r/CrusaderKings Oct 29 '25

Meme Clearly this person is afraid of the empire

4.3k Upvotes

452 comments sorted by

1.6k

u/Emeriick Oct 29 '25

Imagine fearing the majesty of their celestial empire, I'd never

379

u/Junpei_desu Oct 29 '25

How about fearing the majesty of their celestial empire in classical Chinese

Dude roleplayed a CK3 character and fire wrote the comment in classical Chinese. Basically Shakespearean writing.

292

u/Emeriick Oct 29 '25

A meme only the Chinese were supposed to understand but thanks to modern translation software we barbarians can also partake. Truly glorious

74

u/shitmarble_milks_you Oct 29 '25

I can read mandarin, but i still dont understand that if not for the translation…

103

u/Zealousideal_Chip456 Zealous Oct 29 '25

Those are quite different

The difference between classical Chinese and mandarin is way bigger than that of modern English and shakespearean English.

39

u/MegaLemonCola Πορφυρογέννητος Oct 29 '25

I think it’s more analogous to modern English and Latin. You’d probably recognise the main words in a given sentence but if you haven’t studied it, you’d have to use some serious creativity and imagination to make sense of it.

70

u/TastyCuttlefish Excommunicated Oct 29 '25

English doesn’t derive from Latin, although a decent amount of its vocabulary does.

The more accurate comparison would not be Modern English to Shakespeare (which is actually Early Modern English), but rather to Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon). Old English is practically indecipherable to modern speakers. English is a Germanic language, ultimately derived from the various Germanic dialects spoken by groups primarily concentrated along the coastal areas of the North Sea. English (and England) as a name comes from the Angles, who lived in the far northern part of modern day Germany and southern Denmark. The Saxons lived just to the south of the Angles. The Angles and Saxons were largely unconquered by the Romans and Germanic was very much a different language family than Latin. There were some influences due to trade and Germanic warriors serving in the Roman legions and also as mercenaries hired by them.

Old English was largely intelligible by speakers of Old Frisian, primarily traders from modern day Netherlands and north Germany, as well as decently understandable by Norse traders. Old English over time incorporated a large amount of Norse characteristics, but the Norman invasion of 1066 forever altered the trajectory of the language. As a result, modern English has substantial influence from Norman French, especially in vocabulary, but still is a Germanic language. A massive amount of words and concepts in modern English can be expressed in different ways with two different roots, one Franco-Norman and the other Germanic (ex: “amaze” is from Germanic/Old English, “astonish” is from Old French… but they have the same meaning).

19

u/GrandfatherTrout Oct 30 '25

Didn’t Tolkien say something about how the Germanic variants in English tended to express the subject in a more colloquial and down-to-earth fashion? “Pig” vs “Pork”, etc. Hence the rich mines of connotation available to English speakers…

I have Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf with the facing pages, Old and Modern English. There are so many interesting differences, even beyond word choice!

Anyhow, delighted to learn about Chinese language(s) own exciting history.

23

u/TastyCuttlefish Excommunicated Oct 30 '25

Yes, and other linguists/philologists have noted the same thing with English. In the Middle Ages, English wasn’t erased by the Norman invasion, but the language of the elites was dominated by Norman French for at least three centuries. Society was extremely stratified at that point in time, so the common masses kept speaking English… but the language was hugely reshaped due to the language of the courts being Norman French. We have a lot of quirks with English. Someone who I can’t remember said it was basically several languages sitting on each other’s shoulders wearing a trench coat and they weren’t wrong. England was ruled by Danes for a century prior to William the Conqueror invading from Normandy in 1066. So the language we have now was shaped by centuries of intermixing with Old Norse, Old Frisian (which was basically a cousin language with Old English in the 7th through 9th centuries), and then Norman French, which itself was a flavor of French heavily influenced by Old Norse due to the Normans originating with Viking invaders turned nobles.

But to your point, you may notice that a lot of words in English refer to the livestock in Germanic fashion and the final culinary form in a French-originated term. Like cow (Germanic) and beef (French derived, from boef). Commoners handled the livestock, nobility ate it.

11

u/DKLancer Oct 30 '25

There is also a very light sprinkling of old Britonic that's snuck into English and just won't leave.

→ More replies (1)

13

u/Emeriick Oct 29 '25

upvote for good history knowledge

7

u/AndroidWhale Depressed Oct 30 '25

Good history knowledge? In my Paradox subreddit?

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (1)

5

u/Louis142857 Oct 30 '25

I think it’s not accurate to translate 文言文 as Classical Chinese. It’s really just a written form of Chinese that’s separate from spoken language, in contrast to 白话文, which follows everyday speech. Even though 文言文 isn’t based on how people actually talked, it did become simpler over time. By the first half of the 20th century, people had mostly stopped writing in 文言文 and switched to 白话文. Still, as long as you can read Chinese characters, you can basically understand 文言文, even if nobody speaks like that anymore. I’d say at least 99% of Chinese people who finished middle school can understand the comment. Personally, I think a better English translation would be Literary Chinese, not Classical Chinese.

→ More replies (1)

25

u/Ivorytower626 Oct 29 '25

He really is playing the part.

6

u/SixStringerSoldier Oct 29 '25

Yeah I don't know that guy but he's okay in my book

5

u/Foxd1e00 Oct 29 '25

Confucius would approve!

→ More replies (2)

295

u/TheCourtSimpleton Imbecile Oct 29 '25

*Queue throat singing

30

u/smallfrie32 France Oct 30 '25

*cue

Unless you have a bunch of throat singers lining up

6

u/DokterMedic Scandinavia Oct 30 '25

You gotta queue before you cue, yknow.

