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Dev Diary #94 - Conquest and Reconquest

Hello there!

For this week, we are going to take a look at the Iberian Reconquista and the Northern Crusades. Keep in mind that things aren’t finalized yet, so there might be small errors etc.

NorthernCrusade01.png


Late 12th century or afterwards, the Teutonic Order can decide to start converting the north (Scandinavia/Baltics/Russia), if they aren’t already holding lands in the south or fighting for any lord at the moment. After the original announcement event, any King or Emperor living in the north will be able to ask the Teutons to target a specific ruler to conquer.

NorthernCrusade02.png


After asking the Teutons to target a specific character, the Teutons will send a response letter with their demands, be it land, money or that they will do it for free. After the Teutons have received a target, they will focus their efforts from now on, to convert that specific DeJure Kingdom to Christianity, fighting wars for one Duchy at a time. In other words, other rulers won’t be able to ask them to target any character outside of the DeJure kingdom later on.

NorthernCrusade03.png


After the Northern Crusades start, the Teutons will potentially ask a local ruler for help, receive event troops and start marching upon the Duchy they fight for. Should they win that war, they will become the Teutonic State and start actively pacifying the region. If they lose, they will wait for some more years, before re-launching the Northern Crusades once more. If they keep losing their wars, they will eventually give up their Northern Crusade, and leave the north.

NorthernCrusade04.png


For those helping the Teutons in pacifying the north, there is rewards in the form of gold, piety, artifacts and potentially a bloodline if you are truly pious.

NorthernCrusade05.png


Turning down south, we also have the new Reconquista. For any Iberian Christian ruler (of Duke or higher tier) with lands in the Iberian Peninsula, they can start fighting to reconquer the peninsula for Christendom. A new decision has been added, to start preparing for a Reconquista. This will cost a ruler a substantial amount of prestige, piety and gold. One thing I want to point out, is that the Reconquista wars can be started at any point throughout the game, and it is not attached to the start of the normal Crusades.

Reconquista01.png


Reconquista02.png


After the Reconquista has started, the ruler will start gathering troops and resources the following year. Every month or two, special events will fire for the ruler, to ask the Pope for gold, finding ships, troops etc.

Reconquista03.png


After a year has passed, the preparation events will finally stop, and the ruler will have one more year to find a fitting target to attack. They can of course start attacking someone prior to the preparation year has passed as well, but then at the cost of the special events attached to that period. The new Reconquista Casus Belli will let you attack special regions in Iberia, each one of them consisting of two Duchies (with the exception of Navarra and the Balearic Islands, which is 1).

As a Reconquista is ongoing, a Muslim in the Iberian Peninsula will be able to sell their services to the Christian Reconquistador and vice versa for Christians. This is to simulate the chaotic type of warfare that often happened at the Iberian Peninsula. For those who want to simulate El Cid, there is a special bloodline for someone winning several Reconquista wars from both sides (helping both the Christian attackers, and the Muslim defenders).

Reconquista04.png


The Reconquistador will also be able to set up a beneficiary, akin to normal Crusades, but it isn’t necessary nor pushed as heavily. After all, spreading the faith locally at the Iberian Peninsula is quite the pious task!

If you have a Beneficiary to gain the land, they will have some extra benefits akin to how the Crusaders usually do, with no penalties to the area when the war is won, etc.

Reconquista05.png


A Reconquista will be considered a success when all the lands of Iberia has been taken, or a Christian Emperor of Hispania is crowned. Similarly, if a Muslim gets the Empire of Hispania, they will stop the Reconquista as well.

The title has been changed slightly to reflect this, and you can no longer create the Empire, unless there are no rulers of another faith holding any DeJure Kingdoms. E.g, the Sultan of Andalusia cannot create the Empire of Hispania while there is a Christian King of Asturias.

Of course, there is a bloodline for those who stay loyal to the faith, and fight for Christianity as well. None of that wishy-washy both sides nonsense!

Reconquista06.png


Finally, if Christendom is desperately trying to survive in the region, Reconquista adventurers can start spawning for the Christian rulers of Iberia. They have a shortened preparation time of 1 month, before they declare war on the closest Muslim. If they win the war, they will settle down as a Beneficiary would, with some of those benefits.

