CK3 Dev Diary #93 - Turmoil in the Peninsula

[QuinnMallory]

I love the idea of involving chess. Incidents like the ones described below would add historical flavor:


Perhaps the oldest anecdote of chess and violence is the case of al-Walid I (668-715) who was an Umayyad caliph who ruled from 705-715. He was playing chess (shatranj) with one of his courtiers, who was a much stronger player than the Caliph, but was purposely making bad moves in order for the Caliph to win. One day, the Caliph observed this and was highly offended. He seized one of the heaviest chess pieces and hurled it at the courtier's head saying, 'May evil befall thee, base sycophant! Art thou in thy senses to play chess with me in this foolish manner?' An Arabic manuscript says that the caliph broke his opponent's head with a blow with his firzan (equivalent to the Queen piece).

One of the Charlemagne romances that may not have any historical importance is the following incident, related by Murray in the History of Chess, page 413. The son (Charlemagne?) of Pepin the Short (714-768) was playing chess against the son of Okarius (Okar), the prince of Bavaria, and became so enraged at repeatedly losing, that he hit the prince in the head with one of the chess pieces (rochus or rook) and killed him on the spot. In those days, chess pieces were usually made of rock crystal.

Canute (995-1035), king of England, Denmark, Norway, and part of Sweden, was said to have killed an earl over chess. The story is found in The Chronicles of the Kings of Norway called the Saga of Olaf Haraldson. In 1028, the king, also known as Cnut the Great, was playing a game of chess with his brother-in-law, Earl Godwin Ulfnadson (Ulf), the husband of the king's sister, when the king made a bad move, which led to a loss of one of the king's pieces (a knight). The king took his move back, replaced his knight, and told the earl to play a different move. The earl got angry over this, overturned the chess board and started walking away. The king said "Runnest thou away, Ulf the coward?" The earl responded, "Thou wouldst have run farther at Helga river if thou hadst come to battle there. Thou didst not call me Ulf the coward when I hastened to thy help while the Swedes were beating thee like a dog." The earl then left the king's quarters. The next day, the king ordered the earl to be killed. The earl was stabbed to death at Saint Lucius' church.

Around 1060, William the Conqueror (1027-1087), was playing chess with the Prince of France and got checkmated. The king then took the chessboard and hit the prince over the head with it.

Around 1120, King Henry I (1068-1135) of England and King Louis VI (1081-1137) of France got into a fistfight over a game of chess in Paris. One story says that Louis threw the chessboard at Henry; another says that Henry hit Louis over the head with the chessboard. Courtiers stepped in to stop the fight. This episode supposedly was the start of events that kept England and France at war for almost 12 years.

Around 1213, Jeanne or Joan (1194-1244), Countess of Flanders and the daughter of Baldwin IX (1172-1205), count of Flanders and first emperor of the Latin Empire of Constantinople, beat her husband, Ferdinand (1188-1233), prince of Portugal, in a game of chess. He got so mad that he hit her. In revenge, she left her husband in French captivity from 1214 to 1226, refusing to ransom him. (source: Murray, A History of Chess, 1913, p.436).

 

[Avald]

Saying Mozarabic arent a trinitarian church, are you perhaps confusing them with the Arian christianity of the Visigoths themselves? ('followers' of Bishop Arius that stated god and jesus were seperate in that god was his demi-god son almost. hence denying the trinity.

I got the timeframe wrong and misinterpreted this passage:

"Mozarabs (from the Arabic must’arib or ‘would-be Arab’) were ‘Arabised’ Christians who resisted conversion to Islam under Muslim rule, but who adopted many of the practices and customs of the Arab culture the Muslims brought with them. They preserved the Visigothic version of Christianity they had practised before the invasion, but culturally formed an integral part of Muslim society, gradually acquiring Arabic as a second and possibly mother tongue."

Having checked, they got conquered in the 8th century, but converted over in the 6th century and the rite developed between those 2 points. But this does not stop the latin catholics from hating them and not working with them fully as can be read in this other passage:

"Pope Gregory VII certainly tried hard enough to have them substitute the Roman liturgy for the Mozarabic one. The fervour of some of the Mozarabs’ faith – in the ninth century, dozens of them had been put to death by the Muslim authorities for consciously and provocatively blaspheming the Prophet Mohammed in public – was clearly not enough to merit the term ‘Christian’ for the Catholic church. When the Crusaders captured the city of Lisbon in 1147, they took the aged Mozarabic bishop of the city out of the cathedral and slit his throat."

This is most certainly not what you would do to people you have a good relationship with, but rather something that you would do in order to eliminate competition.

All found in this book that I already cited: https://www.researchgate.net/public..._Military_Alliances_in_Eleventh_Century_Spain which talks about the relationship that Muslims and Christians had in that region.

 

[Trinita132]

No mechanism for the slave-soldiers "Saqaliba"?

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

No mechanism for the slave-soldiers "Saqaliba"?

View attachment 832243

How would you suggest they be modelled? After all, we don't have a population mechanic.

 

[Axis89]

Hope Portugal isn't whitewashed...

What do you mean? (I'm half Portuguese, and a little confused now)

 

[Trinita132]

How would you suggest they be modelled? After all, we don't have a population mechanic.

Simplest implementation. Kind of a mix between a mercenary company/military order and a faction. They will have demands and you will have to appease them if you don't want problems and you can use them in your wars.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

Simplest implementation. Kind of a mix between a mercenary company/military order and a faction. They will have demands and you will have to appease them if you don't want problems and you can use them in your wars.

