The third expansion for the critically praised strategy/RPG Crusader Kings II: The Republic enables you to play as a Patrician in one of the great medieval Merchant Republics. Expand your trade empire as you compete with the other Patrician families for the coveted position of. Crusader Kings II: The Republic is an expansion pack for the original strategy simulation game Crusader Kings II developed by Paradox Development Studio. The expansion focus on the competition among the Patrician families. Jun 1, 2015 @ 2:30pm yes i love it, i love playing as a republic. One of my favorite things about this DLC is it lets you experience a republic in india, norseland, england, ireland, venice.
Crusader Kings Ii Download
Given this focus it was odd that the original game did not allow one to play as any of the merchant republics. It is the aim of this expansion “Crusader Kings 2: The Republic” (CK2:R) to add these vital players to the game. These republics (especially Venice, Genoa, and Pisa) played a large role in the success and failure of the different Crusades. In particular, the republics provided two vital components every crusading army required: money and ships.
The basis of most economies at the time (in particular, the economies simulated by CK2) was land. In particular, agricultural land, the people who worked it, and all the technologies of husbandry, warfare, and transportation that came along with it. This made for a static society where most warfare was based on attrition, whether in the field or at siege.
The basis of the merchant republic economies, on the other hand, was trade. This made for a lot of travel by boat for long distances. Seaborne trade encourages different technologies: not just better boats, but navigation, governance, financial instruments, and naval warfare. Most of all it meant that the republics had a bunch of money.
It may seem like this would be a good position to be in. You'll start off as the Doge of Venice and the money will just flow right in. This is so much better than vanilla CK2, where there was never any money and you had to sit around forever before you'd saved up enough to build anything! As a bonus, rather than territories, your primary bases are trade posts. These are pretty resilient, weathering invasions and counter-invasions and making money the whole time. Turns out war can be good for business.
The game starts out pretty well, then. You're bringing in a bunch of money, and spending it on building new trade posts to expand your trading empire. The more trade posts you have the more money comes in. This is great until one of your rivals steals a trade post from you. Every republic has a set of prominent families and it is these families that actually build/own the trade posts for that republic. If one family has enough money it can make a bid to steal a trade post from a rival family.
This is just one facet of the internal politics of the republic. Although there is one “leader” who handles diplomacy, warfare and other nation-like things, each of the 5 or so rival families wants to have one of their number be the leader. When the current leader dies there is an election to determine who the next one will be. The most “successful” family wins, where success is a mix of longevity, trade posts, money spent on the election, and luck. Of course, you'd like your family to win. In a sense this nation-type has traded off succession crises for election crises.
In CK2 it was always possible to buy off rivals by appointing them count of somewhere or having them killed, but that is not an option in CK2:R. The rival families are always there. You can kill a particularly popular rival, perhaps, or try to steal away a vital trade post, but there is no way to permanently remove this competition. You've traded constant war over land for constant inter-republic intrigue.
The defining characteristic of CK2, the constant scheming to get well-married, is still here. It's not quite as important, given that what you really want is trade posts and not land, but it's still a good idea to keep friendly relations with the powerful, land-owning neighbors. Do well enough and you may even be able to get one to shut down the trade posts of your enemies through a trade embargo. This is a devastating move and will shut your enemy down for decades.
Another benefit of being on good terms is that you don't have much in the way of armies. Sure, boats are nice, but when armies roll up to your ports, bad things can happen if you don't have your own head-bashers. You'll never have enough manpower to really make a dent against the land powers, so having one on your side is a good idea. Failing that, there are always mercenaries. As a republic you will (almost) always have more money than your enemies so will be able to hire more mercenaries.
Mercenaries have their own problems, of course. They're expensive (especially in the long run) and maybe not quite that loyal. This goes to the heart of being a republic – you have a lot of money, but need to spend a lot of money to keep going. It's like being a capitalist surrounded by feudalists.
Which goes to the heart of the problem with CK2:R – it doesn't feel that well-integrated with the original game. It was pretty clear what one wanted to do in CK2: stabilize your kingdom, marry your bloodline into successful families, expand your territory, and put relatives into positions of power. CK2:R plays differently: you spend a lot of time setting up trade routes, building/upgrading trade posts, and inter-republic intrigue. It can feel almost as if the rest of the world is playing a different game.
It's not that being a republic is a bad way to play the game, it's just different. Some more work could have been done to integrate the two playing styles into the same world. It can feel like the grand sweep of history is something that's going on without you, that your republic is just making money off what's going on rather than taking part in it. If you're the kind of gamer who is interested in building an empire without the constant blood-and-guts warfare of the Crusading era this is a welcome option. If you prefer a more hands-on role, the standard nations are still there.
