I'm a firm believer that there are only ever good reasons to play more Crusader Kings, but today even I'll admit that it's a better time for CK3 than normal. Right now, to celebrate the release of the new Khans of the Steppe DLC, there's a 70% sale on the CK3 base game, and the combo's launched Crusader Kings back into the Steam top sellers.
At time of writing, Crusader Kings 3 is the seventh-best selling game on Steam in the US and worldwide. On both charts, it's ranking more than 70 slots higher today than it was last week. Clearly, people are excited to make a fresh mess of the medieval era.
Khans of the Steppe, as you might surmise from the title, is a Mongol-centric expansion. It adds new government styles and systems to enliven gameplay when playing as characters in the Eurasian steppe, where until now the basic structure of CK3 titles and fealties hasn't really been able to map onto the nomadic Mongol, Turkic, and Tungusic societies of the era.
With the DLC, you'll be able to play with a nomadic government style, based around migrating across the steppe to manage a new Herd currency that can be converted into exclusive cavalry units. It's accompanied by a host of new mechanics for managing tributary and confederate allegiances, and for generally terrorizing sedentary populations with the unfathomable power of shooting a bow on a horse instead of on the ground.
As a showcase for all these new systems, the expansion adds a new bookmark—what CK3 calls its authored starting points that put you into the role of a major historic figure during a crucial moment in history. In this case, you'll be able to play as Temujin, the man who would later take up the title of Genghis Khan.
Personally speaking, the expansion comes at a great time for me. I've been thinking a lot about the papacy while we're between popes. And as any rational person does when they're thinking a lot about the papacy, I fired up a new CK3 save as a Franconian mercenary captain and set out eastward to see what would happen if I got the Mongols interested in Catholicism.
Results so far have been mixed; I'd made enough sellsword money while roaming across Eurasia to buy a title amongst the steppe peoples, but it turns out being Catholic tends to give my fellow vassals of the khan a good reason to try to murder me. Oh well. Surely the new expansion won't make things any more tenuous for Siegmund von Leistenburg, count of Naushki.
