Crusader Kings 3 beginner tips?

[DXCHASE]

So i just purchased the newest Humble Bundle (which is a good one this time around) and am eager to play/learn Crusader Kings 3. I never really played any of the other ones and was wondering if anyone here has any tips for me as a beginner?

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Nice! I'm no expert but I've played a fair bit and I love it. There's Italian Spartacus and Party Elite on Youtube who both have some pretty good intro videos to the basic concepts. This guy has great tips, once you figure out the very basics. I found the videos really useful where he rescues peoples save files that have gone horrendously wrong.

https://www.youtube.com/c/Zieley

My own hot tips. Probably start with the Easy recommended campaigns. There so much, and so much I dont know but anyway..

-Pay attention to the message menu at the top centre, everything important that is happening is listed there.

-If it all goes wrong just go with it and try and work through, hardly anything is the end of the game and finding creative ways around mistakes you've made through ignorance of the rules was a lot of the fun for me.

-Start as a Catholic, if the Pope likes you he'll give you a good chunk of free money every few years.

-Use money to build in your capital first! You can build anywhere, but you'll only get 100% of the benefit from counties in your direct domain. You can lose almost any county through succession when you die, but I believe that your main heir always gets the capital.

-Get allies, marry off your daughters to those with the biggest armies to help scare off any potential attacks or help with invasions.

-Get your player character and main heir married to someone with the genius trait ASAP. Your children are more likely to get an intelligence trait which give bonuses to all stats. Genius is +5 to all.

-Marry your court members to useful characters, with high skills to be councillors, future vassals or high Prowess to knight for you. Try and keep them the same culture as yourself if you want to expand your own cultural influence later, and them not to hate you. Later, I like to give titles to members of my own house as it helps with Reknown.

-Whatever your PC's lifestyle preference, start off with the learning tree and pick up the 35% bonus to scientific discovery trait. Switch to whatever you want after that.

-Educate your heir well. For a guardian, you need someone who has a high number rating in the desired skill, someone who has high learning skill, an Intelligence trait (Genius, Intelligent, Quick) and also a 3 or 4 star education trait in the same skill your heir is training in. Doesnt matter where, look in every realms vassals as long as they dont hate you.

-Make sure the church endorses you by using the sway scheme on your Bishop if required, you need his taxes and troops!

-Sway scheme every one of your powerful vassals until they like you, remember to change as it rolls on again

- Learn about succession, with the basic level the whole of your realm will be divided equally between all male sibling (Mostly if you stay in europe) and go out of your control. This is a large part of the reason research is good, because you can prevent it from happening once your culture researches hereditary rule. Dont be shy about disinheriting, murdering, or if you want to keep your hands clean, sending your unwanted heirs into war by forcing them to Knight for you all the time. If you want to get rid of them.

-Diplomacy tree and skill is really good. It makes everyone like you, which means they provide more tax and levies for your armies and dont scheme against you.

-As well as looking for traits, try to marry someone who has high skills in areas your PC lacks. They can support you and improve your own skills via the drop down menu on the council tab.

-Make sure your spymaster likes you, or you'll get murdered.

Uhhh, sorry I'll stop now. This obviously isnt exhaustive and theres definitely many other ways to play but these all worked for me. Let me know how it goes!

 

[Brian Boru]

Have you played any other Paradox games like Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron, or Victoria? They'll give you a feel for Paradox's Grand Strategy approach, which is usually a deep dive into politics and relationships on top of national development and military strategy.

The sub-genre scared me off when I dabbled, too complicated for me. If you don't have any 4X experience either, you're facing quite a learning curve. But of course, very rewarding if it does end up appealing to you.

My own hot tips

Great post!

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

CK 3 is easier to get into then any of the others. I think its just as complicated but they've really doubled down on the tooltips for everything, and you get notifications whenever theres something vital you need to deal with.

That said, yea its pretty complicated and intimidating to start, but once you start to understand it, it doesnt feel like it while youre playing.

Apologies if my first post was a bit too enthusiastic, hopefully it wont scare you off. It's a really great game.

 

[DXCHASE]

Thanks for the tips! Yes, i have played 4x before, im not all that much into them, but Crusader Kings 3 looked interesting enough and with it being in this bundle, am looking forward to learning and playing it. I just wanted to have a break from my genre's of FPS games.

 

[Pifanjr]

-If it all goes wrong just go with it and try and work through, hardly anything is the end of the game and finding creative ways around mistakes you've made through ignorance of the rules was a lot of the fun for me.

This is the most important part. The game has no victory condition, it's a sandbox game. Though I think there's a score calculated when the game ends which you could try to maximize if you want.

Since it's a sandbox game, there's really no need to optimize your stats or marriages, just role play as whatever you feel like and see what happens.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

This is the most important part. The game has no victory condition, it's a sandbox game. Though I think there's a score calculated when the game ends which you could try to maximize if you want.

Since it's a sandbox game, there's really no need to optimize your stats or marriages, just role play as whatever you feel like and see what happens.

Pretty hard to do anything if every scheme you try to pull off has no chance of success because your skills are terrible though. But true, you can play it like a game of the sims if you want to just focus on the family dramas and relationships. I wont judge you (openly)

I've mostly liked to prioritize getting up to an empire and then focus cultural development and try to breed superhumans from there. It gets very easy to snowball a blob once you understand the basics.

 

[Frindis]

Chiming in that you can play the game free. Ends in roughly 1 day and I'm trying it out myself to see what it is all about. Never really done much of these games, so it will be a fun experience or perhaps a grueling one. Hopefully, my brain won't implode.

 

[Pifanjr]

Pretty hard to do anything if every scheme you try to pull off has no chance of success because your skills are terrible though. But true, you can play it like a game of the sims if you want to just focus on the family dramas and relationships. I wont judge you (openly)

I've mostly liked to prioritize getting up to an empire and then focus cultural development and try to breed superhumans from there. It gets very easy to snowball a blob once you understand the basics.

In CK 2, I mostly like to screw around as a Duchy, taking revenge on anyone who dares to slight me in any way whatsoever.

I also always play with friends and we have developed the habit of trying to sleep with the wife of one particular friend, just to see if we can. This has resulted in this friend dying from an STD, given to his wife by a different friend, which, in my opinion, is a much better way to assassinate than simple scheming.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

In CK 2, I mostly like to screw around as a Duchy, taking revenge on anyone who dares to slight me in any way whatsoever.

I also always play with friends and we have developed the habit of trying to sleep with the wife of one particular friend, just to see if we can. This has resulted in this friend dying from an STD, given to his wife by a different friend, which, in my opinion, is a much better way to assassinate than simple scheming.

That is pretty funny ! There are a lot of different ways to play obviously. But I still say its easier to take revenge if you have good skills and good councillors. All schemes have higher chance of success, you have more troops, more gold, better development everything.

Not sure how CK 2 was, but 3 is definitely a game that isnt that hard to 'win' once you get going. There needs to be some other goals youre working towards outside of conquering which is easy once youre independent and bigger than your neighbours. Theres a lot of 'decisions' you can make which differ based on your realm and characters location, culture, religion, PC personality traits and so on. Forming Holy Orders, changing and reforming religions, consecrating your bloodline etc, all of which cost Piety, Prestige, and Gold which you need to accumulate before your PC dies as they reset. Basically there's a lot to do outside of just conquering even if youre not roleplaying, and your options are different based on a lot of factors.

You can also just decide to do stuff like this, of course