Expansion - Crusader Kings II: Way of Life

Expansion - Crusader Kings II: Way of Life
N/A
Metacritic
76
Steam
62.092
xDR
Our rating is calculated based on the reviews and popularity of the game.
Price
$3.99
Release date
16 December 2014
Full game
Publishers
Steam reviews score
Total
76 (189 votes)

Face up to the toil, struggle, pain, strife and hardships of leadership in the latest expansion for Crusader Kings II. Developed by award winning Paradox Development Studios. The latest iteration to the franchise follows in the proud tradition of introducing defining new game elements to the narrative.

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Expansion - Crusader Kings II: Way of Life system requirements

  • OS: XP/Vista/Windows 7
  • Processor: Intel® Pentium® IV 2.4 GHz or AMD 3500+
  • Memory:4 GB RAM
  • Hard Disk Space: 2 GB
  • Video Card: NVIDIA® GeForce 8800 or ATI Radeon® X1900, 512mb graphics memory required.
  • DirectX®: 9.0c
  • Sound: Direct X-compatible sound card
  • Additional: 3-button mouse and keyboard

Recommended:

Recommended requirements are not yet specified.
Updated
App type
Steam APP ID
329010
Fullgame appid
203770
Platforms
Windows PC
Mac
Linux
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Reviews
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Mimir
Mimir

1. Too expensive for it's content. Doesn't really add much, mostly it changes things.
2. The AI will oftenly choose "seduction" focus that allows seducing other characters.
3. Everyone gets herpes/syphilis!
4. Everyone hates eachother (duke A sleeps with the wives of duke B and C, which gives duke B and C a -100 modifier to their wives and duke A, duke A's wife gets a -200 modifier to duke A. Duke A is not satisfied though, so he sleeps with the wives of count A-Z and your queen. Duke D also has seduction focus and does pretty much the same thing. Everyone gets herpes. Including you.).

hiddenranger
hiddenranger

ENOUGH with the doomsday reviews.

They patched this it works fine now.

If you marry a chaste loving wife then you will be fine.

If you marry a bar wench... Well lets hope you dont mind sharing.

So dont listen to the seduction is broken doomsday sayers.

Megdusa
Megdusa

My best friend and cousin seduced my wife, both of them having 100 opinion of me. Unfortunately for him I was a brave/strong/viking/varangian/berserker/aspiring duelist with 11 personal combat skill. So I maimed his ass and then ordered him to be sent to prison along with my traitorous wife. He escaped and raised his armies only to be crushed under my armored boot and summarily sacrificed to Mighty Odin at the next great blot. 10/10 would be cuckolded again.

Waztopia
Waztopia

I don't write reviews because I don't see a point because opinions vary and all that, right but I thought I'd randomly write down my own little doomsday and add it to the list.

So, in about two game months of installing this DLC my nun daughter gets pregnant, pops out a baby, gets syphilis, dies. It would seem God did not approve.

I gave my heir some land because I'm crazy like that. Day 1 he takes Seduction. 8 B*stards and -7 million opinion with his wife later I finally get to take over as him. My first daughter comes of age, within two months... pregnant. My second daughter comes of age, within two months... pregnant. My third daughter comes of age, within two months... pregnant. Repeat for all my daughters regardless of their traits. I'm honestly amazed any of my betrothals went through; I'd have been "No, thank you. I agreed to a virgin, not 18 B*stard children from 18 different fathers. Good day!"

As far as I can tell everybody in my game has Lover's Pox, meaning everybody is seducing or being seduced or it's just very highly catching!

My game has only been going on for about 25 in game years.

The other focuses really don't offer anything of real interest... Scholarship focus is sorta interesting... I kinda feel this DLC is a downgrade from how gaining stats worked before it. Sure it sounds nice that you can seduce every genius human in the game but then all of your dynasty apparently become super wh*res, even if chaste! D:
Unless it was 95% off these text files and the B*stards... so... many... B*stards aren't really worth it.
Since I have it I'll get the Achievements, I guess and then probably turn this off because I don't really like all of my daughters becoming super wh*res for literally no reason... and I play every game with the Sunset Invasion on! Love me some "Western Mongol" action! Nothing like uniting your faith to kick them back out and it adds some spice to the otherwise "everybody has been conquered by the Catholics/Muslims" that the West becomes.

