The latest update for Crusader Kings III contains a huge number of quality of life changes to the medieval grand strategy game. From bug fixes, to modifications to AI behaviour, to new events, art, and game rules, the 1.2 Argent patch follows Paradox’s design philosophy of consistent ongoing development after a game’s release. Often associated with the high number of DLC expansions released for Paradox’s grand strategy collection, this philosophy has also encompassed free content released alongside paid DLC.
The biggest update with the Argent patch to Crusader Kings III is a product of this philosophy. Previously Paradox restricted character customisation to just those who purchased paid DLC for Crusader Kings II, which was received negatively by fans. There is a common theme of disappointment that Paradox restricted the feature from players in the Steam reviews for the DLC. Many criticised the feature not being included for free in the base game, and others were dissatisfied with the implementation of a points allocation system to balance created characters. Each customisable option was assigned points, representing years of your character’s life, with beneficial traits aging your custom character and detrimental traits decreasing your character’s age. Paradox seemed to learn from these mistakes when they came to release a similar feature for Europa Universalis IV, the nation designer, which was bundled with the El Dorado DLC and included difficulty settings to adjust the points limit on created nations. Now, with Crusader Kings III, Paradox has released the Ruler Designer feature as a free content update for the game.
The ‘Dev Diaries’ Paradox regularly release show that these two criticisms were important for the team creating the new game’s Ruler Designer. Prior to the game’s release Paradox promised that the feature would be included as a free update, and in the lead up to the Argent patch an overhaul of the points system was announced to remove previous restrictions in light of the ‘free and open approach’ Paradox decided upon for the system. While in its predecessor the points limit was a hard cap preventing the creation of characters with too many points allocated, in Crusader Kings III, they instead act as a soft cap which can be exceeded at the cost of the ability to obtain achievements for the game. The points themselves are no longer directly tied to your character’s age (though changing your character's age can be done with points), but instead much like with Europa Universalis IV operate as an independent system.
The Ruler Designer itself is an upgrade from its Crusader Kings II counterpart in many ways, though most of the improvements come from changes to the character mechanics of Crusader Kings III itself compared to Crusader Kings II. Character sexuality is one such mechanic now with its own category in the Ruler Designer, replacing the singular Homosexual trait from the old game, while traits themselves have been broken up into categories - Education, Personality, and Other Traits. Starting the game married costs you no points, and starting the game with an heir costs so little as to almost be free. Names, coats of arms, faiths, sexuality, and appearance can all be randomised, and with the exception of coats of arms can be manually altered.
However the biggest change compared with the old Ruler Designer comes from the appearance customiser. There are hundreds of options for customising your new character’s appearance in Crusader Kings III’s Ruler Designer, compared to the rather restricted pool of options in Crusader Kings II. The system is far more open, with many of the pre-made choices from the old game replaced with sliders. Some players will doubtless be lost for hours making the perfect ruler only for them to die five minutes into the playthrough, and Paradox has included a new mechanic for ensuring character appearances you’re proud of can be replicated. A character’s DNA, a code representing every aspect of their appearance, can now be copied and pasted into the Ruler Designer. Not only can players now reuse appearances they enjoyed from the past, but they can share these DNA codes so other players can use the same appearances.
Despite these improvements some features present in the old Ruler Designer, such as customisable dynastic heraldry, have yet to be implemented. According to a prior dev diary, the decision was made to ensure the mechanic was released ‘in a timely fashion’ while being ‘functional and fun’. Overall however the centerpiece of Crusader Kings III’s first major content update is a worthy successor. Paradox has acted upon the criticism received in the past, and while some elements have yet to be implemented the prioritisation of the ‘core aspects’ of the Ruler Designer promised to players by the dev team has led to impressive results.
The full patch notes for 1.2 Argent can be found here.
Chris Jackson is a postgraduate historian from the United Kingdom and lifelong video game lover. He went to university to do two degrees in History not because it was a viable career path but because he was inspired by Civilization III as a child to conquer the world (at least virtually). His favourite games at the moment are Magic Arena and Crusader Kings III, and while his CV describes him as a bartender, his current job title is really Dungeon Master for his five ongoing Dungeons & Dragons campaigns.
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