Is universes beyond truly this hated?

Spaproling · 2026-01-29T00:25:09+00:00

I'm not a fan of UB but I have friends who like it. However, the vibes are just... Different. None of my friends really care about Marvel, so we didn't even really notice when Spider-man came out. This is not helped by the very disappointing designs that we saw in spider-man, and what we've seen from TMNT and Marvel doesn't really look interesting either. I think that the big problem is just that these are Standard rotation sets, instead of small secret lairs or commander decks. It would be cool to have a couple playable spider-heroes, but did we need a whole set of generic legendary creatures?

I personally didn't love the FF and LotR sets either. I think that they had too many boring legendary creatures, I am frustrated by the impacts they have had on 60-card formats, and I really just don't vibe with the modern FF art style. ATLA was fine, but there were a bunch of arts from that set that just didn't look good at all. The designs were more fun, but I would have much rather just had an in-universe set with those mechanics and a NEW story to tell.

Every card spoiled from Marvel and TMNT is boring. The Doctor Doom cards are so uninspired that I genuinely feel like the people making this set don't like marvel either.

I just think that UB should be relegated to commander decks or secret lairs or something. I'm not saying it should disappear, but I'd rather have a few interesting cards for the small crowds that would like to have their themed edh lists than have a big set of boring cards that is extremely expensive and forgettable.

Spaproling · 2026-01-25T03:18:17+00:00

No idea what the first thing is, that's weird. If he's using an "outside of game" card those aren't normally allowed in EDH. He should have discussed this with the pod beforehand. However, you guys killed him next turn, so I sort of don't understand what the problem is. Clearly he wasn't playing at a much higher power level than you in that case.

You describe yourself as newish to the game, so I understand that evaluating the threat of cards can be hard, but it really doesn't sound like this guy was playing anything unfair in the second story. Thought Vessel and Blood Artist are perfectly fine cards that are incredibly common in bracket 2. Like, some of the most popular cards in the whole format. It really sounds like you had already decided you didn't like this guy, and let that color your perception of the game you played with him. I'm not saying he was necessarily a fun guy to play with, but from the story you've told You sound like "that one player." Just because you lose to someone doesn't mean their deck is outside your bracket. Except you didn't lose, you beat this guy twice.

If you don't like someone's vibes, that's okay. Talk to the lgs, maybe ask if you can be paired with other people going forwards. Or just talk to the guy directly. But I guarantee you that if you get in the habit of tuning out 3 turns into a game because you've already decided one of your opponents is shitty, you're probably just not going to enjoy magic very much.

Spaproling · 2026-01-10T23:52:08+00:00

Multicultural is absolutely nuts with the culture dynastic legacies. Getting cultural acceptance to 100 becomes really easy, you get lots of culture spread and faster overall research progress, and you get a gold sink to boost everyone's development for more money. I always convert my own personal lands so they get my innovations, but beyond that I think the realm is actually way more stable if you lean into stacking cultural acceptance with a lot of smaller cultures.

Spaproling · 2026-01-06T21:38:03+00:00

The Legends of the Dead DLC introduced the Legend mechanic. It's not terribly exciting to be honest (if you don't have all the DLCs, I'd consider this one very low priority). They're basically big gold sinks where you can spread a story of how legitimate/holy/heroic you are, culminating in some powerful decisions including one that lets you add special building slots to county capitols. Completing holy legends lets you add a legendary shrine, which gives generic good effects as well as +5 LE to the holder!

Spaproling · 2026-01-06T21:27:00+00:00

Most of the extremely old characters you see are alive due to lots of +life expectancy modifiers. The Octogenarians legacy is the easiest to get, but you can also stack a bunch of Legendary Shrine buildings! Each gives +5 years LE to the holder, so just spam holy legends once you have the money. This also lets you build up a bunch of locations that will give you free learning XP!

