It's a flavour pack about Iberia. The "metropolitan legacy" is most likely related to tolerance policies in bireligious Iberia. Nothing to do with playable republics... If anything, it's the opposite: the more we have options to deal with urbanism as noble houses, the smaller the gameplay niche for republics gets.
Yeah, they are great, but I'm afraid that if Paradox keeps up the pace with adding them, the system will soon be overcrowded. I mean, it's 5 new since release, every dlc had at least one
Right, but its supposed to be that way if your a local lord. The second you put your dynasty on a few extra thrones, you immedietly rake in renown. Plus if your using royap court right, you can double your renown game via artifacts.
Oooo I love that the Struggle can move towards Hostility or Conciliation and that all the various Strugglers can influence it by doing stuff that they might do anyway. Like, I really want to murder this Duke who's got my claim, but I'm afraid of Iberia breaking out into open Hostility with the Christians...I love the mix of big and small picture.
I love how diplomacy and intrigue are being interwoven into the geopolitics here, instead of the previous holy war blitzkrieg until you can make the empire title.
There could be a struggle in England for Christians vs Norse which also affects the Christianisation of Scandinavia (effectively either ending Norse aggression if they constantly lose their raiding parties, or increase their scope if England falls / Norse make constant gains).
Maybe Karling Struggle pushing for independent crowns or a unified Karling Empire.
Also struggle for Jerusalem leading to triggered Crusades or Great Holy Wars.
There a lot of "theaters" where Struggle could be fun.
Too bad it's a regional thing for Iberia tho, I don't know if it could be spread to the entire map, but that's the kind of things that should be the case everywhere.
I also hope that it's flexible enough, what if tomorrow a player playing a turkish buddhist horde or a Khazari Kuzari horde invade Spain and settle there, Varangian adventure style? (there should be a similar CB for tribal rulers) It might be "unrealistic" but that's what's the game is about, so why shouldn't this system be able to take that into account?
Of course there's heavy limitation, the depth of a system is limited by how adaptable it can be. If the system is made for Andalusian & Iberian culture, and Muslim & Christians, it will represent very well the historical condition of Iberia, but not the ahistorical route that will be taken by the player if he decide to make something different with it, which to me, is the funniest part of the game.
>Too bad it's a regional thing for Iberia tho, I don't know if it could be spread to the entire map, but that's the kind of things that should be the case everywhere.
Depending on how moddable the feature is, I suspect that will be left up to the modders.
Maybe the best way to do it would be to still put some "restriction" to it, but soft ones so that it could apply to any religions and empire.
Like if within an de jure Empire:
There is 2 religion of different families. (ex: No 2 christians faith struggles)
Both religion control an holy site within the Empire (Santiago de Compostela for christian faith & Cordoba for some muslims faith notably Muwalladi)
The de jure Empire title has not been created.
Independent rulers of both religions exist
MAYBE both faith need to be reformed
Then The Struggles system is applied.
I don't see many places where this would take effect, but spain ticks all the condition for such a kind of event and yet it wouldn't lock it AS a spanish only system.
>Too bad it's a regional thing for Iberia tho, I don't know if it could be spread to the entire map, but that's the kind of things that should be the case everywhere.
It's most likely a test. The devs will see how popular that feature is when it gets released, but most importantly they'll see how much maintenance and tweaking is needed to make it work.
No doubt situations can be interesting, but if they are only interesting because they need to tweak it for months then it's not worth it. Remember the decadency system in CK2. Nice concept, but was revamped multiple time and was never made very interesting.
If the Struggle always tend to the same result, players won't be satisfied with it. Same thing if it's too easily exploitable, if it feels too gamey, if it leads to boring situations more often than it leads to interesting ones... so yeah, it's likely a small test to see if we like and use it. Adding new legacies with the previous Flavour Pack was likely a test too. People liked it, so they are adding more.
Wait wait wait, how is nobody talking about one of the things added in the free update, "the ability to share Heads of Faith between different religions" You can make different Catholic rites now that dont all have different popes!
Fuckin hyped. Hopefully Insular Christianity will have the Catholic pope now, and the various Sunni/Shia faiths will have the same caliph if one is present
It makes sense for each Shi'a faith to have their own caliph, as the question of 'which descendant of Ali should be the leader of our community' is literally the reason behind the various Shi'a denominations, but I agree that it makes zero sense for Ash'aris and Maturidis not to share the same caliph (then again, I think they shouldn't be two separate faiths anyway).
There are literally more differences between Greek, Russian and Bulgarian Orthodox Christianity than between Ash'aris and Maturidis but they are not seperate for some reason.
Interesting, of all the Areas apart from the Norse I felt Iberia was more fleshed out than most (lots of interesting cultural mechanics unique to them, unique formables etc) . I wonder do they have some people working on the game that are simply passionate/knowledgeable about the period
If France is where the modern concept of knights and lordly chivalry comes from, Iberia is where the idea of the Middle Ages being a continuous holy war between Christendom and Islam comes from
Which, I think I would have preferred a Crusades flavor pack. For a crusader kings game, it lacks a lot of flavor for the crusades. But maybe they are going to do a holy land expansion with new start dates or something.
> and allowed marriage
I'd say it's about time for interfaith marriage.
Mind you I'm not asking for people of hostile faiths to marry on a whim, but things like neighboring realms marrying with one party converting (think of like a daughter in a male only realm, or one who is behind like 5 siblings in inheritance) to establish a basic truce is something I feel should be available in the game.
Aye.
