NOTE: some of the footage featured in this review was made on a slightly earlier build of Roads to Power. Some visuals and values may have changed post or just prior to release.
Currently in the midst of a campaign where my plan is to go from leader of a Mercenary band (starting and a Catholic Norse Character), becoming a conquerer, and taking over a Tunisia to form a new Catholic Empire in North Africa. Then my plan is to get married, have kids, and as future generations expand Catholic influence into Africa and the Middle East, and it's been really fun so far
The option to have our own Blackfyre Host wandering party 😱 Playable Viserys III, having the option to change him from the “Hobo King” to the “The Last Dragon” would be awesome.
I think you nailed it when you said a major positive is that rulers can become landless adventures. I also enjoy the fact I can more or less choose the path after a character’s death. This is going to change the way I play around completely now that I don’t have to be cautious of the game over screen
I just realized how much more enticing it is now to completely succumb to the roleplay, considering that like you said you really don't have to worry about even losing your lands.
i started as a Tibetan freebooter, gathered up as many high intrigue characters as i could. it was a rough start, but eventually the snowball started rolling and hooooo boi did it get rolling. was making thousands of gold doing criminal contracts as i moved from the east, all the way to Constantinople. by the time i got there, my crew was slick, a traveling theives guild. i stole the throne of byzantium. i stole the sword of mars. i stole the popes hat. now im starting a fuedal holding around crimea with all my gold and treasures. this is awesome lol. cant wait to see what modders do with this amazing foundation of systems.
@@vizari9570 it took me about 5 hours in game of jobs and hiring to get to the point where I could basically any scheme I could think of. Assassinated and stole stuff from around the world after that
I always like playing a custom characters that leave their home land to forge their dynasty in a far off land. So being able to start as a landless adventure is just the perfect start for me. I am greatly looking forward to EK2 and AtE updating and implementing Roads to Power.
Hopefully soon I'll be able to fulfill my fantasy of being a House Redoran mercenary, spending a century or more wandering Tamriel and beyond honing my skills and building a party of elite warriors so that one day I can return home and bring the fury of Boethiah to the western heathens.
This sets up so well for both playable Republics *and* playable papacy, with a cardinal-family system. Even nomadic maybe, with adapting the moving camps
I see Landless as more of a phase instead of a complete playstyle. As this whole game is built around holding lands and intrigue around it, creating a great dynasty leading multiple empires etc. Either starting out or if you get defeated you play landless as a mean of getting your revenge or set your plan in motions and things like that.
That’s sort of how I’ve been playing it. I wouldn’t want to do a multi generational run of it but it’s fun to be a single character and mess with it before starting your proper lineage
@@Soul_Tomato It's fun to roleplay as a Knight Order defending accepting tasks to help defend catholic lands in Iberia. I am on my 3rd generation as Captain now and still going.
True. Very good comment. I made my own landless adventurer Ertugrul (Ottoman Dynasty) starting from Merv and my objective is to build an army at some point, move to Anatolia and trying to establish the Ottoman Empire in 2-3 generations. Without a clear objective, landless can be repetitive and boring at some point.
Contracts are definitely more to be treated as some kind of side quests. The main core of Landless gameplay will still be forging your legend and dipping your finger in local politics as to tip the scales. The game gameplay will definitely be more repetetive, but if you like RP and make your own "main quest" it leaves you a lot of flexibility to be a force to be reckoned with.
A bounty system/bounty hunter system should be added, cough cough actual assassins. I say this because if someone murders a king or emperor and it’s found out, ppl should be able to assassinate them or hire bounty hunters. A landed person could use stats to help evade them using decisions. If I have high intrigue/diplomacy I could convince to run the realm while I hide in the shadows. If I have high martial I could organize a military to defend me. As an adventurer I can use a smoke bomb to run away or fight off my attackers. I could sing a song to distract them. This could work, hire me!
@@thegentleman7880 Hey hear me out, peharps, and it's only a possibility, perhaps we can expect the guys we are paying to develop the game to do the job and not volunteers?
Landless gameplay is revolutionary. Even if the tasks are repetitive. You can roleplay more freely as a mercenary company or play as a catholic knight order only accepting tasks to defend catholic counties from Iberia to the Balkans.
@Soul_Tomato El Cid is super fun for me. His martial skill is so high joining a war on one guy's side will completely turn the tide. Cool having influence like that 😎
The only thing I hated was when my son got a governorship somewhere and didn't support the new emperor after his coronation. My character died and as I took over as my son, the emperor stripped me off my governor title right away. You cannot do anything not even contracts, you just sit and wait in your estate. I bribed my way to the throne as a vengeance but because of my low legitimacy was immediately deposed.
DLC has been great so far, although I have only played around 5 hours. Admin finally gives you an incentive to play as a loyal vassal, instead of constantly scheming your way to the emperorship. I can't wait to go gallivanting around as a Hedge Knight in AGOT or face Hordes of Orcs as one of the last scions of the Kingdom of Arthedain in Realms-In-Exile.
My playthrough is a Norse captain travelling through the Mediterranean (after hearing Bjorn’s and Koifish’s exploits) he will end up in Miklagarðr (Constantinople) Where he will become fascinated by the lands and culture and seek his own power and influence in Greece. His dynasty will go on to form a Varangian Empire
Its been an incredible experience so far. I created an adventurer from Abyssinia, went to Egypt as an administrative and transportation crew, then got up to Cyprus and after years working in the ERE, got finally a governorship in Edessa, got my son elected in Antioch and now just captured the city of Aleppo. This dlc is a blast.
They're finally giving us what we've been asking for for years and I'm all here for it. Crossed fingers for Hordes, Republics, Baron title gameplay and hopefully a meaningful combat & Men-at-Arms / Levee overhaul.
