EUIV - Development Diary - 18th of February 2020

[pingouin2ter]

Didn't realised I wanted to have access and push the missions of my faithful subjects and vassals ! Gives another layer of bonus of keeping them around rather than automatically integrating them.

 

[KaiserArg]

In my opinion is already nonsense that you don't fall in PU if you are at war when IRL most union happened because the rulers died at war, and now you can spawn a heir out of thin air for [what is practically] free?. This is a change in the wrong direction that nobody asked for.

 

[NilsFabian]

So ever been sitting just hoping that you are going to get an heir that will safely take over your Kingdom when you pass on? You be damned if you let the Habsburgs get their hands on your titles! We’re adding a feature for monarchies where a highly esteemed King can appoint someone to be their successor who is not of their dynasty. You can Introduce an Heir to the court.

Can I try to assasinate the ruler / heir of another country on pain of war when discovered?

 

[moscal]

Using it will cost you 20 Legitimacy and 20 Prestige but give you an heir with a local dynasty not of your current one with weak claim to the throne.

Ruler with weak claim to the throne by this method should give other powers law to dynastic intervention. Or other way of new problems

Current weak claim can be problem only if (1) your country have individual events or disasters based on this (2) other power have this same dynasty and can use diplomatic action "claim to the thore" (3) general situation in country is bad. In other - this will be small problem.

 

[shane s]

@Groogy The ability to see nation specific achievements when choosing a country to play would be a welcome addition to the game, also access to a few more map modes for nation designer rp purposes would be cool as well.

 

[Prussian]

Will Bosnia get missions?

 

[Prussian]

Will Bosnia get missions?

 

[Merovingio]

As of right now, the feature is avoided by the AI, specifically because the player want their PU's and it's a bit dangerous risk to take ending up with a low legitimacy heir.

So the IA will always avoid it, right? I mean not only under certain conditions.

 

[Lord Hoosier]

Not sure how I feel about being able to pull a random heir out of nowhere, even from another local dynasty. Is there any precedence of this in the Early Modern Period?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

QoL upgrades always appreciated. Each step helps.

 

[Sete]

@Groogy
Now that im at home i can explain why Portugal last military idea, should be the second or third one.
I apologize in advance for the wall of text but it is to prove that having the military ideas as a second or third one is historical and in characther with Portugal expansion.

Edit: Spoiler tags for convenience.

Spoiler

The Transfer of the Traditional Military Organization of the
Portuguese Kingdom to Morocco: the Role of Nobility and the Establishment of a Restricted Territorial Model of Occupation

Until the reign of King John II, the Portuguese military action in Morocco,as stated by Luis Filipe Thomaz, was "the last episode of medieval history, rather than the first episode of modern history", a situation resulting especially from the fact that the Crown depended, right from the start, on the military
potential of the nobility, thus having a decisive influence on both the developing model of military organization and the military tactics performed throughout the 15th century.

During the Reconquista, the Portuguese noblemen became familiar with the Arabic warfare that was mostly based on individual actions by horsemen, carried out through sudden cavalcades, raids and surprise attacks - the so- called guerra guerreada (guerrilla war). Therefore, they would exhaustively practise this kind of emotional and apparently disorganized warfare in
Morocco, which not only articulated itself perfectly with the military operations
carried out by the Moroccan cavalry but also fitted their mentality, while perfectly serving their economic interests. In order to understand the reasons that supported the kind of warfare practiced in Morocco, it is important to analyse the motivations and composition of the nobility as well as the political, economic and social conditions that supported the restricted territorial model of
occupation made up by the Portuguese in Northern Morocco.

As it occurred in Europe, the Portuguese nobility also endured a significant crisis in Portugal which arose not only from its growth throughout the last century but also from the effects caused by the general crisis in the 14th century.
The end of the war against Castile also contributed to increase the tension within the nobility, as the second sons of the Portuguese noblemen were no longer allowed to accomplish, in Iberia, their traditional occupation: war.

