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

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?
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Country Selection.png

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:
Aragon.png

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):
Diplomacy.png

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:
Montesa1.png

Montesa2.png

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:
Crown of Aragon.png

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):
Pyrenean Fueros.png

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

This privilege may be relevant in the future…​

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

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’:
La Moreneta.png

La Moreneta2.png

And the Basilica del Pilar of Zaragoza:
Basilica del Pilar1.png

Basilica del Pilar2.png

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:
Almogavars.png

Almogavars2.png

Almogavars3.png

Related to the former:
Desperta Ferro!.png

Aragon has another unique land unit, the Catalan Crossbowmen:
Catalan Crossbowmen.png

Catalan Crossbowmen2.png

And also a unique naval unit, the Catalan Galley:
Catalan Galley.png

Catalan Galley2.png

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

And a couple more advances from the Age of Discovery:
Remença.png

It might be dangerous to oppress the remenças, though…

Valencian Golden Age.png

​
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!:


Ausias March.png

Tirant lo Blanch.png

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

The Mallorcan Issue.png

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 Union Reignites.png

War of the Union.png

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’):
Justicia de Aragón1.png

Justicia de Aragón2.png

Justicia de Aragón3.png

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

Llotja Seda2.png

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!
 
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Cccastor1 said:
Well then it would be a negativ modifier. While I think it could come at a prestige hit to be far below that number, I think it will be some sort of soft Navy cap... going far below it will make you look weak (negativ prestige, potentialy drift towards Land?) going far above could be seen as warmongering giving things like AE or lowerd Diplomatic Abilitys... maybe a drift towards Navy.
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The screenshot also shows WIP, so it might just be the wrong color. Plus, I seem to recall other PDX games getting the red/green thing wrong.
 
matfer13 said:
Is there a priviledge that represents the serfdom in Catalonia? I think it's important considering that it was the only place on the peninsula with it
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That's what the remença advance is supposed to be - remença is how serfs were referred to in medieval Catalonia.
But, as Risor points out:
Ix:Risor said:
In the paragraph describing this advance, there seems to be a section missing which would further explain what the Remença system actually is? Specifically "bears resemblance [...] in other territories of the Crown." As, as it stands, the description gives little explanation as to what the system actually entails that makes it a superior system of organization. Sorry if I've missed a relevant bit that answers this already!
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The blurb text doesn't actually say what a remença is.
Also, a minor nitpick, but the plural of remença is remences, with an E. “Remenças” is a weird pseudo-castilianism, since the actual Spanish term for them has an S - remensa.
 
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@Pavía , by the way, Could we see what roads exist at game start? If I understand the image correctly you are missing a major one, the former roman road from Zaragoza to Bearn. It was a major economic artery in the Middle Ages. It was a main source for good exchange between Southern France and the Ebro valley and its toll at Canfranc was a major revenue source. There is bibliography (Rodrigo Estevan for example) about that, pointing that that exchange was the main source of fish, pig, cheese and other food into the Aragonese Pyrenees area (which was deficitary in food).

I guess that in-game you need to be linking trade centers (Barcelona-Burdeos). But the lack of that road is likely to make Jaca way more backwards than historically and limit the later development of Western Aragon in comparison to central Navarra.

There is also a question about having only one road along the Ebro when historically there seem to have been two. However, that is tricky since the northern route seems to have been abandoned in the XVII century.

Finally, I miss a Zaragoza-Valencia road. I guess than again, roads are in-game designed to only be between trade centers. However that route was important to model the influence Valencia had into southern Aragon during the Valencia golden age.
 
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Pavía said:
The autonomy of Aragonese feudal lords could not be compared to that of the French or German lords, so we need to portray differently in the game.
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Will there be any administrative system in the game to represent the local autonomies for more centralized countries? We have estates and parliament the represent the power of nobility as a united blok but what about local issues that affect control and taxation such as governorships?
 
Is there going to be something about 'Comunidades de aldeas' of Albarracin, Calatayud, Daroca and Teruel?
 
Pavía said:
It depends on how each unit is scripted, but in general, we favor unique special units over 'pokémon-hunting'.
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Can mercenaries be of these unique types or are they all of generic unit types? E.g. can France hire Catalonian crossbowmen if they want to?
 
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Pavía said:
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’):
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... with the power to interpret the foral laws and ...

  • Question about "Foral Laws"​

Are foral laws a distinct legal category in the game, or are they unique to the Iberian Christian kingdoms?

  • Question about "Forais Novos"​

Will the standardization and abolition of foral laws (e.g., the Forais Novos of 1520) be represented as an event or a player decision in the game?


How Did They Work?​
Foral laws (from the Portuguese foral and Spanish fuero) were legal charters granted by monarchs to towns, cities, or regions in medieval Iberia, particularly in Portugal and Spain. These charters established local privileges, rights, and obligations, granting a degree of autonomy to municipalities and sometimes entire regions. They often defined governance structures, tax obligations, trade regulations, and judicial authority.

Key Aspects of Foral Laws: ​

  1. Municipal Autonomy – They provided local communities with self-governance rights, often exempting them from direct royal or feudal control.
  2. Legal Framework – Established specific laws that governed aspects like land ownership, commerce, and justice.
  3. Royal or Noble Grants – Issued by kings or feudal lords to encourage settlement, loyalty, and economic development.
  4. Variation by Region – Different towns had their own forais (plural of foral), leading to a patchwork of local laws.
  5. Codification and Abolition – In Portugal, the Forais Novos (New Charters) of 1520 by King Manuel I standardized many local laws before they were later abolished in the 19th century.
 

