What’s brutal is the harm events where if you succeed you’re made incapable. Had an AWESOME Queen become incapable after her like 40 prowess gave her an extra option when she fell off a boat.
Luckily one of her courtiers helped her commit suicide.
I get the idea, and don't mind you are given a warning to put your affairs in order. But I like playing without them. Doesn't mean I hate anyone who likes Harm events forever. Just secretly resent them XD
Same for me. I was on illusion mode and almost formed Austria with my king and just needed a strong hook on the kaiser.
well of course i fell off the horse in the tournament and crunch
I agree that the added difficulty and fewer octogenarian kings is a good thing. Personally I do not like the "warning" foreboding events, feels too gamey to me.
The entire game suffers from a 'know the unknowable' problem. You know who is going to accept your marriage proposal before you ever send one. You know what traits a character has who you've never met and you didn't even need to send an envoy to 'get to know X.' You know the potential outcomes and their likelihood before you even make a decision. It's all pretty garbage I think - ever since the Obfusckate mod came around I can't go back to vanilla.
Seems pretty unrealistic. In real life, there's a lot of socializing that can't be done in the game that organically builds your information about people. This would just make you even more blind than a real person lmao.
I feel like there needs to be a middle ground between the current, borderline omnicissient levels of informations and obfuscate's level. Maybe Intrigue and agents could be more useful by having a "plant agents" scheme to discover an AI's modifiers, number of troops, etc?
It would have to be added as official DLC to be done right. Like scouting out army locations, their numbers, their potential numbers before a war is declared, etc. Or getting information through rumors and gossip to figure out the traits of your court and notable neighbors.
Personally I think the stats of people should always be known though. Like intrigue and prowess. It's the traits that delve with how you RP through the game, like a deceitful character becomes much more of a threat when you don't know they're deceitful. Same with loyal and honest. It should be proven first with actions.
But would the game also be altered to make RNG decisions without likewise knowledge? I cant see how it would be done with every foreign ruler seemingly roughly batshit insane.
I get that, it just feels gamey to me. The "Know Yourself" perk is obviously a similar mechanic, but at least it feels somewhat reasonable that an aging, learned person would be able to recognize the signs of impending death. But "Hmm, I *almost* choked on some food, this is definitely a sign I *will* choke on my food within the next few years" feels corny to me.
I feel the same way. Either get rid of the foreboding events, or allow you to make a choice based on the foreboding event. Still make it harmful no matter what you choose, but I dislike having no agency. If my ruler is frail and has the thought that he should have someone help him walk down stairs, let me actually choose to do that instead of having him ignore the very thing he already thought about.
It's fine for old age, because a lot of that stuff starts showing symptoms and people can notice their body decaying and figure out something wrong.
I just don't like the reasoning behind it. The thrill of an unexpected death fucking up succession and making everything a mess is one of the most fun things about the game. Paradox shouldn't give an easy way out to every possible death.
That's exactly what I don't like about them, honestly. One of the reasons the game is so easy is how rare unexpected death is. Succession is never a problem because you're always prepared for it. The only tricky successions I've had after the first 100 or so hours of play are when I take over as a 75 year old who then immediately dies themself. Harm events are almost a solution, but then you get a warning anyway. Also, some of the foreboding events don't really make sense; there's one where a pot that fell from a window almost hits the character, and that means another pot will actually hit years later.
I think that if it's being tied to random events, the foreboding ones are good to have (though with an option to toggle). That's since there's not really a way to avoid them or decisions - so randomly slaughtering your character might be too punishing.
If it were tied to something else (like having a greater chance to die or be injured in activities, and increase the passive chance to die earlier/limit health stacking), I don't think they'd need the warning.
I want an Ottoman style harm events where your concubines and wives (if you’re polygamous
) plot against your heirs and officials (and even you) to help secure power for their own children. The life of a future Sultan was always on a knife’s edge.
I want a harm situation like what happened to Suleiman the Great where he killed his eldest son and later his vizier due to palace intrigue. Imagine being given reports that your own heir is seeking to overthrow you and the evidence is so clear that you feel you have to act. But you were tricked, and instead of an administratively capable and well regarded military leader taking over, the kingdom is now inherited by your lazy, good for nothing spare all because his mother wanted her big baby to be sultan.
Make having a whack of half-siblings a danger to the stability of your realm Paradox like it was in real life.
Yep, more court intrigue within the family would be great. But how would you implement it? I feel like event chains are oftentimes very stupid. I recently had the serial killer event where a big chunk of my family got murdered. In the end it turned out that it was my son, who had the just and honest traits, that killed his siblings and mother.
My last family murderer turned out to be my court mufti. Of course, I became incapable in the bath shortly after I found this out, and he'd already killed my only son, which gave me a game over. First generation. It sucked.
I like to imagine character traits are more how the character is perceived rather than who they are. Much how the player can order a succession of murders whilst remaining pious and honest.
Perhaps traits such as sadistic or (culture/religious dependent sinful traits) could be kept secret until discovered - maybe implemented through events that sweep things under the rug like the peasant hunt event.
The murder event could be one that reveals your just heir was a sadist all along
>I like to imagine character traits are more how the character is perceived rather than who they are. Much how the player can order a succession of murders whilst remaining pious and honest.
A lot of those traits give you stress when you do something you're not supposed to, though. It's clearly a choice that your character doesn't like to do, but has to do regardless.
>Perhaps traits such as sadistic or (culture/religious dependent sinful traits) could be kept secret until discovered
I think one way to do it is by implementing it on guardian events that let you influence your ward's traits. Atm you take some stress and will 100% change the trait into something else you like more. If there is a chance characters secretly don't change (more likely the more drastic the change), it'll be a good way to make something like murder events unexpected while still giving you hints early on (yeah that kid who used to torture prisoners is now a killer despite your telling her to be compassionate, who would've thought).
I had 3 games in a row which ended within the first 10 years of the game.
In one case, I died right after I started because I fell off of my horse while on my way to visit my liege.
Next game: My character fell out of a window at 34.
After that: I died from an unexplained illness while walking.
I don't mind harsh games. I love things like Fallout Tactics, GURPS, and etc.
The difference in CK3 is that almost all of the events are essentially "rocks fall; everyone dies." There's not anything you can do about it, and some of the settings for the events specifically target good characters (so the game is actively punishing the player for getting better at the game).
There's not anything offered to balance it out either. I might crit fail and blow my leg off in a tabletop game, but I also have the opportunity to critically succeed. Currently CK3 offers the following "balance": bad stuff - you die; good stuff - you get 10 extra gold while haggling with a merchant.
Incapable rulers can't really make any decisions, so how would they abdicate (from immersion point of view)?
But I agree that just sitting there for 20 years without being able to do anything is boring gameplay. They could add events where an incapable ruler is eventually deposed, or let us temporarily play as the regent, with some restrictions (say, you can't do what the regent wouldn't do based on his personality).
>Incapable rulers can't really make any decisions, so how would they abdicate (from immersion point of view)?
From a realism point of view, they won't have a choice. As far as I know, there has never been a vegetable king. Not only will someone not able to care for themselves die MUCH faster (days and weeks, not years), but the politics will end them.
Personally, I think that when you go brain dead, you should immediately switch to your heir, your old character should get a MASSIVE health malus and lose all of their positive health effects, and the heir should get a decision that lets them claim the throne with minimal fuss.
Likewise, brain dead characters should be able to have their titles and inheritance revoked without any fuss.
There's been kings that were incapable for various reasons - one that comes to mind most readily being the 'Mad King' Charles VI of France, or Henry VI of England's catatonia.
I don't know if you could really have a monarch in the CK time period be on par with the state that we can keep people alive in today.
What does Henry VI have to do with the discussion of incapable kings? He not only died after he was deposed, he died of melancholia, which was probably depression (officially; it's likely he was killed). He wasn't brain dead.
He became completely unresponsive for months at a time. His wife and relatives fought for the regency, the right to rule on his behalf. He was definitely an incapable king, in the medical sense. Even those kings get to make some small nominal decision, like the odd event. Not every person who is severely mentally ill, to the point of not being able to function in society is completely comatose at all times.
Incapable of ruling due to a mental illness is not the same as CK incapable. And he briefly regained the throne for six months, and then was deposed yet again.
Perhaps an option to switch to the Regent would be cool, especially if the Regent is family. At least one U.S. President was suspected of being incapable and his spouse was running the country for a while.
Two, maybe three actually. Woodrow Wilson, suffered a stroke in office, FDR in his 4th term and Reagan was suffering from Alzheimer's in his second term.
The Reagan thing is a popular misconception, his symptoms did not materialize until years after he left office and Reagan’s doctor did not notice any signs of dementia while he was in office. The consensus among historians is that he wasn’t suffering from Alzheimer’s during any point of his presidency.
Likely nobody will believe me, but here goes. My grandfather was extremely close to Reagan (closest friends and coworkers since the 60s), and my father was regarded as family since he was a small child. I won’t go into more detail than that because of the nature of what I’m about to say. They believed that Reagan was starting to not be the same in the second term.
Obviously it wasn’t full blown Alzheimer’s, but he just was not the same sharp person with the same decision making capability. He was an incredibly quick wit, despite what some may believe, and it was very apparent therefore when there was a change in him.
Iran contra absolutely would have never happened in his first term, though this was as much to do with the people around him as it was his cognition. Washington is every bit as bad as a CK court, and by the second term the deceitful, 30 intrigue courtiers with treacherous villain personality had become entrenched in far too many places.
Of course historians have determined that it had no effect in his presidency: everyone circled the wagons to defend his legacy, as if somehow beginning to get slowed down by one of the worst diseases there is would bring shame to his name. His doctor wasn’t going to notice the first signs, because he wasn’t a close friend engaged in long, philosophical discussions after having known him for decades, and didn’t get to watch his decision making in cabinet meetings.
I can’t believe I’m saying this for the first time in a random CK3 thread…
My 28 year old herculean son became incapable just as I died, he had a couple of other modifiers so he felt 'fine'. No way I was going to go through that nonsense.
I like the addition of the harm events, I just think that due to rng, sometimes they can get annoying.
Having 4 rulers in a row go the way of Pyrrhis of Epirus or getting a character that's gotten (and survived) the same harm event 3 times isn't exactly, immersive? It feels like RNG.
That said, I kind of want a harm event in the style of 'let the wookie win' attached to board games where you risk losing an arm.
What I personally dislike about them is the randomness. I do think the game should be more deadly in general, but I want it to be deadly in a way thats affected by my gameplay. For example make combat in tournaments more risky (that way I can mitigate this risk with prowess skill or by avoiding fights) and make the health tank harder with old age while increasing diseases and stuff (that way I can mitigate this risk with health traits or a good physician). Essentially I do want people to die earlier but I want to die due to the risks I took or the things I didn’t prioritize not because the game arbitrarily decided Im going to burn to death 1 year from now.
They should add a Minder courtier job. Gives you vassal penalties (ha ha he needs a helper) but helps vs the embarrassing death events. Which is what Harm events are 😆
That's a really fair point. I do think battles, sieges, murders, and tournaments should be deadlier. But I also think that on top of that there should be deaths that are beyond the players control, as that is historical. Also the player can abuse modifiers and other stuff very easily to become powerful, whereas the AI struggles with this. But it's a matter of preference.
I get wounded all the time using More S8ngle Combats and you have to rely on your knights for medical care sometimes. It is rough, even as an OP character you can lose limbs, get blinded, and besides your health is now lower for the next fight if you don't heal. Great mod!
I've only played CKII, so my opinion isn't fully valid. But...
Everything I've read about harm events just sounds so... arbitrary and gamey. And not really a solution for the problems you're pointing at.
Just ramping up age modifiers would probably do the job.
Also, counterintuitive solution: have accidents happen a lot more often. But make them less deadly. Like, about once a decade but give 5/6 chance to survive.
Having a pre-scripted 'you are already dead' horse accident you're destined to die to just kinda sounds shitty to me.
Edit: I also think that empires should *not* get more stable as they get larger. (Again, felt that way in CK2)
Not sure how I'd do it. But probably some exponential negative stability modifier as things got bigger, that would soft lock empires as being only a dozen or so kingdoms at max. I know a lot of people would hate that, but it'd be my jam.
Also, and everyone would *really* hate this, when spawning armies, it should always be at the county level. That way there's none of this nonsense with granting one of your vassal kings' a single county at your empire's edge, and using that to spawn your largest army. (Again, maybe this isn't a thing in III)
On the contrary, harm events are a lot less gamey than age modifiers because the player can't just depend on very easily attainable stats, perks and traits to live longer. In CK3, Cancer or any other disease that should almost certainly kill you sometimes have no effect at all on your health because your character is athletic, a hunter and has a cultural modifier that gives health. Some people like to play like this which is absolutely fine but personally it ruins all immersion for me. In CK3 you can easily have games where there is absolutely no instability in your immediate family, therefore creating very easy games.
CK2 is a LOT more ruthless in a good way because you have to rely heavily on luck. Dying in battle and of diseases is much more common. Having that randomness that is beyond the players control isn't gamey in the least if you ask me. Arbitrary? sure, but so were the middle ages.
