izigame.me

I love this game, and I play it all the time. The stories you get to make are amazing; the newest culture system they added is a fantastic new layer to the game that adds even more depth, and I do genuinely enjoy playing it. That being said, I cannot recommend this game due to what seem like current major flaws with how the game plays out. While Paradox games have extensive modding support, and you can use mods to tweak certain features you don't like, there are still fundamental problems with the base of the game that can't be justifiably or reasonably altered. Nor should the free labour of a modding scene be used to cover up criticism of a base game.
The main problem comes down to the game's economy, and how easy it is to snowball and consolidate power compared to the AI. There has been a recent wave of YouTube videos which have talked about how "broken" playing tall is, and this comes due to a flaw with how the game functions. Building up your power base is very, very simple. You use money to make buildings, those buildings make you money, and that money can buy you powerful units to take out your foes in both quality and numbers. There are no "sideways" choices one can make to get better, meaning becoming stronger is always about getting "more": Conquering land, investing in buildings, getting better traits. Furthermore, in the aspects where tall play has benefits over wide play, you get to keep those benefits without any of the downsides. Take for example, innovations: Innovations are researched faster by the average development of your culture, which means that larger cultures will develop technology slower as you can't reasonably develop your lands that quickly over large territory. HOWEVER, there are little to no penalties for having a wide realm with a central culture that you solely focus your development on; in fact, you're incentivized to do it as if another culture head arises or breaks away to challenge you, their technology will be significantly ruined because of your selective development. Interesting how your actions affect the world? Yes. Balanced challenge to the player? No. The popular opinion malus isn't a large concern, and cultural acceptance, which is a fantastic flavour change, also mitigates this downside further. All of this alongside the fact that ruling such a large realm only makes your character more powerful, which reduces the penalties that come from ruling a wide realm. There is a consistent theme here where the downsides to certain styles of play are obviously and consistently negated, meaning there is never a chance for someone to suffer the consequences of their own actions. As well, making money is incredibly easy. While growing wealth over time DOES work, and mostly seeks to keep players from going into debt, much larger sums of money are made through the mechanics of raiding, ransoming prisoners, or even just asking your head of faith for gold, which offers a ludicrous, scaling amount of wealth compared to other quick options to make money.
Now, having a game where the central goal is to constantly be in struggle to be in power and do the right thing isn't necessarily bad and can be interesting, but the primary issue is that it is incredibly easy to retain power, even as your descendants may be personally awful. There are mechanisms to prevent power from being too centralized, but they are incredibly easy to circumvent. Confederate Partition is incredibly easy to work around assuming one can become a kingdom, as they can get a duchy, give the title to one of their heirs, and suddenly there is no land being divided between sons as land has already been given out, meaning there is NO challenge or division of the ACTUAL wealth of the realm, as your sons can just be used as loyal(er) vassals in the future for the awful lands you just conquered that haven't been invested in and have no control, while your primary heir inherits all the wealth and power of your previous character. At no point is there a challenge, except possibly in the early months of the realm where vassals' opinion resets and you have to see who hates you. Which is often just a liberty war, or sending gifts, which can easily be circumvented later in your character's life. As well, if push comes to shove, you can easily disinherit your heirs for a mediocre cost, assuming you're your dynasty head.
The game encourages you to become a selfish ruler, as you have no personal investment in making sure your vassals are strong and prosperous. It is always a better to improve your domain and invest heavily in it than to ensure the entire realm is strong. Tyranny is almost a non-issue; yes, you get general opinion maluses which can suck, but this rarely ever results in a realm destabilising. Yet the mass hoarding of wealth and never improving the lives of the population is never looked down upon. Plus, the malus disappears fairly quickly, including more with the stewardship focus and Court Artifacts.
A criticism of these arguments is that it is entirely my choice to play this way, and other types of players could find a different experience. In essence, this is true, but the game doesn't offer many mechanical challenges to do different things. Why, as a player, SHOULD I have to play in a sub-optimal way, or hamstring myself against what the systems are encouraging me to do? There are no benefits to that that substantially outweigh the negatives of me doing such self-destructive actions.

The story the game incentivizes you to create, the main selling point of the game, also tends to suffer as the game progresses because of this flaw with the economy and snowballing. When I start a new game of Crusader Kings 3, It is some of the most fun I have: Trying to set up alliances, repelling those more powerful than me who want to take me over. However, by the 4th or 5th child, there is rarely ever any tension as I have become more effective than could possibly be expected as a ruler, meaning any conquests I do do are for self-indulgence rather than because I think it would be a good choice to make.
Battle is predictable, and also way too highly in the player's favour, and that's because the player can raise their entire armies anywhere within their realm, while the AI can only raise them in their capital. This means conquering a local count is incredibly easy as you can raise your entire army right next to their country and attack them while they're still gathering their troops (which is also a combat advantage for you). Though there are interesting aspects of the battle system, which mostly come in the preparation phase as you adapt your Men at Arms for your terrain and your opponents. It still usually ends up being a game where the larger army from the wealthier country wins and "doomstacking" reigns supreme. Supply limits intend to prevent this from always being viable, you can seige down capitals and wipe out armies so quickly that supply rarely ever becomes an issue except in the largest of kingdom wars. There are no "width" limits, which could mitigate this from being an issue, and would make chokepoints and important terrain even more important, like they are in other Paradox titles. Why is it that as many people can fight at the same time in the Georgian mountains as the European plains or the Indian jungles?
I would ideally like to see more economic choices available and more horizontal progression. I wish that my choices had benefits and downsides that I could compare and contrast, and see if it would be better for me in certain ways and worse for me in others.