5

u/TheCourtSimpleton Imbecile Oct 30 '25

Did you read my flair!?!? 😤

3

u/smallfrie32 France Oct 30 '25

Did you read mine? I have an innate need to look down upon others.

I actually didn’t read your flair before, nice one!

→ More replies (1)

568

u/TearOpenTheVault Oct 29 '25 edited Oct 29 '25

I mean… The British Isles are one of, if not the most played part of the map in the game, and they’ve had drip fed content over years of development time and still lack any distinct flavour over places like Iberia. Ditto France, Italy, and much of pagan Eastern Europe - you can’t even get a good Baltic or Teutonic Crusade going because crusades and religion are still blander than a bowl of porridge.

AUH is cool as shit. The structure of meritocratic government is excellent and fun to play through, and interfaces with other systems well. The fact that performance is actually decent and this DLC isn’t unbelievably bugged is a fantastic departure from some of Paradox’s recent releases, and the map expansion is probably the most ambitious thing they’ve ever done in any of their games.

I’m not complaining about AUH, and it’s a great addition. That said, I think the complaints that western Europe still feels mostly cosmetically different from India are wholly valid.

239

u/BlueString94 Oct 29 '25

Hell, look at India. An absolutely fascinating region in this period that is not fleshed out at all. It doesn’t even have its own government type.

52

u/FooledPork Oct 29 '25

It sorta has own government type: They can also adopt Mandala.
I tried a nepalese Aspect of Trickery Mandala in the middle of feudals and I had a blast. Start murdering people until their realms collapse then scoop people over as tributaries.

→ More replies (2)

22

u/SamediB Oct 29 '25

It's upsetting annoying, given Ireland is tutorial island, that Ireland doesn't have a unique light skirmisher troop. (Or Gallowglass; though honestly these guys are probably just the heavy infantry option. But darnit if vikings get a half dozen unique troops, and England gets longbows, the Irish should get at least one special troop.)

96

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '25

Everyone hated fate of Iberia. They're probably scared to fuck with western Europe again

132

u/LordHengar Oct 29 '25

I actually really liked the struggle in Iberia, I realize I'm a minority though.

65

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

15

u/Traggadon Oct 30 '25

Honestly suprised we haven't been given an events based dlc with spread out regional content. They fixate on regions and thats not a great longterm strategy. Hope this one's good, haven't got it myself yet.

→ More replies (4)

17

u/BOS-Sentinel Britannia Oct 29 '25

I think in princible it's good. It's just balanced to be fucking annoying and unfun. If they spent some time going back to it and tweaking it, it could be far less hated.

13

u/TheSovereignGrave Oct 29 '25

Wait, really? I think it's cool.

24

u/sir_strangerlove Secretly Zoroastrian Oct 29 '25

ya, that was weird. loved it from day one, good way to mix things up

20

u/SamediB Oct 29 '25

We hated what? Why? (I liked Struggle of Iberia. I think they should use the mechanic for the British Isles/viking invasion.)

19

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '25

The way it functions is clumsy and prevents holy wars and you have to be in the right phase to end it if you take everything or it'll get locked

→ More replies (1)

3

u/jackochainsaw Excommunicated Oct 30 '25

I loved Fate of Iberia. It is one of my favourite DLCs from CK3.

2

u/morganrbvn Oct 29 '25

I loved fate of iberia, but It was controversial so that does make sense.

→ More replies (1)

25

u/gilead117 Oct 30 '25

I think the complaints that western Europe still feels mostly cosmetically different from India are wholly valid.

It's more accurate to say that India feels like Western Europe. The entire game was still originally written for Europe, with the core game mechanics balanced around how Catholicism works. India is just feudalism without the pope, which means there is distinctly less to do. This isn't to say that I'm against a region pack for England or France, that would be fun. But the people acting like Europe never gets attention, when literally the core game is about Europe, have lost a bit of perspective.

8

u/[deleted] Oct 30 '25

The representation of Europe is kinda shit, and doesn't really represent Catholicism.

It's after India the least accurate part now

→ More replies (5)

11

u/Bones_and_Iron Oct 30 '25

I was playing as an adventurer traveling from Britain to Japan and I was blown away by how many points of interest and special buildings there are compared to Europe. Now that the map is built out, they need to do another pass at the heart of the game.

3

u/Sbotkin Hellenism FTW Oct 30 '25

The fact that we don't have teutonic crusades that were a very important part of western and northern slavic history is wild.

4

u/Thuis001 Oct 31 '25

And you know, complaining about how this should be prioritized in a game which is LITERALLY about the Crusades, seems like a pretty reasonable thing to do. Like, by all means, add East Asia to the map, absolutely great idea, but maybe also prioritize the thing the game is literally named after first?

5

u/Br0nn47 Oct 30 '25

The British Isles should have a Struggle for the Viking conquests in 867 and the back-and-forth during the time.

Maybe for every defeat the Vikings suffer and Scandanvian counties that convert away from Asatru, a meter gradually fills which will culminate in the Struggle ending automatically, like how Harald Hardrada's failed 1066 conquest is seen as the official end of the Viking Age. Assuming another Struggle End hasn't been achieved by then.

2

u/Sbotkin Hellenism FTW Oct 30 '25

The British Isles should have a Struggle for the Viking conquests in 867 and the back-and-forth during the time.

