I crave CK2's council mechanics in CK3. CK2 allowed me to engage with my council members in ways that CK3 has yet to pull off. In CK3, it feels like I just select the person with the highest number in the relevant skill and forget about them until its time to pick a new member

I hate that they changed the notification system from ck2. In ck3 i feel less knowledgeable of my surrounding events. I'm a lowly count and not even informed when my king dies. Let alone if he divorces the queen when he discovers she's been cheating.

CK2 is a medieval grand strategy game with historical concerns. CK3 is SIMS in a medieval fantasy.

Selecting a character and hearing that melodic beat in CK2 😩

CK2 is more challenging and unpredictable than CK3. In CK2 no two games ever played the same for me, CK3 feels kinda stale and passive

Also, I agree that CK2 music was so, so much better.

CK2 has a lot more important details. Being declared a Saint is by chance, and your are not declared a Saint when alive but dead. And this is decided by the religous leaders. Legends works much better, it's in your bloodline and are remembered. I became a legend by conquering England as William the Bastard, and then later on his grand daughter became a Crusader Queen Legend cause she was the queen of Jerusalem after the popes crusade. In Crusader Kings 3 I automatically becomes the factions leader when it's not me who started the faction, it's just that you have too much control over things in CK3, I can become a Saint if I try enough and while being alive by just having that family perk and completing a legend. It's not immersive.

I miss the sound of sending peoples to their eternal sleep.

Even though ck3 is more refined I always go back to ck2 it just has has that awesome mechanics and vibes that ck3 does not have tho both are amazing

I love CK3, but even I still think that CK2 feels like it's had a lot more love put into it, and it's a lot more immersive. I'm an F2P for CK2, but it was still really fun even with the large amount of restrictions. Even with the large amount of restrictions, it did feel like a huge and fun world. I think that if CK3 or even CK4 mixes both CK2's events, duels, and dynasty scores, but also the more interactive laws, cultures, prestige, and piety of the present-day it will literally be perfect. CK3 is fun, but it lacks the immersion and life brought by the interactions and events that CK2 had. The most interaction you get in CK3 is enabled via mods like VIET, or locked behind DLCs like the Royal Court and Tours & Tournaments. Meanwhile CK2 had so much events, although repetitive, it just felt more...alive. Rambling aside, I agree will all of your points Andy, and they seem aligned with mine. The music, the atmosphere, and I think most importantly the art and interactions just make CK2 better. The mechanics of ruling and administration in CK3 is better (albeit I may not know the full extent since I'm F2P for CK2), CK2's focus on truly putting you into the life of a medieval ruler makes CK3 feel like a technically sound, yet fairly bland experience on vanilla compared to its more wonky, yet fun and full of life older brother. I feel lucky to have been able to play the free version of CK2 before buying CK3. It makes you appreciate the improved fundamental mechanics, while at the same time making you miss greatly what was left behind.

There was a mod i think that probably allowed you to be a baron or a theocracy, It was called "Rise to Power", you could start from landless and move up to the hierarchy ladder

What I like in CK2 is, that Tribal Governments or Nomads have that bonus of their Vassals joining a defensive/offensive war. Makes them early on stronger and actually formidable against a big kingdom. Same with the Levys recovering, which is slower in CK2 and feels actually like they get a training or your population needs to recover before you start the next war. In CK3 it recovers a lot faster, well that is what I remember.

I fully agree with everything you say. While the older players age, the gaming industry adapts to the newer generations of gamers. Us older generations are much more used to prominent sounds, big flashy logos that are easy to see, and to us it all "makes sense". That's why in CK3, everything FEELS more minimalistic than in CK2. Despite having 3D characters and a fancy superficial layer on top, it still doesn't quite reach the potential CK2 offered with less visually pleasing aesthetics, while also having events and a UI that's way more in depth. Short and simple, CK3 is oversimplified and has a minimalistic "strange" look to it, and it's gonna take Paradox a few more DLC's and polishing, until the game is even CLOSE to CK2. However, CK3 is definitely getting there with the latest DLC's that have been added to the game. I'm also liking the developers latest plans. Making it possible to play as landless lords and travelers. There is also the upcoming Byzantium-focused major expansion, which might shake up things for the better in CK3.

I miss the way laws and culture worked, I remember always rushing for legalism to get late medieval administration to get primogeniture and it felt so satisfying, as opposed to just waiting.

What’s the name of ur map mod?

CK2 is sooo good. Playing eu4 a lots rn but always thinking about CK2

Crusader Kings 3's memey religious mechanics make me despise the game. The fact that there's so much more depth to playing a catholic in CK2 than in CK3 despite CK3 being a 4 years old is beyond baffeling for a game called "Crusader Kings"

Me who still hasn't collected all the CK2 dlcs be like

you should put your mod in desc.

