Crusader Kings 3: Roads to Power released today

Publisher Paradox Interactive has announced that a major new expansion for its grand strategy title is out today: Crusader Kings 3: Roads to Power.

The publisher says in this new expansion you will: “Travel a world of danger and opportunity as your character seeks wealth and adventure, or navigate the perilous waters of imperial politics – a setting where brute force often bows to diplomacy and intrigue.”

Check out the launch trailer, below:

Roads to Power is the newest Major Expansion of Crusader Kings III, focusing on two significant changes to the core game experience. First, Landless Adventurer characters start with a camp and a few followers but can gain great power and influence by offering their skills to neighbouring rules. Second, the Administrative Government playstyle comes to the Byzantine Empire, in a more historically appropriate representation of the political system of one of the great Mediterranean powers. An associated comic book about the rise of Basil I, “Many Roads to Power”, was published in August, free for everyone to read and enjoy.

Here’s the list of key features for the expansion, from the press release:

• Administrative Government: Experience medieval rule outside of the feudal system with a new style of empire management. A web of Governors jockeys for position in the empire with intrigue and power, sometimes rewarding merit and sometimes rewarding perfidy. Only a truly skilled Emperor can keep these squabbling forces in line.
• The Family Estate: Run and manage a powerful Family Estate, the seat of your House’s power, even when you hold no other land. Construct new buildings and improvements to further your power and influence within an administrative empire.
• Influence System: Build up a character’s influence within an administrative empire to climb the rungs of bureaucracy. Raise your status in the realm and gather more power for yourself. Start as a landless noble on an estate, and compete for valuable provinces to govern before making your bid for the Purple.
• A Life of Adventure: Freely roam the map, untied to any realm or holding, going wherever the winds of fortune blow you. Fulfil contracts as a landless adventurer, even through the generations, building up a reputation of your own. Earn gold, prestige and fame travelling the globe until you decide to settle down and claim land you have earned through merit.
• Choose Successor or Caesar: Spend the influence you have gathered to determine the course of the Empire and get the successor you want, whether a royal family member, a powerful noble, a martial hero, or any other candidate you can rally the people behind. The Emperor can even opt to co-rule if the burden of the throne is too much for one person.
• New Byzantine Flavour Content: New events, monuments and activities built around the Byzantine theme, including chariot racing.
  Cosmetic Additions: A Byzantine-themed UI skin and new court fashions for your characters, new 2D event art, new on-map monuments of the Byzantine world, new on-map holding designs, and a Byzantine throne room for Royal Court sessions, among other aesthetic improvements. New music inspired by Orthodox holy chants is also included.

Crusader Kings 3: Roads to Power is out today for PC and will retail for $29.99 / £24.99 / €29.99. It’s also part of the Chapter 3 includes Legends of the Dead, Wandering Nobles, and this new pack, Roads to Power.