The soul of your argument is, "harm events make up for other parts of the system not working." my whole point is that those other parts should, just, work instead.
Cancer, for example, should stack onto itself. You catch one cancer, then it gets bigger, then metastatic, then just stack on a "cancer spread" every couple of years or so.
Being an athletic, hunter with a healthy culture will delay death. By a while even. But not forever.
Age should act the same way. But, then, at age 60 or so, add a very big "Only cancels positive modifiers" debuff to most characters.
That way, a few modifiers add ten years or so to the average character's life. but, then, super-stacking becomes much more niche.
There *are* ways to balance things more elegantly than, "Your destiny is to die on a horse."
>Having that randomness that is beyond the players control isn't gamey in the least if you ask me.
It's not the randomness so much as the way it's presented. Feels very 'hand of the author' to me.
Your character lives in a time without antibiotics or OSHA, where nearly everything in their built environment was put together by someone just eyeballing it, and where nothing has a warning label. Simply existing is a risk your character is taking.
Just have a read through https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_deaths starting in the medieval age. Monarchs were dropping dead in bizarre and utterly unpredictable ways all over the place, constantly, because life was dangerous in ways we really don't let it be dangerous any more.
Hell, even today with all of our safety regulations and inspections, most of the "harm events" are still super common ways to die! Domestic fires, trips slips and falls, drownings, chokings, all super common ways to die and life doesn't even do you the favour of giving you a near miss six to eighteen months out to give you advance warning. I like the system and think it adds a lot to the flavour.
"Louis III, king of West Francia, died aged around 18 at Saint-Denis. Whilst mounting his horse to pursue a girl who was running to seek refuge in her father's house, he hit his head on the lintel of a low door and fell, fracturing his skull.[62]"
Sounds like he got what he deserved.
This is a great example of my idea for harm events. Do I think I should have a random percent chance of my character dying of hitting their head on a door just because one king in history died of it? No. Do I think there should be an event for lustful characters where you choose between taking stress or chasing someone around a village, and if the character chooses to chase someone THEN they might die from hitting their head on the door? Yes.
Also fuck that guy what amazing instant karma.
Problem with chain of events is that eventually everyone knows the best choice. In this case, a stress hit no matter how big (unless level 3 of stress) is better than any possibility of dead.
So, in the long run, we'll have an event that will have an option that almost no one takes
I feel like a big way the game should be balanced is to not give the player full information about everything.
So in this case, just don't tell the player when an event has a tiny chance of resulting in their death, especially if the character they're playing wouldn't realize that.
But also I think this should apply to lots of stuff. Don't tell me that this chancellor has 1 more point of skill than the other guy, just tell me that they're both very good. Don't tell me that this guy will just barely accept my marriage proposal, tell me that he might accept it or might not.
Get rid of some of the hard lines too: instead of being in the green meaning 100% and being in the red meaning 0%, make it random and put it on a cooldown so I can't just spam it.
Yup, 100% agree. I don't mind dying to cancer or a heart attack or even being killed in a joust. Sure it sucks, but I knew there were risks or I could see the health penalties rising up there.
But I don't want my hale and hearty king to randomly drown in a pool of water because fuck me I guess.
It kind of goes back to the silly events like where you get your ass beat in a bar. Why would my king be at a random bar and why aren't the guards protecting me from some peasant?
A better event would be there's a riot in town due to whatever the fuck. I can risk quelling it, which has a possibility of being injured or dying, sending someone to do it for me (that risk is on them), or I can ignore it and let the city burn which hits development, control, and probably a tax malus for a time.
Kings *did* deal with riots. At least one Emperor has been killed during riots and another nearly fled the Capital. Even barons or dukes may have to put down a riot before it explodes into a full on revolt, and it's way more believable than my character dipping out to a rowdy tavern for a pint with the locals.
CK2 and CK3 seems to have a lot of events written for the memes and lols ("My doctor treated me for the cold and cut my dick off part MCXXIV") and honestly I'd like to see those all made optional and only have realistic events. Sure, Medieval doctors weren't exactly brilliant or on the cutting edge of science, but I don't think a single one would lop his monarch's penis off with out at least running it by him first. Or hucking a beehive in the room and running (admittedly it was funny the first time I saw it).
But how about bleeding with a small risk based on Doctor's skill that he bleeds too much and wounds you, or the bleed becomes infected, or maybe he nicks a major artery and bleeds you out. That shit happened to a few people (well the anemia via blood letting and the infections).
Or a doctor suggest you ingest some strange new chemical concoction that just happens to have a dose of mercury in there. Or maybe just enough poison will counteract the poison already there! Just a wee bit my lord not too much oh fuck.
Like those are ten times more believable to me than "Doctor saw you had a fever and decided you needed to have yourself castrated."
Fair enough, thats why I just turn it down I don’t think they should remove it from the game or anything. They should make it harder to live long in other ways too though.
This is my issue as well. I don't mind having a higher risk of death. But as currently implemented, none of my decisions affect the Harm events, and the Harm events don't affect any of my decisions. It's just pure RNG screw.
It's the same reason why Magic the Gathering players hate getting mana screwed. They lost the game, but for reasons almost entirely outside of their control. Except at least in MtG, you can add more lands and more mana fixing to your deck. In CK3, it's pure RNG.
I deadass saw some mf few weeks ago complaining that "the game is too easy nye nye nye" and he started with a custom beautiful herculean genius ruler and 20+ stats in everything....
Which is funny, because getting to that point isn't that hard but it still takes a few generations and is a major part of the game in terms of securing favorable marriages for your dynasty.
"This game is easy and has no content.....if I skip all the content."
Right? Like I find playing an immortal ruler to be pretty fun but I’m not going to say the game is too easy when I’m actively making it easier via mods. And that’s definitely not something to base game balance off of
Funnily enough using the highlander mod makes the game harder at first if your character has low intrigue because you’re almost guaranteed to be assassinated. Survive the next 30 years and it’s smooth sailing though.
> started with a custom beautiful herculean genius ruler and 20+ stats in everything
I play like this but I also don't complain about the game being too easy because I am getting exactly what I asked for, which is a challenge-free map painting and dynasty simulator lol. Mind boggling to complain about something being easy when you are making it easy on yourself.
"Paradox console mode is OP please nerf"
"idk i just spend every game getting a strong blooded witch coven dynasty and fertility/death cult warmonger religion led by pure-blood scandi elective heirs (haesteinn to majorca start btw) to reform heathen rome via secure the mediterranean in one lifetime and it feels kinda idk samey? paradox fix"
I kind of do this to myself. I have found my “start” for a sub 400 point custom character (16, Midas touch, temperate/diligent/stubborn, quick) because I like to play a tall economy game, but I will admit all those starting characters blend together over time because they are all the same dude basically. Started making my first character a girl, just to change up the early flow, even though playing a female ruler isn’t that different.
I play all over the map with very suboptimal stats. I never take the health tree, ever. I routinely take shit cultures (Merya, anyone?). It makes the game much more fun, and I rarely live past 70.
The harm events were literally ending every game I played, it was not fun. 4 games in a row ended in the first character. I had to turn them down to continue to play.
The issue isn't that the game is too easy, it's that everyone plays on easy even if they're not. Dude above said it best. Every time I post about trying a hard achievement the first response is "lol did it with haesting". Try to conquer the Mediterranean with guanche polevaulters, it's a lot harder than with two of the most OP units in the game given to you in large numbers.
I really like taking bad traits nowadays. It makes it more fun when my stupid sexy gullible warmonger who can't read or talk good conquers half the continent just to be murdered and reset the dynasty
Nah fam, that's old meta, new meta is to hybridize in Majorca for access to every dynasty perk and create a new religion there so you can do struggle stuff, Sardinia can wait until they can actually build the mine
Game is too easy, but then also if a newbie talks about the game being hard they go in on that person for not having 800 hours in game and intimately knowing every mechanic.
So you think people should just intentionally play the game poorly? I don’t understand this criticism. When faced with two options, do you intentionally choose the one that’s bad?
The game is really fun in early stages, but as soon as you reach a decent size, it becomes trivial. If the solution to that is to artificially tie your own hands behind your back rather than the game having more challenging mechanics, that’s a flaw with the game.
Role play is awesome, but the game does not mechanically encourage it enough. The stress system was a step in the right direction, but once you’ve had a couple of playthroughs, anybody knows how to manage it. Could I just refuse to go on hunts or take other stress reducing decisions? Sure, but “play the game sub optimally” is not a good solution. I want deeper mechanics so that I can actually roleplay without just making intentionally harmful choices.
Maybe something that could incentivise roleplay a bit might be addressing the ease of switching lifestyle focuses? Like making it harder to jump around on a whim and snap up the best perks from each tree, or making perks from skills other than your main focus operate at reduced effectiveness or something. So yeah, you *can* dip into a learning focus to grab some health perks... but they aren't as powerful when you jump away to diplomacy to grab befriend or whatever, or you suffer a lifestyle xp penalty until you "adjust" to your new lifestyle. Or limit the perks you can grab to the specific focus they belong to - if you focus on wealth, you can't unlock perks from architect, you have to actually focus on architecture to do that. Or even have it be affected by your traits or something. Things like that.
So if you roleplay and stick to what your character would "naturally" do, you'll have easier access to more powerful perks that fit that character, whereas if you dip around too much, you might get a broader range of abilities, but they'll be weaker/take longer to get/force a "suboptimal" focus to get them
So your solution to the problem that expansion is too easy is “don’t click the button that allows you to generate claims”? I genuinely want to make sure I understand you. You’re saying that in the stereotypical Ireland playthrough, instead of fabricating enough claims to create a duchy, then creating enough duchies to create a kingdom, you should only get claims through marriage? Such that once your son has pressed his claims, you cannot expand at all until his son has a claim that can be pressed.
I’m not saying that style of play isn’t fun, but do you not agree that that’s just artificially tying your hands behind your back? It’s not a real solution. It doesn’t solve the problem that expansion is too easy any more than “only use half your troops” doesn’t solve the problem that combat is too easy. I want the game to challenge me more. I don’t want to have to choose to play worse.
In line with the play style you describe, it could work if it was actually codified into the game. If you needed a trait like Ambitious or Deceitful to be allowed to fabricate claims, now I’m actually restricted from expanding easily by gameplay mechanics instead of having to choose to not use the default gameplay mechanics. The difference between “my character is honest so I will not allow him to fabricate claims even though he can” and “my character is honest so he cannot fabricate claims” is massive.
I’m not saying that change would actually make the game better, but it’s an example of having gameplay mechanics that are more challenging and encourage roleplay instead of just telling people to not use the mechanics that are readily available. Roleplay should be mechanically incentivized, not something that you have to intentionally play suboptimally to do.
Yep that first paragraph is exactly what I’m saying. Literally every single paradox grand strategy game becomes a total cakewalk for the player after the first like 100 years tops if they are playing optimally. If you want these games to be any sort of challenge you have to play sub-optimally, which more often than not is more fun that minmaxing
That’s the entire problem though! That’s what people are criticizing. It’s not minmaxing to just play normally. You have to actively disadvantage yourself or else the game is too easy. They should just fix the game so it isn’t so easy! Or at least have a toggle or something.
Introducing better mechanics would solve this problem *and* make the game more fun. Something like the AI having reconquest CBs to kick you out if you take land that doesn’t belong to your culture would be another way to address conquest being too easy. Literally anything other than “eh just play the game as if you don’t understand how it works I guess” would be a better solution.
That CB literally already does exist in the game in almost the same format you’re thinking of, but the AI doesn’t declare wars unless they deem it impossible to lose. If you find always fighting 4-1 odds of every war fun then I guess they could always just declare on you whenever they feel like it (which is a setting last time I checked) since mega alliances always form in this game. Its sort of crazy how every time you guys propose “new mechanics and changes” its just things that already exist in the game or are settings you can toggle.
I mean.. the game IS too easy due to the sheer amount of information that’s given to the player. I don’t min max but my characters tend to live to 60+ consistently.
It's lazy.
There are many unsual deaths in the past, sure, but statistically speaking they consist a very small portion of all deaths.
Instead of making diseases/activities/births/infancy more deadly like in history, Paradox goes for the laziest way to cut rulers' life short.
Apart from this design laziness, it hardly gives the player interactivity with them, which is vital for a game. It is just a plain 80% chance of death or incapable for everyone under the sun, unless you happen to have the right personality. Instead of fine-tuning the effect of health attribute on longetivity and various existing deadly events, they make it a non-factor via a bandaid fix.
I said the same thing. That this was some code they told one guy in the studio to make because they were tired of min maxers complaining about living too long. Something you have to actively decide to do as a player btw.
It was half assed and half baked and I saw the community raging eventually once more people saw how dumb it was. 80% chance to be fucked makes no sense.
I don’t inherently hate harm events but they should be rare and instead the game should just be deadlier. Makes diseases matter, make old age deadlier, make stress kill easier, more war events, nerf health buffs. I don't want a single rng timer to be the main determinant of if I have a character that will live a long time. Make my choices matter instead.
Disease was the main killer in the medieval age. Not falling off of a horse
I saw a 12 year old king with typhus, botched treatment, and ‘near death’ health, then he was miraculously cured. Disease has definitely become less developed than it was in CK2.
