current status? How does it make sense that a character with no land or title has it easier than a character with power?

Wanting a CK3 to have a little more difficulty shouldn't be a controversial topic. To reiterate: the devs literally responded to this common complaint by adding new difficulty modes and nerfing the domain limit. So if you think my criticism is dumb, you're calling the devs dumb for attempting to address it. The devs agree with me: more can be done to make the game engaging and not something you have on auto-pilot.

Contrary to your statement, there is no hard mode. The game is designed to flood you with buffs. Their new difficulty modes didn't address that. Nerfing domain limits however was a good attempt.

[Actalo]

You mentioned an overhaul mod "Dark Ages." Exactly. CK3 is just the foundation for thousands of mods which allow you to tailor your experience, with a lot of agency. It was the same with vanilla CK2.

[wven]

If you want RNG difficulty couldn't you turn up the Harm settings? (I forget the actually name)

[Pete el pachorras]

Hey, its simpler than CK2 in its general aspects, which you can change to make it more similar. Also, by default, plagues and events can't kill you like they used to, so I suggest you enable their mortality. Furthermore, if you make the AI ​​tend to build empires, you can create some really crazy events, where waging war means a large part of your dynasty will die in the next outbreak. I mean, you can make the game much harder; you're just playing on easy. If were talking about mods, you have plenty to choose from. I recommend Elder Kings 2; with those small adjustments, youll see how it changes your perception of the game.

[Harris]

Originally posted by Doomjazzer:

I thought it was so dull and easy compared to the RNG of CK2

On the Store page it says Strategy and Grand Strategy among other things. What is strategy?

Simply put, strategy is when you know you do X and Y and then Z happens. A strategy is when you go to bed knowing you'll wake up in the morning, take eggs and bacon out of the fridge and cook yourself some breakfast. That is strategy.

However, when you put your meal on the plate and get ready to eat, but SUDDENLY a bird bursts through an open window and takes a massive dump right over your meal... good sir, that is not strategy. That's something you couldn't reasonably expect or predict just invalidated your efforts. When something like that happens often enough, it conditions you to remove the element of strategy from the game, the element of long-term planning. Instead, it becomes about trying to do your best right now, only have short-term objectives and end up constantly putting fires everywhere.

I've long been of an opinion that a factor of randomness has no place in something that calls itself strategy game. You can't eliminate it entirely, but the more of it you eliminate, the better. Back in the day, hitting tanks in CoH 2 could randomly blow out their tracks, leaving them immobile, or take out their crew, leaving them ripe for the taking for the other guy. Challenging? Sure. A roadblock? Oh yes. Same time, it made the game non-viable for any serious competitive play, which is why it was changed.

So all this changes like "harm events" we got over the years, or feuds (given the AI can't handle being in a feud other than spamming murder schemes) - I hate them with a passion. I hate them with a passion, because they take control out of my hands in a strategy game, with a solid RPG component no less. It's like Skyrim randomly deciding to wipe your saves after dozens of hours of play, making you start fresh, because it got "too easy". That is not difficulty, good sir. That is idiocy.

Originally posted by Doomjazzer:

(I was playing in Iron Man mode, so all out of luck)

I've never played Iron Man or Survival modes in any game, and never will. I just like complex games, and getting them work flowlessly over the decades is a big ask. So if there exists even like 0.1% chance my run might be ruined - I'd rather not take it. It is what it is.

Originally posted by Doomjazzer:

What is the point of this game? If you never encounter any roadblocks at all?

I'm sure you encountered roadblocks when you started out. I also did. Everyone did. But now I got 3000 hours, some people got 5000 or more. Of course we no longer encounter them. See, we just can't expect a game to maintain freshness and novelty after 6 years.

The problem is modern gamedev. Back in 2000s it would take 1-1.5 years for us to get a new game. As in, in 2022 we'd get CK4, 2024 - CK5. And right now, we'd be enjoying CK6. Six, Carl! Instead, because of corporations' obsession with DLC and live service we end up doing the same campaigns with the same characters the Nth time. Of course it gets tedious. As soon as we come to terms with the fact CK3 can't offer us any meaningfully new experience and move on to play other games, the sooner they'll make a sequel.

Originally posted by Doomjazzer:

Even the devs themselves acknowledged the game's flaws by adding new 'difficulty' settings and 'nerfing' things like stewardship.

Stewardship was really only nerfed if you play feudal, where your domain limit is paramount to staying in power as vassals are useless and a liability. But if you're adventurer or a minister in China, stewardship is as powerful as ever, giving you some +100% domicile income.

And who knows how the economy rework later this year will impact things. For example, Princes of Darkness mod has the concept of Grand Cities - they represent big populated centers and are massively more lucrative to hold than other holdings, but still cost 1 domain limit to maintain. This might as well be a preview of how it's gonna be in vanilla once population and prosperity are thrown into things.

