CK3 Royal Court - Pre Game Thread

[pindicator]

CK3's next DLC is finally coming out in a little over a week!  Since the new patch is going to break old saves (and I've managed to get sick again so there's been little to no movement on Socotra), I'm not planning on continuing the Socotra game any further because the save is going to be invalidated in a little more than a week.  There was a lot of positive feedback from the Socotra game, and I plan on starting a new game with the Royal Court DLC.  I plan on using the game to explore some of the differences in culture and the new Grandeur mechanic.  Its an interesting combination because the culture changes encourage conquering and expanding, but Grandeur encourages "building tall".

What I would like your help on is deciding where I should start.  I plan on starting on the 1066 start date, and have a few ideas on starts that would be interesting to play with this in mind:

Count Herbert of Vermandois - the Last of the Karlings.  This will be a tough start, as we start as a one-province count under the King of France.  But perhaps we can return to some of Charlemagne's glory.

Beg Muhammad Abbaszde of Ghur - So this isn't actually the start I have in mind.  What I would like to do is to recreate the Khwarazmian Empire and bring them back to their former glory (maybe not kill the Mongol envoys this time), but I'm not at all certain which leader to start as in 1066 to be true to their origins.  I'm not an expert of the history and my internet sluething has only brought me to Anushtegin Garchai - an individual who supposedly they derive from, and was alive in the time, but whom I have not found in the CK3 1066 start.  So instead I would start with Beg Muhammad or someone similar and attempt to recreate my own version of the Khwarazmian Empire.

Prince Erik the Heatlhen of Sweden - one of the last Asatru rulers, making us one of the last true Vikings in 1066.  This could be interesting to play as a "tall" manner -trying to stay alive as the last Viking realm among a sea of Christianity.  Then again, just staying alive could be interesting as we are the only Asatru faith duke in the Catholic kingdom of Sweden.

Other?  Is there another leader or area you would like to see?

[Amicalola]

Those all sound interesting, but I think Prince Erik sounds the most fun to read about. What is the most fun for you to play matters too though. Do you lean to any of the three in that sense? 

More importantly, hooray for a reboot of the CK3 thread!

[Jowy]

Man that's an expensive DLC.

I voted for Sweden for familiarity, but random button is fun too.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

CK3's next DLC is finally coming out in a little over a week!  Since the new patch is going to break old saves (and I've managed to get sick again so there's been little to no movement on Socotra), I'm not planning on continuing the Socotra game any further because the save is going to be invalidated in a little more than a week. 


Prince Erik the Heatlhen of Sweden - one of the last Asatru rulers, making us one of the last true Vikings in 1066.  This could be interesting to play as a "tall" manner -trying to stay alive as the last Viking realm among a sea of Christianity.  Then again, just staying alive could be interesting as we are the only Asatru faith duke in the Catholic kingdom of Sweden.

Crusader Kings 3 programming sounds almost as bad as the 3DS Pokemon games where each new update destroys the previous update's Battle Videos.


Do they actually call medieval Norse pagans "Asatru" in game?  I thought that only referred to modern people who worship Norse gods.  Sounds like the situation in Crusader Kings 2 where the Baltic pagans are called "Romuva" like the current reconstructionist religion.


Erik the Heathen is the most interesting out of the three.  If you're going to play Khwarazm, you have to start with the shah who offended Genghis Khan!


EDIT:  $30.00 for a DLC?!  Might as well just buy a new game for that price.

[Mjmd]

Excited I am.

[pindicator]

Wow, it's $30 now? I guess I feel a little less silly for being one of the over-zealous people who pre-bought it last year when it was $20. As the months dragged on I started to feel like I fell into the pre-purchase hype trap again, but at least I get a bit of a discount for funding it almost a year in advance. I think this highlights a problem with Paradox's business model in that they always need new DLC / new expansions coming out to keep money coming in. Which eventually leads to feature bloat (hello EU4).

It is pretty standard that major patches break saves in Paradox games. Although I don't think this was the case with Northern Lords, but they've already come out and said it breaks the older saves here because of the complete reworking of the Culture system.

There are probably going to be some bugs since the changes are fairly major, so I won't be playing immediately on Feb 8. Should know by the following weekend if there's anything game breaking out there. (Also, the new Path of Exile expansion is out on the 4th.)

As for my choice, I honestly am intrigued by all 3 of these. Count Herbert is a very weak count in France stuck on the border of the HRE - expansion early on is going to be difficult. But once you get a couple counties I feel I should be fine. Erik the Heathen is going to have more opportunity early on, but he's always going to have the danger of being the target of the Crusades. On the other hand, he's going to have an open field for raiding Christians. Yet turning a "heathen" court into one with the highest Grandeur and becoming the envy of Europe just seems so silly that I want to try it. Reforming Khwarazmia seems very exciting to me; my only drawback is that I'm having a hard time figuring out which ruler/province in 1066 to start with. I suppose this one will need more research and I can try it again down the line, but I think the leader I highlighted is a good candidate. And the Khwarazmian Empire is one that has always appealed to me historically, both in how influential it was on the Silk Road and also in how quickly they were removed from the map after they pissed off Genghis Khan.

Short version, I would be excited to play any of the 3

[Krill]

I suggest streaming on onlyfans. This should make it possible to play all three...

[pindicator]

I'm a slow player, even when I don't have to write a report afterwards. I can't imagine I'd be an entertaining streamer.

[TheArchduke]

Eric the Heathen could be a lot of fun but difficult.

He does start out as feudal, so you should be able to expand inside Sweden quite nicely, but crusades are a huge problem after you get off the ground. Even in 867 as Jorvik they can be gamebreaking.

[pindicator]

I'm excited to play out Erik the Heathen.  I'm envisioning a couple of campaign goals:

• Play "tall", not becoming an Emperor but keeping myself roughly "Kingdom sized".  Spreading my family and religion into other kingdoms is not only allowed by encouraged
  
• Achieving the most Grandeur in the game.  The idea of distant courtesans coming to pay their respects at the last Pagan Norse court seems like a fun goal to aim for.
  

And if I crash and burn to all of Christian Europe coming at me then that will be fun too.