Defintely agree that as it stands I think unlanded will feel a bit underwhelming. At least for now, until it gets more fleshed out. I also just love (and am very familiar with) normal landed gameplay - and imo unlanded feels kinda redundant and doesn't translate well into a game that's all about ruling land. I think the admin government will be cool though :)
Ultimately I think the major problem, if we want to call it that, with landless is that after you’ve done maybe 2-3 runs it’s all going to feel exactly the same. Unless you are being very specific with your RP it never feels very different regionally with the places you visit or the contracts you take. Which I could see mods correcting but there’s almost no incentive to even go around the map really or to pursue the life for multiple generations. I think the longest I’ve gone is maybe 20 years? I enjoy the feature a lot but I want more out of it.
@@Soul_Tomato Honestly I think there's some things they could do that would make it amazing. The main issue is if you don't play it with the goal of becoming landed it doesn't make sense, and the only real goal is just that. I can see 3 things they could do that would make it much better in flavor: 1. Let you play as an heir and not the head of a household. The head would have an estate and be landed while you play as unlanded and know that you will eventually inherit lands, and in the meantime you can experience the world, learn languages, improve your stats, and become a better future ruler. 2. Allowing you to go on adventures without losing your land but leaving a regent. This would be great for raiding cultures or even crusading religions. And the objective would be amassing wealth, piety or renown or collecting artifacts, etc. All with the end of boosting your feudal or tribal gameplay. 3. Trading. Allowing you to become an actual merchant and amass wealth by bringing silks from india to europe and by making maps and books. This will probably come with Republics if it doesn't come with mods prior to that. It's all about having diverse goals and purposes for unlanded that integrate with the existing landed modes.
@@Soul_Tomato Though i think that's the point of landless to begin with. Most of the final "end goals" are either focused on gaining land or gaining troops, some of which aren't inherited on death. It makes it so that you're incentivized to grind in landless play in order to get a better start as a landed
I think it would be amazing if they paired the next DLC with Republics & Military Orders government types... that way we could play as Teutonic knights and merchant republics
It is funny because I mainly wanted adventurer characters, but administrative characters are much more fun, because effectively you can play 600 year without ever fighting, and plotting the entire time to win duchies, collect influence etc.
My first run was a viking mercenary band. I noticed the catholics pushed most of the norse out of England but their latest king died and no alliances and a few independent duchies existed Well, a decade later and one kingdom invasion + vassal uprising later and every county is headed by a Asatru leader I fully plan to turn Britannia to an Admin government when I get stability in the realm
As a player of every DLC for ostensibly every Paradox game, I would go so far as to say it is the best DLC for any of their titles. For me, anyhow. I can think of nothing more impactful than the combination of administrative government and landless adventurers.
Good to see that the two CK3 content creators I watch, are seemingly on the opposite spectrum of the DLC 😄. Looking forward to trying it out, when RICE is updated. I vowed to not play CK3 without that.
@@Soul_Tomato Exactly! I could probably play a quick landless try out in the new start date without EPE, but for something longer? Yeah, I need those mods.
@@Soul_Tomato tbf now the political intricacies of the other systems, feudal and clan, are undertuned in relation. Vassals in France in comparison are these automatons that give 0.3 gold per month and 500 levies who break down in power before they can threaten you because they can't manage military quality and inheritance. They create a coalition that takes forever to reach threshold, and you have all the time to marry alliance a few of them and marry alliance foreign rulers and get peace. This is also the first time in a long time where paradox limits player's power by something other than the Inheritance system which is too splitting compared to real life. Roads to Power has the richness of a paradox dlc five years deep in the development of a game (take Stellaris, EU4, CK2) which is in contrast to the slice of life dlcs of before (tours, legends, wards, friends are fun dlcs but they're way too simple to be split in four dlcs and extended over threeish years of development), and so there's this off tone between RtP that has that CK3.5 feel compared to the rest of the world which feels it still lives in CK3. It's a bit like going to WoW or other mmo where they release updates and expansions into a region of the old world and you have this dissonance between travelling in a region that was bustling in development initially in the cycle but has been abandoned for some 8 years and the graphs looks janky, quests are boring, npcs have no abilities and you transition into the new developed area and the graphics are like two console generations worth of difference. I hope this dlc shows paradox players want intricacy of game mechanics and verosimilarity of statecrafting instead of wards gimmicks or the legend stuff. Tours is a bit better (which lieges never do which ruins the experience because it becomes this isolated player event)
I am so sad we dont have a well developed Witcher mod! Unlanded gameplay with some custom contracts would work perfectly for Geralt and his traveling party.
great video soul! my personal complaint is the newest start date: compared to 867 and 1066, 1178 feels very... unpolished. it almost feels like they just imported all the characters and title history from ck2. otherwise, i'm just glad landless and intrigue rework are finally ingame
@@Soul_Tomato like you mentioned for landless gameplay, i'm sure the new start date will become more fleshed out. i'm grateful for its addition, just needs some cleaning up--especially when it comes to the character and title history
So far, I only managed to try out a tiny bit of the landless adventures, and my main gripe with it is the lack of interactibility with non-landless characters. Like in the early game, marrying myself or my children feels impossible. I like that you cannot marry a noblewoman, but I think that you should at least be able to interact with lowborn characters a bit more.
@@Soul_Tomato I am aware, it's just a bit stressful at the start, when you want to get an heir, and the only women easily available are grannies in your camp, and the last few contractors either don't want to marry their daughter off, even with a hook, or don't have any available in the first place.
I think you need to face landless as a new begining for a campaign and thats it. You start as an adventurer, play a couple of hours, them settle. If you play like this, its pretty fun. Now, if you do a whole campaign as landless, It is boring...simply because it was impossible to PDX create enough events to make landless fun for dozen of hours
I agree, the landless part can't sustain past a good few hours, there simply isn't enough there. I always try to play the game with a goal in mind. Currently my game has started me out from the top of Norway and I am working my way to Kordofan with my Norse Asatru character. The intention is become landed, hybridise Daju and Norse then organise the Kushites and eventually make an administrative Empire. All the while having fun along the way. I have Asatru, Slovianskan Pravda, Catholic, Orthodox and Jewish in my party at the moment, will most likely be adding Muslims and Coptics along the way. At one point I had a wolf boy who I managed to educate but he left the party when I tried extorting tax money out of the locals. I married the physician. Super fun. My army currently consists of Huscarls and Zbrojnosh.
