Crusader Kings II: The Republic DLC Review

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.