Reconquista07.png


And like last week, there is of course two new game rules attached to the two new Crusades.
  • Northern Crusade:
    • Enabled
    • Disabled
  • Reconquista:
    • Enabled
    • Limited (No Adventurers)
    • Disabled
Reconquista09.png


That was all for the Baltics and the Iberian Peninsula! Hopefully you guys are as stoked for the two new Crusades as we are. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed these extra summer Dev Diaries, and we are back to the usual from next week on!

(Ps. Yes, there isn't really a huge change from the summer Dev Diaries to the usual ones, just that these weren't originally planned)
 
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Is there a job opening for Official Event Text Proofreader? :)
Hey, my 'day job' is a copy editor. I'd be happy to join the Paradox staff, as long as they don't mind a loooong telecommute.
 
On a scale of Sunset Invasion to the Old Gods this is a solid Old Gods and a half!
 
On a scale of Sunset Invasion to the Old Gods this is a solid Old Gods and a half!

The Old Gods will arguably go down in such DLC List. Holy Fury will not just unlock Pagans as well, but also provide a mountain of extra flavor for them - not to mention the avalanche of other improvements for Christians and beyond.

TOG will exclusively offer the 867 bookmark and... adventurers.
 
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Viva El Cid!!! I have to say.

I really appreciate that the Iberian peninsula is getting a bit more love. Are we getting some Reconquista-themed events, like the capture of specific counties like Toledo and Valencia (Conquered by el Cid) or moorish strongholds like Cordoba and Granada?

I'd also like to see some events like the battle of the Navas de Tolosa, that was probably the worst defeat of a muslim force in Europe after the battle of Tours/Poitiers. There, all the Spanish kingdoms, some holy orders (Kights Templar and of Santiago) and a few "ultramontanos" (European volunteers, mainly French) faced a much larger almohad army.
 
The Old Gods will arguably go down in the such DLC List. Holy Fury will not just unlock Pagans as well, but also provide a mountain of extra flavor for them - not to mention the avalanche of other improvements for Christians and beyond.

TOG will exclusively offer the 867 bookmark and... adventurers.
Well, Zoroastrians too.

Also I assume anyone who owns ToG but not HF will still be able to play pagans. Not everyone buys every single expansion. I sure as hell don't. *cough* Mare Nostrum for EU4 *cough*
 
Deus Vult would be the best name if the old expansion didn't take it as it would twist the knife into Newsweek for this article they put out a few months ago:

https://www.newsweek.com/paradox-interactive-875640

Newsweek has been stupid for a while now. For example, they recently stated that Stephen Austin was a "Confederate" who founded the city of Austin in 1839. That must've been a hell of a shock to his contemporaries considering he died in 1836.
 
Deus Vult would be the best name if the old expansion didn't take it as it would twist the knife into Newsweek for this article they put out a few months ago:

https://www.newsweek.com/paradox-interactive-875640
Not saying that they aren't being a bit hyperbolic, but you haven't been paying attention if you haven't seen someone's use of that term in a very negative context outside of here. Alt-righters use "deus vult" and crusader imagery a ton. Unfortunately that makes it hard to tell whether members of our paradox community are just having fun or are part of that separate subculture sometimes. It's the same issue with unironic wehraboos getting mixed in with normal HoI fans.

I don't care one way or the other, but from the outside it doesn't look very good. Naming the DLC that in today's climate would turn a lot of people who otherwise would be interested off of CK2.
 
Not saying that they aren't being a bit hyperbolic, but you haven't been paying attention if you haven't seen someone's use of that term in a very negative context outside of here. Alt-righters use "deus vult" and crusader imagery a ton. Unfortunately that makes it hard to tell whether members of our paradox community are just having fun or are part of that separate subculture sometimes. It's the same issue with unironic wehraboos getting mixed in with normal HoI fans.

I don't care one way or the other, but from the outside it doesn't look very good. Naming the DLC that in today's climate would turn a lot of people who otherwise would be interested off of CK2.
I've never seen somebody use "Deus Vult" in an "alt right" context, but then again I am at least 2 or 3 tiers removed from the alt right.