Without financial means to organize their households, they could only go to the king’s court or leave the country and put themselves at the service of one of the numerous European armies, as it happened in the Hundred Years War.
Therefore, to the Portuguese Crown, Morocco was an escape to which
the traditional turbulence of the aristocracy was conducted. All that manpower was taken out of Portugal and put at the service of the Portuguese Crown, thus transforming North African battlefields into military schools where several generations of Portuguese cavalrymen in search for "honour and profit" were trained throughout the 15th century.

For the aristocracy, the expansionist and warlike policy initiated in Northern Morocco meant, mainly for the noblemen pertaining to secondary lineages as well as for the second sons, better opportunities to enrichment
and social promotion. Indeed, due to the permanent situation of war, exacerbated by the old religious antagonism between Christians and Muslims, these men could enhance the honour of their families and also their revenue, through the favours granted by the king as payment for their military
achievements and also the sacks and pillages of the Moroccan populations.

Moreover, the organization of the strongholds that were eventually conquered
would require the settlement of a number of military and administrative posts, and, in the event of a significant territorial conquest, they could also dream of the possibility of building land domains.
As a result of the adoption of a violent policy of occupation of the main strongholds in Morocco, which was marked by the expulsion of its inhabitants outside a security area of the fortified perimeter, the Portuguese created a model of occupation in the north of Morocco defined by Robert Ricard as a restricted territorial model of occupation.

By facing the need to manage and defend
structures that are too large for their reduced numbers, the Portuguese would try to solve the problem by using shortcuts in the strongholds, which was described by Frederico Mendes Paula as "wall sections inside the walled perimeter that divided the city into two parts. And so, both the ꞌnew townꞌ and the ꞌold townꞌ were created. The former had a smaller dimension and
comprehended the area closer to the sea, where the supplies were possible to be made. The buildings and walls of the 'old village' were progressively demolished, since, without inhabitants, they became dangerous because of the ambushes that used to take place there".

That process was simultaneously
accomplished with the reconstruction of the pre-existing structures of defence
that might have been affected during the conquest, as was the case in Ksar es-Seghir, or reinforcing and improving its defences, in view of the use of gunpowder artillery, as it happened in Ceuta.

In Asilah, the stronghold area
was reduced to less than half of the previously occupied area, with the wall
running parallel to the beach. Likewise, in order to provide the garrisons with an easy access to water, other structures (known as couraças) were built as early as 1502, in Asilah, Tangier and in Ksar es-Seghir, which linked the fortress to the beach in an extension of more than 100 meters.

The restricted model of occupation was adopted by the Portuguese in
North Africa as a result of a number of structural deficiencies of the Portuguese
Kingdom. As a matter of fact, very soon the lack of armament and soldiers made the project of territorial conquest that was initially chosen for Morocco unfeasible. Therefore, a new political and military strategy was adopted.
It consisted of conquering the most important strongholds along the Northern
coast of Morocco aiming at controlling the navigation of the Gibraltar Strait more effectively and minimizing the effects of the Muslim navy.
The initial idea of conquering the kingdom of Fez was thus abandoned and replaced
by the attempt to economically stifle the kingdom of Fez by cutting off access to the sea through the conquest of its main port cities. Indeed, in Northern Morocco, a restricted model of occupation was chosen where the Portuguese domination was confined to the area within the forts and to a
small territory around it; the garrisons of these forts were supported by a naval force that varied from fort to fort, a model that would later be transferred to the Southern Coast of Morocco and to the shores of the Indian Ocean.