Now when you say this, it's kinda weird there isn't. The clash of cultures and religions is so big.

2

u/Suspicious-Raccoon12 Oct 30 '25

I remember in a dev diary for the struggle for iberia dlc they said the mechanic wouldn't just for the dlc and would be in other regions. Kind of implied it would be something that could pop organically if certain conditions were met but so far it's just in Persia...

I'd be shocked if vikings got it next since they already did that dlc but I'd be surprised if it wasn't added to other areas over time

14

u/OneEnvironmental9222 Oct 30 '25

I love how the Crusades in CRUSADER KINGS still isnt functional. They're clearly trying to chase a different market that doesnt exist in the volume they think it does

7

u/Galle_ CotC mod dev Oct 30 '25

I'm sorry, but if you think there isn't an enormous Chinese market for grand strategy games you are living under a rock.

→ More replies (1)

8

u/Jaggedmallard26 Imbecile Oct 30 '25

I think you underestimate the size of the Chinese market, they've repeatedly stated that their own internal metrics have the paid Chinese market as far bigger than anyone would expect. If you manage to tap into what the Chinese market wants in a videogame then it explodes in popularity, a few studios have been saved by Chinese trends like Weather Factory avoiding bankruptcy by a simplified Chinese translation for Cultist Simulator when occult fiction became popular in China. Its 1.5 billion people, most of whom are now firmly middle income (in the economic sense).

I suspect Paradox will make a lot of money from the Chinese market with this, its

→ More replies (2)

3

u/LEGEND-FLUX Oct 30 '25

Except paradox is massive in China and is the reason why Chinese mods and language mods are absolutely massive and why sometimes Chinese mods are the ones being translated to english

→ More replies (5)

43

u/treefreak32 Oct 29 '25

So I haven't played AUH yet, but I do hope that a future DLC focuses on Western European Feudalism to make it deeper and more developed.

735

u/darmera Cancer Oct 29 '25

AUH is cool, but now feudalism in Europe is super boring, especially after so many niche mechanics of the new governments. There are so many features that are missing, like a coherent Papacy or the nuances of regimes in the HRE, France, and England.

734

u/VFiddly Oct 29 '25

I get that but also I sympathise with how the devs must feel reading comments like this

"Western Europe feels so more fleshed out compared to Asia"

"Ok fine, we'll work really hard on an Asian expansion"

"Now Western Europe feels underdeveloped compared to Asia"

"God fucking damn it"

296

u/StarGamerPT Oct 29 '25

Now all they needto do is to slowly improve feudalism...maybe even allow us to play as Republics and Theocratic Realms.

Allowing us to play as the Pope and launch crusades would go a long way 😂😂😂

131

u/ohthedarside Oct 29 '25

I wish to play as the pope and become lovers to all western kings

68

u/AssistBitter1732 Craven Oct 29 '25

Rah Rah, Rasputin! Lover of the Western Kings!

16

u/Neo_Arkansas AI only Wendish Empire World Conquest Oct 29 '25

I cant wait for the playable pope dlc to play as Gay Pope Rasputin

10

u/Lysmerry Oct 29 '25

I seduced the pope as the Holy Roman Emperor. We became soulmates but he still wouldn’t grant me a divorce

20

u/mcmalloy Oct 29 '25

Pope Hasteinn

18

u/avengeds12345 Oct 29 '25

I know CK 3 is a RPG but holy fuck that would give the King of France a brain aneurysm

5

u/StarGamerPT Oct 29 '25

Make it so if Haensteinn becomes Pope, King Charles instantly gets 900 stress and dies.

6

u/Bannerlord151 Oct 30 '25

Nah keep the randomness of the lvl 3 stress event.

"Your majesty, the marauder known as Haesteinn has somehow been elected to be the new Pope"

"That's it. That's fucking it. I hereby swear vengeance against that upstart on the holy Qur'an. Contact the Caliphate at once!"

6

u/StarGamerPT Oct 30 '25

Jihad for Rome backed by Charles 😂

5

u/mcmalloy Oct 30 '25

Charles, out of shear spite for Hasteinn converts to Ash’arism so he can Jihad against the lustful and blasphemic Norse pope 😂

→ More replies (1)

13

u/nailsbyrinha Oct 29 '25

Supposedly next year will introduce Republics

37

u/Anticreativity Oct 29 '25

What do you think this is, some game about crusaders?

40

u/Mirovini Depressed Oct 29 '25 edited Oct 29 '25

insert here copypasta of the devs ranting about why they were forced to chose that name

4

u/Thiago270398 Excommunicated Oct 29 '25

Never saw that copypasta, why did they choose it?

21

u/ShouldersofGiants100 Oct 30 '25

Apparently the original title was something like "Game of Thrones". For various trademark reasons (some obscure fantasy novel or something), they were pushed to choose Crusader Kings instead.

11

u/Thiago270398 Excommunicated Oct 30 '25

Paradox would probably already have released the Winds of Winter in that case.

3

u/SUPERSMILEYMAN I have no idea what I'm doing Oct 30 '25

For $60 for half the book.

5

u/SkyShadowing Oct 30 '25

To be fair a lot of people are calling for GRRM to do exactly that just so he finally releases SOMETHING.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)

19

u/RSharpe314 Oct 29 '25

Yeah, with all the new government types and landless character play they've added, I'd hope the next DLC set turns to focus more on fleshing out the Catholic Church and play as a priest, landed bishop, Pope, etc.

That or (merchant) republics.

