Good Morning Bavarian! At least it opens some interesting options. The choose your destiny mechanic could be very interesting from a dynasty management perspective. Become King. Go landless as 3rd son. Adventure, become badass, and take over a different kingdom. Repeat. Suddenly you have a Renown farm worthy of Mordor.
The impossible choice of where to put key feuture in a new expansion: -if it's in the free update people will say that the DLC is lacking and overpriced -if it's in the paid DLC people will complain that there is a paywall and it should have been free
@@Sanvone It took Stellaris a while to get there in my opinion, before the Custodian intiative Stellaris was a bit of a roller coaster in terms of fans' reactions, but after the Custodian initiative I think reception of the game's updates is generally good even after DLC releases like Astral Rifts that were seen negatively.
Yup, he was raving about the Legends DLC which is one of the weakest Paradox DLC's I've ever seen, so I expect this one to be my favorite so far for CK3
@@armoredchimp I watch pretty much all OPB’s videos, I really enjoy them. The thing is you can tell early if he’s going to enjoy a new DLC or not. He is reading the dev blogs and if LIKES what he sees, then when the review comes he will take the idealized and fantasy version of the role play mechanics the DLC provide. Meaning, he will excuse poorly implemented mechanics if they help fulfill a fantasy he likes. If he does not like what he sees, he will take the mechanics as is and call them repetitive. He liked the fantasy of plagues, and so when LoTD came out, he accepted all those poorly implemented mechanics.
@@minderbart1 Or if they didn't hurt legitimacy, or seem to spawn when loading a save (I've notice that plagues seem to always spawn nearby when restarting. Go a few years in a losing war, no plague. Reload to before war, suddenly plague). In all honesty, I wish that plagues had a smaller initial legitimacy hit, with further hits for how you deal with the plague. Isolating the capital, abandoning your realm to go on a pilgrimage, or starting a war/raid, should hurt your legitimacy more. But having a court physician, or making good decisions on plague events that help your realm, should increase your legitimacy. Doing this would have made plagues more interesting than they currently are.
I don't like that devs added that option. It just creates a bad narrative and creates religious turmoil amongst people. As an Orthodox, I don't see how Catholics are holy and rest of the world is unholy, considering that the biggest crimes against humanity were and are still caused by Catholics. Crusades, colonization, native American genocide, WW2 crimes, wars that followed after, NATO, etc. Idk, maybe I am overthinking :D
Another example of Paradox expecting the mods to add content to baseline feature, I like the direction they went with the DLC but like Bavarian been saying, these things are not fleshed out at all
Players not being able to offer contracts to landless adventurers is something I was afraid of when it was never mentioned in the dev diaries, and I'm extremely disappointed to hear that's the case. Paying an AI freebooter to kidnap my rival as he travels to my grand wedding seems like such a fun and obvious synergy. This is part of an ongoing problem with CK3: new systems aren't integrated well enough to act as one piece of a greater web, and instead they just hang off the side of the gameplay like some awkward skin tag. They really need to wake up and start making these new elements actually interact with each other.
They mentioned that it was, and still is, something that they want to do. The reason it's not out in this release is because between adventurers in general *and* the Byzantine content, the only way they could have added content to both sides of the contract system would have required them to slash it back in scope. Instead, they chose to keep the intended number and variety of contracts as high as they wanted, and scheduled players issuing contracts for a future update. While it's not ideal, I agree with the decision. It *is* paid DLC after all, so content that the DLC gives you access to takes priority when you run into time constraints.
They said this in a dev diary. Someone already said it but they said its hecause if they were to do that, they would have effectively had to have slashed the number of contracts and events surrounding them in half, because theyd have had to made these contracts interactable 2 ways, which is twice the amount of work. And I mean, really, would anybody have been hiring adventurers to fulfill contracts anyways? People think of all these cool scenarios where itd be good for it to be a feature, but really, how many times woukd the situation present itself in such a way that a potential contract would be viable to use/ be available, and when they would be, how often would you go out of your way to use them, or even to remember that you can use them? Probably not a lot
@@The_Real_Shakespeare as others said, they did mention it, but I agree with your criticism 100%. I blame it at least partially on Paradox's dlc policy. It feels like they can't fully integrate the new mechanics with each other bc the whole thing might break if someone has one dlc but not the other. There's so much potential for integration already, but every new feature feels like its own little minigame. It's such a waste honestly...
The development has to shift away from individual DLC exclusive features towards something like a DLC-ecosystem of intertwined features, which under the current model probably wont happen. Quite a few DLCs are essentially very high quality standalone “mods” with limited integration with other DLCs. Personally I don’t think there is enough incentive/time for them to make cohesive and fully integrated systems when everything has to be modular to account for what DLCs you own. It also doesn’t help that the endless DLC model requires them to move on to the next big DLC feature instead of fleshing out or integrating existing ones.
Honestly people are talking about it like the landless gets repetitive but the RP potential behind this is insane. One of my favorite characters to play as is Haesteinn, and it's because of the freedom he has. I am going to adore the landless adventurer mechanic.
Interesting review. Glad to see you so upfront with your criticism of the dlc. I really do like CK3, but the game has a load of problems still. I would really like to see paradox focus more on focusing fixing existing issues. Crusades are still a fundamentally broken mechanic, which is sort of embarrassing considering the game is called crusader kings.
@@1992zorro What new devs? The director of Ck3 Henrik Fahraeus was the director of Ck2 and a lead designer on the original Ck. Edit: Hell the only reason I could find for Johan not working on Ck3 is because he was set to head up their Barcelona studio which we now know is working on Project Caesar
It is embarassing. The crusade system being so broken, overpowerd MAA, incompetent AI. While DLCs maybe offer new mechanics to play with the main problems are still there
I kinda understand why they didn't go with modular government types. It's indeed a shame but it seems like a great pain to properly implement and balance. Governments are many times more complicated than cultures and religions with basically the whole game loop depending on them. I think the devs drew up some concepts and ideas but probably concluded that it would take too much time without guranteeing satisfying results. It would be amazing to depict the feudal/admin mix the Seljuks had or the declining authority of the HRE over Italy or Abbasids over their governships instead of making them outright independent, but it is what it is. I think any reasonable chance of that happening died when the devs initially decided to take the fixed system we have now.
@@ChosenSquirrel But Legends of the Dead was objectively awful. Plagues (part of the free patch content, not the DLC--and were broken at first) were the one good part of it. Legitimacy (part of the patch) was a mess and was just added to try and force you to buy the half-baked DLC (since the best way to get legitimacy is funerals--which are added with the DLC). Legends themselves (the "highlight" feature of the DLC) were incredibly underwhelming and pretty much inconsequential.
To be fair on landless. It seems like a fallback option if you fail. So you shouldn’t feel the repetition that much, especially if you are the type of player who only plays the game for a 100 hours or so when a new dlc drops. I think you are only bored of it because you are actively reviewing it and therefore playing a lot of landless games in quick succession. Also event spam is not unique to landless. Every system in the game spams you with the same mundane events.
yeah dude, everyone is talking about how amazing it is to play as landless, and you are here acting as if it is just a background feature and question it might not be that fair to play too much of the flagship element of the dlc. and didnt he said in the vid that other event spam you can actively avoid (sure the plague you cant, and look at its steam review) but you cant when playing as a landless.
Landless is one of the core features of the DLC that's been marketed as something you can play for generations, so I think it's fair game for reviewing as a feature to be played for more than just a few years. Now whether it's good or bad is another thing, but it isn't designed to be just a thing you do once or twice, at least based on the advertising of it.
In past dev dairy, the dev said they want players to play the landless mode and have as much fun as a landed ruler. If that was an actual goal, then it looks like they failed it.
@@Dell-ol6hb OPB's take is it's not that fun to play as landless adventurer. I hope he's wrong, but I'm not seeing much contrary evidence. In every of my campaign I play for 300+ years as landed dynasty. I have yet to see any gameplay elements from these sponsored and official videos about landless adventure gameplay that can match my expectation.
I've been thinking about this for a while, and I believe the community should actively push PDX to implement a 'First Aid Season', similar to what Rainbow Six Siege did. Instead of releasing new content, they focused on fixing bugs, improving existing mechanics, and addressing missed opportunities highlighted by the community. CK3 and its expansions feel incredibly dull and artificial at times. There’s so much potential for deeper, more intertwined mechanics to enhance storytelling and world-building, but it just isn’t happening. It's frustrating to see huge missed opportunity after missed opportunity. The core mechanics of CK3 are superb on their own, but they don’t interact in meaningful ways. How can we encourage PDX to focus on a 'First Aid Season' and make these improvements?
look at the custodian team for Stellaris ! They already did this for one of their own game. But the problem is fixing old problems are not making as much money as making new features.
I agree. I feel like Wards and Wardens was actually a poor attempt at this. Kids are very rarely useful outside of genetic gaming, random claims, and voting on who has better stats so they tried to make childhood more impactful but they screwed up and priced it terribly so now the community doesn't trust them to do it right again.
Now, I understand the criticism. However... my brain is fried, so i probably wont mind the landless loop as much and also hopefully some talented modders can work some magic in due time
A few flavor mods and maybe special Viking or merchant unlandeds might be cool. Imagine being able to buy boats through the upgrade menu and becoming a Rus traveling the rivers between Scandinavia and Constantinople buying/selling/raiding.
It sounds like a different game. And I love that. Ottowa Welshman went to india and got Elephants with his character lol. Doing stuff like that sounds so funny. Not gonna play landed for some time for sure.
