Crusader Kings 3 is one of the best strategy games on Steam, says MeinMMO author Schuhmann. He has already spent 1,368 hours with the game and soon there will be a few more. Because the game is getting an exciting new feature – perhaps the best in 20 years.
What is this new feature? The Crusader Kings series of strategy games has been around since 2004. As a player, you control the fate of a dynasty in the Middle Ages. What is sometimes derided as an incest simulator has been an excellent story generator for fans of strategy games and history for 20 years.
Until now, your fate has always been directly tied to the country you rule.
The minimum requirement to be a playable character in Crusader Kings 3 was to own at least one county. You could rise from your small county, for example in Ireland, to become a duke, king or even emperor. But you always needed the land.
This is now changing for the first time in the history of the game series: With the DLC “Road to Power” landless adventurers will appear in Crusader Kings on September 24th. This opens up new possibilities.
You can soon play Crusader Kings 3 as a mercenary leader or explorer
This is how extensive the new feature will be: After two blog posts, it is already safe to say that the Landless Adventurers will probably be one of the most significant features in the history of Crusader Kings – and the biggest change in many years.
It is an ingenious system in which players lead a landless hero who gathers men around him and can pursue various careers:
He will have a variety of roles to play in the camp and can set goals for himself, whether he wants to travel the world, accumulate wealth or become king himself.
Paradox promises that all of this will be worth it and will give you a head start for your own country.
This is what is special about the system: In Crusader Kings 3 it will be possible to advance from adventurer to nobleman, but also to switch back;
Crusader Kings 3 is set for a great year
That’s why I’m looking forward to the DLC: Crusader Kings 3 is by far my favorite game on Steam. The new idea now makes it even more of an RPG and gives the game even more freedom – this gives further meaning to the new option to travel freely on the map.
After a rather weak year so far with legends, the plague and a rather mediocre Iran DLC, 2024 seems to be one of the biggest years for the franchise ever. I only got the idea of playing a strategy game without a country in some parts of “Romance of the three Kingdoms” – that’s a really great idea for a great game and makes Crusader Kings 3 even more of a sandbox and role-playing game.
Many others are particularly looking forward to the Byzantium DLC in “Raod to Power”; traditionally the Eastern Roman Empire is one of the most popular scenarios. That’s not really my thing – but the “landless adventures” thing sounds like a great power fantasy.
Heroes without a country like El Cid, Robin Hood, Rollo or William Wallace are conceivable
I am sure that the landless adventurers will bring new exciting scenarios, allowing players to follow in the footsteps of famous landless heroes of the time who have so far been difficult to reflect in Crusader Kings, such as Rollo d’Normandie from the series “Vikings” (cover image), who has only appeared as a minor character in CK3, or the Spanish national hero El Cid. Perhaps Crusader Kings 3 will also give us an Easter egg like Robin Hood or William Wallace from Braveheart.
If you want to read about my adventures in Crusader Kings 3 in a playthrough where I went a bit overboard, I recommend this article: Steam: I started as a lonely Viking – 400 years later I have half of Europe, 12,300 descendants and a problem