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I really don't understand the decision to represent Aragon as a unified country and the mechanical reasons provided for that. There was an entire Tinto Talks on buildings you can build in other countries and the Tinto Talks on PUs mentioned that there will be PUs with unique mechanics, with the example given being none other than Spain. By the looks of it, even if it's not already in, given the above I don't think it'd be outside of the capabilities provided by the system to set a condition that if your special PU type is "Crown of Aragon" and you limit the scope of foreign countries to "Aragon's junior partners" then you can build bailiffs and whatever in them.

Valencia, Catalonia and Aragon (and later Mallorca) all had different laws, taxation, monetary systems, governments (in Catalonia the king could not even pass laws on his own) and parliaments from each other. That's about as personal of a union as it gets on the personal - real union spectrum. Which continued for centuries after the starting date. And if the king just so happened to have the prerogative to appoint officials like bailiffs in all constituent partner countries then that was him just exercising the powers fully within the scope of a personal union.

The arguments about immersion and balance strike me as even less convincing. Balanced against what? France? Does that mean tiny HRE minors on French borders also need to be buffed in some way? And if you set the special Crown of Aragon PU on higher starting integration level with offensive wars enabled from the get go, you're going to "punch above your weight" all the same, as long as you keep the PU stable and the partners happy.

And immersion? I can play as a "nation" based on a building. Not to mention a plethora of other countries that already start in a PU. Maybe some of the starting PUs will be special kinds of PUs right off the bat too. How is Aragon being a PU of its constituent parts going to lower my immersion? If anything, it's the fact that Iberia is presented as a bunch of completely unified blobs while the rest of the map is incredibly granular (which has only increased over time, with further revisions to Tinto Maps doing things like splitting Kingdom of Galicia-Volhynia into Halych and Volhynia in a PU) that's lowering my immersion.
 
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How will you represent the political diversity between the kingdoms and how will the role of Catalonia be felt? They should be portrayed as different entities united by the monarchy.
 
Pavía said:
It depends on the type of content. Situations are widespread, while advances are a mix of country, government, religion, sometimes culture, etc., and events are usually tag-related. In general terms, there's more conteng for the 'Great Powers' of the period. So, a way for a French minor to get more content is to end up re-forming France.
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Would it be hard to make it so that if said minor eclipsed France, it got the content even without forming it? If I play Auvergne (or any minor), I don't want to become just France, I'd want to be something else.. some of the content might still make sense for GP Auvergne though.
 
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Marcqui Pika said:
That's what the remença advance is supposed to be - remença is how serfs were referred to in medieval Catalonia.
But, as Risor points out:

The blurb text doesn't actually say what a remença is.
Also, a minor nitpick, but the plural of remença is remences, with an E. “Remenças” is a weird pseudo-castilianism, since the actual Spanish term for them has an S - remensa.
Click to expand...
On that note the remença advance should give monthly progress towards serfdom (possibly counteracting the progress towards free subjects you should get from the fueros).
 
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Pavía said:
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.
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Adding a policy that allows building buildings could fix that issue, right? But yeah this might be better for a post-launch update or expansion.
 
It would be really nice if each work of art had a picture of the actual thing in its UI instead of a generic pic. I mean, those are works of art, so it's a big deal, and most of them are still around today with plenty of good pictures available for reference.
Just like the wonders in EU4.
(I know the UI is full of placeholders, just pointing this out as something I'd appreciate.)
 
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@Pavía

Some grammar/phrasing fixes:
1739130994251.png

their fleets -> its fleets

1739131354422.png

add 'the' before 'Virgin Mary'
Acording -> According
delete 'the' before 'legend'

1739131469347.png

it is reputed to be founded initially -> the Basilica del Pilar is reputed to have been initially founded

1739132163066.png

over the supremacy -> for supremacy

1739132451481.png

the entire society -> all of society
add 'the' before 'Valencian language'

1739132570508.png

bears resemblance in -> has close equivalents in OR bears resemblance to (systems)

1739132680137.png

delete 'the' before Byzantium
getting -> becoming
literature circles -> literary circles

1739132894019.png

remove the comma after 'against our orders'

View attachment 1252620
add 'from' after 'barred'

1739133062474.png

add a comma after 'burghers'
 
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Pavía said:
We know, and since his main title is King of Aragon, and he is the 4th -> [name_peter]* IV.

* This is how his name is technically scripted, as it's the way we do dynamic name. So if the character would change his main culture to Aragonese, he would be 'Pedro' instead of 'Pere', and so on with any culture with a scripted variant of the name.
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Wouldn't the Aragonese variant of Peter IV be Pero IV instead of Pedro IV.

https://an.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pero_IV_d'Aragón

Cagallo said:
Petition to change Joan Martorell for Joanot Martorell! Joan just sounds so ooooodd.
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Maybe there should be additional variants in cultures for names with diminutive forms. However, if it is not possible for Joanot to be added as a variant to John, then there could be a separate set of names under the English diminutive of John, Johnny, which would include Joanot.
 
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