Dev Diary #94 - Conquest and Reconquest

[Snow Crystal]

Hello there!

For this week, we are going to take a look at the Iberian Reconquista and the Northern Crusades. Keep in mind that things aren’t finalized yet, so there might be small errors etc.

Late 12th century or afterwards, the Teutonic Order can decide to start converting the north (Scandinavia/Baltics/Russia), if they aren’t already holding lands in the south or fighting for any lord at the moment. After the original announcement event, any King or Emperor living in the north will be able to ask the Teutons to target a specific ruler to conquer.

After asking the Teutons to target a specific character, the Teutons will send a response letter with their demands, be it land, money or that they will do it for free. After the Teutons have received a target, they will focus their efforts from now on, to convert that specific DeJure Kingdom to Christianity, fighting wars for one Duchy at a time. In other words, other rulers won’t be able to ask them to target any character outside of the DeJure kingdom later on.

After the Northern Crusades start, the Teutons will potentially ask a local ruler for help, receive event troops and start marching upon the Duchy they fight for. Should they win that war, they will become the Teutonic State and start actively pacifying the region. If they lose, they will wait for some more years, before re-launching the Northern Crusades once more. If they keep losing their wars, they will eventually give up their Northern Crusade, and leave the north.

For those helping the Teutons in pacifying the north, there is rewards in the form of gold, piety, artifacts and potentially a bloodline if you are truly pious.

Turning down south, we also have the new Reconquista. For any Iberian Christian ruler (of Duke or higher tier) with lands in the Iberian Peninsula, they can start fighting to reconquer the peninsula for Christendom. A new decision has been added, to start preparing for a Reconquista. This will cost a ruler a substantial amount of prestige, piety and gold. One thing I want to point out, is that the Reconquista wars can be started at any point throughout the game, and it is not attached to the start of the normal Crusades.

After the Reconquista has started, the ruler will start gathering troops and resources the following year. Every month or two, special events will fire for the ruler, to ask the Pope for gold, finding ships, troops etc.

After a year has passed, the preparation events will finally stop, and the ruler will have one more year to find a fitting target to attack. They can of course start attacking someone prior to the preparation year has passed as well, but then at the cost of the special events attached to that period. The new Reconquista Casus Belli will let you attack special regions in Iberia, each one of them consisting of two Duchies (with the exception of Navarra and the Balearic Islands, which is 1).

As a Reconquista is ongoing, a Muslim in the Iberian Peninsula will be able to sell their services to the Christian Reconquistador and vice versa for Christians. This is to simulate the chaotic type of warfare that often happened at the Iberian Peninsula. For those who want to simulate El Cid, there is a special bloodline for someone winning several Reconquista wars from both sides (helping both the Christian attackers, and the Muslim defenders).

The Reconquistador will also be able to set up a beneficiary, akin to normal Crusades, but it isn’t necessary nor pushed as heavily. After all, spreading the faith locally at the Iberian Peninsula is quite the pious task!

If you have a Beneficiary to gain the land, they will have some extra benefits akin to how the Crusaders usually do, with no penalties to the area when the war is won, etc.

A Reconquista will be considered a success when all the lands of Iberia has been taken, or a Christian Emperor of Hispania is crowned. Similarly, if a Muslim gets the Empire of Hispania, they will stop the Reconquista as well.

The title has been changed slightly to reflect this, and you can no longer create the Empire, unless there are no rulers of another faith holding any DeJure Kingdoms. E.g, the Sultan of Andalusia cannot create the Empire of Hispania while there is a Christian King of Asturias.

Of course, there is a bloodline for those who stay loyal to the faith, and fight for Christianity as well. None of that wishy-washy both sides nonsense!

Finally, if Christendom is desperately trying to survive in the region, Reconquista adventurers can start spawning for the Christian rulers of Iberia. They have a shortened preparation time of 1 month, before they declare war on the closest Muslim. If they win the war, they will settle down as a Beneficiary would, with some of those benefits.

And like last week, there is of course two new game rules attached to the two new Crusades.

• Northern Crusade:
  • Enabled
  • Disabled

• Reconquista:
  • Enabled
  • Limited (No Adventurers)
  • Disabled

That was all for the Baltics and the Iberian Peninsula! Hopefully you guys are as stoked for the two new Crusades as we are. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed these extra summer Dev Diaries, and we are back to the usual from next week on!

(Ps. Yes, there isn't really a huge change from the summer Dev Diaries to the usual ones, just that these weren't originally planned)

 

[Snow Crystal]

What will be the subject of next usual Dev Diary?

Long-awaited additions to the game. Any hints as to what next week’s diary will be on?

As I was in charge of every DD throughout the summer, I decided myself what I write about, from week to week. So... I honestly don't know for sure, which is why I refrained from saying anything about it. If it is what I think it is about... Well... It is something to look forward to

All of that seems really amazing! How easy are these two crusades to mod? And what is part of the expansion and what is part of the patch? Like can we use one of these systems elsewhere, like idk a Reconquesta-like system if England fell to the pagans for too long, if we don't have the DLC?

Should be simple enough to mod, as it is all script. All "Special Crusades" with the exception of the Shepherds' Crusade is Holy Fury (expansion) content. The Shepherds' Crusade is Sons of Abraham content.

 

[Snow Crystal]

I wonder what the Northern Crusades and the Reconquista look like from the other side. Do the non-Christians get a single pop-up telling them Christians are gathering a huge army to attack them or they do also get a bit of help here and there?

They should get events telling them about the gathering christians as well. We haven't given them a lot of new events or the like in this specific case, but we often see the Christians failing at getting a foothold into the Baltics, as the Romuvans/Suomenuskos stick together in all Holy Wars against them.