Newsweek has been stupid for a while now. For example, they recently stated that Stephen Austin was a "Confederate" who founded the city of Austin in 1839. That must've been a hell of a shock to his contemporaries considering he died in 1836.

While my hazy memory of US history before 1900 tells me that Texas declared freedom from Mexico due to disagreements over slavery, calling Austin a "Confederate" is about the same level of stupidity as calling Karl the Great french. Sure, Karl would probably agree with many of arguments the french had for why they weren't subject to the Holy Roman Empire, but if he had been alive, those arguments might never have been had.

At any rate, while I would love to see all the expansions have names in church latin (or some other period appropriate language), all the titles seem to be written in modern language. So, while "Deus Vult" has a very period feel to it, I don't think naming an expansion "God Wills It" has quite the same connotation.
 
The title has been changed slightly to reflect this, and you can no longer create the Empire, unless there are no rulers of another faith holding any DeJure Kingdoms. E.g, the Sultan of Andalusia cannot create the Empire of Hispania while there is a Christian King of Asturias.

What if the 'Christian King' holds an empty kingdom title? The kingdoms of Jerusalem and Cyprus have additional creation requests blocking Muslim/Orthodox rulers to usurp, and might result in rulers hunting these kings all over Europe to create the Byzantine/Arabian Empire.
 
What if the 'Christian King' holds an empty kingdom title? The kingdoms of Jerusalem and Cyprus have additional creation requests blocking Muslim/Orthodox rulers to usurp, and might result in rulers hunting these kings all over Europe to create the Byzantine/Arabian Empire.

I think it was specified that De Jure kingdoms are meant. Also, the way I understood the statement was that it only applies to the Empire of Hispania title.
 
The use of the name Iberia here is mildly anachronistic. Iberia has always been a secondary name for what people referred to at the time as Hispania, Espanna, Spain or each language's version of the name.

For all the length of CK2's timespan and way into the modern age Spain was the name for the totality of the Iberian Peninsula, much like Italy was used to refer to all of the Italian Peninsula since as far back as the Roman Empire, though the unification of Italy only happened in the 19th century. For this same reason CK2's creators named the empire Hispania and not Iberia.

Even after over a century of dynastic union, people still used Spain to refer to the whole of the peninsula, including all of Portugal, Castile, Aragon and Navarre. It is only around the 17th century, after Portugal rebels against Philip IV that the use of the name Spain starts to be restricted to the joint crowns of Castile, Aragon and Navarre, excluding Portugal. And afterwards 'Iberia' starts to be used as a subsitute for 'Spain' as a geographic/cultural concept.

Therefore the use of Iberia and Iberian Reconquest seem weird at best in the context of the game, while Spanish Reconquest (which includes all of the kingdoms in Hispania) not only would be more period-appropriate but also matches common historiographic convention and the fact that the territory is already called Hispania in-game.
 
How about non-Catholic Religions? Do they get similar mechanics as well in Iberia and other places in which the Crusades/Jihads take place?

(I never play Catholic. I usually just play Cathar in the earliest start)

Will Cathars be targeted by these scripted events as well?

Is it possible for the Franticelli heresy (who can usurp the Pope) to have these mechanics once they overthrow Catholicism?
 
3. At the moment it cannot start up again, but I have considered putting an event to restart it. But for now, no.
This, it should definately restart i think, perhaps after X amount of time or X amount of land is of a diffrent religion.
Lets say you sucessfully drive out islam from Iberia, but after 100 years a jihad(or just through regular war) is launched against Iberia and it takes one of the kingdoms. Then the reconquista should be possible to start up again. If it turns out unbalanced a time-cooldown can be added or set a limit to how many times it can happen.
 
Hello there!

For this week, we are going to take a look at the Iberian Reconquista and the Northern Crusades. Keep in mind that things aren’t finalized yet, so there might be small errors etc.
Will these types of crusades also apply to reformed pagans and such?
In which I mean will they get their options to do the same towards Christians through their respective holy orders?