In summary, “Crusader Kings 2: The Republic” adds a host of new game mechanics to the original in order to reflect the unique situation trading republics found themselves in during the Crusades. These new mechanics do a good job of making republics different and interesting to play, but do not integrate as well as might be desired with the original game.
Expansion - Crusader Kings Ii: The Republican Party
Crusader Kings II: The Republic opens up five new playable ‘kingdoms’ for the base game, in the form of medieval merchant republics. While a few new factions may not sound like a substantive package, playing as a republic totally changes the gameplay and adds a whole host of new features to exploit as you plot to elevate your dynasty to greatness.
If you have not yet played Crusader Kings II and don’t know much about the game, stop right now and read this. I didn’t review the core game myself, but having invested over 15 hours into the basic package before I even started to play the expansion pack I thoroughly agree with the 9-out-of-10 score awarded by my colleague.
The base game is all about feudal kingdoms, where petty lords squabble over land and titles, kings clash over ancient border disputes and noble houses trade their sons and daughters in marriage pacts to seal alliances. Life in a merchant republic is a much more personal affair involving political intrigue, family respect and lots and lots of shiny gold.
Each republic includes five leading families and the player will step into the shoes of the patriarch of one of these noble houses. Your goal is to make your family the richest and most powerful in the republic, and the other four families will simultaneously be your most trusted allies and your most bitter rivals throughout the game.
Your first goal as you step into a campaign will be to expand your family’s trade holdings, a new feature which allows you to build trade posts in almost any coastal territory on the map, provided a couple of conditions are met. Obviously, a lord or king who is at war with you or has declared a trade embargo against your republic is not going to let you build a trade post on his coastline.
These trade posts will be your primary source of income, which will be determined by the relative prosperity and your level of control over the trade region in which they are built. They can also be upgraded in various ways for a one-off investment. It is a very expensive undertaking to build and upgrade trade posts, but you have to spend money to make money. There are also some new lucrative trade buildings available for construction in your own territories, but these are opportunities are obviously limited by your own realm size so unlikely to reap as much reward as your trade network.
It won’t take long before the lucrative trade routes are littered with trade posts and opportunities to build become scarce and not worth the investment. This is where new intrigue options come into play, which will allow you to formulate, or back, plots to steal trade points from other noble families.
The politics of a republic cannot be changed as they can in a feudal kingdom. Your republic will always have ‘low’ crown authority and you are unable to change succession law, which is now based on an election system. One of the many goals available to you is to have your family head elected to the position of Serene Doge, effectively setting him up as the ruler of the entire republic.
Doge’s are elected for life - however long that may be, depending on the shadowy activities of the other merchant families - and once a Doge dies an election is held to choose his successor from the five families. The victor of the election is decided based on family respect, which is linked to many factors including number of trade posts held, number of family members in respected positions (choose your marriages wisely!) and overall prosperity. Of course, if you find your family isn’t getting the respect they deserve you can always set aside a substantial sum of money for an election campaign, which will tilt the odds in your favour.
Cash is definitely the lifeblood of a merchant republic and you’ll soon find yourself earning far more than your feudal neighbors. You will likely be tempted to continually invest the money as soon as it is earned into more and more trading posts and upgrades to boost your monthly earnings, but in an unstable world of warfare and strife a merchant republic must never let the coffers run dry, lest war be thrust upon them.
When pitted against a larger and more militarised nation, the gold running through a merchant republic once again becomes its salvation. A nation whose primary focus is money is always going to have a hard time competing against a nation dedicated to militaristic conquest. Fortunately, there are an awful lot of mercenaries in the world willing to help clear out your bursting treasury in exchange for delivering the smackdown on those too-big-for-their-britches kingly types.
Trade wars will be waged, where rival families or republics attempt to take military control over each other’s trade ports. Feudal lords can also declare trade embargoes, either of their own volition or after being paid a suitable bribe, and seek to destroy trade posts within their territories. Of course, there are also just plain old fashioned territorial wars in which claims are made, flags are planted and land is seized.
The Republic is an expansion pack tailored to give existing fans of Crusader Kings 2 another way to experience and play the game. Life in a merchant republic is less about expanding the size of your nation and more about increasing the wealth and prestige of your family. It’s a more tightly focused game of economics, intrigue and family rivalry that adds a fresh perspective to play and will provide dozens more hours of engrossing grand-strategy gaming.
Crusader Kings II: The Republic(Reviewed on Windows)
Crusader Kings 3 Reviews
This game is great, with minimal or no negatives.
Life in a merchant republic is less about expanding the size of your nation and more about increasing the wealth and prestige of your family. It’s a more tightly focused game of economics, intrigue and family rivalry that adds a fresh perspective to play and will provide dozens more hours of engrossing grand-strategy gaming.
