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CK3 Dev Diary #93 - Turmoil in the Peninsula

Greetings!

Winter is slowly fading behind us (at least in the northern hemisphere), and spring is starting to take over. A new season calls for an announcement. I’m happy to present you with our next Flavor Pack: Fate of Iberia, due to be released on the 31st of May! We are obviously talking about Mediterranean Iberia, not the former Kingdom in Georgia.

In addition to being one of the most played regions, the Iberian peninsula is interesting because of the complexity of the geopolitical situation, and the richness of the events occurring during the time period of Crusader Kings 3. It gives us a good opportunity to bring more flavor for both the Christians and Muslims living there.

With this new flavor pack, we want to offer you the opportunity to truly decide the fate of the whole peninsula, either by reenacting history or creating an alternative that pleases you more. In order to model the complexity of the situation, we are introducing a new system, the Struggle. It will be changing the rules and increasing the challenge for the rulers within the Iberian peninsula. You can have an idea of how the game will be affected in the screenshot below. The effects will vary a lot depending on the stage of the struggle, but we will go into details in the next dev diary :)

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The Struggle will both create new opportunities and add constraints for the rulers within Iberia.

A new 867 bookmark features a revamped Iberian cast of characters, giving players the perfect place to jump in and deflect history as they see fit. The Struggle will persist into the 1066 start date as well. The bookmark lets you choose between different vassals, either from the Christian Kingdoms, or Al-Andalus. Each of them offers different starting challenges and choices.. For instance, in the south, Emir Adanis and Ibn Marwan are both Dukes under the Sultanate of Al-Andalus. But they also are neighbors and rivals. Starting with one of them will certainly imply crossing swords and scheming against the other.

Screenshot of the new Iberian bookmark
The new 867 bookmark will be available for everyone, while being more interesting to experience if you own Fate of Iberia


We also seized the opportunity to update the map, refining the county and duchy divisions, as well as the cultures and faiths. This means the stage is more accurately set for the start of our game.

Screenshot of the new county division in Iberia

We mostly focused on the Northern part of the region.

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The new culture set up for the year 867


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The new faith set up for the year 867


You might have noticed the addition of the Mozarabic faith, but again, we will detail that in a future dev diary, along with the rest of the content you can expect from a Flavor Pack!

We are excited to go into the details and share all of this with you in the coming weeks! Until then, I wish you a lovely day and enjoy the trailer!


Cheers,

P.S.: While we do not expect the save versions to be incompatible, please make sure you wrap up your previous playthrough to ensure a seamless transition. If you encounter issues, you can of course roll these saves back to a previous version UNLESS you are playing in Ironman.
 
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Because this is a Flavour Pack for the whole region of Iberia, Portugal and Galicia are important parts of the region too and the de jure borders of Portugal and Galicia are a tad weird as is the requirement of forming Portugal. On the culture, Portuguese and Galician are very close, so having a Porto-Galician culture that divides to Portuguese and Galician in the right conditions would be interesting.
 
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So, will there be different 'Struggle' regions, each with their own version of the 'Struggle'? Or is it a blanket term, and the flavor changes depending where in the world you play? Or is it only unique to Iberia?
 
So, will there be different 'Struggle' regions, each with their own version of the 'Struggle'? Or is it a blanket term, and the flavor changes depending where in the world you play? Or is it only unique to Iberia?

At least for the time being, it would appear that the new mechanics are restricted to the FP's area of focus - Iberia - though it seems likely it may end up being reused elsewhere in the future.
 
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Yes, it would be nice!
They didn't add many new counties, mostly in eastern Iberia, but this is the perfect opportunity to fix the strange borders in Atlantic Iberia too
Splitting Portucale is based purely on the fact that it was simply too important, powerful and densely populated (It was the economic, political and military backbone of the entire kingdom of Portugal) to be represented as a single county with a mere four 8 dev baronies... (There was even a county of Barcelos within that area that didnt made it into the game as even a barony)
Spliting Coimbra is more due to the fact that there are baronies within that county that belonged to different political entities for over 300 game years.
 
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Splitting Portucale is based purely on the fact that it was simply too important, powerful and densely populated (It was the economic, political and military backbone of the entire kingdom of Portugal) to be represented as a single county with a mere four 8 dev baronies... (There was even a county of Barcelos within that area that didnt made it into the game as even a barony)
Spliting Coimbra is more due to the fact that there are baronies within that county that belonged to different political entities for over 300 game years.
Have you considered writing a suggestion thread?
 
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So, will there be different 'Struggle' regions, each with their own version of the 'Struggle'? Or is it a blanket term, and the flavor changes depending where in the world you play? Or is it only unique to Iberia?
Sorry small flavour pack no one else gets dlc
Were is this inbuild event chains mentioned?
Its not explicit but i cant see how you can model the events of reconquista when just monkeys at keyboards
 
That is exactly correct.

The parallel of what they did was precisely removing the Kingdom of England altogether, not simply removing William.
If there was still a Portucalese county in case of Vimara losing or not existing, then you could make the direct comparison with the Norman Conquest.

