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# Let Me Love You, Crusader Kings 3
- URL: https://aftermath.site/crusader-kings-3-help-why/
- Published: 2025-09-02T13:24:20.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-08T17:33:00.000Z
- Author: Riley MacLeod
- Tags: Video Games, Blog, crusader kings, crusader kings 3, oh no, paradox, paradox interactive, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2025-10-27 13:00

I have a problem: when I started working at Kotaku in February 2016, many of my coworkers were big fans of *The Witcher 3*. Even though a giant fantasy epic was very much not my kind of game, after listening to Luke and Kirk rave about it, I finally [gave it a shot](https://kotaku.com/help-me-finish-the-witcher-3-1791040756?ref=aftermath.site) in January 2017\. Things didn’t go so well at first, but eventually the game [won me over](https://kotaku.com/the-witcher-3-finally-won-me-over-1791337357?ref=aftermath.site) hard. Even if I [whiffed it in the end](https://kotaku.com/i-accidentally-got-the-worst-ending-in-the-witcher-3-1793040692?ref=aftermath.site), *The Witcher 3* is now one of my favorite games. The problem here is that ever since then, I keep thinking I’ll like games Luke likes, and then making a total ass of myself when I try to play them.

Last week, Defector wrote [an article about *Crusader Kings 3*](https://defector.com/embrace-crusader-kings-iii-and-it-will-take-over-your-life?ref=aftermath.site)*.* This got me thinking about *CK3*, a game I really tried to get into way back when because [Luke](https://kotaku.com/crusader-kings-iii-the-kotaku-review-1844848772?ref=aftermath.site) made it sound so fun. I *really* put my back into it. I watched the entirety of a lengthy explainer YouTube playlist Luke sent me. I played the tutorial multiple times. I read a bunch of game guides, and then I played the tutorial a couple more times, and then I watched some more videos, and then I accepted that I would just never figure out the sprawling history roleplaying strategy *menus* of it all, and I moved on to other things.

I made a wiseass [Bluesky post](https://bsky.app/profile/rcmacleod.bsky.social/post/3lxncbrjh3c2v?ref=aftermath.site) about Defector’s article, which led to one person sending me a [Friends at the Table playthrough](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBm8xzpTp8Sp16E5C9y58nD7DF%5FB9em%5FL&ref=aftermath.site) that I started watching. Like Luke talking about the game, they made it seem so fun and rife with storytelling possibilities that I redownloaded *CK3* over the weekend. Maybe I’m ready for the game five years later, I reasoned; maybe I’m smarter or more patient, or my life now as a business guy has given me an aptitude for jargon I previously lacked. Maybe *this* time could be the time I finally become the kind of person who can play *Crusader Kings*.

After ignoring the warnings of old saves titled things like “wwwhhhhyyyy” and “oh no” and, intriguingly, “do something about ulster,” I deleted them all and started a new game. I played the short version of the Ireland tutorial, reading slowly and nodding along. Then the tutorial pushed me toward a little war with a neighboring area, which it seemed like I was a shoe-in to win. Instead, I lost massively, watching my tiny guys get slaughtered by some other tiny guys while I stared helplessly at my computer screen trying to understand what had gone wrong.

> I redownloaded this game, tried to play the tutorial, have started the tutorial \*again\* when things happened I didn't understand, LET ME LOVE YOU CK3
> 
> — [Riley MacLeod (@rcmacleod.bsky.social)](https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:25ofi7urzd5uhgzdbq4gqybn?ref%5Fsrc=embed&ref=aftermath.site) [2025-09-01T01:11:31.147Z](https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:25ofi7urzd5uhgzdbq4gqybn/post/3lxqgao6hbs2c?ref%5Fsrc=embed&ref=aftermath.site)

Oh well! I deleted that save and started [*again*](https://bsky.app/profile/rcmacleod.bsky.social/post/3lxrpo3a35k2h?ref=aftermath.site), trying the longer tutorial this time. I read even slower, sometimes aloud, and I hovered over all the tooltips and opened up all the menus and read all their tooltips too. I finally won a little war, taking over the entirety of Munster. Progress! I was playing *CK3* like a big boy!

I’m not totally sure what happened next: for some reason I ended up with a hostage from Dublin, even though my war was against Desmond. The game told me I could declare war against Dublin, so I did that–*completely* forgetting about the whole hostage thing and pissing off *everybody*. I lost the shit out of that war, and now I have negative prestige (I am, fittingly, “disgraced”), everyone in and out of my court is furious with me, and I have basically *no* idea where to go from here. I tried going on a hunt, the only way to get more prestige that I could afford, but the hunt *also* went to shit, so now I am still “disgraced” but I also have less money.

> I attacked a guy whose hostage I had because the game said I could do it and I forgot about the hostage, lost badly, and now everyone hates me, HOW DO YOU KEEP TRACK OF ALL THE GUYS THERE ARE SO MANY GUYS
> 
> — [Riley MacLeod (@rcmacleod.bsky.social)](https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:25ofi7urzd5uhgzdbq4gqybn?ref%5Fsrc=embed&ref=aftermath.site) [2025-09-01T14:02:13.863Z](https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:25ofi7urzd5uhgzdbq4gqybn/post/3lxrrcso5ms22?ref%5Fsrc=embed&ref=aftermath.site)

I just want what everybody else has with this game: funny stories and interpersonal intrigue and wacky twists on history. But to get to all that I feel like I have to hack a path through a jungle of nitty-gritty bits and *so many people* and a zillion menus full of information that I feel like I’m constantly too new to the game to understand. Everything in the game connects to everything else, in a way that I understand a tutorial could not possibly encompass, but for me this means that I feel like the tutorial ends way too early. The introduction to the game feels like it’s either telling me how to use WASD to move the camera, or I’m outmatched by a list of chores to tackle and no one to ask for help, which feels way too similar to my everyday life as it is.

The way through this is probably to just *keep playing* the game, letting myself actually fail instead of quitting when I feel like I’m in over my head, but *CK3* feels like one of those games where I barely even understand what I’m clicking enough to keep moving forward. I get myself into situations I can’t understand through my choices and then don’t understand how to rectify things, or I set a little goal for myself and then have no idea how to go about pursuing it. I feel like I understand what’s going on in the YouTube videos I watch or the articles I read, but somehow that never translates into actually being able to play the game on my own.

What are you supposed to *do* in this fucking game, and how the hell do you *do* it? What is the path from where I am, lost and horrified, to the hundreds of hours of *CK3* fun that Luke and Defector and so many of my pals rave about? Can those of you who are good at this game even *remember* a time when you weren’t, when you looked at *CK3* with the wide-eyed bafflement of a total newcomer like me? I’m playing Friends at the Table’s videos in another tab as I write this, and they’re laughing and plotting and sound like they’re having the time of their lives. How did they *get* that? How do *I* get it?

A friend has offered to watch me play the game, which I am 100% going to take them up on; maybe the only way to become a *CK3* guy is to have another *CK3* guy convert you, the way I understand you can do with religions in the game itself and which I badly want to do but cannot figure out how. But if you have any other tips, at this point it isn’t even about trying to impress Luke anymore, I just want to not feel like a total failure.