Re: Crusader Kings Ps5
Wan Cabiness
If I hadn't got in on Crusader Kings 2 shortly after it came out, I would have taken one look at its list of DLC (currently going for 184.65 on Steam, and that's with a discount) and noped right the hell out. Fortunately, the base game was already outstanding enough that I gladly supported it for our best games of the 2010s list. Most of the DLC was cosmetic after all, or was for realms I wouldn't play as.
But anyway. ANYWAY. Crusader Kings III is out now, and while it couldn't possibly incorporate eight years of add-ons, I wanted to see how it compares to vanilla CK2. Does a non-feudal ruler play any differently? Is it possible to thrive outside the default setting of kingly Europe? What's it like to start out as an obscure chief at the distant edge of the enormous world map? Let's find out.
This is Nana Oyo, of house Oduduwa. He is the High Chief of Oyo, a modest realm of three chiefdoms on the West bank of the Niger. If history takes its course again, it will form a small but highly influential empire, and together with the neighbouring kingdoms of Ife and Benin will dominate much of West Africa for over one thousand years, right up until England comes along and ruins everything as usual. By 2020 it will form the Northwestern third of Nigeria, but right now it is the year 867 and there are no empires in sight.
I use "chief" because Oyo is a tribal realm in CK3, not the feudal one many European kingdoms default to. This means several things. It limits how developed a province can be internally, a big disadvantage in the long term. But tribal rulers can declare wars of conquest with little penalty, and raise specialist standing armies by spending Prestige (an abstract resource each character generates based on status, characteristics, and actions) instead of gold.
I can also raid neighbours for cash and prisoners by sending an army to their towns for a few weeks without starting a war or making enemies. It took me a while to fully benefit from this, as when you're weak, tribal neighbours can fight you off or raid back. It took several decades of bold-faced conquest to realise how much I'd been leaning on their strengths, and how much of CK3 is designed to get you into the right mindset for whoever you're playing as.
You can't rely on intrinsic authority, legality, or feudal politeness. If a town has money and their army is small or distracted, you can just raid it. If you want to control a province, you can just take it. Tribal powers have a directness that rewards the bold and the covetous.
That's not to say they're brutal (any more than other government types) or stupid, though. Survival in West Africa takes more than violence, and if anything alliances are more crucial, because anything you take can be taken back. People respect intelligence, faith, and plain likeability, so it pays to be a wise chief. Skulduggery is certainly an option, but down here in Oyo, my people's religion leads to large families and lots of heirs, so murdering my way to victory would kill off half my own house.
Crusader Kings 3 has a religion system so exciting that I've had to write two piles of notes about it to get them out of the way. There aren't just religions now; there are enough religions to make Richard Dawkins tweet himself into a liquid. Each character has a faith, which is a specific denomination of a larger religion (Christianity, Buddhism, Kordofan, etc. Some have only a single faith until someone - perhaps you - invents a new branch). Each faith is a combination of three tenets, of which there are dozens, each changing several aspects of the game.
Oyo and most of its neighbours have the Orisan (I am told "rṣ-If" is more correct, but will stick with what I hope are acceptable transliterations) faith, initially the only Yoruban religion. One of its tenents is Ancestor Worship, which gives us extra benefits for pilgrimage, and lots of extra prestige from getting married and banging out sprogs. Ancestor worship also means we're a slightly more tight knit family than most.
Orisa is also an impressively equitable faith. Men and women of Oyo inherit equally, with nobody batting an eyelid at female warriors, chieftains, or priests. Anyone can divorce, homosexuality is fine, clergy are duty-bound to take care of the poor, and we're pluralist: although we still consider other faiths hostile, we're less of a dick about it than most. Oh, and rulers can have concubines or consorts.
Between his wife and three concubines Nana Oyo ends up with fourteen goddamn kids, but our succession laws mean they'll all inherit equally, so they're all prone to liking him. Thus, the high chiefdom of Oyo is set up with a family of friendly rulers at our back, and both weak and strong neighbours. It's time to start playing Agar.io with these suckers. My marshal Ayofemi is young, hot, and chill, so I make her my first concubine before sending her off to conquer the chiefdom of Bussa, capturing the chief's wife Lambu Debo in the process. According to the war progress screen, "no important prisoners" have been taken. Harsh. Experimentally, I take her as a concubine too, and then it begins.
