While Paradox’s grand strategy game Crusader Kings III is set centuries before the present day, and so could be expected to have done little in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the development team have found one way to make a change, and that’s with the game’s spelling.
Like we saw yesterday with STALKER 2, Paradox have taken the increased scrutiny and awareness over differences in Russian and Ukrainian spelling in the wake of the war to change the name of a major city from Kiev, as it had traditionally been spelled in Crusader Kings III, to Kyiv, which is the local spelling.
Why does that matter? As this piece on The Guardian explains:
As Russian forces menace the Ukrainian capital and thousands flee, the very least onlookers around the world can do is learn how to say the name of the city under siege.
The short answer is simple: Ukrainians call their capital “Kyiv” (kee-yiv), the spelling, a transliteration of the Ukrainian Київ. The Russian version is “Kiev” (kee-yev).
The latter, based on transliteration from the Russian cyrillic Киев, became the internationally accepted name through the Soviet period and into the first years of this century, its recognisability enhanced perhaps by the eponymous chicken dish that became popular in the west in the 1970s.
But it is now associated with the Russification of Ukraine, and in recent years more and more publications, governments, airports and geographical dictionaries have switched the spelling to the Ukrainian variant.
The change actually took place on March 10, but there are a lot of patch notes to go through with this game sometimes, and I only noticed it after seeing this tweet earlier today.
Because this is Crusader Kings III, and we’re talking about patch notes, I couldn’t sign off on this blog without sharing some of the other highlights from the update, which include:
Fixed ill characters wearing helmets and coifs with their nighties
Adjusted effect of performance-enhancing drugs
Removed Anglo-Saxon id 90029 = ‘Edith’ was the name of Hereward’s mother, not his wife. Added Dutch id (pending) = ‘Turfida’ was his actual wife, raised in Saint-Omer.
Fatimah is now guaranteed pious traits
Cathars no longer believe in ritual suicide and now believe in reincarnation
Fix becoming malnourished sending the toast you became obese instead.
The Inventory button is now hidden for dead characters
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