“Your kingdom, your call” announced the Crusader Kings 3 trumpets earlier this week when they put out a new player survey, which is a terrifyingly verbose achievement for brass instruments, but useful for anyone who wants to give Paradox their opinions on where the grand strategy game should head next, as well as get a few hints about the futures it might already be making plans for.
While I do imagine Paradox will probably take some of the information gathered on board if the survey shows any serious trends in a certain direction, I mainly found this interesting enough to cover due to the sort of questions being asked. I’m always keen to learn how the folk making decisions actually view their own games, or at least which of the many niblets of received wisdom I’ve magpied from various GDC videos over the years they actually consider important.
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Case in point, the first question is “what player archetype fits you best”, in which they list all the fun things you might do in CK3 and link this to someone who prefers either roleplaying or “overcoming systemic challenges”. Example survey response below:
- I enjoy roleplaying first, and systemic challenges second (creating an empire through well-planned marriages, surviving against overwhelming military odds, grooming the perfect heir, etc.)
Which is interesting to me in the sense that it suggests design thinking along the lines of “here’s a roleplaying tool with a secondary systemic benefit”, in contrast to:
- I enjoy systemic challenges, and roleplaying second (creating the strongest regiments in the world, having more income than all my neighbors, etc.)
Which, again, I find this fun to think about in terms of design motivation – here’s an important primary system like military or economy a player can finagle to their liking, with the added roleplaying wrinkle that someone might also like to play “guy who has all the gold”. And yes, I do enjoy roleplaying that particular guy, in between reading Playboy for the articles. It’s not hoarding, I’m engaging in emergent fiction. About a coin-brained lordling. Who has work in two hours.
As for more tangible clues of where the game might be heading next, there’s some detailed questions about the theme of “trade and merchants”, where you can answer what aspects of the theme are most appealing to you personally, with answers like “naval trade”, “merchant republics”, and “banking”. Ditto the themes “feudalism & crusades”, “empires & laws”, “rib n’ saucy”, and “religion (christianity)”.
Brendy found a lot to love in the landless roaming and emergent storytelling of the Roads To Power expansion, and also left more dead bodies behind than he’d originally intended, or so he claims anyway.