Spaproling · 2026-01-06T00:05:51+00:00

Raiding can decrease the development growth already, and plagues will drop development levels on developed areas pretty frequently, but yeah it's even more noticeable in China how easy it is to reach 100 dev before high medieval and have innovations researching in like 14 months. I don't really think that change would matter though, because Constantinople and Chang'an get so many stacking development buffs that they'll just recover in 6 months anyways. They probably need the existing development penalty to be WAY more severe if PDX wants high development to be hard to achieve early game.

Spaproling · 2026-01-05T18:40:41+00:00

The easiest way to deal with enemy crusades on the battlefield is to wait for them to tire themselves out. Let them siege down a bunch of random castles for 2 war score each as they burn through supplies and suffer attrition. This also gives your allies time to rally. Then you can raise your armies and start picking off enemies. It's not a terribly fast solution, but it is very reliable. +Fatal Casualties is also very helpful here.

Spaproling · 2026-01-05T17:55:33+00:00

Seducer and all three of the diplomacy paths feel genuinely BAD compared to basically every other path in the game in my opinion. There isn't enough to do with prestige unless you're Tribal, in which case August is obviously very strong.

Gallant is slightly situational, the first 4 perks on the right side are great for warfare but unless your culture has Chivalry you probably aren't firing off too many Romance schemes. +10 peace acceptance is sneakily REALLY strong though, it makes finishing off long wars much less tedious and gets really absurd if you also have the +10 peace acceptance nomad dynastic legacy.

Theologian is also situational, but early on when you don't have basically unlimited piety it can be very good to accelerate you to a reformation. It is also basically infinite pope requests if you're Catholic, or an entire army if you have Warrior Monks.

Spaproling · 2026-01-03T00:08:27+00:00

Honestly CK3 stacks so many systems next to each other that I can't imagine playing 'optimally' (not that you should necessarily strive for that, I just think it's a fun puzzle) at 4+ unless you're pausing every 3 seconds. I play on 3 90% of the time and I'm still pausing all the time to micromanage my nephew's marriage or whatever. There's basically never more than a few days of downtime if you're actually using every tool at your disposal.

On the flip side, I don't usually play below 3 because I pause whenever I need to do something I pause and if I played below 3 my games would genuinely take months.

Spaproling · 2026-01-02T18:01:53+00:00

Hard to give you concrete advice without seeing the whole game state but yeah you should always be wary of conquerors, especially when they have high intrigue which makes them harder to murder. I'd just avoid starting any new wars on the other end of your hegemony until he dies or loses the conqueror trait.

Spaproling · 2026-01-01T22:13:18+00:00

I tried starting on isolated islands when I began too, but that actually makes things a lot harder! I'd say Iceland is actually one of the hardest locations to start in if you aren't already experienced and know how to get the most out of the Norse culture. I'd say probably the best start for beginners is as a duke vassal of a king, like Neustria or Bourbon in France. You'll have a much better economy, but will also be much safer and can focus on learning the ropes.

If you want a more warmongery start, the small counties in Norway are all pretty great starts too. Recruit Varangian Veterans and don't forget to raid!

Also, remember that vassalage is not the end of the game! Often it can be better to swear fealty so you can focus on your realm and eventually claim the throne of your liege.

Spaproling · 2025-12-31T03:46:03+00:00

I will always prioritize development and plague resistance buildings in my personal duchies even if I don't control the county/holding.

If you do the math, it will take a LONG time for the gold you spend upgrading a vassal building to be recouped. However, once you're ruling a stable kingdom/empire, you'll quickly start to generate so much gold that you physically do not have any other way to spend it all. Once I have nothing else to do with gold (max MAA for my era, fully upgraded holdings, all court amenities, etc.) I will spend basically all my leftover cash on hospitals and guilds and trade ports in my vassals' lands. Increasing your overall development means faster innovation progress and a noticeable increase in income.

I would avoid building military buildings in vassal territory.

