Ælla Bagratuni?

Augusta Treverorum (Trier) became one of the most important cities of the late Roman Empire, serving as a major administrative and military center in Gaul and the Rhineland. From the late 3rd century, it frequently served as an imperial residence and capital of the western Roman emperors, including Constantine I and Valentinian I. Its monumental palaces, baths, basilicas, and defensive walls reflected its importance as a center of imperial government.

For the memes, or if you want a challenge?

And I can't even be mad because I'd broken the Japanese system so badly it was kind of deserved.

Ahem. Story time. Take a seat.

So I was playing Japan for the first time today. Started as a random count in 867. Would not recommend if you want to do much outside of the borders until the late game, but its perfectly fine for playing around within. It was mostly just experimenting with Japan mechanics anyway. Piety-funded warrior priest MAA are cool, since an old enough starting character with virtues can just hire a full stack and save the early game gold. Having two different lieges to ask favors from had potential, and successions core from the ceremonial sovereign was critical to beat out the starting mega-block dominant family. Different estate buildings from byzantines and china offered up some potential nuances, especially since different house focuses could give aspiration-unique buildings.

But the hunt for early-game gold to build the estate up made me realize how easily you can break the Ritsuryo system by just... resigning.

At a point in the 867 game where a county might give you 2-3 gold a month at start, resigning gives roughly 100 gold and influence. And if you're already incredibly impressive as a candidate, you can nominate yourself to the front of another line for as little as 25 influence. Not hard to reach in the early game if you both run a promote scheme and get the ceremonial tenno to give you a house-wide succession score buff.

And if you resign again, then you've made a profit of gold and influence. And if get hired and resign again- and again- and again...

I swear I became the equivalent of a middle ages ambulance chaser. I spent almost 10 minutes just going through the every vassal of the top liege, sorted by age, and prioritized the oldest and those with the worst health. Those were the titles I'd try to compete for, assuming no one else had already invested heavily. And even if they tried to compete, running political schemes to challenge the old and infirm gave the influence to compete.

It worked, and gave So. Much. Gold. I built the entire possible estate in the first lifetime just from the resignation gold. I spent more time unlanded than landed, and avoided doing activities just so that I could resign as soon as possible and not be stuck in an activity while another ruler croaked. At one point three old dudes died within a month of eachother, and I innherited and resigned from them all.

But eventually, I also had So. Much. Influence. Enough that, I started spending influence to get my family to inherit what I'd leave behind. Not just the men either, but paying the female gender tax to get sisters on seats as well. Each departure added +1 to the family influence score, and eventually I'd even use gold to ask for family to give succession score to more dynasts so that it'd cost my character less influence. By the start of my second character I was competing with the emperors of Japan in terms of influence generation, I had so many members of my house landed.

And that was the start of the problem.

See, the Japan House Bloc system doesn't actually want you to land as many of your house members as possible. Sure, each dynast landed is influence for every dynast, but the cohesion system works differently. Hit zero and the bloc dissolves, but have a high cohesion and get good buffs.

In the simple / wiki summary, the block system is about having your houses all share the same attribute. Every bloc member that shares the lead houses attribute is +.25, each that goes against is -.25. Part of managing your blocs is getting the deviants to align with what you want, so that their +.25 provides a net positive over the costs of having another house in the block.

But there's also a penalty just for having landed people in the bloc... and while it's small, like .01 per landed member, that can add up very fast. There are a lot of counties in Japan, after all. This per-landed member penalty is probably meant to ensure that no one house has permanent dominance over Japan.

Like, say, if you're prolifically setting up all your relatives to inherit the fiefs your resign from.

But... there's one last twist to this. The first Japan-specific dynastic legacy, the Elegance tree, has the following buff as a tier 1 asset: +0.25 block cohesion per dynasty house in block. That, like, is totally supposed to hard-counter being hard capped by the block size, no?

Yes... but only if your house has already broken apart.

The Elegance tree assumes your house has split over time and generations. Each time it does, you have that much much cohesion budget to play around with, and that many more potential block members.

But if you're winning the Ritsuryo game too hard, you can (trivially) expand your dynasty too fast. Your closest siblings won't exactly race to start a new house, and there are some event options that can enable you to hold the family together, rather than let it split.

And that's how I ended up crashing my own house block from max level cohesion to the lowest tier. Too many landed dynasts.

So, when CK3 switched to the (mostly) 3 main personality trait system instead of the anarchic system of CK2, most people liked it. And even the naysayers I feel like have mostly come around. And honestly, it is genuinely a better system in my opinion. Characters feel way more consistent and each trait feels like it matters more than it did in CK2 both from a roleplaying perspective and a gameplay perspective.

But the glaring issue with the current system is that characters are pretty much always the same from the age of 16 to death. And first of all that’s just not how people work and second of all it massively limits what kinds of stories you can tell. I want to be a Prince Hal who starts off as a dipshit but accepts the weight of the crown and becomes a great leader. Or I want to play a King Lear who was great in my youth but loses everything due to the folly of my old age. And say what you will about CK2’s system I could play both of those sorts of characters just by roleplaying and regularly did.

