[2023] Developer Diary - Crown of Iberia

A lil somethin somethin: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page here.

¡Hola a todo el mundo, y bienvenidos! In this week’s Development Diary, we will be talking about the content that we have created for Spain and the different Iberian countries, mainly Castile and Aragon, as they are the top runners for its formation.

First of all, for the redesign of Spain’s content for the upcoming DLC, we took a bit different approach than other countries that have been shown in the previous weeks, following this line of thoughts:
- We thought that its mission trees did not need a major overhaul, as it was already quite developed in Golden Century, covering most of the Conquest & Colonization paths required as Spain; therefore, we aimed to redesign its structure, adding a few missions here and there to get some extra flavor, and to rework triggers and rewards, to update them in line with the other Great Powers.
- We also decided to put more effort into adding more ‘mechanical content’ instead.
- On top of that, we also decided to add more unique content, linked to new game mechanics, but also to older ones, such as adding new Holy Orders for Golden Century owners, in order to keep adding more depth to the game as a whole.
- I tried to add some not-so-known chunks of Spanish History to the content, because, you know, I have a previous background as Historian!

That said, let’s get started with the new content for Castile! When we started designing it, we decided that nothing could be more iconic that adding another civil war disaster:


Note: Effects and numbers are not final, as usual.

The Infantes of Aragon[en.wikipedia.org] were the sons of Fernando/Ferrán I, the first king of the Trastámara dynasty in Aragon, and therefore cousins of Juan II, king of Castile; his first wife, María de Aragón, was their sister. Early in the reign of Juan II, they tried to puppet the king, and seize power, leaning on their large properties in the country, and the support they had from a big sector of the Castilian Nobility. This is also portrayed by a new starting privilege for Castile’s Nobility, which will cause the following disaster to progress:



A cursed start for Castile, I know, I know.

What will happen after the disaster fires is that this event will be triggered, giving two different choices to the player:




The disaster will now be possible to be ended, and as you may have noticed, it will impact the outcome of a new mission:



The first path will reduce the effects of the Factionalist Nobility, making it easier to get rid of it earlier, apart from giving a temporary boost to Juan II, but also comes with a bunch of rebels. The second decision means that the ‘Factionalist Nobility’ will be empowered, fewer rebels will appear, and it will give Castile early ‘Restoration of Union’ Casus Belli on Aragon and Navarra, as it means the supremacy of the same line of the Trastámara dynasty over all the three countries. But, on top of that, the event ‘Isabella of Castile’ won’t be triggered if you decide to back the Infantes in their fight against the king, thus making it more difficult to have ‘The Iberian Wedding’ event, and the peaceful unification of Spain. It’s up to the player to decide which path to follow, with its own trade-offs: Back the king and face the Nobility early on, or side with the Infantes, and aim for an early military push to form Spain.

Although the start of Castile will be troublesome, as there will still be the possibility of the 'Castillian Civil War' trigger, we wanted to make it rewarding to get out of it in any of the ways decided, and we also made a minor change in order that early game is a bit more bearable:


Enrique IV ‘the 0/0/0’ is nevermore a 0/0/0!

Now let’s move on to see what the new mission tree for Castile and then Spain looks like:

Note: As usual, the design and art of the tree are not final.

You may have noticed a big change in the redesign, as we decided to leave the upper half of the tree as the Conquest & Government part of it, while the lower half will be for Trade & Colonization. There is a reason for this, which you will see later on the DD. For now, let’s discuss the most important changes for the Castile path to Spain.

The right-most part of the tree is designed around a new set of missions covering the evolution of the Modern State in Spain in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The first one is about the final appeasement of the Castilian Nobility:




This leads to ‘Law and Order’, which will give nice flavor bonuses to the provinces of Valladolid and Granada until the end of the game, being the seats of the two main courts of justice in the country, the Reales Chancillerías[en.wikipedia.org]:




Related to these, although not connected to them, we have another set of 3 missions down in the mission tree that is about the Government of the Spanish Empire:



The first one will trigger the following event after completion:



The second is directly linked to the construction of the ‘El Escorial’ monument. Meanwhile, the third one will lead to a new mechanic we are implementing for Spain, the ‘System of Councils’, based upon the historical Polysynodial System [en.wikipedia.org] which will be unlocked by a Government Reform of the same name:




How is this mechanic working? It will open a new 0-100 progress bar, the ‘Council Consensus’, which will be slowly refilled depending on your Monthly Average Autonomy and Monthly Average Liberty Desire of your subjects. Numbers are still WIP, but our initial design is to make it so that the bar can be filled at 10 years the fastest, while not progressing at all if Monthly Average Autonomy and Monthly Average Liberty Desire are 100%:


Note: Ruler ability modifiers are placeholder ones to make the mechanic appear in the game, there is still some code support needed to make it fully work with the ‘Monthly Average Autonomy’ and ‘Monthly Average Liberty Desire’ that I’ve mentioned. Also, take into account that the other numbers are also WIP.

