Crusader Kings 3: Roads to Power review – Rome, sweet Rome

The Roads to Power DLC brings a radical new option to play

Paradox Interactive

Most people’s base desires revolve around food, sleep, and social contacts, but I’m different – my base desire is to restore the Roman Empire in Crusader Kings 3. No matter how I start or what my initial goal for a new playthrough is, all roads eventually lead to Rome.

Inevitably, my runs in the new Roads to Power DLC followed the same fate, though the ways it allowed me to restore the glory of Rome were radically different from anything I experienced up until that point when walking this path.

Roads to Power primarily adds two things to Crusader Kings 3: The Administrative Realm type, a government system to more accurately portray the inner workings of the Byzantine Empire, and the Adventurer playstyle, which enables you to play the game without an owned domain.

Let’s begin with the Byzantium overhaul, which greatly changed the dynamics of that empire. Domains in an Administrative Realm are no longer automatically inherited by the same family – you are, in fact, no longer even the lord of these domains. Instead, you’re a governor selected through the grace of the emperor for this position, and upon your death (or firing from the role) that title goes to some other prominent figure in the realm based on factors such as their favor with the emperor, their skills, how powerful their family is, and so on. You can also manipulate the succession ranking by sabotaging someone’s reputation or publicly supporting someone, investing a new resource called Influence, which is all-important in an Administrative Realm.

You can host chariot races in Constantinople, which are ideal for generating Influence. / Paradox Interactive

It’s kind of like a perpetual election season and can actually become immensely thrilling. When I played as the emperor and was not blessed with a son after entering my sixties, I basically went the House of the Dragon-way and decided on one of my daughters as the heir – and since the throne in Constantinople is subject to the same rules as the rest of the empire, that turned into an affair of intrigue and outright murder.

To the Byzantines, the idea of being ruled by a woman is quite abhorrent and laughable, so my daughter had a major handicap going into this race, despite being born in the purple. I gradually built up her chances of succeeding to my position by giving her the best education possible and making her my Co-Emperor from an early age. 

That’s another new feature built on the Regency system and allows you to name someone your co-ruler, enhancing their status at the cost of a potential coup – though little chance of that when the co-ruler is still a toddler. Despite that increase of her status, some prominent governors were still ahead of my daughter when she came of age, so it was time to play more politics – and host some chariot races in Constantinople to farm Influence.

My darling daughter and co-empress. / Paradox Interactive

I pumped lots of Influence into her candidacy, increasing her standing further, and asked friends and relatives to do the same. At the same time, I began scheming in the background, sabotaging the strongest rival claimant and his family by dirtying their reputations. Even still, the deal was far from sealed. That rival, too, called in every favor owed to him and kept the race close. As I grew infirm and feared my death, I reasoned that an old-fashioned murder was the only way to secure the succession and so the deed was done. I have never fought any war in CK3 that made me sweat quite as much as this succession race.

Fortunately, the realm was in a powerful position at the time of this struggle, because spending so much Influence on domestic schemes is not something I could have easily afforded at war. Being the emperor, you can pay Influence to call in men-at-arms from your governors, greatly bolstering your combat power for a conflict. You may not have as many levies as feudal rulers, but a well-connected and liked emperor can field more powerful armies than anyone else.

As the Byzantines, you now gain powerful bonuses when you reconquer lost territories of the Roman Empire, which can provide you with some real momentum. Upon finally reclaiming your birthright, you can even decide to convert to Hellenism now and get a true restoration going.

This Helias guy is way too popular. It sure would be a shame if anything were to happen to him. / Paradox Interactive

Another very interesting aspect of the new system is that you can give quite precise orders to your governors – you can tell them to recruit more men-at-arms, focus on development, convert a county to your religion, or specialize as a border province and aggressively pursue wars of conquest against smaller neighbors. 

I will say that micromanaging the governors (which is completely optional) can be a little tedious or overwhelming with the menu lacking filter options to find the specific counties you’re looking for. Overall, though, this is a very satisfying system, because it clearly differentiates Byzantium from the feudal state constructions of the time.

