We have already played the big add-on to Crusader Kings 3. Our conclusion: Royal Court brings the game back to life!
Carloman II, King of the West Francia, is furious. Not only have I just taken the important Duchy of Anjou from him in a perfectly just war. While looting…I mean, “visiting” his capital Paris, I also got my hands on a pretty chalice, which I brought straight to my own royal court in Barcelona, where it is now the ornament of my throne room.
But for some reason Carloman is now really angry and even challenges me to a personal duel! It’s not Anjou he wants back, no, it’s that stupid cup. Just because it’s the chalice of the Carolingian dynasty… They must have had a lot of goblets, those Carolingians.
Fortunately, I, King Guillem of Aquitaine, am a better fighter than he is. So I accept the challenge (a refusal would have cost me a lot of prestige). And as was to be expected, I beat Carloman with the mace my grandfather had forged for the family. The chalice remains in Barcelona and soon my troops pay Carloman another visit and conquer Orleans, which is finally enough to wrest the title of King of West Francia from him.
And now, in 1012, I can finally have myself proclaimed Emperor of the Frankish Empire. But since there is still a German king of the East Franks, I rename my empire “West Rome” without further ado and in full awareness of my hubris. And so it resounds at the court in Barcelona on this day in July: Long live Guillem, Emperor of Westrom!
Table of Contents
A throne room in 3D
Okay, that was quite a long introduction. But Crusader Kings 3 is just so much better when you think about and embellish what’s happening on screen a bit more. And that’s exactly what the Royal Court DLC will make easier in the future. Because then there’s an end to: “You’re just looking at a world map!”
We have already been able to play the strategy game add-on and, thanks to the innovation, felt a plus in medieval atmosphere. No doubt about it: Crusader Kings 3 has never felt as alive as it does with Royal Court!
The dynamic body generation system, which creates a surprising variety of characters and lets them age realistically, was a big step between parts 2 and 3. With Royal Court, the developers at Paradox have now added something extra. Namely, a chic throne room completely in 3D.
This throne room comes in four cultural styles (Northern European, Southern European, Arab/Muslim and Indian) and unlocks as soon as you are king or emperor. Lower titles and Asian hordes go empty-handed. The preview video shows you how the whole thing looks in motion:
Holding court like in a role-playing game
The court is where your officials, councillors, family members and, of course, yourself hang out. There you can display your artefacts, chests or wall hangings and, above all, hold court. That means you can call your vassals to you from time to time and listen to their needs.
This could be two barons who are at odds with each other and demand mediation. Or a duke who presents evidence that the county you personally hold should belong to him after all.
Sometimes the results are good for you, sometimes not. As always with Crusader Kings 3 events, you can choose between different outcomes, sometimes depending on the ruler’s abilities.
You can “hold court” and listen to the concerns of the supplicants from your realm. Also, small events pop up every now and then from the courtiers and councillors present in the hall.
The throne room is more than a mini-game
Now you might think that the court is an encapsulated feature in itself, a kind of mini-game. Not at all! There are many connections with the events in the rest of the game. Even apart from the action of “holding court”, events keep popping up that relate to the people at your court or emanate from them.
For example, when I entrust my farm tutor with too many of my offspring, he is so overwhelmed that he wants to quit. Another day, one of my knights flirts with my wife and I have to watch how I react. The highlight is that in this 3D throne room, the characters now appear much more personally than before. This makes the characters more memorable to me and gives them more individuality.
And that is still far from all. Some die-hard gamers will have already paused at the mentions of “court author” and “artefacts”. Because yes, on the one hand, there is now once again a wealth of honorary titles that you can award, from seneschal to court jester to bodyguard.
They all cost you a little gold every month, but enrich your court with their presence and small bonuses. A bodyguard, for example, makes it more difficult to assassinate you. At least as long as they are well-disposed towards you and do not betray you.
Artifacts of all shapes and colours
And then on the other hand, of course, there are the long-awaited artefacts. These now come in two forms. Those that can be displayed in the throne room and those that you can place in your personal inventory. They all bring small prestige, reverence or opinion bonuses, equipped weapons and armour an increase in combat value.
The developers also keep an eye on balancing by only counting the effects of the artefacts that are actively equipped or on display. Moreover, there are no supernatural bonuses, everything can be derived somehow from the item. A rare trophy increases your prestige, a sparkling necklace your allure.
It’s the quality that counts – and it’s expensive
The values again depend on the quality of the item. The imperial crown of Byzantium admittedly carries more prestigious weight than my self-forged crown in Barcelona. Of course, unique, historically relevant items such as the Ark of the Covenant or the throne of Charlemagne (which you can sit on if you get your hands on it) are particularly valuable.
Most artefacts and items, however, are generic and come from adventurers and craftsmen. They will regularly visit your court and offer to forge you a suit of armour, a crown or a nice chest. Adventurers promise you treasure, a rare hide or bones. All of this, of course, only if you finance the enterprise.
If you decide in favour of it, a chain of events follows in the course of which you gain influence on the quality of the item, mostly connected with risks and further money. But it can be worth it: An artefact of the quality “famous” or “illustrious” brings considerable advantages.
But be careful: if you nod off every request unawares, you will quickly run out of gold. Because in Royal Court you don’t get an additional magical source of money. What you spend at the court is missing in the war chest and in the expansion of your empire!
The splendour of the court falls upon you
The bad thing from the treasurer’s point of view is that this expenditure is far from over. There is another system attached to the new court and that is “magnificence”. In summary, it’s all about impressing your vassals. The more people you hire at court, the more money you put into food, lodging, servants and fashion, the higher the magnificence rises and the bigger the hole in the state budget becomes.
