Confusion about DLC

[Venrez]

Hey folks

I have some odd experiences with the game and I am unsure as to whether I actually need to buy the DLC to access the content or not.

In my current Empire campaign, I confederated Wissenland and got access to Elspeth, Ulrika Magdova and Theodore Bruckner despite not owning the DLC. After an unknown amount of turns, at some point despite not losing a battle, Elspeth entirely disappeared from the game. If I look at the Elector Counts menu she is still there and can be assigned to a province, and if I look at the equipment / abilities menu she is still there with items equipped and ancillaries assigned to her.

Yet she does not exist on the campaign map anymore. If I press the 'Lords and Heroes' menu she does not exist. If I individually cycle through every one of my characters active on the campaign map, she does not exist. Yet as I said, she did, for a time, then disappeared at some point.

Hundreds of turns later, Elspeth is still missing. Ulrika and Theodore are still active and running around.

The same goes for Grom the Paunch and a few other Legendary Lords. I do not own the DLC and yet they're rumbling around the campaign map.

Certain units, like Hochland Long Rifles, Amethyst Gunners or Nuln Ironsides also exist in the game and are in some armies that I acquired through confederation, but I am unable to recruit them anywhere despite building the required structures according to the wiki.

This has all been happening in pure vanilla gameplay and also with a handful of cosmetic mods.

So do I need the DLC or what? I dont understand what is going on here.

[Slip]

You need to own the dlc to be able to make/use the units from the dlc's, if you conffed armies with said units you will have access to them but once they're dead you can't rebuild them. You Shouldn't of had access to Elspeth without the dlc, so grats, you got a free preview on her:P

All dlc lords are in the game even if you don't own the dlc

[dulany67]

If you confed a LL then you have access to them until they die or you disband them. Presumably this goes for units also.

[Amphibian Artillery]

As others have stated confederating DLC lords heroes or units that you do not own can be used until they die. Once they die you cannot rerecruit and they are lost for the rest of your campaign. All DLCs are usable by the AI even if you don’t own it.

Also Ulrika is free to everyone as long as you make a CA account and link it to your Steam account. This will give you access to a couple of other free LHs and LLs.