But hey, maybe it's just me who's been so unlucky, apparently it works just fine now. Wouldn't want to see it broken! Lover's pox... everywhere.

Seriously, if it was as easy as "Let's have sex." We'd all be too busy getting laid 24/7 to play any games at all!

tl;dr - The Marquis Donatien Alphonse François de Sade would be delighted by what the Seduction focus adds to the game though he'd likely be a little dissapointed by the lack of mutilation and beastiality but I suppose the War focus fixes one of those issues!

Onnela
Onnela

For somebody like me who was hoping for a new reason to play again this is just useless. It's way too expensive for what it adds (which is little) and it should've just been added with a bigger dlc or even in a free patch.

Soto928
Soto928

At first it was hard to like this when all the AI rulers were busy seducing your spouse, but now it works great. Adds a ton of new events and features. Seduction is fun for a while, but Stewardship focus is just OP. Must have DLC.

Morte77
Morte77

I played 3 campaigns using this DLC around the end of 2015, i.e. after it had been out for a long time and re-balanced more than once. I used it for around 150 hours, I think. I have now turned it off, for two main reasons:

- I'm told the seduction focus is "not nearly as bad as it used to be", but it's still bad enough for my liking thanks.
- Everything else gets old. I tended to choose the hunting focus quite a bit, because the health/longevity suits my style. The first time I saddled my horse to hunt the white stag I was interested, the 5th time I thought "am I going to finally get it this time?", the ?200th? I was just completely sick of it and turned the DLC off.
- It's all a bit soap opera. The events, the writing, it's Dallas not Game of Thrones.

So, I don't think this was outright awful but it overstayed its welcome and I turned it off, which didn't happen with any of the previous DLCs.

Blast Hardcheese
Blast Hardcheese

Started out as a tribal leader in Ireland
Got used to the new mechanics, seduced a few gals
Took control of my heir at 16, perfect!
Picked seduction focus
Shagged nearly every broad in the kingdom. It gets very easy once you level up seduction fully
Went full Lannister with every sister and half-sister, somehow the resulting bastards weren't inbred
Somehow didn't get every STD known to man
Had so many lovers that they each got one, maybe two pixels in the window
Had more bastards than Robert Baratheon
A lot of lords thought they had children of their own, and boy, were they wrong!
Acknowledged every bastard, but didn't legitimize
My wife's opinion of me went below -1500
Lived to 59 and was bedding every fresh courtier right up until then
Also claimed the whole of Ireland, but who cares about that?

A couple generations later, give it another whirl a bit wiser
Once again get a string of lovers a mile long
Wind up with herpes and syphilis
Still seduce more women
Everyone in the kingdom has herpes. My reign now has a legacy!
Get "the Unready" as my nickname. Must be due to the massive pile of bastards I've created.
Women can be clergy now since I converted to Catharism a while back. The female priests are about as randy as the male priests. Bed them all, and they often instigate!
Seduce female vassals and potential co-conspirators on plots. It proves quite useful!
A male vassal being a pain? No problem. Shag his wife, his mother, his sisters, his daughters, and some of his wife's family, too. It's very satisfying even if they don't find out.
My wife hates me and tries to have me killed. Into the clink with her! Keep up the tomfoolery without worrying about her finding out. Nice!
Go crazy from syphilis and boink a rosebush. Have a kid with it. Huh?
Finally die of syphilis. Leave several Duggar's worth of bastards behind and the knowledge that everyone in the kingdom has sores on their naughty parts thanks to me.
It's good to be the king!

pour 1 out 4 chat
pour 1 out 4 chat

Possibly the best DLC for this game. Adds features that once you get used to them you aren't sure how to play without them. The full price is slightly steep, but it's well worth snagging on sale. The ability to refine your character a little bit as the player is great and rewarding without being game-breaking.

