Recent reviews by arranrp

Pros:
• The map is beautiful
• The game runs fast
• New warfare system requires a lot less micro (great for a players with RSI and other mobility issues).

Cons:
• The map zooming into to the beautiful map cause the game to lag
• The game runs very slow in the late game
• The warfare system is buggy and does not feel alive. (Give us more choice over generals, troop composition, pick battle tactics and have in war events).
• The UI is in accessible and cumbersome so find information.
• The map UI is missing important information like population density.
• Many basic diplomatic actions available in most other PDX titles unavailable. Such as vassal someone peacefully, turn a type of vassal into another type of vassal.
• The devs time and time again said everything that can be done through war can be done diplomatically, in reality this game will push you to potential war more often than any other title as many interaction are only available through diplomatic plays which will lead to war.
• Basic war goals such as liberate another nations cores are missing, making it impossible to complete missions in the game.

CK3 was one of PDX's best initial release ever (yes I know it's not a high bar) and I was super excited by the future of this game. Several years on into the life cycle of the game, dlc has been slow and lacking in new mechanics. This is looking set to be the next imperator rome. I'll be surprised if the is still working on it come 2024.

This content tends to break the flow of the game feeling more like a chore. There is some nice buffs that come from picking some features but onces chosen you wont interact with them much. The culture rework that came with this is very good but is honestly the only feature worth buying, but definitely not at full price,

CK3 came out as one of the most polished PDX games, but this was a very disappointing first peace of content. Not worth it for most players.

Some very nice artwork, but add's very little game play. I'd only recommend getting it in the sale.

A really solid total war game. A few bugs and odd features here and there but nothing that spoils the fun of the big battles. Main complain is to many siege battles in campaign.
The big win for this game is the modding community, keeping an otherwise quite old game feeling fresh and alive all these years later with tons of content expanding both the law and the game play.

I put a lot of hours in democracy 2 and 3. I do enjoy 4 though I feel it's not much of leap forward from 3. I appreciate election have been expanded and there is now better representation of different political systems, though I feel it's let down by your opposition not having a demographic it appeals to and issues best to fight them on.

Compared to the past games the politics of the creator shines through and sometimes in less than pleasant ways and it's that bigotry is the reason I'd not recommend the game.

Time to stick that leader on a horse and march into the enemy.

A few nice features but kills performance.

Is this the spiritual successor to Omerta city of gangsters? I'd hoped it would be.
Well it added almost everything missing from Omerta;
- Expansive Maps (which are very pretty)
- Multiple factions
- Diplomacy
- Relations between characters

But unfortunately it is missing almost everything else a now seven year old game will offer you.
The business side of the game is about as strategic as FarmVille. All the upgrades to business are a simple linear progression and there is little to no synergy between businesses or options to different strategies.
The dialogue between bosses is slow and clumsy. Dialogue options often consist of antagonistic comment or a different antagonistic comment, but down worry there is nothing to indicate your choices have any effect on relations with other bosses.
The combat mechanics are fine when compared to other squad based games of the past decade, but no improvements of innovations. However it’s averageness is let down by;
- Random placement of characters at the beginning of encounters.
- Bosses so poorly balanced that you can often kill only enemies before they get a turn.
- Diplomacy and trade is shallow and often useless in seeking victory.
- Very few maps for combat encounters make for repetitive game play.
- Enemy npc’s have little variation and make already repetitive even worse.
The game is currently also very buggy, about 20% of missions have glitched out and I’ve not been able to complete them.

TLDR: Buy Omertà, it’s a unfinished seven year old game that’s in better shape than this.