Again total BS, at that time Morocco alone would have 5 million people, meanwhile Iberia 7 million(by 1450). You seem very biased towards spain, are you spanish? And again the only time an army was sent to invade, it was destroyed, so aside the coastal cities that were eventually retaken, and contrary to your saying, heavily fortified (see Mogador or the old castle of ceuta). So tell me how can we represent in game an army of 20000 portugese by 1578 being destroyed given the really bad modelling of the region. And to enlighten your utter ignorance of the region read this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Alcácer_Quibir and the reason of why the bourgeoisie of portugal did support a military campaign in morocco ( gold, cattle, wheat and sugar) in which the king spend most of the crown wealth, just for this campaign! Well that page alone prove you are full of sh*t so please stop posting about north africa.
Seriously, Wikipedia? I mean I at least read Bovill's
Battle of Alcazar where he details (in 200 pages) just about everything I've said here. The Moroccans had gotten a technology transfer from the Ottomans and reformed the tactics to those resembling those of the Ottomans (rather than those of the traditional North African forces). In both cases this means better tech in the EUIV engine.
Regardless, one
battle does not a pattern of
campaigns make. I can't believe you seriously are making an argument about the typical campaign from a single fluke battle after the Moroccans did
exactly what I said they needed to do to be competitive (make an alliance with an outside power (a strong OE), reform the army (gain Mil tech), and develop better techniques for using firearms (gain mil tech & change unit types)). Of course, Morocco can compete with the Iberians - it just needs the historical help its rulers wisely sought and for the Iberians not to have their undivided military focus be on them. Of course, if you'd rather have it be historical, then perhaps we should hard code the North Africans to only win if they outnumber the Iberians by 2:1 (as from your source).
The pattern is: the Iberians set out to take Tangiers. They get side tracked with Asilah, they siege and fight a battle. They win, they take the town. They later decide the town isn't worth the cost of holding and bug out. Similar conquests also happened for Ceuta, Safi, Azamar, and Tangier. Further note that they did this while ALSO fighting in Asia and while having to deal with a very strong and interventionist Ottoman Empire.
For Iberians distracted by the chance of French invasion, colonial conquests, Italian campaigns, and of course internal fights they racked up a pretty hefty win rate in North Africa.
Why you are making ad hominem attacks on me I don't know. What in heck does my nationality have to do with my arguments? I'm United States Marine who has professionally studied most of the major campaigns of the EU era. I had to read maybe 2,000 pages about the North African "crusades" for a graduate level class in military history at MCWAR; the instructor was Tunsian-American so please don't go attacking his character with more baseless ad hominem. While I didn't read any of the original sources in the original languages, he did vouch for our Arabic translations. How about you?
Look, I don't understand why you are so defensive. Some states weren't as strong others. A Spanish/Portuguese alliance without French, Ottoman or colonial distractions
should beat Morocco silly most of the time. Portugal alone might be a bit more dicey, but even there, historical precedent is to be on Portugal. Regardless, the way to improve North Africa is to improve the diplomatic situation. Morocco should seek, heavily to ally with the Ottomans (who should before too long be the scourge of the Western Mediterranean) or failing them with Spain or France. You know, like the rulers did historically. This doesn't mean that Morocco is weak, just that it is indeed fairly poor compared huge profits from the colonial endeavors and Asian trade Portugal and Spain were pulling in. Likewise, it also reflects the advantages the Iberians held as being the naval power with the ability to chose the place & time of battle with little warning and rapid transit while Morocco has to deal with effectively exterior lines thanks to the naval imbalance and worse has to deal with the old system of force mobilization until around 1560 or so.
Spain never wanted to take all of Morocco. Portugal did only for a brief time under one poorly prepared young king who lacked an heir. I
love that the AI is pimed to both take the odd coastal port (thanks to wanting to stop piracy and control trade), but also that they have near zero desire to take the interior.
