How to Record Crusader Kings III with DOR: Official Guide (2026)

Crusader Kings III records automatically once DOR is installed: launch the game and the AI takes care of it. You never press a record button or pick a window. Start CK3 and load a save, and DOR records all the time that passes on the map, including stretches spent paused while you study the map and stretches spent on fast forward letting the years roll by. Events that take a family tree and a list of titles to explain, like a marriage alliance three generations in the making undone by a single murder scheme, come across in one go when you show them on video. This guide is for anyone recording CK3 for the first time. It covers getting ready, confirming the recording, saving event scenes, finding moments in a long recording, building a dynasty chronicle, sharing, and settings for long sessions.

• Keep a campaign that ran through the night and across centuries on video until you quit.
• Save an heir taking the throne, a claim won through marriage, or a successful murder scheme event window as its own clip.
• Use AI Voice Notes to find muttered plans like 'need to change succession so the eldest gets everything' and jump to that decision.
• Join an imperial coronation and a holy war victory on the map into one documentary style video spanning generations.
• Send the moment you founded an empire, or a bizarre trait event, to Discord with a single dor.gg link.

Before you record Crusader Kings III: install and recording mode

All you need to record CK3 is DOR. It is a free Windows app and never adds a watermark to your videos. CK3 uses full session recording, so the video does not break when your campaign moves to the next generation. There is no recording time limit, so long campaigns are kept from start to finish, but strategy sessions often run for hours once you sit down, so it is worth reading recording long gameplay without stutter beforehand. The game is light on hardware, so recording runs smoothly even at minimum spec. The table below lists what is worth knowing for CK3.

Record Crusader Kings III with DOR: step by step

1. 1Install DORDownload DOR, install it and leave it running. If you play your campaign on a call with a friend, connect your mic. Game audio and your voice stay in one video, so you will not need to explain later why you made a decision.
2. 2Launch CK3 and load a saveStart Crusader Kings III from Steam and DOR detects the game and starts recording right away. Whether you are picking a house and realm for a new campaign or loading an existing save, it is all captured.
3. 3Check the recording before unpausingWhen the map opens, check the DOR app once before you unpause and confirm it is recording. If the game is not detected, follow what to do when the recorder does not detect your game. After that, focus on running your dynasty.
4. 4Save a clip when an event window appearsWhen a scheme result window opens or a notification says your ruler has died, press the clip save shortcut right after. Note the in game date at the top of the screen as well, and you will find that moment quickly even in a recording where the map looks similar for hours.
5. 5Quit and open My ClipsSave your game and close it. The session video and every clip you saved appear together in My Clips in the DOR app. Continue the same save tomorrow and a new session is created, so your videos build up generation by generation.

Find your recordings

Your recordings collect in My Clips in the DOR app, also called the library. Each time you open and close CK3 is one session, and event scenes saved with the clip save shortcut show up as separate clips. Strategy game recordings change little on screen, which makes moments hard to find, so the key is to note the real time and the in game year whenever an event window appears. When you scrub through and find a long stretch where the screen barely moves, it is usually a pause where you were weighing a big decision, and the end of that stretch is where you made it. Start your trim just before the decision instead of including all the deliberation. A succession reads best as one clip from the death notification, through the view switching to the heir, to the map showing how the realm was split. You need to read window text and the map, so 16:9 is the default export, though 9:16 and 1:1 are also available. The full walkthrough is in how to trim game clips. Like the scenes where your dynasty reached a turning point. When space fills up, older videos you have not liked are cleared first.

Save the moments you want to keep

Even with the whole campaign recorded, turning points are much easier to find if you clip them on the spot. Press the clip save shortcut and the last stretch is saved as a clip. The default length is 30 seconds, and you can choose 15, 30, 45 or 60 seconds in settings. A result window for a successful murder or abduction scheme needs 15 to 30 seconds, and a window confirming a marriage that changes your standing with a neighbor fits about 30 seconds. A succession, where your ruler dies and the view passes to the heir, suits 45 seconds, while wars and holy wars where armies clash on the map and victory is confirmed should be set to 60 seconds to include the build up. Good moments to press it are right after three heirs split your lands, right after you create a title that raises a kingdom into an empire, and right after a bizarre trait event fires. Length settings are covered in saving the last few seconds instantly.

Find what was said with AI Voice Notes

CK3 is a single player game, but you end up muttering lines like 'this marriage gets us a claim on the duchy', 'let's push the murder scheme success chance a bit more' and 'maybe borrow some gold from the Pope'. DOR records game audio and your microphone together, and AI Voice Notes writes those dynasty plans onto the recording timeline as text. Later, when you want to recall which year and why you executed that count, or when you decided to change succession law, find the line in the timeline text and select it to jump straight to that decision. On nights you grow your dynasties side by side with a friend on a call, their backseat advice is kept too. How to capture Discord call audio is covered in recording Discord call audio.

Build a montage with AI Highlight

A campaign that spans generations deserves a dynasty recap. In the library, check your clips of the heir taking the throne, a claim won through marriage, a successful murder scheme, the imperial coronation, a holy war victory changing the map and a bizarre trait event, then select AI Highlight. DOR joins generations of history into one documentary style video. Pick only coronation clips for each ruler and you get a line of succession video, or pick only the funny events for a dynasty bloopers reel. If you want to order clips by year yourself, see how to merge game clips.

Edit in DOR Studio

DOR Studio opens in your browser with nothing to install. String together stretches where your borders grow, then add the year and ruler's name as text. A punch zoom suits a coronation, a shake zoom suits a scheme being discovered, and a glitch transition works where one generation hands over to the next. Add background music and your dynasty chronicle is done. Scenes where you need to read the map and window text belong in 16:9, while a scene that shows one event window up close can also go out as a 9:16 Short. Framing tips are in recording games for vertical Shorts. Download the result as an mp4 or share a link straight away.

Share with a dor.gg link

Send trimmed scenes as dor.gg links. Whoever opens one plays it right in their browser without the app. A link alone leaves your friend wondering who is who, so add a line of context, such as which generation of ruler this is and who they married, when you post it on Discord. If your friend is playing a campaign alongside you, follow up by asking what they are aiming for next generation. Which scenes to send at each stage of a campaign and how long to make them are covered in sharing CK3 dynasty videos, and posting to Discord is covered in sharing clips on Discord.

Crusader Kings III recommended settings and troubleshooting

CK3 is light on hardware, so recording runs smoothly even at minimum spec. Event window text and place names on the map are small, though, so keep recording at the default 1080p so the text stays readable in the video. With little on screen motion, 30fps is plenty; choose 60fps only if you want fast map zooms to look smoother. On a laptop, the 720p/30fps mode reduces the load. DOR uses GPU hardware encoding, so its impact on in game frame rate is small, and tips for older machines are in recording games on a low end PC. Every display mode records. DOR has no cheat features and never touches your game files or play data.