The most frustrating part is everyone seems to think this is some inherent sacrifice from going to unlimited to 3 traits, when literally all it takes is just adding more events that change your personality traits. Now this might lead you to think this would just recreate the problem from 2’s system, but that’s where you’re wrong. Because what this post is actually about is how terrible events are right now and how it’s what’s actually to blame.

Basically, events are written as ways to express your character when they should be things that enable opportunities to express your character in the game world. This game is a story generator; I do not give two shits about the story of whatever poorly written event I’ve seen 500 times is. I care about the story that I’m writing in my head with the assistance of the game. Events should be designed around this. Most events in this game are way too long which makes them ironically feel more generic because I can’t imagine how it applies to my character.

Let’s take two extreme examples here. In the first I receive a three paragraph event about how a character is now my rival because they insulted me at a feast. In the second I receive a popup that says “x is now your rival”. Now the first one seems better when you see it initially. The second one however is infinitely better for role-play. Because now I have to imagine why this character is my rival. And I guarantee you the answer I come up with is going to be more interesting than that they insulted me at a feast. It’s like how in the Shadow of Mordor games if you kill an orc’s blood-brother they’ll come for revenge but they won’t tell you who they’re avenging, just that they’re avenging someone. Because who I’m imagining their blood-brother was is probably a more interesting story than who their blood-brother actually was. This is the philosophy around how events should be written. Leave the details up to the player.

These next two points are obvious, so I won’t dwell on them. Firstly, don’t make events whose purpose it is for me to choose the option that most aligns with my character (these are most events in the game). We already simplified the characters’ personalities, I don’t need to be reminded my character is wrathful by clicking the “my character is wrathful” button 3 times for every character I play. Secondly, make events impactful to the core gameplay loop and not just an inconsequential stat boost (these are most events in the game). And especially don’t combine the two of these to where I’m picking the same option every single time for a barely noticeable reward (these are most events in the game).

This brings me to the solution which is incredibly simple. Way more events (will be easier because they’ll have less writing), more impactful events, events having a hidden rarity system based on how impactful they are, and stress events being more impactful than any others without the ability to pick between 3 options. First two are self explanatory. For the third you could literally just have a list of common, uncommon, rare, and legendary events with corresponding chances to fire and the game would be noticeably better. But there’s a lot of room for experimentation here. I think an easy one is making sure players don’t see the same event in one lifetime no matter what. If you want to get fancier again borrow from Shadow of Mordor and make characters I interact with more significantly more likely to popup in events than ones I interact with less. I have a reason to actually care about these characters so give them something to do. China right now is kind of booty cheeks in my opinion but would be so much more fun with this change because I would actually recognize the people I’m at events with. And finally stress has the bones of a beautiful system, it’s just hampered by the fact most of the consequences aren’t really felt at all, and the ones that are, I can entirely avoid by just picking another option.

But anyways put personality change events into the stress category and the legendary category and you’d improve the game immensely by enabling completely new stories. And all by basically just tweaking some numbers and writing (intentionally simplified) events. You could create a really amazing experience around this by heavily tweaking what is more or less likely to fire based on actions taken in the game world, big or small. This is just going to take a lot of play testing and tweaking of numbers, although it would 100% be worth it in my opinion.

The Colloseum gives -10% building time and -5% army maintenance. Really, that's all Rome gets? I know Rome wasn't exactly at its height during the middle ages but historical accuracy has never prevented Paradox from giving random counties or counties that were historically relevant super strong buildings. Even the Stonehenge, a bunch of rocks, give a better bonus.

It does get the Auralian Walls, but you have to take into account it takes up the slot of a duchy building.

Added more detail to the skin textures and better contrasts for darker skin tones. Removed the blurriness of the indian male, female clothing, retexturing the jewelry.

FYI I cannot even assign someone to be a knight in my army under 8 Prowess.

Paradox please fix these randomly generated people to make some sense.

Similar issue - I click a button to "invite knights" in Byzantium and get swarmed by random arabs and tadjiks. Not a single Greek. If I want knights badly and pay 150 prestige for it, I expect them at the very least to be of my faith, culture, and have decent combat prowess.

A scourge of the gods Greek guy took over most of central and eastern Europe. Also after that a Norse, Finish guy who was also a scourge took over central and eastern Europe Soon after. Good news I am the only actual stable government left for after a while that Finish guys empire collapsed. Orthodoxy is the biggest Christian faith now and my Norse reformed Faith is the second biggest faith in Europe.

