My wife and I just had our best CK3 campaign yet. We began as lowly chieftains and rose to dominate all of Eastern Europe with a magnificent empire, its borders stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, from the Caspian to the Mediterranean! We forged two glorious dynasties, all filled with perfect specimens of the human species. Our rulers were virtuous paragons of their reformed Slovianskan faith, which now spread to encompass all of the non-Christian parts of Europe. Better yet, our Ruthenian culture took all the best traditions of our Norse neighbors to the north and Greek to the south, blending with our Slavic roots to create a technological superpower of formidable military might. Kyiv, the crown jewel of our empire, was matched in its glory only by Constantinople and Cordoba, the other great cities of the world far eclipsed by our beauty and majesty.

Better yet, all Russian rulers were removed from power, their peoples relegated to the Siberian frontiers of our empire to serve as a cushion for our core territories against raiders from the steppes. It's a nice catharsis for us, as people who had to leave our home in Ukraine to seek shelter and safety this year.

Exactly as a strategy title should be, these accomplishments were the result of us learning the game's many systems and playing our best game, planning and investing in our lands and our people so we could best weather the bad rolls of the dice along the way. "Blessed is he who plants trees under whose shade he will never sit." This was the mantra of our rulers. As a result, each succession grew easier; civil wars became stories for the history books. Things that would once be a crisis became merely bothersome, such as viking adventurers or even crusades. Powerful vassal kingdoms and rival empires went from being existential threats to merely places on the map.

Eventually, our power became unchecked. There were essentially no threats to our empire, and no pressing matters to attend to. While others might see this as an excuse for conquest, our religion was one of peace. We invested even more into our lands, intent on creating a golden age of peace and prosperity for all our people. Our Ruthenia became a land of vast cities, high castles, and rolling wheat fields as far as the eye could see beneath the bright, blue open sky, as perfect a place to live as one could find in the middle ages. It was a joy to create.

There's no other game like Crusader Kings, and CK3 is the best version of it yet. I say this as an old-school player with nearly 500 hours in CK2, and hundreds more hours in other Paradox strategy titles across Steam and other distribution platforms. They somehow nailed making the game more accessible and attractive to new players while still having plenty of stuff to master over time. My wife always liked watching me play CK2, but the better graphics, character customization, and the lower skill floor in CK3 finally converted her into a player. Playing this game cooperatively with her is some of the most fun I've ever had playing games.