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Europa Universalis IV - Development Diary 21st of February 2023 - Spain

¡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:

1. Disaster Infantes.jpg

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

The Infantes of Aragon 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:

2. Factionalist Nobility.jpg

3. Disaster progress.jpg

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:

4. Infantes event 1.jpg

5. Infantes event 2.jpg

6. Infantes event 2.jpg

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

7. Disaster ending.jpg

8. Infantes mission.jpg

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:

9. Enrique 0.jpg

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:

10. CAS-SPA tree.png

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:

11. Reinforce Royal Authority.jpg

12. Reinforce Royal Authority 2.jpg

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’:

13. Chancillerías 1.jpg

14. Chancillerías 2.jpg

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:

15. Government.jpg

The first one will trigger the following event after completion:

16. Spanish Dollar.jpg

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) which will be unlocked by a Government Reform of the same name:

17. System of Councils mission.jpg

18. System of Councils reform.jpg

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%:

19. System of Councils bar max.png

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.

20. system_councils_button_1.png

21. system_councils_button_2.png

22. system_councils_button_3.png

23. system_councils_event_example.png

24. System of Councils UI.png

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:

25. Military missions.png

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:

26. armies_iberia_mission.png

27. assemble_tercios_mission.png

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

28. tercios_basic.png

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:

29. refine_tercios_mission.png

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

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

30. rein_france_mission.png

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

31. Spanish Road.jpg

32. spanish_netherlands_mission.png

‘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.

33. Italy and Austria.jpg

34. fecho_imperio_mission.png

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).

35. universal_monarchy_prerequisites2_mission.png

36. universal_monarchy_mission.png

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:

37. Screenshot 2023-02-20 144559.jpg

38. reales_atarazanas.png

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:

39. caravel_ship_stats.png

40. galleon_ship_stats.png

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:

41. silver_trade.png

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
42. Holy Orders tease.png

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:

43. ARAtree.png

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

44. Screenshot 2023-02-20 151600.jpg

45. intervene_in_castile_aragon.png

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:

46. sindicat_remenca_event_peasant_option_aragon.png

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:

47. Screenshot 2023-02-20 152324.jpg

48. Screenshot 2023-02-20 152359.jpg

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

49. Screenshot 2023-02-20 152611.jpg


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


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

50. consulate_sea_event_aragon.png


‘Mediterranean Ambitions’ now unlock the expansion into the Eastern Mediterranean:
53.med_ambitions_aragon_mission.png


Some of the reworked rewards of the mission tree:
54. combat_barbary_piracy_mission_aragon.png

55. occupy_alexandria_mission_ara.png

56. industrial_districts_mission_aragon.png

57. golden_century_mission_aragon.png

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:

58. ARASPAtree.png

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

60. SPA_ideas_script.png
59. SPA_ideas_game.png


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:

61. Screenshot 2023-02-20 155043.jpg

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!

62. Comic.png
 

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Where are my bankruptcy disasters? You may consider adding extra inflation when consensus dives under a certain level, so that wouldn't be just a win-win mechanic, just like the Mandate.

About the artillery fire thing, I thinks it fits well actually. I would have proposed a +10% combat ability for heavies, but they got special naval units now. So...
 
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This is all interesting stuff! I will say, I'm not really sure Tercios should be a special unit considering that Tercios themselves were pretty irrelevant going into the 17th century and onward - but regardless, it's cool.

Out of curiosity, are there any plans to make special units moddable in this update?
 
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Looks great, Pavia!
On the topic of Spain - as someone who lived many years in Santander, it's always puzzled me that the provinces of Asturias, Cantabria, and Vizcaya are labeled as Plains. If you've been to the North coast of Spain, you'll know that the terrain is a bit more rugged than that :)
I'd say a more realistic representation would see Asturias be highlands and Cantabria and Vizcaya be hills.
What do you think? :)
Thank you for considering my petty requests!
 
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Any buff on Spanish AI? They tend to get stuck in new world and not defend their home. Of course they have naval superiority too.
 
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Since country colors are being brought up, is it possible we could have country colors be moddable without changing the checksum? It'd be nice to be able to change them without making achievements unobtainable.
 
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Looks great, Pavia!
On the topic of Spain - as someone who lived many years in Santander, it's always puzzled me that the provinces of Asturias, Cantabria, and Vizcaya are labeled as Plains. If you've been to the North coast of Spain, you'll know that the terrain is a bit more rugged than that :)
I'd say a more realistic representation would see Asturias be highlands and Cantabria and Vizcaya be hills.
What do you think? :)
Thank you for considering my petty requests!

...(cues up "My Fair Lady")...
 
Really cool changes, but I still really feel like this should all be part of Golden Century, not in a seperate DLC, unless I missed it somewhere, only the monastic order changes will be in Golden Century, I think all the missions should be too. It doesn't make sense that you must own golden century in order to actually use the tree properly, unless golden century is now obsolete and all of Castile/Spain's content is in the new DLC?
 
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Please add some more content / flavor for the Muslim nations in Iberia / North Africa as well. Granada should receive an upgrade on par with the upgrades to Castile, Aragon and Portugal.
Besides that, Morocco, Tunis, Mamluks and others in the area need some love too. Tunis barely has generic missions. Mamluks on the other hand will be blown away by the updated Ottomans. At least for the sake of balance these areas need some additions.
 
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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).
I think a good replacement for the shock damage received will be moral damage received -10/15 to represent how some Spanish armies during this period sometimes fought to the last man. Like what happen during the battle of Rocroi.
 
¡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:

View attachment 949268
Note: Effects and numbers are not final, as usual.