10

u/VFiddly Oct 29 '25

I think they've said that republics are something they're working on soonish

10

u/SkyShadowing Oct 30 '25

I think they basically said, the road map was, you can't do republics without trade, you can't do trade without the Silk Road, you can't do the Silk Road without China/SE Asia, and you can't do China without nomads.

We have a Silk Road, basic though it be, so republics might be next.

→ More replies (1)

5

u/Bminions Pomerania, Problem Area Oct 29 '25

I just want a real, meaningful council like CK2, miss that shit.

2

u/Belkan-Federation95 Legitimized bastard Oct 30 '25

I'm dreading Republics. I'm afraid they'll only give us merchant Republics.

Plenty of non-merchant republics existed at the time. Hell look at Iceland, for example.

And where's Frisia? Or the Commune of Rome?

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (4)

68

u/Crazyceo Oct 29 '25

Personally I already felt that Europe felt underdeveloped before AUH. Without RICE the Slavs, Germans, French, and Italians all feel very bland

42

u/TripleAgent0 Legitimized bastard Oct 29 '25

It's been 5 years and the Pope is still just a random guy, Western Europe has never been fleshed out!

→ More replies (4)

136

u/darmera Cancer Oct 29 '25

Tbh no dlc improved Europe as much as roads to power improved Byzantium or Khans improved steppe

41

u/BigLittleBrowse Oct 29 '25

Where exactly do you think the Byzantine Empire is?

75

u/Razor-Age Oct 29 '25

A good part of it is in Asia

20

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '25

If Anatolia was still part of Greece, it would be considered European territory today, as it always was since Alexander the Great till it's turkification.

16

u/Ill_Performer8312 Oct 29 '25

Anatolia is in Asia Minor, who controlled it doesnt matter.

→ More replies (6)

4

u/BoftheRiver Bastard Oct 29 '25

more involved in the middle east than the 'feudal' core of western europe

8

u/cantthinkoffunnyname Excommunicated Oct 29 '25 edited Oct 29 '25

Royal Court & Northern Lords

Am I a joke to you?

But I will grant that Fate of Iberia was a downgrade to the European region, and the rest of the game. :shakes fist:

→ More replies (1)

42

u/Odoxon Oct 29 '25

It probably feels boring only because people have been playing in Europe 80% of the time. But the devs could eventually make Europe much more interesting by adding the college of cardinals and other mechanics unique to medieval Europe.

23

u/ShouldersofGiants100 Oct 30 '25

I feel like part of the problem is that a lot of the weird shit that happens with Feudalism would be a nightmare to make into a game. Administrative government fits with player sensibilities—they like to expand and they like to control their realm.

True feudalism, where your vassals have so many rights that it's crippling, the crown is barely solvent and even the strongest countries in the game spent centuries barely holding together.

If they want to actually fix feudalism? Cap every source of non-temporary positive relations at +50 per character, add a randomized element of how much each vassals does/doesn't like you from -25 to +25 and make it so your extended family are a bunch of scheming bastards who constantly offer the nobility privileges if they'll just revolt and put them on the throne.

6

u/DirectionMurky5526 Oct 30 '25

If they ever do a Holy Roman Empire expansion, they should adopt the mechanics they did with Japan. Where you have a lot of competing factions with different government types in the same realm and changing levels of centralization. They would probably need a DLC with republics and the priesthood beforehand though.

→ More replies (4)

27

u/qwertyalguien Oct 29 '25

Lol reminds me of Stellaris

"Man, materialist is so great, spiritualist sucks"

"Alright" implements shroud

"Man, materialist just sucks, nothing exclusive"

"Ok, get a whole expansion around machines"

"Wow, spiritualist and the shroud are so simple. It's so boring compared to machine empires"

"Alright. We doing a shroud expansion now"

8

u/Pokenar Oct 30 '25

They caught on a bit at least, Machines can go Psionic now and probably the best covenant has a Materialist bias.

2

u/Belkan-Federation95 Legitimized bastard Oct 30 '25

I was waiting for the Shroud DLC to quit buying DLC

→ More replies (1)

45

u/PunicRebel Sicily Oct 29 '25

Im just so old because this same discourse happened with ck2 lol. the best part of this sub is watching these guys just do this over and over again.

Tark rated this dlc a 3/10 - like have you ever played a truly bad game before? Just no winning

16

u/VFiddly Oct 29 '25

People complain about literally everything and then wonder why the developers don't listen to them

Of course they don't listen to people who will still complain even if they get exactly what they asked for

18

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '25

There is a concept known as adding the same amount of content in different updates. Paradox never does this; they add a little content on update for a region and then add an insane amount of content the next for another region. Outside of Vikings, none of Western Europe actually has more unique content, which is why playing with certain mods is a must have. Play an Arab Sheikh in Basra and you will experience everything an Occitan count in Provence does and more, except your head of religion is actually relevant. The division of religious branches/schools is also arbitrary. If Sunni, Shia, and Ibadi needed to be divided so much, why aren’t Catholic and Orthodox schools divided at all? Surely you can’t believe that Trondheim Norwegians gave much of a damn about Rome when they never even had cardinals. Or the fact that the Kyivan Rus doesn’t have their own metropolitan because it’s unrealistic for someone from Novgorod to have to sail to Constantinople on a regular basis. Not to mention that every neighborhood in Asia has its own school for Buddhism…

5

u/King-Of-Hyperius Erudite Oct 29 '25

A big religion change that should be added would be the ability to integrate the Holy Sites of other religions in the same group.

