To celebrate the successful launch of Crusader Kings 3, Paradox Interactive has revealed some fun stats about their quirky dynasty simulator, including that at least one Pope has been devoured as part of a ritualized execution.
Crusader Kings 3 is a silly game. If that wasn't abundantly clear from the fact you can dress up your toddler as a crusading knight or the many mods that allow you to become a literal wizard (either using magic or a skateboard), then perhaps these bizarre statistics about the game will be enough to convince you.
Paradox has bestowed upon us some interesting facts about Crusader Kings 3 as it relates to actual gameplay. Besides the fact that 25 million hours of the game has been played (equating to roughly 2,800 years of in-game playtime), they also let us know that there's a lot of living and dying going on in Crusader Kings 3.
On the living side, 40,591,268 children were born, 4,364,279 betrothals were made, 141,597 universities were founded, and 122,364 prison escapes were orchestrated.
But things get way more interesting when you look at the dying side. Murder is a fairly typical way of advancing one's station in Crusader Kings 3, so it's no surprise that over 18 million murder schemes were successfully executed.
But what's even more surprising is that many of the 1,451,427 holy wars started in Crusader Kings 3 end up with prisoners being taken, and of those prisoners, 1,543,790 of them were cannibalized. And that includes at least one Pope, who was cannibalized by the dynasty of Redditor Zak7062.
"The moment I saw ritualistic cannibalism was a tenet," wrote Zak7062, "I realized I really, really wanted to eat the pope."
Being the ruler of your own medieval fiefdom can be a stressful job, so it's no wonder that 716,369 stress breaks were taken. Additionally, 370,305 pets were petted to help alleviate stress, which also just proves that the ability to pet dogs is the most important feature any new game can have.
Paradox also gave us some stuff about patch 1.1 that fixes some bugs, improves modding features, enhances the AI, and rebalances some of Crusader Kings 3's mechanics, but honestly, none of that is as important as petting dogs or eating the Pope.
Source: Paradox Interactive