In their latest developer diary, Paradox Interactive details their efforts to make Crusader Kings 3 more approachable than previous grand strategy games. A common complaint among those interested in the game was that the interface and mechanics were cumbersome to understand. The difficulty and complexity are not as important as the difficulty and complexity of the game," says programmer Matthew Clohessy. 'The difficulty and complexity comes from playing the game well and developing a good strategy, not from looking for the numbers or tooltips you need or googling the meanings of certain terms.'

The game also has a fully guided tutorial, as opposed to the menu-driven tutorials of past Paradox games, as well as context-driven tips and advice to help new players. In addition, in-game issues are divided into an alert flag indicating urgent problems and a problem tab containing long-term status and suggestions for what the player should do. It's a little guidance on the little things that you might forget to do, like building a new building or claiming another noble's lands.

There is also the glorious image at the head of this article: the game's tooltip is itself a tooltip. This is because the tooltips in Grand Strategy often use wording that makes you want to hover over the tooltip.

Excitingly, all these new bits are hooked into the modding system, so modders can see that new content is described in the game encyclopedia and tooltips. The full developer diary further details other issues in Crusader Kings, such as mercenaries, conquests, and empires falling into civil war. For more information on Crusader Kings 3, which is scheduled for release in 2020, see our article on the game. A look at it can be found at: