Crusader Kings III: How to Change Game Rules Mid-Game (Win 10)

• I run the game through Steam on Windows 10, don’t ask about Mac or Linux, I can’t help you
• A good text editor like Notepad++ will help dramatically
• 7-Zip, WinRar, or another compression/decompression software will help as well
• This will not work with cloud saves or Ironman saves
• I am by no means an expert, I’m simply trying to help people who want a quick and easy guide

This is the easy part. Saves are located in:

C:\Users\YOUR_USERNAME\Documents\Paradox Interactive\Crusader Kings III\save games

Then, locate the save you want to edit, it should look something like this (unless you manually named it):

King_John_of_England_1200_6_15.ck3

All CK3 save are compressed to save space. In order to edit them, simply use a program (I use 7-Zip) to decompress the .ck3 file.

After the file is decompressed, you should now have a folder with your save inside. Open the folder and edit the new “gamestate” file with any text editor.

The gamestate file should look like this.

Now, go wild! From here you can edit your characters name, the date, and anything else (use with caution and always have a backup because it might corrupt your save). To find the game rules specifically, simply do a ctrl+f search for “game_rules”

Notice: There are two parameters for difficulty, you must change BOTH for the change to take effect! Find both with a ctrl+f search for “difficulty”, it’s the only two hits.

When you are done editing, all you have to do to play the save is rename the “gamestate” file to something with .ck3 at the end (ex. King_John.ck3). From there, move it into the “save games” folder that the original save was in, and launch the game. You do NOT need to recompress the save, CK3 will do that for you the next time you do a manual save. Now go forth and kill infidels!