izigame.me

Overpriced, oversold, overworked.

Over the past few years, Paradox has more often than not released DLC that has failed to meet consumer expectations. Paradox developers have noted the challenges of dealing with COVID-19 and working from home arrangements, but their decline in quality and the overpricing of DLC begins as early as EU4's The Cossacks (for which I wrote a very lengthy negative review, hence why I specifically remember it), released nearly 7 years ago at the end of 2015. COVID-19 is not the problem.
At pain of making this review far longer, I could continue on about my speculations regarding Paradox Development Studios and how it's operated, and why this is causing problems. But reviews have a character limit, so I will reserve my remarks on PDS to this: STRATEGISE your time better, re-evulate how you value features, do not assume more time = more value.
The DLC's added content: is it good?
It's just... okay. You couldn't say the content is 'awful'; the added depth to cultures is a welcome addition, the inventory and combat systems something I missed from CK2 and glad to have back, and the new royal court and its many new positions fairly mediocre but not awful features.
Is the new content enjoyable, though? Not really. Not that it has made the game less enjoyable, but I can't say it has made the game more enjoyable either. The way I play CK3 hasn't really changed from before Royal Court. The features, though not awful, feel "tacked on". They don't offer new ways to play, but merely supplement the existing gameplay loop. Aside from needing to keep your court's grandeur above the expected threshold, you could validly completely ignore your royal court and it would make no serious impact upon gameplay.
Engaging with your royal court also becomes quite tedious. I was surprised to find after checking CK3's Royal Court event files that there are 86 (as I counted) general royal court events, yet while playing it feels as though there are only 10-15. The issue is that many events rely upon specific conditions that are unlikely to change throughout a character's life. Many, for example, rely upon certain court positions being occupied, but as a vast majority of them cost 0.50 to 1.50 gold to upkeep, it is simply too expensive to have more than a handful of courtiers employed at any given time until the late game (by which time, given how easy CK3 is, most have stopped playing out of boredom). Consequently, you are faced with the same set of events again and again.
I'd also note that it seems a majority of court events are negative, usually resulting in you losing money, prestige, and relations with one or more vassals. Positive outcomes are rare and not rewarding enough when holding court more often leads to negative outcomes. Events where gold is lost is especially harsh when your court grandeur threshold requires dedicating almost your entire income to court amenities.
And, on that note, the cost of court amenities and salaries scale awfully. Tying court costs to eras results in expense hikes completely disconnected from the pacing of the game. Income game design has been made to grow gradually as you invest in buildings and increase county development over time, but the +25% hike in court costs is instantaneous upon entering a new era. To use my current game starting as West Francia as an example, I formed the empire of Francia and rule over essentially eight de jure kingdoms. This makes my court grandeur expectation level 10, meaning I essentially need full court amenities. Going from Tribal to Early Medieval instantly increased my court amenities cost by 10 gold and made many of the court positions I had filled no longer affordable to maintain as their salaries also hiked by +25%.
This meant I needed to make many court positions vacant, meaning less interaction with courtiers and less event flavour, as well as it disrupting the flow of gameplay completely as I had to suddenly shift towards buildings and development all of a sudden without any graduality- a shift that is hard to do, given its reliance on stable income and time. I don't feel as though this janky kind of gameplay is the kind of gameplay intended, especially given how disjointed it is from CK3's game design approach to income.
Final issue I have with the royal court is the royal court view itself. Court artefacts, especially pedestal artefacts, look awkwardly out of place. After filling out all the artefact slots, your court more resembles a museum storeroom than it does a royal court. It begs the question why this feature was even implemented when it really serves no purpose.
I recall reading in a dev diary that a significant amount of coding went into adapting the engine so that the royal court could be visually represented. Why? Several times in the past (after repeated controversies around pricing) Paradox has justified the price of their DLCs upon the time and effort they invested into developing them. The issue with such an approach is obvious: consumers don't value time and effort, they value quality and content.
Accounting for how feature-poor this very expensive DLC is, I can't help but feel Paradox felt justified in their pricing due to the time they poured into coding and troubleshooting the engine to support the court visuals. Not only are these visuals very average and completely lacking responsive variation (why doesn't my court change when I pour money into luxury amenities? why doesn't it look like a rundown shelter when I neglect it?), it serves zero gameplay function. Here, I believe, Paradox made a HUGE misjudgement, placing far too much value in the visuals.
CK3 is a grand strategy game. While the visual representation of characters is highly appropriate for CK3's core gameplay, it being centred around the lives of individuals, it was unnecessary to extend that as far as visually representing the royal court, especially when doing so was so costly and needing further development of an already greatly functional engine. Frankly, it was a complete waste of time and money.
I think most players would have been equally as satisfied with simply a flat interface similar to the inventory system that represented the artefacts on display in their court, not needing the extensive effort that was invested into showcasing those artefacts visually. Interacting with characters in this interface is a hopeless affair. It has never been helpful and I continue to use either the council panel or courtiers panel. In fact, more often it becomes an inconvenience, as the intuitive and fantastic tooltip system CK3 introduced to Paradox's games doesn't work as fluidly with the royal court interface, it blocking the display of panels and requiring me to exit the court view during court events to check a character's aptitude for court positions they're requesting, or to check titles relevant to a court event as the title panel is also completely blocked when in the royal court view.
I believe the crux of this DLC's issue lies in the decision to have the royal court visualisation. If all the time and effort that went into implementing new engine code instead was dedicated to new mechanics, interactions, and flavour, there is no doubt this DLC would have been better received. The fact that the Northern Lords flavour pack actually changed the gameplay loop by offering new ways to play by varying choices and interactions, while this mainline major expansion fails to do so and sits more as an idle supplement and less a game changing major expansion, says a lot to how significantly those who direct Paradox's projects misunderstand what makes their games fun, engaging, and replayable.
Paradox Development Studios HAS talented staff, capable of making quality products, but I believe PDS's management of time and valuation of features is deeply flawed. They MUST improve their strategy. This spiral must end.