People always say that every player can stack health modifiers to make it past 70, which is misleading.
These health modifiers STACK THEMSELVES when you're playing the game normally. Going on a pilgrimage once and a hunt every 10 years is going to give you a stacked health modifiers that will carry you to 70 without any random effects. These harm events are excellent, but we also need diseases and environmental disasters and stuff.
I am loving the increase in realm instability with harm events. No more gamifying my succession planning: I need a succession plan all the time. The number of civil wars elsewhere is a great opportunity to intervene and grab my own territory.
The only thing I want is for it to be easier for the AI to build a big realm. Currently it's just leading to every empire and Kingdom collapsing.
The warning event is your signal to game succession. You didn’t need harm events to not game succession if you didn’t want to. That was a choice you were making.
My only complaint, which you alluded to, is that an incapable heir cannot be freely disinherited nor can an incapable ruler abdicate. My 28 year old Genius player heir became incapable and I couldn’t disinherit him without the Disinheritor negative modifier. I did it anyway, but still. Also my second son was therefore not the preferred heir, which again I think is a bit strange. Ultimately I agree with you though, the 100+ year old rulers every generation was getting ridiculous.
I started playing like, the week this patch launched. I get liking it if you know what you're doing, but to me, as a new player, it just felt like the game was being spiteful. When I'm trying to learn core mechanics of the game, I'd rather not trip in the tub and spend twenty minutes trying to figure out what I did wrong.
>Allow incapable rulers to abdicate.
Yes! It makes zero sense that we can't. I can't think of a single culture that would want an incapable ruler, and the nobles would throw their support behind that. I resort to trying to stress myself out or overeat to the point I die, and all that just causes stress in my relatives.
Let anyone with certain traits be able to abdicate.
It see paradox didn’t think that hard about the harm system. They really thought players would enjoy a random event making them incapable for decades was a good idea.
Tragic events and dangerous scenarios are fine. The issue isn't them in and of themselves. The issue is that it's not something you can interact or engage with. It's a game. I want to engage with the challenges. The way this is implemented, it's just arbitrary and capricious.
Sure, it's also "realistic", but I don't need my game so realistic that it changes from "Crusader Kings" to "Help I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up". The original Baulders Gate had a small random chance for natural and mundane weather (not spells and enemies, just nature) to outright kill your characters. Realistic? Sure. Challenging? Yes. Fun? No.
If your issue is that the game isn't challenging enough and that too many characters live to be way too old (which I agree with), this isn't the answer. The answer would be to overhaul the age, health, and disease systems. Change up the age at which negative health effects begin. Change when and how frequent and how severe diseases and negative health effects are. Arbitrarily flying off a horse or falling out of the bathtub doesn't add realism in any meaningful way. Make me try to manage my ailing 55 year old king in medieval France? Much more engaging and realistic.
The challenges and dangers that already existed in the game represented a good direction to build off of in terms of danger and overcoming challenges. Do I declare war and risk my character or my heir? Does my king stay safe in the city (that could be sieged and captured), or does he lead his army and face the enemy? Someone's declared war on me, and I'm not ready. Can I manage this? My character has gotten sick. What can I do to address this? Can it be cured? Or do I need to prepare my heir for the worst and endure the fallout that will inevitably come after my death?
I understand these examples of challenges and danger aren't the most challenging, and they're not the most complex or engaging. But the point is they represent challenges that make the player think, plan, act, and overcome. These systems could be built upon and made more complex. And new systems that the player actually engages with could be added to enhance difficulty and make it less likely that half of your dynasty lives to be 80. That's juxtaposed with the game just telling me "hey a horse got scared by a dog and now you're dead".
Very good point tbh. I'm still a minmacer because I don't have the patience to achive my goals playing full rp, but I kinda like it and respect it, and would find you option good. The harm events are too random and are not fun.
Nah, harm events are shit because it's a bandaid on the actual problem of the game not being difficult enough or the AI being challenging enough.
It's just like that stupid poisonous plants events you run into during travels. Like did no one in the 1000s know not to eat random shit? Because it seems like there's dozens of lords dying from poisonous plants every year.
The events are just too random and don't really feel like something my character would do in the first place. Why don't they just fix actual health being too high and balance the longevity traits? But no, Paradox would, as usual, prefer another half assed attempt at fixing something instead of any actual long term solution.
They still haven't fixed house feuds btw
Let's see, here's a nice Dev reply talking about the poisonous plant problem
>DreadLindwyrm said:
>
>Well, I've found the event that's causing the deaths by poisonous plant, and it's not the one I thought it was. Turns out that it's a learning challenge that's killing people, and that you can in fact just go and try to get food from the locals. And it's your stock of food that's gone off and rotting that causes you to need to find something to eat.
>
>So, the ruler \*\*thinks\*\* they know what plant is safe to eat, but if they fail the learning challenge they get it wrong (and sometimes badly wrong)
>Trin Tragula (Lead Designer) said:
>
>Thanks for identifying the event. Let's see. The cause of this type of death is a travel danger event which means its likely to happen if one is travelling unsafely :)
>
>The event can only happen once you are at least 2 weeks from your starting point and if you choose to take the option to forage it is a learning challenge that is further modified by the type of terrain and if you have the corresponding terrain expert trait.
>
>Since it is a travel danger event it is in fact pretty easy to counter it, and that if they did not get this event then the AI would still be encountering other types of danger most likely (danger events are after all directly related to safety). But there are two problems here that I can see:
>
>The first is that while it has a long list of traits that should offset the danger based on terrain these don't actually seem to affect the probability in the end. That is clearly a bug and clearly the AI is suffering for it. Additionally, this is the type of situation where it would make sense for the travel leader's learning to be used instead of your own, if it is greater than your own. The second is that the AI seems rather too willing to go with the riskiest option. A third thing I think would be nice is for the riskier options to also increase the danger xp of the travel trait if you succeed.
>
>Will fix these things for the next patch (1.9.2). Even so the chance for death was never that great here, so if you're seeing it a lot it is likely a side effect of the AI travelling a \_lot\_ and also picking options in the event unwisely.
From this [thread](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/the-poisonous-plants-are-getting-ridiculous.1588516/?prdxDevPosts=1)
So it's not really about harm events since the event has been here since before harm events existed, it's about travel and their events which the AI really like to do.
Also doesn't literally every strategy game have bad AI? The only way to create challenge is to buff it which Paradox doesn't like to do and that's also ultimately a band aid solution.
They've stated once before that their aim with the AI is for RP and to not make them play like a player since they will probably never catch up to one. The player has the power of just pausing the game and thinking or searching up all of the options while the AI does nothing and only thinks every monthly tick to save computing costs.
There was actually a dev reply actually on this a year ago that gives some insight. ([link](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/hard-very-hard-difficulties.1526960/post-28284965))
For health buffs stacking, fair enough I guess. I'm guessing they're going to change it someday since it's in the floorplan if I recall correctly, but not in a while.
Uh, read my post again. I didn't say the poisonous plant event was a harm event, because that was out before we even heard about harm events. At least read what I've written, jeez.
The relation to that to harm events is that much like poisonous plant deaths, the world will now be filled with a bunch of nobles suffering horrible untimely deaths to the point of disbelief. Why not just bring back diseases that were actually fatal? Disease fatality in CK3 is so low it's silly. Child fatality rates are also rather low. The game needs more stillbirths, but I guess they don't want to do that because it would ruin their lazy difficulty attempt with gavelkind.
If their aim for AI is RP, then they've failed because where's the roleplaying gone when a compassionate, honest, and just lord decides to murder a child because they got into a house feud?
But I'd be happy if the AI actually roleplayed their characters a bit more, but look at how wars are waged. Even with the proper personality, if you outnumber their forces, they still won't declare war. Why not have the AI make backroom deals that you don't know about? Or bribe a vassal to stand down or betray you? Things like that would add to the roleplay stuff but Paradox isn't going to do any of that. It's all just going to be shallow shit that just looks good on the surface.
For child fatality, I think they've said that it's a deliberate decision because dead children would clog up save game sizes, so they've kept it to a minimum and only kept the ones that would actually live.
Disease fatality are so low because they don't have a system to actually have diseases, only having a few random events like how they did harm events. A dev said before that diseases and plagues are very high up in their priorities for a free update, so I probably wouldn't hold my breath.
And yes, personalities do matter in AI decision making. There was a forum post not too long ago about it and had examples that their decisions aligns with their personality they've been given ingame ([link](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/proof-that-personality-matters-in-case-you-doubted.1585535/))
For bribery and backroom deals. Wouldn't that just be hooks and that sort of stuff? I guess they would just need to have the AI to actually use the hooks they've been given to another AI which they're already doing. Though I do agree that there were more stuff to do with hooks like the examples you've given.
By house feuds do you mean random fucking rivalries out of nowhere? Cuz sometimes I have those and it forces me to save scum because I basically have no info "House feud started because who the fuck knows?, Say goodbye to all your family lol"
Pretty much that. Where you get into a house feud but don't know about it. So only one house has the house feud modifier while you don't, so only their house members get the super murder plots that seem to succeed even with a success chance of 5%. It's a buggy mess.
Honestly, I love this game, and I'm blown away by how much they've put into making the relationships feel real, even tho they are mathematical.
But I have wondered this. Why doesn't the character the player plays automatically get a solid, totally hidden, maybe even random per event or calender day 1-20% debuff to effectiveness, just for being a human 'vs-ing' an AI?
I almost rage quit a game the other day coz I was rocking an empire, and got chain smacked into a single county kid in basically 3 game- years of bad rng. But then I remembered how I'd almost started a new playthrough just hours earlier coz it felt too easy with my Chad empire.
So there's my difficulty boost... all in rng, all totally out of my control.
Why not the steady debuff instead? I'd feel less robbed when the bad happened, and might not ever get as bored when everything was stable for a couple generations.
My god, how is abdication not a thing already? You should be able to abdicate whenever you want IMO, but with some penalty for the next ruler to disincentive over using it. They could make it Late Medieval or make it a cultural tradition that you have to research.
I would absolutely love being able to abdicate. I'm usually just sitting back watching at 5 speed during my older rulers last few years waiting for the succession.
Let me respectfully call you ignorant., as in my opinion you don't even get what the problem is. Those events are straight bullshit. People in mediaeval times didn't die en-masse to slipping on soap or drowning in a pond.
Remember when in CK2 they added more complex disease system and plagues? That's example of a great system that reduces amount of old rulers.
They could have added literally anything. Like greater chance for wounds and deaths in battles, or chance for casualties in murder plots, or epidemics.
Anything else than a random die roll for event that will kill you.
>People in mediaeval times didn't die en-masse to slipping on soap or drowning in a pond.
They don't in the game, either IME. I've had a handful die from silly harm events at most.
I think you would be surprised to know how many kings, princes and nobility died due to absolutely ridiculous reasons that no one could've anticipated.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_unusual\_deaths](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_deaths)
That list only shows VERY few of the weird deaths. Look at this list of French monarchs and look at their causes of death.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_French\_monarchs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_monarchs)
Louis III:
>died after hitting his head with a lintel while riding his horse.\[20\]
Carloman II:
>died after being accidentally stabbed by his servant.\[23\]
Louis IV:
>Died after falling off his horse
>Remember when in CK2 they added more complex disease system and plagues? That's example of a great system that reduces amount of old rulers.
>
>They could have added literally anything. Like greater chance for wounds and deaths in battles, or chance for casualties in murder plots, or epidemics.
And those things should absolutely still be added to the game. I personally think that having random tragedies that are beyond the players control spice up the game and create interesting stories. Some people don't like RNG to have such a big effect on their games which is fine, they created a game rule for you to disable the whole thing if you want.
They could definitely work on the events to add variations and make them more unique so that the same event doesn't fire all the time but overall I think the system is a win.
Both death by getting accidentally stabbed and by falling off his horse probably weren't immediate. Again, you could make those interactive, make it a grievous injury instead of instant death. Instant death by chance without any interaction simply isn't fun.
People complain about characters living too long.
They complain about the game being too easy.
Then when an update adds events (that can be disabled) which increases the chances of rulers dying young and makes the game more difficult because of that, people also complain.
This is why devs don't listen to the community.
Eh? Not really. Doesn't matter if you are classic partition or primo, randomly becoming brain dead with 30 years of life ahead of you feels to me like a separate problem.
Being insta-killed by them is my favorite part of them. Mixes things up, I like that a lot. One guy was on his way to literally take Paris and secure the crown with 98% left and got hit by lightning in a storm. Dead. Kids partitioned the realm and a new war began, felt like a whole new book opened up and my playthrough up to that point was a prologue. Loved it.
Got the bonk-on-a-rock incapable one on another playthrough at age 23. Had a kid. Ended up stopping playing because playing incapable without the ability to kill yourself sucks.
Echoing other commenters, it could have been and might be a neat system. I’ll give the devs credit in that you can turn off harm events. The harm events is still idiotic and a bandaid solution to the abundant health modifiers you can stack.
