Expansion - Crusader Kings II: Monks and Mystics DLC

Probably one of the worst CK2 expansions. - Heresies get NOTHING - Cant create religious cults for non-reformed pagans and heretics. - Devil Worshiper Society is incredibly easy to join, is overpowered and is relatively risk free. - Monastic Orders are underdeveloped and under powered with each one being the same thing under a different name. - Hermetic Society is unfinished, you get a bunch of ingredients but you cant do anything with them.

As far as Paradox DLCs go this is one I would consider as being worth picking up. Societies open up a lot of options for the role-playing aspect of CK2, provide more avenues of gameplay and offer so many great benefits. At first I avoided the DLC after reading the reviews, lots of people seemed to be complaining about the satanist cult being OP and that the other socities weren't worth joining. Not sure whether the cult has been nerfed since but I can honestly say, I have played the satanist cult the least. The hermetic society is ridiculous, your learning and stewardship explode. You can brew potions to cure stress/depression, create crazy artifacts etc. The Religious societies aren't too bad either, they can really redeem your character, removing 'bad' traits and the ability to manipulate other characters traits is crazy! Societies aside, the ability to finally some-what control your allies during war is a feature I've been dying for and the new German Portraits are really growing on me.

Ok so everyone only ever reads the "yes or no" portion essentially so please note that my "reccomends" is a cautious reccomendation. Fun expansion. Can I reccomend it at the current price? Hard to say. Fans of the "Roll Playing" aspect of CK2 will most likely really enjoy this expansion as it involves a whole lot of over the top religious nonsense. Yes I literally sacrficed my first born son to cure my cancer. That happened. For those of you who prefer the more "conquer everthing who cares about the flavor text" style of play, this one is a much harder sell particularly at $15. I picked this up on sale for $7.50 and I certainly think it was worth it. Would I still if I had payed full price? I'm not sure.

The latest disaster in a rather mediocre line of DLC. Monks & Mystics sounded like a worthwhile addition to the medieval gameplay of CK2 when it was first announced, with interesting decisionmaking over witch hunts, inquisitions and alike, deepening the impact of excommunications and the meaning of religion in the era of the game. Instead we got a bunch of half-baked "societies" to join with very little impact onto the actual game. On top of that, they're only available for western (christian?) rulers, plus a bunch of core features that should have been for free, like a fourth councilor task. Until here Monks & Mystics would have been a mediocre DLC, but not a disaster. The real issue are "Lucifer's Own", the society of Satan. In short, Satanism is the cheating faction of CK2. It throws all rules overboard and lets you go nuts. [*]you can simply click&kill your own children to purge bad heirs (something that used to be super hard for very good reasons) [*]you can kill your wife with the click of a button (otherwise it takes a little effort) [*]you can grow really really old by sacrificing your kids, removing the need to rush Primogeniture [*]you can "infect" other people with diseases to make them go away faster [*]you can abduct most people and cheat your way out of rivalries [*]you can cure your own cancer and all other diseases [*]you can execute anyone without any regard for opinions (sacrifice to Satan)[/list] The game tries to balance it by punishing you with negative traits, and excommunication if you use your powers more than once or twice a year, but in the end it all turns into a giant mess of cheating and feeling cheated on. The events are fun the first few times, but eventually you grow tired of orgies. I will turn Satan off from now on, which kinda makes the rest the the most overpriced add-on ever. If you like to play with Sunset Invasion and are into all the crazy stuff, this DLC is for you. Anyone else, stay away!

This expansion is a tricky one. Let's go bit by bit: Societies: Socieities are a fantastic concept and you'll have a great time going through each of them. However they start to get stale real fast despite the multitude of events, and there aren't a lot of them. Monastic orders are probably the worst. Not only are they barely fleshed out to begin with with barely any events and society powers, but they basically just reskin them and paste them all over the world with pretty much no difference. You'll be getting the exact same events. If they fleshed these out a lot more and made them up to par with say the Hermetic society, I could give them a pass. Councillor jobs: Pretty cool jobs, however they're nothing special. Everything else: Basically everything else is QOL features that should've been free, but they put it in to mark up the price to a completely unnecessary 15 bucks. Even if this was just 10 bucks I could forgive this, but it's not. Overall I'd recommend on sale only because what is here is good, but it's not enough for the asking price unfortunately.

Many other comments focus on the occultism and demonic worship. Personally I love the monastic order. This DLC adds more depth to religion as a personal spiritual aspect.

TL;DR: If you want to be a Satanic wizard, buy it on sale. Paradox continues their trend of releasing unfinished DLC for exorbitant prices. I really had hopes for this DLC. The inclusion of monastic orders has such potential, but it remains unused potential. Other than being able to "join" a very few orders which allow you to essentially increase piety repeatedly, the orders do nothing to change basic gameplay and only offer perhaps 10 minutes more gametime in the form of providing fairly useless character fluff. The only reason anyone should buy this DLC is if they want to be a Satanic wizard, which allows them to make other characters ill, kill their children to improve their health for 10 years, and attempt to summon the Antichrist. And even then, this DLC isn't worth the money. Wait til a major sale and buy it at 75% off if you really want that experience.

