If you have a whole lot of free time this weekend I've got just the ticket: a Steam Free Weekend for Crusader Kings III and some discounts across other Paradox titles.
How does this compare to the second one? I tried for so long to understand what to do in that game and never figured it out. "Start with Ireland" they all said, "It's the easiest start". And i was forever lost.
It's a very complicated game and it's going to take you a few hours to understand all of the mechanics but they have very good tutorials. Be prepared to read a lot of text though. A bit of a guess but I'd say learning the basics takes around 2-3 hours if you follow the tutorials.
Once you understand how everything.works it is easy to navigate though because the UI is very good.
The UI is definitely easier to navigate. But the game is still about timing wars and angling to get heirs on thrones, and the game still does not do a great job of shouting out nearby wars.
And rulers get free navies now so Ireland is actually kind of dangerous. I recommend new players start in modern Norway
I was about 150 hours into CK2 before I really felt like I started to understand it so I'm wary of jumping into this one and learning it all over again
Nah CK3 changed some things but the base gameplay is fundamentally the same. If you had a working knowledge of CBs and inheritance you're already halfway done.