Top Overhaul Mods for Crusader Kings III

We’ve reached that point of purgatory: the hype of the newest Crusader Kings III DLC, Tours and Tournaments, has died down; its shine has worn off, but Wards and Wardens is still roughly a month and a half away. What’s a gamer to do? Hop over to the 'Total Conversion’ section of the Steam Workshop and completely revamp your game, that’s what.

Here’s a list on where to start. Most of these mods are the biggest overhauls available for the game, and almost all of them are constantly updating.

Prince Of Darkness

Princes of Darkness is an overhaul that converts the game to the lore of Vampire: The Masquerade or, on a broader scale, the whole World Of Darkness tabletop series. As the name implies, you can now play as multiple supernatural species. I gave this mod a go before I knew anything about World of Darkness and still genuinely had a good time, but you’d get the most enjoyment out of it if you had some experience, even if it’s just from playing the videogame Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines.

It might sound obvious, but playing as a Prince (the term for the head vampire who runs a certain district of land) means you’re immortal and any marriage you make is solely for alliance, not for heirs. Removing the need for creating the best offspring leads to an interesting rework of how most people play Crusader Kings III. It gives you time to really lean into one specific character and mould them to your liking. If you’re like me and love a good vampire, give this a whirl.

A Game Of Thrones

Overhaul mods tend to lean on pre-existing high fantasy worlds, so it’s a given that A Game Of Thrones would work great as the theme for a mod. While it starts off lore-friendly (to my knowledge, at least), you can reshape the world of Westeros and create alternative storylines or maybe… rewrite the series finale for yourself? Just throwing some ideas out there.

With new models created to match landmarks in the show and books, it’s a dream if this is your flavour of geekiness.

Elder Kings II

Sick of waiting for Bethesda to release Elder Scrolls VI? Given up on Todd Howard? Join the thousands of others in the Crusader Kings community and download Elder Kings II. This mod changes the world map to Tamriel and gives you a plethora of options of races to play. You have the Dunmar, you have the Altmer, you have Orcs, and you have Nords fighting over Skyrim. It also introduces a magic system and multiple new religions. The character models are pretty damn impressive, and the timed events make it worth playing through multiple runs. It’s excellent.

The Lord Of The Rings: Realms In Exile

How can you have a mediaeval grand strategy game without adding Middle-Earth? You can’t; it’s a cardinal sin. The Lord Of The Rings: Realms In Exile makes almost all of known Middle-Earth playable, but what hooked me into this one is that you can play as the bad guys. You, dear reader, can play as Sauron. Yes, Sauron. You can also play as Elves, which is cool and all, but you can play as the Lord of the Rings — and if you’re anything like me and love a good villain, that would be enough to start making grabby hands at the Steam Workshop.

Apotheosis: The Hellenistic Age

This overhaul tries to be as historically accurate as possible and throws players into 275 BC: over a thousand years prior to any of the events in vanilla Crusader Kings III. With that radical new start date comes some radical game changes, including new government types, new art, and a whole new in-game soundtrack. The political dynamics are also drastically different from the standard feudal obligations in the monarch-focused Crusader Kings III. If you’re looking for an overhaul mod that is not fantasy-based but still reforms the game, Apotheosis: The Hellenistic Age is for you.

And there you have it: five overhauls for Crusader Kings III to kill some time with until the next DLC release.