Yes, seduction was, as I understand it, quite broken in the early days of this DLC's release but IT IS FIXED, so ignore all the reviews complaining about seduction; you can no longer sleep with everybody all the time always, it's actually pretty easy to get rejected, just like real life!

Hugh
Hugh

I can fuck my sisters and (illegitimate and unrecognized) daughters with this DLC. 10/10
Playing one game as the king of England I managed to breed my own great granddaughter who was also my granddaughter and daughter.
That should be some kind of achievement.

Andariel Halo
Andariel Halo

Unless they severely nerfed the Seduction focus, or I haven't bothered to exploit it to its full gamebreaking potential, I don't see how this in any way lives up to the massive alleged game-breaking hate in the (real) reviews. Seduction is sometimes too effective, but I've never been overwhelmed by flirtation attempts as a female ruler, nor have I seen dozens of bastards spring up all the time. In my current playthrough starting from 800s and now in 1300, only one of my AI dynasty members chose Seduction and ended up with 4 bastard children.

The additions made by this DLC are fun for what they are, but there could be so many more and so much more to do for the asking price. On sale it's definitely worth it, but there's just not much for the base price.

And the ability to duel is so heavily regulated that at one point I was unable to duel with any character in my entire realm as an emperor over 3 kingdoms and 100+ vassals.

The only major downside (other than the AI abuse of Seduction, if it does still exist) is that this whole system replaces the previous bettering-yourself ambition system in which you could one by one select ambitions to improve your stats up to 8. Now that is an incidental part of the Focuses. Although considering the random aspect of Ambition events occurring compared to amount of time it takes to select a new one, this is still not that much of a change.

Scholar-at-Arms
Scholar-at-Arms

The Focus system is a huge improvement over the rather bland previous system of having ambitions to improve your low traits, with events firing at intervals. With this, I'm able to take much more of an interest in what my character is doing, and if I want to, plan his life out ahead of time, or shift focus to meet current challenges.

The only downside is the ridiculous Seduction focus, whic random counts banging out your wives, daughters, sisters, etc at all hours of the day and night. Fortunately there are mods to make it less absurd on the workshop, and with the latest patch you can now disable AI seduction without mods to make your Ironman playthrough less of a sea of herpes. With that caveat, this is highly recommended.

Gerhard Ænglandsfari
Gerhard Ænglandsfari

For those who are afraid of seduction focus bug:
In 2.6.2, when you start a new game (ironman or normal) you have an option to turn off the sedction focus for the AI.
This DLC gives a lot of fun and life for your gameplay, new events and features.
I strongly advise for you to buy this DLC, but it is not worth 7,99 so better wait for sale.

Pandolfi
Pandolfi

Always fun with more rp choices, and more ways to affect how your character develops. Some stuff could be a little more fleshed out, and i would appreciate even more variation in the random events. But all in all, it's one of those dlc's that feel crucial to my experience of the game.

Lemmiwinks, The Bird King
Lemmiwinks, Th…

Pros:
- Makes your character's life easier to manage, since their are paths to pick that grant 1 or even several points in health, which can be very helpful
- Gives you something to do during peace time
- Boosts your stats, and can make useless characters with horrible stats more useful
- Allows your character to do tons of things he wouldn't be able to as easily, such as make friends, lovers, prisoners, and this, way more easily than without this dlc. Makes vassal management so much easier.
- Can give you tech points since you have extra stats, which make you waste less time when you want to reach Imperial admin or absolute monarchy
- You get way more control on who your characters are. If you want your ruler to be a womanizer, an impaler, or a man of science and/or faith, you can make him so.

