The developers at Paradox are continuing to generate hype for the upcoming Crusader Kings III, that’s currently scheduled to arrive at some point in time this year, 2020. While their social media has been firing on all cylinders heralding the approach of the next iteration of the loved franchise, Paradox has also been offering a couple of free expansions for Crusader Kings II, which has recently become free to play.
Granted, it’s not a title for everyone; the amount of preparation and tutorials that you’ll need to chew through in order to confidently start your own game puts other titles to shame; expect hours of YouTube, a search engine open on another monitor, and a decent amount of perplexion when you’re first starting out. Once the bug bites, however, it doesn’t let go; Steam is filled with reviews from players hundreds of hours in the game, and they’re still not 100% sure in regards to what in the world is happening.
Paradox Studios is back with another entirely free expansion if you grab it this weekend, and it’s appropriately themed with the global climate; The Reaper’s Due.
The Reaper’s Due introduced a world-shifting event that occurred in 1347, that has henceforth been colloquially titled the Black Death. It was a devastating plague that arrived in Europe that ended up killing over 20 million people across the continent, after extolling a brutal sum from Asia. With boils suddenly covering the bodies of the afflicted, citizens could go to bed perfectly healthy only to never awaken again.
With dead citizens filling towns and cities, entire populations disappearing over as little as a week, production suddenly ground to a halt for entire countries as infrastructural facilities simply ceased. It permanently altered the face of Europe, with mass burials hastily erected to remove the further threat of plague.
The Reaper’s Due brings these mechanics into the fold of Crusader Kings II, with the Black Death itself now threatening your citizens, and moving across the continent. The expansion also adds new mechanics to help rulers combat the newest threat to their power. court physicians, a position for scholarly courtiers that can readily diagnose and treat the disease with the available technology. Hospitals can be constructed to slow the spread of various epidemics, caring for your ill subjects.
Your citizens will either swell or shrivel depending on how well rulers can protect them from epidemics and if the plague gets a bit too carried away, rulers can hide away in seclusion as the plague wraps its ethereal tendrils around the citizens of a land.
It’s definitely a timely offer with COVID-19 continuing to strike, and spread with quickening efficiency across countries around the world. While governments hem and haw over how best to deal with it, perhaps Paradox Studios has the right idea; lock yourself in your house and play Crusader Kings II until this whole thing blows over.
