Tinto Flavour #5 - 7th of February 2025 - Aragon

[Pavía]

Hello, and welcome to one more Tinto Flavour, the happy Friday in which we take a look at the content of the new, super-secret Project Caesar. This week we will take a look at the Crown of Aragon, the lands where, centuries later, a certain video-game studio would be situated… But, in 1337, its situation is different:

The Crown of Aragon stands proudly as a significant power in the western Mediterranean region thanks to its maritime prowess, diplomatic weight, and flourishing trade networks.

The stabilization of the Kingdom of Valencia and the ongoing conquest of the newly-created Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica might ensure it a dominant position in the seas. However, despite its relative stability, challenges loom on the horizon. To the East, the Kingdom of Mallorca faces economic difficulties and its ruler's animosity towards King Pere IV ‘the Ceremonious’ might convince him to act foolishly. In the peninsula, the threat of the Crown of Castile is more and more real as the Reconquista comes to an end. To the north, the Kingdom of France has consolidated its domain over the Languedoc in the last century.

How would the young King Pere IV face the challenges to come? Will he focus on the Mediterranean Sea and rule the waves from Barcelona to the Holy Land? Will he turn around and claim dominance over Iberia? Or will he try to get revenge from the Battle of Muret in 1213, and recover its ancient holdings north of the Pyrenees?

The young King Pere IV ascended to the throne in 1336. As usual, please consider the UI, 2D and 3D art as WIP.​

These are the lands of Aragon:

And this is the starting diplomatic situation, the Kingdom of Mallorca being a vassal, and the Military Order of Montesa being sponsored by Aragon (something we will talk about in a future Tinto Flavour, with other Catholic Military Orders):

These are the lands of the Order of Montesa, which is a Building Based Country; the first screenshot is what you see when you hover over the country flag in any panel (such as the Diplomatic one shown just above), while the second is the BBC map mode - both show in which locations is the Order present through a building:

Oh, yes, and there are also some Florentine bankers present in Barcelona and Palma…​

The Crown of Aragon starts with a major government reform of the same name:

And also another unique one, that portrays the traditional fueros used in most of the Pyrenean towns and cities for their government; it is unlocked by a functional Culture Group called ‘Pyrenean’, shared by Aragonese, Basque and Gascon cultures (because, as we mentioned in a past Tinto Talks, a culture may belong to multiple culture groups, which are fully scriptable, and thus, moddable, so they can be created and used for multiple purposes):

Beside these reforms, the Nobility of Aragon starts with this unique privilege, which is one of the most important cornerstones of the realm:

This privilege may be relevant in the future…​

Aragon also has a unique Maritime policy, the Consulate of the Sea:

And starts with some Works of Art, of which I’m going to show a couple, the Virgin of Montserrat, most widely known as ‘La Moreneta’:

And the Basilica del Pilar of Zaragoza:

There are some unique advances for Aragon, so let’s show some of them:

The Almogavars is a unique Levy unit unlocked through an advance:

Related to the former:

Aragon has another unique land unit, the Catalan Crossbowmen:

And also a unique naval unit, the Catalan Galley:

There’s also a couple some more advances related to the Maritime prowess of Aragon, as this one:

And a couple more advances from the Age of Discovery:

It might be dangerous to oppress the remenças, though…

​

There are some events related to Joanot Martorell and Ausiàs March, so you might be able to hire them as artists, and also sponsor the famous novel, Tirant lo Blanch!:

About the narrative content for Aragon, there’s an event chain that can trigger early on, about the fate of the Kingdom of Mallorca:

There’s also a unique disaster, the War of the Aragonese Union, that may trigger in the case that Jaume, Peter’s younger brother, is no longer the heir:

The purple section in the disaster tooltip is from the debug mode, so it wouldn’t be present in a regular game; I added it to show that there’s a chance for some additional events to trigger.​

There’s also some regional content. The first is an event that may trigger a chain about the most important institution in the Kingdom of Aragon, the Justicia (‘Chief Justiciar’):

Not all are troublesome, as some more pleasant may trigger, this also related to Valencia:

And much more, but that’s all for today! Next week we will travel to the Holy Roman Empire, to take a look at the Kingdom of Bohemia! Cheers!

 

[Pavía]

I forgot to ask it in the Iberian tinto maps but since Andorra was and is to this day a Principality of which sovereignty is shared by the bishop of Urgell(which oc is in Aragon) and the Count of Foix shouldn't it be a vassal of Aragon and in a PU with Foix in 1337?

Hmm, could be, bookmarked for review.

 

[Pavía]

View attachment 1251678View attachment 1251679

I can see you had your own plans about how to represent the "Crown of Aragon", but I gotta ask, have any thoughts been put into my proposal to make it a composite unique PU?

This is still a cool way to tackle it, though

Given that the Crowns of the Iberian peninsula are composite monarchies, is there are way to represent the constituent kingdoms Of the Crown of Aragon (Aragon, Valencia) and county (Catalonia) as they had their own cortes and laws; or is that too much of a hassle and abstracted away?

Why did you choose not to use the union mechanic between Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia?

It's something that we have internally discussed (a lot). With the current mechanics, we could represent the political diversity of the the Cortes of each kingdom and the 'Cortes Generales' through a PU with 3 members. However, we would lose the political granularity that the king exerted in the kingdom; a simple example is that you couldn't build buildings like a Bailiff in the other kingdoms of the PU, just in the one that you're directly ruling.

Taking into account that the Aragonese Monarchy was much stronger on the administrative level than Castile or France, often allowking it to punch over its weight, this didn't look fine immersion and balance-wise.

Maybe in the future we can develop even more granular PU policies, and portray the complex political regime of the Crown of the Aragon more accurately; but with the current mechanics and features, we think this is the best possible representation.

