14 CRUCIAL TIPS FOR NEWBS (LIKE ME) | CRUSADER KINGS 3 | Tutorial/Guide for Beginners (CK3)
Super in-depth guides are great and all, but sometimes you just need some basic rundowns of mechanics and helpful tips if you're a new player. Here are 14 of them for you, covering all matter of areas to hopefully guide you in your time playing Crusader Kings III.
00:00 - INTRO
00:50 - #1 DON'T PLAY AS MUNSTER
02:46 - #2 ACTION LOCK & SCREEN EDGE SCROLLING
04:00 - #3 EXPLORE THE USER INTERFACE
05:19 - #4 TRAITS & STRESS
07:11 - #5 MARRY FOR ALLIANCES
09:06 - #6 STARTING ISSUES
10:03 - #7 DON'T BUILD BUILDINGS
11:27 - #8 MANAGE YOUR COUNCIL
13:15 - #9 NOT RIGHTFUL LIEGE ISSUE
14:09 - #10 RAISING ARMIES
14:50 - #11 UNDERSTANDING WAR SCORE
16:04 - #12 KNIGHTS ARE ESSENTIAL
17:00 - #13 HIRE BOWMEN, PIKES & ONAGERS
18:17 - #14 USE MAP MODES TO EXPAND
Crusader Kings 3 (CK3, CKIII, or Crusader Kings III) is the third installment of the franchise by Paradox Development Studio. This video you are watching is Day 1 release and as such will not contain any DLC.
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14 Tips for New Players | CRUSADER KINGS 3 | Tutorial/Guide for Beginners (CK3)
• 14 CRUCIAL TIPS FOR NE...
#CK3 #CrusaderKings3 #CrusaderKingsIII
Me watching the video: Ha! This all makes sense. I'll be conquering kingdoms for sure. Boots the game: *_What Is Happening!_*
*Watches the video* *Prepares to launch the game to start conquering kingdoms* *Reads the comment* *Goes back to watching more videos to start conquering kingdoms*
Started a war with a county that has an alliance with Britain, my 1k levies fought against 3k british levies...
Don’t go full speed. One second I’m seducing a lady in the court, next second there is a viking army in my capital.
@@jeffreymacmullin1653 Full speed is crazy, you can't even keep track of the armies and messages lol, i only use for like 2 seconds for very long boat trips or when im in debt or in need of money
Fist game ever that had me worried about getting "too deep into the tooltips"
worst thing about this game is trying to find a guide under 30 minutes, so thanks for the 20 minute guide
Lol glad to help
I love how varied the game is. I’m doing a Leon campaign and I started off with a manipulative seducer King who would kill and scheme into acquiring kingdoms, and then transitioned into playing his more war inclined son. Gotta love Ck3
Another tip, especially for people coming from CK2, don't assume everything from CK2 works the same in CK3. I see so many people not bothering to read how something works because they think it's the same as CK2 and get mad when things don't work. Paradox games are games of niche mechanics so if you assume to know how things work when you don't you'll probably end up shafting yourself. It's the reason why I still watch tutorial/tips videos even though I'm not a beginner, sometimes there's rules/mechanics you misunderstand.
Love you man! This gave me so much good info, and wasnt overwhelming! Keep it up
Havoc: Don't play as Munster Me: Conquers the kingdom of Ireland as Munster
just like me, in 30 hours i have whole kingdom or ireland, whole wales, half of scotland and like 30% of england. It wasnt that bad. But its my second champaing cause I abandoned the first one (also as king of munster) when i raged cause just like half of my kingdom was taken over by england...
however in the first playthrough i also conquered whole ireland and some part od scotland, i just raged that i lost so much
Thanks, Havoc. I'm new to these Paradox games and find them confusing and hard to get in to. I always enjoyed your Ultimate General series, so when I saw you were doing this, I knew that I had to watch it. I'll be giving this game a try very soon (after a few more tutorials like this).
Great video, just got CK3 and i've been pulling my hair out trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong. Will see if I can do a bit better with your suggestions
So far I'm loving this game. Playing currently a tribe in Mongolia and i just discovered my court phicisian is into witchcraft, lol I want him to teach me :)
Thanks Havoc this was helpful!