As a result of this failure of human and material means, which forced the construction of said shortcuts, throughout the 15th century, the period to which our study is confined, the Portuguese would eventually occupy four strongholds only, located on the north coast of Morocco, namely:
Ceuta (1415),
Ksar es-Seghir (1458), Asilah (1471) and Tangier (1471). Contrary to what would happen in the south of Morocco, where several fortresses would be built later, with only two strongholds occupied - Safi and Azzemour -, in the North only one fortress would start to be build, but without practical results.
As a matter of fact, in 1489, during the reign of John II, the Portuguese would pay a high price for the decision to build a fortress in the interior of Morocco, on the Loukkos River, just a few kilometres upstream of its mouth. The intent of its construction was to cut off the links between Ksar el-Kebir and
Larache, which was at that time one of the main privateering ports in northern Morocco, and to demarcate the frontier zone resulting from the peace agreement previously made with the kingdom of Fez; therefore, the Portuguese expeditionary force would be sieged and forced to surrender, their lives
having been spared by the intervention of the sovereign of Fez.
This military failure marked the end of the Portuguese expansionist project towards the south during the reign of João II, only to be resumed by his successor, King Manuel,
later in the 16th century.
Given the great hostility that always marked the daily life in these strongholds and the strong blockade imposed on them by the sovereign of Fez, which caused their immediate commercial decline and isolation, these fortresses have quickly turned into places defended by the garrison and
equipped with some royal craftsmen, crucial to its normal functioning joined by the so-called fronteiros - noblemen who would serve temporarily in a stronghold, for a more or less extended period, taking a group of several soldiers with them. Defended by a stripe of "no man’s land" conquered with
the plunders on the neighbouring populations, as in Ceuta, these strongholds,
which turned out to be real scavengers of men and money, depending on the Kingdom and on the Azores islands for their regular supply, would, however, remain in the hands of the Crown because of its strategic importance.
In fact, throughout the period in study, they served not only as a deterrent to the North
African privateering activity that devastated the Portuguese coast, but also as a
support for the Portuguese navigation operating to and from the Mediterranean,
or southwards, where the Portuguese had the monopoly of the trade on the African coast, being the factory of Mina their highest exponent.

Defensive War
Regarding their military organization on land, the Portuguese strongholds in North Africa throughout the 15th century and even later were characterized by the coexistence of royal and nobility military forces; they could be thought of as being the embryo of the formation of a permanent army. In fact, the
garrison stationed there became, throughout the years and particularly since the late 15th century, a durable regular structure, with a uniform hierarchy of command subjected and subordinated to the Portuguese Crown.
The presence of the Portuguese in Morocco during such a long period was also due, notwithstanding the existing difficult conditions, to a complex defensive military action that was based on the building of shortcuts (atalhos) in the strongholds conquered in the North, as we mentioned above, and on the setting of numerous defensive systems around the fortresses, through the building of ditches and trenches, in addition to several observation posts,
equipped with sentinels whose mission was "keeping the field safe" near the fortresses. This defensive system was known as the Rebate, or Rebato, which, according to Robert Ricard, "began in the Peninsula during the Reconquista, with the battles between the Christians and the Muslims". As it fitted very
well the Moroccan warfare, the system was being improved by the Portuguese throughout the years in Northern Morocco, and very soon local people were being used as spies and sentinels as they knew much better the local geography as well as their military practices.

The Rebate was based on the use of lookouts placed on the uppermost towers of the fortress and on sentinels and scouts (atalaias and escutas) scattered all over the area. They had the difficult task of "securing" the camp, i.e. to assure the area around the fortified places was free of enemies. Only
after the reconnoitring and the certification of the camp by spies and sentinels that no ambush was laid by the nearby Moors, the daily tasks of provisioning the fortress such as the supply of water, timber, hay and the herding of cattle, was undertaken. Only then, the people from the fortress could work on theadjoining fields, a constant target for the guerrillas and raids by the Moors.
The sentinels on their lookouts kept watch over the fields during the day, and alerted the fortress when the enemy forces approached. They signalled the enemy’s presence by ringing the bells and hoisting up the flags; then the population and the animals took shelter inside the fortress walls.