Cons:
-The intrigue and seducer focus are somewhat broken for the AI. You can deactivate them for them if you share my opinion, but its not the same as having them working well so yeah, thanks for allowing us to disable these two but id prefer to have them in working condition.
- Expensive for what it is, i dont think its worth so much for what it offers.
- ways of life have at most 1-2 event chain per branch, which means, you can have 9 generations in row figuring out that the sun is at the center of the universe, 9 scholar type ruler which is kinda ridiculous. You wont feel as invested the 79th time you see it pop up than you did at the first one.
- Feels like way of life ends up giving out the stress and depressed trait a whole fucking lot, which really gets annoying after a while because they always end up affecting the best characters

All in all, a good dlc that you shouldn't buy full price. It improves the game imo but its far from perfect.

Bungle
Bungle

It pretty much makes every play through the exact same after like 3-4 playthroughs as a dynasty. Whether that be short or not, it's not that great of a dlc and I wish I could refund it and get a different one like the muslim dlc. That one is pretty worth it and I'd say get that one instead

Princess Milky
Princess Milky

Basically allows you to play "How many babies can I link back to my bloodline in some way?"

I played for like... 300 years in one family and decided to see what my family tree looked like.... I had a f-ing cousin that was an acknowledged illigetimate near where Russia should have been and another few in Africa... I was shook.

Greatot
Greatot

The hate for this DLC is... weird. It mainly just adds new content and new events for your character. you can still pick ambitions but with this you can also pick life focuses which will give you various events increasing your stats.

If you keep picking the same focuses, sure, you'll see the same events. But that's nothing unusual or really negative. For example, if you pick the hunting focus, almost all your leaders will be given dogs through an event. Or in my most recent leader's case, 3 dogs. However, the ultimate fate of that dog can still differ, so I wouldn't say this becomes repetative.

The biggest problem when the DLC launched was (as you can guess by all the old reviews nobody bothered to update) the seduction option. Which was largely nonsensical and silly, and would cause a crap ton of problems. I have been told this has been tuned down since. I simply disable the AI from using that option in the rules menu at the start of the game, which completely elimantes the problems.

So do I recommend this DLC? Absolutely. It simply expands on your characters and adds new events. For the price it's at, it's paradox-reasonable and paradox-worthit.

MilesTereo
MilesTereo

So I tried to get the achievement that requires you to have six friends. After countless unsuccessful tries to convince family members what a swell fellow I was, my ruler died alone and friendless. Turns out I can't even make friends in games.

Do I recommend this DLC? Sure, but not at full price and you shouldn't expect too much. It changes lifestyles and allows for greater customization of your ruler, but I wouldn't consider it essential. Also, as has been stated countless times, Paradox have taken DLC in a somewhat redundant but annoyingly necessary direction starting with Horse Lords or maybe even earlier. So if you don't want to support that more power to you.

hurepoix
hurepoix

Way of life is supposed to be one of the best ck2 dlc. However it really suppress ambitions to gain points if you are belows 8, and chain events that go with. Instead you choose to gain 3 points where you want and it lead to a other kind of chain events. I m really not impressed, it is very light for a dlc, and imo dont worth even at summer sales price.

golan
golan

It is an expansion that adds a single gameplay feature and corrects the corresponding text messages that make it work properly. And there's nothing else under the hood. Are you kidding me? So glad I got it on discount. I'm happy to support continued development, but would also like serious support from the devs. This should have been part of an actual expansion, it is definitely not a serious way to show that this title continues to receive serious support from Paradox. It is also a change in business practices on the go, a thing they eventually understood it is causing friction in of itself. But this is still sold separately. So be warned.

Tashmetu
Tashmetu

"Several publishers have been getting hit with massive amounts of negative reviews on Steam recently, most notably Paradox for stripping away features that are essential to their games and hiding fixes behind DLC, which left many players feeling like the vanilla versions of the games were being made intentionally unplayable."

Chooras
Chooras

One of my favorite expansions. It adds a lot to the "role-playing" element of the game, offering new possibilities to expand your characters. The focuses offer a nice way to improve your ruler's skills and a variety of events, which can be quite amusing. Not anything ground-breaking, but get it on a discount and you shouldn't regret it.

