Crusader Kings 3: Roads to Power Review – Taking the High Road

Crusader Kings 3: Roads to Power Review

Grab a pair of your best walking shoes! Crusader Kings can walk now. The ever popular grand strategy/RPG/historical drama simulator receives numerous updates every year. Some of these updates are better than others, but they always mean to transform the game. Crusader Kings 3: Roads to Power is the freshest CK3 has felt since launch, and may even be a contender for the best Paradox expansion pack.

Lost My Lucky Ball and Chain

Allow me to try to impress upon you how transformative this expansion is. Previously, Crusader Kings was all about your land and your family. If you ran out of either, it was basically game over. If you had two dozen heirs but no castle, that was the end of the line for you. In Roads to Power, not only can you play as a roaming adventurer, you can seamlessly transition for landed noble to itinerant wanderer. Going from traveler back to landed ruler is possible too, though a little trickier.

The new mechanics in Roads to Power map onto the Tours and Tournaments expansion nicely. We already have a representation of your character moving across the map. Now, you also have a camp that travels with you. You can upgrade your camp by adding more tents and facilities. You can also recruit companions, courtiers, and family members to live and travel with you. As you travel, you can pick up odd jobs, mapping onto the CK3 skill system. This system is pretty basic, but makes for a great foundation. Right now you can play as a mercenary squad or a wandering doctor or tutor. Adding more quests in future expansions and mods seems like a no-brainer.

This design philosophy has inspired Paradox to change other elements of the game. When the Crusader Kings series still thought of itself as strategy games, you ran the risk of getting a ‘game over.’ That makes sense. The challenge of strategy games calls for some strict rules. But Crusader Kings has evolved into something a bit genre defining. It definitely has a dollop of RPG systems. So now if you die, or lose your kingdom, continuing the game is easy. You don’t want to play as your heir? No problem! You can designate another kid your ‘favorite’ and play as them next. This flexibility reflects the way people (or at least I) actually play the game. It’s exciting because you know that Paradox isn’t afraid to make some big moves.

It’s All Greek

I’ve focused mostly on the travel aspects of the new expansion pack because they are obviously the most significant; but wait there’s more. Roads to Power also offers a big regional update to Greece and the Byzantine Empire. If you’ve gotten a previous Crusader Kings flavor pack, you know what to expect. You get a handful of new outfits and haircuts. There are new tracks in the soundtrack and more art for the loading screens. There are also some minor changes with the eastern Mediterranean territories, including some new buildings and some balance changes.

But the Byzantines are bigger than most medieval kingdoms, so new rules have been added to reflect what makes them unique. You can now turn your kingdom into an administrative empire, which still uses a feudal land system but which adds new offices and titles. These are a bit like the other appointees to your court, but the systems have been blended together. You can use your position as a regional Byzantine tax collector to leverage power and do something drastic like say, removing your liege lord from the equation and usurping his land and titles.

The administrative rules are enabled for the Byzantines by default, but all cultures can benefit from it. My favorite way to play usually involves creating a giga-knight and making him the king of Wessex and then battling to push the vikings back across the sea. Imagine my surprise when I realized I could accept viking vassals and them give them administrative duties. This ended up completely changing my strategy, and I focused on soft diplomatic power instead of fielding a zillion soldiers and taking what I wanted by force.

The Popular Vote

It sure be clear that Roads to Power is a big deal. I thought that Tours and Tournaments shook up the game in a big way, and Roads to Power is in the very least, as significant. Little balance changes improve the game immensely. Specialized soldiers have been buffed, and now a small professional army can stand against thousands of peasant levies. The balance changes are designed to offset the new game rules but even without the rules, the game feels better to play.

I find it notable that the Roads to Power DLC has ‘Very Positive’ reviews on Steam. I love Paradox games, and love a new expansion, but there are a lot of the things and they tend to get expensive. If you look at the Steam reviews Hearts of Iron or Stellaris DLC, you will find a lot of people questioning whether the expansion is worth the price. That does not seem to be the conversation around Roads to Power. This is the kind of expansion pack Paradox grand strategy fans dream of and hopefully, it sets a new benchmark for the future of Crusader Kings.

***PC code provided by the publisher for review***