Crusader Kings 3 players have struck out on nearly 5 million seduction attempts, but we still don't know how many Popes have been kidnapped

Crusader Kings 3: Royal Court art — (Image credit: Paradox Interactive)

If you're ever in dire need of a laugh, just hit up the Crusader Kings subreddit and read people's honest discussion of the game. User mak112112, for instance, recently "discovered castration," and said that they're having the time of their life "lopping off people's fun bits." One of the sub's most famous posts from a few years back was titled "If you have a sick child, use them as bioterrorism weapons."

These anecdotes are the lifeblood of Crusader Kings. In the same way that The Sims is a comedy engine because of how badly you can screw up a facsimile of contemporary life, CK3's approximation of kingdom management in the Middle Ages is just detailed enough to make its awry moments both frequent and hilarious.

Where's the spice? How many times has the Pope turned out to be a bisexual atheist? How many children born of adulterous, royal incest have been abandoned by their parents? At least give me a ballpark estimate on the castration numbers. This is the info I need, Paradox. Larian had the pluck to inform me that a third of my peers in Baldur's Gate 3 had virtual sex with a grizzly bear, and now I need that level of transparency from everyone.

Crusader Kings 3 infographic which reveals that players have collectively had 12,553 divorces and 4,960,246 failed seduction attempts. — (Image credit: Paradox)

To be fair, I guess they wanted a slightly more wholesome post to celebrate five years.

Community manager Trinexx said in the blog post: "Working on Crusader Kings 3 is a dream job. There is a lot of passion for this project on the team, and it’s very fulfilling to see that passion reflected back to us through five years of enthusiastic play and discussion … There are more [players] than we ever anticipated, and though we may never meet, we hope that you can find a little of yourself in this beautiful thing we have made together."

I wish you all 110 million more hours of bioterrorizing to your heart's content. =

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Justin first became enamored with PC gaming when World of Warcraft and Neverwinter Nights 2 rewired his brain as a wide-eyed kid. As time has passed, he's amassed a hefty backlog of retro shooters, CRPGs, and janky '90s esoterica. Whether he's extolling the virtues of Shenmue or troubleshooting some fiddly old MMO, it's hard to get his mind off games with more ambition than scruples. When he's not at his keyboard, he's probably birdwatching or daydreaming about a glorious comeback for real-time with pause combat. Any day now...

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