On the other hand I see people mad that you can become landed fairly quickly, I am not sure paradox would be able to find a balance that satisfies people easily but we will see.
It's good to hear you found playing as a vassal in an admin realm interesting. I've long avoided playing as a vassal in CK3 because it always felt lacking compared to being a full ruler, but I'm eager to give being a vassal of the Byzantines a shot.
@@solinvictus2045 The trade-off between giving up independence and the lack of control didn't really feel to me to give enough interesting interactions between a liege and fellow vassals. It also felt inevitable that I would grow more powerful than anyone else in the realm at which point why wouldn't I take over? There's just not much reason to stay a vassal if I can just not be a vassal. There also used to a major issue where you could lose all your land to a peasant uprising if your liege decided to capitulate but I don't know if that's still a thing.
@@AnonSeacat when ppl say they like playing as a vassal, they mean they enjoy paying the highest taxes and levy, while casually also gifting all their gold for their liege to waste on swords for hire.
Wild, I genuinely prefer to be a Vassal. To me its way more fun to be a King-Maker than a King. The benefits of being on the Council are just so high that I dont think anything about being top liege remotely compensates.
@@Lutasiren No? Literally most people who play as a vassal end with fairly low tax and levy, and frequently go for a March Contract? You literally dont know what you are talking about in the slightest at all frankly.
I appreciate the fact you didn't go with the Legends of the Dead route of shilling the DLC and pointing the negatives AFTER it's out and everyone's played already. Honesty and integrity is one of the most important aspects of having a healthy community. As for the DLC, it looks promising! I wish there was a way to mimic the imperial decay system from CK2 HIP or, frankly, a way to simulate the historical decay of the Eastern Roman Empire. As it stands, the only obstacle for the byzanines are rebellious vassals which, while historical, does not feature the influence of a myriad invaders or failing administration. Other than that, it's a shift to the right direction, deep mechanical focus is what makes good dlc IMO. I'm happy that Paradox seems to be listening to what the community needs. (Obligatory "merchant republics and crusades when?" Lol)
Dont rebellious vassals affect the unity of the empire and how strong the emperor is overall? Meaning that if the empire is more disunified and there are more rebellions, AI conquerors and all that would be more likely to feel confident invading the empire? And with more rebellions, the emperor is having to fight more, meaning more often than not theyre probably going to not be at 100% strength, which also is going to make the AI more confident in attacking the empire. I remember in one dev diary, im pretty sure one of the earlier ones, they said that the empire can be either really strong or really weak depending on how unified it is/ rebellious the governors are. "Like a well oiled machine" i remember them describing the empire when its unified and working together. And the opposite when its not. So i do believe, although I dont have the dlc yet, I wouldnt know for certain lol, that the empire being more disunified and governors being more rebellious does replicate that imperial decay system, just in a more nuanced and indirect way
@@tuxtitan780 maybe you should read less dev diary and play the game more. lol "invading the empire" in reality, they are taking one county and call truce for five years.
@@fellipeveloso1866 they should have some special CBs right? but from a few vids i watched, saladin did just what i described. guess we'll find out tomorrow
@@Lutasiren I saw a video that Saladin was going for all the kingdom of Jerusalem, dont know if its scripted, though. But since OPB says that conquerors can be pretty strong, I wouldnt doubt they can be a considerable threat (considering how easy ck3 is strategically)
It feels like the combination of estates landless gameplay and administrative governments could easily be used to make republics playable im surprised there's nothing on that
Ooh somehow that potential has gone totally over my head. Imagine how fun being landless in a republic would be. Ideally there'd need to be some kind of trade mechanics or a way to really enrich yourself to build into a strong republic family, but equally you could just be able to build really strong manors that give tons of cash (that was pretty much it in CK2, of course without being able to start as landless)
Honestly, I think CK3 and paradox in general has always been very open to allowing modders to add their own content, and maybe the base content is lacking, but as long as it’s universally playable across the map instead of just focused around the Byzantines or just focused around one or two types of lifestyles, the modders will fill in the blanks and add as much as they can
Well, I love the game as is, so every new DLC is just more reason to play it. This entire DLC could just be the Choose Your Destiny mechanic and I would be happy because it means I no longer end a campaign after 200 years when I’m the strongest player on the map by a landslide. It sucks that adventuring is as repetitive as I feared it would be but I know I’ll enjoy the novelty of it for a while before it gets too boring, I mean, I’m one of those people who holds court on cooldown no matter what so I don’t mind repetition too much. I’m very excited going into the DLC. There are a lot of new campaign ideas to be had and even old campaigns being done with the fresh paint of the DLC over them. Customizing notifications is also very very nice Actually though, why TF did only one bookmark get an adventurers tab? They better update the other two with an adventurer tab soon because I find that very dumb and limited when there are so many adventures to choose from.
I'm most excited about the potential for existing mods like obfusckate and travellers to really expand on the scheme mechanic. One of the devs mentioned that they ran out of time for implementing the need for courtiers to travel in order to execute a scheme. Infiltrating enemy courts with people loyal to you, spying from the inside, and having them as guests or courtiers to your enemy (occasionally making reports that offer opportunities for special schemes), would be a dream. The bones are there, so at least for now we can make-believe these kinds of stories in our heads.
I can’t wait to play this DLC in a few hours and see how much of the OPB’s critiques are truly there for me. I certainly agree that anything locked behind a DLC is going to be refined less in the future, so I hope that in some way the landless gameplay will be enriched by other mechanics nonetheless in the future
Wild, thats my assessment of your opinion. That is a Wild Opinion about what is shaping up, from what I have seen, to be the best expansion yet. I cant imagine how you went from "Legends of the Dead 9/10" to "Roads to power I dont want to suggest it but I feel like I have too"
Honestly can't believe he gave LOTD 9/10. RTP looks somewhat repetitive sure, but it lays the groundwork for modders to do their magic and the legend system is awful.
Well, at least if the landless events aren't good, we can hope that modders will be able to add enough events to keep things interesting. Great review, I enjoyed it a lot!
I recommend combining this dlc with a mod that removes tooltips from event options. That way you'll need to pay attention to events and guess what different options will do, regardless of time spent playing
Holding a diet sounds so cool. The nobles and mayors, bishops all meeting up and forcing/bargaining with the monarch of some actions should be a thing.
@@warbandplaysAU9178 It’s not inconsistent to like something other people dislike and dislike some aspects of something other people like. That’s just having a different opinion. If your opinions often conflict with the reviewer it’s fine to not trust that their reviews will be the same as your experience, but he’s not being inconsistent by disagreeing with you.
@gooper3644 Don't you think its weird that he praised a terrible DLC (Legends of the Dead) while the majority (according to the steam reviews) hated it? Don't you think its weird he praised Victoria 3 on release and somehow predicted the bad war system. He calls the new scheme system "busywork" but what I see is making plot to kills harder to achieve. The previous system was too ez. Wut is this review...
As a Rome weeb, I'm happy that being a frontier governor that can shadow blobs outs the empire. So yhe AI can run the empire, while i have a super tall doom stack kingdom with 5 cultures, and a OP space marines army. That i can rotate between greek and a couple other cultures for whatever is better at the time inside and out of the empire.
I've come to feel like you aren't genuine in these reviews. You always send these out far closer to the update than any other reviewer and also seem to disagree with basically everyone else, you say big things that empower yourself whilst either putting things on pedestals or down in the dumps, but it always comes back to basically saying this is CK and CK hasn't changed. But look at how CK is then vs now, the game is slowly becoming more thought out and richer. I think that if you look at the bigger picture, every update is good. Its in the same way that CK2 had DLC which felt bad in a vacuum but great together and vain without any DLC. CK3 is vain with no DLC, good with DLC but can be boring and always refreshing with every DLC but these DLC and Updates never change the game outright. I think we should look at CK3 as a puzzle piece with DLC rather than how we look at DLC in say COD or Rainbow 6. I hope you don't take this as hate I just feel that this is pattern and wanted to air my opinion. Obviously if your right, I'll return to apologize on Wednesday as I h=just have that full day free to try it out I also have no opinion on the whole DLC vs FREE debate, I just sort of vibe there.
Yeah, I definitely am feeling the same way. I guess there's a reason why I am slowly not watching these vids anymore. OPB is a cool dude, but our takes are getting so wildly different I might just stick to watching his lets-plays
Honestly I've come to feel very much the same. A lot of this feels disingenuous in the way that he is a really good RP player, I know that he is really good at looking at a character and humanizing them. So him just dogging on Landless, complaining about the "busywork" ... it just feels so counterintuitive to so much of what he's stood for in the past. Busywork is life! It doesn't make the game *harder*, sure. It slows it down. That's true! I adore that. Having more time as my character and more stuff to do breathes life into the world as a sort of living thing in my mind. The contracts aren't the most important part of landless to me! The idea of being a small time count or landed knight in AGOT and deciding to just throw it all away and go off to Pentos to do in some petty war, or in vanilla terms, give up a county in France and end your natural life in India. How cool is that? You are given so much less restriction and so much more narrative freedom. I am honestly shocked that OPB doesn't feel the same, as around a year or two ago, I would have said he's our best advocate for RP in CK3. Ladyfyreblood's point is also right -- I do suppose there is a reason I've been watching these vids less and less and watching TH-camrs like Soul Tomato. OPB is entitled to his opinion and I have even had conversations with him in the comments before, so I have a lot of respect and I would feel bad if he felt personally upset by this comment, but a lot of this really really does feel disingenuous in a major way and has impacted how I view these reviews. As you say, we'll see tomorrow / wednesday.
