The last of the announcements from Paradox Insider today to be covered here on GOL is Crusader Kings III: Northern Lords, a Norse themed 'Flavor Pack' for one of 2020's best games.
Read the full article here: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2021/03/go-norse-in-the-crusader-kings-iii-northern-lords-pack-releasing-march-16
It's been over six months since medieval grand strategy game Crusader Kings 3 murdered its way into our hearts, and everyone's been eagerly awaiting news as to what's coming next. We've known today's Paradox Insider event was going to bring news regarding the historical strategy game's first serious slice of post-release content, and the first Crusader Kings 3 DLC has been revealed as Northern Lords.
The question is, will this be enough to satiate everyone's appetites? This first expansion is a 'flavour pack'. You might also know them as 'immersion packs', or even 'country packs' from some of the other games Paradox makes. These are essentially minor add-ons that focus on small features or thematic content, as opposed to introducing major new mechanics or overhauls.
Northern Lords mainly focuses on introducing new thematic assets for characters of the Norse culture. There will be new character art (including new hairstyles and clothes), new music, and new 3D models for things like holdings and units. There's also a bunch of scripted content involving new events, decisions, even legacies.
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Crusader Kings III is all about the grimy business of medieval politics, and while duels have existed in the grand strategy game since launch, they've heretofore been a bit abstract. It turns out Paradox has decided to add a completely new duelling system to Crusader Kings III, and it amounts to adding a whole new minigame that can pop up just about anywhere.
In the lastest Crusader Kings III developer diary, Paradox provides a detailed look at how the new duels system works. It'll be arriving in the big 1.3 patch, the free update that will be coming alongside the first major paid DLC pack. From that day forward, duels become a round-based minigame between two characters, who will select from a hand of ability 'cards' each round until the fight is over.
Paradox had a few fundamental goals with the new system. Duels had to be dangerous, always representing the risk of serious injury even when squaring off with a rank amateur. The system had to be reusable, or "easy to add anywhere in the script". The system had to work on "everything from strict honour duels to battlefield bouts to a knife fight in the tavern," the dev diary reads.
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