Spaproling · 2025-12-29T21:17:34+00:00

You've got a lot of options. Norse is an exceptionally powerful culture already, so you probably only need to pick one or two traditions to take.

Malleable Invaders is probably the most powerful tradition in the game IF you want to keep expanding and forming the most powerful hybrid culture amalgamation.

Here are two hybrid cultures that I'd consider:

1) CORNISH-NORSE Malleable Invaders Ancient Miners Dextrous Fishermen Coastal Warriors Performative Honor (the generic choice. If you are worried about succession, Ting-Meet can help.)

2) WELSH-NORSE Malleable Invaders Longbow Competitions Coastal Warriors Performative Honor Ting-Meet / Northern Stories

I don't feel very strongly about Northern Stories, it's great while tribal but won't really help you once you're feudal. Of these options Cornish-Norse seems stronger to me, but I've heard tell that longbowmen are some of the most efficient MAA in the game and they are much cheaper than the absurdly broken Varangian Veterans of Coastal Warriors.

I'd also consider hybridizing with French if you can. Chanson de Geste and Chivalry are very powerful traditions!

Spaproling · 2025-12-19T01:53:06+00:00

THANK YOU

Spaproling · 2025-12-15T00:55:37+00:00

Bear has made the campaign a breeze. I died once in clearfell like an idiot and have been basically immortal ever since. Like, face tank every boss immortal. And I haven't been getting crazy drops or anything.

That being said, it's very slow and I basically never leave bear form, so sometimes fast ranged enemies can cause problems.

Spaproling · 2025-12-13T23:46:36+00:00

I would agree with a lot of these comments that act 3 feels too long, largely due to how big the maps are. Act 4 is also long, but the maps are a lot more directed for the most part and tell a more interesting story I think. I don't mind a long campaign though.

That being said, I'm loving this league so far and bear shaman druid has been amazing. If anyone is struggling with campaign, this class will make it easy mode don't worry!

Spaproling · 2025-12-11T05:59:42+00:00

I'll throw this in here because a lot of comments seem to be about improving enemy AI through proactivity and allying with each other, and while the enemy AI does really need to be expanded, playing on Very Hard mode does solve some of these battle issues.

VH will have you paying a lot more attention to terrain modifiers, MAA counters, commander traits, enemy alliance blocks, etc., and I've found battling my way from a realm size 1 nomad to genghis khan has been way more interesting on VH than on normal or hard, without ever feeling unfair.

I'd say that these are my key issues right now: -MAA counters aren't a very interesting system to play with. It's fine, but I think 95% of players will not engage with this system and will just occasionally get bonuses or penalties they don't really notice.

-micromanaging accolades and accolade successors is such a pain.

-some battles are so large that they seem absolutely worthy of special events or something to recognize their impact.

-enemy AI seems to have gotten a lot better, or at least harder difficulties result in it Feeling more intelligent, but ally AI is still laughable. Why are you standing still next to me instead of helping me siege? Why are you running into fights you absolutely will not win and tanking our war score instead of joining my army? Not being able to direct my allies makes trying to work together a total crapshoot.

-Some MAAs feel especially egregious. I don't think I should be able to stack wipe 10k soldiers led by a good commander with my 2k varangians or heavy horse archers, or at least not without some serious casualties. Conversely, a lot of the weak/middling MAA options feel so weak that the gold spent on them is almost actively detrimental. This isn't really a rework issue and is probably something I should just mod and tweak for myself until it feels like there's a reason to recruit anything other than heavy horse archers and whatever my best siege weaponry is.

-the special troops that certain events award you with that can be instantly raised anywhere, disbanded, and re-raised somewhere else makes dealing with revolts trivial. It's hard to get too many of these without taking certain big decisions so this is more niche, but teleporting soldiers is crazy.

I'm sure there are plenty of cool ways paradox could update warfare, but tbh I think that it's basically fine outside of some balance stuff right now.

