STRINGS AT TACHED
I’m partial to the intrigue lifestyles
because they really let you make the most
of Crusader Kings III’s system of schemes
and hooks. Schemes, known as plots in
the last game, run the gamut from
nurturing a friendship to planning a
murder, and like most things there’s a
mechanical and roleplaying component.
They move forward every month, and
each step the game makes a new
calculation based on you and your agents’
skills versus your target’s resistance. At
the tenth step, regardless of those things,
you’ll try to execute the scheme. If you fail
but don’t get caught, it just starts again.
To help you with your schemes, you
can gather up secrets about your fellow
nobles and courtiers. Maybe they’re a
heretic, or having an affair, or hiding a
huge roster of illegitimate bastards. These
secrets give you a hook that you can use
to exploit them. When I was broke, I liked
to blackmail them for hard cash, but they
can also be used to force nobles to back
your candidate in an election.
My greatest victory wasn’t on the
battlefield—it was when I made my ten
greatest enemies endorse my son as the
next in line to the throne, all because they
were stepping out on their spouses. Now
that’s power. But it also comes at a cost.
There’s everyone hating you, of course,
but it also might have an impact on your
emotional and mental state.
Stress is a new feature that
encourages you to embrace your
character and act appropriately. A content
and compassionate ruler would be unlikely
to shame people or use an error in
judgement for blackmail, so picking those
options generates stress. The more
stressed you become, the closer you get
to a breakdown. You’ll get chances to
alleviate the stress, but the cure can be
just as bad as the ailment. Solutions
include booze, brothels, or flagellation. Or
you might take up running. None of this
feels like a punishment. It nudges you into
roleplaying, but breaking free of those
expectations can also be liberating,
leading to new twists and traits.
I just wanted everyone to be happy,
which is why my rulers have slept with
everyone. I was being blackmailed a lot,but it doesn’t have to be that way. How
people perceive everything from affairs to
eating human flesh depends on their faith,
and that can be customized.RECRUITMENT DRIVE
Monarchs love a good fight, so I’ve seen a
lot of war. I could probably do with a bit
less of it, honestly, because the roleplaying
and politicking is still the most engaging
part of the game. The good news is that
Paradox has cut down on a lot of the
messing around you need to do to
conclude these struggles. The map is
larger and more spread out, but there are
fewer military targets to worry about.
Instead of needing to gobble up a
bunch of baronies before you can take
over a county, you can now just head
straight for the castles, forts, or whatever
defensive buildings the ruler has erected.
Other holdings, like towns and churches,
get conquered automatically when you
take the castle. Generally, there’s just a lot
less tidying up to do.
Recruiting armies is simpler, too. When
you raise the levies—your crappy peasant
troops—they all appear automatically at
the rally point instead of being spread out
all over your empire. This does mean you
can’t thwart an enemy by picking off all
their tiny levy armies before they can
unite, but it’s a sacrifice I’ve been more
than happy to make for the greatly
improved pace. And other decisions fill the
gap, like picking a limited number of
professional man-at-arms regiments or
recruiting knights who are all gifted with
preternatural fighting skills. These knights
are also members of your court, so they
can also become embroiled in intrigue.
That’s really been the theme of my
30-odd hours of dynastic shenanigans,
which has been spread across a trio of
houses and a few hundred years. I’ve been
tasked with making loads of decisions,
probably more so than in the previous
game, but they’ve also felt bigger and
more impactful, echoing across a
multitude of complex systems and tying
everything together. These changes to the
formula are subtle, though, with the big
picture stuff hewing very close to
Crusader Kings II. Paradox sequels tend to
be iterative, so it’s not a surprise, but this
is the follow-up to one of the most novel
strategy games around; part of me was
hoping for something bolder. That said,
I’ve only scraped the surface, and it’s
already making a convincing argument for
sticking to what it knows.
Fraser BrownSTRESS IS A NEW FEATURE
THAT ENCOURAGES YOU TO
EMBRACE YOUR CHARACTERCrusader Kings III
PREVIEW
Just having a Zoom meeting
with my posse.Painting the map one colour
is very cathartic.