Yeah I agree. That’s how I view it at the moment. Still a great addition. Plus if you lose your kingdom on a bad roll you can become a legitimist and take revenge.
I love this DLC I just wish landless was more fleshed out, same with schemes but Byzantium is perfect and I am sure RICE and other mods will iron out the issues with landless
The problem is.. You have no territory, you unstoppable.. no kingdom/empire can stop you... I just won the crusade of jerusalem with 1400 men.. 😅And i wasn't even trying, how could i guess my soldiers can defeat 10 k in one go? 😂
Since the release i have been using some dlc things, the weird part is that i dont have any expansion. Im not sure if that was intended, but anyways thx paradox for giving me an royal court while i cant buy the actual expansion
@@Soul_Tomato participating. We have the contracts, but so far (for me at least), no actual battle or sense of danger. I think I need to claim some land.
You can use landless characters anywhere on the map. Admin government can be elected via a decision for empire title characters - though it is expensive.
CK3's biggest failing is still the awful war system and how easy the game is. Until those 2 aspects are fixed I'm not about to spend another cent on this game.
@@whodis3489 50%? Really depends how you play but how is it worse than ck2 exactly? It didn’t even have men at arms it was just press one button to raise and another to attack and nothing but numbers really affected anything, now the battles feel much better as you have some power to influence what happens and can win even when you’re outnumbered, the map is so much more detailed as well
@@Soul_Tomatoagreed, I actually believe the game is too easy in its current state and could benefit from a global nerf to health. The fact that landless characters don’t have to pay for men at arms, whilst understandable for gameplay reasons, makes the game feel even more of a breeze imo
It's not bad, but a not good direction for the game. It doesn't adds variety across the map and we will soon get bored of the 20 different combinations of story that it offers. They need to add some meat on the country management part of the game (economy and trade for exemple) not going the sims-like way. We get more contents by mods than by the official developers. Still no believable muslim gov and heritage, no nomads, no real difference between religions outside of perks. The game is now boring without mods.
I love how landless having *only* 50-100h of replayability is considered a weak point. If I can get 100h out of unmodded landless alone that’s an insane thing for most other games. Just puts it into perspective
This game needs more interactions. Tours and Tournaments added more interaction. Thus is regarded as a good DLC. Legacy of the Dead adds just pointless bloat and additional resources slapped to same events. Led to it being a bad DLC. Roads to Power added more interaction, overhauled schemes. Added new playstyles. Automatically good. What I wish for is new schemes in general and more decisions to interact with characters.
What I really want to be able to do is join the Varangian Guard as a Norse pagan, and then finagle my way into becoming emperor of the Unholy Roman Empire.
I'm definitely with everyone that the Steppe Tribes and Republics deserve expanding, but I personally really want naval mechanics added. It doesn't have to be too in depth, but the fact that naval battles just don't happen, the oceans don't really affect much, and there just aren't *any* mechanics behind ships is such a shame imo
I've only played a bit, but I'm quite enjoying traveling across europe with 800 of my closest greek specialty unit friends. Currently getting paid to fight all the wars I could ever want in spain
Love the unlanded gameplay. It didn’t hold me from playing once again as a Viking and it was as fun as expected. Currently playing as unlanded Basque, going to create Basque Region in India.
ive nowe made a freebooter and a mercenary playthrough and i kinda dont like that you basically have to do the same 5 missions over and over again and also that theres too few missions. right now landless gameplay feels completely half baked and as if its just there to rp a bit of background story before you play a landed character. i was really hyped for this and im massivley disappointed...
@@Soul_Tomato for me its the only thing i was really looking forward for with this dlc and its really disappointing to see how barebones it is. sure theyll expand on it in the future, at least i really hope so but just giving the player like 4 tasks he can do if he wants to be a bandit is really bad
@@loganwallace101 i expected them to flesh one of the most anticipated features ever since release more out than just giving you the same 4 things to do over and over again…
I like the new rules set up for extra frequent apocalyptic plagues with endless conquerors with the scourge of god buff. Also FYI restoring Roman Empire decision gives you choice to restore Hellenism and have it even with lowered faction power thresholds and even more mongols. Landless gameplay feels a bit repetitive with limited agency. Sometimes needs to just let time pass. One thing I don’t like the admin gov, is that when you have a lot of vassals, succession of their titles and having to every time grant them to new governors, is just tedious.
I totally agree. It's a brilliant DLC. It's good as is, but it has so much potential for further development. An event/contracts-pack (official or mod) for landless would do wonders, as I feel the only huge drawback is the lack of variation. Great video, thanks :)
No one talked about it or maybe I missed it but Admin governments can hold cities. That’s pretty wild. And yeah, with the administrative government system I would say Republics should already be playable. All you need is an estate. Obviously I hope they do more than that, ideally republics are a mid-size DLC like Legends and Horde stuff is the Big DLC, either is fine.
I've been waiting for so long for this. Finally, I could play as nikephoros Phokas and try to make him reign for longer and perhaps make the Phokas the most prestigious house in Eastern roman history
The administrative estate reminded me of the ck2 republics, but more detailed. The only gripe I have, is that I couldnt become a wanderer after losing all my land in the Byzantine Empire 😢 but I'll try Byzantium in the future (:
I hope it's not another DLC that will become just more clutter once the flavour wears off. Either way I'm super pumped they finally got it right! This was definetely their make or break DLC, and as a lover of CK, i'm glad they came through.
"Shill tomato moment". LOL. I love your self-awareness, ST. I don't begrudge you doing previews for developers though; you were completely transparent about it which is what matters to me.
Remembers Paradox said Landless exists because it seemed easy given the implementation of administrative government. As you said I hope it’s like cultures in that it gets updated with every DLC and Wanderers in particular seems like a n obvious follow up.