This DLC does add some positive features and I do recommend it to anyone who wants to enhance their gameplay experience. I got it for full price and don't regret waiting for it to be on sale, but it is understandable to wait for a sale and get it cheap, or if you just don't see it as something essential. But if you're still not sure, here some of the societies from the DLC I've used to show what they can do to your game, and how you can use them to your advantage. Monastic Orders (Ex: Benedictine Order, Community of Saint Basil, Adavita Matha, etc.): These are usually good if you want to prevent heresies, declare holy wars and need to convert provinces fast, or if you plan on going theologian focus. While it may be a bit more situational and may not be a go-to society, it can be a useful one to join, and may help get rid of negative traits (from yourself and others as you get promoted), and give yourself some society specific traits depending on the religion of the order). Just as a fair warning though, don't plan on joining if you want tons of kids, since as you get promoted, you won't have to take a vow of celibacy (even though it's an option in case if you wanna do gavelkind and how no more than one kid), but you'll lose fertility with each promotion. Also, these societies can be a bit demanding in terms of wanting you to donate to charity, demanding you have the theology focus (not required though), and wanting you to build a brand new temple in your lands (think you get a discount though for being in the society, but can't confirm). Hermetic Society: Great for any person playing a non-pagan, non-tribal, non-nomadic ruler with 10 learning (6 if you just take scholarship and wait for the observatory to be built, boosting it to 10), and nothing else going for him. These guys are actually a great go-to for anybody who wants artifacts or buffs to their land that last a couple centuries. There are also plenty of great events and options that you can do in order to get these things, but also boost your prestige, and thus, increase the dynasty score. However, if you do join, I would say the age range for when should be capped at 40, because the best thing to get out of this society is writing you're very own Magnum Opus, which you need to get to the max level of the society for, and can give you and you're descendents great buffs in the future, provided they're geniuses like you'll be by the time you've written it, or they also join the hermetics. Secret Cults: These are just for guys secretly following a heresy of the main religion. They're definitely the lowpoint of the DLC, cause the only time you'd really play them is if you have a liege of a different religion over you, and he'd rather burn you at the stake then allow you to keep your land. Besides that, if you're already the true ruler of whatever you own, and your realm is large enough to fight back against a small crusade, jihad, or a holy war, then instead of joining/creating one of these, send gifts to your vassals so they like you enough to convert to your heresy, indocrinate your court and dynasty into the religion as well, and if your priests won't convert, just murder them, since everyone will hate them for not being heretics, and the new priests will be ones from your religion. Satanists/Lucifer's Own/Demon Worshippers: Definitely the selling point of this DLC, it is quite a fun option for a society, and a joy to play. However, I do recommend this society primarily to people with good intrigue, are utter s*** and need to improve their stat in something like intrigue, or want to kill their dynasty for personal gain, without having to worry about becoming a kinslayer, especially since even though there will be many pros to worshipping Satan (in the game), you are bound to make rivals out of fellow members. That being said, to play a satanist is admittedly a fairly OP option in most cases, especially as you get promoted in the society and earn the ability to possess potential enemies into loving you, sending demons to give your rivals rabies, and having your infertile wife die in the most messed up and demonic way possible (Hey, it's been twenty years, and you've only bred me an imbecile. This is why I picked the seduction focus, just sayin'.). Oh, and you can also give birth to the anti-Christ who will be the best child you've ever hide, provided you're okay with him killing your other children, ensuring that he's legitimized if a bastard, changing succession laws cause they never seem to be your first-born, and him ousting you out of the high priest position the moment he turns 16 (Trust me though, it's worth it if you can get them to be the next person you play). It's apparent though that Paradox wanted to try and limit your usage of these powers though, as you can be "under suspicion" for acting weird and doing demonic stuff, but then you just don't sacrifice anyone to Satan for a year and you should be all good. They also tried adding corruption events, which basically give you negative traits, like hunchback, clubfooted, deceitful (I find this helpful though), greedy, and so on, but unless you get the modifier that gives you a -1 or -2 in health, you'll be fine. Lastly though, one negative/positive to this depending on how you look at it is the satanists control over religion, as the majority of events revolve around reduce moral authority over a religion. But if the cult's numbers are great, then expect Catholicism to have a literal 0% moral authority in about 100 years, as the religion will probably have over -100% moral authority from desacrated temples alone, meaning that heresies will appear like wild, and you'll have to deal with their revolts (however, this does present an opportunity for expansion via holy war if it hits your neighbors). Heck, in one of my most recent games, in 200 years not only were the British Isles covered in heresy, but all of Western Europe had heretic or non-Catholic rulers (HRE France becoming orthodox because of a Byzantine marriage, but still having many Catholic heresies in its counties), with Catholicism going virtually extinct within 100 years or so, making there no Bastion for the Catholic faith, but it somehow not remain a heresy. So while most definitely fun and OP, maybe needs some nerfing to stop this from happening, in what feels like are now the majority of my games. Anyways, if anybody ever reads this, I hope this helps. Sorry I didn't do the Assassins (Yes, the Assassin's Creeds kind basically, but you're primary thing is being Shia), but I don't tend to play Islamic countries, simply because with my luck, there would always be that fat, gluttonous fourth-cousin who's so decadent that he literally carries the decadence of my dynasty to unbelievably high levels that will incite rebellion. But based on their description, they seem like a great choice for a society nonetheless, the only real hump to get over is if you start in the 700s, and have to deal with the Abassids hating you for going Shia. But nonetheless, recommend the DLC, and would get if you have the money to spare. If not, just wait for it to go on sale, cause it seems like there's a sale on some Paradox game and its DLC every month.