So only the content is locked behind the expansion, not the mechanic itself? Like could we do northern crusades-style wars or reconquista-style wars without checking for Holy Fury in a mod?

There is no new mechanic added with these Crusades. They uses events and Casus Belli as we do so many other places, so it shouldn't be an issue in modding it into any game.

 

[Snow Crystal]

Could we perhaps get a game rule for longer preparation times for Reconquista Adventurers (somewhere between Enabled and Limited)? One month is rather short compared to the usual two years...

The reason they were reduced, were actually because of attrition, and the fact they don't have any way of getting supplies while they are preparing. So they would start taking a lot of attrition damage.

Everywhere in this article there are words like "christian" or "christianity" and not "catholic" and "catholicism". Does it mean reconquista can be done by non-catholic christians as well?

And what if, by any chance, the pentarchy is restored before the XII century and the Teutonic Order becomes orthodox as a result? Can they still do the Northern Crusade?

The reason we used Christian and not Catholic, is pretty much because the Teutons could end up being Fraticelli, Waldensian or even Orthodox.

 

[Snow Crystal]

So would the reconquista end if for example the entire peninsula was united under a Pagan ruler or is just if it is united under islam?

I say "Muslim" in the DD, as they are the most likely opponents, but in the files it only specifies "Christian" and "Non-Christian", so they could be any faith that isn't Christian.

 

[Snow Crystal]

Will the Reconquista first target de jure territories and/or what eventually becomes de jure for Castile, Aragon, Portugal at later start dates? So will they be a bit geared towards that outcome first, before every part of the Iberian peninsula is an available target; or is any territory in the whole peninsula a potential target?
IMHO it makes most sense to target neighbouring territories first, and also to divide the attentions of Castile, Portugal. Aragon...

The AI will focus on taking northern Iberia first, then work itself down southwards later on. The player can choose any target they either neighbor, or is the closest to.

 

[Snow Crystal]

Will regular crusades and holy wars in iberia be limited?

Crusades will be less likely, as the Crusade weight for them has been reduced, but not limited.

 

[Snow Crystal]

Is the "muslims can join christians and vice-versa" thing event scripted, or elementary to the CB where e.g. rulers simply take Join war decision?

Scripted decision on character that pops up when a Reconquista war is ongoing.

 

[Snow Crystal]

A few questions:

1. It looks like the reconquista is started by decision by one ruler, so who has access to the CB? Only that ruler, all christians, or everyone?
2. Connected to the previous, is this a long-term state of reconquista, or does a ruler have to use that decision for every war declared?
   
3. What happens if the reconquista finished, but the religion that was pushed out conquers back into Iberia? Can the reconquista start up again?
   
4. How about if christians are pushed out without starting the reconquista? Can christians that return to the peninsula later still start them?

1. Only that ruler.
2. It is meant to signal one large campaign to retake one part of Iberia, rather than a constant war to retake the whole peninsula, so it is not a long term state of Reconquista.
3. At the moment it cannot start up again, but I have considered putting an event to restart it. But for now, no.
4. It will still count as a "Reconquista lost, and has given up", so they wouldn't be able to start them later.

Will we be able to create / modify the holy orders in our religion?

Sadly, no.

Will Teutons attack (maytbe with local ruler's persuasion) non-pagan targets in northern regions, like Orthodox Christians?

Not as part of the Northern Crusades, but I figure they will work like a normal ruler if they actually turn into a proper ruler.

Is the Reconquista mechanic exclusively only for Iberia or you can fight such wars on other places in the world ?

Exclusive to the Iberian Peninsula.

Ah, forgot one question earlier:
Is there bloodline for non-christians that defended against the reconquista as well?

Not yet, at least.

Can we have a game rule so that Northern Crusade starts earlier? Similar to turkic conquerors game rule.

I can put it into consideration, if nothing else.

 

[Snow Crystal]

Looks really great! Can't wait to play with the new patch
But at the same time... I thought before that there are too much game rules, and you guys are still adding more game rules every patch/dlc. While I do like to have the option to turn certain things off/on and so on, I feel it is actually more confusing and a "big task" to be done before a major playthrough. That's why I usually play with the standard settings. Would have liked to see these game rules simplified! Altough I don't know how that could be done without actually losing content to choose from. Maybe consider to use headlines to explain how much/big changes these would be to the game?

What I suggest to do, at least I do this myself, is to find a ruleset that you enjoy playing with, and save it. Then you can just load it up every time you are going to play a game, and it should be all right.

 

[Snow Crystal]

Will pagans get something when they win?

At the moment, they only receive a decent amount of piety and gold.

 

[Snow Crystal]

Is turning the Reconquista events to 'Limited' something that disables achievements?

I don't necessarily think the first thought running through anyone's mind was "Oh boy, I want more adventurers added to the game, with even less prep time!", especially if they're only for Christians. Seems like it would make playing a Muslim character in that region very frustrating.

You are free to disable them or limit them, without thinking about achievements.

 

[Snow Crystal]

English isn't the first language of most of the staff at Paradox, so there's not much point in pointing this stuff out a lot of the time. At least this was understandable. If you read Groogy's Holy Fury AAR for instance it's very easy to become lost because there are about 5 major syntax errors per sentence. Usually the dev diaries themselves scarcely have these problems so I would leave it be unless it's something like have/has which are switched a lot for Swedish speakers for some reason.

The things that have been shown this week are pretty unfiltered, as QA hasn't checked it at all yet, so... Well... Stuff like this squeezes through. That is why I have been pretty consistent with the "Things aren't finalized" throughout all of summer.

 

[Snow Crystal]

Let us return to the topic at hand, please.