I’d like to add another army tip... Don’t have multiple units of the same men-at-arms, instead increase the size of the units you already have. This works out a LOT cheaper.
But, I like having *two* full size battalions
Great tutorial. Thanks!
very helpful. thanks
I definitely need to see this. Trying to convince two friends to pick this up with me so we can play and learn together.
Well good! I’ll be super cheeky and suggest that if your friends decide to pick it up, use my Nexus GG link in the description to help the channel 😬😬😬😬
@@HForHavoc Ok thanks!
Man, i fell asleep half-way through the tutorial on the first try. Next day i finally finished the tutorial and couldn't stop playing. CK2 was even worse, learning curve was too daunting so i gave up. Glad they made a good tutorial for CK3.
After the tutorial, I would suggest any new player to play as Duke Lazlo of Hungary. He's pretty much a blank canvas and have claims to a lot of titles (Kingdom of Hungary and various Duchies within held by your brothers and cousins, Kingdom of Poland, Croatia if you marry your character to Cicca of Croatia), there's also infidels nearby to practice for Crusades as Pechenegs often collapsed on it's own, leaving independent tengri counts for grab. As a good ruler, factions will support your claim for Hungary do you don't even have to fight it for yourself, and with no immediate family you can form a path of your own, to start your own eugenic project, perhaps.
Good tip. I just started playing this last weekend and have been hooked on it while at the same time ripping my hair out. I’ll give Hungary a shot.
@@06SteveO Well, you'll be ripping hair if you decide to play as Lazlo because there's a lot of claimants to your title (Norably the Kievan and Bohemian claimants, and after you ascend to the throne, prepare for war with a lot of your neigbhors, which is why not taking the Hungarian Crown (or Polish Crown) might be the better choice, the headache of being the top liege is not worth it haha. I would suggest to change the succession law to Male Only to avoid having claimants all over the place, especially if you planned to marry your daughters to strong ruler surrounding you.
Many players hate it that in games there are not enought choices that you can make and those that can be made don't matter. In Crusader Kings you have basicly unlimited decisions that you can make and every single one matters.
I grasped the main elements, and I have a fairly good idea about what I want to do and how, but the game tends to throw me some really weird curve balls at some point that screws up my understanding of what the hell is going on. I have played 2 games now as Harald Fairhair, a pagan viking in Norway. In my first game, I went on this crazy pursuit of a chief that was dodging me to fill the war score. I followed him on land and sea and he kept registering being in different places all of a sudden. Every time I thought I had cornered him, he appeared somewhere else, and his forces were a tangled web of allied troops that moved around seemingly with no rhyme or reason. I gave up the pursuit and went to the main island of his liege. There were 2 armies there, but they were from somewhere else and were neutral. When I landed to lay siege to the town, they both jumped me. I had 2k men and they had a little over 3k. An insane battle ensued where I managed to win after 2 rounds due to my perverse berserker champions. When the dust had settled, I got a message saying that I was no longer in a war with the first guy, but that these new irishmen had taken his place instead and that therefore my war was no longer valid. What?? Harald sustained mortal wounds and I abandoned the campaign. In my last game, I vassalized a neighbor quite early using the one time subjugation casus belli, partly because I wanted him to fill a seat on my council with his learning skill. The dude never showed up in my court list. I tried to figure it out but to no avail. He was a registered de jure vassal of mine, he was a champion of mine, but he never showed up in my list and since I had gone all in on the plan, I abandoned the campaign. So you see, I don't know if these are bugs or some weakness to the engine or maybe some complexity that eludes me, but so far it has ended in something that feels quite random and mysterious.
I need some advice on playing as the somalian tribes. :o how do i make it to where i have one heir, since i dont have the "special succession" option as them
Your videos are a God send for any new players like myself. Any advice how to kill an hier maybe keep him trash at fighting then make him a knight and hope for the best
Make unwanted characters knights and send only knights into battle.
Hey Havoc, Watched every video for Crusader Kings 3 you've done so far and I have to say, You are smashing it bud :) Quick Question, what is the music you play in the background of your videos? :)
It's a track called The Long Walk! And thank you so much I really appreciate the compliment :)
@@HForHavoc Hey :) Thanks for the reply. I can't seem to find the track, If you aren't busy. Could you post a link too it?
www.epidemicsound.com/track/6LHOXP65VM There you go!