With the regular tasks of defending the fortress, when a siege of big proportions was eminent (after its conquest, Ceuta was subjected to two big sieges), the garrisons had also to ensure the strengthening of all its defensive systems. They reinforced doors, stockades, trenches and caramanchões, as
well as the equipment of the fortresses, with weapons, mainly crossbows, trons
and mortars.

Throughout this period, the gunpowder artillery, along with the
crossbowmen, defended the Portuguese fortifications efficiently from
continuous attacks and sieges by the Muslims; however, it would be of little
or no use in North Africa, until 1458, as an effective weapon to destroy the walls of the fortresses. Luís Miguel Duarte stated that for the Portuguese, the use of firearms took "longer than in other countries of Europe to conquer its place in siege operations". In fact, these weapons were not decisive during
the conquest of Ceuta, as the Portuguese had conquered it through an amphibian attack, and they were inefficient to defeat Tangier in 1437.
On the other hand, the same happened to the Moroccan armies whose gunpowder
artillery was always incapable to cause much harm to the Portuguese fortified places. However, this situation would only change after the siege of Ksar es-Seghir, in 1458. Thenceforth, the gunpowder artillery overcame the defensive systems of Muslim fortresses, playing a decisive role in their conquest. While the pyro ballistic armament used by the Portuguese managed to be better, from this date on, than the one used by the Muslim fortresses (as it was confirmed in 1471 with the seizure of Asilah), the opposite did not occur.
For the first time, musketeers may have participated in the siege of the
fortress of Tangier, as stated by Rui de Pina; together with the crossbowmen
they manned the wooden castle in the attack on the fortress. Probably equipped with culverins (colubretas), as mentioned in King Duarte’s "special
warnings" sent to his brother, the musketeers’ actions may not have been
important, as no other references have been found concerning them. Later in 1458, the musketeers were present in the conquest of the fortress of Ksar es-Seghir, whose conquest meant the strengthening of the Portuguese military intervention in Morocco. However, they will not replace the crossbowmen definitely until the 16th century.
In the first half of the 15th century the Portuguese have mostly carried out some works of modernization and reinforcement of the pre-existing defensive structures of Ceuta, especially in its defensive structure of the land front. After the conquest of the remaining cities in the north of Morocco -
Ksar es-Seghir (1458), Asilah (1471) and Tangier (1471) -, in addition to the restoration and reinforcement of the affected walls, the Portuguese Crown ordered the edification of the aforementioned shortcuts inside these strongholds and a set of defensive systems outside. It was not until the reign of King João II that new defence systems were built, representing, as stated by Rafael Moreira,
a separation between medieval castles and modern military architecture, influenced by the need to respond to the gunpowder artillery improvements. An example of what we have just mentioned is the set of works of adaptation and reinforcement of the round towers (torreões) of Ksar es-Seghir, which
"were strengthened and diminished in height, to be adapted to the defence against the new firearms", and the construction of the "new castle" of Tangier, with a four-storey tower, also of medieval appearance, which linked to a lower rectangular body, reminding the Tower of Belém (for defence in the Tagus
river). The defensive system was still completed by four round towers, a keep and a barbican, from which a couraça emerged, ending in a polygonal bulwark by the water.

But it was not until the next reign that the Portuguese were obliged to carry out an in-depth program of reinforcement of their strongholds and fortresses in Morocco, in the first decades of the 16th century, actually
turning the whole area into an experimentation field of military architecture
outside Europe, as a response to the modernization of the Moroccan kingdoms,
in particular their gunpowder artillery and military organizations, to which they were increasingly supported by the Turks. This effort redoubled in intensity after the siege of Asilah, in 1508, by the troops of the Sultan of
Fez, who destroyed the walls of the stronghold, and forcing the defenders to
take refuge in the keep. King Manuel was thus obliged to make an effort to modernize his defensive structures, while at the same time he tried to equip the strongholds with a higher number of soldiers, mostly recruited by the Portuguese factory in Andalusia, from then on.
A significant number of renowned military architects and masters of works were sent there, during the first years of the 1500s, namely: Diogo Boytac, Francisco Danzillo, João de Castilho, Bastião Luís, Martim Lourenço.

