You will be able to arrogantly ignore the advice of your wife and councillors in whole new ways in Crusader Kings 3, thanks to a small but mighty update to the game’s message settings. Players are due to be given much more granular control over what scrolls and missives appear on their troubled monarch’s war table, thanks to the free update that will accompany the Roads To Power DLC. Paradox talk about this and other upcoming changes (including a new start date) in an update post on Steam. Some rulers among you will be excited by all the Byzantine bureaucracy that will headline the DLC. But real kings care about filtering information in extremely picky detail. Still don’t know why this is big Crusader Kings news? Come with me, you insolent wretch.
Customisable message settings is an oft-requested feature by CKIII players. If you have ever juggled organizing a feast in the castle with a war in Andalusia and a spymaster who keeps trying to poison your favourite accountant, you will know how important it is to keep a clean feed of information flowing into your hands. You’ll soon be able to do that with much more control, judging by this screenshot of the upcoming quality-of-life feature.
God, that’s an exciting menu. Crusader Kings 2 and other Parastrats like Stellaris have long enjoyed a similar feature that lets you decide, in itty-bitty detail, which message types you think are important, and which you don’t give two figs about. But Crusader Kings 3 still doesn’t have those options. So you’re forced to trust the game’s own info-sorting, meaning you sometimes miss significant events, or get endlessly informed about dozens of things for which you simply don’t care.
This is due to make persnickety players like myself, who want to tailor their own story, very glad. Message settings have probably been on the drawing board at Paradox for a while, given the howling cries from the masses yearning for the feature. “I hate it when I suddenly notice bits and pieces of land around me suddenly belonging to a different ruler,” says one such kingly wail. “I found out I had grandchildren years after they had died without even realizing they were born in the first place,” says another noble soul. Yes, Crusader Kings continues to have the best out-of-context storytelling in PC games, even when the players are complaining.
The free update that adds this feature isn’t coming until September, alongside the release of the paid Roads To Power DLC. But it’s the smallest-but-powerfulest addition to the game that I have heard about for a while. Thematically, it is like choosing which of your messengers deserves to be let into the throne room, and which to dismiss with a firm breaking of the legs (to steal Nic’s summary of the feature from our chat in this morning’s meeting, please don’t tell him).
The Steam post that covers this goes over plenty of other features, not to be sniffed at. Some will accuse me of burying the lede for only addressing now the addition of a new start date, for example. Players can currently start the game on the year 867 or 1066, but will soon be able to begin on the year 1178 too. That date was chosen partly because of the various scoundrels and saints alive at that time (hi, Genghis), with Paradox saying they “want to give you as many options for worthy historical figures as possible”. But it’s also a good time period to coincide with the new mechanics of the Road To Power expansion, they say.
There are yet more details, including chat about the new “Administrative government” features. But I’m not going into that. Go read it yourself to learn about changes to vassal directives (tasks your underlings must carry out, often very reluctantly), and to sip upon plenty of chat about the Byzantine Empire, a confusing realm for which I do not care. Give me Vikings or give me death (or Spain… or North Africa… or Ireland… or…)