Turd*Viking
Turd*Viking

I thought EA, Ubishit, and Activision is bad enough.... then I met Paradox from Sweden.......

Someone needs to remind them that this is video game industry, not furniture making factory......

Shame I like CK2, HOI4, and Cities Skylines, but the publishers bumped up the prices of certain DLC.....

Therefore I would only recommended u to buy it when on sales

Mexaddon
Mexaddon

TL;DR: Paradox is like a merchant that sells you the box of a puzzle containing only the 4 corner pieces, and then procedes to tell you that if you want to see the rest of the puzzle, you need to pay individually for each one. In exchange, they promise you to work hard each week for a new puzzle piece, ensuring you they are hard to create and time-consuming. Each week, you pay the price for the new piece. At first, you are excited to see how they fit and what will it look like. Then some weeks pass and you start feeling like this wasn't such a thrill after all, playing with an incomplete puzzle. By the time you don't enjoy the game anymore, you're already hooked and can't stop paying the price of each piece until you can finally have all of it, all under the promise that it will get better once it's complete. By the time the final pieces start arriving, you've already assembled the puzzle multiple times with the pieces you had. It's at this point you realize this felt very much like a scam and feel extremely stupid for trusting someone that sells you a game in pieces.

Let me put you in my personal perspective about Paradox's marketing ways:

Mount and Blade: Warband, a game created by Taleworlds on a very poor engine and featuring a very poor campaign in it's release state, is nothing more than a base for the community to use it to create the best thing imaginable within the boundaries of what the engine lets them create. Taleworlds, being a tiny studio with a mediocre budget, successfully ensured that the core mechanics of every M&B worked as best as possible and that the game was ridden of bugs to ensure that not only multiplayer worked but also that content-creators would perfect the game by letting the community decide what was the best direction for it. There's only so much a dev can do to a game before it becomes too expensive to create, thus reflecting it in the final price. This in turn results in rising developers creating projects for their portfolio to help them in their future careers.

[Grand Strategy game name placeholder], created by Paradox, is a game made on an engine that, after 4 years of development, still struggles to accept/run mods, can't run multiplayer without crashing or desynching constantly from other players (and don't even think on mp rounds using mods), until last year still lagged a lot when played at full speed and was prone to crashes. It took almost a year for it to even have decent loading times on an HDD. Paradox believes that they should be the only ones to decide what direction to take in a mostly-singleplayer game, and their unwanted/unexpected changes come to a heavy cost to your wallet. Paradox is a company that releases a game in a state that could easily be called "alpha" due to the lack of any noteworthy mechanics, and charges the player base every 6 months which is when a major patch is released, all while hiding behind a mask of underfunded, indie devs who need their fans' support to keep developing the game. They lie straight to your face by claiming these are "expansion packs", ignore your suggestions and delete your complaints on the forums, ruin every mod that is ever developed by constantly changing the version of the game and ultimately dismiss you as a customer. They won't even let you roll back to a previous version of the game because they released an extremely useful/required mechanic contained in their newest expansion pack, instead of within the patch that contains a bug/balance-fix, to play the game the way it was meant to be played from the start.

In resume: don't buy from those that promise fullfillment at the end of an expensive road. Buy from those that give you that fulfillment since the beginning, or let YOU tune their product to reach that fulfillment.

Saxton Fail
Saxton Fail

Love the DLC! But the trailer just showed us that you can pick Focuses and Have sex with your relatives. But There is much more than that! You can unlock New options like Dueling, Partying, and Even building your own observatory like that one Dexter guy!

This is one of the best DLC's I've got from Paradox. (And thats saying something) Although paradox makes many DLC's and Makes a tyrants tax out of their prices, Some are worth the price. (SOME!)

What I'm saying is that this is a piece of art and Workship! I recommend for you to get it.

octopiii
octopiii

Gives a lot to do during non warring times. The focuses are great and add interesting abilities. When it first came out they weren't correctly balanced; that's been fixed and this is a great addition.