The ‘Council Consensus’ will give an increasing escalating effect, giving you Monthly Splendor and Administrative Efficiency, but that’s not its only benefit, as when you reach 100 ‘Council Consensus’, you may be able of spending that amount in one of the three Government Actions, tied to each of the monarch powers. After clicking the button, you will get +1 monarch power of the chosen type for 10 years, and an event similar to the Estate Agendas will trigger, upon which you might be able to pick one of the Councils of that branch to support for 10 years, getting an additional modifier for that period.






Note: UI is WIP, but in the last pic you’ve got the current design of the new buttons, for the ‘Royal Council’, the ‘Council of State’, and the ‘Council of War’, respectively.

So, coming back to the new mission trees, let’s go to the leftmost part of it. We have moved there the already existing missions for the Spanish Armada and Invade England, but we have added 3 more there, making it the ‘Military Branch’ of the mission tree:



The first mission, ‘Armies of Iberia’, will unlock the Navy and Army paths of the branch. But the meaty new content is on the Land part, to be honest, as we have created a new government reform for the Spanish Tercios:




Which is, obviously, a new type of Land Special Unit!


Note: Grey color is provisional.

This unit might be recruited from provinces of the Iberian culture group, and their availability will be increased by the Army Tradition that Spain has at the moment. So, that means that you will be able to recruit double the amount of Tercios if your Army Tradition is 100. About its combat performance, these units will have at the start the same modifier as Spain’s Tercios Age bonus, -30% Shock Damage Received (therefore, that means that we will change Spain’s Age bonus, although it is not yet decided, as we want to wait for a bit more to get results from our internal tests to give a proper new modifier).

But wait, this is not the end of the (Spanish) road! There is another mission, ‘Refine the Tercios’, which will allow you to modernize your Tercios units if you have a fixed number of Tercios (right now is 60, but this may change), and either 75% Army Professionalism or 90 Army Tradition, giving them the following effects on top until the end of the game, allowing Spain to extend the dominance of Tercios on the battlefields for a longer period than historically:


Note: Again, numbers are provisional, and might be changed.

This fits for us with the expanded Conquest missions of the tree:


‘Rein in France’ can be completed either by defeating or by allying with France, giving permanent Power Projection as a modifier.



‘The Spanish Road’ aims to connect your dominions in Italy with the rich (and maybe cursed) Netherlands, which will now grant a big reward if completed.



We have also reworked a bit the ‘Austrian branch’ flow and links and added a stronger reward for completing it (again, numbers are not final).



If you manage to complete all the different branches of Conquest & Government, you will unlock a ‘finishing mission’ for Spain, giving a reward to your now Universal Empire.

OK, now we’re done with the Hegemonic Ambitions of Spain, so let’s move to the lower part of its mission tree, devoted to Trade & Colonization. The first redesign we made covers the commercial expansion and the new maritime routes that were established at the Age of Discovery. By completing it you will get some nice commercial bonuses, but most importantly, you will unlock two new types of ships:




Here you have a new feature that we are adding to the upcoming DLC: Naval Special Units! A few countries will get them, on top of the 3 new special units that we have already presented (Samurai, Musketeers, and Tercios). And these are the Caravels and Galleons that are mentioned here:



After completing the ‘Reales Atarazanas’ mission, you will be able to recruit as much as 10% of your Naval Force Limit as this type of special ship (again, numbers are provisional).

This will help you with the Exploration branch, which we have not touched much, as it was already quite well developed. As you may have noticed, we have redesigned a bit the position and flow of the different missions, added a few different triggers and rewards here and there, and made a final mission after finishing the conquest of both México and Perú:



Here I’ve got to say that we have not added more content to the Colonial Nations and America. To be honest with you, it’s in our backlog, but it fell outside of the scope of the upcoming DLC, so this will have to wait for a future moment. What we are adding, on the other hand, is more types of Holy Orders, which will be part of the free update for the Golden Century DLC owners, and which will be the following ones (this list includes the 3 older ones, Jesuits, Dominicans, and Franciscans):

Monastic Orders (ADM)

• Benedictines
  
  • -1 Local Unrest
    
  • +10% Trade Goods Size Modifier
• Carthusians
  
  • -10% Local Construction Cost
    
  • -10% Local State Maintenance Modifier
• Hieronymites
  
  • +10% Local Tax Modifier
    
  • -10% Local Governing Cost
• Jesuits
  
  • +1% Local Missionary Strength
    
  • +10% Local Production Efficiency

Mendicant Orders (DIP)