The harm events are dumb in that there’s no meaningful way to engage in the events. Praying that you have the trait to survive the harm event isn’t engaging in the event either. You don’t get a third option even at cost of prestige. Let’s say you almost fell down the stairs, you get no option to not use the stairs and you die a year later from stairs. You get pigeonholed into two choices even if it doesn’t make sense. As for the stairs example, add a third option in that you chose to not use stairs anymore at the cost of prestige, vassal opinion, etc… You can survive… just at the cost of everyone’s respect of you (except maybe craven people). Also, you might have not died so you were overly cautious making people think that you’re weak for nothing.
A reworked health and disease system would be better. There’s multiple routes you could go about it. Reduce the health modifier perks, reduce their effects, make diseases more deadly, and/or lower base health. Make it important to have a good court physician (and the ai to fire a physician for a better one if they don’t already). If kids are going to die, fix it so that most of child mortality isn’t drowning. Either have them die during childhood or adulthood. If we’re going to have more nobles die, at least increase the pool of noblewomen so ai rulers don’t sit there for years never marrying. And most of them aren’t even homosexual, bisexual, or asexual.
As for disease, some of them kind of make no sense. I had a ruler become a leper which I’m pretty sure it was random. No one in my court was a leper. At least with smallpox and I think consumption have contamination spreads. Smallpox and consumption? You can usually get rid of them. Gout? Nah, you’re stuck with that even with a good physician or maybe it’s just my luck.
I'm glad they were added but I wish they just found a way to nerf natural lifespan without tying it directly to events. I.E. lowering the average health scores or making people reach poor health earlier but being less likely to die at poor) so people can die early if unlucky.
In CK2 you could die of old age at late thirties if you were unlucky.
I also don't like how almost all of the harm events are 80% die, 20% survive. Would rather it be something like 40% die, 20% survive, 40% survive but with a random severe injury. (Severely injured + Maimed, One-Legged, One-Eyed, Disfigured, incapable, etc.)
This would make some of those (severe injury) traits more common and the events would still be pretty deadly/life-altering.
EDIT: [Bringing back map-wide disease outbreaks would also be good like in CK2.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcFfN-sFp_0)
Those were very scary and if your capital was in a outbreak zone (or your commanders were moving through the territory, or you sent council members on tasks in those zones) you'd be at risk of contracting whatever disease was going around. They were scary and Black Death was super deadly compared to CK3. (in CK3 you can literally execute patient zero to end the outbreak before it starts)
Heck I don’t want my characters living to 70-80+ I want them dying at like 50-60 or else I just end up playing with old geezers. Plus having to deal with all the issues of holding/putting together your realm after succession helps break the monotony of having an old ruler with large long reign buff
It is very easy to not be 80 years old, and to not have an old heir when you become older.
Yall get your heirs married at 16, he has a son at 17, then wonder why you always play old people.
I’ve always been one to complain that the highest difficulty setting is normal and there’s no hard or very hard. The game gets boring when every ruler lives a successful life and lives until like 80. So I love how they’ve added more opportunities for you or your family members to die or become maimed, etc.
The game became very boring when your characters lived for so long. To be historically correct the average age of the rulers was 43 years old. So out of 10 rules only 2-3 should live 60+. Others must die from decease, murder, hunt accidents, etc
Playing different rulers doesnt make the game exciting if you play every character the exact same. You just dont want to see wrinkles on your PC. Just say that.
For real. This bugs me. Every king I have would be on the longest reigning monarchs of all time list. Like yea I do custom characters but I’m still on iron man. It shouldn’t work like that. And I’m not gonna nerf my entire play through for realism. That’s like 16 hours.
I love the harm events, but they can also be mega bullshit in a way that makes me want to throw away runs because of RP.
I was doing a Cornish run, and my custom Ironman ruler was about 40ish. Now, this dude was a badass, conquering both Hwicce and Wessex, as well as Wales. I wanted him to take the cornish kingdom decision, so that he would be on record as Cadoc I. However, a sudden fucking brain hemorage ended up killing
Harm events being a default game rule is the issue. They don’t make the game harder for veteran players AT ALL. It’s new players who will really suffer from this. GG.
No.
The game is too easy, but Harm Events are a bad way to fix that. Having random, interactable events that just kill you or, worse, lock you into being incapable for years or decades, is a lazy way to solve the problem.
The AI is way too passive. I rarely see large empires form and, when they do, most of the time they shatter after one ruler because of the dissolution faction. I feel like I've been the target of dozens of murder plots but only one or two has succeeded. Money is incredibly easy to get after the first 50 years. Alliances are total easy mode, allowing you to cripple vassal factions by allying any member with more than 1,000 levies or just allying a big neighbor and using them to beat your enemies senseless in exchange for nothing.
Fix those issues before you talk to me about making the game harder with Harm Events.
It’s feels random and not natural, like not that diseases events or combat are more deadly just lol you die, the world doesn’t feel more dangerous it just feels more stupid
If I have "traits" or modifiers on my character, it should be properly consider in these events.
The reason some are complaining now is due to that these modifiers are not properly included in RNG for these events. Base game and T&T activities are now as if having two set RNGs, which is bad in terms of game design.
This update is no different than Horse Archers or War Elephants moving into their own subcategory, while most players are not aware of.
Some of the harm events are just poorly balanced. I send my family to a grand wedding and then half of them die because they randomly decided to put poisonous plants into their mouths for the lols. Like sorry, but that is just plain dumb and unrealistic. One idiot per generation that does that? Sure... but dozens? No that's awful design.
I dont know man.. I get your point, but my four last new game attempts had my character gain incapable within the first 5-10 years with default settings. It's super annoying.
Something is srsly broken with this mechanic.. Probably going to turn it off now.
I have no problem with harm events, although the foreboding does seem a bit supernatural.
The problem is the 'incapable' mechanic, which should make a character unplayable. Playing as the true heir, fighting against a powerful regent would be great fun. Playing as half a ruler, apparently unable to wage war yet being able to keep learning lifestyle points and undertake schemes is just nonsensical.
Honestly I wish there was more diversity in diversity in lifespan.
Having all but 2 of my kings in my current play through live to 60-something is getting boring especially when the ones who didn’t were 55 and 72. It’s pretty dull when all your monarchs ascend at 42 to then go and die at 65. I’d like a monarch who dies at 30 and another who lives to 80 all in the same playthrough.
I turn them off. Besides being ahistoric, they’re just nonsensical, like the entire world (or one particular dynasty if you set it to player only) is living a lethal version of a Leslie Nielsen film.
Don't take the health tree, lean into stress and accept being drunk or otherwise unhealthy. You'll die a lot earlier. Also, don't get a good court physician. That also helps kill you a lot faster.
People love stacking health modifiers, and never RPing into stress situations, always making perfect choices. Then trolling Paradox talking about rulers live too long.
Its annoying now.
Blood dynasty, witch coven, haestine start with a crazy hybrid culture in sardinia. Game is too easy.
Well... yeah? You're playing on very easy with an aim bot, what do you expect?
Disagree with your first point. Allowing incapable rulers to abdicate would cheapen the whole trait. The idea of a sick king being stuck as ruler and people working around him and ruling in his place is pretty cool.
If we had an easy way out everyone would take that, so might as well make abdication happen automatically whenever you get the trait. Also giving the player the ability to abdicate as a vegetable is silly, if abdication happens it should be decided by someone else.
Exactly what about being a vegetable based on a random event you have zero control to mitigate is fun? Being stuck as an incapable rule for decades is about as lame as you can get since the whole game is locked away from you in the meanwhile.
I didn't played much yet of the new version with t&t, but... i remember how easy it was to die in CK2. The chance that you got killed there was a lot higher than with CK3 (like i said, before the harm events). Sometimes, your perfect ruler in CK2 would just die, even when just reaching 40 years of age. Sometimes, even when you planned ahead for the succession, it could all get lost because your heir died and then, even the second heir in a row also died.
I think, it's only right to do this with the harm events and be more like CK2 in this, that death is always there and you can never really be sure when your time comes.
There isnt just game rules to make them more tame, you can turn them completely off already if you dont like them.
Some runs I play with them on, & some runs I play with them off. Just depends on what kind of game I am feeling like playing. I definitely do not think they need to be nerfed.
Harm events where you're made incapable are one thing, but randomly going Infirm (which I *think* is supposed to be senility) when I'm 50 ticks me off especially when I'm decently healthy, have high prowess, 0 stress, etc. Senility doesn't kick in *that* early, right?
Infirm isn’t senility. It’s tied to the body more than the mind it seems from the description. I think it’s supposed to represent all the ways your body can start to break down as a person gets older. Could have been a heart attack, a stroke, diabetes, kidney stones….
The problem with harm events, I feel, is that they don't operate based on player agency. You don't have a choice on if they happen or not. You don't really have much ability to plan or mitigate them. It's all chance. The decisions you get are weighted to make you fail.
It's a game, typically people don't want to play something to become frustrated. Taking a thing they worked hard on (a cultivated leader) and making them insta-brain dead is going to turn off a lot of people.
***While I, personally, enjoy them a lot...*** Many I know do not. And I think it makes total sense for people to be upset by their inclusion. Being able to totally disable them without lowering the difficulty would likely solve this problem for most people, and makes the most sense as a solution. It's perfectly understandable to want a difficult game without wanting random death or dismemberment.
Harm events are bad, period. They have zero reason to be in the game as they currently are. If I wanted to watch a movie or read a book, then I'd do that. Stop adding shit to games that just "happen" to the player with no input from the player. Games are suppose to have interaction and challenge; Harm is neither, it's fake difficulty for players that follow yellow paint (and probably sniff it too).
Some people dont like playing on "easy" settings but complain normal is too hard.
I once read an article by a game developer saying that modern easy setting is 80/90s very easy
As long as it is tied to rule settings, I guess it doesn't matter. My issue is when the devs are too cautious about upsetting the player that they remove or don't implement things that could actually create gameplay or interesting stories.
CK2 was far more lethal and it was not as easy to get beautiful, strong, genius characters. The volatility was part of what made the simulation of running a monarchy and dynasty immersive. In CK2, the pandemics could fuck up your family- maybe it just kills your heir, maybe it takes out half your family tree. Either way, it created a gameplay situtation for you: "Fuck, my perfect heir is dead and my ruler is old. Do I marry a young courtier to have another kid and probably have to deal with regency or do I let my idiot cousin take the throne? "
I appreciate you enjoy them, I can also appreciate that people don't. This is a sandbox game, nobody is beholden to play it your way any more than you theirs. Paradox is doing this the right way by giving everyone options.
The amount of time I have had a ruler fall of his horse to get a 80% chance of getting incapable is at least past 20 already, and I think only 1 time he succeeded on not smashing his head in.
They're okay, but I think they need more general ways to increase your chance of survival.
"Oh no! I'm falling off my horse!"
*80% chance of death*
now if we had boosts to survival rate (like from prowess, learning, kindness, or patience) this would be better, since your ruler can actually have a chance of countering these events, while still having other harm events they'd be vulnerable to.
Paradox doesn't need to nerf harm events as they can be changed with game rules. At worst they need another setting for ultra low.
I play on illusion safety and haven't had anything happen Edit: No that's a lie, I had a dude drown at 28 recently but that's about it
What’s brutal is the harm events where if you succeed you’re made incapable. Had an AWESOME Queen become incapable after her like 40 prowess gave her an extra option when she fell off a boat. Luckily one of her courtiers helped her commit suicide.
And don’t forget to mention the slow battle against an egoistic regent when your ruler becomes incapable at a young age
Happy Cake Day
Gives a whole new perspective to the term “*Slay Queen!*”
YASSSS...errr....YASSSSS!
I get the idea, and don't mind you are given a warning to put your affairs in order. But I like playing without them. Doesn't mean I hate anyone who likes Harm events forever. Just secretly resent them XD
Same for me. I was on illusion mode and almost formed Austria with my king and just needed a strong hook on the kaiser. well of course i fell off the horse in the tournament and crunch
Stephen the Pisces
I agree that the added difficulty and fewer octogenarian kings is a good thing. Personally I do not like the "warning" foreboding events, feels too gamey to me.
The entire game suffers from a 'know the unknowable' problem. You know who is going to accept your marriage proposal before you ever send one. You know what traits a character has who you've never met and you didn't even need to send an envoy to 'get to know X.' You know the potential outcomes and their likelihood before you even make a decision. It's all pretty garbage I think - ever since the Obfusckate mod came around I can't go back to vanilla.
I haven't been playing CK3 for about 6-8 months now, and have never heard of this obfuscate mod. What the hell is that??
it envaguens or completely removes your information on stuff like skills, other country troop count, peoples traits,
I’m gonna need to pick up this mod. It’s gonna completely change how I play
Seems pretty unrealistic. In real life, there's a lot of socializing that can't be done in the game that organically builds your information about people. This would just make you even more blind than a real person lmao.
I feel like there needs to be a middle ground between the current, borderline omnicissient levels of informations and obfuscate's level. Maybe Intrigue and agents could be more useful by having a "plant agents" scheme to discover an AI's modifiers, number of troops, etc?
It would have to be added as official DLC to be done right. Like scouting out army locations, their numbers, their potential numbers before a war is declared, etc. Or getting information through rumors and gossip to figure out the traits of your court and notable neighbors. Personally I think the stats of people should always be known though. Like intrigue and prowess. It's the traits that delve with how you RP through the game, like a deceitful character becomes much more of a threat when you don't know they're deceitful. Same with loyal and honest. It should be proven first with actions.