The Infantes of Aragon 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:

View attachment 949269
View attachment 949270
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:

View attachment 949278
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:

View attachment 949279
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’:


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) 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%:

View attachment 949299
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.

View attachment 949301
View attachment 949302
View attachment 949303
View attachment 949304
View attachment 949305
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!

View attachment 949312
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:

View attachment 949313
Note: Again, numbers are provisional, and might be changed.

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

View attachment 949314
‘Rein in France’ can be completed either by defeating or by allying with France, giving permanent Power Projection as a modifier.

View attachment 949315
View attachment 949316
‘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.

View attachment 949319
View attachment 949320
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).

View attachment 949321
View attachment 949322
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:

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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
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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:

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‘Crowns of Iberia’ will give you the ‘Hegemon of Iberia’ modifier until the end of the game.
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‘Consulate of the Sea’ mission and event have been reworked, opening up a new government reform:
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‘Mediterranean Ambitions’ now unlock the expansion into the Eastern Mediterranean:
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Some of the reworked rewards of the mission tree:
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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

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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:

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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!

Great stuff! I haven’t played in Iberia in years, but I’ll have to once the new update drops.

One thing I’d really, really like to see is some kind of event chain for the War of the Spanish Succession. That’d give the European great powers some very interesting things to do between the League War and the onset of the Revolution. Any thoughts on the possibility of adding something like this?

Also, I’m excited to see that Holy Orders are getting some new content, but I think it’d be even cooler if they were made available to all Catholic nations. It really makes no sense to restrict them to the Iberians.
 
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"May raid coasts for 20 years" is just about the coolest, most unique and thematically appropriate mission reward I have seen since the system was implemented. It's absolutely super cool; MUCH more interesting than "5% Hull Size" or whatever else you can give as numerical buffs.

EDIT: And of course, blue Portugal is great, I don't like special units creep, the new disasters look interesting, etc etc. But I really just wanted to sing praises to that one mission reward.
 
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As a Portugal player, I would love to see more flavor events around the early explorations and the negotiations with Spain that eventually led to Mare Clausum claims.

Some ideas to explore:
  • Portugal historically rounded Cape Bojador in 1434, but PT starts with this area undiscovered. This is an easy fix.
  • Struggle with Castile over Canaries
  • Early Papal Bulls giving PT monopoly rights south of the cape (maybe give PT more of a reason to colonize here instead of competing with CAS for the Caribbean 100% of the time)
  • Treaties of Tordesillas and Zaragoza (the real ones that established Iberian Mare Clausum, not the game mechanic)
    • PS: maybe change the name of the game mechanic to something more general like "Papal Bull of Colonization" or something, rather than having 30 different "Treaties of Tordesillas" between countries that have nothing to do with Spain.
ALSO, here are some ideas for political flavor events that could be expanded upon more in the game:
  • The disputed succession of King John II in 1492 - 1498, which saw the king try unsuccessfully to legitimize his bastard son after the death of his primary heir. This eventually resulted in the ascension of his cousin, Manuel I
    • Manuel I was particularly important in later discoveries and also was a main supporter of the Portuguese Inquisition. Things might have been very different had the kings son succeeded.
  • Speaking of the PT Inquisition, it and the expulsion of jews from Portugal were the direct result of Manuel I agreeing to such terms in order to secure a marriage with the daughter of Ferdi and Izzi of Spain. This would be a very interesting game event.
 
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Soy español y me gusta bastante la historia de mi nación, personalmente creo que está muy bien. Aunque siento que a América le falta un pilar dentro de la historia española, las alianzas con indígenas: sin estás ni Cortés ni Pizarro habrían conquistado el Imperio Azteca o el Imperio Inca. Así como más "Repúblicas de naturales" que implementó España por dicho territorio

Así pues sería igual de interesante eventos y misiones interconectadas sobre los Tercios; El Gran Capitán, como reformador de este, Tercios de Flandes y su adaptación a Países Bajos etc...

También estaría bien un evento con los Borbones, relacionado a su vez con Francia, e incluso el gobierno del Trienio Liberal en la era de las Revoluciones. Además de eventos de "Libertadores" para las colonias americanas, dificultando a España más adelante.

Dicho esto, veo muy bien la actualización, y sobre la artillería; se podría cambiar por una mejora a los almirantes, enfatizando más en la hegemonía naval.

Saludos.
 
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I want to point out that the reason the tercios where develop was to counter the French system where they combined Swiss mercenaries using “phalanges” and French heavy cavalry. This made France close to invincible in open battle during the second half of the 15th century. I think France should have some kind of shock Cavalry unit before he unlocks the Musketeers (mybe it can desapear when you unlock musketeers). And the tercios should be the counter to that unit, because right now less shock damage received is historical but it don’t have any reason in game, no country close to Spain is going to be doing a lot of shock damage in especial.
Also I want to point out that western pips for some reason don’t have tech 6 pips for cavalry something that don’t make sense considering that in this period French cavalry was probably the best and most heavy cavalry in the world.
 
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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!)
I like the idea of using 1 tradition from each of the TAGs that formed it.
The +15% Morale comes from Castile, from Aragon i believe +20% Galley Combat Ability would be nice (See: "Battle of Lepanto") and it would give Spain a more Mediterranean flavour from Aragon in contrast with Castile.
 
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Why the +25% local sailors for the Order of Avis?

The Order of Avis was a military order founded to defend Alentejo (a inland portuguese province) from the mourish and their headquarters here located in Avis, again, a inland town with no conections to the sea.

The goodies for this order should be military (manpower or something else), never naval stuff
@Xary Moft proposed giving that bonus to the Order of Christ and @Hermerico proposed to make a defensive one like atrition to avis.
 
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