I have yet to play landless unless you count the time I was on my estate without a Theme, but I am very happy with this DLC. It’s pretty cool and honestly I almost didn’t matter if landless was good because there is so much value in being able to finish a campaign like reforming Rome or Uniting the Slavs and being able to just leave and become a random person and go somewhere else.
Well, considering that all of the dlc before this has been super hit or miss, mostly miss, i feel like this beint the best dlc wave is t exactly a golden standard lol.
While I have to agree that the admin government is really a great way to make landed gameplay alot more alive/busy as well as a great start to what could become republic gameplay, I still love the landless gameplay and cannot even begin to imagine the possibilities this brings to mods like AGoT. Also not taking the land of a more or less historical people to replace them with your own custom character and in the process erasing the original person from history just by starting a game is just VERY appealing to me.
I found that as a successful landless war supporting a province in revolt. I turned on the King due to how the commoners were being treated. I helped win it and ended up with the foot of Italy by accident. It created a Petty Kingdom title which got upgraded to Kingdom. It called it Free Calabria. I switched governments to be centralized. I feel this sets up a republic dlc at some point.
I'm out of the country visiting family right now and the only reason I can even bear the thought of going back home is knowing I have Roads to Power waiting for me when I get back. So excited to finally give it a try.
I was playing in 867 as Ironside and when his son took the seat after his death I got a pop up asking if I wanted to switch to playing as his daughter who got no land from him. I just thought that was neat. I had almost all of Scandinavia under my control but the temptation to just give it up and go landless was there. Pleasantly surprised at the draw of landless gameplay even when landed gameplay is going super well
I wish the landless system could be worked into a settling land system as there is the option to build a holding. For example racing to settle Iceland in 867.
Surprised you were a fan of the scheme rework, I've mostly hard people perceive it more as tedium than as fulfilling gameplay, and I don't disagree. Regarding Wandering Nobles, the steam page already lists what's in it. While that stuff will synergize well with a landless playstyle, I don't see it as much of an improvement to the core loop there.
The contracts are also a bit unbalaced. Some are just wasting your time (takes sometimes a year or more) and some are well paid and take only 2 weeks to complete.
one criticism i have is that i think jobs spawn with a lower frequency on earlier start dates. idk what makes a job spawn but i think maybe landed characters need to have money in hand to pay you? and people are generally poorer in 867 some poorer regions like tribes also have way less jobs
NOTE: some of the footage featured in this review was made on a slightly earlier build of Roads to Power. Some visuals and values may have changed post or just prior to release.
RTP is a good way to start, or begin the game with risky scenarios
I’ve just been playing as an Anglo Saxon exile in the Byzantine empire… it’s so fun
Currently in the midst of a campaign where my plan is to go from leader of a Mercenary band (starting and a Catholic Norse Character), becoming a conquerer, and taking over a Tunisia to form a new Catholic Empire in North Africa. Then my plan is to get married, have kids, and as future generations expand Catholic influence into Africa and the Middle East, and it's been really fun so far
@@tuxtitan780 What about real life? Any plans there?
@@IlyaUshar Relax, Don't be strange cretin 🥱
@@IlyaUshar 😭
@@IlyaUshar they're maybe embarrassingly just as ambitious lol
the potential for agot is insane
Can’t wait tbh
The option to have our own Blackfyre Host wandering party 😱
Playable Viserys III, having the option to change him from the “Hobo King” to the “The Last Dragon” would be awesome.
and witcher realms, if only witcher realms was more developed bcos its very simply mod right now
Would be really cool if you could join the kingsguard
EK2 is also a massive potential.
I feel like the next chapter will get republics, because the 1178 start feels like a perfect setup for a republics dlc to shine
I really really hope so
Italy is almost only republics in 1178
Societies and Republics dlc next hopefully
@@Daniele-ez7eh it's the high point of the communal period
@@tuxtitan780 I desperately want an update to the crusade mechanic
I think you nailed it when you said a major positive is that rulers can become landless adventures. I also enjoy the fact I can more or less choose the path after a character’s death. This is going to change the way I play around completely now that I don’t have to be cautious of the game over screen
I just realized how much more enticing it is now to completely succumb to the roleplay, considering that like you said you really don't have to worry about even losing your lands.
i started as a Tibetan freebooter, gathered up as many high intrigue characters as i could. it was a rough start, but eventually the snowball started rolling and hooooo boi did it get rolling. was making thousands of gold doing criminal contracts as i moved from the east, all the way to Constantinople. by the time i got there, my crew was slick, a traveling theives guild. i stole the throne of byzantium. i stole the sword of mars. i stole the popes hat.
now im starting a fuedal holding around crimea with all my gold and treasures. this is awesome lol. cant wait to see what modders do with this amazing foundation of systems.
Oh yeah, can't wait to see what Godherja (I probably misspelled that). AGOT, After the End, etc., do with these new, as I dub it, "ways to play."
Who ever thinks of Tibet?... you did great!
how long did it take? i keep trying but it takes so long before i can get anything done
@@lsdan4096 They have had plans to create something like this in the roadmap(Godherja) for a long time, it's really interesting what they will do now
@@vizari9570 it took me about 5 hours in game of jobs and hiring to get to the point where I could basically any scheme I could think of. Assassinated and stole stuff from around the world after that
I always like playing a custom characters that leave their home land to forge their dynasty in a far off land. So being able to start as a landless adventure is just the perfect start for me. I am greatly looking forward to EK2 and AtE updating and implementing Roads to Power.
Hopefully soon I'll be able to fulfill my fantasy of being a House Redoran mercenary, spending a century or more wandering Tamriel and beyond honing my skills and building a party of elite warriors so that one day I can return home and bring the fury of Boethiah to the western heathens.
This sets up so well for both playable Republics *and* playable papacy, with a cardinal-family system. Even nomadic maybe, with adapting the moving camps
College of Cardinals when
I see Landless as more of a phase instead of a complete playstyle. As this whole game is built around holding lands and intrigue around it, creating a great dynasty leading multiple empires etc. Either starting out or if you get defeated you play landless as a mean of getting your revenge or set your plan in motions and things like that.
