Who could blame them for such dishonourable behaviour? They were simply copying their deadbeat dad.

My game started to unravel like a bad episode of Game Of Thrones. All of my neglected children hated each other, but they were united in delight to see their meal ticket of a father kick the bucket. Soon, my empire was reduced from Ireland to Dublin, and I received notification of several factions keen to unseat Lorcan, with the most powerful cabals fronted by his many siblings. So my heir apparent, Lorcan, devoid of his father’s famous facial hair, sat in the seat of power with all the confidence and tact of an unexpected fart. When I was prompted to navigate their frequent yet petty childhood squabbles, I’d rush through them in annoyance, seeing their development as a distracting hurdle in my path to power. Butin doing so, I hadn’t given much thought to the education of my busy brood. You see, I’d spent most of my life courting and conquering Earls, sucker punching them with sway before hitting them with the haymaker of deception. What’s worse is that the title I’d worked my whole life to build was now passed to the runt of my large litter. Despite theorising that I would have many comfortable years of collecting taxes and stacking levies in my future, the lack of conventional medicine meant that old age took me mere months after my ascension to the throne. Yet, as I turned the game speed up to its fastest notch and tabbed out for a spot of doom scrolling, I was hit almost instantly with a humbling notification: I was dead, and my reign was over.

I did lose my wife to leprosy, but I had married my eldest daughter to the King Of England! For every cloud, there’s a silver lining.Ĭrusader Kings III. I’d just formed the Kingdom Of Ireland after years of attrition, and though I sent many of my children to fight and die for the title as knights, I still had many heirs and was ready to settle into my role as a royal and preserve my precious dynasty. In my first playthrough of the latest instalment of Paradox Interactive’s famously Daedalian grand strategy series, I’d extended beyond the tutorial as green as the hills of Munster in which I was based, fumbling my way into a surprising position of power. If there’s anything you take from this review, I hope it’s that you never neglect your children when you’re playing Crusader Kings III.

Crusader kings 3 factions