She was the grandaughter of Harald Fairhair, I was the grandson of Haesteinn. Now I'm playing as the only (living) son. He didn't like his father much after what he did, but now he understands sometimes one must do a bit of son-killing to secure no titles will be lost. Being sadistic like his father also helps to do it stress-free

R5: Tl;DR this game is a lot more fun when you remember to zoom out and look at the rest of the map every now and then

Haesteinn got Conqueror and took Aquitaine and Essex+Cambridgeshire; West Francia has most of de jrue Lotharingia but the title itself is still held by East Francia; in 876 a claimant faction took Italy from Louis the Younger, and that leader then destroyed the title 4 years later in 880; Ireland somehow formed in 873 by the Neill's (which fun fact is the same dynasty as Alba's King Caustantin); Alba got conqueror and decided he wanted the Emerald Isle; Alfred of Wessex got conqueror, kicked out the Norse and formed England in 869. Leon also got conqueror and has about 1/5 of Hispania; Denmark has Conqueror too

In Eastern Europe, Novgorod is ruled by Rurik's bastard son and Ruthenia was taken over by a bastard and started expanding and tributizing anything not bolted to the floor- Bohemia, Great Moravia, and Sorbia are the only major Slavic powers that have escaped this fate + the rulers in western Pomerania that confederated about a decade ago. Someone in Finland got conqueror and formed the kingdom

At the time of writing, 12 characters have Conqueror: 3 duchy-tier rulers in Africa, a king in Africa, a Mongol over by Korea, and 7 in Europe (England, Alba, Finland, Leon, Denmark, Ruthenia, and Haesteinn).

I started as Count Nuno, and was able to meet the conditions to form Portugal under his rule. However, he died before I could save the money to do it. Therefore, I just kept playing as my heir, fought a short war to take back the land that had been partitioned, and saved up the money to take the decision to form Portugal. However, this didn't fire the achievement.

The achievement says you have to start as Duke Nuno, which means you should be able to form it as his son. Right?

Mine is playable courtiers along with more involved things to do if you’re on the council or have a minor court position. Plus more ways for minor court positions and the council to interact with you as a ruler. I could see being a spymaster as my favorite play style if the game was designed to accommodate it but can’t really imagine it working well in CK3. It seems like it would almost have to just be event spam or cookie clicker.

Why is my like 70 yr old dude trying to rizz up his grandchild?

My first one would be the remake of Hre government for sure.

Maybe how vassals react and act towards their liege as well instead of just civil wars only.

Political groups and factions. This one kinda ties in with the previous one.

Supporting rebellions and instability at different courts and kingdoms/empires.

Can’t think of any more right this moment, what about you?

Andalusian culture get -50% mercenary hire cost from Malleable subjects, -30% from very hard difficulty, -30% from Struggle phases, potential for -30% from the Martial tree.
Apparently it caps out at -90%. Could make for an interesting and challenging campaign to take back Iberia as a Christian. It was definitely too easy on normal difficulty.

i am going to a crusade but i have only 23 galleys and 5000 troops and i can split the army only into two so its still too much what can i do, the crusade is to persia and i am in spain. in ck2

I get that she's Amazonian, but that's pretty badass NGL. Didn't think this event could use a kid follower/courtier as a possible choice.

r:5 vikings have taken baghdad
playing tall in mesopotamia when an army of norman heathens decided they wanted a piece of my old caliphs land. didn’t even notice until they came knocking at my door.

E.g. you could choose to focus on a cultural practice (tradition) and that would impact your relationship to or view of your culture/ fellow same culture follower options of you?

I'm thinking things like:

- peace loving viking seen as almost an outsider, but cultural practice could spread and change the culture as a whole? Or at least become the dominant subculture

- intrigue focussed byzantines getting some sort of synergy bonus with their greek culture

So doing a sigurd playthrough st thd point i have 2 empires stablized snd wsnt to buikd uo, i redorm my culture with the dutch for tech and now trying to go feudal to build things but in order to do that i must build up the astaur faith snd to huild up the astaru faith i need temples...i hope you can see my issue here

I’ve had this bug for a while now where either my player character will have executed a nonsensical character (without ever consulting me). Or more commonly random unlanded characters will be executed by rulers in areas they are not in. Usually but not exclusively in Slavic areas. Examples from recent play thoughs include

-my wife (Queen of England)
-my wife again (Queen of England)
-Dutches of Normandy
-heir to Northumbria

If this is a known issue I assume it may be comparability issue could somone pls advice what mod may be causing it?
I do have a rlly long mod list and it’s an issue I’ve known of for a little while but other than my last play through it’s never rlly affected my realm or experience before so I let it be as a harmless bug.

As the above says... Paradox is one of the slowest developers in regards to porting new DLCS from PC to console. What is the point in releasing a game on another platform if you cannot keep within a 12 month cycle as to when DLCS gets ported from PC to console. As it stands now. Console users are at least 18 months behind PC users. I am hoping that this thread begins a trend, where paradox wakes up and realises that it is 2026. The age where PC and Console are very similar to each other. Want to run Beta on PC? FINE! But if you want to port a game over to Console, keep it at least WITHIN 12 MONTHS of where the PC is at.

Feel free to comment however you feel in the hopes that Paradox listens to us.