Vassals are unplayable, emperors are boring

[VoiD]

Sooner or later your liege will screw up, the AI is just horrible in this game, so it will get weakened, it will have some sucession war, it will have some rebel issues, or it will lose some random war with someone and get weakened, when it happens your liege will start making decisions in your stead, such as surrendering to the demands of peasant factions ready to revolt against him, demanding your lands, and when he does, you, as a player, can lose half your kingdom out of nowhere, for no reason, because some 1k stack of peasants have managed to intimidate your liege before they even started the war.

On the other hand if you use any of the braindead easy ways to take the throne, such as taking a way of life that allows you to simply claim the throne of a massive empire with a single click, then the game goes from 5% challenging to 0% challenging, and as an emperor you'll never have any difficulty ever again, and all that's left for you to do is paint the entire map, slowly, facing no resistance at all because the AI just sucks.

Feels bad man.

[Metalhead123]

This game seems more of a lets build a family dynasty and roleplay your charactor through the ages, in a true historical nature than a lets paint the map using an in depth combat system.

What bugs me about it is you can see exactly how much army a nation has with 1 click. This is killing any anticipation about declaring a war as you know exactly how many soldiers they have right down to the last bowmen or footman. You can also check their alliances and their army sizes too. The game even tells you if they are vastly inferior against you. This makes the combat way too easy, as you can just pick on the smaller nations and crush them. A good idea would be to restrict this information to a late perk in the military tree.

[Wan Yao]

Originally posted by VoiD:

Sooner or later your liege will screw up, the AI is just horrible in this game, so it will get weakened, it will have some sucession war, it will have some rebel issues, or it will lose some random war with someone and get weakened, when it happens your liege will start making decisions in your stead, such as surrendering to the demands of peasant factions ready to revolt against him, demanding your lands, and when he does, you, as a player, can lose half your kingdom out of nowhere, for no reason, because some 1k stack of peasants have managed to intimidate your liege before they even started the war.

lol this is 75% l2p

Sometimes you get steamrolled by enemies your liege is fighting, sure. While they do nothing to stop the pain. But more often than not you're in a position to do something. Unless the enemy is overwhelming, raise your troops and kill the invaders.

As for demanding your lands... that's totally an l2p issue. PRO TIP: renegotiate your contract. I've survived as a Jewish vassal of Abyssia and even as the infamously over-memed Zoroastrian Karen dynasty.

Also, part of learning to play is learning which starts are impossible.

On the other hand if you use any of the braindead easy ways to take the throne, such as taking a way of life that allows you to simply claim the throne of a massive empire with a single click, then the game goes from 5% challenging to 0% challenging, and as an emperor you'll never have any difficulty ever again, and all that's left for you to do is paint the entire map, slowly, facing no resistance at all because the AI just sucks.

A single click? Orly? It's a "mission" which can actually fail. Happened to me my current game, I was so frustrated I switched to Jerusalem. THEN you need to have the troops and/or alliance power to win the war. Ok, fair, often it's trivial. But often it's not. Certainly not merely a button click to victory.

Speaking of Jerusalem... Try playing a regime that rules over a different culture and religion. Especially one that's isolated from potential allies. Like Jerusalem. If you over-extend too quickly like I did you'll face MASSIVE rebellions which are unwinnable.

Choosing to play the easiest situations and not the challenging ones is also a L2P thing.

Feels bad man.

Sorry that happened. CK3 doesn't seem to be a good fit for you. Move on and try something new.

[D34DLY]

yeah, don't trust the "vastly superior" messages. Always do the math yourself.

[Wan Yao]

Originally posted by Metalhead123:

This game seems more of a lets build a family dynasty and roleplay your charactor through the ages, in a true historical nature than a lets paint the map using an in depth combat system.

What bugs me about it is you can see exactly how much army a nation has with 1 click. This is killing any anticipation about declaring a war as you know exactly how many soldiers they have right down to the last bowmen or footman. You can also check their alliances and their army sizes too. The game even tells you if they are vastly inferior against you. This makes the combat way too easy, as you can just pick on the smaller nations and crush them. A good idea would be to restrict this information to a late perk in the military tree.

A late perk in the military tree is a terrible idea. And not historical, either. They had intelligence even in the ancient era.

What there should be, if they were to go that, is a system like in Stellaris.

[Kimlin]

Originally posted by Wan Yao:

Originally posted by Metalhead123:

This game seems more of a lets build a family dynasty and roleplay your charactor through the ages, in a true historical nature than a lets paint the map using an in depth combat system.

What bugs me about it is you can see exactly how much army a nation has with 1 click. This is killing any anticipation about declaring a war as you know exactly how many soldiers they have right down to the last bowmen or footman. You can also check their alliances and their army sizes too. The game even tells you if they are vastly inferior against you. This makes the combat way too easy, as you can just pick on the smaller nations and crush them. A good idea would be to restrict this information to a late perk in the military tree.

A late perk in the military tree is a terrible idea. And not historical, either. They had intelligence even in the ancient era.

