Crusader Kings III

PC

The early medieval period, as Crusader Kings III paints it on its seductive world map, is a time of affectionless psychopathy. Less a game of nations, this is instead a grand strategy game about smaller, more intimate stories. And all of them are about furthering your bloodline. It teaches you to view people only in terms of what their personalities and genetics can do for your claim to the throne, and ultimately, that everyone’s a massive liability who’s just as likely to catch a debilitating STD as they are to plot your death, or perform their job as your steward. It is, of course, wonderfully compelling.

Paradox’s breed of strategy has never lacked depth or long-form intrigue. Historically, though, grappling with the myriad systems of a Crusader Kings game felt a bit like learning to code the game yourself, on the fly. You had a fuzzy sense of how you wanted to impact the world, but little clue as to where in the stack of menus to click first to start doing it. The most significant change about its threequel is a newfound friendliness about the UI, and an essential tutorial that tacitly acknowledges how daunting this all must be for newcomers. Through this, and a never-ending stream of tooltips, the interconnected mechanics begin to reveal themselves more clearly than they ever did before. Money, dread, renown, titles, claims – all crucial currencies gathered from elements as disparate as arranged marriages and horse-riding accidents – all become rote before the 11th century’s over.

What the tutorial does best, however, is getting you embroiled in the politicking of 1070s Ireland. There’s a sandbox as big as the explored world waiting to indulge your most specific historical hypotheticals – a Holy Roman Empire run as a matriarchy, Africa united under Spanish rule – but all that can wait until the sadistic vassal of Ulster is assassinated, your son’s child bride passes her congenital genius down the Munster bloodline, and Ireland – all of Ireland – becomes yours.

Cleverly, it holds your focus on these intimate human stories while keeping the vast world map and its thousands of dynasties ticking over. If you looked at the patchwork of national borders on the world map as a to-do list, as Total War or Civilization often encourage you to, it’d be impossibly daunting. But you’re in charge of your own objectives here, and there’s a curious satisfaction in being unambitious: you need never interact with the Byzantine empire if you don’t want. The borders immediately beside your starting realm can stay just as they are. In its simplest form, Crusader Kings III keeps going as long as your immediate family does.

Which is a wonderful take on medieval history, isn’t it? King Charlemagne probably spent a lot more time contemplating his own family tree than the borders of empires far beyond his own, and the entire period of history is dominated by people who simply happened to have been born into a family who’d long ago convinced the masses they had a divine right to rule over them.

This being a game about people, it’s a meaningful step forward that each person is now drawn as a 3D render when you right-click their portraits. Inevitably there are some unnerving doppelgängers out there, but considering the sheer number of bodies in every court of every kingdom that’s forgivable. Besides, it’s the stats and traits that tell the story, not the visuals.

Take the appalled bishop Petrus Guaiferidi, for example, who misinterpreted Petty King Murchad’s plot to sway him into friendship with the Irish king as a romantic advance. Imagine the tense relations that followed. Or the incompetent steward Doelgus, who seemed to haemorrhage legitimate claims to his king’s realms on an almost monthly basis and eventually turned his back on catholicism. Queen Mentzia, whose traits, claims and beauty made her the ideal bride for Munster’s heir, but whose proclivity for extramarital sex left the line of legitimate succession in a tangle.

And while some of these period-set soap operas occur via the machinations of Crusader Kings III’s

‘random’ events (actually all the result of character decisions throughout the world), a good deal of them are your own doing. You knew the risks of inbreeding – you saw what it did to the barren De Jures of Rouergue, but you chose to preserve those traits at the risk of infertility and congenital defects. Your Spymaster might be a lazy, sadistic, frail malcontent who actively dislikes you, but he’s also your nephew.

Swords are drawn, from time to time, you understand. It’s not the default action of the ambitious king, but when diplomacy, tactical marrying and outright death plots fail, war’s there waiting. As before you need a legitimate reason to wage war, but with the help of a corrupt pope or a suspect bit of paper, the word ‘legitimate’ can be stretched well beyond its reasonable limits. This is the one area Crusader Kings III

doesn’t lavish formidable levels of detail on, with battles playing out with quick one-on-one unit animations. Raising and moving armies is easier than before, however, and a clearer menu layout makes managing troops a simpler facet of a ruler’s duties.

There are just two start points in history this time, 867 or 1066, and your dynasty runs until the fall of the Byzantine empire in – spoilers – the 1450s. By Sid Meier standards that’s a mere blip in civilisation’s great timeline, but by making your story so personal and rich with historical histrionics Crusader Kings III

somehow feels all the more expansive in scale. It still requires a deeper commitment than most games ask for, but the rewards positively tumble forth, year after year, generation after generation, treacherous vassal after treacherous vassal.

Your Spymaster might be a lazy, sadistic, frail malcontent, but he’s also your nephew