CK3 is perhaps my most favorite game of all time. I have never played a game, instantly loved it, then one hour later when I was invaded and my lands were taken hated it only to love it once more. While I did not play CK2 much before the launch of this game, it has definitely made me play its predecessor much more. Based on an evaluation of both games excluding DLC, I find CK3 to be superior in that it is easier to learn, it is a more streamlined game, and it is far superior to look at. However, as of right now CK3 is desperately lacking in depth when compared to CK2. CK2 was such a hard game to learn because of the depth of its gameplay. CK3 ditches a lot of small features from CK2 that added a sense of realism to CK2 such as the need for a standing navy to move troops across water. However, CK3, in my opinion greatly improves on the role playing aspect of the Crusader Kings Franchise. CK3 places a greater emphasis on the characters which you play as and how they interact with the world. The game becomes more than a paint the map your color game and turns into a dynamic experience of expanding and improving your dynasty. This is accentuated by the character creation system which is far superior to CK2's. For example I wanted to go for the "Rise From the Ashes" achievement as a character who is both Hellenic and Roman, a faith and culture which are unattainable without a custom character or by using the console. I was able to not only create a character with those traits (as you can in CK2) but I was able to design the looks (aka. DNA) of my character to match those of the statues of past Roman Emperors. This leads into the amazing character models which provide a sense of life to the game. Now bad traits such as comely or scaly are even less desirable because they make your character actually look scaly and ugly. Whereas traits such as Herculean and Beautiful make your character larger and more muscular or have a better complexion and overall look. Finally CK3 in its stock form is very replayable. Once you start as the Byzantines and take over the world CK3 doesn't lose any of its replayability. There are endless opportunities to replay a scenario such as creating the Holy Roman Empire. You can play as a king, a duke, or a count in any of the hundreds of realms in Western Europe and start your quest to form HRE with each different start posing a different challenge. Heck if your really got bored you could always start as a count who practices a religion hostile to your catholic liege and see if you can become king or emperor before your titles get revoked. Sometimes you can even start a game with no aim and the game will present you with a golden opportunity to do something crazy. In addition the historical accuracy of the game starts allows for historical recreations of empires and kingdoms. However, despite all of its successes, CK3 still has a bit to go before it is the perfect game. CK3 becomes very repetitive when you are trying to accomplish one single goal. It is a cycle of Conquest, Control, Convert, Stress Loss Events, and managing your heir. However, a great way to make your playthroughs less boring is to ditch morality and have some fun. CK3 does a great job at not limiting players from wrecking havoc throughout the world. Do you have a character who is very high in intrigue and endless amounts of money? You could always try to murder off an entire dynasty who upset you during your playthrough. If you want to roleplay as the Hapsburgs and marry your son to your daughter for many generations you can do that in this game. My personal favorite is in my current run (restoring the roman empire as a hellenic roman starting as a count) once I experienced being on the receiving end of a crusade I decided to make it my mission to murder every Pope until I was able to dismantle the papacy and destroy the Pope forever. By the time I burned down the Vatican I had killed over 20 popes and wasted thousands of gold on my endeavor. This made the repetitive process of Conquest, Control, Upgrade, and Convert much more bearable until I was safe from Crusades and could focus on dismantling the Byzantine Empire and growing my own. I fully expect that after Paradox releases their many overpriced DLCs for this game the problem of repetitiveness will be mostly solved. However for what the game is right now I highly recommend CK3, it is perhaps the best grand strategy incest and murder fantasy game on steam right now. Happy Crusading!

CK3 is perhaps my most favorite game of all time. I have never played a game, instantly loved it, then one hour later when I was invaded and my lands were taken hated it only to love it once more. While I did not play CK2 much before the launch of this game, it has definitely made me play its predecessor much more. Based on an evaluation of both games excluding DLC, I find CK3 to be superior in that it is easier to learn, it is a more streamlined game, and it is far superior to look at. However, as of right now CK3 is desperately lacking in depth when compared to CK2. CK2 was such a hard game to learn because of the depth of its gameplay. CK3 ditches a lot of small features from CK2 that added a sense of realism to CK2 such as the need for a standing navy to move troops across water. However, CK3, in my opinion greatly improves on the role playing aspect of the Crusader Kings Franchise. CK3 places a greater emphasis on the characters which you play as and how they interact with the world. The game becomes more than a paint the map your color game and turns into a dynamic experience of expanding and improving your dynasty. This is accentuated by the character creation system which is far superior to CK2's. For example I wanted to go for the "Rise From the Ashes" achievement as a character who is both Hellenic and Roman, a faith and culture which are unattainable without a custom character or by using the console. I was able to not only create a character with those traits (as you can in CK2) but I was able to design the looks (aka. DNA) of my character to match those of the statues of past Roman Emperors. This leads into the amazing character models which provide a sense of life to the game. Now bad traits such as comely or scaly are even less desirable because they make your character actually look scaly and ugly. Whereas traits such as Herculean and Beautiful make your character larger and more muscular or have a better complexion and overall look. Finally CK3 in its stock form is very replayable. Once you start as the Byzantines and take over the world CK3 doesn't lose any of its replayability. There are endless opportunities to replay a scenario such as creating the Holy Roman Empire. You can play as a king, a duke, or a count in any of the hundreds of realms in Western Europe and start your quest to form HRE with each different start posing a different challenge. Heck if your really got bored you could always start as a count who practices a religion hostile to your catholic liege and see if you can become king or emperor before your titles get revoked. Sometimes you can even start a game with no aim and the game will present you with a golden opportunity to do something crazy. In addition the historical accuracy of the game starts allows for historical recreations of empires and kingdoms. However, despite all of its successes, CK3 still has a bit to go before it is the perfect game. CK3 becomes very repetitive when you are trying to accomplish one single goal. It is a cycle of Conquest, Control, Convert, Stress Loss Events, and managing your heir. However, a great way to make your playthroughs less boring is to ditch morality and have some fun. CK3 does a great job at not limiting players from wrecking havoc throughout the world. Do you have a character who is very high in intrigue and endless amounts of money? You could always try to murder off an entire dynasty who upset you during your playthrough. If you want to roleplay as the Hapsburgs and marry your son to your daughter for many generations you can do that in this game. My personal favorite is in my current run (restoring the roman empire as a hellenic roman starting as a count) once I experienced being on the receiving end of a crusade I decided to make it my mission to murder every Pope until I was able to dismantle the papacy and destroy the Pope forever. By the time I burned down the Vatican I had killed over 20 popes and wasted thousands of gold on my endeavor. This made the repetitive process of Conquest, Control, Upgrade, and Convert much more bearable until I was safe from Crusades and could focus on dismantling the Byzantine Empire and growing my own. I fully expect that after Paradox releases their many overpriced DLCs for this game the problem of repetitiveness will be mostly solved. However for what the game is right now I highly recommend CK3, it is perhaps the best grand strategy [strike] incest and murder fantasy [/strike] game on steam right now. Happy Crusading!