Nonetheless, since PUs are completely moddable, it will be possible to easily have a mod with Crown dividided in 3 different countries from start.

 

[Pavía]

Is there content for the Catalan Civil War?

We currently have content about the Remença War, but we want to expand it to make it more comprehensive and connected to the Catalan Civil War.

 

[Pavía]

1. Almogavars as Naval Levy? What exactly is Naval Levy? Like some navy merc units?
2. With transport capacity being 25, it means 25 units or manpower?

1. It's a Land Levy, the tooltip just marks what's a Land/Naval Levy as a generic concept (because yes, there can be Naval Levies).
2. Units, IIRC, but poking @Johan just in case (as there have been some recent balance changes).

 

[Pavía]

Will there be a disaster for the republic (later principality) of Catalonia to revolt from Aragon as it did historically in the 1640s!

We will have something about Els Segadors, yes.

 

[Pavía]

You should have switched the order of Aragon and Bohemia to honour KCD2 coming out, but alas, we got a great TF!

King Wenceslas or Sigismund?

 

[Pavía]

What about making the General Privilege true to its description by requiring parliament to approve wars to declare them?

Is that something you tried?

It would be a big handicap for Aragon, and we already kind of portray that with the generic Parliament mechanics, since you can ask it to get a Casus Belli (although No CB is Best CB!).

 

[Pavía]

Ah, lo the old Gothic March! Will the reforms as presented here be tied to tag or primary culture?? E.g. if I convert to Gothic primary culture, will I still have access to the unique advances and reforms?

Both in terms of keeping the ones that I already have, and unlocking new flavor-specific ones. Or will they be replaced with generic government reforms à la EUIV?

If it is indeed locked to tag, will Mallorca (I presume same primary culture) be an exception to this or will they have no access to these unique modifications?

(Also can we rename areas in-game? Just want to know if I can make Languedoc into Septimania again)

Some to the culture, other to culture group/s, other to the tag.

And no, aread can't be renamed, currently.

 

[Pavía]

Wait is Aragon primary culture Catalan or Aragonese? I suppose Catalan but you didn't mention it being part of the Pyrenean group there

Catalan, since its a majority of the population and also the court language, and we need to set only one. However Aragon is integrated at the same level as Catalonia, so mechanically speaking, both populations operate similarly.

 

[Pavía]

Some quick notes before the deeper immersion:

• Are the Pyreneean fueros supposed to represent the "Fueros de Sobrarbe"?
• Since you mention the Basilica del Pilar... Is the Seo Cathedral also in game? There is a lot of potential flavour related to the interaction of both?
• Any flavour related to the Justicia if Aragón is in a personal union with Castilla? The events of 1591 may add flavour

Also...

• Could you show which buildings exist at the start ?
• Any character from the kingdom of Aragon itself?

1. Not specifically those, but also other families, such as the Jaca one (which I'd consider the most widespread).
2. It would be interesting, although a bit too granular; making a note for the future, nonetheless.
3. Yes, the events about the Justicia may lead to the 'Alteraciones', and can also happen if Castile or Spain rule over Aragón.
4. This is still subject to balance.
5. We have a bunch of historical ones already scripted.

 

[Pavía]

Will most unique country content on the games release be built around the early game or is there a distribution of content for the 1600-1700s as well?

There's content for those ages, as we've already shown, but, let's put it this way, Novgorod, Mali and Aragon have much more content in the early game than in the late game, for historical reasons.

 

[Pavía]

Is there and auxiliary military unit mechanic? If im playing aragon and I conquer or vassalize parts of north africa is there a mechanic to allow me to recruit some of their unique naval units(if they have any) for my standing navy? or at least a discount to recruiting their mercenaries. Or lets say Aragon conquers or gets a personal union with a Genoa(for this hypothetical well pretend Genoa is feudal) could there be a mechanic were Aragon can recruit a capped number of Genoese crossbowmen for its standing army

It depends on how each unit is scripted, but in general, we favor unique special units over 'pokémon-hunting'.

 

[Pavía]

"Or will he try to get revenge from the Battle of Muret in 1213, and recover its ancient holdings north of the Pyrenees?" Does it mean that Aragon will have content for unification of Occitan territories?

Not really, sincr it's not historical; but it's a hint for the player to immerse them, and maybe set some off-road objectives for their gameplay.

 

[Pavía]

Also @Pavía, is there any content regarding the Compromiso de Caspe of 1412? The dynastic change would be a major impact in a game considering:

• It should enable events regarding the infantes de Aragón
• It should enable the Iberian wedding

It's also good from a gameplay perspective, since it gives the player agency.

Yes, there will be.

 

[Pavía]

Pretty sure Tirant lo Blanc was published in 1490, not 1440.

The event is dynamic, so we triggered it to be shown at the first possible date, 1440 (since Joanot Martorell was born around 1410).

 

[Pavía]

Is there nothing regarding Aragon's expansion in southern Italy? Naples was the capital of Aragon for a while after all

Aragon has dynastical ties with Sicily, so it might be a good idea to establish a good relationship with them, and it also has a high chance to be one of the main contenders of the Italian Wars, since it already has presence in an Italian area (Sardinia).

 

[Pavía]

Am I correct to assume that Aragon can split into Aragon and Valencia depending on the outcome of the civil war?

Yes, it may be possible.

 

[Pavía]

Have you settled on the Iberian dynasties names yet?

WIP, but you may already notice a change in this TF.

 

[Pavía]

is Zaragoza or Barcelona the Aragonese capital?

Barcelona, as it was the main residence of the royal court since the reign of King James I. But please note that the Iberian royal courts were still mainly itinerant, which is something that we can't really portray with the current game mechanics.

PS: And we have not stolen that CK3 mechanic (yet)...