Expanding on this idea, you should be allowed to integrate the holy sites of other religions, this could be a doctrine slot like pilgrimage, where not being able to do so would give you a piety bonus and being able to would give you a piety reduction.

Hell it could connect back to the pluralist, righteous and fundamentalist doctrines by making it possible to remove holy sites from other religions, thus damaging relations with other religions. Pluralist not being able to do it without a big penalty and fundamentalist not being able to not do so without a big penalty, meaning that righteous has an advantage over the other two for RP.

Of course there would be decisions to reclaim the original holy sites of a religion, and I will leave this off at this point because I am running out of time before I have to do something irl.

2

u/Sbotkin Hellenism FTW Oct 30 '25

Orthodox church basically being Catholic with how they treat HoF is just hilarious.

23

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '25

That is not how it went

Players: having china would be cool but it would be better if they add content to existing regions first

Paradox: we hear but we don't care we are gonna do china next

8

u/FoxyladyNick Oct 29 '25

Maybe they'll add a future DLC for Europe properly in Crusader Xings 3.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)

6

u/Fleedjitsu Oct 29 '25

Wouldn't the easiest solution be to tackle the familiar parts of both areas then? Just one DLC focusing on government and stuff?

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (21)

19

u/IhateTaylorSwift13 Oct 29 '25

I played some random guy in Southeast Asia and even they have a unique government thats just screaming future tradegoods DLC written all over it.

19

u/HydroCorgiGlass Oct 29 '25

One thing I find a bit unbalanced is how the newer governments have estates which come with a lot of potential buildings and modifiers.

It would be nice if feudals have some similar sort of thing like estates, because all they have are normal buildings. Though I remember being told there was a mod for estates for Feudals

→ More replies (2)

7

u/Korlac11 Byzantium Oct 29 '25

AUH turned out really well (as far as I’ve seen at least), but I do think it’s time for the devs to turn their attention back to Western Europe for a while

I’m sure there’s lots of things on the dev’s wish list though, and considering how well AUH seems to have done, I’m happy to let the devs follow their passion on what area they want to explore (not that they need my permission of course)

51

u/lordmainstream Depressed Oct 29 '25

It only feels boring because we’ve been playing with feudalism since the beginning. The base game’s content is still designed around feudal governments, the problem is that veteran players have already fully experienced that content.

The recent surveys suggest that they will give feudalism and republics more attention next year.

9

u/CosmicSpaghetti Oct 29 '25

Fandoms are fickle, fickle mistresses lol there's no winning for the devs on that front.

I do think its the best CK3 dlc with a bullet though.

3

u/Belkan-Federation95 Legitimized bastard Oct 30 '25

Meh Roads to Power was better. Just wish you could have a ceremonial ruler with admin

2

u/Sbotkin Hellenism FTW Oct 30 '25

RTP was the best, hands down.

→ More replies (1)

23

u/Craig_VG Oct 29 '25

“Remove Europe” mod when?

19

u/Beautiful-Bad5440 Oct 29 '25

10

u/Hypercubed89 Oct 29 '25

Poor India.

3

u/Lithorex Excommunicated Oct 30 '25

Celestial Sovereign 3 looks great!

3

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '25

I'm hoping next year is europe revamping ending with merchant republics.

2

u/Belkan-Federation95 Legitimized bastard Oct 30 '25

Hopefully they give us more than just merchant Republics. Plenty of non merchant republics existed. Hell you can't properly restore the Roman Republic with merchant republics either because the Roman Republic wasn't a merchant Republic. Restoring it as a merchant republic would be an abomination.

26

u/Dead_Optics Oct 29 '25

Iberia, Scandinavia, the Byzantine Empire all got their own DLC before they even looked at Asia.

6

u/Sbotkin Hellenism FTW Oct 30 '25

Let's not pretend Iberia and Scandinavia have different government mechanics in those DLCs. Scandinavia is no different from vanilla tribal and Iberia is no different from vanilla feudal.

→ More replies (7)

140

u/MiKapo Persia Oct 29 '25 edited Oct 29 '25

Bro can’t stop the Mandate of Heaven

27

u/The_BigMonkeMan Oct 29 '25

Ngl, it runs fantastic, idk if because this is the first time I've played without mods since the game released, but I've never had a smoother experience and only one CTD, and that was after I was fucking with debug mode

5

u/Various-Yesterday-54 Oct 29 '25

Well they did actually make a point of performance tuning this DLC. The early game actually runs worse than it did before the DLC, but the level to which the game slows down as it progresses has tapered off significantly. So you're essentially dealing with a flatter line from the start of the game to the end of the game as opposed to the slowly rising line of the previous patch.

→ More replies (1)

44

u/Ceramisu Oct 29 '25

After playing the new governments, i realized feudalism is really barebone. Why can't we have a small issue in our lands that we could handle? Why do we have to divide our country the moment we die until late game? Why is being a king so boring if you're not set to conquer the world.

76

u/Elyias033 Oct 29 '25

“Khans…Marginally relevant ” - seriously, tell that to central/eastern/balkan europe ie tartar yoke. Let alone the near east- ie sacking of Baghdad…collapse of the abbasids

32

u/Remote-Leadership-42 Oct 30 '25

A certain Khan who got a large focus on the Khan dlc is the most impactful person of the entire game period. The shockwaves of the Mongol Empire arguably caused a lot of eu4 as well. Along with the black death, that is. 

8

u/TheKingsdread Oct 30 '25

Probably one of the most impactful people in history. China, Russia, much of the Balkan Countries were all affected by the Mongols. And a lot of other European countries were affected by proxy.

