Put on your hat and mittens, because Crusader Kings 3 is planning on dropping some snow on your medieval kingdoms. Paradox Interactive have revealed that winter is on the way in the strategy game’s 1.3 patch, which will cover your map in a smattering of the white stuff as the season progresses. Winter isn’t just about the aesthetics, though, the severity of season will affect how well your loyal subjects cope.
“As winter approaches, the map will gradually get covered in snow, clearly showing the extent of the freezing cold. The system itself is fairly flexible and allows for a great degree of control, as we can set which provinces should experience winter, and which shouldn’t,” reads the latest dev diary.
“Winter won’t be limited to just the northernmost parts of the map, so expect snow to appear in places such as the Persian Mountains, or on the heights of the Tibetan plateau.”
CK3’s winters will be either mild, normal or harsh, with each affecting your armies differently. A harsh winter, for example, will mean you lose more supply each month, and your troops will suffer more fatal casualties in battle.
The cold weather will have varying effects on your men-at-arms, too. While cavalry units will struggle and perform worse the harsher the winter is, other units like the Tibetan mountaineers will get bonuses because they’re plenty used to all that snow up in the mountains.
I bet that extra damage comes from putting rocks in their snowballs.
When winter sweeps through your holdings, you’ll see folks scurry away indoors. There’ll also be snow storms for both mild and harsh winters that could do some damage to your armies if they’re out and about.
On top of that, CK3 will see a few map updates in patch 1.3. The devs say the baronies in Ireland were a little too big, so they’re adding a few more of those and a couple of new counties to break up the land. Italy also is getting some new baronies, because the team felt it “generally had a bit too few holdings per county”.
There’s no word yet on exactly when this patch will be. For those of you looking for an update on CK3’s upcoming DLCs however, the devs point to the dates for Paradox Interactive’s games showcase next month, so I expect they’ll have something to reveal when March 13th rolls around.
