The Reaper’s Due Has Come To Crusader Kings II

Bring out yer dead, we’ve got a lovely wheelbarrow ready and waiting. Dynastic strategy and infanticide simulator, Crusader Kings II [official site], has received its latest add-on. The Reaper’s Due brings a bunch of new events and mechanics for Europe’s worst case of the sniffles. The Black Death will ravage the land and you’ll be forced to either fight against it or hide away in your castle with your pet cat. As usual, there’s also a free patch tweaking other issues, for all the peasants unable to find £7 in their coffers.

There already was a touch of plague going around in the towns and cities of CK II, but this DLC adds the Black Death as a larger threat, whose spread can be tracked in a new map mode that details all the illnesses affecting the land. You’ll be able to hire court physicians to diagnose and treat the disease in their own medieval way, as well as build hospitals to slow the malady’s expansion. As the plague sweeps across your provinces, the decreased population will have a knock-on effect, draining you of yummy taxes and so forth. But you can always hide yourself away and respond to the new event chains from your isolated quarters. Worst case scenario, you can become a crazy cat lady.

Meanwhile, a free patch has also been released for the poxy masses. You can read all those changes if you want but here’s some of the best bits.

• Eunuchs no longer fall for Irresistible Wenches
• Immortal characters are now immune to pruning
• Flanders is now properly part of France
• Concubines can now forgive you for kidnapping them
• Children and other characters unfit to lead troop will no longer lead siege defense
• Fixed name of Rupert the Red

You can grab the DLC from Steam for £6.99/$9.99. Happy days. Happy, plaguey days.