I agree, and I also think he's overcompensating for the pushback he got for loving the legends DLC, which was generally universally disliked. Some people accused him of shilling which I think he took personally and now seems determined to be as negative as possible. Also, the issues he cares strongly about are definitely not the ones I do, and he bases his opinions often over these specific, even niche things. A really good reviewer is able to zoom out a bit and get a sense for what the average player cares about. Still think he's one of the best paradox content creators though, just not the reviews as much
@@thefinal9923 I completely agree. One of my biggest gripes with the game is sitting around and waiting for something to happen. I basically sit and watch my character grow old and then I inherit as a middle aged character who's already done most of the interesting stuff in his life so now I have to BS something to do that typically requires more waiting.
My before thoughts are that I'm pretty keen on stories you can generate with landless adventuring and admin government. It seems there is a lot of sandbox potential. Things like eloping with a noble of high status as an adventurer, participating in tournaments to max out the Hastiluder trait (Something that feels more difficult as landed. Never had a chance to dedicate myself to tourneys/hunts due to other things to pay attention to and high cost) and some goofy conquer trait stuff would be fun once or twice. I do wish you could be some sort of courtier or dedicated commander for a landed noble tying yourself to land a bit more. I'm probably more attracted to the roleplay I guess since you have more room to express your character and pick less optimal stuff compared to landed due to not bordering a giant realm waiting for you to crack or vassal waiting to take you down. Mechanics should be something to encourage roleplay which this seems like it doesnt as much sadly. They mentioned in a dev diary or maybe a reply to a forum post that landless is a system meant to be expanded on. I don't think they've said that for any other major DLC. Not holding my breath but landless being developed alongside landed would be cool. Needless to say tours and tournaments feels like a must for this DLC to have something other than contracts to do. Here is hoping the wandering nobles dlc adds a little more meat to the landless bones. Anyway thank you for the good review I hope I'm a bit more positive on it. 👍
There's a few things I want to see in CK3 in the future: Joint rule. This wasn't uncommon in Norway at least - where the sons of a King would become joint rulers, instead of the land splitting upon succession. This could lead to instability. Which brings me to some other aspects of the game I'd love to see: Civil War / Warring states periods. Different from "Factions" and unrest. Think War of the Roses. Norway had a similar period from 1130 to 1260. What's generally common for these type of mechanics is disputed heritage leading to factions who tries to install their person on the throne. It's different from "Install by faction demand" which generally is more of a "we hate the current king, and want a new king" As such, I'd love to see the struggle mechanic used for more random periods as well. Maybe forcing a nation into an internal struggle with different factions - but outwards it looks "united." But, if you try to invade lands within the struggle during this time - you'd have to deal with the ordeal as well. (System could also work for religious civil wars - which wasn't as common in this period of time... but Norway is famous for Olav the Holy and his war to christen Norway) Similarly, I'd love to see more than just diarchies in the way it's set up now. Norway had several periods of co-kingships - which was sometimes unstable affairs. These aspects could tie into the legitimacy system - or maybe give a reason for a sort of house unity mechanic for Tribal and Feudal lords.
So they fall flat in the exact same way again? Having great ideas, introduce the ideas and then fail to go beyond surface level into making those ideas great! 😢
Imagine having a high combat skill and the deceitful trait/high intrigue. People would invite you to schemes as the empire’s eminent assassin, and through this earn favors, money, and opportunity. Damn, makes me sad to think about it. Shame to hear that about the espionage rework. I really had hoped that this would open up story opportunities, make AI scheme more against eachother and invite you, and add some risk/spice to being added to a scheme.
really hope he can elaborate more on why auto-invite cant save the system. as a veteran player, two things are very clear. 1. the longer i am into a campaign, the lesser i give a f. 2. less effective never stop my lazy ass.
I'm really excited to see what modders will cook up, paradox shouldn't rely on modders to make their game for them, but boy are the modders good at it anyway!
Maybe if they just hired some of those modders the game would be a bit more fleshed out and cohesive! Imagine what some of them could do if they got their hands on the source code.
@@heppe1k160 They did hire one... for a cosmetic pack lol. They said it was going to be the first of a creator initiative but I haven't heard anything about it since.
I'm more interested in how the modders ultimately use this stuff. More event trees, more contracts, etc. Maybe actual questing in the more fantasy settings.
you can do that in the game already. 1.designate one kid as your heir. 2. create a voting law for your main title, and vote for your elder son. 3. die or surrender to a civil war. 4. pretend as if the elder son inherited the title.
It's funny, I can already tell that I'm going to love landless gameplay and never touch administrative governments. We clearly want very different things from the game, heh heh. Completely agree about the schemes though
What you said, and what I saw from Landless, cements my feelings. Maybe I will be surprised tomorrow. But besides having a "background story" for a new character, or the odd fourth son going for a claim they inherited from their mother, I probably won't be using it as much. But again, potentially I like it much more than expected. Lower expectations are certainly helpful.
Imo landless looks like it wont exactly be bad, but it will get boring pretty quickly. However, mods, im sure, will make up for it in due time, id imagine
@@tuxtitan780 Yeah, it's probably fun as a stop gap or to switch position on the map, while keeping the family line going. Beyond that we probably need mods.
I understand the critik towards the dlc, and i dont want to get into the endless debate of paradoxs dlc policy as there are few other delevopers that support and update there game so long after relase. But at CK3´s dosent exist in a vacum mods have become such a huge part of the game they cant be ignored when talking about new content. Plus i think the critik about the travle system is mute because the wandering nobles dlc will defitly have an impact.
Thanks for your honest review. I'll be giving the expansion a good playthrough, but it is a shame that it seems the devs weren't able to bring the potential of landless gameplay into fruition. Maybe modders can? We'll see...
I think I disagree to a certain point. Yes, contracts will go stale rather quickly, which is why I think the landless adventurer gameplay is most fitting for mercenaries and criminals and I'm still sad I can't raid, but I think the fantasy of being a mercenary and switching sides whenever doing so seems prudent and just profiting from big wars is very appealing to me. This playstyle also gets reinforced through the camp upgrades allowing you to gain money from battles and such.
I unironically look forward to the agot mod with this dlc. Playing a Hedge Knight. They have so many flavor and Lore events in that mod. You can probably spend Multiple Playthroughs shaping your own Adventure. This will be Huge.
To be fair to them, whenever they added some difficulty features, be it the peril or plagues, the community disliked all of them. Even travel dangers were nerfed. And yes, I know none of the systems above are great, but it is hard to increase the difficulty for players like us who have over 1000 hours in CK3, let alone 2.
@christophermino7101 Few easy ways tbh. Reduced marriage acceptances, and marriages not automatically being an alliance would help a lot. 1 county starts aren't a challenge if you can just borrow a 10k stack by marrying off your 8th daughter to the Emperor of Tome
@@christophermino7101Do most of the people criticized plagues because it's difficult? I know some people complain because of it. The most complain I see is because it's repetitive and negligible. We don't need more notifications about some random ass flu in the corner of the empire culminating to 'are there no sick houses?' , 'we must cull the sheep' and maybe sometimes isolate your capital. It is also very frequent which is again not hard but it is just bloody annoying
If landless and byzantine rework lays the groundwork for Republics and Nomads then I would be surprised if they didn't expand onn the basic landless gameplay.
it looks like the dlc adds some new reworks and necessary mechanics, but it still has a lot of problems and since this new mechanic is behind a paywall dlc, it's a big negative for opb. At least that's what I understood from the video and I agree that he could have been a little more incisive in his verdict, whether negative, positive or mix
I feel the way about the whole government systems, I was hoping for CK3 to realise that governments should be based on developments of faith and culture that contributes to organisation. E.g. Norse start with less organisation as tribes are harder to unite but over time through culture they mirror Feudal and eventually feudalise meanwhile feudal reaches the potential of imperial administration such as Balifs and Regency councils etc.
Seems like a very thoughtful and insightful review. I've watched some livestreams of the game, and I agree that landless does look a lot like a grind. It might help to think of it as being like a medieval version of that classic board game, The Game of Life, except on steroids. The thing that I am most looking forward to is the ability to jump into a completely new character on succession, without being tied to my empire. The ability to start a new story and create a new realm on the other side of the world while you watch your old realm slowly eat itself with infighting could be enough for me to finally reach the end date, despite having thousands of hours in the game.
I would argue that there is already a modular element to governments in CK3: The Tech system. A lot of the tech you discover through cultural fascination reflects the changing in how Feudal system changed over time. Crown Authority, Succession Laws, so much is already evolving over time in the cultural fascination system Tribal requires tech to be able to adopt feudal ways - which makes a lot of sense, most tribal areas did feudalize over time. I would like to see Admin governments also unlocking more things through the fascinations. I also think the "converting" to different government types should be done just partly though decision, but then also through conversion - like religion. If I have unlocked Admin Government, I might not have converted land to it yet - and have feudal vassals. I would either need to convince the lord to cede his lands to me - and become a governor - OR I could take the land, and then appoint a Governor. Which would upset the Feudal lords, meanwhile lands you conquer would go directly to Governorships and not Feudal. Then, if you maintain your government poorly different Governors could declare themselves Lords of their region, and revert back to Feudal. Similarly, I think if you adopt feudal ways, then your vassals might still be Tribal, but convert once they reach a higher development in their capital.
