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EU4 - Development Diary - 9th of October 2018

Welcome all to today’s dev diary, where I’ll be covering the long-awaited Iberian and North African map update coming in the 1.28 ‘Spain’ update.

iberia_map.png


Nations released for the sake of example


As things currently stand, though as always things are subject to change before release, Iberia consists of 571 development over 63 provinces. This includes the Macaronesia area but now excludes Labourd, which has been returned to the French region.

In Aragon, the distinction between the Kingdom of Aragon, the Kingdom of Valencia, and the Principality of Catalonia has become more pronounced. Tarragona is now rightly in the Catalonia area, and the province of Valencia has been split so that Castello and Xativa have become separate provinces. Valencia itself has the potential to be a very rich city indeed, as the player’s actions can lead to it becoming a major producer of silk. The three major Balearic Islands have become provinces in and of themselves, linked together by a strait and comprising their own Area.

Likewise, Galicia has seen itself grow from 1 province to 4, and now has an Area all to itself.

Portugal and Granada have been gifted one additional province each: Aveiro and Malaga respectively.

Last but not least, many citizens of Navarra are looking a little confused as they wonder where their coastline has gone. Wedged between major powers and with no immediate means of escape over the ocean, Navarra will be a very challenging nation in 1.28.

New releasable nations:

Valencia: The Kingdom of Valencia was a major constituent part of the Crown of Aragon in 1444. In 1.28 the former kingdom of El Cid will be a releasable nation.

Asturias: The Kingdom of Asturias ceased to exist long before our start date, but it nicely fills the absence of releasable nations in the region.

morocco_map.png


I’ve also taken another look at North Africa. Here we can see several new provinces along the coast, including those belonging to new nations that can emerge during the game.

The province of Demnate allows a route through the Atlas mountains; a convenient shortcut and potentially a deadly choke-point.

The Canary Islands have been split between Gran Canaria and Tenerife to represent the somewhat incomplete Castilian conquest and colonization of the islands.

For the masochists among you who play as Granada, they now have a core on the province on Ceuta.

New releasable nations:

Salé and Tétouan: Home to some of the most infamous Barbary Pirates, these nations will be releasable in 1444, and may emerge dynamically in the course of the game in the style of Habsan.

fezzan_map.png


Finally, I’ve made some minor changes to the eastern Maghreb. The province of Kairwan has been added for Tunis, and the addition of Sabha has allowed a more aesthetic redrawing of Fezzan’s borders.

That’s all for today. Next week, @Groogy will reveal some of the new features coming in the as yet unnamed Immersion pack to be released alongside 1.28.
 
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Can we see how all of this looks in 1444?
 
Speaking more seriously, is Castille a Great Power in 1444 again?
 
The more provinces a country has, the stronger it is, it can build more buildings, develop them easier and have more ways of diversifying its strategy. When the England patch came out Ireland received lots of new provinces, and that is good because if I was to play Ireland only I could have a good base from which I can get resources to go colonial or have a good fleet. But right now Portugal is absolutely ridiculous, it still has, after the changes shown bigger provinces than most countries that have got an update, which leads into awkward situations where it can't even maintain a half decent navy doing stuff because it runs out of sailors too quickly. I thought it was going to receive a few more provinces, some coastal, some not, but it seems that it won't and that is going to continue to be a country that can't get decent resources from its mainland, same as Castille without Aragon. From mp games where Aragon is a player I can tell that Castille and Portugal are way behind from what they should be in resources they can get from their mainland. It's simple, if England can get to a 100 income in 1500 easily and to a naval limit that's over 150, with enough sailors to maintain it, while Portugal or Castille barely can achieve half of the sailors England have, with worse income, worse naval naval limit, way worse naval ideas, where is the competition? England is just stupidly better in a period when the Iberian peninsula is supposed to be the lead power, so if you think about mp games, Portugal can't do anything because it doesn't have sailors, Castille doesn't have sailors and England rules the sea from the 1460's
 
It would be a really positive thing for the sake of balance and for the game itself that you seriously rethink the map changes and I hope Portugal gets a few more provinces and that Castille could get a few more coastal provinces, maybe getting Marbella into Granada so they have to conquer ir
 
I like the changes, but some of the provinces are still rather huge. I think it would look even better if you cut them a bit smaller as well :)

There are two issue to consider here. First thing is realism. EU4 provinces try to reflect historical provinces where possible (it's actually often individually explained in the game files, there are many developer notes) and at the same time Iberia is huge, which the ingame map projection can't really display, and has always been pretty sparsely populated, especially far from the coast. This means the large provinces do make sense in this regard. However, there is also the issue of unit maneuverability, which alongoside immersion, is the second important reason why provinces are made more numerous. Splitting the central provinces and making them just low-dev would make combat in Iberia better for sure. On the other hand, little warfare usually actuallyhappens there, its's mostly around the strategic areas around Pyrenees and rich Aragon provinces where wars are (and were) decided.
 
Now as Navarra is even more hard to play, and since this is an Iberia update, I really long for a possibility for Navarra to form Basque.

Basque culture I'll guess is in the same 3 (maybe 4?) provinces. Getting control over them as Navarra could be a good challenge, and I feel a Basque nation would be a nice reward for doing so. A Basque nation could have really intresting ideas aswell
 
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Looking closer to Aragon makes me feel that zero attention went into the placement of the cities there.

Tarragona, Urgell, Pirineo, Lleida... All are placed in the wrong location.
 
Ok, if the light blue thing in the released countries is supposed to be Asturias...
It has a really weird region:
-Vasque region was mainly Navarras until conquered by Castile
-Cantabria was the initial port of Castille and part of where it was born (together with Burgos).
I understand it has those weird borders to differentiate them from Leon (which I mean they technically were the "same" kingdom) but they dont really make so much sense.
 
I'm from Xativa and today, 9th of October, day of the Valencian Community, I've received an unexpected and nice gift from Paradox. You finally included my city (wich was very important in the Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis eras) in such a great game (even if it was already included in mods like MEIOU or Imperium Universalis). You can't imagine how this little thing means to me, a historian and a fan of this company for 13 years. For all this, thanks a lot, Paradox. :):D
 
There are two issue to consider here. First thing is realism. EU4 provinces try to reflect historical provinces where possible (it's actually often individually explained in the game files, there are many developer notes) and at the same time Iberia is huge, which the ingame map projection can't really display, and has always been pretty sparsely populated, especially far from the coast. This means the large provinces do make sense in this regard. However, there is also the issue of unit maneuverability, which alongoside immersion, is the second important reason why provinces are made more numerous. Splitting the central provinces and making them just low-dev would make combat in Iberia better for sure. On the other hand, little warfare usually actuallyhappens there, its's mostly around the strategic areas around Pyrenees and rich Aragon provinces where wars are (and were) decided.
In the 15th Century wasn't that sparsely populated compared to other regions such us the British Isles. Besides a large portion of the population lived far from the coast at the time.
Demographics have changed a lot since then. Don't look at modern maps, it's way different now
 
Me: paradox please split galicia into two provinces
Paradox: splits it into four like total madmen

Thanks a lot for finally changing Iberia. I haven't been this hyped for a change to the game since the el Dorado DLC years ago
 
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