“Excessive violence, full frontal nudity and cursing?,” Wester remembers thinking at the time. Unfortunately, due to family circumstances, Wester had to postpone the discussion, and by the time it was resumed, the rights for the books were being sold to HBO. Such was the team’s enthusiasm, in fact, that Wester sent a copy of CK1 to Martin in New Mexico in 2005, and spoke with his agent, Kay McCauley, about making a licensed game. There’s still plenty about CK3 to be revealed, but while we wait for flaying and seventy-seven course meals to be confirmed as features, here’s everything we know about the new dynasty system.īy the way, did you know that Paradox came reasonably close to making a GoT grand strategy game in the mid-2000s? Talking to former CEO Fredrik Wester last month, I learned that in the studio’s early days, it was mandatory for new hires to read the first three books in George RR Martin’s bloated series (“but they could skip the fourth,” Wester clarifies, “as it wasn’t very good”), and the GoT mod for Crusader Kings 1 was a huge hit internally. But in terms of feuding cadet houses, bastard offshoots and needlessly intense family mottos - not to mention the new ‘Dread’ mechanic, wherein the more of a monster you are, the more your vassals are scared to disobey you - you can have it all. OK, it’s still a historical game, so there’ll be work for modders in adding maps, character names and probably dragons.

Now, however, looking into the new dynasty mechanics for Crusader Kings 3, it’s clear what Paradox are doing: they’re basically putting that stuff in from day one. Indeed, the first two games in the series got their own Westeros mods, and our own Adam Smith called CK2’s “such a blindingly obvious combination of worlds and mechanics that it simply had to exist”. The Crusader Kings franchise has always had a massive Game of Thrones vibe.

Ck2 agot cadet dynasty coat of arms