New Crusader Kings 3 Update Just Made the Game Harder

The latest update for Crusader Kings 3 is a big one, but the most important aspect for players is the addition of new difficulty options. The Hard and Very Hard difficulty options will test players’ skills like never before, and the developer, Paradox Interactive, has thoroughly explained the changes they’ve made and why they’ve made them in the official patch notes. This Crusader Kings 3 update today also addresses bug and more, further improving the game as the last major patch did. With the update live today, players can jump right in and try the new Hard and Very Hard difficulty modifiers.

Paradox Interactive has introduced new options when starting a game in Crusader Kings 3. Some of these modifiers will show a Hard or Very Hard notice in the tooltip. These changes are made to give AI new abilities to make up for not being able to act as a human player. The buffs to the AI should not alter how a game progresses, but will increase the challenge.

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New game balancing has been implemented as well. Players will find these across Crusader Kings 3’s different mechanics and AI. Certain units also see damage reduction and players now have more proposal options. Finally, bug fixes have been implemented across a variety of areas, including UI, animation, and general gameplay features.

We have listed the entire patch notes today for Crusader Kings 3‘s Update 1.16.2.1 down below.

Crusader Kings 3 Update 1.16.2.1 Patch Notes

Game Content​

• Added a game rule to add Tibet as a Nomadic Region.
  • Due to the ruler setup of the area, many nomadic rulers will start with Bodpa culture but a Tuyuhun Nomadic Capital
• Added Hard / Very Hard Difficulty game rule options
  • The philosophy behind these changes is to try and compensate for what the AI can’t or shouldn’t be able to do as efficiently as a player. For example: the AI doesn’t change Vassal Contracts very often, intentionally use Abductions to win wars/gain loads of money, use Marriages to pull realms into losing wars en masse, or mass construct economic buildings before hiring MaA, to name a few. We’ve tried to keep most of these changes as invisible as possible, instead of showing ‘Very Hard’ as a modifier in various tooltips (although it happens in some places out of necessity).
  • Added the Hard difficulty which boosts AIs and changes some systemic behavior for players, aimed at providing a more challenging yet still balanced experience
    • While AI realms are buffed, generally the game should progress similarly to the Normal game
    • Changes for the AI:
      • Buying and maintaining MaA is significantly easier
      • Stress management is improved
      • Constructing buildings and holdings is somewhat easier (not too much, or the player would be able to abuse it for their own gain!)
      • Levies reinforce faster
      • Improving opinion is faster
      • Tyranny gain is reduced
      • Mercenary use is cheaper
      • Factions are slightly more lenient
      • Revoking titles and retracting vassals is easier
      • Activity costs are reduced
      • Court Position management is significantly cheaper
      • Agents are slightly more willing to join schemes vs. players
      • Recruiting guests is significantly cheaper
      • Amenities are significantly cheaper
      • CB prestige costs are cheaper, especially vs. players
    • Changes for the Player:
      • Regular Mercenaries are more expensive
      • Factions are somewhat less lenient (depending on vassal opinion)
      • Revoking titles and retracting vassals is harder
      • More vassals are inclined to join tyranny wars started by players, primarily guided by opinion
      • Much less likely to randomly become a Conqueror
      • Heavier penalties to arranging marriages based on number of existing alliances, lesser bonuses from desires alliance, etc.
        • The player should be able to have one significant alliance, and one minor alliance. Gaining alliances at war will be almost impossible.
      • Marrying with the intent of getting highly skilled courtiers or wanderers to join your court is now much harder, especially if your candidate is not your close family member. This should make it much harder to, for example, gain a great general or several fantastic knights the day before you go to war.
      • Agents are slightly less willing to join schemes
      • Tyranny gain from unfair Vassal Contract changes is significantly increased (see changes to Vassal Contract scoring in the balance section to see why this change is significant!)
      • More resources are needed to reinforce armies for Adventurers & Nomads
      • Gold gain from ransoming is lowered
      • Religious heads are now less inclined to grant players gold
  • Added the Very Hard Difficulty which significantly boosts AIs, changes systemic behavior, and applies some penalties to players, aimed at providing a much more challenging experience
    • AI realms are going to be significantly more strong and stable, making the game progress differently
    • Changes for the AI:
      • Everything from hard, but the bonuses are greater
      • AI Rulers gain extra advantage when leading their own armies
    • Changes for the Player:
      • Everything from hard, but the penalties are greater
      • Hostile Scheme success chance starts at a much lower level
      • Knight efficiency is reduced
• Added player only variants of the domain limit game rule
  • This allows you to add -1, -2, or -3 domain limit to players only, making it a good compliment to the regular difficulty game rule

Game Balance​

• High and Extortionate tax obligations are now valued higher; you will have to offer more concessions to increase taxes without inducing tyranny
• Council Rights and Religious Protection is now scored extremely high; you will have to offer three concessions to get them
• You can now propose 4 vassal contract changes at once (up from 3).
• You are now allowed to propose a contract that is better for the Vassal than you as the Liege (necessary with the changes to Contract Option values)
• AI lieges now desire higher taxes over higher levy contributions
• AI vassals now dislike Scutage (you’ll have to offer a concession)
• AI vassals now desire March status, Castellan Status, and Palatinate status
• Player Mongol Empires now get the Successor Khanate split during a Chaotic Succession.
• Made it significantly harder to abduct rulers or their subjects if you’re at war with them.
• Similarly as with realm priests, you will no longer get gold when banishing byzantine bookkeepers.
• Reduced the damage per prowess that knights get to 50, down from 100.
• The automated armies companion now raises armies more aggressively.

Bugfixes​

• Fixed Adventurers only getting Criminal & Travel contracts in the Steppe
• Made it possible for adventurers with the Take The Custom Where It Comes perk to recruit cultural Nomadic MaAs.
• When the foreign merchant invited by the Summon Wealthy Visitors decision dies you will now get a toast.
• Players and non-obedient vassals will now get turned into tributaries when their liege migrates.
• Made the Life on the Saddle internal camp building upgrade accessible if you have a regiment of horse archers or heavy horse archers.
• Fixed an issue where you could click on buildings through the side panels in the Domicile window.
• Fixed out-of-sync on hotjoin due to outdated Domicile cache.
• Players can no longer close the travel planning window when planning their next travel during the Fight Corruption adventurer contract.
• Province graphics now refresh on game start even if just reloading a save.
• Fixed a bug where Steppe counties wouldn’t show which season they were in within the county view.
• Fixed out-of-sync related to incorrect tax collector aptitude data when loading a save or starting a new game.
• Fixed an issue where the UI for obediency would show if the person in question was loyal to someone at all – and not just the player.
• Fixed an issue where the siege window would show the wrong holding in some cases.
• Fixed an issue where the hostage window wouldn’t have a filter window available.
• Fixed an issue where the initial character selection list wouldn’t sort until a new sort option was chosen.
• Fixed a bug where the player could get soft-locked when committing suicide.
• Fixed an issue where some mods uploaded to https://mods.paradoxplaza.com/ would not load correctly.

Interface​

• Tweaks and fixes for the Nomadic UI skin.
• The Decision view has been optimized and should no longer slow down the game when open.
• The Golden Lineage trait icon has been updated.

Animation​

• Reduced memory usage of map animals

The improvement to the AI will increase the longevity of Crusader Kings 3 while also bringing new challenges to players. Veteran players may have to adapt their strategies to deal with this buffed AI, but it will make the experience fresh. Future updates for the game may see the AI further enhanced as well, perhaps in an even more difficult setting.