I would love to be able to edit certain features of your governance like you can edit culture. Ultimately I would also want to be able to edit the position and rank names for titles. Maybe even being able to edit the default cultural name for rank titles.
Yes, as I have noted in the review, I enjoy a great many things about the DLC as well, especially the main part that is the ERE content! It's just that, for me, the high paygating compared to previous patches here as well as the totally unintegrated landless gameplay loop do not impress me, but the essence and overall gameplay impact of landless still does.
Good morning! Here is my opinion BEFORE playing (Which I might not have a lot of time to do tomorrow but we'll see) I am disheartened by your description of Landless Adventurer gameplay being a dull grind, but part of me saw it coming, especially as I am not big on reading event chains as a form of gameplay, and that is what a lot of the contracts seem to boil down to. Landless Adventurer was the part of the dlc I was looking most forward to, I will still give it an earnest try. It looks like I'll probably be spending most of my time within the Byzantine Empire (Or perhaps the Latin Empire) it all looks like good fun, no notes.
pretty much expected. really dont get y ppl hyping for the landless gameplay. i mean if the main game doesnt entertain you, you wont buy any dlc, you'd just play another game. so then why hyping for sth that is totally different from the main game (it doesnt enteract with the resource and power on the map) and hoping those pop-ups they newly create could entertain you. well, it aint, expected.
the landless is available to modders, so it isn't so locked as you think Bavarian. and one more expansion coming up in Wandering Nobles. (last DLC of this year) Other then that I agree with your critic about paywall not getting updates, but they did things differently this time with Landless.
I find it interesting that you describe adventurers as grindy because I feel that is actually missing in CK3. Like the smoothness of the landed gameplay has got quite boring to me so getting that more frictional relationship is interesting to me.
I'm surprised you painted this so negatively after your Legends of the Dead video but appreciate perhaps a more honest approach to the dlcs, guess I'll have to find out for myself tomorrow how boring landless will be but it's definitely halted the hype train. Good video.
Im still hyped for it going to be playing with my friends tomorrow , personally can't wait given the type of game play I have seen from other players. It seems like you can convert counties as a landless player . In the holy land this could cause some interesting drama
Comprehensive review! Pre-release but after having watched your whole review I'm still feeling positive about landless, both in terms of adventurers and admin gov. For me the novelty of landless adventure play still looks like fun and combined with the choose your destiny inheritance thing i thibk will fundamentally shake up how the games played - specifically adding some freshness when you have been successful as a ruler and set up solid realm. Having scope to then explore the wolrd youve built in the sandbox from a new perspective is huge imo. If i remember ill reply to this comment once ive got some hands on time with the dlc
I wouldn't say that ck3 admin government is straight out better than ck2 imperial government. For example I really liked how succesion law for the byzantines worked in ck2 with the emperor being kinda elected by military, while in ck3 it's just mana auction for the highest bidder with little regard for the strength of the claim or military background of the character trying to succeed the throne. I also liked in ck2 that it was more natural to have a mix of feudal and admin vassals as the emperor which gave you incentive to try convert all your feudal vassals to admin ones... While in ck3 it takes a click of one button to convert to admin and AI does it all the time :/
Thanks for the video Bavaria, I hope moving up from landless isn't restricted to going from that to Kingdom or Empire titles and we can go take over counties or duchies.
From what I have seen in other videos you in fact can buy a county/get bribed to the other side in a war with a county/etc as a Landless. You can infact even go from Landless Adventurer to Landless with a Byzantine Estate and then farm up influence to get a Governorship! Im *very* much Looking forward to the DLC my self.
@@katmannsson Yeah, I have already decided: I have way too much of a hard time choosing between playing Landless or as a Byzantine administrator, so I'll just be Landless in Byzantium and do both. That I feel is the true heart to road to power.
Thanks for the honest review and not falling with the hype to look at both the good and the bad in your usual thoughtful manner! Generally I think my stances align with yours so it's nice to see that articulated. Seems overall a good DLC but with some serious flaws.
I don't mind it not being free - partly because as you say: it get's less attention. What I would rather see in future content is a more "all roads lead to Rome" approach. Where you can get aspects like landless through different expansions. You then only get the aspect you paid for - but heck why not bundle the aspects in packs, rather than sticking to the rigid module they have now? One place where the landless style could be very very cool is in a Trade and Exploration expansion. A lot of people want the "end of the map" over in Asia. Which would make sense in a trade and exploration campaign. Marco Polo was alive during the time of CK3 after all. The landless estates could also give rise to a Republic playstyle. This way the features could continue to be improved, without keeping them all free. Maybe the court system could be improved by linking it to a "Republican Senate" feature. I think this would also increase peoples willingness to buy older DLCs that might not "hit the spot" at release.
I noticed that the scheme rework just looked like extra micro in other sponsored videos. There's a lot of hype for this dlc, but, with such a flawed fundamental mechanic, I think there's going to be a lot of dissapointment
Good morning, say it back!
Ja. Weird one. Let me know your opinion BEFORE and AFTER you play it tomorrow!
Good morning Bavarian!
Good Night for me!
Unholy Roman Empire?
Happy you were so honest about your thoughts
Good Morning Bavarian!
At least it opens some interesting options.
The choose your destiny mechanic could be very interesting from a dynasty management perspective.
Become King. Go landless as 3rd son. Adventure, become badass, and take over a different kingdom. Repeat.
Suddenly you have a Renown farm worthy of Mordor.
The impossible choice of where to put key feuture in a new expansion:
-if it's in the free update people will say that the DLC is lacking and overpriced
-if it's in the paid DLC people will complain that there is a paywall and it should have been free
how can a free update be overpriced?
@@bumblebeetunayoutube3711 They mean that the dlc is overpriced
Stellaris has figured out DLC's. Heck it even is updating older to be more on par with newer additions.
@@Sanvone It took Stellaris a while to get there in my opinion, before the Custodian intiative Stellaris was a bit of a roller coaster in terms of fans' reactions, but after the Custodian initiative I think reception of the game's updates is generally good even after DLC releases like Astral Rifts that were seen negatively.
@@TheImperialSenate Custodian Team started in 2021, 5 years after Stellaris release. CK3 released in 2020, it's already 4 years old
Given my opinion on CK3 DLCs is proportionally inverse to OPB's opinion, I am sure I will love this DLC like mad.
Yup, he was raving about the Legends DLC which is one of the weakest Paradox DLC's I've ever seen, so I expect this one to be my favorite so far for CK3
@@armoredchimp I watch pretty much all OPB’s videos, I really enjoy them. The thing is you can tell early if he’s going to enjoy a new DLC or not. He is reading the dev blogs and if LIKES what he sees, then when the review comes he will take the idealized and fantasy version of the role play mechanics the DLC provide. Meaning, he will excuse poorly implemented mechanics if they help fulfill a fantasy he likes. If he does not like what he sees, he will take the mechanics as is and call them repetitive.
He liked the fantasy of plagues, and so when LoTD came out, he accepted all those poorly implemented mechanics.
This is exactly what I was thinking when I clicked on the video. Most of his points are solved using head canon.
@@matheus.bueno47 too be fair the plagues would be really good if it didn't target the player disproportionally.
but they do and it sucks
@@minderbart1 Or if they didn't hurt legitimacy, or seem to spawn when loading a save (I've notice that plagues seem to always spawn nearby when restarting. Go a few years in a losing war, no plague. Reload to before war, suddenly plague). In all honesty, I wish that plagues had a smaller initial legitimacy hit, with further hits for how you deal with the plague. Isolating the capital, abandoning your realm to go on a pilgrimage, or starting a war/raid, should hurt your legitimacy more. But having a court physician, or making good decisions on plague events that help your realm, should increase your legitimacy. Doing this would have made plagues more interesting than they currently are.
I am so annoyed I can't just play this all day tomorrow
@@aegorbittersteel2154 what time is it gonna be released?
@@samdis1890 17 UTC(+0 GMT), I believe
@@samdis1890for me, it's 18hrs from now
@@samdis1890 12 PM est
Yeah, I have all day off tmw but can only play half the day
"Unholy Roman Empire" - classic Latin barbarian playing tricks again. As expected from a subject of the German King!
I don't like that devs added that option. It just creates a bad narrative and creates religious turmoil amongst people. As an Orthodox, I don't see how Catholics are holy and rest of the world is unholy, considering that the biggest crimes against humanity were and are still caused by Catholics. Crusades, colonization, native American genocide, WW2 crimes, wars that followed after, NATO, etc. Idk, maybe I am overthinking :D
As a german I also highly agree with this view of history:P
Totes 😮💯%@@sizanogreen9900
Classic Germanic bitter ramblings
I wasn’t expecting you to not be really positive. Everything I’ve seen looks amazing, but I really hadn’t seen the scheme rework very much
@@Nesta4815 it seems to me that it is still an improvement over the previous system.
Another example of Paradox expecting the mods to add content to baseline feature, I like the direction they went with the DLC but like Bavarian been saying, these things are not fleshed out at all
Unholy Roman Empire cracked me up, maybe german humour really is good
Players not being able to offer contracts to landless adventurers is something I was afraid of when it was never mentioned in the dev diaries, and I'm extremely disappointed to hear that's the case.
Paying an AI freebooter to kidnap my rival as he travels to my grand wedding seems like such a fun and obvious synergy. This is part of an ongoing problem with CK3: new systems aren't integrated well enough to act as one piece of a greater web, and instead they just hang off the side of the gameplay like some awkward skin tag.
