New Crusader Kings 3 expansion lets you be Marco Polo or Harald Hardrada

What playing as a landless adventurer feels like

Paradox Interactive

Roads to Power, the next expansion for Crusader Kings 3, has two major focus points: One is the Byzantine Empire and a new government type to fit its imperial grandeur, the other is an entirely new way to play the game – not as a landed noble, but as a landless wanderer.

That life can take on many forms, of course: You could be an exiled noble, driven from the land and throne that should be rightfully yours, a ruthless robber knight preying on anyone traveling the lands, or an intellectual who wants to see the world – Roads to Power wants to provide the tools necessary to become Marco Polo as well as Harald Hardrada.

Every adventurer’s life centers on their camp, which will have a physical location on the map and can be moved wherever the player wants. This camp houses the adventurer and their entourage – which essentially functions like a regular court, albeit being a lot more humble. It can be grown and upgraded over time as the adventurer gains wealth and fame, providing various bonuses. In addition to improving your camp, you can also use your funds to gather a mercenary army and become a renowned sellsword.

Aside from mercenary contracts, local rulers will have all sorts of work to offer: Escorting a party on its travels, patrolling the roads, kidnapping a rival, helping with administrative work, survey a piece of land, and on and on the possibilities go. 

Fulfilling contracts successfully will gain you gold, prestige, provisions, and other resources – and, importantly, connections. You may be able to add your employers to your list of patrons. These are essentially people who you can ask for favors or support, provided they like you well enough. As you add fame to your name, the quality of work offered to you will improve – as will the status of your employers: Naturally, an emperor won’t offer work to some newbie wanderer who just started out.

You could also say ‘screw all that’ and become a full-time criminal, getting rich from rich folks who are traveling without appropriate protection – though, just like failing accepted contracts, such behavior will have consequences. See, people don’t generally like criminals.

You can either keep this lifestyle up for your entire dynasty, or take over some fiefdom and transition into a more traditional playstyle at some point – your choice. However, once you’re ruling over your own domain, your ability to interact with adventurers will be limited. You can basically only offer mercenary contracts to landless adventurers when you’re a lord – all the other contract types are not available. 

According to Paradox, this is to keep the available contract types fresh for a longer period of time: “Essentially, we’ve opted to prioritize the experience of playing as an Adventurer rather than the experience of simply interacting with them. I know not everyone will agree with that decision, but I wanted to be honest about the rationale and hope you can understand why we’ve gone this way.”