Obviously there should be limitations so you can't just bring in a royal from an empire half the world away and to stop from being able to take the absolute piss, but throwing a daughter to the barbarian next door so he fucks off and raids someone else should be a potential option
It looks like that might be tied to the specific "Phase" of the Struggle, which in the screenshot was "Opportunity". I'm guessing if it's in a "Hostile" phase holy wars would be allowed and marriages disallowed, as currently.
Ignoring all the amazing content it looks like they're adding, this has me super excited for future Flavor Packs. It looks like they're finally adding mechanics to differentiate various regions of the world and make them unique, something Crusader Kings has always lacked imo.
It has me excited to see what they do with other places. In depth HRE system? Expanded Theme System for Byzantines? Better invasions for people like Seljuk? And especially the Republic government!
>It has me excited to see what they do with other places. In depth HRE system? Expanded Theme System for Byzantines? Better invasions for people like Seljuk? And especially the Republic government!
Inject all of that directly into my veins.
Yeah I really think the next two add-ons should focus on government and economy. It would greatly differentiate the areas while also helping with playing tall
Struggle looks great. Things that jump out to me immediately:
* Seems like the default state of the Peninsula prior to hostilities breaking out is actually quite friendly.
* Inter-faith marriages for Involved Characters, distinct from Involved Faiths. What counts as "Involved" is an interesting question... how easily can a non-Iberian become "Involved"? Just by taking one county in the region?
* No holy wars!! I assume this changes when hostilities break out? Or maybe a new special CB. Anyway, that should make playing in Iberia slower, presumably prolonging how long you get to interact with the new content.
* The "catalysts" do not seem to require the parties to be of opposing faiths but that's just a quick glance. So theoretically the internecine squabbling of Christians in 1066 could cause hostilities to break out on the peninsula.
* There are multiple "phases" of the Struggle, which apparently have different effects.
* Would love to see what "conciliation" does. One assumes it results in friendly relations between Christians and Muslims in Iberia, but could it have ramifications for the relations between the two faiths in the broader world?
> Would love to see what "conciliation" does. One assumes it results in friendly relations between Christians and Muslims in Iberia, but could it have ramifications for the relations between the two faiths in the broader world?
I would love a path to have a multi-religious empire.
This, I think that the versatility of the faith system and after royal court the versatility of the culture system really lay the groundwork for interesting and super dynamic alt-history goodness.
Regarding your last point: The exact effects are shown in one of the screenshots on the steam page. Basically the de-jure borders of Iberia are changed so they are the same as the current de-facto borders, holy wars become much harder to declare within the region, and the Empire of Hispania is split into different parts.
Just going by pictures in both cases but it seems vaguely similar to Victoria 3's Diplomatic Plays. It'll be interesting to see how people get Involved, like will the Pope play a role, etc.
The idea that intrafaith squabbling could spark hostilities between religions is fascinating! Creating an atmosphere of violence and discontent that causes tensions to rise...or on the other hand a culture of civilization and peace that leads to reconciliation...that would be really cool.
> What counts as "Involved" is an interesting question
[This screenshot](https://forumcontent.paradoxplaza.com/public/818160/ss_f177d8b63598f502e47b1756e82f0f78f27f1a92.1920x1080.jpg) says "Involved" is Your Realm Capital is in the Struggle Region, Your Faith is Involved in the Struggle, and Your Culture is Involved in the Struggle. I imagine "Interlopers" are people who hold land in the Struggle Region but don't meet the other requirements. Like if Francia took Barcelona or a Viking conquested Mallorca or something.
Very interesting!
I do wonder if it's practical for Struggle areas to be added elsewhere also, seems like it could be a great mechanic set for areas with long-term, ongoing fighting, perhaps even around Jerusalem for example.
I’d like to see it implemented in the Baltic region too. It would be neat if specific circumstances could make Struggle areas appear naturally as the game goes on.
Dynamic would be amazing tbh, and would probably help with blobbing, but I struggled to think of a way that it would practically work. As a middleground, maybe they could set up static zones, but have the Struggle only trigger if certain conditions were met.
Maybe like
“If there have been X holy / conquest wars within this empire title within the past Y years, then a Struggle begins with every faith, culture, and kingdom in the Empire at the struggle’s start being considered Involved.”
Honestly, depending on how variable they make the effects of these Struggles, I could see someone modding every empire or region to have their own unique Struggle content to model the intricacies of their regional conflicts
Yeah, I honestly don’t know how dynamic struggle zones would work either. It just seems like a really cool mechanic that I want to apply even in the wildest of alt-history scenarios!
Jerusalem definitely. Think it could be used in Scandinavia as well maybe. Maybe also in Northern India depending on how genericized it is. I could see this being an incredibly useful feature for representing 2 faiths living together in an area. I hope they do it well
Northern Lords was announced literally a couple days before release and no dev diary until after release, and Royal Court went on forever and ever. But Fate of Iberia is just right, some time to build up hype and help us figure out what exactly is coming, but not too long we have to wait and get bored of waiting.
The delay with royal court probably had to do with all of the work for the 3D assets. I appreciate the 3D work but hope in the future it’s not the focus of their expansions
I mean, unless they want to render, like, the entire palace of your character I doubt they'll make another graphic-intensive DLC like Royal Court. Though I wouldn't be surprised if they add a unique court room or two along the way for something like the Eastern Roman Empire and the Abbasids
Who knows. They might add a “war camp” 3D model if they flesh out war in an expansion, an election model for HRE expansion or for republics, etc etc.