That’s sort of how I’ve been playing it. I wouldn’t want to do a multi generational run of it but it’s fun to be a single character and mess with it before starting your proper lineage
@@Soul_Tomato It's fun to roleplay as a Knight Order defending accepting tasks to help defend catholic lands in Iberia. I am on my 3rd generation as Captain now and still going.
True. Very good comment. I made my own landless adventurer Ertugrul (Ottoman Dynasty) starting from Merv and my objective is to build an army at some point, move to Anatolia and trying to establish the Ottoman Empire in 2-3 generations. Without a clear objective, landless can be repetitive and boring at some point.
Contracts are definitely more to be treated as some kind of side quests. The main core of Landless gameplay will still be forging your legend and dipping your finger in local politics as to tip the scales.
The game gameplay will definitely be more repetetive, but if you like RP and make your own "main quest" it leaves you a lot of flexibility to be a force to be reckoned with.
A bounty system/bounty hunter system should be added, cough cough actual assassins. I say this because if someone murders a king or emperor and it’s found out, ppl should be able to assassinate them or hire bounty hunters. A landed person could use stats to help evade them using decisions. If I have high intrigue/diplomacy I could convince to run the realm while I hide in the shadows. If I have high martial I could organize a military to defend me.
As an adventurer I can use a smoke bomb to run away or fight off my attackers. I could sing a song to distract them. This could work, hire me!
Honesty this is a job for modders can create
I would love to be a bounty hunter
@@thegentleman7880 Hey hear me out, peharps, and it's only a possibility, perhaps we can expect the guys we are paying to develop the game to do the job and not volunteers?
Landless gameplay is revolutionary. Even if the tasks are repetitive. You can roleplay more freely as a mercenary company or play as a catholic knight order only accepting tasks to defend catholic counties from Iberia to the Balkans.
Iberia with landless is actually my favorite so far
@Soul_Tomato El Cid is super fun for me. His martial skill is so high joining a war on one guy's side will completely turn the tide. Cool having influence like that 😎
The only thing I hated was when my son got a governorship somewhere and didn't support the new emperor after his coronation. My character died and as I took over as my son, the emperor stripped me off my governor title right away. You cannot do anything not even contracts, you just sit and wait in your estate. I bribed my way to the throne as a vengeance but because of my low legitimacy was immediately deposed.
Lore accurate Byzantine experience
dude I start college today i’m not gonna have time to play this
You won’t but you must do it anyway (I command it)
Bummer.
I'm sure you'll find time. There's a will there's a way
Sleep is just a suggestion.
Currently playing as a Viking trying to get a name for myself before setting to Byzantine Empire
DLC has been great so far, although I have only played around 5 hours.
Admin finally gives you an incentive to play as a loyal vassal, instead of constantly scheming your way to the emperorship.
I can't wait to go gallivanting around as a Hedge Knight in AGOT or face Hordes of Orcs as one of the last scions of the Kingdom of Arthedain in Realms-In-Exile.
My playthrough is a Norse captain travelling through the Mediterranean (after hearing Bjorn’s and Koifish’s exploits) he will end up in Miklagarðr (Constantinople)
Where he will become fascinated by the lands and culture and seek his own power and influence in Greece.
His dynasty will go on to form a Varangian Empire
Its been an incredible experience so far. I created an adventurer from Abyssinia, went to Egypt as an administrative and transportation crew, then got up to Cyprus and after years working in the ERE, got finally a governorship in Edessa, got my son elected in Antioch and now just captured the city of Aleppo. This dlc is a blast.
They're finally giving us what we've been asking for for years and I'm all here for it.
Crossed fingers for Hordes, Republics, Baron title gameplay and hopefully a meaningful combat & Men-at-Arms / Levee overhaul.
They're finally giving us a dlc. Any. They split the Kim Kardashian dlcs in like four different instalments
Defintely agree that as it stands I think unlanded will feel a bit underwhelming. At least for now, until it gets more fleshed out.
I also just love (and am very familiar with) normal landed gameplay - and imo unlanded feels kinda redundant and doesn't translate well into a game that's all about ruling land. I think the admin government will be cool though :)
Ultimately I think the major problem, if we want to call it that, with landless is that after you’ve done maybe 2-3 runs it’s all going to feel exactly the same. Unless you are being very specific with your RP it never feels very different regionally with the places you visit or the contracts you take. Which I could see mods correcting but there’s almost no incentive to even go around the map really or to pursue the life for multiple generations. I think the longest I’ve gone is maybe 20 years? I enjoy the feature a lot but I want more out of it.
@@Soul_Tomato Honestly I think there's some things they could do that would make it amazing. The main issue is if you don't play it with the goal of becoming landed it doesn't make sense, and the only real goal is just that. I can see 3 things they could do that would make it much better in flavor:
1. Let you play as an heir and not the head of a household. The head would have an estate and be landed while you play as unlanded and know that you will eventually inherit lands, and in the meantime you can experience the world, learn languages, improve your stats, and become a better future ruler.
2. Allowing you to go on adventures without losing your land but leaving a regent. This would be great for raiding cultures or even crusading religions. And the objective would be amassing wealth, piety or renown or collecting artifacts, etc. All with the end of boosting your feudal or tribal gameplay.
3. Trading. Allowing you to become an actual merchant and amass wealth by bringing silks from india to europe and by making maps and books. This will probably come with Republics if it doesn't come with mods prior to that.
It's all about having diverse goals and purposes for unlanded that integrate with the existing landed modes.
@@Soul_Tomato It's about the possibilities. Now that the system is in the game, it can be overhauled and updated.
@@Soul_Tomato Though i think that's the point of landless to begin with. Most of the final "end goals" are either focused on gaining land or gaining troops, some of which aren't inherited on death. It makes it so that you're incentivized to grind in landless play in order to get a better start as a landed
I think it would be amazing if they paired the next DLC with Republics & Military Orders government types... that way we could play as Teutonic knights and merchant republics
It is funny because I mainly wanted adventurer characters, but administrative characters are much more fun, because effectively you can play 600 year without ever fighting, and plotting the entire time to win duchies, collect influence etc.
