The RPS Advent Calendar 2024, December 21st

2024's other great expansion

The RPS Advent Calender 2024 is underway! Each day reveals one of our favourite games from this year, leading up to our Game Of The Year on the 24th. Check the main calendar post to see the full list.

There's a slight breeze and a comforting glow coming from the crack's in today's calendar door, the sound of merriment and many accents from all over the world. Better join in the campfire revelry, because whoever's there won't be staying for long.

It's a rambling camp of travellers from Crusader Kings 3 expansion Roads To Power! But hang on... this isn't a game - it's DLC!

Brendy: Yes, it's an expansion, not a full game. But this add-on to everybody's favourite historical bastard simulator changes the strategy game in profound ways. Enough to basically merit a whole new way of playing for a life or three.

The standard way to enjoy a blast of Crusader Kings is to inhabit the body of a small time Earl, or a lowly Duke, and work your way to kingship through subterfuge, diplomacy, and warfare. Or to start as a big emperor and try your best to stop your realm from falling to pieces. But Roads To Power adds a new way to start your life - as a complete nobody, with neither title nor calling, free to roam the world. As a landless adventurer, all kingdoms are just stops along the road, a mere roadside ambush away from one another.

And there will be plenty of ambushes. You'll need to hire mercenaries as escorts. And you've got to stock up on provisions, or take (sometimes dodgy) contracts from actual ruling classes just to get by. Along the way you'll gather followers - French peasants, Welsh knights, Italian drunks - often far friendlier than the sly councillors and custodians of a king's court. Even though travelling from place to place is the big appeal here, there's nothing stopping you from focusing on one big country and becoming a rebel leader with enough of a following to eventually stake a claim of your own on a vulnerable province.

But I haven't played like that. For me, it's more fun to see the world. To take an Irish rastabout from the bishopric of Armagh, through the middle east, all the way to China. It is astounding how many people need to die to keep one reckless Gael alive on the road. What's more, Crusader King's inheritance rules remain intact. So not only did I make it to China with that character, there's also nothing stopping me from living as his daughter, and travelling all the way back to the Emerald Isle. What say you, wanna come with?

Head back to the advent calendar to open another door!