Tinto Flavour #8 - 28th of February 2025 - Morocco

[Pavía]

Hello, and welcome one more week to Tinto Flavour, the happy Fridays where we take a look at the flavourish content of the super-secret Project Caesar!

Today we will take a look at the Sultanate of Morocco! So let’s start without further ado:

"The Maghreb has seen many dynasties pass by and one powerful Sultanate after another, such as those of the Idrisids, the Almoravids, or the Almohads. The years of instability and uncertainty are a thing of the past under the Marinid dynasty and Sultan Abu Al-Hasan 'Ali ibn 'Othman Marinid. With a delicate balance between brute force and diplomacy, we have managed to establish firm control within our borders. Now, we look to the east to challenge the power of the Zayyanid of Tlemcen. And, to the north, we have a foothold over the Strait of Gibraltar, in the lands from Algeciras to Ronda, from where we may support our brothers of faith in Granada, in a common effort against the Christian rulers of Iberia."

Please take the UI, 2D and 3D art as WIP, as usual.​

Here are the lands of Morocco:

You may notice some arrows in a sea zone, that indicates the oceanic currents and wind directions. These visuals were recently implemented, so take them as WIP.​

Morocco starts with a fairly interesting diplomatic situation:

Tafilalt is a vassal subject, ruled by Omar Abu ‘Ali, brother of the Sultan. Castile and Tlemcen and enemies and rivals, Tunis is an ally, and Morocco starts at war with Tlemcen.​

Morocco has a few starting estate privileges, including these:

Waqf Payments is a privilege granted to the clergy, available to all Muslim countries.

This privilege will be granted to the Tribes if your country has its capital in the Maghreb region, making it much more powerful (which has its uses), but reducing your control.​

The Parliament has a flavour name, as usual:

Morocco also has some starting works of art:

Unique advances in all the different ages:

This is an advance for Maghrebi countries.

And something a bit different compared to previous Tinto Flavour, unique buildings that are already unlocked at the start of the game:

Let’s move now to the narrative content. This event will trigger early on in the game:

​

And also:

Another early game event is:

And a bit later, after 1350:

Although there might also be some troubles:

… And much more content, including mid-game one regarding the golden age of the Saadi dynasty… But that’s all for today! Next week we will be taking a look at the content for one my favourite countries to playtest, Hungary! Cheers!

 

[Pavía]

Any content for the Republic of Sale/Bou Regreg (city-state of Morisco pirates, led by a marabout warlord) and the Zawiya Dila’iya (a Berber Sufi brotherhood based in the mountains, turned into a proto-state)? If there’s no proper heir, I think Morocco should risk balkanization, to these two but also to competing claimants and prominent regions like Sous.

By the way, the High and Middle Atlas mountains as well as the Rif should be at risk for earthquakes. Morocco was blank on the earthquake map posted on Wednesday.

1. For the Republic of Salé, yes, but that will be in a different Tinto Talks...
2. Noted, thanks!

 

[Pavía]

Does anyone have some coffee? Sultan is about to keel over.

View attachment 1259723

Also, Im surprise there isn't some more flavor directed at a in-depth Re-Reconquista. Is that entirely saved to just Granada?

Oh, we will talk about that, eventually, in the Tinto Flavour for Castile...

PS: I took a screenshot of the guy in the worst possible moment while blinking, lol.

 

[Pavía]

@Pavía could you show the societal values of all the TF countries shown so far?

Not yet, since both the generic and the particular SV are subject to constant rebalance.

 

[Pavía]

Any chance for Morocco and for Tunis (and I guess some others as well) to have their dynasties as country names, like it was historically?

The long name of the country is 'Marinid Sultanate of Morocco', we might end up potentially making it a game rule, but first we want to adjust a couple of parameters about how Muslim dynastical names work.

 

[Pavía]

Will there be anything regarding the brief Idrisid restoration in 1465? The event chain in EU4 kinda ignored it and went straight from Marinids -> Wattasids. It could be an interesting scenario since the Idrisids were the original founders of Morocco.

(French wikipedia has an actual page on the ruler, unlike English lol)

Yes!

