The grand strategy game Crusader Kings 3 received a massive free update, now live on all platforms. The Bastion Update adds new features and a rework of Populist Factions.
In the Bastion Update for Crusader Kings 3, every time a new relationship is formed, a specific reason will now be stated. For example, King Philippe and Kaiser Heinrich became best friends because they shared an excellent feast in Aachen. New relationship icons have also been added to character portraits so that you can easily distinguish if they are your friend, lover, or foe.
This patch reworks Populist Factions as well. Vassals that are directly affected by a Populist Revolt will now get a demand letter from the revolt leader. The vassal can choose how to respond to their demand. They can either join the war and help their liege or stay out of the war and do nothing at the cost of losing land if the liege loses the war.
Here are the other new features and changes:
- Added the Loyal/Disloyal Traits, which affect how likely a character is to join factions, cheat on their spouse, etc. These traits are integrated as Sins/Virtues, hooked into Cultural Traditions, and can be gained through new events.
- 7 new character animations for events
- Assassination pose with raised knife
- Eavesdropping
- Eye Rolling
- Laughing
- Drinking from Goblet
- Holding Lantern
- Toast Using Tankard
- Made it so that AI lieges will never accept the faction demand if a player vassal is targeted by the faction (this will finally allow player vassals to intervene and help protect their own realm)
- Greatly increased the military strength of Populist Factions, to compensate for the fact that vassals can join the war:
- Populist armies now spawn a few basic Men-at-Arms in addition to levies
- Populist armies spawn Siege Weapons depending on their culture's innovations, allowing them to better scale into the late game
- Populist factions now generate a few commanders to lead their troops
- The populist leader will now get some extra gold upon victory, to ensure that they can afford creating titles and Men-at-Arms
- Reduced the rate at which factions gain discontent for being over the military power threshold. In practice, this will give rulers a longer time to react before factions press their ultimatum (especially when the faction is only slightly stronger than their target)
- "Domestic Affairs" now also increases the rate at which you lose tyranny
- A lot of interactions that used to consider max military strength will now consider current military strength
- AI Muslim rulers with Jizya active no longer indiscriminately convert Apostolics if they aren't zealous
- AI counts will no longer complain that their capital county is under their De Jure when you're revoking their titles
- AI rulers will now elect to end their offensive wars should the defender end up being inherited by the Mongol Empire
The full patch notes can be found on the official site.