How did you turn the region into dublin? It's not dublin on my map
Yo i dont get it, so its 1066 and i got kingdom of england as irish default dude right, figured out i cant get claims on other kingdoms via my religion dude right, so i killed my wife so i could marry this chick with both norway kingdom and denmark kingdom claims, they are both at war so i couldnt even click on anything after clicking declare war, so i just speedrun it to check it and after denmark dude finishes the war i could only fight him for a tiny county, not for a kingdom claim, why is that? also i have a chick with 5 claims, married her to my half brother, but if i win the war the game says me she gets only 3 out of 5 titles, why is that also? and what do i do to gain more kingdoms after i get one besides doing it via bishop's claims?
Havoc, I was really confused by the Crusade; especially the Beneficiary part. I searched around and apparently you cannot make a "Landed" character a Beneficiary. So i ended up selecting my half-sister. She ended up becoming Queen of Jerusalem. I initially thought how does that even benefit me?! Now i just realized, even though the character leaves your court, they will continue to bring fame to your Dynasty which should eventually give you those Dynasty traits? Do you know if this is correct?
Yes they will benefit your dynasty. The kicker is that unless your half sister marries matrilineal, none of her children will. So she will be only person of that “family” that would give you renown points.
As a newcomer to the series, I started several playthroughs in Persia as minor Zoroastrian characters and every time game was over in a few years. I don't know where is a good start to slowly get into the game and learn as you play. I'm thinking about trying Iceland next.
I’ve found Bohemia, Poland, Leon and Dublin to be very solid starts if that helps. Pretty much every feudal Christian empire is going to be easier (of course).
@@HForHavoc Finally got a game going with Bavandid dynasty in Northern Iran. It's really hard playing as a Zoroastrian faction as you can't easily get alliances and are surrounded with Islamic big boys
It really bothers me that the buildings are often recommended against. Hopefully they make those buildings worth it eventually. Everyone seems to agree that they simply aren't, and I think a game with entire mechanics that can and should be ignored is a pretty big problem. I'd like to see them either improved or altogether removed.
They’re extremely useful and worthwhile, just not in the early game. There comes a point where you’re gonna be building right and left and you’ll get massive gains in what you build. But it’s just not worth doing right off the bat
@@HForHavoc Ah, gotcha. That's good to know. I've honestly only made it about 2 to 3 generations into each game so far, before starting new ones
I have a question about the not construct building early. So if i don't construct it, how do I increase my income early to support army for conquering land for title?
Max out your personal holdings, conquer smaller people to make vassals. Rinse and repeat. Income gain is a slow process if you don't already start with decent income.
Is it weird I am brand new to ck as a whole minus watching videos. I didnt play the tutorial because I like to learn as I go, but I made it to fighting Norway as the kingdom of Ireland starting as munster.
So starting As Sejturks Build buildings early after all 900 titles you can make
HOLY ***! that guitar loop made me gointo a looney
Gonna say based on your name you're already there ;)
@@HForHavoc Haahah, im gonna abduct your spouse if you keep this up.
Thanks for the awesome tips. I am curious if you know why a war can end in "invalidated" Example; A Duchy of England declared war on my realm capital through a courtier's claim. (Both allied to England) after a while, the "war" was invalidated as it said "I no longer hold those titles", but I clearly do. It has happened to me twice now and confused why it keeps happening. The second time it happened, I did notice the person who had the claim died, but didn't notice it for the first war so can't say if this is the reason a war would be "invalidated" bc I think the first one was still alive after it was invalidated so no idea. (again, not 100% as can't remember)
I’m not 100% on why a war becomes invalidated. It’s not clear at all, tho it does seem heavily focused on the idea that when you claim a territory it matters WHO holds it, which I don’t agree with
A war becomes invalidated when the reason for war is not valid anymore. When the claimer dies, or claimed land changes hands or an independent realm gets subjugated by someone else in the middle of your war for subjugation for example etc. It usually happens to me when I am at war with someone fighting multiple wars. Even though I occupy the claimed land, if the other party wins the war before me, my fight gets invalidated.