My first run was a viking mercenary band. I noticed the catholics pushed most of the norse out of England but their latest king died and no alliances and a few independent duchies existed
Well, a decade later and one kingdom invasion + vassal uprising later and every county is headed by a Asatru leader
I fully plan to turn Britannia to an Admin government when I get stability in the realm
Great overview Soul 🍅
Thanks Grayzo!
Me & the Bois building the roads to power be like:
As a player of every DLC for ostensibly every Paradox game, I would go so far as to say it is the best DLC for any of their titles. For me, anyhow. I can think of nothing more impactful than the combination of administrative government and landless adventurers.
Well said
Good to see that the two CK3 content creators I watch, are seemingly on the opposite spectrum of the DLC 😄.
Looking forward to trying it out, when RICE is updated. I vowed to not play CK3 without that.
RICE and EPE are pretty crucial for vanilla-lite runs
@@Soul_Tomato Exactly! I could probably play a quick landless try out in the new start date without EPE, but for something longer? Yeah, I need those mods.
Now we can all realise why Byzantium never fully retook Rome.
Right? It’s a wonder they got anything done.
@@Soul_Tomato tbf now the political intricacies of the other systems, feudal and clan, are undertuned in relation. Vassals in France in comparison are these automatons that give 0.3 gold per month and 500 levies who break down in power before they can threaten you because they can't manage military quality and inheritance. They create a coalition that takes forever to reach threshold, and you have all the time to marry alliance a few of them and marry alliance foreign rulers and get peace.
This is also the first time in a long time where paradox limits player's power by something other than the Inheritance system which is too splitting compared to real life.
Roads to Power has the richness of a paradox dlc five years deep in the development of a game (take Stellaris, EU4, CK2) which is in contrast to the slice of life dlcs of before (tours, legends, wards, friends are fun dlcs but they're way too simple to be split in four dlcs and extended over threeish years of development), and so there's this off tone between RtP that has that CK3.5 feel compared to the rest of the world which feels it still lives in CK3. It's a bit like going to WoW or other mmo where they release updates and expansions into a region of the old world and you have this dissonance between travelling in a region that was bustling in development initially in the cycle but has been abandoned for some 8 years and the graphs looks janky, quests are boring, npcs have no abilities and you transition into the new developed area and the graphics are like two console generations worth of difference.
I hope this dlc shows paradox players want intricacy of game mechanics and verosimilarity of statecrafting instead of wards gimmicks or the legend stuff. Tours is a bit better (which lieges never do which ruins the experience because it becomes this isolated player event)
Almost restored the old borders of the east and have taken southern Italy back :)
I am so sad we dont have a well developed Witcher mod! Unlanded gameplay with some custom contracts would work perfectly for Geralt and his traveling party.
Sadly the team was just 2 people and they got a bit burnt out I think
Can't wait to hear about mod overhaul updates
0:00 i just noticed, is that Laith in the center of the art below the emperor?
I don’t think so but tbh I have no idea what Latin looks like because I don’t watch their (or really most of the bigger creators) videos.
Laith look more like the guy to the right of the emperor lmao. The one with the scroll.
ngl I don't see it in either of them I think you're all tripping
I wish I could afford it
There's discount right now
It’s worth the price. But if you have to wait, there’s no rush. It has some bugs that need ironing out anyway.
have been playing as an adventurer only the best thing in this dlc, fucking up kingdoms and moving on
i wonder if the asian expansion modders can somehow adapt the admin government for china. could be fun to see
I hope so!
wandering noble dlc is somewhat standalone to RTP, it will focus on nobles (landed i think) traveling with events and activities
I think you may be right now that I think about it
great video soul! my personal complaint is the newest start date: compared to 867 and 1066, 1178 feels very... unpolished. it almost feels like they just imported all the characters and title history from ck2. otherwise, i'm just glad landless and intrigue rework are finally ingame
It definitely has a more sandbox feel I agree.
@@Soul_Tomato like you mentioned for landless gameplay, i'm sure the new start date will become more fleshed out. i'm grateful for its addition, just needs some cleaning up--especially when it comes to the character and title history
So far, I only managed to try out a tiny bit of the landless adventures, and my main gripe with it is the lack of interactibility with non-landless characters. Like in the early game, marrying myself or my children feels impossible. I like that you cannot marry a noblewoman, but I think that you should at least be able to interact with lowborn characters a bit more.
I too wish we could interact with other landless. You can marry a noble though. You just need a favor hook from a contract.
@@Soul_Tomato I am aware, it's just a bit stressful at the start, when you want to get an heir, and the only women easily available are grannies in your camp, and the last few contractors either don't want to marry their daughter off, even with a hook, or don't have any available in the first place.
I think you need to face landless as a new begining for a campaign and thats it. You start as an adventurer, play a couple of hours, them settle. If you play like this, its pretty fun. Now, if you do a whole campaign as landless, It is boring...simply because it was impossible to PDX create enough events to make landless fun for dozen of hours
I agree, the landless part can't sustain past a good few hours, there simply isn't enough there. I always try to play the game with a goal in mind. Currently my game has started me out from the top of Norway and I am working my way to Kordofan with my Norse Asatru character. The intention is become landed, hybridise Daju and Norse then organise the Kushites and eventually make an administrative Empire. All the while having fun along the way. I have Asatru, Slovianskan Pravda, Catholic, Orthodox and Jewish in my party at the moment, will most likely be adding Muslims and Coptics along the way. At one point I had a wolf boy who I managed to educate but he left the party when I tried extorting tax money out of the locals. I married the physician. Super fun. My army currently consists of Huscarls and Zbrojnosh.
Yeah I agree. That’s how I view it at the moment. Still a great addition. Plus if you lose your kingdom on a bad roll you can become a legitimist and take revenge.
