The Shrine

Bout time. Guess that's why they went free with CK2 (pretty sure the DLC is still like 100's of dollars though).

Yeah, we discussed this back in the summer. Sure enough, here it comes!

I'm curious to see how long before it becomes worth playing over CK2. If there's one thing true about strategy game franchise sequels, it's that they often take multiple updates to surpass their predecessors. I don't doubt there will be numerous features and UI design in CK3 that wasn't possible or practical in CK2.

Edgy trailer, I like it.

In short. With CK3:
1. Making the map more detailed. The Baronies and towns are not just slots in the county menu, but they're on the map. More intuitive, more strategic.

2. Expanding significantly on the most popular features, including RPG elements, dynasty building, and emergent storytelling. AI characters will react to situations according to their traits rather than according to a flat RNG generated a response.
3. The reason for CK3 is that CK2 became very difficult to work on. In my personal experience, I lost saves from updates, and it became more common in the last 2-3 years. They described the code base of CK2 as twigs and glue. CK3 fixes all of that.
4. Some CK2 expansions will be part of the feature base of CK3 but expanded heavily on (like Way of Life and Holy Fury features) while others are cut completely (Merchant Republics and Nomads), which didn't work out as well as they hoped. One thing I hope they drop is child-rearing stuff, or at least ONLY make it something you need to do IF you decide to - not every damn kid rotting in the dungeon.
5. The earliest time to begin is 867, the Viking Age, but the core events won't begin until 1066. My guess is they'll expand backward in time later on since there's so much interesting stuff in the post-antiquity era; lots of legends and myths from the era: Ragnar, King Arthur, Ogier the Dane, Orlando/Roland, etc... Interesting historical events: Charlemagne, the Gothic Wars, the Lombard Kingdom, the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire and the Persian Empire, etc...
6. The map will be expanded in size to include more of Africa and South East Asia.
7. Character models are being updated, and physical traits carry down in a far more meaningful way - i.e. the Hapsburg chin... Inbreeding will not be kind to the looks of the descendants.
8. Religion is more detailed, more control over traits - and characters can star heresies apparently... which, to me, sounds awesome! I loved forging new religions when upgrading from Pagan to Reformed, but the one flaw is you couldn't change it once it was created.
9. Dynasties will now have cadet branches, which IMO was a big missing part of CK2. These were a big part of medieval history: The Plantagenet House of Anjou and the Capetian House of Anjou were two major cadet branches centered on the same County. There was also the House of York and the House of Lancaster, who were the central dynasties in the War of the Roses, both cadets of the Plantagenet... before the Tudor dynasty (which inherited the claim via Henry Tudor's Lancasterian mother) took it all.
10. CK3 has been in development since 2014 when a few projects, including "Project Titus" were revealed/leaked. As it turns out, Project Titus is CK3. So it's been over 5 years in development.

Here's a video which overviews a bunch of other things (plus saying some of the stuff I said, except better)

Game seems like it has a learning curve to get into it, I lament not keeping up with Romance of the Three Kingdoms now.

CK2 has one too. They’re on the more complex end of grand strategy, significantly more so than Romance of the Three Kingdoms or Total War. At the same time, they’re far more rewarding.

CK3 does make things a little easier than CK2. The Cassus Belli (or claims), which is basically the justification to declare war for the purpose of conquest, looks to be a lot easier to acquire against people of your own religion. One of the issues with playing a Christian in the middle of France is that you wouldn’t really have much opportunity to expand, you essentially had to forge claims which functioned on an RNG. It meant you could sit there for a very long time wondering if anything will happen. In CK3 it looks like there’s a meter that fills instead of an RNG determining when the event happens. Of course! I imagine if you begin a heresy it’s open season on those of another religion, although it might mean open season on you as well.

If you like games like Romance of the Three Kingdoms, you’ll love CK2. Especially if you’re looking for something similar, but significantly bigger in scope. Most people play this CK2 single player, but I’ve found the game works well in multiplayer... Although it has to be done via an internet connection rather than LAN, which is a bit disappointing.

CK2 is worth the high initial learning curve (I was still learning stuff months in). I expect CK3 will be far more accessible - I just hope they dont dumb it down too much.

I don't mind "wordy" mechanics in games. I do like the idea of simplifying some of the more repetitive actions, though.

Some people don't like mechanic heavy games or games where there's a bit of a consistency gap in how things are done (Dwarf Fortress and Final Fantasy 8, for example).

Speaking of FF8, I didn't even know about the crafting system until close to the end of the game on my first playthrough (though it was 20 years ago, I remember it well, I got stuck in the Lunatic Pandora). Some people play through the game and never discover it. You can typically find out who the players are by those who had a negative experience with FF8, and those who had a positive one.

So it's got a release date of September 1st.

Only two games really excite me this year -- Cyberpunk and this game.

Think I'll jump in with the 3rd game.