• Augustinians
  
  • +1 Institution Growth
    
  • -10% Local Missionary Maintenance Cost
• Carmelites
  
  • +20% Local Religious Conversion Resistance
    
  • +20% Local Religious Unity Contribution
• Dominicans
  
  • +1.5% Local Missionary Strength
    
  • +10% Local Institution Spread
• Franciscans
  
  • -1 Local Unrest
    
  • -0.05 Monthly Devastation

Military Orders (MIL)

• Order of Calatrava (CAS/NAV)
  
  • +10% Local Defensiveness
• Order of Avis (POR)
  
  • +25% Local Sailors
• Order of Montesa (ARA)
  
  • +25% Local Garrison Size
• Order of Alcántara (LEO/AST)
  
  • -10% Local Fort Maintenance Modifier
    
  • -25% Local Construction Time
• Order of Santiago
  
  • +5% Local Manpower
• Order of San Juan
  
  • Blocks Slave Raids
    
  • -0.25 Local Monthly Devastation

A sneak peek of the new WIP art of the Holy Orders!

Let’s now move to Aragon! This country has received an update over its former mission tree, aiming at improving its game flow, but also to make it work with the Spanish one:



First and foremost, the mission ‘Intervene in Castile’ is new, giving the player different options for completing it:




But to achieve dominance over Iberia, you will have to tackle first your internal problems, mainly the inflight between the Remença Peasants and the Catalan Nobility that was ongoing in the middle of the 15th century. You will have to wait for the ‘Sindicat Remença’ event to trigger, which has been reworked, giving an extra option that leads to turning Aragon into a Peasant Republic:



This will open up the option of resolving ‘The War of the Remences’ mission, which will also allow you to deal with the Catalan Nobility, with different starting conditions depending on what you picked in the ‘Sindicat Remença’ event:




Afterward, you will be able to focus on the Conquest and Expansion branches of the mission tree:



‘Crowns of Iberia’ will give you the ‘Hegemon of Iberia’ modifier until the end of the game.


‘Consulate of the Sea’ mission and event have been reworked, opening up a new government reform:



‘Mediterranean Ambitions’ now unlock the expansion into the Eastern Mediterranean:


Some of the reworked rewards of the mission tree:





And, finally, if you manage to form Spain as Aragon, what will happen is that you will keep the Aragonese mission tree, AND you will get the Trade & Colonization branch on the lower half, making for a different mission tree than that of a ‘Castilian’ Spain:



Finally, we made a limited rework to the Spanish Ideas, to make it work a bit better with all the other content:

• Buffed Spanish Naval Doctrine
  
  • Move the 'A Spanish Armada' Idea modifiers to the Naval Doctrine
• Ideas
  
  • Changed 'Devout Catholicism' name to 'Devout Christianism'
    
    • Added Church Power and Fervor in case of being Protestant or Reformed
  • 'Treasure Fleet' replaced by the Castilian Idea 'School of Salamanca'
    
    • Added +10% Reform Progress Growth (also to Castilian Idea)
  • 'A Spanish Armada' now gets:
    
    • +25% Naval Force Limit modifier from Treasure Fleet
      
    • +25% Available Marines
  • Changed 'Rein in the Cortes'
    
    • -5 Reduced Absolutism from Privileges
  • New Idea order:
    
    • Devout Christianism
      
    • Inter Caetera
      
    • School of Salamanca
      
    • A Spanish Armada
      
    • Casa de Contratación
      
    • Siglo de Oro
      
    • Rein in the Cortes

And speaking of the Spanish ideas, we are currently having a debate in the team about what to do with the Artillery Fire modifier, if to keep them as they are in the different idea sets, or replace them with something else. On this topic, we would like to hear out the opinion of the community, as this might be somewhat of a controversial issue (so, please, be civic while debating it!)

And what about the other Iberian countries? We have also added new content for Portugal and Navarra! But we are going to talk about that in a couple of weeks, along with other countries which were not considered to be part of the ‘core’ of the upcoming DLC; but trust me, we’re not diminishing Portugal’s role in the Early Modern Age! In fact, this is also a good opportunity to share with us which tweaks you would want to see, as we’re right now polishing that new content. What I can show now is a sneak peek of something that the Portuguese players have been asking for a while, and that we have changed for good:


A wild Blue Portugal appeared! So many fado vibes <3

That’s all for today! I’ll be spending some time this week on the forums, reviewing all the feedback from this DD, and also of the previous one, so please leave your comments and thoughts on the new content! And next week, @Ogele will be showing the content for Great Britain!

Gonzalo, get the pike!