Silk and Silver is the other half of Crusader Kings III’s Chapter V line-up. Where By God Alone is the religion overhaul, Silk and Silver is the economic one: a new expansion that promises to rework the economy of the entire game. It was announced as part of the Chapter V reveal in April 2026, and it is still in active development. As of this guide, the developers have published six dev diaries on it, and the most recent one, from September 15 2026, confirms they are deep in the iteration phase, still refining systems based on feedback. There is no confirmed exact release date yet, with the expansion expected by late 2026.

One quick clarification before we start: this is not By God Alone. The two are separate, unrelated expansions in the same content pass, and it is worth keeping them distinct. By God Alone is about the Church and religious systems. Silk and Silver is about trade, cities, and the power of money. If you are here for the trade rework, you are in the right place.

The material below comes from the official developer diary series, read directly, cross-corroborated against independent press coverage. Because the project is explicitly still iterating, treat everything here as a strong picture of the design rather than locked-in final mechanics.

Merchants and Republics: the two new government types

The heart of Silk and Silver is a pair of brand-new government types: Merchants and Republics. They sit at opposite ends of the same commercial idea.

Merchants are landless. They live on trade, moving goods and money between markets rather than ruling territory. Republics are the landed version: small, tightly-packed city-states inspired by, but not limited to, historical Venice, Florence, and the free cities of the Holy Roman Empire. Paradox frames them as a playstyle for people who do not want to go wide and build a massive realm, and who would rather focus on internal politicking, scheming, changing laws, and trade. Every republic has a ruler plus patricians who trade in some fashion to fund their political endeavors.

Republics feature a unique assembly voting mechanic. Players have to navigate internal politics and buy influence to stay in power, because big decisions are made in the assembly rather than by royal decree. Noble families within a republic have their own ambitions and can influence laws through parliament, pursuing their own political influence. The court of public opinion weighs more heavily here than under a monarchy: being a very unpopular ruler in a republic can have real consequences.

Republics also grow differently from normal realms. Instead of seizing territory, a republic develops its capital and gradually raises its level, expanding inward rather than outward. Merchants can travel to and from a Republic and retain their accumulated improvements when they do, which makes the two government types natural partners.

There is a real historical thread underneath all of it. Many famous historical republics began as communal city-states before growing semi-tyrannical under the grip of a single family, and the developers are explicitly drawing on that arc. They wanted families to matter, and to both squabble and plot together, which is why the patrician dynasties sit at the center of the experience.

The most recent dev diary digs deeper into the merchant side and introduces the pieces that make a merchant company tick: Merchant Monopolies, Trade Expertise, Trade Contracts, a Company Domicile, and the merchant’s relationship with their Patron. Competing merchant families are a focus too, with the developers showing how they push up against each other. None of this should be read as final, since this part of the system is exactly what the iteration phase is reshaping. The merchant side of the expansion now has its own dedicated deep-dive.

Trade, routes, and commercial rivalry

The trade system is the other half of the expansion, and it is built around roughly 900 distinct duchy markets. Merchant governments move goods across the map, with silk and silver as the named examples, to meet specific building requirements. The result is realm prosperity tied to real supply lines rather than passive gold generation.

Merchants get two types of trade routes. Regular trade routes are their own business, built for profit. Commission routes are created specifically by order of a ruler, who hires a merchant to move goods between markets. A merchant can hold up to four commission routes at once, depending on their company size level. The merchant receives an upfront lump sum for starting one, but acts only as a middleman: they cannot assign traders, make changes to the route, or earn Trade Expertise or monthly income while it is active. Commission routes last ten years, and a merchant can cancel one early if a better offer comes around, refunding some of the money and picking up a secret tied to a new fame trait called the Dealbreaker.

Routes are managed by a dedicated trader role, which can increase a route’s profitability, capacity, or trading expertise. The better your trader, the more value you extract from each line.

Competition is a contact sport. Rivals can be lured away, sabotaged, stripped of trading privileges, or absorbed entirely through mergers or hostile takeovers. If you have played the trade side of EU4, the strategic shape here will feel familiar, and the site’s EU4 trade power, merchants, and steering guide and EU4 trade companies guide cover the equivalent systems in depth.

Loans are a separate system that sits on top of all this. Merchants can issue gold to a ruler at interest, gaining leverage and expecting repayment over time. Money in Silk and Silver is a political weapon as much as a commercial one.

Trade posts and trade leagues: the Hanseatic hook

Trade Posts are a new kind of district that a republic can establish in someone else’s territory. Every county in the world can have one, though your patricians are limited in how many they can hold at any one time. Posts serve as forward bases for commerce: they can negotiate culturally exclusive mercenaries, or improve goods prices via specific buildings, pulling foreign territory into your commercial web whether its ruler welcomes it or not.

Trade leagues are the collective version of that ambition. Explicitly inspired by the historical Hanseatic League, they let multiple republics pool their resources and dominate markets together. The developers position a successful league at the top of the game’s hierarchy, with members able to overpower less well-connected rivals through sheer combined influence.

Buying victories is about to get much harder

One of the quietest but most significant changes is a hard limit on mercenary usage. The developers are introducing a cap specifically to stop players from simply buying military victory, something they note was always curious: anyone with a lot of money could in theory throw enough gold at a war to win it.

Republics start with a slightly higher mercenary limit than other government types, to compensate for their generally lower inherent military strength. The goal is to reward players who are actually good at war, not just rich.

And a final reminder on where this all stands. Silk and Silver is still deep in the iteration phase, with systems being tuned against community feedback, so none of what is described here is locked-in final design. This guide is a living document and will be updated as new dev diary entries publish. The broad shape is clear, though: trade becomes a battleground between merchant dynasties, and the economy of the entire game is about to change.