Born in Sin
Born in Sin

This is one of the best "minor" DLCs you can get for CK2 honestly. It is relatively cheap for a PDX DLC pack and adds in content that affects gameplay and is relevant to everyone because, unlike region-focused DLCs like Horse Lords and Sword of Isla, its mechanics are open to all.

If you are a fan of CK2, Way of Life is a must-buy. It is certainly worth $8.

FuscusNight
FuscusNight

Easily the most essential DLC for CK2, the option to set a life focuse for a character so they get a skill boost and even an ability such as to seduce,duel or go hunting are big pluses to the base roleplaying aspect to the game. On top of that, the game adds a ton of new events for your ruler that are fun to do, if you had to pick only one DLC as a newcomer, A Way Of Life is the way to go.

Voidrin
Voidrin

Need help i just bought it this dlc now and it's not showing up on my installed dlc list. Bought the Legacy of Rome too but it's installed. I have more than enough gb so why is it not on my installed list

wspray87
wspray87

Increases your capacity for role playing in the game, providing a nice distraction from the grand strategy. Lots of events and options added to the game for all cultures/religions.

Attenborough
Attenborough

With this flavor DLC I seduced my sister and we had a daughter together, then were both murdered by her husband.

Get when it's on sale, pretty nice.

I CAN EVEN LIFT THIS HEAVY ROCK
I CAN EVEN LIF…

Be me: Duke of Cornwall
Want to take over all of Britannica
See the filthy French step onto my glorious Island.
Proceed to pick the seduction focus and cuck France until the end of time.
Eventually create inbreds.
Make sure my inbreds become King of France.
Watch as France slowly declines and start taking their land.
TL;DR - Cucked France into submission.

The DLC is pricey, although cheaper than actual expansions. Like with everything else, wait for a sale and buy it.

BlueReap
BlueReap

Ok so I bought the regular game a long time ago and it ran fine then I buy this dlc and now it crashes at processing files so ty for taking my 8$ and not letting me be able to run the game.

AnusChewer
AnusChewer

While the price is a little high (should be $5), this expansion is essential. It adds a ton of events and interactions to the game that add so much to the RPG part. While I'd usually say wait for a sale because of the price, what's here is just too good to pass up.

Jon2003
Jon2003

Only bought when price was -90% on a steam sale, the only real time (maybe not even then) its acceptable to give paradox more money for this kind of content.

hegel
hegel

Probably the best DLC relative to price. Focuses are really nice, but it is so much more than that. You get new interactions based on your chosen way of life and there are loads of new events related to it that make the game simply more interesting and flavorfull.

Strongly recommend, and the lower price tag is also nice.

Topher Seoul
Topher Seoul

This DLC is my top recommendation for new players. Basically, it adds many of the RPG elements that make this game so gloriously & hilariously replayable.

Step 1: Get base game on sale
Step 2: Get Way of Life
Step 3: Get another DLC that suits your fancy.

That should cost you about $20 USD, a good deal. From there, you can always get more DLC later.

Whodunit
Whodunit

This is one of the cheaper and better Expansions for Crusader Kings 2. Really flavors up playstyles and I can't play without it now. Get it on sale if you can wait.

Mr. Yap
Mr. Yap

The ability to set focus is great, it was a very game changing experience the first time I played it.
It's a must have DLC as it really adds to the roleplay mechanic of the game.

dennizenx
dennizenx

used to be I only had a few 'special'/intrigue events pop off once in a while. now, with the WOL DLC I am much more the master of my destiny. chosing hunting has given me a cat, a dog, and depression over said cat chasing my dog through the courtyard and off into the woods.... but I also built an observatory pursuing knowledge, and I built a colossal tower to attract new people and business to my realm. I've had it for a while and there's still more for me to learn in this simple, expansive DLC. on sale; this is a must have for anything $5 or less, for sure.