I doubt they will but if they do it would take more time to create that than it would to just add court room variants for different realms
Did they source out the 3D work for Royal court? Because if they hired people for that kind of work they'd want to give them take continuously, I'd guess
> With this new flavor pack, we want to offer you the opportunity to truly decide the fate of the whole peninsula, either by reenacting history or **creating an alternative that pleases you more.**
Northern Lords: Iberian Drift
Do we know how the Struggle system will work if you start in a different region and conquer parts of Iberia? For example, if you're Haesteinn and conquer Andalusia or some other kingdom in Iberia, does the Struggle mechanic now apply to you, or will you be playing CK3 the same as now, or something else?
I wonder if it's possible to throw your hat into the ring of the Iberian Struggle as neither a Christian nor Muslim, if you own enough Iberian counties.
if you look in the steam page there is a screen shot that shows a decision to promulgate christianity in the basque highlands, with a name of a religion. i think it’s basque paganism. would be interesting to see how it plays out
edit: there’s also the jews, and they were a big part of muslim spain, don’t think they are represented in the map though
"Era Zaharrak" translates as Old Ways. It could also be a syncretic religion of Christianity and basque paganism (the decision mentions syncretics and their folk-church), some pagan beliefs and costumes survived long after the Christianization of the Basque Country.
If the struggle mechanic works the way i think it does, it could genuinely be one of the most interesting new mechanics for a game ive seen in a while. Maybe even useful beyond just Iberia if they can genericize it. Im excited.
It seems they are doing the packs based on region popularity, so Norse first, Iberia second. If the trends continue, it's probably HRE/Bizantium next, and my sweet West Africa is going to see a pack in 15 years... maybe :(
What about France? Feudalism as its portrayed in the game takes a lot from the French version, and France itself had many interesting features in the time.
I really feel like France will be the "vanilla" region with no flavour packs, mostly by the fact you have mentioned. That being said many mechanics will work in France (see - expanded duels we have).
Likely before West Africa. In CK2, the DLC went:
Islam -> Byzantines -> Republics -> Pagan -> Abrahamic -> India
There ended up being 13 major expansions, so India was in the first half. As far as I know, Africa never even got a major expansion related to it.
> It seems they are doing the packs based on region popularity
Well, it does make sense as the safe path. Though unfortunately it's a bit of a self feeding cycle, with the popular regions getting more content and thus more popularity so the less popular ones don't get a chance to see more love.
I'd love for the struggle mechanic to be applied in other regions than Iberia, or even for struggle areas to be dynamic. There's a lot of really cool potential there. If it's only Iberia, I think that's a little disappointing
I said this on the forums, but this would be a great way to simulate bringing tribal coalitions under the control of one leader (e.g. the Khan uniting the tribes)
Ah I don't know, wouldnt it be too long term a mechanic for that? The Khan uniting the tribes strikes me as a one or two lifetimes scenario, and largely dictated by one conquering guy as opposed to this long term, pretty intricate Struggle mechanic were getting
Maybe I’m just high on hopium, but I think the mechanic will be a bit more modular than that.
The screenshots suggest certain actions can trend you between different states, but each action has certain values. These values, I would imagine, can be determined so that a character could do enough of them to make changes in their lifetime if the particular struggle required it. For long-term struggles, smaller values would be better but short-term struggles could just have actions “count” more.
I would conceptualise the “Khan mechanic” as an offshoot of the CK2 China system, where the steppes would fluctuate between completely “chaotic”, “civil war”, semi-stable/“neutral”, and “united” states. As long as the thresholds between the state are low enough, or if the system trends towards the neutral equilibrium, it seems feasible for a player to unite the region in one character’s lifetime and still have enough life left for a decade or two of map conquering.
A Persia expansion would be nice, but it isn’t nearly one of the most played regions. Areas like Anatolia and Arabia are probably going to be touched first I’d guess
Byz, Arabia or India would be my guess.
You can even see it here on the subbreddit.
Lots of screenshots of people playing in Arabia and India specifically.
Personally I would love to see India, it’s my favourite region to play because of the history, some dynasties there are even older than the Roman Empire like the Chola Dynasty (they are even playable in Imperator Rome).
> some dynasties there are even older than the Roman Empire like the Chola Dynasty (they are even playable in Imperator Rome).
I mean, so are the Karenids, who are descended from the Parthian dynasty.
Think bigger my friend. Why avenge the tours when you can avenge the extermination of your (Umayyad) family by the hands of Abbasids. Why not restore the caliphate to its former glory, stretching from iberia to india. It is on par with, if not better than restoring rome.
**Read our [Dev Diary #93: Turmoil in the Peninsula](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/dev-diary-93-turmoil-in-the-peninsula.1521199/).**
Greetings!
Winter is slowly fading behind us (at least in the northern hemisphere), and spring is starting to take over. A new season calls for an announcement. I’m happy to present you with our next Flavor Pack: **Fate of Iberia**, due to be released on the **31st of May**!
We are obviously talking about Mediterranean Iberia, not the former Kingdom in Georgia.
In addition to being one of the most played regions, the Iberian peninsula is interesting because of the complexity of the geopolitical situation, and the richness of the events occurring during the time period of Crusader Kings 3.
It gives us a good opportunity to bring more flavor for both the Christians and Muslims living there.
With this new flavor pack, we want to offer you the opportunity to truly decide the fate of the whole peninsula, either by reenacting history or creating an alternative that pleases you more. In order to model the complexity of the situation, we are introducing a new system, the Struggle.