I FUCKEN PLAY CK2 TILL THIS FUCKEN DAY DEUS VULT!!!

100% agree with this video. Holy shit someone finally mentioned the buildings! I know that the more complicated building system in CK2 was harder for the AI to handle, but as a player it feels so crazy to rely on your vassals to provide you with taxes while you build military buildings to gain army advantages. I almost always opt for financial buildings so I can support a larger standing army. By the time it makes sense for me to stop building money printers I'm already reaching the point where the game has started to feel stale. I play with as many building slots as possible and used other mods like More Buildings to help get back the feel.

Can’t wait to see another video like this in 2025

what happened in 2018 for that kind of player peak?

I think CK3's biggest problem is the lack of difficulty. In CK2, early game as a low noble used to be much more of a waiting game than in CK3, which I think is something much more interesting. But I guess my slower pace is not really something most PDX players enjoy. I still enjoy CK3, I think it has the best modding scene of all PDX games right now, but the base game is indeed lacking a bigger degree of challenge.

Hot take: CK2 is the better game.

2:30 needs a DLC to unlock

Yes

In Ck3 you can have a tribal, clan, or feudal government. In Ck2, you can have tribal, iqta (like clan), feudal, republican, nomad, or imperial government. Twice the options! And Ck2 allows automatic conversion between iqta and feudal depending on religion so you don't get stuck in government designed for polygamy when you have a non-polygamous religion and visa versa.

Ck3 does some things better but it just misses out on a lot of good content from ck2. Shame. Also unrelated but i wish for more historical events in ck3 for specific characters and more empires to form since that would be cool to aim for

I just never could get into CK3. CK2 was a masterpiece and I just couldn't get that same feeling when I played CK3

10/10 game

Ck2 especially agot mod makes it 100 times better imo

CK2 is the definitive Crusader Kings title.

the only things i really like in ck3 are the culture and religious mechanics, the rest i kinda don't care that much

My problem is that i really love ck2 but ck3 has things that i love but ck2 doesn't have it like: hybrid cultures and diverge ones, lifestyle system is better, tours and tournament and legacy of persia and the upcoming dlc rise to power and the thing that frustrats me with ck2 2d portraits which is if you are english and marry a nore women your kids may have the norse portraits but in ck3 the genetic system is way better and your children will be a mix

Not getti g ck3 because patadox will put out ungodly amount of DLC to complete the game. Ill stick with ck2

People dont understand that with mods you can literally covert CK2 into a CK3 with mods

800+ hours currently, can't wait for the next 800 fuck ck3 lmao

That's the problem with Paradox games. It's going to take many years until CK3 reaches the level of detail and content that CK2 has. Ps. The part about using an election to elect the next Byzantine Emperor like the HRE is historically extremely inaccurate. Byzantine succession was either done normally (from father to son) or not normally (revolution that resulted in the fall of a dynasty and the emergence of a new one).

Havent played this game but played crusader stronghold when i was young. How come im not seeing any battles like the old games?

The only drawback of CK2 is neutral armies combining with enemy armies

They just announced dragons for CK3AGOT CK2 can finally rest

The only things i like about ck3 are the UI and graphics, the rest is just inferior compared to ck2

Yes better

The traits as well, characters in CK2 felt dynamic. I like how my Satanic character started to become really evil after the 20th vanishing without a trace, CK3 characters feel static.

I could not disagree with the navies point more, navies in ck2 are abhorent and ck3 did well to remove them, that being said i overall prefer ck2.

ck2>ck3

ck3 has bad deisgn, lifestyle perks are good idea but completely broken on its implemetation, the same also applied to religion and cultural tenets and such. i feel like the game is "bloated" and crumbling under its own weight

Define "better" and make sure you only refer to the base vanilla game without any dlc or expansion or mods,etc. In order to get the "better" features everyone talks about, you have to have more than just the base vanilla game. As a whole the base vanilla ck3 is better its just everyone got so used to dlc for ck2 and was disappointed when ck3 released without dlc, making it look bad... (soure is this same guy in a different video of his)

CK3 is nothing but a paintjob over a stripped down version of CK2 , just to resell us the same game again with some casual pointless features that add and change nothing of worth from the CK2 game.

I myself personally prefer ck3. I don't have any dlc for ck2 which means that I can only play christian feudal nobility which greatly reduces who and where you can play. A lot of mechanics (council voting, retenues, converting cultures, ...) just arent available to me. Without dlc ck2 is a lot worse than vanilla ck3

After personal retinue it's all just nitpicking and personal opinions on petty matters.

EVERY SINGLE thing you mentioned that made ck2 better was not in the base game it was all dlc, etc. By that point, ck3 is better if you only have the base vanilla game.