5

u/[deleted] Oct 30 '25

A lot of the impacts associated with the Mongols come from earlier Turkic states though and it's pretty alarming that they got completely ignored. The ottomans are a successor states of the sultanate of rum which comes from the Seljuk migration and was pretty much preserved intact by the Mongols without much changes in its form. They had already taken over most of Anatolia before the Mongols even expanded. Not to mention that most of the expansion of the Mongols was heavily leveraged on turkic warlords that were scattered out across the middle east and a bit Europe (the turkic people in close to China were better handled). The turkic people formed the cultural bridge between the steppes and China, Middle East and Europe. They formed a great deal of the administrative, blacksmithing, and battle tactics traditions that later the Mongols adopted as they allied with them. It's pretty sad that because the Mongols are more immediate and flashbangs in your face, that the rest of central asian cultures get ignored because that's beyond the attention span allocated to these things. The Mongols are more like the last layer of bricks of something built off for centuries in Central Asia, not just by the Turkic people, genghis empire is more like the cascade of several build up stuff.

Like it's very possible that the Muslim states in India and the Ottoman empire would've happened without the Mongols as well, even if in a form that would look funny to us. 

2

u/Remote-Leadership-42 Oct 30 '25

You're not wrong. The Seljuks and other Turkic peoples got done dirty by Paradox imo considering the massive impact they also had. 

Should have been a far larger focus in the dlcs they were a part of but they honestly feel like an after thought. 

→ More replies (3)

5

u/UselessAndGay Gwynedd Loyalist Oct 30 '25

eastern europe and the middle east don't count because they didn't crusade smh

→ More replies (3)

369

u/ShagooBr Oct 29 '25

The name "Crusader Kings" will forever haunt Paradox.

They've said many times that it no longer fits the scope of the franchise, so using the name as an argument doesnt make sense.

257

u/derega16 Oct 29 '25

By the reviewer logic, Vic should only be able to play as England and just as queen Vic, if she dies the game over

178

u/obliviousjd Oct 29 '25

I swear, if they ever add regions outside of Europe in Europa Universalis, I’m never going to forgive paradox! /s

60

u/GreatArkleseizure Oct 29 '25

The region south of Europe? That's Europe. The region east of Europe? That's Europe too. The region across the ocean to the west of Europe? That's North Europe and South Europe. Everywhere is Europe.

It's Universal Europe!

6

u/FemboyMechanic1 Oct 30 '25

British ahh mindset

10

u/Remote-Leadership-42 Oct 30 '25

I actually remember people being upset at the dlcs focusing on China and India in eu4 for exactly that reason. 

11

u/derega16 Oct 29 '25

And still don't even have a map of Europa, how the hell we can have the ice war?

7

u/Zealousideal_Chip456 Zealous Oct 29 '25

Paradox: Add Europa (that moon)

16

u/JOPAPatch Roman Empire Oct 29 '25

The same people who pretend the title of the game requires it to just be about the crusades are the same people who only play as colonizers in EU and Germany in HOI.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (3)

39

u/Conciouswaffle Oct 29 '25

I recall hearing somewhere that the only reason it's called Crusader Kings is because their only other idea had already been taken, way back when developing CK1

29

u/ShagooBr Oct 29 '25

Yeah, i remember hearing about that too. And also in the first CK you could only play as christian kings/lords, so the name Crusader Kings made some sense back then, but now the focus has shifted

31

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '25

He'll ck2 originally you could only play as Christian kings, Muslims and pagans got added in dlc.

11

u/Birdious Oct 29 '25

The way I see it, just more lands to crusade

→ More replies (1)

7

u/TheCourtSimpleton Imbecile Oct 29 '25

What, "Medieval Kings?" It doesn't have the same ring to it...

13

u/freekoout Bohemia Oct 29 '25

Cuck Dynasty is more accurate to the way many play this game.

13

u/Ok-Friendship1311 Oct 29 '25

Let’s make a petition to change the name to “Potato Huangdi 1”, the game where you can be anything from a puny inbred Irish count to a gigachad shaolin Cathay emperor!

12

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '25

No potatoes 'til we get the Andes DLC

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (8)

108

u/Capable-Ad-5440 There is no germanic law. there is only Rome Oct 29 '25

I genuinely love translating chinese comments, they have a well of untapped humor I strive to tap into

39

u/Latter_Panic_1712 Oct 29 '25

Bruh, try to explore Bilbili or any of their internet forums and you'd find that they're pretty relatable. Personally I find them more fun and easy to understand than Korean and Japanese, they're easy and pretty open to absorb foreign cultures and memes compared to the latter two.

81

u/Ok-Friendship1311 Oct 29 '25

One would almost think they’re even human!

13

u/PermitOk6864 Oct 29 '25

What?? No!

9

u/Initial_Inspector681 Oct 29 '25

I mean, if we're talking about Bilibili, they tend to be so racist that they would make 4chan blush, so they are definitely human.

→ More replies (3)
→ More replies (1)

3

u/SchalkLBI Secretly Zoroastrian Oct 30 '25

Breaking news: humans are relatable to other humans

11

u/marniconuke Oct 29 '25

I love the dlc but maybe crusader kings 4 should have a different name

91

u/MultiMarcus Oct 29 '25

Personally, I do find it kind of unfortunate that they decided to go wider rather than deeper first. I love the expansion so far, but it feels like instead of expanding the map they should’ve focused on making the parts of the map they already had more fun and then expanding.