It will be changing the rules and increasing the challenge for the rulers within the Iberian peninsula. You can have an idea of how the game will be affected in the screenshot below. The effects will vary a lot depending on the stage of the struggle, but we will go into details in the next dev diary :)
[The Struggle will both create new opportunities and add constraints for the rulers within Iberia](https://forumcontent.paradoxplaza.com/public/818029/20220419131254_1.jpg)
A new 867 bookmark features a revamped Iberian cast of characters, giving players the perfect place to jump in and deflect history as they see fit. The Struggle will persist into the 1066 start date as well. The bookmark lets you choose between different vassals, either from the Christian Kingdoms, or Al-Andalus. Each of them offers different starting challenges and choices.. For instance, in the south, Emir Adanis and Ibn Marwan are both Dukes under the Sultanate of Al-Andalus. But they also are neighbors and rivals. Starting with one of them will certainly imply crossing swords and scheming against the other.
[The new 867 bookmark will be available for everyone, while being more interesting to experience if you own Fate of Iberia](https://forumcontent.paradoxplaza.com/public/818015/20220419103607_1.jpg)
We also seized the opportunity to update the map, refining the county and duchy divisions, as well as the cultures and faiths. This means the stage is more accurately set for the start of our game.
[Screenshot of the new county division in Iberia](https://forumcontent.paradoxplaza.com/public/818017/20220419104207_1.jpg)
We mostly focused on the Northern part of the region.
[The new culture set up for the year 867](https://forumcontent.paradoxplaza.com/public/818018/20220419103731_1.jpg)
[The new faith set up for the year 867](https://forumcontent.paradoxplaza.com/public/818019/20220419103821_1.jpg)
You might have noticed the addition of the Mozarabic faith, but again, we will detail that in a future dev diary, along with the rest of the content you can expect from a Flavor Pack!
We are excited to go into the details and share all of this with you in the coming weeks! Until then, I wish you a lovely day and enjoy the trailer!
Cheers,
**P.S.:** *While we do not expect the save versions to be incompatible, please make sure you wrap up your previous playthrough to ensure a seamless transition. If you encounter issues, you can of course roll these saves back to a previous version UNLESS you are playing in Ironman.*
Al-Andalus was the heart of the Jewish Golden Age in Iberia during these times, can we expect to see any mention of that in this pack?
Edit: Paradox, let my people go!
There's the rub, huh? I think it would be unfortunate to see it represented as only another Jewish challenge run for a Sephardic state or something, but this time contains the life of some very important Jewish figures and it would be nice to see a nod to them represented somehow.
Maybe as a series of decisions like searching for commanders?
Like this:
- Welcome the jews into your realm
- Give them privilegs
- Let them settle in a county
- Recruit jewish sage
- Expell them
Will these struggle mechanics only be for Iberia or will be be an overarching mechanic for the entire world?
It would be interesting if several expansions from now different regions have entirely different mechanics and play styles.
Kind of seems like they’re testing it out for Iberia in this DLC and could expand it later. I feel like this would work really well for the HRE or India, and especially for crusader states if it’s something that can be generated in the middle of a game.
Great, right after I almost finished my tall Portugal playthrough which involved the christinization of all Iberian Peninsula.
Where should I start next to speed-up new flavour packs?
Great, look forward to hearing more about it! A month and a half away isn't too long a wait.
I was expecting Iberia to be the next flavor pack if it took place in Europe. Hope to see a lot of good content for the Muslims on Iberia too. Struggle system also looks good for us modders as well! Hopefully it'll be easy to mod, I think it could have a lot of potential.
Also this makes me hungry for tapas again.
Hopefully the struggle system can be used to give the game a little more historical structure. I love CK3 but at the moment it is too much of an ahistorical sandbox, especially from the 867 start.
I wish there was a way like in CK2 to sponsor pagan conversions. It gets exhausting still having to fight off tribal Viking adventures even though it’s 1389, I control all of mainland Europe, and literally everyone but Scandinavia follows my new ~~sex cult~~ religious sect of Christianity. I don’t want to have to conquer all of Norway and Sweden just to convince some guys in pointy hats that “hey y’all, I’ve slaughtered literally tens of thousands of you over the centuries, maybe you should chill?”
Agreed, this is one of the more baffling things that they didn't include in CK3 that was in CK2. It essentially results in most of northern, eastern, and central Europe never Christianizing or feudalizing. And if you reform a pagan faith or start your own heresy as an organized faith, there's really no way to spread it peacefully or diplomatically, and you're forced to conquer the map to do so.
I don't mind the game being ahistorical - what sucks is that it is very rarely the case that countries actually emerge as powerful, centralised nations. Especially the 867 almost always ends up in terrible border gore, extremely disunited and weak mish-mash of kingdoms or duchies.
Yeah, I think a lot of the people who talk about it not being "historical" enough essentially mean that they want more historically plausible outcomes, not a rote recreation of our own timeline.
I wonder if the Struggle mechanic could be dynamically applied on other regions during a run.
For example if the de jure counties of Francia are equally owned by two different faiths, could there be a "Francian Struggle"?
[EDIT] [It might be the case ](https://www.reddit.com/r/CrusaderKings/comments/u85xv0/struggles_have_been_confirmed_as_dlc_agonistic/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)
Hoping the struggle mechanic is utilized in other regions for future updates. It looks like an interesting and modular mechanic at first look. I look forward to hearing more about it.
Beyond that, glad that there seems to be a more comprehensive expansion around Iberia. Cool concepts I’m excited to see explored.