The problem there would be that military orders and mercenaries can be hired by anyone (relevant) in the local area.
So if they're mercenaries or an order they'd be available to anyone - even if they're only a faction in one duchy or kingdom.

 

[Trinita132]

The problem there would be that military orders and mercenaries can be hired by anyone (relevant) in the local area.
So if they're mercenaries or an order they'd be available to anyone - even if they're only a faction in one duchy or kingdom.

Easy. Don't make them hirable by anyone.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

Easy. Don't make them hirable by anyone.

So who should be able to hire them?

What conditions do you put on it?

 

[H-Dog]

Anyone else remember the days when people placed bookmarks to find different pages on a timeline instead of needing to place 3-4 bookmarks to find the same page?

Shows how we are all getting so old and forgetful I suppose.

 

[Trinita132]

So who should be able to hire them?

What conditions do you put on it?

You pay gold and maybe prestige to activate a decision that will allow you to hire them.

For the conditions : Muslim of course, capital located in Iberia and Kingdom-tier at least.

Historically, they were associated with the Umayyad.

 

[Koyraboro]

You pay gold and maybe prestige to activate a decision that will allow you to hire them.

For the conditions : Muslim of course, capital located in Iberia and Kingdom-tier at least.

Historically, they were associated with the Umayyad.

Saqaliba, Ghilman and Mamlukes can't really be portrayed except as vassalized Mercenaries companies (not sure even that is possible right now) within the current Army mechanics

 

[TheRevanchist25]

Will there be a decision in the 867 bookmark to Found Navarra or Aragon?

 

[Lord Grumbledook]

Any chances we are going to get tributaries? A flavour pack focused on Iberia that lacks tributaries would feel like a viking flavour pack without raiding. It would also add a meaningful way to interact with smaller independent realms outside of conquest. Given how the game already has penalties for holding non-de-jure territories it might actually be beneficial to keep them independent and prospering and getting gold in exchange for protection instead of conquering and recieving a reduced amount of taxes and levies. Especially considering that the status quo struggle outcome that balkanizes Iberia results in smaller de-jure realms.

 

[Anonim97]

Any idea when will be this week Dev Diary?

 

[JosephusMamaronicus]

Will there be a decision in the 867 bookmark to Found Navarra or Aragon?

If I remember correctly Navarre already exists in 867 and there is currently a 'Found the Kingdom of Aragon' decision in game, too.

 

[Flockingbird]

Any idea when will be this week Dev Diary?

According to Trinexx on discord, its been delayed to 17:00 CEST

That’s 11:00 EDT.

 

[akadunpeal]

What do you mean? (I'm half Portuguese, and a little confused now)

Not included / removed / largely ignored in this pack Reading the dev diaries seems like it's old Spanish kingdoms vs old arabic kingdoms.

 

[Axis89]

Not included / removed / largely ignored in this pack Reading the dev diaries seems like it's old Spanish kingdoms vs old arabic kingdoms.

Yeah, they would miss out on the fact that the Knights Templars more or less founded Portugal as a kingdom, and that they survived there until this day as an order. It is a crusader state, and a country different from Spain, but still part of the reconquista.

I get it that you need to focus on all kingdoms, but look at Iberia today, there are two who survived the test of time, and Portugal is regarded as one of thr oldest countries in Europe, older than Spain.

 

[Bandua_of_Gallaecia]

Knights Templars more or less founded Portugal as a kingdom

Less.
They had a considerable impact in the Portuguese Reconquista effort sure, just like the other orders.
But Portugal was founded way before Holy Orders became a thing, and it became a kingdom without any direct action by part of the Templars.

It is a crusader state,

It is objectively not a crusader state as the Reconquista is a different geopolitical conflict that outspaned the crusades by several centuries, Iberian Kingdoms were deliberately left out of the Crusades by the Pope because they were already engaged in their own holy wars (Portugal was founded before the Crusades were a thing).

country different from Spain,

Meaningless modern political distinction.

What we had in Medieval Hispania were several populations organised as different realms, be that kingdoms or independent counties and principalities (in Catalonia)

Portugal was a mere county belonging to one of those realms, (Asturias first, later Galicia) that gained independence and rose to the status of Kingdom, like the others, expanded further and remained sovereign up to today.

"Spain" in a medieval context meant the Iberian Peninsula, it was a geographical term, irrespective of whether they belonged to the same political entity or not. Portugal was as much Spain as Castile or the Islamic realms.
(In fact, in the early medieval period, "Spain" was the coloquial term for Islamic Iberia, while "Gallaecia" was the coloquial term for Catholic Iberia)

The distinction between Portugal and Spain began with the gradual merging of these distinct kingdoms as a single personal union under a single monarch, his domain began to be colloquially refered to as "Spain" because it involved most of it (Similar to how the E.U and it's people are sometimes colloquially refered to as Europe or the "Europeans") and eventually in 1716 they were formally merged under one kingdom, the modern Kingdom of Spain, thus "officializing" the difference between Portugal and Spain.

I get it that you need to focus on all kingdoms

To be fair, it seems so far only the Catalan counties got a (very minor) map rework. Not even any of the other kingdoms.

but look at Iberia today, there are two who survived the test of time, and Portugal is regarded as one of thr oldest countries in Europe, older than Spain.

These two are Portugal and Andorra.
The rest of the Medieval Hispanic realms were extinguished in 1716