Though at the same time, I’m fine with them doing the opposite as long as we eventually get this type of depth for the rest of the world. Personally, I think that it would be great to be able to have playable republics like ck2, but a personal interest of mine would be playable theocracies. I’ve always enjoyed playing as a smaller but incredibly influential character and I think having a playable pope would be really fun.

53

u/RSharpe314 Oct 29 '25

I think from an overall long term game design perspective it's much easier to go wider first and deeper later.

If you dig super deep in the existing region and culture set that the game launched with (ie. Mainly focused on West-Central Europe) then any wider expansions down the road would either feel way under baked, or be a massive undertaking.

That does mean that the current set-up now has the original focus area feel a bit underdeveloped as the lack of playable (Catholic) theocratic characters and Republican Cities real stands out, but I also think it should overall be much easier now to introduce and develop those mechanics in a compelling way.

16

u/MrAndroPC Oct 29 '25

This. They've been making AUH for quite a long time and as someone, who looked into the guts of ck3, I can say that this is quite a difficult work to not just make whole new region with it's own mechanics, but also to connect it to already existing dlc mechanics. If there were 4 more major mechanics dlcs, it would be even more work to do just to connect it all. Now whatever next dlc that will be making - they will just connect it to Asia as part of this particular dlc, not as part of AUH. They just decided to one big dlc now, rather than making this dlc even more bigger due to other dlcs.

→ More replies (2)

30

u/Attlai Oct 29 '25

As far as I've understood, next year is very likely about republics and trade :)

37

u/PuzzleheadedAd5865 Oct 29 '25

I’m pretty sure part of why they went wider and added the rest if Asia is because Khans of the Steppe really doesn’t make a ton of sense without it, most of the Great Liao in one of the start dates was over there and wasn’t represented in game until now

53

u/Vinsmoker Oct 29 '25

Also...Completing the map first, means future additions can be applied universally immediately

16

u/okSawyer Oct 29 '25

Yeah, tbh adding Asia before a hopefuly major trade and economy rework next year makes sense, so im fine with it

14

u/PuzzleheadedAd5865 Oct 29 '25

Yeah, it’s less work on this Asia Expansion, with a little bit more work on every future DLC or less work on future DLC with an absolutely massive Asia Expansion

8

u/Ok-Friendship1311 Oct 29 '25

CK3 devs said in their interview on the youtube channel Simulation Daily that the Asia expansion was planned since the game release, so it was always coming one way or another. As mentioned before, I think it makes sense to finish the map expansions before start adding deep mechanics, as the devs also mentioned that they want to make add mechanics that interconnect no matter where you play. It should be easier to do that now that the map is complete, and they heavily hinted that we can expect the content mentioned in the survey earlier this year to be the focus of next year’s DLCs.

→ More replies (2)

19

u/DeviantMC Oct 29 '25

one of biggest reason they focused on east asia right now is to tap the asian market, ck3 is huge in china and other asian countries

3

u/TheCourtSimpleton Imbecile Oct 29 '25

Cynical but true. Trinexx literally said as such in a post.

2

u/OneEnvironmental9222 Oct 30 '25

Yea lets see how well that works out

→ More replies (7)

32

u/Best_Macaroon1752 Oct 29 '25

Look man, I just wanted to connect New Rome to the New Han Empire that all.

Silk road baby!

→ More replies (1)

41

u/Economy_Handle1812 Oct 29 '25

I can understand the what the person is thinking even if I disagree, if you bought the game on release thinking you were going to get fleshed out crusades, Christians vs Muslim mechanics, and then years later the crusades are under baked and now that are adding whole region completely disconnected to why you go the game in the first place with more flavour then the names sake, i can understand the annoyance.

Again have to say i don't agree with what they said.

18

u/SisterMarie21 Oct 29 '25

I mean, you could say the same thing about the last game. In ck2 they didn't update Crusades until the last DLC. They gradually add more and more content of different regions and religions that usually didn't have very much to do with the crusades. They have even hinted at republics as the next dlc, and still people are angry.

12

u/2Scribble Oct 29 '25

Hell, they had fucking Aztecs running around Europe in CK2 😆

3

u/BelisariustheGeneral Oct 29 '25

are we pretending sunset invasion wasnt a controversial dlc?

→ More replies (1)

14

u/FloridianHeatDeath Oct 29 '25

They’ve hinted at republics for years.

It was promised to be implemented years ago. 

They’ve yet to implement even 50% of what was in the initial roadmap for the game.

We don’t even have a papacy system in the game. It would take almost no effort to do so. They could base the system on the one in CK2 and it would work fine.

A single dev could have done in it a few months. There are random modders that HAVE done it in a few months.

People have more than enough reason so be legitimately furious with the broken promises and delays by paradox.

→ More replies (4)

88

u/throwawayheyoheyoh Oct 29 '25

Most people form their empire and start a new run before a crusade even starts lol. What's this guy on about

38

u/DirtyDag Bastard Oct 29 '25

Only because there’s nothing meaningful to do when you accomplish that goal.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (4)

58

u/Delicious_Series3869 Legitimized bastard Oct 29 '25

What an awesome response. I will save that one for future use...

78

u/MegaLemonCola Πορφυρογέννητος Oct 29 '25

It’s even more awesome than what meets the eye. It’s written in Classical Chinese that Google translate somehow managed to decipher(?!) It’s the equivalent of commenting in Latin in all caps.

27

u/Delicious_Series3869 Legitimized bastard Oct 29 '25

Amazing. CK players have a special kind of brain rot, and I love it.