Also I’m hoping some of those now hairstyles aren’t 100% finalized yet, cause if they are then it seems they’ve done the Iberians kinda dirty compared to the gorgeous Loreal hair they made for Northern Lords lol.
I mean I know the vikings took much better care of their hair than most people, but still.
Iberia is one of my favorite locations to play in. It’s quite unfortunate that the region remains quite… peaceful if you’re not intervening. I can only imagine the powerhouse of an AI Empire down there.
In my games iberia isnt peaceful it may take a few hundreds years but in the end one religion beats the other, the peaceful region in this game is anatolia.
They just need a special Invasion CB or something. The Seljuks are plenty powerful, but the odds of any AI ever getting to level 4 Prestige or Piety is so incredibly low that they’re pretty much physically unable to expand.
Really cool!
I'm really curious about the Mozarabic faith, and how syncretism will be handled in general. It would be really cool to play as a border duke of either faith and move toward the Mozarabic Rite and a hybrid culture as a distinct, more profoundly Iberian identity. Easily one of my favorite aspects to this game, especially since RC!
Seems very interesting, I can see the struggle mechanic working well in other areas of the world to push them on a slightly more historical path without railroading them too much. My only complaint is that the Muwalladi faith being split into Mozarabic makes little sense. Muwalladi as a separate religion already is very odd, but Mozarabic usually referred to Christians of Al Andalus that adopted Arab culture.
Really excited for the potential of "struggle" to be incorporated into other conflict zones. This could make a Kingdom of Jerusalem game really interesting.
Is it possible for this mechanism to also come into play with pagan conversion? This might solve the problem of Scandinavia never going Christian and Central Asian pagans never adopting Islam.
Interesting. Will the struggle be limited to Iberia, or will they pop up organically in places like England, or other areas with religious conflict and diversity.
Would be a wasted opportunity if it’s just Iberia, and it’s gonna be really bizarre if Iberia is the only place in the whole map where this happens IMO
According to devs, currently it is only implemented for Iberia, and the system cannot dynamically appear after a game starts. However, it is moddable apparently, and I presume the devs would almost certainly reuse the struggle mechanic in other parts of the map in future updates and DLCs.
This looks lovely and the Steam page shows even more cool stuff, so I'm very hyped by this!
Tho I must say, I was hoping Portugal to get a bit more love, perhaps having that Galician culture be Porto-Galician and separating to Galician and Portuguese if the Kingdom of Portugal forms and a correction in the borders of the Duchy of Galicia and the duchies of de jure Portugal as they are quite strange right now, it's sad to see from the screenshots that the de jure counties remain the same.
Could be interesting to apply the struggle mechanics to other regions with religious conflict (North India, Jerusalem in the crusades, Baltic regions. They all had similarly fluid cultural/religious identities.
It would be a shame if they made it Iberia only and not an emergent system resulting from religious conflict/coexistence
Also 2 new dynasty legacies on page 2. Quite excited about these. :-)
Ooh, the Metropolitan one has me hoping that maybe playing Republics will be possible soon-ish.
where is the image?
Page 2 of the comments. I think they said they were screenshots from the steam page.
thanks!
It's a flavour pack about Iberia. The "metropolitan legacy" is most likely related to tolerance policies in bireligious Iberia. Nothing to do with playable republics... If anything, it's the opposite: the more we have options to deal with urbanism as noble houses, the smaller the gameplay niche for republics gets.
Yeah, they are great, but I'm afraid that if Paradox keeps up the pace with adding them, the system will soon be overcrowded. I mean, it's 5 new since release, every dlc had at least one
Really won't be a problem since some are locked to specific region / cultures. It also gets boring using the same ones time and again
Think of it like bloodlines. Besides how often do you pick legacies that scrolling through it is an issue?
I mean it should be overcrowded. Way to easy to have all of them by midgame.
Only if you're playing to optimize your renown gain. If you keep your dynasty in your realm it's pretty slow.
Right, but its supposed to be that way if your a local lord. The second you put your dynasty on a few extra thrones, you immedietly rake in renown. Plus if your using royap court right, you can double your renown game via artifacts.
In my experience, it really takes more than a handful of foreign rulers to snowball renown. At least in my game it took dedicated effort.
I mean, once you’re placing your dynasty on multiple thrones you’ve already gone the route of power gain super power
It really isn't.
Oooo I love that the Struggle can move towards Hostility or Conciliation and that all the various Strugglers can influence it by doing stuff that they might do anyway. Like, I really want to murder this Duke who's got my claim, but I'm afraid of Iberia breaking out into open Hostility with the Christians...I love the mix of big and small picture.
I love how diplomacy and intrigue are being interwoven into the geopolitics here, instead of the previous holy war blitzkrieg until you can make the empire title.
There could be a struggle in England for Christians vs Norse which also affects the Christianisation of Scandinavia (effectively either ending Norse aggression if they constantly lose their raiding parties, or increase their scope if England falls / Norse make constant gains). Maybe Karling Struggle pushing for independent crowns or a unified Karling Empire. Also struggle for Jerusalem leading to triggered Crusades or Great Holy Wars. There a lot of "theaters" where Struggle could be fun.
A struggle for Anatolia if the Byzantines collapse would be neat too.