WOL really does give you more control than just aspiring to be on council in some capacity. though I do miss some of the old aspirations, I would not go back. IMO WOL DLC is AOK.

also seems to add several 'random' social events related to skronkin on maidens, playing board-games, making friends, etc.,

Uth Matar
Uth Matar

I recommend but not at retail price. Paradox is a bit excessive with all minidlcs that should go with major dlcs.

This is a nice addition, but you'll forget about it after playing with 3 o 4 heirs.

Sprayface
Sprayface

it is absolutely absurd that I had to buy this to have an even slightly enjoyable campaign.

just a bunch of grifters. Only dlc I'm getting and it definitely wasn't worth it.

Lysmerry
Lysmerry

If you're going to get any expansion, get this one. It allows you to change your play style, The seduction route helps you get many many heirs if you need them. I did find myself leaning on the seduction route to seduce women (and men) with good traits a bit too much in my playstyle, but it's really fun. The other 'ways of life' can also be helpful if you are low in a certain area (for example, martial) and would like to up your ability, but I wish they impacted the game as much. Anyway, it can help you kill off your rivals.

Alestroz
Alestroz

Definitely the most important DLC for CK2 that will make it so much easier to forget sleep exists. Well worth the price, especially if you get it on sale.

Tovarishch
Tovarishch

10/10 would lose my strong attractive genius heir in a hunting accident again, but at least there's doggos

CatsAreOkay
CatsAreOkay

I Need to Go Hunting Right Now!

Way of Life attempts to add new "role-play" mechanics to the game. Instead of having just those generic "ambitions", you can now pick multiple "focuses" to try to add some "spice to the game". Each focus is in its own category that corresponds to each of the attributes (learning, martial, diplomacy, intrigue, and economic). Picking one will increase your stats for that category by a small amount, as well as add various unique events, decisions, and sometimes even gameplay options. For example, picking the "war" focus lets you duel people, while picking the "family" focus will sometimes cause an event that increases your relations with family members. Some focuses are clearly less useful than others, however, and I find myself just using the same two ones for every character. Still, the events add much-needed "flavor" to the game so you have something to do while you wait for the peace timer to expire. Even with this, you'll run into a problem where you're going to be experiencing the same events over and over again, and you may even become irritated with this. This is especially an issue where you may be getting the same outcome for some of them no matter what you do. This is strange to me because there are events that add unique traits, but sometimes you may not even come across them for the all 60 years you have the same focus. The events themselves are painfully limited as well, where you'll just click through the same options because you already saw it all before a hundred times. Overall, this is overpriced and should have been a free update (like most of Paradox's DLC).

Update 2/18/21: Paradox recently added a subscription element to CK2. I will no longer recommend any of the DLC as I feel this game should no longer be supported.

DCampbell
DCampbell

An excellent expansion - the Focus mechanic will be useful in every game of CK2 you play, and all 10 of the Focuses have their advantages depending upon your character's circumstances and your playstyle. The ability to switch your character's Focus after 5 years means you're not even stuck with a choice you regret for very long.
They also added a lot of fun events, which I know I would miss if I had to (for some reason) go back to playing without this expansion.

((((Semyon The Great))))
((((Semyon The…

this is great, but not THAT great. there used to be rather crazy issues with unbalanced and lecherous AI. there's still kinda not much content at all, per focus. there are often big limits to them. and of course they stay pretty random.

not nice:
- generally long cooldowns (that's pretty clumsy too), really slow MTTH for many events to happen, which you could botch right away hardly learning.

- rulership focus tends to stress you no problem even before any gains at all, but then you might not switch from it and that's pretty dooming. or exploitable?

- decision / events popping about seriously debuffing yourself for any stray kid in court to get decent, but weak, traits hardly meant for them - that's crazy and i think there isn't much fix to it

- something like family focus is pretty light, still random and indecisive booster, one of those where you don't damn focus any actively on anything.