They really need to wake up and start making these new elements actually interact with each other.
They mentionned it in the dev diaries tho.
They mentioned that it was, and still is, something that they want to do. The reason it's not out in this release is because between adventurers in general *and* the Byzantine content, the only way they could have added content to both sides of the contract system would have required them to slash it back in scope. Instead, they chose to keep the intended number and variety of contracts as high as they wanted, and scheduled players issuing contracts for a future update. While it's not ideal, I agree with the decision. It *is* paid DLC after all, so content that the DLC gives you access to takes priority when you run into time constraints.
They said this in a dev diary. Someone already said it but they said its hecause if they were to do that, they would have effectively had to have slashed the number of contracts and events surrounding them in half, because theyd have had to made these contracts interactable 2 ways, which is twice the amount of work.
And I mean, really, would anybody have been hiring adventurers to fulfill contracts anyways? People think of all these cool scenarios where itd be good for it to be a feature, but really, how many times woukd the situation present itself in such a way that a potential contract would be viable to use/ be available, and when they would be, how often would you go out of your way to use them, or even to remember that you can use them?
Probably not a lot
@@The_Real_Shakespeare as others said, they did mention it, but I agree with your criticism 100%. I blame it at least partially on Paradox's dlc policy. It feels like they can't fully integrate the new mechanics with each other bc the whole thing might break if someone has one dlc but not the other.
There's so much potential for integration already, but every new feature feels like its own little minigame. It's such a waste honestly...
The development has to shift away from individual DLC exclusive features towards something like a DLC-ecosystem of intertwined features, which under the current model probably wont happen.
Quite a few DLCs are essentially very high quality standalone “mods” with limited integration with other DLCs. Personally I don’t think there is enough incentive/time for them to make cohesive and fully integrated systems when everything has to be modular to account for what DLCs you own.
It also doesn’t help that the endless DLC model requires them to move on to the next big DLC feature instead of fleshing out or integrating existing ones.
I think this rpg traveller mechanic is going to get my wife into ck3.
Honestly people are talking about it like the landless gets repetitive but the RP potential behind this is insane. One of my favorite characters to play as is Haesteinn, and it's because of the freedom he has. I am going to adore the landless adventurer mechanic.
Interesting review. Glad to see you so upfront with your criticism of the dlc.
I really do like CK3, but the game has a load of problems still. I would really like to see paradox focus more on focusing fixing existing issues. Crusades are still a fundamentally broken mechanic, which is sort of embarrassing considering the game is called crusader kings.
they hate it being called crusader kings. The new devs hate everything a good Paradox game stood for
@@1992zorro What new devs? The director of Ck3 Henrik Fahraeus was the director of Ck2 and a lead designer on the original Ck. Edit: Hell the only reason I could find for Johan not working on Ck3 is because he was set to head up their Barcelona studio which we now know is working on Project Caesar
It is embarassing. The crusade system being so broken, overpowerd MAA, incompetent AI. While DLCs maybe offer new mechanics to play with the main problems are still there
@@1992zorroYou're weird. The people around you flinch when they hear you speak because they thought you were still not allowed near schools.
It's time this game actually goes in-depth instead of just giving flavor surface text of complexity.
I kinda understand why they didn't go with modular government types. It's indeed a shame but it seems like a great pain to properly implement and balance. Governments are many times more complicated than cultures and religions with basically the whole game loop depending on them. I think the devs drew up some concepts and ideas but probably concluded that it would take too much time without guranteeing satisfying results.
It would be amazing to depict the feudal/admin mix the Seljuks had or the declining authority of the HRE over Italy or Abbasids over their governships instead of making them outright independent, but it is what it is. I think any reasonable chance of that happening died when the devs initially decided to take the fixed system we have now.
Maybe we'll get a HRE expansion some time to flesh that out. It was a pretty significant political body at the time.
@@plebisMaximusI'd prefer a religious update first
I mean, this is mostly a characters-based game. Deep, intricate government mechanics aren't really the scope of the game.
curious if this is gonna be the opposite of LOTD where you don't like this one but everyone else does.
A reminder that this guy thought legends of the dead was a 9/10
Like IGN
yes this is why i like to enjoy Ck3 without this guys reviews he's such a killjoy
Guys its a complex game people play for different reasons . Diverging opinions are inevitable
@@ChosenSquirrel But Legends of the Dead was objectively awful. Plagues (part of the free patch content, not the DLC--and were broken at first) were the one good part of it. Legitimacy (part of the patch) was a mess and was just added to try and force you to buy the half-baked DLC (since the best way to get legitimacy is funerals--which are added with the DLC). Legends themselves (the "highlight" feature of the DLC) were incredibly underwhelming and pretty much inconsequential.
Yeah he kind of lost credibility after that one. Don’t much care for his reviews anymore
To be fair on landless. It seems like a fallback option if you fail. So you shouldn’t feel the repetition that much, especially if you are the type of player who only plays the game for a 100 hours or so when a new dlc drops.
I think you are only bored of it because you are actively reviewing it and therefore playing a lot of landless games in quick succession.
Also event spam is not unique to landless. Every system in the game spams you with the same mundane events.
yeah dude, everyone is talking about how amazing it is to play as landless, and you are here acting as if it is just a background feature and question it might not be that fair to play too much of the flagship element of the dlc. and didnt he said in the vid that other event spam you can actively avoid (sure the plague you cant, and look at its steam review) but you cant when playing as a landless.
Landless is one of the core features of the DLC that's been marketed as something you can play for generations, so I think it's fair game for reviewing as a feature to be played for more than just a few years. Now whether it's good or bad is another thing, but it isn't designed to be just a thing you do once or twice, at least based on the advertising of it.
In past dev dairy, the dev said they want players to play the landless mode and have as much fun as a landed ruler. If that was an actual goal, then it looks like they failed it.
@@kgptzac well idk if we can say that just yet, the DLC isn't even out yet
@@Dell-ol6hb OPB's take is it's not that fun to play as landless adventurer. I hope he's wrong, but I'm not seeing much contrary evidence. In every of my campaign I play for 300+ years as landed dynasty. I have yet to see any gameplay elements from these sponsored and official videos about landless adventure gameplay that can match my expectation.
I've been thinking about this for a while, and I believe the community should actively push PDX to implement a 'First Aid Season', similar to what Rainbow Six Siege did. Instead of releasing new content, they focused on fixing bugs, improving existing mechanics, and addressing missed opportunities highlighted by the community.
CK3 and its expansions feel incredibly dull and artificial at times. There’s so much potential for deeper, more intertwined mechanics to enhance storytelling and world-building, but it just isn’t happening. It's frustrating to see huge missed opportunity after missed opportunity. The core mechanics of CK3 are superb on their own, but they don’t interact in meaningful ways.
How can we encourage PDX to focus on a 'First Aid Season' and make these improvements?
They just don't care as there is no direct money grabbing opportunities
There’s next to no profit incentive for them to do that. I believe the game will get a custodian team like Stellaris later in its lifespan.
look at the custodian team for Stellaris ! They already did this for one of their own game. But the problem is fixing old problems are not making as much money as making new features.
I hope that after another year, they get a custodian team, like stellaris has.
I agree. I feel like Wards and Wardens was actually a poor attempt at this. Kids are very rarely useful outside of genetic gaming, random claims, and voting on who has better stats so they tried to make childhood more impactful but they screwed up and priced it terribly so now the community doesn't trust them to do it right again.
Finally I can roleplay Griffith!
Now, I understand the criticism. However... my brain is fried, so i probably wont mind the landless loop as much and also hopefully some talented modders can work some magic in due time
A few flavor mods and maybe special Viking or merchant unlandeds might be cool. Imagine being able to buy boats through the upgrade menu and becoming a Rus traveling the rivers between Scandinavia and Constantinople buying/selling/raiding.
@@heppe1k160 The Things we dream, modders make and Paradox profits. As always
Honestly, landless being grindy sounds balanced. Fun? idk
It sounds like a different game. And I love that. Ottowa Welshman went to india and got Elephants with his character lol. Doing stuff like that sounds so funny. Not gonna play landed for some time for sure.
On the other hand I see people mad that you can become landed fairly quickly, I am not sure paradox would be able to find a balance that satisfies people easily but we will see.
It's good to hear you found playing as a vassal in an admin realm interesting. I've long avoided playing as a vassal in CK3 because it always felt lacking compared to being a full ruler, but I'm eager to give being a vassal of the Byzantines a shot.
What do you feel is lacking playing a Vassal in ck3 ?
@@solinvictus2045 The trade-off between giving up independence and the lack of control didn't really feel to me to give enough interesting interactions between a liege and fellow vassals. It also felt inevitable that I would grow more powerful than anyone else in the realm at which point why wouldn't I take over? There's just not much reason to stay a vassal if I can just not be a vassal.
There also used to a major issue where you could lose all your land to a peasant uprising if your liege decided to capitulate but I don't know if that's still a thing.
@@AnonSeacat when ppl say they like playing as a vassal, they mean they enjoy paying the highest taxes and levy, while casually also gifting all their gold for their liege to waste on swords for hire.
Wild, I genuinely prefer to be a Vassal. To me its way more fun to be a King-Maker than a King. The benefits of being on the Council are just so high that I dont think anything about being top liege remotely compensates.