What there should be, if they were to go that, is a system like in Stellaris.

Stellaris system would be an ok start but then they could really build intrigue skills into it. Allow the spy master to hide your true military power as a task, on the opposite spectrum you can have your spymaster do a task to determine an enemies military strength. Maybe you could befriend or seduce a commander and learn the strength of a kingdom. They could really build out that as part of the game.

[Metalhead123]

Originally posted by Wan Yao:

Originally posted by Metalhead123:

This game seems more of a lets build a family dynasty and roleplay your charactor through the ages, in a true historical nature than a lets paint the map using an in depth combat system.

What bugs me about it is you can see exactly how much army a nation has with 1 click. This is killing any anticipation about declaring a war as you know exactly how many soldiers they have right down to the last bowmen or footman. You can also check their alliances and their army sizes too. The game even tells you if they are vastly inferior against you. This makes the combat way too easy, as you can just pick on the smaller nations and crush them. A good idea would be to restrict this information to a late perk in the military tree.

A late perk in the military tree is a terrible idea. And not historical, either. They had intelligence even in the ancient era.

What there should be, if they were to go that, is a system like in Stellaris.

I'm sure the cavemen tribes wouldn't of known the exact number of soldiers their enemies had and their allies that were positioned on the other side of the world. Maybe they had psychic powers.

[VoiD]

Originally posted by Wan Yao:

Originally posted by VoiD:

Sooner or later your liege will screw up, the AI is just horrible in this game, so it will get weakened, it will have some sucession war, it will have some rebel issues, or it will lose some random war with someone and get weakened, when it happens your liege will start making decisions in your stead, such as surrendering to the demands of peasant factions ready to revolt against him, demanding your lands, and when he does, you, as a player, can lose half your kingdom out of nowhere, for no reason, because some 1k stack of peasants have managed to intimidate your liege before they even started the war.

lol this is 75% l2p

Sometimes you get steamrolled by enemies your liege is fighting, sure. While they do nothing to stop the pain. But more often than not you're in a position to do something. Unless the enemy is overwhelming, raise your troops and kill the invaders.

As for demanding your lands... that's totally an l2p issue. PRO TIP: renegotiate your contract. I've survived as a Jewish vassal of Abyssia and even as the infamously over-memed Zoroastrian Karen dynasty.

Also, part of learning to play is learning which starts are impossible.

On the other hand if you use any of the braindead easy ways to take the throne, such as taking a way of life that allows you to simply claim the throne of a massive empire with a single click, then the game goes from 5% challenging to 0% challenging, and as an emperor you'll never have any difficulty ever again, and all that's left for you to do is paint the entire map, slowly, facing no resistance at all because the AI just sucks.

A single click? Orly? It's a "mission" which can actually fail. Happened to me my current game, I was so frustrated I switched to Jerusalem. THEN you need to have the troops and/or alliance power to win the war. Ok, fair, often it's trivial. But often it's not. Certainly not merely a button click to victory.

Speaking of Jerusalem... Try playing a regime that rules over a different culture and religion. Especially one that's isolated from potential allies. Like Jerusalem. If you over-extend too quickly like I did you'll face MASSIVE rebellions which are unwinnable.

Choosing to play the easiest situations and not the challenging ones is also a L2P thing.

Feels bad man.

Sorry that happened. CK3 doesn't seem to be a good fit for you. Move on and try something new.

Doesn't look like you read the post.

[shiggies713]

Seems to me Wan Yao read your post pretty carefully and addressed most of the points. I won't bother saying more than that.

[VoiD]

Originally posted by shiggies713:

Seems to me Wan Yao read your post pretty carefully and addressed most of the points. I won't bother saying more than that.

No, no it really doesn't.

[Ashling]

Originally posted by VoiD:

you, as a player, can lose half your kingdom out of nowhere, for no reason, because some 1k stack of peasants have managed to intimidate your liege before they even started the war.

If the game is so easy then retake those lands. I know rebuilding and treading the same ground can be frustrating, but that's a large part of the CK experience and where some of the fun happens to be for me. Often times, you'll find yourself in a better position after you reunify anyways.

Originally posted by Wan Yao:

lol this is 75% l2p

Sometimes you get steamrolled by enemies your liege is fighting, sure. While they do nothing to stop the pain. But more often than not you're in a position to do something. Unless the enemy is overwhelming, raise your troops and kill the invaders.

As for demanding your lands... that's totally an l2p issue. PRO TIP: renegotiate your contract. I've survived as a Jewish vassal of Abyssia and even as the infamously over-memed Zoroastrian Karen dynasty.

The Claimants event able to take your top title when you're a child/woman with no option to resist, the Varangian Adventure event, the factions rebellion event and simple bad luck are all ways in-which you can lose land as a vassal without any ability to resist contract or no, and I don't think you can just hand wave this as learn to play.

