Is Crusader Kings II Collection (ALL DLC) worth it?

[MP Stéphane Maurice Dion]

I want to be relatively conservative with my money, and the 40 dollar tag slightly scares me. Is it worth it though? I love political/military simulator/stratagy games, and it looks great.

[ericthecimmerian]

see if it goes on sale again. I picked it up n one of the flashes for 15.99. if it goes to the last day and isnt its still better than paying 80!

[TentacleMayor]

Actually, no, in my opinion. First of all, wait for it to go -75%, and second, most of the mods are not much use unless you play them. The Republic won't do much unless you play a republic, SoI doesn't do much unless you play Muslim etc. And I read the collection doesn't include all DLC, RoI is absent.

[Corrupted Sanity (Vex)]

Originally posted by TentacleMayor:

Actually, no, in my opinion. First of all, wait for it to go -75%, and second, most of the mods are not much use unless you play them. The Republic won't do much unless you play a republic, SoI doesn't do much unless you play Muslim etc. And I read the collection doesn't include all DLC, RoI is absent.

To be clear, Legacy of Rome, Old Gods and Sons of Abraham affect things outside of their respective added ruler types (mostly religions, Republic adds a different type of ruler entirely)
LoR=Retinues, which are powerful and make holding together a large empire MUCH easier. Basically a standing army as opposed to levies. Old Gods pushes back the earliest start date 200 years, so you get new scenarios with any other DLC you get too. Or just the base game and Old Gods itself.
I would consider those to the most worth getting.

Sons of Abraham is good too, but not as big an impact IMO. Mostly adds mechanics to interaction with the Pope for Catholics and some random events for all rulers.

[TM]

Just to be clear OP, whilst the CKII Collection has a lot of DLC, it does not have all CKII DLC. It has most of the song DLCs and alot of the cosmetic DLC's alongside four of the major content DLCs (Sword of Islam, Legacy of Rome, Sunset Invasion and The Republic). But the Collection is actually missing the three most recent major content DLCs - The Old Gods, Sons of Abraham and Rajas of India.

As to the wider question of whether its worth it, its all in the eye of the beholder. The music DLCs are all very well produced pieces of work, but a lot of them are situational. So for example, if you never play in Russia, you will never hear the Songs of the Rus (unless you're up for modding a few game files). The unit DLCs are nice and add a little more visual spice to what you see on the game map, but they're purely cosmetic so you might consider them unnecessary.

As for the particular major DLCs included in this collection, Swords of Islam gives you access to Muslim rulers. A good third to half of the game map in Crusader Kings II is controlled by Muslim rulers so having SoI will give you a lot more places to play in and experience, along with access to special mechanics that only affect Muslim rulers.

Legacy of Rome adds a lot more content if you play within the Byzantine Empire and gives you the challenge of restoring the Roman Empire. It also gives you the ability to hire retinues as standing armies, which has come to be regarded as a core game mechanic regard and certainly provides you with a very powerful tool to expand your realm.

The Sunset Invasion is a relatively minor DLC. By the 13th Century, Eastern Europe is being challenged by the mighty Mongol Hordes whilst Western Europe is left in relative peace and harmony. The Sunset Invasion provides an alternate history where Western Europe is suddenly invaded by the Aztecs from across the Atlantic. It's not at all historical, but it does make the late game much more fun if you're playing near the western edge of Europe.

Finally The Republic DLC adds game mechanics that differ greatly from your typical Crusader Kings II experience where you play for wealth and trade power more than the advancement of your dynasty. It can be a lot of fun, but there are only a handful of Republics you can play as in the whole of the CKII timeline so although the content is very different, it has the capacity to get stale.

If you're not all that bothered about cosmetic DLCs and you're not that interested in all of the major DLCs included in this collection, you might be able to save some cash just picking and choosing what most interests you individually rather than buying the lot. Which could also free up some spare change for the other big DLCs that aren't included in the collection. Hope this helps anyway, OP!

[Usefulplayer 1]

I bought the collection but held off on downloading it.

Then I installed the game from my library window, is there a way to check the all the DLC is there?

[TentacleMayor]

Originally posted by Usefulplayer 1:

I bought the collection but held off on downloading it.

Then I installed the game from my library window, is there a way to check the all the DLC is there?

Right-click Crusader Kings 2 in the library menu, then click View Downloadable Content. Or start the game. Actually, Steam will always install DLC and patches whether you want it or not. But you can disable it from the launcher if you want.

[Usefulplayer 1]

Okay, thank you!

[Langkard]

You don't have to play as a Republic to make use of a Republic as long as you have that DLC. If you conquer a nice piece of real estate consisting of a 2-3 county duchy you can make that duchy into a vassal Republic. The best option is for all the de jure counties in the duchy to have sea access, but it isn't required. At least one must be coastal, however.

Appoint the mayor of a city in the de jure county capital to be the county ruler and give him control of all lesser titles. He will now be the Lord Mayor. Give him control of the other counties in that duchy or appoint mayors in those counties to rule as well or even just leave them as regular feudal counts. Now give the duchy and rule of all lesser titles to the Lord Mayor. He'll now be the ruler of a Republic which is your vassal. The rulers of the other counties and towns, temples, baronies will be his vassals. He'll generate a lot of income for you. The game will automatically create additional patrician families for the Republic and they will all begin building trading posts on coastal areas you own with ports and those of other rulers. It's a great tactic to generate cash. You'll get an opinion hit from him because of being the wrong type of ruler, but it isn't much and as long as you don't offend him in other ways, he'll keep you rich and happy.

[FullRefund]

I like to break things down into $/hr baselining with a movie ticket ($10 for 2 hours of entertainment or $5/hr) then comparing. For me at 2500+ hours of CKII time for $40 (I probablly paid more as I bought the last 3 expansions as soon as they came out, plus most of the others at or near full price, dumb I know) which would make $0.016/hr (a pretty awesome ratio). Even if you play a more reasonable number of hours over the lifetime of the game, 300 hours perhaps, that would give you a cost/time ratio of $0.13/hr (still a pretty awesome ratio).

[Lotheburgh]

It doesn't worth it. In fact you don't need any of these Dlc's. If you have a friend who have all of them, ask him to host a game for you.

[BrowneHawk]

im already 137 hours deep and didn't realize. I grabbed old gods, legacy of rome, sons of abraham, and ruler designer. I feel all that stuff adds things that you would want. I will never play as a muslim, indian, or republic so scratch those. Also im pretty sure those last 3 do not add stuff to the other play throughs. The last one i bought was the aztec one because its like 3 bucks and i figured i would eventually want it after a few play throughs.