5:45 "Most character will only have 4" Bertha of Ivrea: 👀
Ya...that woman...I'm terrified of her
Definitely need to read into (not rightfully liege issue) the only issue I didn't quite understand.
Just means the vassals aren’t fully dedicated to you
I believe that looking at them in the vassals menu and hovering over them and their percentage of liege tells you how to gain their liege
@@benstrobel861 Thanks Binnyln 1080 XL I am going in game here in a bit to look through it.
how do i rescue my imprisoned wife?! its been days. she must be worried sick. that pesky Earl of Warrickshire has her. he has a much stronger army. i reluctantly sent him a gift and his opinion of me increased to 60... but he still didnt release her. id hate to see what happens if i make an enemy of someone with a low opinion of me!
What is that stringed instrumental?
It's called The Long Walk by Jamie Norwood, got it off of Epidemic Sound. It's a modified version that I custom spliced together haha
Grabbing chivalric dominance for that sweet 75% knight effectiveness is good and all but its overshadowed by "Only the Strong" cultural tradition which boosts it by 100%, you can easily stack this bonus to over 400% with items, traits, traditions, pillars and holy sights! My army of 8k troops can eradicate an army of 16k troops and barely loose a handful of men. Sure i was a bit ham fisted with military buildings but its the knights that do most of the damage not men at arms! Most my Knights are roughly 30 prowess with 400% bonus they all fight at 100 prowess cap. My enemies never stand a chance no matter how much men they throw at me, and yet people say that "Only the Strong" is over rated! It also synergies well with "Warriors by Merit" by allowing women to fight and give most knights more blade master promotions that are further boosted by "Only the Strong" you can also choose to get "By the Sword" tradition to wage infinite holy wars while also boosting knights martial ability as well as prowess ability from "Warriors by Merit" respectively! If you reformed your religion you can also grab the "Unrelenting Faith" tenet to further boost everyone's prowess and get them over that 12 prowess minimum effortlessly! Also Warmonger/Armed Pilgrimages are also important as they unlock for your head of faith to wage a holy war, while "By the Sword" gives you infinite amount of them!
Don't play as munster: you have decent chance of losing. Me: So you're saying there us a chance.
damn i only played stellaris i guest that improves my chances of learning this game but i have not beaten stellaris for real even with mods because my build is always something about being friendly and having good relationship with everyone and also im lazy it takes a long time with a build with pacifist being a terminator is faster
the closed captioning isnt working on this video. is there a way to fix that? it works on all your other videos.
I will see what I can do!
Ok I've started the script upload. Hopefully it'll be done soon!
@@HForHavoc awesome thanks its working
Love your guides. Helped me out a ton. Useful tip: De Jure is most commonly pronounced “day jooray” with the soft j or sometimes “you-ray” if attempting the original Latin.
I know this is for beginners but i have a problem with the buildings tip. Farms got me to form an empire as that 0.5 income allowed me to make more farms and get more income to get more farms and so on and so forth
The problem is that it will take you 200 months to make that return on investment. As a beginner that is in no way worth the cost. That gold can be better spent elsewhere in the early game
@@HForHavoc to me atleast if you play a non independent ruler you can spend your money on investments as you aren't constantly attacked
I dont know why anyone would build a city if you only gain a % from the vassal that is allocated to it when you earn more from a castle you would own. Am I wrong here?
Owning a castle counts towards your domain limit. So you couldn’t just build castles and that’s it. Cities are very profitable as well so they’re worth investing in
Mannn. I was playing as Bjorn Ironside. Did so well, became a king and I had like three children in my family married to King Rurik. Eventually the king of Estonia declared war on me and that fucker Rurik joined him. Within months I was a vassal because none of my allies decided to help. I'm not too familiar with Swedish history but was there ever a war between Ragnar's sons and a king of Estonia? The whole event just seemed to...Idk..scripted. Almost as if Estonia was SUPPOSED to take over around the year 890.
Background music too loud superchief
I just finished playing the tutorial and often I found myself wanting to have certain courtiers as counsellors and it's been especially problematic with women when they cannot be given titles by law. So how can I get a woman I managed to bring into my court as a counsellor? Also wow, I thought all the children I had raised in the tutorial sucked despite being assigned to guardians with high skills. The tutorial never says anything about education focus.