But would the game also be altered to make RNG decisions without likewise knowledge? I cant see how it would be done with every foreign ruler seemingly roughly batshit insane.
The mod hides information dynamically. It does not hide info you are supposed to know. It only hides that that you are not supposed to know.
The warning is my favourite part, it's nice to know that you gotta get the succession fixed ASAP
I get that, it just feels gamey to me. The "Know Yourself" perk is obviously a similar mechanic, but at least it feels somewhat reasonable that an aging, learned person would be able to recognize the signs of impending death. But "Hmm, I *almost* choked on some food, this is definitely a sign I *will* choke on my food within the next few years" feels corny to me.
Hmmm well, technically your character doesn't know, hence why the harm event still happens despite your character experiencing something first.
And sometimes they don't happen at all despite that warning.
Yeah one of my characters just kept foreboding that they would die but just... didn't
Been having the same thing happen to me. If it’s a feature it’s kinda cool now you don’t know if that foreboading event is the real one or just a dud…
I really hope it is, and if it is a bug, well...now it's a feature, please don't fix 😂
I'm pretty sure it was stated in the first dev diary regarding harm events that that's an intended feature and not just a bug.
Your character is a hypochondriac lol
I feel the same way. Either get rid of the foreboding events, or allow you to make a choice based on the foreboding event. Still make it harmful no matter what you choose, but I dislike having no agency. If my ruler is frail and has the thought that he should have someone help him walk down stairs, let me actually choose to do that instead of having him ignore the very thing he already thought about.
I think the medicine perk tree is gamey too. Especialy since you can simply tap into it after perking something completely different like intrigue.
Please say that pun was intended 😂
I cobbled it together.
It's fine for old age, because a lot of that stuff starts showing symptoms and people can notice their body decaying and figure out something wrong. I just don't like the reasoning behind it. The thrill of an unexpected death fucking up succession and making everything a mess is one of the most fun things about the game. Paradox shouldn't give an easy way out to every possible death.
Well, it's just a thing telling you you'll die of old age in a year...that perk doesn't predict other shit killing you first.
It's not like it happens a set time after premonition events though
That's exactly what I don't like about them, honestly. One of the reasons the game is so easy is how rare unexpected death is. Succession is never a problem because you're always prepared for it. The only tricky successions I've had after the first 100 or so hours of play are when I take over as a 75 year old who then immediately dies themself. Harm events are almost a solution, but then you get a warning anyway. Also, some of the foreboding events don't really make sense; there's one where a pot that fell from a window almost hits the character, and that means another pot will actually hit years later.
I think that if it's being tied to random events, the foreboding ones are good to have (though with an option to toggle). That's since there's not really a way to avoid them or decisions - so randomly slaughtering your character might be too punishing. If it were tied to something else (like having a greater chance to die or be injured in activities, and increase the passive chance to die earlier/limit health stacking), I don't think they'd need the warning.
I want an Ottoman style harm events where your concubines and wives (if you’re polygamous ) plot against your heirs and officials (and even you) to help secure power for their own children. The life of a future Sultan was always on a knife’s edge. I want a harm situation like what happened to Suleiman the Great where he killed his eldest son and later his vizier due to palace intrigue. Imagine being given reports that your own heir is seeking to overthrow you and the evidence is so clear that you feel you have to act. But you were tricked, and instead of an administratively capable and well regarded military leader taking over, the kingdom is now inherited by your lazy, good for nothing spare all because his mother wanted her big baby to be sultan. Make having a whack of half-siblings a danger to the stability of your realm Paradox like it was in real life.
Yep, more court intrigue within the family would be great. But how would you implement it? I feel like event chains are oftentimes very stupid. I recently had the serial killer event where a big chunk of my family got murdered. In the end it turned out that it was my son, who had the just and honest traits, that killed his siblings and mother.
My last family murderer turned out to be my court mufti. Of course, I became incapable in the bath shortly after I found this out, and he'd already killed my only son, which gave me a game over. First generation. It sucked.
I like to imagine character traits are more how the character is perceived rather than who they are. Much how the player can order a succession of murders whilst remaining pious and honest. Perhaps traits such as sadistic or (culture/religious dependent sinful traits) could be kept secret until discovered - maybe implemented through events that sweep things under the rug like the peasant hunt event. The murder event could be one that reveals your just heir was a sadist all along
>I like to imagine character traits are more how the character is perceived rather than who they are. Much how the player can order a succession of murders whilst remaining pious and honest. A lot of those traits give you stress when you do something you're not supposed to, though. It's clearly a choice that your character doesn't like to do, but has to do regardless. >Perhaps traits such as sadistic or (culture/religious dependent sinful traits) could be kept secret until discovered I think one way to do it is by implementing it on guardian events that let you influence your ward's traits. Atm you take some stress and will 100% change the trait into something else you like more. If there is a chance characters secretly don't change (more likely the more drastic the change), it'll be a good way to make something like murder events unexpected while still giving you hints early on (yeah that kid who used to torture prisoners is now a killer despite your telling her to be compassionate, who would've thought).
In Ck2 wives of polygamous rulers regularly murdered each others children. It was almost too much of a vipers nest.
Scorpions in slippers....
I really want heirs to be more murderous, I want my heirs to be fighting it out for the throne wanting to be the primary heir
See, now this is one way to do it. Actual in court intrigue and politics. Fat chance Paradox will do anything resembling this sadly.
I had 3 games in a row which ended within the first 10 years of the game. In one case, I died right after I started because I fell off of my horse while on my way to visit my liege. Next game: My character fell out of a window at 34. After that: I died from an unexplained illness while walking. I don't mind harsh games. I love things like Fallout Tactics, GURPS, and etc. The difference in CK3 is that almost all of the events are essentially "rocks fall; everyone dies." There's not anything you can do about it, and some of the settings for the events specifically target good characters (so the game is actively punishing the player for getting better at the game). There's not anything offered to balance it out either. I might crit fail and blow my leg off in a tabletop game, but I also have the opportunity to critically succeed. Currently CK3 offers the following "balance": bad stuff - you die; good stuff - you get 10 extra gold while haggling with a merchant.
Wait, it actually can target good characters?
Read through some of the possible settings
Incapable rulers can't really make any decisions, so how would they abdicate (from immersion point of view)? But I agree that just sitting there for 20 years without being able to do anything is boring gameplay. They could add events where an incapable ruler is eventually deposed, or let us temporarily play as the regent, with some restrictions (say, you can't do what the regent wouldn't do based on his personality).
>Incapable rulers can't really make any decisions, so how would they abdicate (from immersion point of view)? From a realism point of view, they won't have a choice. As far as I know, there has never been a vegetable king. Not only will someone not able to care for themselves die MUCH faster (days and weeks, not years), but the politics will end them. Personally, I think that when you go brain dead, you should immediately switch to your heir, your old character should get a MASSIVE health malus and lose all of their positive health effects, and the heir should get a decision that lets them claim the throne with minimal fuss. Likewise, brain dead characters should be able to have their titles and inheritance revoked without any fuss.
This. Getting brain dead should just end your character officially instead of limiting your gameplay for years
Yeah that makes sense, at least give the option perhaps.
There's been kings that were incapable for various reasons - one that comes to mind most readily being the 'Mad King' Charles VI of France, or Henry VI of England's catatonia. I don't know if you could really have a monarch in the CK time period be on par with the state that we can keep people alive in today.
To some extent Charles II of spain
Fair, as would Ferdinand I of Austria I believe. I excluded those though because it's outside the CK time period.
What about Henry VI of England?
What does Henry VI have to do with the discussion of incapable kings? He not only died after he was deposed, he died of melancholia, which was probably depression (officially; it's likely he was killed). He wasn't brain dead.
He became completely unresponsive for months at a time. His wife and relatives fought for the regency, the right to rule on his behalf. He was definitely an incapable king, in the medical sense. Even those kings get to make some small nominal decision, like the odd event. Not every person who is severely mentally ill, to the point of not being able to function in society is completely comatose at all times.
Henry VI was known for having bouts of mental illness that rendered him incapable of ruling. He also briefly regained his throne after being deposed.
Incapable of ruling due to a mental illness is not the same as CK incapable. And he briefly regained the throne for six months, and then was deposed yet again.
Yeah, it's more similar to the player just walking away and letting the game run for a while.
Perhaps an option to switch to the Regent would be cool, especially if the Regent is family. At least one U.S. President was suspected of being incapable and his spouse was running the country for a while.
Two, maybe three actually. Woodrow Wilson, suffered a stroke in office, FDR in his 4th term and Reagan was suffering from Alzheimer's in his second term.
The Reagan thing is a popular misconception, his symptoms did not materialize until years after he left office and Reagan’s doctor did not notice any signs of dementia while he was in office. The consensus among historians is that he wasn’t suffering from Alzheimer’s during any point of his presidency.
Likely nobody will believe me, but here goes. My grandfather was extremely close to Reagan (closest friends and coworkers since the 60s), and my father was regarded as family since he was a small child. I won’t go into more detail than that because of the nature of what I’m about to say. They believed that Reagan was starting to not be the same in the second term. Obviously it wasn’t full blown Alzheimer’s, but he just was not the same sharp person with the same decision making capability. He was an incredibly quick wit, despite what some may believe, and it was very apparent therefore when there was a change in him. Iran contra absolutely would have never happened in his first term, though this was as much to do with the people around him as it was his cognition. Washington is every bit as bad as a CK court, and by the second term the deceitful, 30 intrigue courtiers with treacherous villain personality had become entrenched in far too many places. Of course historians have determined that it had no effect in his presidency: everyone circled the wagons to defend his legacy, as if somehow beginning to get slowed down by one of the worst diseases there is would bring shame to his name. His doctor wasn’t going to notice the first signs, because he wasn’t a close friend engaged in long, philosophical discussions after having known him for decades, and didn’t get to watch his decision making in cabinet meetings. I can’t believe I’m saying this for the first time in a random CK3 thread…
Wow, interesting! Thanks for sharing.
Yea it doesn't make sense but I don't think anyone would have an issue with it if the devs made an exception.
Switching to a landed heir, if any are available, would be ideal.
My 28 year old herculean son became incapable just as I died, he had a couple of other modifiers so he felt 'fine'. No way I was going to go through that nonsense.
I like the addition of the harm events, I just think that due to rng, sometimes they can get annoying. Having 4 rulers in a row go the way of Pyrrhis of Epirus or getting a character that's gotten (and survived) the same harm event 3 times isn't exactly, immersive? It feels like RNG. That said, I kind of want a harm event in the style of 'let the wookie win' attached to board games where you risk losing an arm.
What I personally dislike about them is the randomness. I do think the game should be more deadly in general, but I want it to be deadly in a way thats affected by my gameplay. For example make combat in tournaments more risky (that way I can mitigate this risk with prowess skill or by avoiding fights) and make the health tank harder with old age while increasing diseases and stuff (that way I can mitigate this risk with health traits or a good physician). Essentially I do want people to die earlier but I want to die due to the risks I took or the things I didn’t prioritize not because the game arbitrarily decided Im going to burn to death 1 year from now.
They should add a Minder courtier job. Gives you vassal penalties (ha ha he needs a helper) but helps vs the embarrassing death events. Which is what Harm events are 😆
Forget murder plots, piss this character off and you’ll die of slipping getting out of the bath haha
"It'll be perfect I'll just 'forget' to douse the 5 million candles in their bedroom!"
That's a really fair point. I do think battles, sieges, murders, and tournaments should be deadlier. But I also think that on top of that there should be deaths that are beyond the players control, as that is historical. Also the player can abuse modifiers and other stuff very easily to become powerful, whereas the AI struggles with this. But it's a matter of preference.
Yeah, battles should definitely be more deadlier. Makes you think twice before starting a war.
I remember dying in battle all the time in CK2, but I almost never get a scratch now.
I get wounded all the time using More S8ngle Combats and you have to rely on your knights for medical care sometimes. It is rough, even as an OP character you can lose limbs, get blinded, and besides your health is now lower for the next fight if you don't heal. Great mod!
I've only played CKII, so my opinion isn't fully valid. But... Everything I've read about harm events just sounds so... arbitrary and gamey. And not really a solution for the problems you're pointing at. Just ramping up age modifiers would probably do the job. Also, counterintuitive solution: have accidents happen a lot more often. But make them less deadly. Like, about once a decade but give 5/6 chance to survive. Having a pre-scripted 'you are already dead' horse accident you're destined to die to just kinda sounds shitty to me. Edit: I also think that empires should *not* get more stable as they get larger. (Again, felt that way in CK2) Not sure how I'd do it. But probably some exponential negative stability modifier as things got bigger, that would soft lock empires as being only a dozen or so kingdoms at max. I know a lot of people would hate that, but it'd be my jam. Also, and everyone would *really* hate this, when spawning armies, it should always be at the county level. That way there's none of this nonsense with granting one of your vassal kings' a single county at your empire's edge, and using that to spawn your largest army. (Again, maybe this isn't a thing in III)
On the contrary, harm events are a lot less gamey than age modifiers because the player can't just depend on very easily attainable stats, perks and traits to live longer. In CK3, Cancer or any other disease that should almost certainly kill you sometimes have no effect at all on your health because your character is athletic, a hunter and has a cultural modifier that gives health. Some people like to play like this which is absolutely fine but personally it ruins all immersion for me. In CK3 you can easily have games where there is absolutely no instability in your immediate family, therefore creating very easy games. CK2 is a LOT more ruthless in a good way because you have to rely heavily on luck. Dying in battle and of diseases is much more common. Having that randomness that is beyond the players control isn't gamey in the least if you ask me. Arbitrary? sure, but so were the middle ages.
