Introduction
I think about after a week of playing Crusader Kings 3, starting from the day of its release, I can wholeheartedly review my experience with this game.
To start it all, I must mention that I am a huge Paradox fan. Even though I haven't played all their games, I played most of them. Europa Universalis, Stellaris, Victoria, Hearts of Iron and several others. Adding onto these, obviously, is Crusader Kings. I must admit that I did not play the first game in the series but I have spent hours for the second game. After enjoying that a lot, including the workshop support that provided many, many additional hours of content it was a really fun game. So since the announcement of Crusader Kings 3, I was expecting this game with huge hype, I should say that I was about to pre-order it, but decided against because... you shouldn't really pre-order any games, no matter what. Though some argue CDPR is okay.
Differences between CK3 and CK2
As a sequel, I must say that there are a lot of differences to CK2 in comparison. The ways army levies and retinues work, the way intrigue works and the economy overall, has been heavily modified. In CK2, retinues were expensive, it was more or less impossible to sustain a 5k+ army retinue, in CK3 however, this is pretty easy to do.
I remember the developers promising CK3 at release would have all the features CK2 had with all their DLCs, for some reason. I do not think that is the case as I was able to find some missing features.
Comments about Clausewitz's latest version
Clausewitz Engine is what Paradox uses to develop their games, it is probably a public knowledge at this point about how poor performing this engine is. Throughout all Paradox games, it is possible to see problems about this. Europa Universalis crashes if you go back in the menu, Crusader Kings 2 disables multiplayer if you ever decide to go back one page, Hearts of Iron IV lags if you want to play on high speed and it desyncs quite often and reduces the speed to balance the connection.
I am happy to say that in Crusader Kings 3, Clausewitz has improved a lot. The game engine is stable, high FPS, multiplayer works great without any issues. So have no fear with this.
Is it ready?
If you have any experience with Paradox games, you should know that any Paradox game, more or less, is very barebones at release as new features are added with DLCs, substantial features that add hours of content. After over 20 hours of gameplay in Crusader Kings 3, I must say that the game itself feels feature complete. Of course, there are several things missing (though it just might be me not being able to find it yet) especially if you had all the DLCs of Crusader Kings 2, but the game feels complete. Of course, DLCs releasing in the future would definitely upgrade the gameplay a lot.
However, to answer the question, is the game ready?... Yes. The game is definitely worth its full price at this point. You can enjoy the wonders of incest in 3D at last. The UI is gorgeous!
Deathwing's Score
My score is... 8/10 for CK3 at the time of writing.
Pros:
Huge updates/upgrade to graphics.
Huge upgrade to the game engine for stability.
Hours of content
Workshop support
Cons:
DLCs will add more features later on, I have to say several features of the game such as intrigue is missing some features available in CK2.
A bit buggy from time to time, especially with heirs and dynasty.
AI seems too aggressive sometimes, you might get a random war declaration from a country nowhere close to you.
Some Screenshots!
Thank you for the post. Ck2 has been my favorite game for years, I try to ignore the 'number of hours played' at Steam ;)
Of course I'm curious about CK3, but I wonder if it's worth the money. Especially the 'better graphics' aspect - I love it that CK2 runs on my old laptop!
I have an old laptop also. I was glad CK2 and Europa ran on it (although for some reason Stellaris seemed buggy). Since I’m thinking about getting back into gaming I believe I’ll start shopping for something new.
I would say it's worth the price. It does not really feel like other Paradox games where without DLCs, it's really barebones.
I did not know that paradox had come out with CK3. Truth be told now that I am working from home I actually have less time for gaming it seems. CK2 was an easy game to get into for me. One of my favorites had been Medieval 2: Total War, I loved that period of history. Later I did add Stellaris and Europa to my Steam account, but had done no more than just play around with them a little. You make me want to set aside time everyday so I can get back to it.