My point being - I wouldn't make an argument for PDX really acknowleding or realizing anything. Right now I see a bunch of knee-jerk nerfs without any grand picture of things. Perhaps there is one. Or perhaps there isn't. What I see right now is bipolar game design, where they give a ton of incentives to develop your character and live longer; but at the same time punish you for pursuing them with elder traits.

Originally posted by Doomjazzer:

And besides, if starting unlanded is 'easy' mode, what does that say about the game's current status? How does it make sense that a character with no land or title has it easier than a character with power?

When developing Roads to Power, they repurposed some code and assets from Administrative to justify the price point, that's how landless adventurers were born. It was conceived as simply put an avenue to continue after what would normally be a game over and let you "bounce back" - and to do that, you need an easy way to put yourself on the equal footing with landed rulers: powerful artifacts, income from thin air, armies that cost no maintenance.

This led to the side-effect where adventuring kinda became mandatory and a prelude to playing landed proper. The problem is most visible in said Princes of Darkness, where there's otherwise not many ways to improve the stats of your immortal character. So no matter vampire, inquisitor or werewolf, a walkthrough starts with "go adventuring for 300 years". Because, if I can get a book with +40% lifestyle xp and a bunch of artifacts with a ton of piety, with my government of choice (mandala) fuelled by that - why the heck would I not pursue those, every single time? This cripples replayability as it leads to every playthrough largely consisting of the same things, as no matter the clan your path to becoming the strongest vampire will consist of running caravans.

Another side-effect of Roads to Power is domiciles in every government, and if some happens not to have one it's gonna be seen as inferior as you can't double-dip on the incomes.

Originally posted by Doomjazzer:

Wanting a CK3 to have a little more difficulty shouldn't be a controversial topic. To reiterate: the devs literally responded to this common complaint by adding new difficulty modes and nerfing the domain limit. So if you think my criticism is dumb, you're calling the devs dumb for attempting to address it. The devs agree with me: more can be done to make the game engaging and not something you have on auto-pilot.

Contrary to your statement, there is no hard mode. The game is designed to flood you with buffs. Their new difficulty modes didn't address that. Nerfing domain limits however was a good attempt.

What new difficulty modes? You are contradicting yourself with those two paragraphs.

If you follow the dev diaries, at one point they talked about how they don't believe in making the game harder by tweaking numbers, because a grindier game does not really make a harder one. Yet the crowd persisted, and PDX did tweak the numbers, and so now the game is balanced around a veteran playing it perfectly and sending your child to university now costs an annual budget of a small nation. Which is the problem they've created and will be addressing with an economy rework later this year.

So I can only reiterate, it's an unrealistic and unheathly expectation to have, for the game to get harder indefinitely no matter your skill. There is no real avenue to grant that wish in a way that wouldn't be extremely toxic, let alone to the newcomers to the franchse which it raises the ceiling for. These kind of games are notorious for requiring a "degree" to master - part of the reason I don't actively play HoI4, or EU5, or Stellaris - a mere thought of getting into the game of such complexity, let alone when it was getting updates for a decade or so is enough for me to be like "nah, I'm good". So yeah.

[Doomjazzer]

Originally posted by Harris:

What new difficulty modes? You are contradicting yourself with those two paragraphs.

There is no contradiction. The two new difficulty modes introduced in patch 1.16.2.1 do not address anything I complained about in this thread. They may make enemy armies stronger, but that has nothing to do with the game's fundamental problems. Which to reiterate for the umpteenth time is that it throws positive modifiers at the player relentlessly, rendering any goal one might have a moot point because it's guaranteed. If there's no struggle then there's no catharsis, the journey is over before it began.

I had even forgotten to mention in my original post I had given my custom 18 year old character the 'faltering heart' trait. Meaningless. It did nothing, there was never any risk of accumulating stress let alone going up the tiers of that trait.

You're acting like I want the game to turn into Dark Souls. This is missing the point. I'm saying the game has no tension. Even a My Little Pony game has tension. Will you make the jump or fall off? Tension! Drama! Uncertainty! CK3 lacks this. I know the woman I'm romancing will say yes. I know she's going to have several children. I know I will never experience a mental stress break. I know I will the tournament. This is not elite veteran gameplay, I'm simply pressing the space bar and watching the game play itself.

Anyway, I just started the Dark Ages mod today, and already I can tell it's a massive improvement. I'm not loved by the entire planet anymore, the opinion modifiers are logical, not punishing or generous, items don't give me the power of a god, lifestyle progression is slower than vanilla so I won't feel like the second coming of da Vinci anytime soon. It's not rocket science, the mod maker simply understands a video game needs something at its core that makes it engaging to participate in: tension.