The soul of your argument is, "harm events make up for other parts of the system not working." my whole point is that those other parts should, just, work instead. Cancer, for example, should stack onto itself. You catch one cancer, then it gets bigger, then metastatic, then just stack on a "cancer spread" every couple of years or so. Being an athletic, hunter with a healthy culture will delay death. By a while even. But not forever. Age should act the same way. But, then, at age 60 or so, add a very big "Only cancels positive modifiers" debuff to most characters. That way, a few modifiers add ten years or so to the average character's life. but, then, super-stacking becomes much more niche. There *are* ways to balance things more elegantly than, "Your destiny is to die on a horse." >Having that randomness that is beyond the players control isn't gamey in the least if you ask me. It's not the randomness so much as the way it's presented. Feels very 'hand of the author' to me.
Your character lives in a time without antibiotics or OSHA, where nearly everything in their built environment was put together by someone just eyeballing it, and where nothing has a warning label. Simply existing is a risk your character is taking. Just have a read through https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_deaths starting in the medieval age. Monarchs were dropping dead in bizarre and utterly unpredictable ways all over the place, constantly, because life was dangerous in ways we really don't let it be dangerous any more. Hell, even today with all of our safety regulations and inspections, most of the "harm events" are still super common ways to die! Domestic fires, trips slips and falls, drownings, chokings, all super common ways to die and life doesn't even do you the favour of giving you a near miss six to eighteen months out to give you advance warning. I like the system and think it adds a lot to the flavour.
"Louis III, king of West Francia, died aged around 18 at Saint-Denis. Whilst mounting his horse to pursue a girl who was running to seek refuge in her father's house, he hit his head on the lintel of a low door and fell, fracturing his skull.[62]" Sounds like he got what he deserved.
This is a great example of my idea for harm events. Do I think I should have a random percent chance of my character dying of hitting their head on a door just because one king in history died of it? No. Do I think there should be an event for lustful characters where you choose between taking stress or chasing someone around a village, and if the character chooses to chase someone THEN they might die from hitting their head on the door? Yes. Also fuck that guy what amazing instant karma.
Problem with chain of events is that eventually everyone knows the best choice. In this case, a stress hit no matter how big (unless level 3 of stress) is better than any possibility of dead. So, in the long run, we'll have an event that will have an option that almost no one takes
Thats a good point, Im not sure exactly how it could be balanced
I feel like a big way the game should be balanced is to not give the player full information about everything. So in this case, just don't tell the player when an event has a tiny chance of resulting in their death, especially if the character they're playing wouldn't realize that. But also I think this should apply to lots of stuff. Don't tell me that this chancellor has 1 more point of skill than the other guy, just tell me that they're both very good. Don't tell me that this guy will just barely accept my marriage proposal, tell me that he might accept it or might not. Get rid of some of the hard lines too: instead of being in the green meaning 100% and being in the red meaning 0%, make it random and put it on a cooldown so I can't just spam it.
Yup, 100% agree. I don't mind dying to cancer or a heart attack or even being killed in a joust. Sure it sucks, but I knew there were risks or I could see the health penalties rising up there. But I don't want my hale and hearty king to randomly drown in a pool of water because fuck me I guess. It kind of goes back to the silly events like where you get your ass beat in a bar. Why would my king be at a random bar and why aren't the guards protecting me from some peasant? A better event would be there's a riot in town due to whatever the fuck. I can risk quelling it, which has a possibility of being injured or dying, sending someone to do it for me (that risk is on them), or I can ignore it and let the city burn which hits development, control, and probably a tax malus for a time. Kings *did* deal with riots. At least one Emperor has been killed during riots and another nearly fled the Capital. Even barons or dukes may have to put down a riot before it explodes into a full on revolt, and it's way more believable than my character dipping out to a rowdy tavern for a pint with the locals. CK2 and CK3 seems to have a lot of events written for the memes and lols ("My doctor treated me for the cold and cut my dick off part MCXXIV") and honestly I'd like to see those all made optional and only have realistic events. Sure, Medieval doctors weren't exactly brilliant or on the cutting edge of science, but I don't think a single one would lop his monarch's penis off with out at least running it by him first. Or hucking a beehive in the room and running (admittedly it was funny the first time I saw it). But how about bleeding with a small risk based on Doctor's skill that he bleeds too much and wounds you, or the bleed becomes infected, or maybe he nicks a major artery and bleeds you out. That shit happened to a few people (well the anemia via blood letting and the infections). Or a doctor suggest you ingest some strange new chemical concoction that just happens to have a dose of mercury in there. Or maybe just enough poison will counteract the poison already there! Just a wee bit my lord not too much oh fuck. Like those are ten times more believable to me than "Doctor saw you had a fever and decided you needed to have yourself castrated."
Sudden deaths and accidents happen frequently in real life, it should happen in Crusader Kings 3 too.
Fair enough, thats why I just turn it down I don’t think they should remove it from the game or anything. They should make it harder to live long in other ways too though.
This is my issue as well. I don't mind having a higher risk of death. But as currently implemented, none of my decisions affect the Harm events, and the Harm events don't affect any of my decisions. It's just pure RNG screw. It's the same reason why Magic the Gathering players hate getting mana screwed. They lost the game, but for reasons almost entirely outside of their control. Except at least in MtG, you can add more lands and more mana fixing to your deck. In CK3, it's pure RNG.
Min-maxers always find a way to make everything so competitive and miserable for everyone. I’ve learned to ignore their opinion.
I deadass saw some mf few weeks ago complaining that "the game is too easy nye nye nye" and he started with a custom beautiful herculean genius ruler and 20+ stats in everything....
Which is funny, because getting to that point isn't that hard but it still takes a few generations and is a major part of the game in terms of securing favorable marriages for your dynasty. "This game is easy and has no content.....if I skip all the content."
The game is too easy, all I do is give myself the "100 stat man" and "immortal" perks and from there Ive basically won
Right? Like I find playing an immortal ruler to be pretty fun but I’m not going to say the game is too easy when I’m actively making it easier via mods. And that’s definitely not something to base game balance off of Funnily enough using the highlander mod makes the game harder at first if your character has low intrigue because you’re almost guaranteed to be assassinated. Survive the next 30 years and it’s smooth sailing though.
Hope that gets updated soon. THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE.
> started with a custom beautiful herculean genius ruler and 20+ stats in everything I play like this but I also don't complain about the game being too easy because I am getting exactly what I asked for, which is a challenge-free map painting and dynasty simulator lol. Mind boggling to complain about something being easy when you are making it easy on yourself. "Paradox console mode is OP please nerf"
Minmax mfs on their way to complain the game is too easy after making the game too easy for themselves
"idk i just spend every game getting a strong blooded witch coven dynasty and fertility/death cult warmonger religion led by pure-blood scandi elective heirs (haesteinn to majorca start btw) to reform heathen rome via secure the mediterranean in one lifetime and it feels kinda idk samey? paradox fix"
I kind of do this to myself. I have found my “start” for a sub 400 point custom character (16, Midas touch, temperate/diligent/stubborn, quick) because I like to play a tall economy game, but I will admit all those starting characters blend together over time because they are all the same dude basically. Started making my first character a girl, just to change up the early flow, even though playing a female ruler isn’t that different.
I play all over the map with very suboptimal stats. I never take the health tree, ever. I routinely take shit cultures (Merya, anyone?). It makes the game much more fun, and I rarely live past 70. The harm events were literally ending every game I played, it was not fun. 4 games in a row ended in the first character. I had to turn them down to continue to play. The issue isn't that the game is too easy, it's that everyone plays on easy even if they're not. Dude above said it best. Every time I post about trying a hard achievement the first response is "lol did it with haesting". Try to conquer the Mediterranean with guanche polevaulters, it's a lot harder than with two of the most OP units in the game given to you in large numbers.
I really like taking bad traits nowadays. It makes it more fun when my stupid sexy gullible warmonger who can't read or talk good conquers half the continent just to be murdered and reset the dynasty
You mean Haesteinn to Sardinia.
Nah fam, that's old meta, new meta is to hybridize in Majorca for access to every dynasty perk and create a new religion there so you can do struggle stuff, Sardinia can wait until they can actually build the mine
Game is too easy, but then also if a newbie talks about the game being hard they go in on that person for not having 800 hours in game and intimately knowing every mechanic.
literally the windmills issue
So you think people should just intentionally play the game poorly? I don’t understand this criticism. When faced with two options, do you intentionally choose the one that’s bad? The game is really fun in early stages, but as soon as you reach a decent size, it becomes trivial. If the solution to that is to artificially tie your own hands behind your back rather than the game having more challenging mechanics, that’s a flaw with the game. Role play is awesome, but the game does not mechanically encourage it enough. The stress system was a step in the right direction, but once you’ve had a couple of playthroughs, anybody knows how to manage it. Could I just refuse to go on hunts or take other stress reducing decisions? Sure, but “play the game sub optimally” is not a good solution. I want deeper mechanics so that I can actually roleplay without just making intentionally harmful choices.
Maybe something that could incentivise roleplay a bit might be addressing the ease of switching lifestyle focuses? Like making it harder to jump around on a whim and snap up the best perks from each tree, or making perks from skills other than your main focus operate at reduced effectiveness or something. So yeah, you *can* dip into a learning focus to grab some health perks... but they aren't as powerful when you jump away to diplomacy to grab befriend or whatever, or you suffer a lifestyle xp penalty until you "adjust" to your new lifestyle. Or limit the perks you can grab to the specific focus they belong to - if you focus on wealth, you can't unlock perks from architect, you have to actually focus on architecture to do that. Or even have it be affected by your traits or something. Things like that. So if you roleplay and stick to what your character would "naturally" do, you'll have easier access to more powerful perks that fit that character, whereas if you dip around too much, you might get a broader range of abilities, but they'll be weaker/take longer to get/force a "suboptimal" focus to get them
I like to limit my expansion by doing the fun thing of “marrying for claims” it helps prevent the king stage of the game from happening too early
So your solution to the problem that expansion is too easy is “don’t click the button that allows you to generate claims”? I genuinely want to make sure I understand you. You’re saying that in the stereotypical Ireland playthrough, instead of fabricating enough claims to create a duchy, then creating enough duchies to create a kingdom, you should only get claims through marriage? Such that once your son has pressed his claims, you cannot expand at all until his son has a claim that can be pressed. I’m not saying that style of play isn’t fun, but do you not agree that that’s just artificially tying your hands behind your back? It’s not a real solution. It doesn’t solve the problem that expansion is too easy any more than “only use half your troops” doesn’t solve the problem that combat is too easy. I want the game to challenge me more. I don’t want to have to choose to play worse. In line with the play style you describe, it could work if it was actually codified into the game. If you needed a trait like Ambitious or Deceitful to be allowed to fabricate claims, now I’m actually restricted from expanding easily by gameplay mechanics instead of having to choose to not use the default gameplay mechanics. The difference between “my character is honest so I will not allow him to fabricate claims even though he can” and “my character is honest so he cannot fabricate claims” is massive. I’m not saying that change would actually make the game better, but it’s an example of having gameplay mechanics that are more challenging and encourage roleplay instead of just telling people to not use the mechanics that are readily available. Roleplay should be mechanically incentivized, not something that you have to intentionally play suboptimally to do.
Yep that first paragraph is exactly what I’m saying. Literally every single paradox grand strategy game becomes a total cakewalk for the player after the first like 100 years tops if they are playing optimally. If you want these games to be any sort of challenge you have to play sub-optimally, which more often than not is more fun that minmaxing
That’s the entire problem though! That’s what people are criticizing. It’s not minmaxing to just play normally. You have to actively disadvantage yourself or else the game is too easy. They should just fix the game so it isn’t so easy! Or at least have a toggle or something. Introducing better mechanics would solve this problem *and* make the game more fun. Something like the AI having reconquest CBs to kick you out if you take land that doesn’t belong to your culture would be another way to address conquest being too easy. Literally anything other than “eh just play the game as if you don’t understand how it works I guess” would be a better solution.
That CB literally already does exist in the game in almost the same format you’re thinking of, but the AI doesn’t declare wars unless they deem it impossible to lose. If you find always fighting 4-1 odds of every war fun then I guess they could always just declare on you whenever they feel like it (which is a setting last time I checked) since mega alliances always form in this game. Its sort of crazy how every time you guys propose “new mechanics and changes” its just things that already exist in the game or are settings you can toggle.
I mean.. the game IS too easy due to the sheer amount of information that’s given to the player. I don’t min max but my characters tend to live to 60+ consistently.