I love this DLC I just wish landless was more fleshed out, same with schemes but Byzantium is perfect and I am sure RICE and other mods will iron out the issues with landless
I think that judgement on Landless should probably be reserved until its complimentary pack in wandering nobles ships
I do wonder how much of that will actually go to landless because I think it’s actually for rulers
The problem is.. You have no territory, you unstoppable.. no kingdom/empire can stop you... I just won the crusade of jerusalem with 1400 men.. 😅And i wasn't even trying, how could i guess my soldiers can defeat 10 k in one go? 😂
This is I think the main criticism I can see. There needs to be mechanics for the ai to maybe raid/disrupt/sabotage your camp
@@Soul_Tomato Update: A random muslim adventurer just took the kingdom of france, don't know how, yep, evrything fine. 😂
Since the release i have been using some dlc things, the weird part is that i dont have any expansion. Im not sure if that was intended, but anyways thx paradox for giving me an royal court while i cant buy the actual expansion
That is odd but I mean whatever. Take the bug for now lol
Gonna try it soon......My Farm in Medieval Dynasty takes up alot of my time 😆
Totally understandable
I think where Haestinn is going next
cant wait to play it in 2 years on console 🦅
Yeah…hopefully sooner
I miss battles as landless character... it lacks a sense of danger and character progression. maybe im playing it wrong lol
You miss participating in battles or miss winning them?
@@Soul_Tomato participating. We have the contracts, but so far (for me at least), no actual battle or sense of danger. I think I need to claim some land.
Think about patching AGOT for this DLC...
A big task but they can do it
Cant play till witch mod is updated :(
Is there a way to use admin government or landless characters outside of the Byzantium empire?
You can use landless characters anywhere on the map. Admin government can be elected via a decision for empire title characters - though it is expensive.
CK3's biggest failing is still the awful war system and how easy the game is. Until those 2 aspects are fixed I'm not about to spend another cent on this game.
The war system is perhaps the most common complaint I see now besides maybe religion. I’d assume they’re both being looked at.
I mean it isn’t a war game, still far better than what CK2 had
@@loganwallace101 50% of the game is being at war and it’s far worse than ck2
@@whodis3489 50%? Really depends how you play but how is it worse than ck2 exactly? It didn’t even have men at arms it was just press one button to raise and another to attack and nothing but numbers really affected anything, now the battles feel much better as you have some power to influence what happens and can win even when you’re outnumbered, the map is so much more detailed as well
@@loganwallace101 This is the worst take I've ever heard, just admit you didn't play ck2 and have no idea what you're talking about.
I can't afford it. Also missing two other dlc :(
:( I’m doing a pretty big contest on the channel soon. May the odds be in your favor
I can tell you how to get it for free if you’re interested
nice
DLC Good
Thats why he is the mvp (balduin iv) he even saved ck3
My Baldwin IV lived to 56 and managed to have a kid all by himself
i find ck3 vannila way too hard. and somehow the game seems to have gotten harder with the update. i can't win any wars.
That’s interesting actually. Most people say the opposite
@@Soul_Tomato Conquerors will help a lot. But I wish they revisit the difficulty in the future.
@@Soul_Tomatoagreed, I actually believe the game is too easy in its current state and could benefit from a global nerf to health. The fact that landless characters don’t have to pay for men at arms, whilst understandable for gameplay reasons, makes the game feel even more of a breeze imo
@@russiancamel3365 compared to the AGOT mod is the normal game way to hard. you cant win wars
How does it go wrong for you? Don’t think I’ve ever lost one tbh so maybe I can help you
no it isn't
You can be wrong, it’s okay
It's not bad, but a not good direction for the game. It doesn't adds variety across the map and we will soon get bored of the 20 different combinations of story that it offers. They need to add some meat on the country management part of the game (economy and trade for exemple) not going the sims-like way. We get more contents by mods than by the official developers. Still no believable muslim gov and heritage, no nomads, no real difference between religions outside of perks. The game is now boring without mods.
Tbh I disagree completely but that’s okay
Administrative government adds huge complexity to country management
We went from "it's so over" with Legends of the Dead to "we're so fucking back" with this DLC.
I'm really digging the Landless part of the expansion. I can also tell there's so much they can do with this. It's a fantastic setup.
I love how landless having *only* 50-100h of replayability is considered a weak point. If I can get 100h out of unmodded landless alone that’s an insane thing for most other games. Just puts it into perspective
Goes to show how good it is
CK3 is my favorite game. They just keep updating it and just Doest release some stuff and start something else
This game needs more interactions. Tours and Tournaments added more interaction. Thus is regarded as a good DLC. Legacy of the Dead adds just pointless bloat and additional resources slapped to same events. Led to it being a bad DLC.
Roads to Power added more interaction, overhauled schemes. Added new playstyles. Automatically good.
What I wish for is new schemes in general and more decisions to interact with characters.
What I really want to be able to do is join the Varangian Guard as a Norse pagan, and then finagle my way into becoming emperor of the Unholy Roman Empire.
I'm definitely with everyone that the Steppe Tribes and Republics deserve expanding, but I personally really want naval mechanics added. It doesn't have to be too in depth, but the fact that naval battles just don't happen, the oceans don't really affect much, and there just aren't *any* mechanics behind ships is such a shame imo
Imagine playing as a wandering witcher taking monster slaying contracts or wandering hobbit around middle earth
One thing I want to see is landless hordes who have landed vassals swear fealty to them.
Nomads has to be in the future
I've only played a bit, but I'm quite enjoying traveling across europe with 800 of my closest greek specialty unit friends. Currently getting paid to fight all the wars I could ever want in spain
Love the unlanded gameplay. It didn’t hold me from playing once again as a Viking and it was as fun as expected. Currently playing as unlanded Basque, going to create Basque Region in India.
ive nowe made a freebooter and a mercenary playthrough and i kinda dont like that you basically have to do the same 5 missions over and over again and also that theres too few missions. right now landless gameplay feels completely half baked and as if its just there to rp a bit of background story before you play a landed character. i was really hyped for this and im massivley disappointed...
I think it was always the secondary feature of the dlc. It’s fun if you like to RP but variety just isn’t there yet.
