izigame.me

Do you like Crusader Kings 3? Do you like the idea of all your nearest and dearest friends relatives being violently killed and eaten by feral wolves with nothing that you can do to stop it? Did you think that murder plots against you for your tyrannical ways weren't enough and wanted a medieval vendettas so strong that they'll burn your entire house to the ground? Then I highly recommend this mod.
Wait... Why's this mod on the Steam Store?
oh no
Friends & Foes promises a lot for stories and roleplay oriented content that it does an earnest attempt to deliver on. Little flavor events like Birthday celebrations and skipping church to have brunch with a friend add a refreshing sense of life to your character's day to day that I do genuinely appreciate. They aren't terribly obtrusive and come with little consequence, some piety or prestige or a temporary modifier. A little reward for picking what your character would do in that moment.
Its when these events start bringing lasting consequences that the problems begin. Plenty of people have already talked about how feuds just turn into a blood bath as every single member of a household puts every little piece of their own life on hold to personally destroy your house, Every single member starts a murder scheme against someone in your house, no matter how distantly related they are. No matter how distant your lands are, if they're in diplomatic range then its good enough. And its always murder schemes, which are in my humble opinion the least interesting scheme to defend against in the game. Either you have sufficient intrigue skills to resist an assassination or you don't. The same idea extends from there. Either you're playing a character with enough Intrigue perks to foil every plot against your family (or at least your close family), or you're not and you watch helplessly as you lose four consecutive rulers who inherit the throne with a murder plot just about ready to fire off. Lose eight dynasty members in two years among mainline rulers and unlanded cousins alike. All before you even realize there is a feud happening because it was mentioned only once in the usual dearth of events popping up on your screen at once.
Worse still is the event that is out of your control entirely. There is an event, not altogether unlikely to happen, for a friend of yours to go missing. The only parameters for this I've encountered are for them to be a friend of some degree. Maybe also to be a member of your court. But as I had said the first paragraph, the event is just for that friend to be eaten by a wolf. You can go to them and find that they were eaten by a wolf. Or you can wait for someone to tell you that they've been eaten by a wolf. It can happen to to your young adult son who you befriended with the Pedagogy skill. It can be your Best Friend and Soulmate Wife with 40 martial. It could even be that random person you befriended at your liege's last feast. Sometimes they'll survive, but more often than not, they die. Its probably to do with their skills, but it happens with such frequency, carries such consequence, and is entirely left to chance as to what happens that its nothing short of insulting that this is the kind of content we're going to call "story oriented" or "roleplay".
Maybe this can be salvaged, but the ways that positive events end with opinion bonuses and some piety or prestige and the negative events end in either immediate death or starting you on a game of whack-a-murder-plot will need to change. But with how cynical of a product this is, I doubt such a change will come. I want to like this addition, but as it stands I'm not risking my virtual medieval family's health and safety and right to not be eaten by a wolf for a few opportunities for my character to say "wow, pretty music."