For the strongholds in the south, Diogo and Francisco Arruda, already greatly influenced by the Italian art of fortification, deserve special mention.
Together they will mark what became known as a transition period in the art of fortification in which, as referred to by Frederico Mendes Paula, "the medieval model coexists with the Renaissance innovations, but the medieval concepts of the military constructions are more and more abandoned, and the fortresses begin to undergo modifications to better resist the attacks of the gunpowder
artillery".

Spoiler

Athens Journal of History - Volume 3, Issue 4 – Pages 321-336
https://doi.org/10.30958/ajhis.3-4-4 doi=10.30958/ajhis.3-4-4
The Portuguese Art of War in Northern
Morocco during the 15th Century
By Vitor Luís Gaspar Rodrigues

 

[TheDarkMaster]

The 'free general' button should be bigger than the 'fire general' button, in order to reduce the chance of an accidental click. Something like the fire button being similar to a 'close window' x up and right of the free button would work well.

 

[bly08]

I'm confused by how the 200/300 dev limit works. What happens if I'm Oirat and go over 300 from one war vs. Ming? Do I need to fight neighbors, raze, then give back land until tech 8? What happens if there are no more neighbors to fight, do I accept that horde unity will tank to 0 and waste all my money/manpower fighting rebels?

 

[PatrykCXXVIII]

Speaking of QoL changes, why this mod isn't a part of vanilla? https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=786009327
Especially since it dosen't work for me with the new launcher...

 

[gigau]

Part of that has also been to add support where it will show your progress clearer to achieve one of the requirements. For modders some of the triggers that have been improved are:

• Num_of_owned_provinces_with
• Num_of_provinces_owned_or_owned_by_non_sovereign_subjects_with
• Calc_true_if

Missa likey this... and the dev diary overall... thank you.

 

[purplephoton]

Using it will cost you 20 Legitimacy and 20 Prestige but give you an heir with a local dynasty not of your current one with weak claim to the throne.

Price seems to be on the low side, but at least it's not very spammable due to the legitimacy requirement so it's fine I guess.

We’ve added a Core All button in the Stability interface

Nice, but how about an only-core-provinces-that-give-overextension button? Some people frequently leave stated provinces with only terrorial cores if they need admin for other things.

updated the Danish ideas to be more competitive with other naval powers in Europe

They went from F-tier to D-tier, but still, I guess it's an improvement.

we have raised the Base Disengagement Chance for ships to 10% from the previous 3%

Excellent, very nice.

We’ve swapped out the Admin Efficiency penalty from going over Governing Capacity to +20% Core Creation and +100% Advisor Cost when at 100%.

+100% advisor cost doesn't seem very effective - once you get to the midgame, it's at most an extra 75 ducats per month while you're running a 300+ ducat surplus.

 

[Sappho of Lesbos]

Has there been any information on when this expansion will be formally announced?

 

[pizzarocket]

I think just getting a heir should give you a debuf like -1 reputation or unrest.

It definetly should be more punishing than proposed. It severely reduces the chances of people falling into PU's. I do not like this addition and I believe that it removes from the fun of the game by adding another "push button to solve problem" mechanic.

 

[regne_valencia]

Not sure anyone asked for a New Heir mechanic. If people were concerned about falling under a personal union they just have to be at war without an heir.

People have asked about improvements in artificial intelligence and mechanics of internal policies but so far no one has said anything in any development diary

 

[pizzarocket]

As of right now, the feature is avoided by the AI, specifically because the player want their PU's and it's a bit dangerous risk to take ending up with a low legitimacy heir.

If this is the case, why add this button at all? It undermines the point of having +% heir ideas and it will be abused by players to avoid PU's. What is your justification or motive?