@@Soul_Tomato for me its the only thing i was really looking forward for with this dlc and its really disappointing to see how barebones it is. sure theyll expand on it in the future, at least i really hope so but just giving the player like 4 tasks he can do if he wants to be a bandit is really bad
I mean did you really expect them to make a whole new game in half a DLC
@@loganwallace101 i expected them to flesh one of the most anticipated features ever since release more out than just giving you the same 4 things to do over and over again…
I like the new rules set up for extra frequent apocalyptic plagues with endless conquerors with the scourge of god buff.
Also FYI restoring Roman Empire decision gives you choice to restore Hellenism and have it even with lowered faction power thresholds and even more mongols.
Landless gameplay feels a bit repetitive with limited agency. Sometimes needs to just let time pass. One thing I don’t like the admin gov, is that when you have a lot of vassals, succession of their titles and having to every time grant them to new governors, is just tedious.
I totally agree. It's a brilliant DLC. It's good as is, but it has so much potential for further development. An event/contracts-pack (official or mod) for landless would do wonders, as I feel the only huge drawback is the lack of variation. Great video, thanks :)
No one talked about it or maybe I missed it but Admin governments can hold cities. That’s pretty wild. And yeah, with the administrative government system I would say Republics should already be playable. All you need is an estate. Obviously I hope they do more than that, ideally republics are a mid-size DLC like Legends and Horde stuff is the Big DLC, either is fine.
Once VIETNAM is properly updated to the DLC I think it’ll add tons of different contracts. If not that mod than someone will.
I've been waiting for so long for this. Finally, I could play as nikephoros Phokas and try to make him reign for longer and perhaps make the Phokas the most prestigious house in Eastern roman history
The administrative estate reminded me of the ck2 republics, but more detailed. The only gripe I have, is that I couldnt become a wanderer after losing all my land in the Byzantine Empire 😢 but I'll try Byzantium in the future (:
I hope it's not another DLC that will become just more clutter once the flavour wears off. Either way I'm super pumped they finally got it right! This was definetely their make or break DLC, and as a lover of CK, i'm glad they came through.
"Shill tomato moment". LOL. I love your self-awareness, ST. I don't begrudge you doing previews for developers though; you were completely transparent about it which is what matters to me.
Remembers Paradox said Landless exists because it seemed easy given the implementation of administrative government. As you said I hope it’s like cultures in that it gets updated with every DLC and Wanderers in particular seems like a n obvious follow up.
I have yet to play landless unless you count the time I was on my estate without a Theme, but I am very happy with this DLC. It’s pretty cool and honestly I almost didn’t matter if landless was good because there is so much value in being able to finish a campaign like reforming Rome or Uniting the Slavs and being able to just leave and become a random person and go somewhere else.
Well, considering that all of the dlc before this has been super hit or miss, mostly miss, i feel like this beint the best dlc wave is t exactly a golden standard lol.
While I have to agree that the admin government is really a great way to make landed gameplay alot more alive/busy as well as a great start to what could become republic gameplay, I still love the landless gameplay and cannot even begin to imagine the possibilities this brings to mods like AGoT. Also not taking the land of a more or less historical people to replace them with your own custom character and in the process erasing the original person from history just by starting a game is just VERY appealing to me.
I found that as a successful landless war supporting a province in revolt. I turned on the King due to how the commoners were being treated. I helped win it and ended up with the foot of Italy by accident. It created a Petty Kingdom title which got upgraded to Kingdom. It called it Free Calabria. I switched governments to be centralized. I feel this sets up a republic dlc at some point.
Finally, an open world Elder Scrolls game that includes the WHOLE MAP (Elder Kings 2)
I'm out of the country visiting family right now and the only reason I can even bear the thought of going back home is knowing I have Roads to Power waiting for me when I get back. So excited to finally give it a try.
One of the first things I did was play as El Cid and eventually i redirected a crusade to Valencia and he became the King of Valencia at the end.
I was playing in 867 as Ironside and when his son took the seat after his death I got a pop up asking if I wanted to switch to playing as his daughter who got no land from him. I just thought that was neat. I had almost all of Scandinavia under my control but the temptation to just give it up and go landless was there. Pleasantly surprised at the draw of landless gameplay even when landed gameplay is going super well
I wish the landless system could be worked into a settling land system as there is the option to build a holding. For example racing to settle Iceland in 867.
I’ve been playing a custom character in ruthenia of 1066 and dipo vassalized all of Russia and went administrative in one life it’s so fun
Unlanded is the perfect groundwork for proper nomad governments, which I'd be super excited for
Surprised you were a fan of the scheme rework, I've mostly hard people perceive it more as tedium than as fulfilling gameplay, and I don't disagree.
Regarding Wandering Nobles, the steam page already lists what's in it. While that stuff will synergize well with a landless playstyle, I don't see it as much of an improvement to the core loop there.
The contracts are also a bit unbalaced. Some are just wasting your time (takes sometimes a year or more) and some are well paid and take only 2 weeks to complete.
Hrolfr, founder of the Normadie Dynasty finally being a playable character is fantastic.
🤣🤣🤣 It takes a special type of person to self-identify as a shill. I had a chuckle and appreciated your insight!
landless is the same thing again and again. becomes stale after 10 years. There is zero challenge.
Byzantine additions are better.
It definitely got me coming back to the game and looking forward to mods. Im sure theres gonna be absolute gems coming out in the coming months
making a czech bandit become part of the crusade and overthrow the byzantines and form the Latin Empire is fun
one criticism i have is that i think jobs spawn with a lower frequency on earlier start dates. idk what makes a job spawn but i think maybe landed characters need to have money in hand to pay you? and people are generally poorer in 867
some poorer regions like tribes also have way less jobs
The new east Rome mechanics are awesome but landless feels like a slog to play, I hope they build more on it because there's great potential
Thank you I concour “Saul timato” this is beautiful dlc and parodox did GREAT!😊
Imagine in Elder Kings 2 mod in Tamriel being an adventurer it will be pog.
Can't wait to buy this DLC, luckily next year! Lol