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

 Thread starterPavía  Start date Feb 21, 2023 at 15:00

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.