Crusader Kings II is currently free on Steam and will stay on your account if you add it until Saturday 10am pacific time.

The game is also DRM-free. You can download it with the Steam command line downloader SteamCMD and play it without ever installing the Steam client.

Source

Might as well...

Although with my privacy settings, every time i log into steam to turn in a key or get a free game, i gotta get a token because they don't recognize my browser... Makes 2 step annoying..

Thanks for the heads up I already have it over there or aid be all over this.

Thank you!

Ah, well. I don't approve of Paradox' DLC policy, but it has been recommended to me by several friends, so I guess I take it while it's free... who knows when I'm going to play it, anyway.

Thanks, I was waiting for Complete Edition (~2043, I suppose), but for the price it's worth trying now ;)

It is good entry for those who don't own the game yet as it is enjoyable experience but it is also quite obvious they do it to herd in more people who will then buy millions of their infinite DLC content.

They fund those games almost exclusively from DLC nowadays anyway so why not give the base game away for free.
When there were fewer of the DLC they had it as additional source of money but they turned it into main one.
They don't even make them as cheap as they used to. Latest 75% off deal on their DLC was back in 2014, since then they only make smaller discounts.

Best way to try its rich gameplay !

Thx for the tip buddy. Will go get it!

I own Crusader Kings here but Knights of Honor over there. Picked up the second one, then.

I grab the game, but they give me a gift Crusader Kings II: South Indian Portraits 5 Year Anniversary. :)

The more DLCs a game has, the bigger the discount. On the base game, of course.

Hey look. 5% of the game is FREE !! Woot.

*shrug* the game has a start, middle and end, with lots of content and it is perfectly playable without any of the extra fluff.

I don't know. I bought it long ago, heavily discounted. Haven't played it yet, because "oooh for the real experience you totally need THIS and THAT expansion, which adds THAT and THIS dimension" [don't even quite remember which ones it was, religions or stuff like that].

And my point is more general. Fragmenting a game into DLCs is, I noticed it on gog aswell, a great way to look like you're offering generous discounts (like 75% on the base game) while keeping the discount minimal on the DLCs. It looks more like creepy fish hook investments, aimed to facilitate further expenses. It's annoying to look at game discounts and having to ask "wait, which portion of the game is discounted how much now". Such giveaways are an extreme case of this.

I wonder how many people, amongst those who are getting it for free, will (or are expected to) play it for free.

You know, it always makes me laugh to see people complaining about getting free stuff. Obviously, giving the base game away for free is a way to get new players, hoping some of them will be hooked enough to buy DLC or even other Paradox games. They're not a charity after all.

But the fact remains that the base CK 2 without any DLC is an excellent game in its own right. Whining about how getting it for free is a marketing ploy is ridiculous imo.