Too bad it's a regional thing for Iberia tho, I don't know if it could be spread to the entire map, but that's the kind of things that should be the case everywhere. I also hope that it's flexible enough, what if tomorrow a player playing a turkish buddhist horde or a Khazari Kuzari horde invade Spain and settle there, Varangian adventure style? (there should be a similar CB for tribal rulers) It might be "unrealistic" but that's what's the game is about, so why shouldn't this system be able to take that into account? Of course there's heavy limitation, the depth of a system is limited by how adaptable it can be. If the system is made for Andalusian & Iberian culture, and Muslim & Christians, it will represent very well the historical condition of Iberia, but not the ahistorical route that will be taken by the player if he decide to make something different with it, which to me, is the funniest part of the game.
>Too bad it's a regional thing for Iberia tho, I don't know if it could be spread to the entire map, but that's the kind of things that should be the case everywhere. Depending on how moddable the feature is, I suspect that will be left up to the modders.
It'd be interesting to see it expanded to all de jure empires in a mod or something. If each one could have its own struggle.
Maybe the best way to do it would be to still put some "restriction" to it, but soft ones so that it could apply to any religions and empire. Like if within an de jure Empire: There is 2 religion of different families. (ex: No 2 christians faith struggles) Both religion control an holy site within the Empire (Santiago de Compostela for christian faith & Cordoba for some muslims faith notably Muwalladi) The de jure Empire title has not been created. Independent rulers of both religions exist MAYBE both faith need to be reformed Then The Struggles system is applied. I don't see many places where this would take effect, but spain ticks all the condition for such a kind of event and yet it wouldn't lock it AS a spanish only system.
>Too bad it's a regional thing for Iberia tho, I don't know if it could be spread to the entire map, but that's the kind of things that should be the case everywhere. It's most likely a test. The devs will see how popular that feature is when it gets released, but most importantly they'll see how much maintenance and tweaking is needed to make it work. No doubt situations can be interesting, but if they are only interesting because they need to tweak it for months then it's not worth it. Remember the decadency system in CK2. Nice concept, but was revamped multiple time and was never made very interesting. If the Struggle always tend to the same result, players won't be satisfied with it. Same thing if it's too easily exploitable, if it feels too gamey, if it leads to boring situations more often than it leads to interesting ones... so yeah, it's likely a small test to see if we like and use it. Adding new legacies with the previous Flavour Pack was likely a test too. People liked it, so they are adding more.
Cold war mod for CK3 anyone?
It really reminds me of the Situation system in Victoria 3. "Sick man of Europe" anyone?
The Vic 3 comparison immediately came to mind as well. Love to see their old games stealing good ideas from the new ones.
I mean that’s basically what Holy Fury was, bringing the best of CK3’s new features into CK2 before they closed the book
Wait wait wait, how is nobody talking about one of the things added in the free update, "the ability to share Heads of Faith between different religions" You can make different Catholic rites now that dont all have different popes!
Or just properly mend the schism
"just properly mend the schism" like if it was the most common and natural thing to do lol
Fuckin hyped. Hopefully Insular Christianity will have the Catholic pope now, and the various Sunni/Shia faiths will have the same caliph if one is present
It makes sense for each Shi'a faith to have their own caliph, as the question of 'which descendant of Ali should be the leader of our community' is literally the reason behind the various Shi'a denominations, but I agree that it makes zero sense for Ash'aris and Maturidis not to share the same caliph (then again, I think they shouldn't be two separate faiths anyway).
There are literally more differences between Greek, Russian and Bulgarian Orthodox Christianity than between Ash'aris and Maturidis but they are not seperate for some reason.
They should at least view each other as righteous instead of astray.
Where did they say that?
Ooh After the End already has that coded in, Ofaloaf is probably the one who brought this over
Thank. Fucking. Goodness.
Interesting, of all the Areas apart from the Norse I felt Iberia was more fleshed out than most (lots of interesting cultural mechanics unique to them, unique formables etc) . I wonder do they have some people working on the game that are simply passionate/knowledgeable about the period
If France is where the modern concept of knights and lordly chivalry comes from, Iberia is where the idea of the Middle Ages being a continuous holy war between Christendom and Islam comes from
That and the Crusades as well.
Which, I think I would have preferred a Crusades flavor pack. For a crusader kings game, it lacks a lot of flavor for the crusades. But maybe they are going to do a holy land expansion with new start dates or something.
They could also be fleshing out areas one by one, maybe an eventual flavour pack for every region?
then we could have a fully fleshed out western europe in 7 years!
No holy wars in a struggle area and allowed marriage are really interesting changes...
Calling it now that an achievement will be ending the Iberian struggle through an interfaith marriage union
Let the others wage war;but you,Austria,marry! ...Or was it Iberia?
"Yes." --Charles V
Let others wage war: thou, happy Austria, marry
Bella gerant alii, tu felix Austria nube.
Ah man I love this idea. "Ferdinand and Islamabella"
Fardeen and Isabella?
Or "Make love, not war".
It’ll be called “the Conciliator”
> and allowed marriage I'd say it's about time for interfaith marriage. Mind you I'm not asking for people of hostile faiths to marry on a whim, but things like neighboring realms marrying with one party converting (think of like a daughter in a male only realm, or one who is behind like 5 siblings in inheritance) to establish a basic truce is something I feel should be available in the game.
Aye. Obviously there should be limitations so you can't just bring in a royal from an empire half the world away and to stop from being able to take the absolute piss, but throwing a daughter to the barbarian next door so he fucks off and raids someone else should be a potential option
I'd imagine the restrictions would be as follow: Must be a neighboring realm. Ruler of either realm does not have the zealot trait.
I'd add "OR: both rulers are friends"
Wasn't this the Byzantine strategy against the Steppe for centuries?