Ayofemi and I bond over her killing a dude and become soulmates, and eventually bash out six kids together. I want my kids to get a good education, so I send him to the most skilled person within emissary range, the High Chieftess Daurama of Kano, for her to raise.
She accepts, likely confused. Nobody ever gives their firstborn son away to another ruler to train up because it's unbelievably stupid, but on the other hand, I dislike babies. Plus if something goes wrong I can replace it with basically any other baby. That said, she does open her acceptance letter with "To the loathsome Nana Oyo". This might be a mistake.
I recognise that other people care about their kids, so I'm horrified when I realise that by taking Lambu Debo as a concubine, I separated her from her daughter. Her former husband doesn't even seem to care that she's gone. He already hates me, so I go ahead and conquer his remaining land too, hoping the sprog will join us. But alas, the former chief of Bussa flees, taking the sprog with him. The two of them become "wandering", a wonderfully evocative status that could lead them anywhere. Someday I will rescue young Zaynab, unless of course I can't find her, or if I forget.
For now I focus on security. Between Nana Oyo's progress through the "intrigue" skill tree, and my spymaster's constant efforts to dig up everyone's secrets, I'm able to blackmail my hostile, powerful northern neighbour, Duke Farbas Baadindiye of Borgu, into an alliance. This way he can't attack me without widespread condemnation (and of course I'd then tell everyone he's secretly humping his vassal's shaman), so I can focus on conquering the weaker lands around him until we're big enough to take him too. I also unlock a perk that lets us extort people for money if we uncover an embarrassing or criminal secret about them. I proceed to do this to Duke Farbas for the next 20 years.
Incidentally, the shaman's daughter is also boffing the vassal, for which Farbas could simply lock them both up if he knew. Even if you don't use them, sitting at the centre of a web of secrets provides its own entertainment. Meanwhile, I too have been screwing around, but unlike Farbas I don't deny it. My wife and concubines aren't happy, but they get over it. Besides, I'm the High Chief of Oyo. Who's gonna arrest me?
Well. A higher authority could. But when a kingdom forms to the South, it's held by my brother Ila, now Oba Ila of Yorubaland. Thanks to my pitching in with his wars, he's also my friend, so I immediately offer him my fealty. He accepts, and I find out that I can ask him to pardon my adultery (a crime under Orisa), which he does immediately. It turns out that he, too, has the "adulterer" trait, and we even get a slight relationship bonus for it. He then offers to make me his marshall. I have literally zero martial skill. We've only had a king for two weeks and the corruption has already started.
Driven mad by my success, I go into Chaos Mode. I discover that a rival's spymaster is into me, and that she's bisexual, which is shunned in her culture but not mine. I attempt to heroically kidnap her into a life of freedom before realising I don't actually know any other gay or bi women and I can't send her back. Meanwhile, feeling resentful that nobody lets me look after their kid, I fabricate evidence against another chief, make myself his daughter's guardian, and raise her very well, in a manner that surely messes with my own children's heads for their entire lives.
When my son and heir's educator, the chieftess Daurama, dies at the hands of her own husband's spymaster, I implement a Marcus Boone rule of handing over custody of my children to whoever killed their last guardian. It seems that the rulers with the highest skills tend to have gained them by making their lives a constant knife fight with Death. The main upshot is that by the time my first heir Ayotunde comes of age, he a sadistic coward who is, perhaps wisely, content with a quiet life.
Another daughter drops out of one of my women directly onto the conveyor belt I've built along the Niger. The only one I take any care of is my bastard daughter Abeo, who eventually goes out into the world alone, and shows up having founded her own dynasty. Impressed by her spirit, I use my influence to find her a husband who'll marry matrilineally, and conquer some land for them. A chief should put his own house first, but it is 2020, and by law, all games must be about being a good dad.
I search once more for Zaynab, the daughter of Lambu Debu, the concubine I took prisoner from a neighbour. She is holed up with her father in Kano. The guy I kicked out of his land just HAPPENS to show up in the court where my son is being raised? There is no way he isn't up to something. I have someone kidnap the girl, which I'm told has an 85% chance of failing. The arbitrary gods of Chaos Mode reward my devotion, and she is finally reunited with her mother. All three of them now hate me, but I don't care. Catching on to the mood, my dear concubine and soulmate Ayofemi accidentally whips herself to death while indulging in a fetish.
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