If I hadn’t got in on Crusader Kings 2 shortly after it came out, I would have taken one look at its list of DLC (currently going for £184.65 on Steam, and that’s with a discount) and noped right the hell out. Fortunately, the base game was already outstanding enough that I gladly supported it for our best games of the 2010s list. Most of the DLC was cosmetic after all, or was for realms I wouldn’t play as.
But anyway. ANYWAY. Crusader Kings III is out now, and while it couldn’t possibly incorporate eight years of add-ons, I wanted to see how it compares to vanilla CK2. Does a non-feudal ruler play any differently? Is it possible to thrive outside the default setting of kingly Europe? What’s it like to start out as an obscure chief at the distant edge of the enormous world map? Let’s find out.
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