Crusader Kings 3: Royal Court: The First Preview

I have long pictured my embattled monarchs in Crusader Kings 3 perched on some kind of fancy chair while the affairs of the realm are brought before them for consideration. With next year's Royal Court expansion, I won't have to imagine any more. We're getting full, 3D throne rooms for kings and emperors of feudal and clan realms, a grandeur system that expects more powerful realms to have nicer clothes and more servants, and the return of the inventory system from Crusader Kings 2: Monks and Mystics that lets you nab anything from a sharp new sword to religious relics. And all of these little pieces fit in so well that they feel like they should have been here all along, which is refreshing when some of Paradox's older strategy games feel like they're looking for things to do at this point.

Paradox Development Studio's grand strategy offerings have been playfully and accurately called "map-staring games" for years, because that's normally what you're doing most of the time. So Royal Court represents a big step into new territory. It's still a bit restrictive. You can't get up and walk around or chat up random courtiers, and even the welcome photo mode only lets you select between a few preset camera angles. But there is something very grounding about having a human-scale place to visit.

Two main activities take place here. First, you can display artifacts, such as a house banner and legendary weapons that can be found, stolen, or even made custom for you by new artisan characters. The other is holding court, which can be done every five years and presents you with three dilemmas you are expected to rule on. Perhaps two of your powerful vassals are having a disagreement, and siding with neither of them will just make them both angry. Maybe guests are complaining about the wait to get their water glasses refilled and want you to hire more servants.

Lend Me Your Ear

My favorite thing about this system is that it reinforces the idea that a king or queen has more responsibilities than merely deciding where to go to war next. In fact, it's fully possible to play Crusader Kings 3 without going to war now, and I rarely felt like I'd run out of things to do. There are even minor court events that can pop up while your Hold Court action is on cooldown, but they default to a neutral option if you don't attend to them after some time, so you can take a look at them if you're not busy but aren't forced to when you have a lot on your plate.

About those servants, though. Depending on how large and powerful your realm is, you'll be expected to keep up a certain level of grandeur, which can come from finding, commissioning, and displaying artifacts. But the main way to increase it is to pour the kingdom's treasury into amenities like food and lodgings. Exceeding expectations by having a very lavish court as a modest realm comes with significant bonuses to your domestic stability. But the opposite is true if you're very powerful and can't keep up appearances. The tension this introduces between domestic and military spending is a great check on some of the snowballing that could happen for experienced Crusader Kings players, especially when you die and have to split the realm (and its taxes) between multiple heirs.

I See You Are a Man of Culture

The other big change coming with Royal Court and its accompanying patch is a rework of the culture system to make it fully customizable, like religions were at launch. Every culture now has a heritage and a language group, which can be related or not. Nothing's stopping you from creating, say, a Varangian realm with Norse heritage that speaks a Slavic or Greek language. Cultures also have pillars, which determine things like whether they're warlike, courtly, or spiritual, and tenets, which can unlock new military units, allow you to adopt a more Romanized military structure, or even ignore attrition in steppe areas for your nomadic conquerors. Rather than a flavor pack targeted at one area like March's Northern Lords, this feels like a flavor upgrade to everyone.

And you have three options if you want to tinker with your culture. If you are the culture head – the ruler with the most counties of a given culture under your control – you can reform it, though you'll be very limited in which tenets you can select from. If you have a culture present in your realm that is different from your character's, such as if you take your vikings over to India and conquer the Tamil kings, you can create a hybrid culture that will let you select from the pillars and tenets of both parent cultures. This lets you create combinations that wouldn't be possible any other way, like fearsome sea raiders who build hidden jungle cities and are experts in elephant warfare. Finally, you can diverge from your parent culture, like splitting off Ukrainian from Russian. These all cost a heavy amount of prestige, though, and it might be that not all of your vassals will convert to the new culture right away.

Having a very lavish court as a modest realm comes with significant bonuses to your domestic stability. But the opposite is true if you're very powerful and can't keep up appearances.

Royal Court is shaping up to be a gift to roleplayers, while also adding some much needed variety to every corner of the map and introducing new ways to customize your realm. In a tangible sense, Crusader Kings 3 feels more finished now, almost like the launch version was a proof of concept and we're finally seeing the full picture take shape with this expansion. You'll be able to preside over your own Royal Court on February 8, 2022.

source https://www.ign.com/articles/crusader-kings-3-royal-court-expansion-first-preview-hands-on-pc