It opens up player strategy in ways that the de jure system is sometimes at a loss to properly do. Get enough kingdoms and make your own empire. If you've got enough duchy titles, crown yourself king. On top of that, this also is the DLC that opens up “Create Kingdom” that isn't bound by geography. Heck, this game stretches so far back that the Vikings have to wait 24 years before they get a crack at Lindisfarne.īesides the well-fleshed-out event chain for Charlemagne himself, this DLC introduces the Chronicle, which keeps track of the story of your faction and the world across all that history. It's the perfect starting point for a campaign. History develops across nearly 700 years, the initial setting is a fantastic one, and all kinds of old religions like Zoroastrianism aren't fringe yet. Playing CK2 without the 769 AD start date almost feels like heresy once you've had this DLC installed for a while. This DLC is so much fun in its own right and unlocks so much fun in other DLC packs that tend to require it, that there's no reason not to get it.

The Old Gods expansion also provides an 867 AD start date, right at the height of the Viking Age even though it's been largely superseded by Charlemagne's 769 start, it's still two centuries more of history per playthrough. With this expansion, large swaths of the map become playable, and where there's large swaths of map, there's a need to get the DLC that unlocks them. Want to fight back the advance of Islam and restore Zoroastrianism in Persia? You guessed it, Old Gods. Want to play as a Lithuanian or a Finn with the Romuva or Suomenuosko faiths? Old Gods. Want to play as the Mongols? If you want Tengri factions, the religion of the early inhabitants of that part of the world, you'll need The Old Gods. This isn't just author bias: The Old Gods is the gateway DLC that makes just about all of the other major CK2 DLC packs that aren't about the monotheistic religions work. With that in mind, we'll go ahead and rank all 15 DLC releases from “if you don't have this DLC, you're missing out on the true value of the whole game” to “don't bother”. And while the answer to this is “depends on your playstyle”, there are nonetheless certain DLC packs that add so many great features to the game that it doesn't matter if you're playing as a Norse pagan in Sweden or a Brahmin in India, you're still going to love what the DLC has to offer.

Crusader kings 2 all dlc