I dropped it two months after I started playing because my friend I usually play games with also got bored with it around the same time I did. It's a bit telling that we didn't even bother playing it unmodded and that we needed around 15 (quickly increased to 22) mods off the workshop before we considered actually trying it. Even then, the first two days were mostly just us trying to figure out where all of the buttons and decisions were moved to with the new UI. Hell, I didn't even manage to find the option to switch to single-heir/primogeniture until about a month and a half of (and probably about 40 hours into my 50) later because of how unintuitive they made the succession laws menu(s). I was under the assumption that I just didn't have it unlocked (I in fact did since the beginning) during any of our MP campaigns because it would only let me switch between partition laws until I somehow managed to find the option to change it by accident.
I think you're right about the dumbing down bit, though. It did get a console release about a year and a half later, so I have my suspicions as well.
I wasn't even aware of the console release. I found the lifestyle tree interesting but it is way too slow. Any meaningful shit takes actual ages and I don't mean the late stage shit for lifestyle like making your own religion, I mean any actually useful traits, meaning you never actually bother developing a character's traits right. It doesn't really matter anyways when they will be dead in a few decades anyways.
The dynastic legacy stuff is actually neat and I like that you can increase the odds of getting good traits in your family. Cadet dynasties and shit are a great addition but the lack of customization of dynasty names and crests at least as far back as I played it really hampered it. You'd getting something dumb like Karling-Aachen or something and never be able to roleplay it will.
None of this really matters though when the UI is incredibly dense and convoluted and lacks any serious customization and you need a ton of mods to make it feel like CK2 to begin with. There were too many cocksuckers sucking off paradox claiming CK2 was too complex and the UI was a mess, but I just don't fucking see it.
The technology being linked to culture is fucking garbage though. You can culture swap to some other culture and lose a ton of progress if whoever heads that culture hasn't done shit. CK2 has it spread by county and makes far more fucking sense.
I see people say CK3 is more RPGy but even a sandbox like CK2 has better roleplaying. Not that it doesn't have bullshit. Had to dump my 862 Welt game because I died shortly after forming the HRE after a couple decades of dynastic politiking, but the fucking Umayyads used their retarded invasion CB and blobbed both France and Aquitaine, having like 35k levies, and every crusade fails to gain traction because of the force comparison or however it works. Might be manageable but of course RNGesus fucked me and killed my emperor too soon and I lost the Empire to some other fucks who are too incompetent.
CK3 doesn't even have minor titles at least as far back as I remember. Remember those court titles you could hand out like Seneshel, Cupbearer, etc. Those didn't exist on launch and if they do now I bet they're paywalled behind some fucking DLC.
I don't really like sucking off CK2 too much. The Holy Fury update was great, but it broke Crusades and now they always win. They should have added the new Crusade mechanic to the Muslims or done some rebalancing, because I get really annoyed watching Catholic AI blob into North Africa every game and ruin game balance on any start date from 1066 onward.