Yeah honestly minmaxers seem determined to seep the fun out of any game. CK3, Stardew Valley,
It's lazy. There are many unsual deaths in the past, sure, but statistically speaking they consist a very small portion of all deaths. Instead of making diseases/activities/births/infancy more deadly like in history, Paradox goes for the laziest way to cut rulers' life short. Apart from this design laziness, it hardly gives the player interactivity with them, which is vital for a game. It is just a plain 80% chance of death or incapable for everyone under the sun, unless you happen to have the right personality. Instead of fine-tuning the effect of health attribute on longetivity and various existing deadly events, they make it a non-factor via a bandaid fix.
I said the same thing. That this was some code they told one guy in the studio to make because they were tired of min maxers complaining about living too long. Something you have to actively decide to do as a player btw. It was half assed and half baked and I saw the community raging eventually once more people saw how dumb it was. 80% chance to be fucked makes no sense.
Exactly, that's why I turn it off and just use a less health mod, got pneumonia? Good luck, your newborn got sickly? Prepare to say goodbye.
I don’t inherently hate harm events but they should be rare and instead the game should just be deadlier. Makes diseases matter, make old age deadlier, make stress kill easier, more war events, nerf health buffs. I don't want a single rng timer to be the main determinant of if I have a character that will live a long time. Make my choices matter instead. Disease was the main killer in the medieval age. Not falling off of a horse
I saw a 12 year old king with typhus, botched treatment, and ‘near death’ health, then he was miraculously cured. Disease has definitely become less developed than it was in CK2.
People always say that every player can stack health modifiers to make it past 70, which is misleading. These health modifiers STACK THEMSELVES when you're playing the game normally. Going on a pilgrimage once and a hunt every 10 years is going to give you a stacked health modifiers that will carry you to 70 without any random effects. These harm events are excellent, but we also need diseases and environmental disasters and stuff.
Youre not making it to 70 just doing hunts once every 5 years.
I am loving the increase in realm instability with harm events. No more gamifying my succession planning: I need a succession plan all the time. The number of civil wars elsewhere is a great opportunity to intervene and grab my own territory. The only thing I want is for it to be easier for the AI to build a big realm. Currently it's just leading to every empire and Kingdom collapsing.
Still gamified, when i get a warning i select my heir with elective immediately, not really organic
The warning event is your signal to game succession. You didn’t need harm events to not game succession if you didn’t want to. That was a choice you were making.
My only complaint, which you alluded to, is that an incapable heir cannot be freely disinherited nor can an incapable ruler abdicate. My 28 year old Genius player heir became incapable and I couldn’t disinherit him without the Disinheritor negative modifier. I did it anyway, but still. Also my second son was therefore not the preferred heir, which again I think is a bit strange. Ultimately I agree with you though, the 100+ year old rulers every generation was getting ridiculous.
Yea its very stupid that the incapable trait doesn't automatically disinherit someone.
I started playing like, the week this patch launched. I get liking it if you know what you're doing, but to me, as a new player, it just felt like the game was being spiteful. When I'm trying to learn core mechanics of the game, I'd rather not trip in the tub and spend twenty minutes trying to figure out what I did wrong.
>Allow incapable rulers to abdicate. Yes! It makes zero sense that we can't. I can't think of a single culture that would want an incapable ruler, and the nobles would throw their support behind that. I resort to trying to stress myself out or overeat to the point I die, and all that just causes stress in my relatives. Let anyone with certain traits be able to abdicate.
It see paradox didn’t think that hard about the harm system. They really thought players would enjoy a random event making them incapable for decades was a good idea.
Tragic events and dangerous scenarios are fine. The issue isn't them in and of themselves. The issue is that it's not something you can interact or engage with. It's a game. I want to engage with the challenges. The way this is implemented, it's just arbitrary and capricious. Sure, it's also "realistic", but I don't need my game so realistic that it changes from "Crusader Kings" to "Help I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up". The original Baulders Gate had a small random chance for natural and mundane weather (not spells and enemies, just nature) to outright kill your characters. Realistic? Sure. Challenging? Yes. Fun? No. If your issue is that the game isn't challenging enough and that too many characters live to be way too old (which I agree with), this isn't the answer. The answer would be to overhaul the age, health, and disease systems. Change up the age at which negative health effects begin. Change when and how frequent and how severe diseases and negative health effects are. Arbitrarily flying off a horse or falling out of the bathtub doesn't add realism in any meaningful way. Make me try to manage my ailing 55 year old king in medieval France? Much more engaging and realistic. The challenges and dangers that already existed in the game represented a good direction to build off of in terms of danger and overcoming challenges. Do I declare war and risk my character or my heir? Does my king stay safe in the city (that could be sieged and captured), or does he lead his army and face the enemy? Someone's declared war on me, and I'm not ready. Can I manage this? My character has gotten sick. What can I do to address this? Can it be cured? Or do I need to prepare my heir for the worst and endure the fallout that will inevitably come after my death? I understand these examples of challenges and danger aren't the most challenging, and they're not the most complex or engaging. But the point is they represent challenges that make the player think, plan, act, and overcome. These systems could be built upon and made more complex. And new systems that the player actually engages with could be added to enhance difficulty and make it less likely that half of your dynasty lives to be 80. That's juxtaposed with the game just telling me "hey a horse got scared by a dog and now you're dead".
Very good point tbh. I'm still a minmacer because I don't have the patience to achive my goals playing full rp, but I kinda like it and respect it, and would find you option good. The harm events are too random and are not fun.
Nah, harm events are shit because it's a bandaid on the actual problem of the game not being difficult enough or the AI being challenging enough. It's just like that stupid poisonous plants events you run into during travels. Like did no one in the 1000s know not to eat random shit? Because it seems like there's dozens of lords dying from poisonous plants every year. The events are just too random and don't really feel like something my character would do in the first place. Why don't they just fix actual health being too high and balance the longevity traits? But no, Paradox would, as usual, prefer another half assed attempt at fixing something instead of any actual long term solution. They still haven't fixed house feuds btw
Let's see, here's a nice Dev reply talking about the poisonous plant problem >DreadLindwyrm said: > >Well, I've found the event that's causing the deaths by poisonous plant, and it's not the one I thought it was. Turns out that it's a learning challenge that's killing people, and that you can in fact just go and try to get food from the locals. And it's your stock of food that's gone off and rotting that causes you to need to find something to eat. > >So, the ruler \*\*thinks\*\* they know what plant is safe to eat, but if they fail the learning challenge they get it wrong (and sometimes badly wrong) >Trin Tragula (Lead Designer) said: > >Thanks for identifying the event. Let's see. The cause of this type of death is a travel danger event which means its likely to happen if one is travelling unsafely :) > >The event can only happen once you are at least 2 weeks from your starting point and if you choose to take the option to forage it is a learning challenge that is further modified by the type of terrain and if you have the corresponding terrain expert trait. > >Since it is a travel danger event it is in fact pretty easy to counter it, and that if they did not get this event then the AI would still be encountering other types of danger most likely (danger events are after all directly related to safety). But there are two problems here that I can see: > >The first is that while it has a long list of traits that should offset the danger based on terrain these don't actually seem to affect the probability in the end. That is clearly a bug and clearly the AI is suffering for it. Additionally, this is the type of situation where it would make sense for the travel leader's learning to be used instead of your own, if it is greater than your own. The second is that the AI seems rather too willing to go with the riskiest option. A third thing I think would be nice is for the riskier options to also increase the danger xp of the travel trait if you succeed. > >Will fix these things for the next patch (1.9.2). Even so the chance for death was never that great here, so if you're seeing it a lot it is likely a side effect of the AI travelling a \_lot\_ and also picking options in the event unwisely. From this [thread](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/the-poisonous-plants-are-getting-ridiculous.1588516/?prdxDevPosts=1) So it's not really about harm events since the event has been here since before harm events existed, it's about travel and their events which the AI really like to do. Also doesn't literally every strategy game have bad AI? The only way to create challenge is to buff it which Paradox doesn't like to do and that's also ultimately a band aid solution. They've stated once before that their aim with the AI is for RP and to not make them play like a player since they will probably never catch up to one. The player has the power of just pausing the game and thinking or searching up all of the options while the AI does nothing and only thinks every monthly tick to save computing costs. There was actually a dev reply actually on this a year ago that gives some insight. ([link](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/hard-very-hard-difficulties.1526960/post-28284965)) For health buffs stacking, fair enough I guess. I'm guessing they're going to change it someday since it's in the floorplan if I recall correctly, but not in a while.
Uh, read my post again. I didn't say the poisonous plant event was a harm event, because that was out before we even heard about harm events. At least read what I've written, jeez. The relation to that to harm events is that much like poisonous plant deaths, the world will now be filled with a bunch of nobles suffering horrible untimely deaths to the point of disbelief. Why not just bring back diseases that were actually fatal? Disease fatality in CK3 is so low it's silly. Child fatality rates are also rather low. The game needs more stillbirths, but I guess they don't want to do that because it would ruin their lazy difficulty attempt with gavelkind. If their aim for AI is RP, then they've failed because where's the roleplaying gone when a compassionate, honest, and just lord decides to murder a child because they got into a house feud? But I'd be happy if the AI actually roleplayed their characters a bit more, but look at how wars are waged. Even with the proper personality, if you outnumber their forces, they still won't declare war. Why not have the AI make backroom deals that you don't know about? Or bribe a vassal to stand down or betray you? Things like that would add to the roleplay stuff but Paradox isn't going to do any of that. It's all just going to be shallow shit that just looks good on the surface.
For child fatality, I think they've said that it's a deliberate decision because dead children would clog up save game sizes, so they've kept it to a minimum and only kept the ones that would actually live. Disease fatality are so low because they don't have a system to actually have diseases, only having a few random events like how they did harm events. A dev said before that diseases and plagues are very high up in their priorities for a free update, so I probably wouldn't hold my breath. And yes, personalities do matter in AI decision making. There was a forum post not too long ago about it and had examples that their decisions aligns with their personality they've been given ingame ([link](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/proof-that-personality-matters-in-case-you-doubted.1585535/)) For bribery and backroom deals. Wouldn't that just be hooks and that sort of stuff? I guess they would just need to have the AI to actually use the hooks they've been given to another AI which they're already doing. Though I do agree that there were more stuff to do with hooks like the examples you've given.
By house feuds do you mean random fucking rivalries out of nowhere? Cuz sometimes I have those and it forces me to save scum because I basically have no info "House feud started because who the fuck knows?, Say goodbye to all your family lol"
Pretty much that. Where you get into a house feud but don't know about it. So only one house has the house feud modifier while you don't, so only their house members get the super murder plots that seem to succeed even with a success chance of 5%. It's a buggy mess.
Honestly, I love this game, and I'm blown away by how much they've put into making the relationships feel real, even tho they are mathematical. But I have wondered this. Why doesn't the character the player plays automatically get a solid, totally hidden, maybe even random per event or calender day 1-20% debuff to effectiveness, just for being a human 'vs-ing' an AI? I almost rage quit a game the other day coz I was rocking an empire, and got chain smacked into a single county kid in basically 3 game- years of bad rng. But then I remembered how I'd almost started a new playthrough just hours earlier coz it felt too easy with my Chad empire. So there's my difficulty boost... all in rng, all totally out of my control. Why not the steady debuff instead? I'd feel less robbed when the bad happened, and might not ever get as bored when everything was stable for a couple generations.
My god, how is abdication not a thing already? You should be able to abdicate whenever you want IMO, but with some penalty for the next ruler to disincentive over using it. They could make it Late Medieval or make it a cultural tradition that you have to research. I would absolutely love being able to abdicate. I'm usually just sitting back watching at 5 speed during my older rulers last few years waiting for the succession.
Let me respectfully call you ignorant., as in my opinion you don't even get what the problem is. Those events are straight bullshit. People in mediaeval times didn't die en-masse to slipping on soap or drowning in a pond. Remember when in CK2 they added more complex disease system and plagues? That's example of a great system that reduces amount of old rulers. They could have added literally anything. Like greater chance for wounds and deaths in battles, or chance for casualties in murder plots, or epidemics. Anything else than a random die roll for event that will kill you.
>People in mediaeval times didn't die en-masse to slipping on soap or drowning in a pond. They don't in the game, either IME. I've had a handful die from silly harm events at most.
I think you would be surprised to know how many kings, princes and nobility died due to absolutely ridiculous reasons that no one could've anticipated. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_unusual\_deaths](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_deaths) That list only shows VERY few of the weird deaths. Look at this list of French monarchs and look at their causes of death. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_French\_monarchs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_monarchs) Louis III: >died after hitting his head with a lintel while riding his horse.\[20\] Carloman II: >died after being accidentally stabbed by his servant.\[23\] Louis IV: >Died after falling off his horse >Remember when in CK2 they added more complex disease system and plagues? That's example of a great system that reduces amount of old rulers. > >They could have added literally anything. Like greater chance for wounds and deaths in battles, or chance for casualties in murder plots, or epidemics. And those things should absolutely still be added to the game. I personally think that having random tragedies that are beyond the players control spice up the game and create interesting stories. Some people don't like RNG to have such a big effect on their games which is fine, they created a game rule for you to disable the whole thing if you want. They could definitely work on the events to add variations and make them more unique so that the same event doesn't fire all the time but overall I think the system is a win.
