Earlier this year, we talked about a mod that allows players to combine the strategy gameplay of Crusader Kings III with the battles of Mount and Blade II. This mod, known as Crusader Blade, has just released version 1.0 for all you fans of medieval warfare.
Revealed back in March, this mod acts as a go-between that allows the two games to share information and have it affect the other game. While playing CK3, players will play through the game normally until one of their armies gets into a battle. From there, they can elect to join the battle, which causes the mod to take information such as troop counts and the type of terrain and sends it to M&BII through a special gateway. Using that data, the game makes a map in M&BII, populates it with troops, and allows players to fight their CKIII battle there. When the battle is over, the mod sends the casualty information back through the gateway and uses it to determine how the battle went in CKIII. Both games have to be running for the mod to work, but one game's process will stop while the other is running so as to help minimize resource consumption.
Crusader Blade is currently on version 1.09, and there's plenty more that the team is working on. While siege battles are a thing in both games, the mod currently doesn't allow players to partake in them. Most likely due to how sieges work in CKIII versus M&BII.
Crusader Blade can be downloaded from itch.io here, along with the instructions for installing and using it. You'll need to own both Crusader Kings III and Mount and Blade II in order for the mod to work.