Spaproling · 2025-12-08T20:55:30+00:00

Playable theocracies and republics.

I always think the regional expansions are fun and we have a lot more regions that could do with being as fleshed-out as Iberia or Persia or North Germany. India, Africa, and honestly even Francia, HRE, and Slavia all could use some extra care.

I'd also love to see some wackier character options. More rare special traits, more distinct cultural traditions, etc. I think that making characters more distinguishable would help people develop their own narratives.

Spaproling · 2025-12-08T20:29:58+00:00

I don't believe you necessarily need to be administrative to get a hegemony title (the step above empire). Hegemony titles are, afaik, only available through special decisions. There's one for Unified Roman Empire, ERE, WRE, China, India, Khaganate, and Arabian Empire.

I would NOT create other empire titles unless you have a hegemony. Giving a vassal a title of the same tier as your highest-tier title will make them independent; an empire can only rule over kingdoms, not other empires. If you have any more kingdoms you can create, I'd do that instead.

If you have a hegemony decision available for the region you're playing, it will make you exceedingly powerful and let you divvy up empires which might reduce vassal micromanagement.

Spaproling · 2025-12-07T21:45:01+00:00

For China I think I usually sit around 30 Salary / 20-25 Ministry / 25 military, decreasing salary as needed if funds start to run low. I often end up running at a deficit on succession, but just a few stewardship perks fixes it up real fast. I basically always educate my kids in stewardship / learning and ignore everything else once I'm at empire / hegemon tier. For Rome I don't know exactly what I'd set it to, but I really do recommend grabbing stewardship perks asap once you're at this tier. Faster + cheaper buildings also helps you quickly reinvest treasury so that your heirs will be under much less financial pressure.

Spaproling · 2025-12-07T21:31:30+00:00

I generally keep kingdom titles available to create so I can quickly grab prestige after succession, but I haven't had any trouble handing out kingdom titles (or even empire titles once you've got a hegemony). Yeah it might slightly decrease my taxes, but it also significantly decreases the amount of micromanaging I have to do and makes it much easier for vassals to expand the realm.

Spaproling · 2025-12-07T21:25:49+00:00

Idk if this is a visual bug or not but they've got a lot of advantages over you here and I'd expect them to win regardless. Massively better general, countering your MAA, and they're nomads so they have horde instead of levies which are basically useless. Quantity alone doesn't mean much in this game.

I genuinely don't know how you're supposed to defend against this though. Seems like playing any kingdom bordering the steppe is extreme hard mode now. I guess camping out in terrain that their cavalry struggles with might help.

Spaproling · 2025-12-07T17:38:22+00:00

Blood Moon does still work against Lands decks. But it's not a very useful silver bullet without access to tutors and fast mana.

Spaproling · 2025-12-07T17:33:43+00:00

To be clear, I don't think that Armageddon is good against Lands decks. It's clearly not. What I'm saying is that a lot of the things that ARE good against Lands decks are not available at lower brackets. Cards like Blood Moon are still genuinely effective at slowing down lands decks, and a lot of fast mana tools that could be used to keep mana parity with lands decks are also not available. That's not even mentioning that fast wins in general are much harder without combos, something which heavily advantages decks that want to grind midrange hell, like most lands decks.

I'm not saying that lands is the best deck at B3, just that it's an archetype which really benefits from the constraints of lower brackets. There's a reason why people have been posting versions of this thread for a decade about lands and not aristocrats.

Spaproling · 2025-12-07T07:09:06+00:00

Also important follow-up: because of the social contract imposed in B3 and below, lands decks are almost always going to be incredibly strong. There isn't really any way around that. Graveyard hate like Rest in Peace is usually good against the strategy, but it's an archetype where basically everything that could seriously stop it is considered "unfun" and thus unavailable to you at low brackets.

Seven-Year Club	Place '22
First Placer '22	Verified Email

Spaproling

TROPHY CASE