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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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Goldchruzi said:
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)
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Some to the culture, other to culture group/s, other to the tag.

And no, aread can't be renamed, currently.
 
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Might have been asked before but as an invading power or a uniting power through a PU or annexation do we gain access to the other counties special units. For example as Castile if we conquered all of Aragon would we gain access to there units. Historically this makes sence look at England using longbows after conquering Wales.
 
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Pavía said:
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.
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Honestly that is completely fair, given the vast amount of detail and granularity you guys have provided for this game so far. Perhaps this can be something shelved for the Administrative divisions DLC. ;)
 
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NorthernAlliance said:
Might have been asked before but as an invading power or a uniting power through a PU or annexation do we gain access to the other counties special units. For example as Castile if we conquered all of Aragon would we gain access to there units. Historically this makes sence look at England using longbows after conquering Wales.
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I'm pretty sure they already said no
 
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matfer13 said:
Wait is Aragon primary culture Catalan or Aragonese? I suppose Catalan but you didn't mention it being part of the Pyrenean group there
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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.
 
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Pavía said:
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.
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But is Catalonian part of the Pyrenean culture group too? Otherwise I don't understand how they have access to the Fueros reform
 
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Zaragoza said:
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?
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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.
 
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Pavía said:
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!).
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Maybe an "estates dissatisfied" modifier when declaring war without CB then, as the reform implies estates should be more pissed if they're bypassed (which we could abstract away as "if you have a CB they've been consulted either through the parliement or informally not represented in game")
 
what happens to military units if you dont have enough goods to maintain them. Actually it would be good if you could make it clear what happens when you run a goods deficit, is there a order for which industries get them first? Is it a general debuff?
 
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Pavía said:
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.
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Why hide it? It's important information that disaster can spawn additional events. Well, unless every single disaster does that, but even then something somewhere should tell the player that this is the case.
 
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Metz said:
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?
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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.
 
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Do you expect Spain to form around 1700ish

in Eu4 it tends to form far earlier than historically

It isn’t the only place with that problem - The United Kingdom also comes to mind
 
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jackthesnack123 said:
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
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It depends on how each unit is scripted, but in general, we favor unique special units over 'pokémon-hunting'.
 
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P.Quirinius said:
"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?
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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.
 
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Zaragoza said:
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.
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Yes, there will be.
 
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Katana500 said:
Do you expect Spain to form around 1700ish

in Eu4 it tends to form far earlier than historically

It isn’t the only place with that problem - The United Kingdom also comes to mind
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I Understand what you mean but technically Spain was formed in the late 15th century, that said what's the problem with that?
 
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Dustz said:
Pretty sure Tirant lo Blanc was published in 1490, not 1440.
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The event is dynamic, so we triggered it to be shown at the first possible date, 1440 (since Joanot Martorell was born around 1410).
 
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