A fundamental part of CK is that random things out of your control can happen from seemingly innocent acts: your daughter with claims may find her way to Byzantine who then tries to depose you. Sure, you can micromanage every claim, disinherit every child/manage an electorate, never give out hooks, and manage both your faction and your liege's factions, but at that point why not just play a game without those mechanics?

Sure, you're just as right to defend suppressing those mechanics just as much as VoiD has a right to complain about them. But I think there definitely isn't a "right way to learn to play" this game. It's a sandbox for a reason.

[VoiD]

Originally posted by Triangle:

Originally posted by VoiD:

you, as a player, can lose half your kingdom out of nowhere, for no reason, because some 1k stack of peasants have managed to intimidate your liege before they even started the war.

If the game is so easy then retake those lands. I know rebuilding and treading the same ground can be frustrating, but that's a large part of the CK experience and where some of the fun happens to be for me. Often times, you'll find yourself in a better position after you reunify anyways.

Originally posted by Wan Yao:

lol this is 75% l2p

Sometimes you get steamrolled by enemies your liege is fighting, sure. While they do nothing to stop the pain. But more often than not you're in a position to do something. Unless the enemy is overwhelming, raise your troops and kill the invaders.

As for demanding your lands... that's totally an l2p issue. PRO TIP: renegotiate your contract. I've survived as a Jewish vassal of Abyssia and even as the infamously over-memed Zoroastrian Karen dynasty.

The Claimants event able to take your top title when you're a child/woman with no option to resist, the Varangian Adventure event, the factions rebellion event and simple bad luck are all ways in-which you can lose land as a vassal without any ability to resist contract or no, and I don't think you can just hand wave this as learn to play.

A fundamental part of CK is that random things out of your control can happen from seemingly innocent acts: your daughter with claims may find her way to Byzantine who then tries to depose you. Sure, you can micromanage every claim, disinherit every child, never give out hooks, and manage both your faction and your liege's factions, but at that point why not just play a game without those mechanics?

Sure, you're just as right to defend suppressing those mechanics just as much as VoiD has a right to complain about them. But I think there definitely isn't a "right way to learn to play" this game. It's a sandbox for a reason.

That's the issue, the game poses no challenge whatsoever, like you said, taking back land is easy, just very annoying, specially when it happens due to reasons completely outside of your control, simply because the AI is just that horrible, in other words, playing with it is hell, playing against it is like playing a sandbox with godmode turned on.

Here's a practical example: I am forming the sultanate of rum, and to get the achievement I must form a hybrid culture between Greek and Oghuz, so as I am starting the game the sultan imediatelly dies, leaves a son behind who gets -400 gold into debt somehow, spends some time like that, so the entire empire starts falling appart, vassals just leave due to bankrupcy, claimants start declaring war on him, and since I am beating the byzantines to grow cultural acceptance and holding greek lands, the greeks demand independence, I, as the owner of those lands, don't get the pop up, the seljuk emperor does, and he says "fine, you can take it", there is nothing to fight, there are no enemies, you're basically losing lands because the AI is incapable of doing anything at all. And you get no option to beat the peasants, you just lose your lands.

So you can just spend 400 years recapturing the same lands under some incompetent ruler, or you can just go independant, which is what I did, then try not to accidentally conquer the entire planet, like it usually happens in CK3.

It's annoying, it's trustrating, and it's still not challenging in any way.

[Eddie Latium]

Once I get an Empire I start focusing much more on the dynasty abroad, supporting them and trying to pull the strings around. It's pretty fun and exposes you to more risks.

[The Mother Hawke]

You could always try roleplaying the character you play. It adds a lot more fun to the game when you live the life based on their education and stats and traits.

Like if you've got a high martial character with ambitious and arrogant then you fight to expand your territory, but if you're a diplomat with calm then you're decide to focus on more diplomatic ways of extending your renown.

It really adds to the experience, especially with the stress system already making you have to take decisions that make sense.

I've recently done this as a Greek diplomat who originally wanted to form the kingdom of Greece, he did this via smart marriages and raising a son who could lead armies for when it came to wars. Having played the characters to their traits I am now ruler of Greece, and my ambitious great great great grandson of my og character is striving to reclaim ancient roman lands for his best friend who happens to be the Basilious.

[Good Graces]

Originally posted by EA Latium:

Once I get an Empire I start focusing much more on the dynasty abroad, supporting them and trying to pull the strings around. It's pretty fun and exposes you to more risks.

That's the moment when you realize your dinasty kings are fighting a war for a common artifact, weakening themselves and getting ♥♥♥♥♥♥ by rebellions afterwards

[billy]

I start of reading a thread thinking i will offer some advice then i get to the hyperbole and gross exaggerations and lose interest and realise the person doesnt want help , they just want to vent/rage. "1 click to take an empire" , " everything is so easy and no challenge whatsoever " ...... i lose interest

does it take 400 years to recapture or 1 click ?

The AI does daft ♥♥♥♥ but its not that bad . And this game will always be a random nonsense generator at heart :) .

I am completely against hiding troop numbers and even more against having it as a late perk.