@@Lutasiren No? Literally most people who play as a vassal end with fairly low tax and levy, and frequently go for a March Contract? You literally dont know what you are talking about in the slightest at all frankly.
THE DLC IS FOR AGOT AND LORTR
this is literally the best argument for it as you can at least hope the drawbacks will be fixed by those two mods
You mean for absolutely all fantasy mods
I appreciate the fact you didn't go with the Legends of the Dead route of shilling the DLC and pointing the negatives AFTER it's out and everyone's played already. Honesty and integrity is one of the most important aspects of having a healthy community.
As for the DLC, it looks promising! I wish there was a way to mimic the imperial decay system from CK2 HIP or, frankly, a way to simulate the historical decay of the Eastern Roman Empire. As it stands, the only obstacle for the byzanines are rebellious vassals which, while historical, does not feature the influence of a myriad invaders or failing administration.
Other than that, it's a shift to the right direction, deep mechanical focus is what makes good dlc IMO. I'm happy that Paradox seems to be listening to what the community needs. (Obligatory "merchant republics and crusades when?" Lol)
Dont rebellious vassals affect the unity of the empire and how strong the emperor is overall? Meaning that if the empire is more disunified and there are more rebellions, AI conquerors and all that would be more likely to feel confident invading the empire? And with more rebellions, the emperor is having to fight more, meaning more often than not theyre probably going to not be at 100% strength, which also is going to make the AI more confident in attacking the empire.
I remember in one dev diary, im pretty sure one of the earlier ones, they said that the empire can be either really strong or really weak depending on how unified it is/ rebellious the governors are. "Like a well oiled machine" i remember them describing the empire when its unified and working together. And the opposite when its not. So i do believe, although I dont have the dlc yet, I wouldnt know for certain lol, that the empire being more disunified and governors being more rebellious does replicate that imperial decay system, just in a more nuanced and indirect way
@@tuxtitan780 maybe you should read less dev diary and play the game more. lol "invading the empire" in reality, they are taking one county and call truce for five years.
@@Lutasirenarent conquerors a new feature?
@@fellipeveloso1866 they should have some special CBs right? but from a few vids i watched, saladin did just what i described. guess we'll find out tomorrow
@@Lutasiren I saw a video that Saladin was going for all the kingdom of Jerusalem, dont know if its scripted, though. But since OPB says that conquerors can be pretty strong, I wouldnt doubt they can be a considerable threat (considering how easy ck3 is strategically)
You loved Legends of the dead but you are bashing this DLC that looks like the only good DLC so far.
Whats going on
He wasn't paid for this one, that's the difference
Yeah as much as he’s got an interesting perspective on these DLCs I never find myself agreeing with his view on them
@@1992zorroWhich is good, omg the cringe of OPB praising legends of the dead is just unbearable.
He gave legends of the dead 9/10 😵💫
He didn't get paid. He only got early access. Paradox will blacklist him now.
It feels like the combination of estates landless gameplay and administrative governments could easily be used to make republics playable im surprised there's nothing on that
Ooh somehow that potential has gone totally over my head. Imagine how fun being landless in a republic would be. Ideally there'd need to be some kind of trade mechanics or a way to really enrich yourself to build into a strong republic family, but equally you could just be able to build really strong manors that give tons of cash (that was pretty much it in CK2, of course without being able to start as landless)
Or even theocratic. A landless guy getting a church barony and then moving up the ladder until he can run for pope would be super sick.
i would love to join a holy order as a landless adventurer and make my way to the top of the Knights of Teutonic order for example
Honestly, I think CK3 and paradox in general has always been very open to allowing modders to add their own content, and maybe the base content is lacking, but as long as it’s universally playable across the map instead of just focused around the Byzantines or just focused around one or two types of lifestyles, the modders will fill in the blanks and add as much as they can
Well, I love the game as is, so every new DLC is just more reason to play it. This entire DLC could just be the Choose Your Destiny mechanic and I would be happy because it means I no longer end a campaign after 200 years when I’m the strongest player on the map by a landslide.
It sucks that adventuring is as repetitive as I feared it would be but I know I’ll enjoy the novelty of it for a while before it gets too boring, I mean, I’m one of those people who holds court on cooldown no matter what so I don’t mind repetition too much.
I’m very excited going into the DLC. There are a lot of new campaign ideas to be had and even old campaigns being done with the fresh paint of the DLC over them. Customizing notifications is also very very nice
Actually though, why TF did only one bookmark get an adventurers tab? They better update the other two with an adventurer tab soon because I find that very dumb and limited when there are so many adventures to choose from.
I'm most excited about the potential for existing mods like obfusckate and travellers to really expand on the scheme mechanic. One of the devs mentioned that they ran out of time for implementing the need for courtiers to travel in order to execute a scheme. Infiltrating enemy courts with people loyal to you, spying from the inside, and having them as guests or courtiers to your enemy (occasionally making reports that offer opportunities for special schemes), would be a dream.
The bones are there, so at least for now we can make-believe these kinds of stories in our heads.
I can’t wait to play this DLC in a few hours and see how much of the OPB’s critiques are truly there for me. I certainly agree that anything locked behind a DLC is going to be refined less in the future, so I hope that in some way the landless gameplay will be enriched by other mechanics nonetheless in the future
Wild, thats my assessment of your opinion. That is a Wild Opinion about what is shaping up, from what I have seen, to be the best expansion yet. I cant imagine how you went from "Legends of the Dead 9/10" to "Roads to power I dont want to suggest it but I feel like I have too"
He was paid for Legends of the Dead but he wasn't for Roads to Power
Honestly can't believe he gave LOTD 9/10. RTP looks somewhat repetitive sure, but it lays the groundwork for modders to do their magic and the legend system is awful.
@@warbandplaysAU9178 he wasn't paid
@@Gizz101 Yea he wasn't paid. That's why he shat talk the DLC. Busywork in the schemes... Bro intrigue was too op.
Well, at least if the landless events aren't good, we can hope that modders will be able to add enough events to keep things interesting.
Great review, I enjoyed it a lot!
I recommend combining this dlc with a mod that removes tooltips from event options. That way you'll need to pay attention to events and guess what different options will do, regardless of time spent playing
I really feel people have been hyping landless up a bit too much when it is one out of seven listed features for the DLC on Steam.
“1178 is an extreme thunderdome”
-OPB
…mother of god take me to the thunderdome
It sounds fun and unpredictable which earlier start dates definitely tend to go certain ways.
Could we get FOW based on Diplo range please? 🙏🙏
As a casual player, i think it will be a good dlc, it look s fun, and that is what a game should be FUN.
Who knew that not being a person of importance, you must work hard, to still fail in the end. CK3 has become the truest life simulator.
If the dlc lock brings this type of quality, i don't care. This is way better than the previous dlcs, free update or not.
Holding a diet sounds so cool. The nobles and mayors, bishops all meeting up and forcing/bargaining with the monarch of some actions should be a thing.
Say legends of the dead was ass then I may trust your opinion is genuine
lol fr legends of the dead is genuinely the WORST mainline dlc. mainly for the legend seeds, plagues/legitamacy are alright now
Ah so you're very bloody salty he didn't say the dlc is trash? Gamer moment
@@Gizz101 no just highlighting his inconsistencies
@@warbandplaysAU9178 It’s not inconsistent to like something other people dislike and dislike some aspects of something other people like. That’s just having a different opinion.
If your opinions often conflict with the reviewer it’s fine to not trust that their reviews will be the same as your experience, but he’s not being inconsistent by disagreeing with you.
@gooper3644 Don't you think its weird that he praised a terrible DLC (Legends of the Dead) while the majority (according to the steam reviews) hated it? Don't you think its weird he praised Victoria 3 on release and somehow predicted the bad war system.
He calls the new scheme system "busywork" but what I see is making plot to kills harder to achieve. The previous system was too ez. Wut is this review...
As a Rome weeb, I'm happy that being a frontier governor that can shadow blobs outs the empire.
So yhe AI can run the empire, while i have a super tall doom stack kingdom with 5 cultures, and a OP space marines army.
That i can rotate between greek and a couple other cultures for whatever is better at the time inside and out of the empire.
"Unholly Roman Empire" 😭😭
unlocking military tech should increase troop maintenance/cost to balance late-game economics
I've come to feel like you aren't genuine in these reviews. You always send these out far closer to the update than any other reviewer and also seem to disagree with basically everyone else, you say big things that empower yourself whilst either putting things on pedestals or down in the dumps, but it always comes back to basically saying this is CK and CK hasn't changed. But look at how CK is then vs now, the game is slowly becoming more thought out and richer. I think that if you look at the bigger picture, every update is good. Its in the same way that CK2 had DLC which felt bad in a vacuum but great together and vain without any DLC. CK3 is vain with no DLC, good with DLC but can be boring and always refreshing with every DLC but these DLC and Updates never change the game outright. I think we should look at CK3 as a puzzle piece with DLC rather than how we look at DLC in say COD or Rainbow 6.
I hope you don't take this as hate I just feel that this is pattern and wanted to air my opinion. Obviously if your right, I'll return to apologize on Wednesday as I h=just have that full day free to try it out
I also have no opinion on the whole DLC vs FREE debate, I just sort of vibe there.
Yeah, I definitely am feeling the same way. I guess there's a reason why I am slowly not watching these vids anymore. OPB is a cool dude, but our takes are getting so wildly different I might just stick to watching his lets-plays
Honestly I've come to feel very much the same. A lot of this feels disingenuous in the way that he is a really good RP player, I know that he is really good at looking at a character and humanizing them. So him just dogging on Landless, complaining about the "busywork" ... it just feels so counterintuitive to so much of what he's stood for in the past.