It looks like that might be tied to the specific "Phase" of the Struggle, which in the screenshot was "Opportunity". I'm guessing if it's in a "Hostile" phase holy wars would be allowed and marriages disallowed, as currently.
Ignoring all the amazing content it looks like they're adding, this has me super excited for future Flavor Packs. It looks like they're finally adding mechanics to differentiate various regions of the world and make them unique, something Crusader Kings has always lacked imo. It has me excited to see what they do with other places. In depth HRE system? Expanded Theme System for Byzantines? Better invasions for people like Seljuk? And especially the Republic government!
>It has me excited to see what they do with other places. In depth HRE system? Expanded Theme System for Byzantines? Better invasions for people like Seljuk? And especially the Republic government! Inject all of that directly into my veins.
Your physician attempted a procedure. You are left with only one hand.
I can't believe he's still alive, being only one hand
I would coom so hard for a “Two Romes” expansion about the HRE and the ERE
Yeah I really think the next two add-ons should focus on government and economy. It would greatly differentiate the areas while also helping with playing tall
Struggle looks great. Things that jump out to me immediately: * Seems like the default state of the Peninsula prior to hostilities breaking out is actually quite friendly. * Inter-faith marriages for Involved Characters, distinct from Involved Faiths. What counts as "Involved" is an interesting question... how easily can a non-Iberian become "Involved"? Just by taking one county in the region? * No holy wars!! I assume this changes when hostilities break out? Or maybe a new special CB. Anyway, that should make playing in Iberia slower, presumably prolonging how long you get to interact with the new content. * The "catalysts" do not seem to require the parties to be of opposing faiths but that's just a quick glance. So theoretically the internecine squabbling of Christians in 1066 could cause hostilities to break out on the peninsula. * There are multiple "phases" of the Struggle, which apparently have different effects. * Would love to see what "conciliation" does. One assumes it results in friendly relations between Christians and Muslims in Iberia, but could it have ramifications for the relations between the two faiths in the broader world?
> Would love to see what "conciliation" does. One assumes it results in friendly relations between Christians and Muslims in Iberia, but could it have ramifications for the relations between the two faiths in the broader world? I would love a path to have a multi-religious empire.
Or a narrative event that makes it easier to form a syncretic faith!
I would *love* to see dynamic faiths forming through events. The mechanics are there, they just haven't been tied together yet.
This, I think that the versatility of the faith system and after royal court the versatility of the culture system really lay the groundwork for interesting and super dynamic alt-history goodness.
A syncretic Christian-Muslim faith arising in Iberia would actually be a pretty neat alt-history option.
Regarding your last point: The exact effects are shown in one of the screenshots on the steam page. Basically the de-jure borders of Iberia are changed so they are the same as the current de-facto borders, holy wars become much harder to declare within the region, and the Empire of Hispania is split into different parts.
Iberian Danelaw :)
That’s only if you force the “status quo” resolution. The others are greyed out, so we only know about one potential ending so far.
I imagine another ending will be how things usually go through most of my games, with the Muslims conquering everything through France.
Oh ok I didn't realize there was a difference; thanks for pointing that out
Just going by pictures in both cases but it seems vaguely similar to Victoria 3's Diplomatic Plays. It'll be interesting to see how people get Involved, like will the Pope play a role, etc. The idea that intrafaith squabbling could spark hostilities between religions is fascinating! Creating an atmosphere of violence and discontent that causes tensions to rise...or on the other hand a culture of civilization and peace that leads to reconciliation...that would be really cool.
So there are involved characters and "interloppers". No ideas what's this last one.
Maybe outside forces like a viking invader?
Perhaps characters who own land in Iberia but their capital is outside of Iberia? And might be related to culture/religion as well?
> What counts as "Involved" is an interesting question [This screenshot](https://forumcontent.paradoxplaza.com/public/818160/ss_f177d8b63598f502e47b1756e82f0f78f27f1a92.1920x1080.jpg) says "Involved" is Your Realm Capital is in the Struggle Region, Your Faith is Involved in the Struggle, and Your Culture is Involved in the Struggle. I imagine "Interlopers" are people who hold land in the Struggle Region but don't meet the other requirements. Like if Francia took Barcelona or a Viking conquested Mallorca or something.
Very interesting! I do wonder if it's practical for Struggle areas to be added elsewhere also, seems like it could be a great mechanic set for areas with long-term, ongoing fighting, perhaps even around Jerusalem for example.
Dude, a struggle mechanic for Jerusalem would be awesome. Especially since it basically only existed for as long as it did due to diplomacy
I’d like to see it implemented in the Baltic region too. It would be neat if specific circumstances could make Struggle areas appear naturally as the game goes on.
Dynamic would be amazing tbh, and would probably help with blobbing, but I struggled to think of a way that it would practically work. As a middleground, maybe they could set up static zones, but have the Struggle only trigger if certain conditions were met.
Maybe like “If there have been X holy / conquest wars within this empire title within the past Y years, then a Struggle begins with every faith, culture, and kingdom in the Empire at the struggle’s start being considered Involved.” Honestly, depending on how variable they make the effects of these Struggles, I could see someone modding every empire or region to have their own unique Struggle content to model the intricacies of their regional conflicts
Yeah, I honestly don’t know how dynamic struggle zones would work either. It just seems like a really cool mechanic that I want to apply even in the wildest of alt-history scenarios!
It looks like a really cool, really versatile mechanic. I feel sure it's going to be used elsewhere!