But there isn't, it's muslim Cordoba, you have metaphorically speaking removed the Anglo-Saxon invasions by a year and started in a Celto-Roman Britain (with 0 chance of such invasion ever happening)
OK, so you're suggesting that William not being allowed to invade sets England back by around 600 years to Romano-British?

That's a bit of a stretch.

And this is getting ridiculous overall.

We're both agreed that, broadly, he should start in a war for the area, and be in a position to win it.

If it turns out not to be the case, I'll gladly support the suggestion to make it so in one of the clean up patches that inevitably come along.
If there's something that says for definite he already had control over the land that makes up the county, and that it wasn't a case of "captured the only significant population centre, thus de facto owning all the land between there and the Asturian border", I'd even support reverting it to the old setup.

But as I said, Paradox must have some reason for making the change. Some source that backs it up, *but I don't have that* so I can't explain it.
What is known is that he conquered the region known as "Desert of Douro" by 868. Porto and Gaya only fell in that year. But the entire territory in-game, includes Minho, and a lot more territory than just 2 cities.

Vimara pratically liberated everything from Minho to Porto. Minho is a whole province by today's standards, just to give you an idea. Would be impossible to liberate what is known as the Duchy of Porto in-game in just 1 year back on the day. By 867, most must have been already in the hands of the christians. The region was known as a the "Desert of Douro" because it kept changing hands all the time and became a depopulated mess as a result - with Vimara Peres, making an entire difference and turning it into one of the centers of Power of the entire Kingdom, with many people considerating Vimara Peres as the first Portuguese as a result.

When Paradox doesn't even include "The First Portuguese" as an important character in an expansion like this - you already know how much they know about history in a DLC about Iberia.
Fully owned, or only occupied? Remember that territory with no holding in it falls with the county capital, so if there are no subsidiary baronies (say the county has only a weak city), a couple of months of siege can be enough to take the whole county.

And this is still only you saying "must have" owned it. If the area is that desolate, potentially capturing the only significant settlementts would have been sufficient to take control. Again though, a source that explains what he held at game start would be useful in getting me to change my mind, even if it's only what he'd captured in an ongoing war.
 
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I've written 2 threads since the game was launched actually.

You are quite dedicated it seems. I have given hope after all these years, though.

Also:

Afonso III of Asturias, by 867, was busy in Alava, dealing with an uprising in there. It is very likely that this was the reason why the liberation of the in-game Duchy of Porto was delayed. But to think that Asturias could have conquered such a large amount of land in only 1 year, with many important cities included, is a big assumption, IMO. Some, must have been already on Asturias' pocket.

On a side note, I find quite curious the geneology of Vimara Peres himself. Everywhere I read, it states that he was the grandson of King Vermudo / Bermudo, but in here it is quite different... Thoughts?
 
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Ohhhh this looks very nice! Should be fun to try out the Struggle system!

Did anyone figure out what was done with duchies and counties division? Were more baronies added?
 
On a side note, I find quite curious the geneology of Vimara Peres himself. Everywhere I read, it states that he was the grandson of King Vermudo / Bermudo, but in here it is quite different... Thoughts?
I've tried tracing the genealogy given in game, and it's not looking simple.

It shows an entirely different grandfather (who would also be Vermudo/Bermudo, if it was rendered in the same form as you're using), himself a grandson of Alfonso I if I'm reading this right.

Perhaps they have a different source making Vermudo, son of Vimar(a?? oir Vimarano) the grandfather rather than Vermudo son of Fruella? (And making Vimara named for his grandfather). This Vimar is listed as murdered by Fruella I in 765 on wiki, although he's a redlink, so no details are there.

Perhaps there's an error there, or just a different source. Or someone has confused one Vermudo with another somewhere along the line?
 
Ohhhh this looks very nice! Should be fun to try out the Struggle system!

Did anyone figure out what was done with duchies and counties division? Were more baronies added?
Top right of the picture in the initial post. It seems to be concentrated in the Catalan/Basque region.
 
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An interesting dilemma.

"Every region feels the same."

"Here, have some region-specific stuff."

"This should be available everywhere."
I'd imagine the idea would be that being involved in these various struggles would come with unique content(events, outcomes, and interactions) for each. Though I agree, I don't think necessarily every conflict zone needs a struggle. But it would be cool for some.

Personally, I am just hoping for two things. A) That it's fairly modular which given paradox's track record should hopefully be expected, and B(and most importantly) that there can be multiple struggles at once, at least for the sake of modders.
 
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Looks like a nice flavor pack. Must admit, it will almost certainly get me to spin up CK3 for the first time since November 2020.

Interfaith marriages + barring holy wars called on targets of a struggle is a very appealing mechanic. That plus the hint of reworking religions so that different "rites" can have the same religious head have me much more hopeful about the direction of the game. (I know in CK3 they are called religions, but historical analogy seems to be rites, at least for Christian comparisons)
 
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Top right of the picture in the initial post. It seems to be concentrated in the Catalan/Basque region.
No love for western Iberia then. The Portugal area could use more baronies.
 
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