The Silk Road trade route is also shaken up a bit, with new routes expanding out from its pre-update paths. Players who have familiarised themselves with Rajas Of India’s playable India, or Horse Lords’ playable Eurasian Steppes, are directly impacted by their new neighbours’ arrival: both off-screen China and the occupants of the Tibetan Plateau. It’s hard to truly quantify the impact of the changes brought to the Eastern side of Crusader Kings II’s map with Jade Dragon and its accompanying free update. There are many large changes to the game, not least the new playable areas.

Jade Dragon, the latest expansion - which introduces a highly influential off-map faction for the first time in the series - has recently launched and seems a perfect place to start. Given that the game’s launch predated the existence of this website by over four years, and that it’s most definitely a live-and-kicking product, we’ve always struggled to find a time and place to start the conversation about it. Crusader Kings II has received a mass of new updates and content packs in the five-and-a-half years since launch with those it covers a massive slice of the world across nearly seven hundred years, as well as allowing play as non-Christian rulers in non-feudal roles. The player’s role transcends the life of any single noble to instead focus on dynastic legacy. The game is essentially a sandbox medieval simulator with no defining win conditions.

Crusader Kings II is easily the most played game on my main Steam account, rushing ahead of Mount & Blade: Warband, Civ V, Elite Dangerous, and other notoriously ‘heavy’ games.

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