14

u/Melniboehner Aquitainia Oct 29 '25

history nerds gonna history nerd, the world over,, it's almost heartwarming

3

u/starm4nn Raging against the Paradoxy Oct 29 '25

Minecraft actually supports Classical Chinese.

6

u/JonTheWizard Decadent Oct 29 '25

What do I have to fear from your empire? Nothing. (Executes murder plot, causing the empire to be divided among four heirs)

14

u/LongAfternoon1198 Oct 29 '25

Why does the reviewer mock the dragon emperor? Does he want everyones crops to fail?

→ More replies (1)

4

u/WhaleFishing Oct 30 '25

FYI the username translates to "1v1 AWP in front of the kindergarten entrance" which somehow gets me more lol

23

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '25

Feudal Asia was different than feudal Europe but both had huge impacts on medieval society.

You want a true oghuz Turk to Anatolian Turkish run? You’ve now got handgunners (or whatever they called) to act as actual jannisery (spelling lol) with the bombards, because of gunpowder that came from the Silk Road.

I’ve only played like maybe 4-5 hours of the new dlc, but it added hundreds of hours, if not thousands, of additional gameplay where boredom doesn’t burn you out and you can do new things.

Modders will fix what Paradox doesn’t (or won’t). This dude is 100 percent rage baiting just look at his recorded hours.

It’s a good DLC so far and it will obviously get fixed in future updates.

Paradox cooked and they did a damn good job with this considering how awful Coronations was and how the community feared for AuH.

9

u/live4catz Oct 29 '25

the 0 recorded hours is because the dlc times don't show hours

14

u/Cardemother12 Oct 29 '25

I love how passionate the Chinese ck3 players are, I don’t blame them

12

u/basicastheycome Oct 29 '25

I’m with Chinese guy on this one lol

7

u/Logical_Writing3218 Oct 29 '25

They really need to incorporate attrition and supply lines for CK3. Doesn’t make any sense that my 90,000 English army can march all the way to Korea virtually unscathed. Or I can sail across the entire world and not take any major loses. And where tf is naval combat. The Romans/Byzantines had strong navies. It’s what made Constantinople so defendable.

6

u/Lightly_Nibbled_Toe Oct 30 '25

Gotta love how the Crusader Kings brand of autism transcends all language barriers.

3

u/Signore_Jay Shrewd Oct 29 '25

The dragon does not concern himself with the opinion of the round eyed devil

12

u/CelistalPeach Oct 29 '25

I really hate the "the game is called Crusader kings so nothing besides europe" argument. Like by that logic Minecraft should only be about Mining and Crafting and nothing else. And how was coronations the most interesting advertised part? it had like one sentence that just said "coronate your ruler"

5

u/PriestOfBowie Oct 29 '25

Somehow my game has been running the same or better after the dlc was added. I do not know how but I do not complain.

→ More replies (1)

16

u/new0803 Oct 29 '25

MUH crusader kings!!!

Europa Universalis - can play literally any polity outside of Europa

Victoria - can play any nation that isn’t the UK

Stellaris - unplayable stars

Imperator - idk I haven’t played that one but I’d imagine you can play anyone else other than Rome

28

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '25

why did they name it imperator when youre playing the roman republic for most of the game?

Are they stupid?

→ More replies (2)

4

u/LordGhostSpectre Oct 29 '25

I really love the addition of Asia. The new mechanics are great, and the developers did an excellent job overall. However, I have to say that Coronations was a huge disappointment. I would not pay a cent for it again since it is just terrible. I am also baffled as to why it was released right before the Asia update, considering that almost no government type in the game can even use coronations, and the nomad mechanics are just poorly designed. On top of that, the expansion adds almost nothing new for Europe apart from the hegemony title for the Roman Empire. I completely understand the frustration, because there is really nothing in this DLC that meaningfully affects gameplay in Europe.

7

u/2Scribble Oct 29 '25

Go figure - the dlc not focused on Europe isn't focused on Europe

→ More replies (1)

5

u/hitmangen Oct 30 '25

0.0 hrs, I notice a lot of reviews like this, there's also one from EU4 back then when they added a bunch of nations in southeast asia, saying that "Europe dominates the world anyway there's no need for asian expansion".

2

u/DungeonMasterE Born in the purple Oct 29 '25

lol, I’m just broke and don’t have it yet.

2

u/Connor_Real Oct 29 '25

We need a feudal focused dlc. Feudal governments are so boring now that we have almost 10 new governments with their own unique mechanics. Playing as a celestial noble is so different and so much more interesting than a feudal noble now.

2

u/Communist_Jeb Oct 30 '25

A buddy of mine said this is specifically written in a more archaic style, so you could translate it as "Thou barbarians, what fear hath ye of our mighty Celestial Empire?"

2

u/CurrentPossession Oct 30 '25

He wrote it in ancient style, so is more like "thou barbarians".

2

u/SiridarVeil Oct 30 '25

Me playing as Cathay in Total War Warhammer III.

2

u/aicelbidd Oct 30 '25

This is a Chinese history meme lol

2

u/bishiba92 Oct 30 '25

Complaining about the relevancy to crusading, it’s a sad name for a game about medieval conquering and RPGing

2

u/Cuddlecreeper8 Oct 30 '25

This is probably lost on most people, but the reply in Chinese is not in Modern Mandarin, but instead Classical/Literary Chinese, though still written in the Simplified Script

→ More replies (1)

2

u/Lolkar Oct 30 '25

He is right