Oh boy. Oh boy. Where to even begin with this. How aboutâŠwe try something new.
https://lastchance.cc/crusader-kings-iii-the-kotaku-review-1844848772%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Iâve already recommended this game to tons of people who donât normally play Paradox grand strategy games, and many of them run into the same obstacle, where the problem isnât that theyâre unable to play it in terms of grappling with the basics. Itâs actually very well designed to hold your hand throughout the experience! The biggest problem Iâm seeing is that many new players are so scared, so overwhelmed by the gameâs depth, that they simply fold in the face of it.
Thatâs what Iâm going to help with here. You donât need me to tell you how to play Crusader Kings III. Both the tutorial and in-game reminders do a great job of that themselves. And if/when you need more help than that, I actually think written guides are a nightmare, and youâre better off settling in with YouTube walkthroughs.
What you might need most initially, and what Iâm here to try and give you, is the strength to get there in the first place.
FAILURE IS OK
You canât think of Crusader Kings III as a traditional video game, something that you learn piece by piece in order to âget betterâ, or somehow âcompleteâ it. Itâs a sprawling simulation of life, politics and people, and just like you can never perfect those things in real life, youâll never perfect them here either.
The best games of Crusader Kings III arenât the ones where you relentlessly march against your opponents, securing optimal marriages and winning every battle. No, because this is such a personal game, and also based on history where nothing is forever, the best games are the ones where you both rise and fall in the same campaign.
Beginning as a King and then finding yourself as a Duke isnât failure, itâs adversity. Itâs part of the story that youâre creating through your actions, and while in some ways it sucks, in others itâs simply a result of things that may be well out of your control. Donât get upset at a demotion, just roll with it! Chances are youâll be able to work your way into some kind of revenge anywayâŠ.
YOU CANâT MASTER THIS GAME
Which leads me neatly into my next tip. This isnât Street Fighter. You canât approach this thinking that you will only truly âgetâ Crusader Kings III once youâve mastered all of its systems, because boy, that is going to crush you. Hell, Iâve been playing the series for almost a decade and I still get confused by De Jure realms.
Even if you could gain a complete understanding of everything happening under this gameâs hood, that doesnât matter since this isnât a scripted single-player experience. Crusader Kings is pure chaos, and no two games will ever play out the same, so even if you were to do exactly the same things twice in a row, believing youâd mastered it, sometimes that might bring you success, but the next game it might get you your ass kicked.
During your early days/weeks with the game, then, donât bother trying to tame it! You donât need to know how to foil plots, overthrow regimes, kidnap princesses, murder children, worship the Horned God, go on a crusade, get a cat, hire some mercenaries, build a farm, divorce your wife, or commit suicide right away
Take your time. Considering (as weâve discussed) failure is fine, and that thereâs a massive degree of automation at play, you can leave a lot of Crusader Kings III up to the AI, treat it as a particularly murderous medieval sandbox and just play with it. Even engaging in the most minimal amount of play, which would basically be just responding to the gameâs decisions and events, youâll both learn a lot and have a lot of fun!
READ UP
I said this in my review, but one of the trends in strategy gaming over the past few years has been a growing reliance on pop-ups and tooltips to explain terms and systems that might usually have been reserved for a tutorial or, worse, the manual.
Crusader Kings III is just full of pop-ups, and itâs a safe bet that if youâre ever wondering what a word means, itâll be displayed in blue on the screen, meaning you can hold your mouse cursor over it and be shown everything you need to know about it.
This sounds really minor, but in a game where weird terms and historical jargon are everything, itâs super important! Mostly because this makes the pop-ups contextual, meaning you get to look the information up at precisely the time you need it.
If youâre a history nerd and know what most of this shit means, then great, but if youâre not, and the term âAgnatic-Cognatic Promgenitureâ has your eyes rolling into the back of your skull, donât freak out. Just look for a pop-up and hopefully your questions will be answered.
START SMALL
As Iâve hinted at, a lot of your Crusader Kings III experience can be shaped as much by your neighbourâs actions as your own. Even if youâve played a perfect century building up a fledgling Balkan Kingdom, itâll all be for nought if the Byzantine Empire wants your land, because thereâll be nothing you can do about it.
So if youâre taking your first steps in the game, start small. The tutorial drops you in Ireland for a reason. The degree to which Crusader Kings III can overwhelm you is directly related to the size of your realm and how much trouble youâll be getting from neighbours, so starting somewhere cozy and remote like Ireland (or anywhere in Britain, really) is a great way to ensure you get the necessary breathing space to get to at least the most basic grips with the game.
And thatâs it! Hopefully thatâs enough perspective to stop you freaking out if the game has felt like itâs a bit much. If it was, youâre probably ready to move onto some more comprehensive guides than the tutorial or written articles can manage. One of the better ones out there being this one by PartyElite:
