After racking up a litany of misdeeds that
would be far too long—and nauseating—to
list here, I can report that Crusader Kings
III still lets you play an absolute monster.
You can be chivalrous and pious, too, but
it’s not as fun to read about. Indeed,
almost everything you can say about its
predecessor is true here, but it doesn’t
feel like a repeat.
Crusader Kings III starts where the last
game left off. Not chronologically, of
course, but in terms of its systems. Over
the course of nearly a decade, Paradox
has lavished its historical soap opera with
DLC, and almost all of what it added is still
present in this new base game. The
difference is that it’s all been designed
holistically instead of slotted in piecemeal.
Everything just feels like it fits together
better. It still throws lots of crises and
notifications and decade-spanning wars at
you, but it’s a lot less jarring this time
around because it seems like more
consideration has been put into how all of
these systems interact with each other.
It’s also a hell of a lot better at explaining
what the heck is going on.
At the time of writing, it’s still months
away from completion, but already the
new player experience is much improved
over its predecessor. The tutorial is fine, if
a bit dull and wordy, but it’s the nested
tooltips, which are both concise and
informative, and UI changes that do the
heavy lifting. The best way to learn,
however, is still jumping in and making a
mess of things. Starting small, as a minor
noble, will let you dip your toes in without
taking on too much responsibility, and this
time there’s still a lot that you can do even
if you’re a nobody. This is largely down to
the lifestyle system, which weaves its way
into every facet of Crusader Kings III,
giving it most of its RPG clout.BETTER, STRONGER, FASTER
Every character, whether you’re playing
them or not, has a lifestyle. In RPG
parlance, they’re classes. You can pick
whatever you want, but you’ll get a bonus
if your choice lines up with their childhood
experiences. If your ruler was a
rambunctious little hellion as a youth, you
might be best served picking the martial
lifestyle; though an entirely different one
might be even more beneficial depending
on the state of your dynasty.
Lifestyles are further split into three
trees, which in turn have an associated
focus that gives you additional thematic
bonuses as long as it’s selected. In
keeping with Crusader Kings III’s ‘anything
goes’ approach, you don’t have to pick the
focus connected to the tree you’re
progressing down, and you can change
trees, foci, and even lifestyles as you wish.
A lot of the perks you get from the
trees are pretty forgettable, like shaving
20 percent off the cost of a casus belli.
Others, however, give you entirely new
abilities, or huge bonuses that can mean
the difference between dying of gout at 50
and being a beefcake warrior at 70.
Together, they flesh out your ruler, making
them an original, specialized character
that you’ve designed over decades.
Whatever you pick, the game adapts. If
you’re all about guile and intrigue, you’ll be
making a lot of shady deals and sneaking
around, but at the same time you’ll be
coming across all sorts of emergent
events that take your proclivities into
account. The level of reactivity has been a
surprise, giving each lifestyle a distinct
narrative flavor that’s further enhanced by
your own choices and random chance.H
istory won’t remember my tenure as
Alba’s monarch fondly. A poisoned
brother, nieces and nephews fed to
woodland critters, political rivals turned
into ‘art’ in my torture chamber—and let’s not go
into all the STDs, or that time I wanted to have sex
with a shoe. Yeah, this is Crusader Kings all right.
Paradox’s historical sandbox
sticks to what it does best
CRUSADER
KINGS III
THE BEST WAY TO LEARN IS
STILL JUMPING IN AND
MAKING A MESS OF THINGSRELEASE
September 1, 2020
DEVELOPER
Paradox InteractivePUBLISHER
In-houseLINK
crusaderkings.comNEED TO KNOW
PLAYED
IT10
Crusader Kings III
PREVIEW