Busywork is life! It doesn't make the game *harder*, sure. It slows it down. That's true! I adore that. Having more time as my character and more stuff to do breathes life into the world as a sort of living thing in my mind.
The contracts aren't the most important part of landless to me! The idea of being a small time count or landed knight in AGOT and deciding to just throw it all away and go off to Pentos to do in some petty war, or in vanilla terms, give up a county in France and end your natural life in India. How cool is that? You are given so much less restriction and so much more narrative freedom.
I am honestly shocked that OPB doesn't feel the same, as around a year or two ago, I would have said he's our best advocate for RP in CK3.
Ladyfyreblood's point is also right -- I do suppose there is a reason I've been watching these vids less and less and watching TH-camrs like Soul Tomato.
OPB is entitled to his opinion and I have even had conversations with him in the comments before, so I have a lot of respect and I would feel bad if he felt personally upset by this comment, but a lot of this really really does feel disingenuous in a major way and has impacted how I view these reviews. As you say, we'll see tomorrow / wednesday.
I agree, and I also think he's overcompensating for the pushback he got for loving the legends DLC, which was generally universally disliked. Some people accused him of shilling which I think he took personally and now seems determined to be as negative as possible.
Also, the issues he cares strongly about are definitely not the ones I do, and he bases his opinions often over these specific, even niche things. A really good reviewer is able to zoom out a bit and get a sense for what the average player cares about.
Still think he's one of the best paradox content creators though, just not the reviews as much
@@thefinal9923 I completely agree. One of my biggest gripes with the game is sitting around and waiting for something to happen. I basically sit and watch my character grow old and then I inherit as a middle aged character who's already done most of the interesting stuff in his life so now I have to BS something to do that typically requires more waiting.
My before thoughts are that I'm pretty keen on stories you can generate with landless adventuring and admin government. It seems there is a lot of sandbox potential. Things like eloping with a noble of high status as an adventurer, participating in tournaments to max out the Hastiluder trait (Something that feels more difficult as landed. Never had a chance to dedicate myself to tourneys/hunts due to other things to pay attention to and high cost) and some goofy conquer trait stuff would be fun once or twice. I do wish you could be some sort of courtier or dedicated commander for a landed noble tying yourself to land a bit more.
I'm probably more attracted to the roleplay I guess since you have more room to express your character and pick less optimal stuff compared to landed due to not bordering a giant realm waiting for you to crack or vassal waiting to take you down. Mechanics should be something to encourage roleplay which this seems like it doesnt as much sadly. They mentioned in a dev diary or maybe a reply to a forum post that landless is a system meant to be expanded on. I don't think they've said that for any other major DLC. Not holding my breath but landless being developed alongside landed would be cool.
Needless to say tours and tournaments feels like a must for this DLC to have something other than contracts to do. Here is hoping the wandering nobles dlc adds a little more meat to the landless bones.
Anyway thank you for the good review I hope I'm a bit more positive on it. 👍
3:43 Albanian Jumpscare
Truly the worst fate a human suffer, having to look at…
Albania 😱
I'll be honest. I'm not interested with what this DLC will do for CK3, I'm interested in what it'll do for the Game of Thrones and Elder Kings mods.
There's a few things I want to see in CK3 in the future: Joint rule. This wasn't uncommon in Norway at least - where the sons of a King would become joint rulers, instead of the land splitting upon succession.
This could lead to instability.
Which brings me to some other aspects of the game I'd love to see: Civil War / Warring states periods. Different from "Factions" and unrest.
Think War of the Roses. Norway had a similar period from 1130 to 1260. What's generally common for these type of mechanics is disputed heritage leading to factions who tries to install their person on the throne. It's different from "Install by faction demand" which generally is more of a "we hate the current king, and want a new king"
As such, I'd love to see the struggle mechanic used for more random periods as well. Maybe forcing a nation into an internal struggle with different factions - but outwards it looks "united." But, if you try to invade lands within the struggle during this time - you'd have to deal with the ordeal as well. (System could also work for religious civil wars - which wasn't as common in this period of time... but Norway is famous for Olav the Holy and his war to christen Norway)
Similarly, I'd love to see more than just diarchies in the way it's set up now. Norway had several periods of co-kingships - which was sometimes unstable affairs.
These aspects could tie into the legitimacy system - or maybe give a reason for a sort of house unity mechanic for Tribal and Feudal lords.
So they fall flat in the exact same way again? Having great ideas, introduce the ideas and then fail to go beyond surface level into making those ideas great! 😢
bingo
Imagine having a high combat skill and the deceitful trait/high intrigue. People would invite you to schemes as the empire’s eminent assassin, and through this earn favors, money, and opportunity. Damn, makes me sad to think about it.
Shame to hear that about the espionage rework. I really had hoped that this would open up story opportunities, make AI scheme more against eachother and invite you, and add some risk/spice to being added to a scheme.
really hope he can elaborate more on why auto-invite cant save the system. as a veteran player, two things are very clear. 1. the longer i am into a campaign, the lesser i give a f. 2. less effective never stop my lazy ass.
I'm really excited to see what modders will cook up, paradox shouldn't rely on modders to make their game for them, but boy are the modders good at it anyway!
Maybe if they just hired some of those modders the game would be a bit more fleshed out and cohesive! Imagine what some of them could do if they got their hands on the source code.
@@heppe1k160 Agreed! Alas, it's paradox. I heard about them taking on a stellaris modder though, so maybe there's hope?
@@heppe1k160 They did hire one... for a cosmetic pack lol. They said it was going to be the first of a creator initiative but I haven't heard anything about it since.
I'm more interested in how the modders ultimately use this stuff. More event trees, more contracts, etc. Maybe actual questing in the more fantasy settings.
Dang man, I've been really enjoying it. Maybe it'll get a patch that'll make the scheme system more to your liking
It feels like this is the sort of mechanical advancement that is meant to be a foundation for future development. Here's hoping in any case.
The "Unholy Roman Empire" was the best thing of the video lol
Glad to see everyone else is excited like me, unlike OPB.
It amazes me how everything you deslike I like...
how do you like something you havent played
Play not as primary heir is genius feature😂😂 id like that
you can do that in the game already. 1.designate one kid as your heir. 2. create a voting law for your main title, and vote for your elder son. 3. die or surrender to a civil war. 4. pretend as if the elder son inherited the title.
It's funny, I can already tell that I'm going to love landless gameplay and never touch administrative governments. We clearly want very different things from the game, heh heh. Completely agree about the schemes though
What you said, and what I saw from Landless, cements my feelings. Maybe I will be surprised tomorrow. But besides having a "background story" for a new character, or the odd fourth son going for a claim they inherited from their mother, I probably won't be using it as much.
But again, potentially I like it much more than expected. Lower expectations are certainly helpful.
Imo landless looks like it wont exactly be bad, but it will get boring pretty quickly.
However, mods, im sure, will make up for it in due time, id imagine
@@tuxtitan780 I'm still imagining the landless potential for AGOT. I understand OPB's complaints and concerns, but I couldn't be more excited.
@@tuxtitan780 Like all their DLC's and new mechanics. They are fun for a few hours and you rarely touch them again.
@@thefinal9923 I'm assuming Wandering Nobels will help complete (or further) landless play.
@@tuxtitan780 Yeah, it's probably fun as a stop gap or to switch position on the map, while keeping the family line going. Beyond that we probably need mods.
I understand the critik towards the dlc, and i dont want to get into the endless debate of paradoxs dlc policy as there are few other delevopers that support and update there game so long after relase. But at CK3´s dosent exist in a vacum mods have become such a huge part of the game they cant be ignored when talking about new content. Plus i think the critik about the travle system is mute because the wandering nobles dlc will defitly have an impact.
Oof. TBH I was only really interested in the 1178 start date but your comments about the balance are concerning. Sigh.
they should make my go to -3 domain rule scale with era. it should be -6 or 9 in 1178 or it would not be helpful at all.
I really hope this is a stepping stone towards a great "Republics DLC"
Thanks for your honest review.
I'll be giving the expansion a good playthrough, but it is a shame that it seems the devs weren't able to bring the potential of landless gameplay into fruition. Maybe modders can? We'll see...
I think I disagree to a certain point. Yes, contracts will go stale rather quickly, which is why I think the landless adventurer gameplay is most fitting for mercenaries and criminals and I'm still sad I can't raid, but I think the fantasy of being a mercenary and switching sides whenever doing so seems prudent and just profiting from big wars is very appealing to me. This playstyle also gets reinforced through the camp upgrades allowing you to gain money from battles and such.
When is it coming out though? i thought it was coming out today but nothing changed
Not Australian time btw
Not Australian time
5 PM CET ;)
@@ricardomilos2107 thanks man
I'm going home from work now, by the time the dlc comes out, i will be back to work. Life isn't fair! 😢
I tend to evaluate many DLC based on what options I think they open for modders. This one seems massive on several levels.
lol yeah, that's how they coped after finishing the starfield campagin.
I unironically look forward to the agot mod with this dlc. Playing a Hedge Knight. They have so many flavor and Lore events in that mod. You can probably spend Multiple Playthroughs shaping your own Adventure. This will be Huge.
Seems like it'll be up to the modders to take the skeleton that Paradox has made and flesh it out to its full potential. Per usual.