I know a lot of people have been talking about how OP the Followers of Lucifer cult is, but they have barely even scratched the surface. If you are the high priest of the order, you can vassalize any independent member of the order. The implications of that may not hit you until you realize that this works for rulers *of other religions*. As the Emperor of Britannia, I vassalized the Seljuks (who were Sunni Caliphs at that point) AND the Fatimids (who were Shia Caliphs at that point). Anyone in the order has the 'obedient' stat modifier, which means that they will ALWAYS listen to you; whether you want them to convert to your religion, marry your daughter matrilineally, revoke their title, whatever. This gets to a whole other level when you realize it works for people not even in the Followers cult; you can "Attempt to Abduct" (always works eventually) certain rulers and courtiers (not quite sure the qualifications for this; it varies a lot) and then either possess them, which gives them the 'obedient' modifier, or forcibly induct them into the Followers cult, also giving them the 'obedient' modifier, meaning you can vassalize them ANYWAY. I stopped Temujin from doing anything by abducting him, possessing him, forcing him to join the cult, murdering his heirs, and then marrying him to my daughter. You can get people to join your plots by abducting them, possessing them, and then freeing them, at which point they will always assist you. Oh, and I may have forgotten to mention; you can vassalize kings if they are in the order-- you don't get the 'I am a king!!!' negative on vassalization, just the 'obedient' modifier, which forces them to say yes! They can have a -100 opinion of you, but obedient still works, and they will still accept. If you have the patience and the skill, I would wager you could control a quarter of the world in the lifetime of a single character, so long as the character starts as a king, is the head of the cult, and keeps having kids so they can absorb the kids' lifeforce, giving a +3 health modifier. Some of you might be saying, "But if you don't like the satanists, just disable them!" And, sure, you can. But honestly, the satanists are really the most interesting part of the DLC. The monk orders are really boring, the hermetics are somewhat less boring but a fair number of their events are just downright broken, and succession through any order is just really not enjoyable. The treasury system is decent, but it is very difficult to lose treasury items once you already have them, and having councillors search for artifacts feels far too random and boring. I would have liked the DLC to focus on heresies; fleshing them out, giving actual game mechanics for the heresies that are all 'Has no special game mechanics,' adding in much-needed depth to the religion system, and making orders that are actually interesting. The free patch that was released alongside the DLC was honestly of more value, as it added some incredibly useful UI improvements and fixed the map in some places that were unbalanced or inaccurate. Final verdict: I initially really liked the DLC, but after looking around in it for longer, I found that the more I looked, the less there really was, and what was there, was pretty boring or pretty broken.

Just to make sure that more people know it. They just made a patch which makes this DLC more balanced and solves some serious issues. For example, the patch makes secret cults less likely to spawn insanely. But it is circulated as an open beta. If you would like to use it, right-click Crusader Kings II -> Choose Properties -> Choose Betas Tab -> Select "beta". The cults are acctually pretty ok, and I don't think secret cults is annoying or making the game a total fantasy. I know many don't like it. It was possibly too unbalanced when it was just released but now most problems should have been solved. I only bought this DLC in recent week and I only play it with the latest beta patch. It seems to be that secret cults have little influence on your playing unless your character himself joins a cult. You can even ignore that society button and pretend that they does not even exist. Well, of course, the simplest way to get rid of them is to turn off religious cults when you start a new game. But if you don't like it why did you buy it in the first place? I always think that my Basileus should have no interest on a Satan cult unless he has been possessed, so I only sometimes make my Basileus join a monastic or Hermetic society. They add many interesting events in my game, so at least now, the experience is quite enjoyable. Also, besides relics and new order of your councilors, another useful feature of this DLC is now you can treat your prisoners by a group instead of by each person, making the management of your prisoners muh eaiser. Though I think this should be included in the base game since it's only related with UI. Anyway, I recommend this DLC when it gets a discount. It does not have a huge improvement to your game, but it is still worth your some money.