 

[Pavía]

How many tribesmen pops are in Morocco at the start of the game, what about the balance of estate power?

They're a majority, but we yet have to adjust the pop numbers of the region.

 

[Pavía]

Is Touat no longer a vassal of the Marinids? From the looks of it, Touat isn't involved in the war but Tafilalt is.

Touat starts as a subject of Tafilalt.

 

[Pavía]

Hm, is Zenata an accepted culture or something for Morocco? I assume the primary culture is Moroccan.

The primary culture is Moroccan, yes, while the Amazigh cultures are accepted.

 

[Pavía]

The flag of Tunis is weird, I have made a post in my thread about it in case you guys didn't know

We are using the one that appears both in the 14th-century Catalan Atlas and Libro del Conosçimiento de todos los rregnos, which is a black crescent moon over a white flag, as we deem it as the most accurate one for 1337.

 

[Pavía]

So I understand that Morocco can form al-Andalus? What the ruler will be called, a caliph, like during Almohad era?

Also, slave raids will increase population, right?

1. Yes, it's possible.
2. You're stealing population from other countries, yes.

 

[Pavía]

Yes, and this could potentially create issues for some countries like Mughals (what if they are created by, say, Kartids?), Mamluks, etc?

That's why we need to adjust a couple of things to have a proper balance between dynamic outcomes and flavour immersion.

 

[Pavía]

A few points:
-Marinid and Hafsid shouldn't be the dinastic name, that would be like making 'ottomans' the dinastic name of the ottmsn empire. The marinids surname should be banu marin and for the hafsids it should be al-Hafsiyun.

That's something that is a problem, now that you mention it, because the Ottoman Empire is a modern historiographical standardization, as its official name was Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi ʿOsmānīye, 'Sublime Ottoman State'; you might notice that the ʿOsmānīye particle relates to the House of Osman, which was in power during its entirety. But, what would happen if the dynasty becomes extinct? Should it still be called the same way? Or should it be called Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi [New Dynasty Name here]?

 

[Pavía]

Mm, okay, but hopefully matters in the game regarding the final fate of Iberia arent solely a matter between Granada and Castille. Other crowns, including Navarre, should have storylines towards that, too.

When Andorra Reconquista, btw?

Portugal, Morocco, and even Navarra are involved early on in the Battle of the Strait...

 

[Pavía]

Are there any plans to highlight subjects of subjects of the target country on the diplomatic map in some way in that case?

We want to make some improvements to the diplomatic map mode, this is a WIP version.

 

[Pavía]

Is it possible to have a situation representing the Battle for the Strait between the Muslim and Christian powers of western North Africa and Iberia? Historically this was a century-long conflict over control of the Strait of Gibraltar and the culmination of this conflict would come in 1338-40 with the Moroccan invasion of Iberia and battle of Rio Salado. I think it would add a lot of early-game flavor to the region and drive conflict between the two sides as this invasion was certainly inevitable already by the start date of 1337. You can read my full Situation Suggestion here.

Yes, we have content about this, OFC!

 

[Pavía]

Slightly unrelated but I made a comment in the Iberia feedback were I pointed out how Granada's current borders aren't accurate for 1337 and mostly resemble the modern provincial borders. I understand that you probably don't want to make any further changes in the peninsula, but is there any chance you might tweaks granada's borders to make them more accurate?

While we sometimes make some changes on the fly, we're now mostly focused on the review of the regions that did not have a Feedback post yet, before making any possible, future further review.

 

[Pavía]

Minor nitpick, you may want to line up the sea borders here so the currents won't look mysteriously interrupted, like the Calm Belt;
View attachment 1259728

Now that we have a proper visualization, we are going to correct a bunch of weird-looking issues related to sea lanes, yes.

 

[Pavía]

I think the CK3 approach of having a standard (de jure) name for a region, alongside an Islamic-clan name of the dynasty as the country name could work.

e.g. the Kingdom of Syria (feudal, tribal) // the Abbasid Sultanate (clan).

Since we don't have de jure titles, it's an approach that we can't follow.

 

[Pavía]

Can we protect from this ? I hope there are some ways to actively counter that (whether being costal forts that protect in their zone or control, or maritime presence)

Yes!