Expression I am brand new and have only finished the tutorial, and a bit more, but it seems like the roles of women are going to vary from culture by culture, just like in real world history. There are a lot of laws and whatnot you can adopt or change, so perhaps there is one to allow you to do this?
The education focus isn't only based on their stats it is also on their traits and mainly learning traits
18:10 NOT TRUE for every culture, for example all TRIBAL CULTURES buy man-at-arms for Prestige instead of gold, and unraised army cost 0. Yet raised army cost some prestige/month + a few gold / month
Great video but please change the background music. It grates after a while.
maybe a guide on taking land, i keep taking half of a guys land, thanks
You need level up your faith, the higher the level the more land you can take
for some reason i cant move my armies, like ive clicked here there and everywhere, left click rick all clicks, nothing
That’s...odd. Lol. Might be a bug :/
Make sure you have your army selected when you're trying to move. Sometimes you will misclick and deselect the army
@@FistOfNorthStar3 im new to this type of game, how do i know for sure theyre selected?
@@HForHavoc they just dont move, stuck in one place, useless
2 thirds of a county to make a dutchy, 2 thirds of a dutchy to make a Kingdom Was this a mistake? I'm confused
No you need 2/3 of the counties that make up the duchy to claim the title, 2/3 of the duchies to claim a kingdom title
However you need 80% for empires but that might of changed.
>be me >new to CK >play as Munster >take Desmond >allied to Gwynedd >win war for Gwynedd >build buildings in peace to develop my economy >rebellion in Gwynedd >no troops to help >Gwynedd falls >Ossory declares war on me >Ossory hires mercenaries doubling their army >son murdered >army gets wiped >be me gg no re
Ah good ol’ crusader kings. Gotta love it
"Tip 1: Don't play as Munster" Me, who just booted the game and played as Munster...
i dominated as munster ireland is the easiest place to start dont let it hold you back
Lol this game is like work 😂 still fun though.
i am absolutely miserable at this game. hopefully this video helps.
I was the same way! Don’t get discouraged and hopefully my videos help indeed
all these guides are for ppl that know wtheck their looking at lol man its so hard to find a good beginner guide
I recommend watching my UI Breakdown video and/or my Tutorial Walkthrough. They should really help you out.
Is it just me or is this game HORRIBLY complicated? I could hardly understand what was going on in the tutorial. I started looking up videos for people who are new to the series such as myself, and it has only gotten worse. Like...I don't even understand what I am supposed to be doing, nevermind a strategy for how to get there and using the 1,000,000 different mechanics. I just don't even know where to start with this game.
Lol you must have never played crusader kings 2. CK3 is about a thousand times more intuitive and easier to navigate.
You're not the only one. I tried CK2 couple of years ago; gave up in the first 30 minutes. Gave CK3 a chance this week. First night of tutorial... i ended up falling asleep halfway. Stuck with it the next day and i couldn't stop playing for hours. It'll get easier and more intuitive as you continue.
I fell asleep twice playing the ck3 tutorial lol. The game IS horribly complicated, that’s the nature of paradox grand strategy. Once you are able to grasp some of the basic concepts things start to “fall into place.” I’d just say don’t get discouraged. Watch tutorials, take your time and don’t get mad when you fail. I’ve failed countless times in ck3 already. And I’ll fail countless more times. It’s all part of learning grand strat
@@HForHavoc interesting part is I'm constantly learning new things in the game. Didn't know what Iron man mode was -- just knew it enabled Achievements -- so I enabled it. I didn't care about not being able to switch characters. Hour into the new game and i found out Iron man mode does not let you save... it'll only save when you exit the game. So now i cannot save before taking risks and just reload if needed. It's actually fun this way. Surprisingly doing much better this run. And you're right; don't be afraid to fail. Your current ruler may be hated by everyone (even by you the player) and you want him to just get schemed to death already. But he wouldn't die even with 5x speed on... he may have the best luck and everyone eventually loves him (except for the brother he tried to murder before becoming ruler). Then he finally croaks and all of a sudden the heir he birthed with a really weird set of womanizing skills is loved by everyone takes over. This heir eventually expands the small state into its first kingdom... lol crazy stuff.