- the (not) magic fertility. even almost the most OP ever and ~unstoppable seduction focus is hardly a guarantee to have any tumble matter. there's even some bug / glitch or idk what - that some sort of same person attempts, when rolled bad, don't ever give effect. + however the wanted seduction counts for progression are still huge and very clumsy. so ultimately - while seduction is relatively magic way to surpass magic limit to (maximum) children beyond randomness (however, you can't quite mix it with staying or working in wedlock, this is pretty stupid too, i.e. can't even seduce wife as lover, if already married, but not otherwise) - it's still not much guarantee and clumsy, the obscure and laughably fertility % remains. some of the only fix for yourself is using stuff like legal very easy difficulty for +50% ferility, which is supposed to be ~double of baseline, that may just mean you don't need over 9000 courtiers to get any effect, though due to randomness, you might still need, lol
(besides, fertility and health are strangely NOT inheritable whatsoever, and only slightly varies)

- +1 health from focuses is some pretty big control and buff, that may look bit out of place / unjustified / illogical in some cases, i.e. both leading healthy life or near secluded somber theologist's - both count the same and better than ever other similar, i.e. scholarship or war / 'tabletop wargamer strategist'

// as with many other dlcs, its best role might be as a new system expansion for modding / coding.

TsarBrick
TsarBrick

Way of Life is a great expansion because it really adds more character to the game. With Way of Life, you will be able to specialize your traits in a specific area. In addition, the many new events add a lot the the gameplay experience. Overall, I would recommend.

amu javad
amu javad

Now i can easily seduce someone's wife and then duel them and kill them better than waiting million years for your plot to fire off.

Catapult
Catapult

A must-have for all CK2 players, doubles the amount of content for every ruler regardless of culture/religion/government.

TheWarriorWraith
TheWarriorWraith

You kind of need it for the real feel of being a medieval lord

kony
kony

The best RPG-focused expansion available to CK2. It is well worth the money. If you play CK2, then WoL is basically a must-have!

DURANDAL
DURANDAL

finally the expasnsion where i can seduce my mother

RedFurryDemon
RedFurryDemon

- it should have more events for its price
- not enough events for rulership focus, especially

+ good DLC for any sort of character
+ allows you to have a dog
+ allows you to study holy texts
+ allows you to pursue research
+ allows you to participate in tabletop wargaming
+ allows you to seduce a rose bush and have an offspring with it

Papa Thrash
Papa Thrash

We’ve been trying to reach you about your car’s extended warranty

Caustic shrike
Caustic shrike

outcry while keep throwing money at pdx does nothing.
i stopped throwing money at pdx long enough, so a negative review is due.

Jakob Fel
Jakob Fel

While the base Crusader Kings 2 is a fully playable grand strategy game, the DLCs certainly add loads of extra content to the mix. Way of Life is probably the one I'd consider to be the most important, at least when it comes to my playstyle.

If you're like me and your favorite part of this game is how you get to roleplay just as much as you get to rule and manage your land, Way of Life is certainly the first DLC you should buy. It takes the roleplaying that the base game already gives you and adds to it significantly. You can now choose what your character focuses on at any point in time, from being a family man building a strong family to a seducer that has a billion lovers. From being a warmongering scourge to a pious scholar.

Each life focus that you choose gives you unique ways to play and manage your dynasty. Some of these focuses add unique events while others give you deeper variety in the ways that you interact with others. This just further accentuates the fact that the CK series is meant to be a mashup of grand strategy and RPG, which is why it's my favorite PDX grand strategy series after Stellaris.

Way of Life is absolutely an essential expansion and a fantastic place to start your journey into this game's massive amount of DLC. That said, as with all PDX expansions, I highly recommend waiting for sales as they always only add to the base game's content (which is why I don't really have that big of an issue with their business model as some do). However, if you don't mind paying full price for content like this, just know that it's certainly worth it as it adds a lot of possibility to your interactions and roleplaying.

Tora
Tora

This DLC is really good. But it's so integral that I think it should be in the base game.