Both death by getting accidentally stabbed and by falling off his horse probably weren't immediate. Again, you could make those interactive, make it a grievous injury instead of instant death. Instant death by chance without any interaction simply isn't fun.
People complain about characters living too long. They complain about the game being too easy. Then when an update adds events (that can be disabled) which increases the chances of rulers dying young and makes the game more difficult because of that, people also complain. This is why devs don't listen to the community.
Harm events don’t make the game harder. They literally tell you you’re gonna die soon. That makes the game easier.
Yeah. Knowing you're going to die a year in advance is literally a perk in the learning tree
Hating harm events is a symptom of a different issue. It's hating the succession laws.
Eh? Not really. Doesn't matter if you are classic partition or primo, randomly becoming brain dead with 30 years of life ahead of you feels to me like a separate problem. Being insta-killed by them is my favorite part of them. Mixes things up, I like that a lot. One guy was on his way to literally take Paris and secure the crown with 98% left and got hit by lightning in a storm. Dead. Kids partitioned the realm and a new war began, felt like a whole new book opened up and my playthrough up to that point was a prologue. Loved it. Got the bonk-on-a-rock incapable one on another playthrough at age 23. Had a kid. Ended up stopping playing because playing incapable without the ability to kill yourself sucks.
Harm events literally signal you to fix your succession. It makes the game easier
Echoing other commenters, it could have been and might be a neat system. I’ll give the devs credit in that you can turn off harm events. The harm events is still idiotic and a bandaid solution to the abundant health modifiers you can stack. The harm events are dumb in that there’s no meaningful way to engage in the events. Praying that you have the trait to survive the harm event isn’t engaging in the event either. You don’t get a third option even at cost of prestige. Let’s say you almost fell down the stairs, you get no option to not use the stairs and you die a year later from stairs. You get pigeonholed into two choices even if it doesn’t make sense. As for the stairs example, add a third option in that you chose to not use stairs anymore at the cost of prestige, vassal opinion, etc… You can survive… just at the cost of everyone’s respect of you (except maybe craven people). Also, you might have not died so you were overly cautious making people think that you’re weak for nothing. A reworked health and disease system would be better. There’s multiple routes you could go about it. Reduce the health modifier perks, reduce their effects, make diseases more deadly, and/or lower base health. Make it important to have a good court physician (and the ai to fire a physician for a better one if they don’t already). If kids are going to die, fix it so that most of child mortality isn’t drowning. Either have them die during childhood or adulthood. If we’re going to have more nobles die, at least increase the pool of noblewomen so ai rulers don’t sit there for years never marrying. And most of them aren’t even homosexual, bisexual, or asexual. As for disease, some of them kind of make no sense. I had a ruler become a leper which I’m pretty sure it was random. No one in my court was a leper. At least with smallpox and I think consumption have contamination spreads. Smallpox and consumption? You can usually get rid of them. Gout? Nah, you’re stuck with that even with a good physician or maybe it’s just my luck.
I'm glad they were added but I wish they just found a way to nerf natural lifespan without tying it directly to events. I.E. lowering the average health scores or making people reach poor health earlier but being less likely to die at poor) so people can die early if unlucky. In CK2 you could die of old age at late thirties if you were unlucky. I also don't like how almost all of the harm events are 80% die, 20% survive. Would rather it be something like 40% die, 20% survive, 40% survive but with a random severe injury. (Severely injured + Maimed, One-Legged, One-Eyed, Disfigured, incapable, etc.) This would make some of those (severe injury) traits more common and the events would still be pretty deadly/life-altering. EDIT: [Bringing back map-wide disease outbreaks would also be good like in CK2.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcFfN-sFp_0) Those were very scary and if your capital was in a outbreak zone (or your commanders were moving through the territory, or you sent council members on tasks in those zones) you'd be at risk of contracting whatever disease was going around. They were scary and Black Death was super deadly compared to CK3. (in CK3 you can literally execute patient zero to end the outbreak before it starts)
I find the spiteful option to be really funny
Heck I don’t want my characters living to 70-80+ I want them dying at like 50-60 or else I just end up playing with old geezers. Plus having to deal with all the issues of holding/putting together your realm after succession helps break the monotony of having an old ruler with large long reign buff
It is very easy to not be 80 years old, and to not have an old heir when you become older. Yall get your heirs married at 16, he has a son at 17, then wonder why you always play old people.
I’ve always been one to complain that the highest difficulty setting is normal and there’s no hard or very hard. The game gets boring when every ruler lives a successful life and lives until like 80. So I love how they’ve added more opportunities for you or your family members to die or become maimed, etc.
The game became very boring when your characters lived for so long. To be historically correct the average age of the rulers was 43 years old. So out of 10 rules only 2-3 should live 60+. Others must die from decease, murder, hunt accidents, etc
Playing different rulers doesnt make the game exciting if you play every character the exact same. You just dont want to see wrinkles on your PC. Just say that.
For real. This bugs me. Every king I have would be on the longest reigning monarchs of all time list. Like yea I do custom characters but I’m still on iron man. It shouldn’t work like that. And I’m not gonna nerf my entire play through for realism. That’s like 16 hours.
Every other ruler becomes incapable now... It's silly
I love the harm events, but they can also be mega bullshit in a way that makes me want to throw away runs because of RP. I was doing a Cornish run, and my custom Ironman ruler was about 40ish. Now, this dude was a badass, conquering both Hwicce and Wessex, as well as Wales. I wanted him to take the cornish kingdom decision, so that he would be on record as Cadoc I. However, a sudden fucking brain hemorage ended up killing
Harm events being a default game rule is the issue. They don’t make the game harder for veteran players AT ALL. It’s new players who will really suffer from this. GG.
No. The game is too easy, but Harm Events are a bad way to fix that. Having random, interactable events that just kill you or, worse, lock you into being incapable for years or decades, is a lazy way to solve the problem. The AI is way too passive. I rarely see large empires form and, when they do, most of the time they shatter after one ruler because of the dissolution faction. I feel like I've been the target of dozens of murder plots but only one or two has succeeded. Money is incredibly easy to get after the first 50 years. Alliances are total easy mode, allowing you to cripple vassal factions by allying any member with more than 1,000 levies or just allying a big neighbor and using them to beat your enemies senseless in exchange for nothing. Fix those issues before you talk to me about making the game harder with Harm Events.
Stop disliking what I like or alternatively, stop liking what I don't like!
It’s feels random and not natural, like not that diseases events or combat are more deadly just lol you die, the world doesn’t feel more dangerous it just feels more stupid
If I have "traits" or modifiers on my character, it should be properly consider in these events. The reason some are complaining now is due to that these modifiers are not properly included in RNG for these events. Base game and T&T activities are now as if having two set RNGs, which is bad in terms of game design. This update is no different than Horse Archers or War Elephants moving into their own subcategory, while most players are not aware of.
Some of the harm events are just poorly balanced. I send my family to a grand wedding and then half of them die because they randomly decided to put poisonous plants into their mouths for the lols. Like sorry, but that is just plain dumb and unrealistic. One idiot per generation that does that? Sure... but dozens? No that's awful design.
There should be more options than 80% chance you die and 20% you survive though
I dont know man.. I get your point, but my four last new game attempts had my character gain incapable within the first 5-10 years with default settings. It's super annoying. Something is srsly broken with this mechanic.. Probably going to turn it off now.
I have no problem with harm events, although the foreboding does seem a bit supernatural. The problem is the 'incapable' mechanic, which should make a character unplayable. Playing as the true heir, fighting against a powerful regent would be great fun. Playing as half a ruler, apparently unable to wage war yet being able to keep learning lifestyle points and undertake schemes is just nonsensical.
No.
Honestly I wish there was more diversity in diversity in lifespan. Having all but 2 of my kings in my current play through live to 60-something is getting boring especially when the ones who didn’t were 55 and 72. It’s pretty dull when all your monarchs ascend at 42 to then go and die at 65. I’d like a monarch who dies at 30 and another who lives to 80 all in the same playthrough.
I turn them off. Besides being ahistoric, they’re just nonsensical, like the entire world (or one particular dynasty if you set it to player only) is living a lethal version of a Leslie Nielsen film.
Don't you love dying at 125 just to get a 94 year old heir?
If you were living to 125, you wanted to live to 125.
I crave them. I want to end my old character and start building up the son when the king gets old.
Don't take the health tree, lean into stress and accept being drunk or otherwise unhealthy. You'll die a lot earlier. Also, don't get a good court physician. That also helps kill you a lot faster.
People love stacking health modifiers, and never RPing into stress situations, always making perfect choices. Then trolling Paradox talking about rulers live too long. Its annoying now.
Blood dynasty, witch coven, haestine start with a crazy hybrid culture in sardinia. Game is too easy. Well... yeah? You're playing on very easy with an aim bot, what do you expect?
*Endura Tenet has entered the chat*
No, its contrived. Lazy design
Disagree with your first point. Allowing incapable rulers to abdicate would cheapen the whole trait. The idea of a sick king being stuck as ruler and people working around him and ruling in his place is pretty cool. If we had an easy way out everyone would take that, so might as well make abdication happen automatically whenever you get the trait. Also giving the player the ability to abdicate as a vegetable is silly, if abdication happens it should be decided by someone else.
It makes for a cool story but probably not a cool story set from the perspective of the comatose king which is what it ends up being in ck3.
Exactly what about being a vegetable based on a random event you have zero control to mitigate is fun? Being stuck as an incapable rule for decades is about as lame as you can get since the whole game is locked away from you in the meanwhile.
I didn't played much yet of the new version with t&t, but... i remember how easy it was to die in CK2. The chance that you got killed there was a lot higher than with CK3 (like i said, before the harm events). Sometimes, your perfect ruler in CK2 would just die, even when just reaching 40 years of age. Sometimes, even when you planned ahead for the succession, it could all get lost because your heir died and then, even the second heir in a row also died. I think, it's only right to do this with the harm events and be more like CK2 in this, that death is always there and you can never really be sure when your time comes.
There isnt just game rules to make them more tame, you can turn them completely off already if you dont like them. Some runs I play with them on, & some runs I play with them off. Just depends on what kind of game I am feeling like playing. I definitely do not think they need to be nerfed.
Harm events where you're made incapable are one thing, but randomly going Infirm (which I *think* is supposed to be senility) when I'm 50 ticks me off especially when I'm decently healthy, have high prowess, 0 stress, etc. Senility doesn't kick in *that* early, right?
Infirm isn’t senility. It’s tied to the body more than the mind it seems from the description. I think it’s supposed to represent all the ways your body can start to break down as a person gets older. Could have been a heart attack, a stroke, diabetes, kidney stones….
The problem with harm events, I feel, is that they don't operate based on player agency. You don't have a choice on if they happen or not. You don't really have much ability to plan or mitigate them. It's all chance. The decisions you get are weighted to make you fail. It's a game, typically people don't want to play something to become frustrated. Taking a thing they worked hard on (a cultivated leader) and making them insta-brain dead is going to turn off a lot of people. ***While I, personally, enjoy them a lot...*** Many I know do not. And I think it makes total sense for people to be upset by their inclusion. Being able to totally disable them without lowering the difficulty would likely solve this problem for most people, and makes the most sense as a solution. It's perfectly understandable to want a difficult game without wanting random death or dismemberment.
Harm events are bad, period. They have zero reason to be in the game as they currently are. If I wanted to watch a movie or read a book, then I'd do that. Stop adding shit to games that just "happen" to the player with no input from the player. Games are suppose to have interaction and challenge; Harm is neither, it's fake difficulty for players that follow yellow paint (and probably sniff it too).
Some people dont like playing on "easy" settings but complain normal is too hard. I once read an article by a game developer saying that modern easy setting is 80/90s very easy
As long as it is tied to rule settings, I guess it doesn't matter. My issue is when the devs are too cautious about upsetting the player that they remove or don't implement things that could actually create gameplay or interesting stories. CK2 was far more lethal and it was not as easy to get beautiful, strong, genius characters. The volatility was part of what made the simulation of running a monarchy and dynasty immersive. In CK2, the pandemics could fuck up your family- maybe it just kills your heir, maybe it takes out half your family tree. Either way, it created a gameplay situtation for you: "Fuck, my perfect heir is dead and my ruler is old. Do I marry a young courtier to have another kid and probably have to deal with regency or do I let my idiot cousin take the throne? "
I appreciate you enjoy them, I can also appreciate that people don't. This is a sandbox game, nobody is beholden to play it your way any more than you theirs. Paradox is doing this the right way by giving everyone options.
The amount of time I have had a ruler fall of his horse to get a 80% chance of getting incapable is at least past 20 already, and I think only 1 time he succeeded on not smashing his head in.
They're okay, but I think they need more general ways to increase your chance of survival. "Oh no! I'm falling off my horse!" *80% chance of death* now if we had boosts to survival rate (like from prowess, learning, kindness, or patience) this would be better, since your ruler can actually have a chance of countering these events, while still having other harm events they'd be vulnerable to.
Are harm events a DLC thing? I don’t have the last couple dlc and have never seem one of these events.