If you are above the level of splendour expected of you based on your empire size, you will receive opinion bonuses from your subjects. If you are stingy, the opposite is true. Your choices at court and events can also affect magnificence.
Language connects
Another mechanic that also affects your magnificence is court language. As in real history, this can differ from the vernacular in your realm.
For example, if you, as King of Bulgaria, decide that it is better to speak Greek at court, the splendour of the pompous Byzantine court will shine on you and your splendour will increase. The downside is that your subjects may not speak the language at all, which can lead to confusion and embarrassment that is more trouble than it’s worth.
Coupled with this is a learning plot for languages. Based on education value and a few other factors, a character can now learn languages. This helps at court, but especially in diplomacy. Characters like each other more when they speak the same language, and a king who speaks the languages of his mastered peoples is much less likely to get into internal trouble.
All that glitters is not gold
So you see, everything is connected here. And yet … the new content is still not perfect, which is mostly due to balancing. Because as of now, yard events and interactions occur frequently, but are also often irrelevant. A problem that, in my eyes, the base game already has.
I would rather have fewer events with real consequences. I don’t really care whether Mayor Arno or Baron Urgo is angry with me. Neither of them has any relevance for my realm. But if Duke Balduin, who owns half my realm, were to burst into the room and confront me with a tricky decision that could possibly lead directly to a rebellion, then these conversations would have a completely different quality.
Since the stories told in the short texts also rarely offer special entertainment value (as is often the case in Stellaris, for example) and soon become repetitive, the management of the court becomes somewhat tiresome at times.
Since this is not a systemic problem, I just hope that the developers will turn a few screws here and increase the variety and importance of the events in the long run. After all, you can usually ignore the throne room without consequence if you don’t feel like it at the moment.
The fact that you can’t move freely with the camera in the throne room is a bit of a drag on the overall positive impression of Royal Court. You are only allowed to set certain angles, but not to swivel the view around at will.
In addition, the figures almost don’t move. They sit or stand stiffly as in a still life. Only an interaction changes the scene abruptly. This is a nice solution in itself, but real movement would have made the whole production seem even more lively.
The cultural construction kit is complex
The simulation on the map is more lively. Royal Court doesn’t just leave it at the throne room innovations, but also takes care of the cultures. Until now, these were simply static. Now they will be given a similar construction kit as the religion.
With the free patch that will accompany the DLC, each culture will have three pillars:
- The ethos is an almost unchangeable basic attitude of the culture. Norwegians are completely surprisingly “belligerent” in attitude, which grants bonuses around combat. Greeks, on the other hand, are “bureaucratic”, which has a positive effect on life experience and provincial development. So far there are seven of them.
- The cultural pillars are language, origin of culture, aesthetics (purely cosmetic), and the division of roles between men and women in matters of war.
- The traditions are building blocks that you can actively change for a high prestige cost and sometimes bring very powerful advantages. A culture can have up to six traditions. The French culture, for example, focuses on chivalry, which strengthens all characteristics related to this aspect and grants knights and heavy cavalry more striking power. How different and in their own way powerful these traditions can be is shown by looking at some Spanish cultures, which refer to their Visigothic origins. This grants them the useful advantage of being able to enact the law of “major division” (the heir gets most of the titles) as early as the tribal epoch, instead of the High Middle Ages.
With the DLC you get three interesting options in terms of culture:
- Reform: As a leader, you can change the traditions or add new ones to your culture for a high prestige cost. Theoretically, you can also change the ethos, but this currently costs the enormous sum of 20,000 prestige.
- Branch off: You can create your own subculture. A new ethos costs much less prestige here, but you cannot add any additional traditions (only change existing ones) and henceforth have slightly worse relations with your neighbours who still follow the old culture.
- Mixed culture: The most interesting option allows you to mix two cultures present in your empire, as it happened prominently in history in Normandy. You have to choose traditions from both cultures, but you have very low prestige costs. In my test game, I mixed Catalan and French and picked the best of both. However, mixing cultures is subject to some conditions. For one thing, at least 50 years must have passed since the last mixing, the two cultures must not have the same origin and the culture acceptance must be high enough. Acceptance is in turn influenced by many factors (commonality, proximity, events and more).
This all sounds a bit complicated? It is. But it’s also super fascinating, partly because the AI also uses all these new possibilities when it suits it. The great advantage of a ruler with a mixed culture is that the opinion mali on the part of the participating cultures drops significantly without you having to convert every province culturally. As a cherry on the cake, you also get all the innovations that at least one of the two cultures has already researched.
So you see, Royal Court is really packed with complexity-deepening features. Although some of them have even more potential, it is already clear that the addon will be a great addition to the base game!
Editor’s verdict
Oh, I could have told you a lot more. For example, about the moment when I was suddenly appointed stable master to my liege and … how? All right now? Oh, all right. Overall, I’m really excited about Royal Court and I’m not surprised that the developers took so long for this mega-DLC. Especially the throne room is so different from anything Paradox has done so far. And then there’s the pandemic, which destroyed schedules everywhere.
Nevertheless – of course – not everything is perfect. For one thing, the DLC won’t be cheap at 30 euros if you don’t get it through the Expansion Pass. For another, some mechanics still have a certain annoyance factor. For example, artefacts break over time and have to be repaired, there are so many court offices that I would like to see them automated, and the many irrelevant court events eventually led me to call up the court less and less often. And behind the general balance, as always, there must be a big question mark, because resourceful players have found exploits in every Paradox patch.
In the end, however, all three pillars of these expansions make sense and deepen the game. The throne room makes the events in your realm more tangible, the artefacts were already missed by everyone at the time of release and the culture mechanic enables many new interesting options. And all that aside from pure warfare. So this DLC gets a big recommendation from me in any case.