Playing as a governor, you get a specific trait you can level up through events that bolsters your administrative skills and helps you gain Influence, which you can in turn use to land yourself a job on the imperial council or boost your candidacy for a different office – maybe the throne itself. It’s a nice and new way to maneuver and scheme.

The wine cellar in my estate unlocked this extra option for the infamous wine event during feasts. / Paradox Interactive

Now, even if you lose your governorship, it’s not game over – for two reasons. First, if you’ve grown your family’s political position in the realm enough, you will be granted a family estate, which the family head holds independently of any other lands. This estate can be upgraded, providing you with income and bonuses, and very much keeps you in the political game.

Second, you can now play CK3 as a landless adventurer – and what a change of pace that is. You can start the game as such an adventurer or transition into this playstyle. As an adventurer, you’ll have access to a camp, which functions similar to the new estate and is the heart of your operations. You can move this camp on the map, using a resource called Rations, and accept various kinds of contracts offered by the rulers in your vicinity.

These can be administrative jobs, diplomatic missions, escort and transport quests, intrigue schemes, or mercenary work. You can also veer onto the path of becoming a notorious and feared criminal or robber knight, if you want.

As an adventurer, you'll be looking at this screen for a long time. Maybe a bit too long. / Paradox Interactive

All of these jobs function like schemes – you assign people to enhance the success chance and speed of the job and then execute it. The better you do, the more rewards you get. Gathering the right people for the type of work you prefer is essential, so like a good adventurer you should visit as many castles and taverns as possible to recruit hidden talents. Succeeding at jobs also is a way to get access to high society. For example, you can ask lords you did a good job for to host a feast or tournament, providing you with opportunities to network and win additional rewards.

This entire playstyle is quite fresh at first and really allows you to go deep into roleplaying – I did a Marco Polo-esque run, for example, which saw me traveling from Venice to the eastern border of the map, as well as a Viking mercenary run that saw me sell my ax to the highest bidder from the English channel to Jerusalem. However, I don’t think it’s wise to play as an adventurer for too long. There is only a limited amount of contract types and you will eventually get tired of looking at the schemes screen.

It’s a great way to mix up a playthrough and forget about the responsibilities of ruling for a while, letting the borders on the map become meaningless lines and colors, but it’s not varied or deep enough to fuel an entire campaign over generations.

Here's what a camp looks like. Estates use the same general structure. / Paradox Interactive

But here’s the cool thing: Starting out as an adventurer, all roads are open to you when it comes to transitioning into a normal game. After entering a war as a mercenary, the enemy may offer a bunch of land in return for betraying your employers, or you may be able to foment a rebellion in someone’s realm, gaining the right to lands and title after seeing it through. You could also form such a mighty mercenary army that you can outright take over someone’s domain.

Heck, when I played a diplomatic adventurer and attended a feast, I befriended the Byzantine emperor and then got the option to ask him to sponsor my invasion of a neighboring kingdom – and you can guess where the journey went from there. Yep, from adventuring to restoring the Roman Empire.

As usual, the version of the DLC I played was not at all free from technical issues – there were severe bugs with the men-at-arms system in the Administrative Realm and some crashes when I died while having a Co-Emperor at the time. I also had to update my BIOS to keep the game from having consistent crashes no matter the situation, but that appeared to be an Intel CPU issue with the game itself, rather than specifically the DLC.

For me, Roads to Power is an incredibly flavorful Crusader Kings 3 DLC – it’s a game changer in the literal meaning, because it introduces a way to truly play this title as a RPG as opposed to a strategy game, though I would recommend a healthy mix to get the best out of the experience, and it really spices up empire-level gameplay. Even if you’ve conquered the world, keeping your dynasty on the throne is now much more intense thanks to Administrative Realm politics. Now even more roads lead to Rome, and what could be better?

Score: Recommended

Version tested: PC (Steam)