Amazing insights and review! Thank you! Still excited to try it for myself, but I do also hope they update mechanics that still need attention
Are they finally gonna make the game a bit more difficult?!
No chances, this game is just more oriented towards casual audiences. The classic.
To be fair to them, whenever they added some difficulty features, be it the peril or plagues, the community disliked all of them. Even travel dangers were nerfed.
And yes, I know none of the systems above are great, but it is hard to increase the difficulty for players like us who have over 1000 hours in CK3, let alone 2.
@christophermino7101 Few easy ways tbh. Reduced marriage acceptances, and marriages not automatically being an alliance would help a lot. 1 county starts aren't a challenge if you can just borrow a 10k stack by marrying off your 8th daughter to the Emperor of Tome
@@apollo1694 Possible to make mods for this, but agree that vanilla is currently too easy.
@@christophermino7101Do most of the people criticized plagues because it's difficult? I know some people complain because of it. The most complain I see is because it's repetitive and negligible. We don't need more notifications about some random ass flu in the corner of the empire culminating to 'are there no sick houses?' , 'we must cull the sheep' and maybe sometimes isolate your capital. It is also very frequent which is again not hard but it is just bloody annoying
If landless and byzantine rework lays the groundwork for Republics and Nomads then I would be surprised if they didn't expand onn the basic landless gameplay.
So the DLC is going to be the best paradox has ever put out. Got it
So you are saying Yes and No? What kind of weak position is this?
it looks like the dlc adds some new reworks and necessary mechanics, but it still has a lot of problems and since this new mechanic is behind a paywall dlc, it's a big negative for opb.
At least that's what I understood from the video and I agree that he could have been a little more incisive in his verdict, whether negative, positive or mix
I feel the way about the whole government systems, I was hoping for CK3 to realise that governments should be based on developments of faith and culture that contributes to organisation. E.g. Norse start with less organisation as tribes are harder to unite but over time through culture they mirror Feudal and eventually feudalise meanwhile feudal reaches the potential of imperial administration such as Balifs and Regency councils etc.
Im on console so were way behind. What update made his capital constantinople look like that?
Seems like a very thoughtful and insightful review. I've watched some livestreams of the game, and I agree that landless does look a lot like a grind. It might help to think of it as being like a medieval version of that classic board game, The Game of Life, except on steroids. The thing that I am most looking forward to is the ability to jump into a completely new character on succession, without being tied to my empire. The ability to start a new story and create a new realm on the other side of the world while you watch your old realm slowly eat itself with infighting could be enough for me to finally reach the end date, despite having thousands of hours in the game.
I would argue that there is already a modular element to governments in CK3: The Tech system.
A lot of the tech you discover through cultural fascination reflects the changing in how Feudal system changed over time. Crown Authority, Succession Laws, so much is already evolving over time in the cultural fascination system
Tribal requires tech to be able to adopt feudal ways - which makes a lot of sense, most tribal areas did feudalize over time.
I would like to see Admin governments also unlocking more things through the fascinations.
I also think the "converting" to different government types should be done just partly though decision, but then also through conversion - like religion. If I have unlocked Admin Government, I might not have converted land to it yet - and have feudal vassals. I would either need to convince the lord to cede his lands to me - and become a governor - OR I could take the land, and then appoint a Governor. Which would upset the Feudal lords, meanwhile lands you conquer would go directly to Governorships and not Feudal.
Then, if you maintain your government poorly different Governors could declare themselves Lords of their region, and revert back to Feudal.
Similarly, I think if you adopt feudal ways, then your vassals might still be Tribal, but convert once they reach a higher development in their capital.
I would love to be able to edit certain features of your governance like you can edit culture. Ultimately I would also want to be able to edit the position and rank names for titles. Maybe even being able to edit the default cultural name for rank titles.
This is a bad take. Sorry bro
I get your concerns, and share most of them, but when it comes to ck3 I'm a heavy R.P player, so I'm hopeful.
I don't know man, this looks like the best DLC so far. I haven't agreed with your reviews for a long time now, which is concerning.
Yes, as I have noted in the review, I enjoy a great many things about the DLC as well, especially the main part that is the ERE content!
It's just that, for me, the high paygating compared to previous patches here as well as the totally unintegrated landless gameplay loop do not impress me, but the essence and overall gameplay impact of landless still does.
Do you think that this DLC will positively or negatively impact overhaul mods like AGOT or EK2?
Very positively!
Good morning! Here is my opinion BEFORE playing (Which I might not have a lot of time to do tomorrow but we'll see)
I am disheartened by your description of Landless Adventurer gameplay being a dull grind, but part of me saw it coming, especially as I am not big on reading event chains as a form of gameplay, and that is what a lot of the contracts seem to boil down to. Landless Adventurer was the part of the dlc I was looking most forward to, I will still give it an earnest try.
It looks like I'll probably be spending most of my time within the Byzantine Empire (Or perhaps the Latin Empire) it all looks like good fun, no notes.
pretty much expected. really dont get y ppl hyping for the landless gameplay. i mean if the main game doesnt entertain you, you wont buy any dlc, you'd just play another game. so then why hyping for sth that is totally different from the main game (it doesnt enteract with the resource and power on the map) and hoping those pop-ups they newly create could entertain you. well, it aint, expected.
the landless is available to modders, so it isn't so locked as you think Bavarian. and one more expansion coming up in Wandering Nobles. (last DLC of this year)
Other then that I agree with your critic about paywall not getting updates, but they did things differently this time with Landless.
I find it interesting that you describe adventurers as grindy because I feel that is actually missing in CK3. Like the smoothness of the landed gameplay has got quite boring to me so getting that more frictional relationship is interesting to me.
is the new start date pn the free update or only in the paid dlc?
I'm surprised you painted this so negatively after your Legends of the Dead video but appreciate perhaps a more honest approach to the dlcs, guess I'll have to find out for myself tomorrow how boring landless will be but it's definitely halted the hype train. Good video.
Why do you trust paid ytbers?
@@warbandplaysAU9178 Because he was given access and clearly gave an honest review that wouldn't benefit him?
Im still hyped for it going to be playing with my friends tomorrow , personally can't wait given the type of game play I have seen from other players.
It seems like you can convert counties as a landless player . In the holy land this could cause some interesting drama
Comprehensive review! Pre-release but after having watched your whole review I'm still feeling positive about landless, both in terms of adventurers and admin gov. For me the novelty of landless adventure play still looks like fun and combined with the choose your destiny inheritance thing i thibk will fundamentally shake up how the games played - specifically adding some freshness when you have been successful as a ruler and set up solid realm. Having scope to then explore the wolrd youve built in the sandbox from a new perspective is huge imo. If i remember ill reply to this comment once ive got some hands on time with the dlc
I wouldn't say that ck3 admin government is straight out better than ck2 imperial government. For example I really liked how succesion law for the byzantines worked in ck2 with the emperor being kinda elected by military, while in ck3 it's just mana auction for the highest bidder with little regard for the strength of the claim or military background of the character trying to succeed the throne. I also liked in ck2 that it was more natural to have a mix of feudal and admin vassals as the emperor which gave you incentive to try convert all your feudal vassals to admin ones... While in ck3 it takes a click of one button to convert to admin and AI does it all the time :/
I can't buy it yet. I thought it released today?
2 more hours until the free update
Thanks for the video Bavaria, I hope moving up from landless isn't restricted to going from that to Kingdom or Empire titles and we can go take over counties or duchies.
From what I have seen in other videos you in fact can buy a county/get bribed to the other side in a war with a county/etc as a Landless. You can infact even go from Landless Adventurer to Landless with a Byzantine Estate and then farm up influence to get a Governorship! Im *very* much Looking forward to the DLC my self.
@@katmannsson Yeah, I have already decided: I have way too much of a hard time choosing between playing Landless or as a Byzantine administrator, so I'll just be Landless in Byzantium and do both. That I feel is the true heart to road to power.
Who cares if its good we still buy pdx slop and complain.
Thanks for the honest review and not falling with the hype to look at both the good and the bad in your usual thoughtful manner! Generally I think my stances align with yours so it's nice to see that articulated. Seems overall a good DLC but with some serious flaws.
I don't mind it not being free - partly because as you say: it get's less attention.
What I would rather see in future content is a more "all roads lead to Rome" approach. Where you can get aspects like landless through different expansions. You then only get the aspect you paid for - but heck why not bundle the aspects in packs, rather than sticking to the rigid module they have now?
One place where the landless style could be very very cool is in a Trade and Exploration expansion.
A lot of people want the "end of the map" over in Asia. Which would make sense in a trade and exploration campaign. Marco Polo was alive during the time of CK3 after all.
The landless estates could also give rise to a Republic playstyle.
This way the features could continue to be improved, without keeping them all free. Maybe the court system could be improved by linking it to a "Republican Senate" feature.
I think this would also increase peoples willingness to buy older DLCs that might not "hit the spot" at release.
The same issues every time. Nothing gels. Nothing is integrated properly. Like a big mod you pay for.
As hyped as I am for this (looks great) I'm glad you haven't put out a purely positive review
Cheers for the review. Really appreciate your insight and honesty. Please continue doing immersive let's plays if games you enjoy!
I noticed that the scheme rework just looked like extra micro in other sponsored videos. There's a lot of hype for this dlc, but, with such a flawed fundamental mechanic, I think there's going to be a lot of dissapointment
They could had put it like ck2 at least, we cannot use it unless we have the dlc, but still present in game