All good things must come to an end, and that includes your current Crusader Kings III campaign – or does it? Thanks to a team of enterprising modders, now you can carry on after the Fall of Byzantium by converting your Crusader Kings III savegame into a save for Europa Universalis IV.
The ability to convert Crusader Kings games into Europa Universalis IV games was added to Crusader Kings II as a pre-order bonus for Europa Universalis in 2013, and later sold separately as a DLC add-on. This allowed players to save the state of the world as it was at the end of Crusader Kings II’s timespan and roll directly into Europa Universalis IV starting in 1444 CE and letting you play all the way up to 1821.
The CK3 to EU4 Converter sets out to do the same thing, as you might expect, using saves from Paradox’s latest strategy game. It’s a standalone utility, not technically a mod, so it won’t affect how either Crusader Kings III or Europa Universalis IV behave while you play. Characters, country histories, rulers and heirs, and national boundaries are all read from the end state of your Crusader Kings III save and turned into a mod for EU4, which you can either load manually or through the utility front-end.
Of course, Europa Universalis IV is a very different game from Crusader Kings III, and so you won’t be playing as a dynasty once you shift to EU4. Rather, you’ll take control of a nation, and if things have gotten a bit ahistorical over the course of your CK3 playthrough, the converter will do its best to square things by naming newly-formed countries after dynasties, for example.
The team of modders behind this conversion utility have also created converters for porting Europa Universalis 4 saves into Victoria II, Victoria II saves into Hearts of Iron 4, and others. They’re currently working on one to port Imperator: Rome games into Crusader Kings III, so we’ll have to stay tuned for that one – and be sure to check out our growing list of Crusader Kings III mods while you’re here.
In the meantime, you can download the CK3 to EU4 Converter utility from either the Steam Workshop or the Paradox Forums, which also include links to installation instructions and documentation. This utility is still a work in progress, so there are some limitations in the current build (it doesn’t support Great Wonders yet, for example). Still, if you’re having trouble saying goodbye to your sinful royal family, this gives you a way to stick with them for a while longer.