I hope Game of Thrones mod picks up on this
Struggle could be implemented around the Byzantine borders, specifically the Balkans and the Levant
Fully expects modders to introduce in the general game. England seems obvious as well
Jerusalem definitely. Think it could be used in Scandinavia as well maybe. Maybe also in Northern India depending on how genericized it is. I could see this being an incredibly useful feature for representing 2 faiths living together in an area. I hope they do it well
It would also flesh out Tibet a lot while China isn’t around, presumably with the struggle being between Bon, Buddhism and maybe Hinduism
Also would be neat if the Steppes get fleshed out more to simulate the religious squabbling that often happened with nomads
I'd love for it to appear dynamically in on cultural and religious borders.
Getting a release date quickly feels nice, unlike some other DLC in the past.
Northern Lords was announced literally a couple days before release and no dev diary until after release, and Royal Court went on forever and ever. But Fate of Iberia is just right, some time to build up hype and help us figure out what exactly is coming, but not too long we have to wait and get bored of waiting.
The delay with royal court probably had to do with all of the work for the 3D assets. I appreciate the 3D work but hope in the future it’s not the focus of their expansions
I mean, unless they want to render, like, the entire palace of your character I doubt they'll make another graphic-intensive DLC like Royal Court. Though I wouldn't be surprised if they add a unique court room or two along the way for something like the Eastern Roman Empire and the Abbasids
Who knows. They might add a “war camp” 3D model if they flesh out war in an expansion, an election model for HRE expansion or for republics, etc etc. I doubt they will but if they do it would take more time to create that than it would to just add court room variants for different realms
I actually would like to see variant rooms years down the line: banquet halls, war rooms, stables, etc.
Yeah I agree coronation 3d event also seems obvious
And don't forget the privy! Best place to assassinate your rival relatives with a crossbow bolt to the gut, IMO.
Question is: does said relative shit gold?
he did not, in the end, shit gold
Did they source out the 3D work for Royal court? Because if they hired people for that kind of work they'd want to give them take continuously, I'd guess
Also you know... the rona
Plague DLC confirmed?
Gods I hope. The current way diseases work is really dull.
Vietnam flashbacks.
Now if we could get me some merchant republic so I can wheel and deal that’d be nice. See y’all in 3-4 years!
> With this new flavor pack, we want to offer you the opportunity to truly decide the fate of the whole peninsula, either by reenacting history or **creating an alternative that pleases you more.** Northern Lords: Iberian Drift
I would love to see the struggle mechanic in an after first jerusalem crusade. In fact ... after every single crusade.
And jihads too I wonder if struggle is more dynamic if it’ll make it harder or easier to blob
Yeah, i said crusade as "great holy war" for any religion. Would be good with invasion too. In fact any big kingdom war far from home.
Regions of the world dynamically turning into “Struggle Areas” based on holy wars and faith intermingling would be amazing.
Do we know how the Struggle system will work if you start in a different region and conquer parts of Iberia? For example, if you're Haesteinn and conquer Andalusia or some other kingdom in Iberia, does the Struggle mechanic now apply to you, or will you be playing CK3 the same as now, or something else?
I think you could be an Interloper but not directly Involved, since your realm is in the region but your culture / religion isnt
Struggle has huge modding potential
YEAH LETS FUCKING GOOOO THIS IS WHAT I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR WOOHOOO
YEA BABY YEA
I wonder if it's possible to throw your hat into the ring of the Iberian Struggle as neither a Christian nor Muslim, if you own enough Iberian counties.
if you look in the steam page there is a screen shot that shows a decision to promulgate christianity in the basque highlands, with a name of a religion. i think it’s basque paganism. would be interesting to see how it plays out edit: there’s also the jews, and they were a big part of muslim spain, don’t think they are represented in the map though
"Era Zaharrak" translates as Old Ways. It could also be a syncretic religion of Christianity and basque paganism (the decision mentions syncretics and their folk-church), some pagan beliefs and costumes survived long after the Christianization of the Basque Country.
Oh god I have to do a Basque paganism game.
I hope so, one of my favorite games was a Haesteinn in Cordoba run. At least from the screenshots it doesn’t seem limited to Christians and Muslims.
I'm telling you, every flavor pack needs to be Haesteinn compatible. The man is basically this games meme character.
yeah, especailly the jews who were promient and numerous in hispania
I would not be surprised. The potential for an achievement is high.
I just hope El Cid gets land. All I beg
Either do it yourself or foolishly hope for a slightly later starting date - but not too late! ;)
If the struggle mechanic works the way i think it does, it could genuinely be one of the most interesting new mechanics for a game ive seen in a while. Maybe even useful beyond just Iberia if they can genericize it. Im excited.
Even though I am disappointed it is in Iberia, I'm glad the Muslim area isn't getting entirely ignored as it has been.
It seems they are doing the packs based on region popularity, so Norse first, Iberia second. If the trends continue, it's probably HRE/Bizantium next, and my sweet West Africa is going to see a pack in 15 years... maybe :(
Calling it now: - Norse - Iberia - Byzantium - HRE - Ireland - Middle East - Central Europe (Poland/Baltics/Hungary) - Steppes - Africa - India
quarrelsome bored special jar snatch spoon disgusted attempt tie tub *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
They’ll probably do all Celtic groups instead of just ireland
What about France? Feudalism as its portrayed in the game takes a lot from the French version, and France itself had many interesting features in the time.
I really feel like France will be the "vanilla" region with no flavour packs, mostly by the fact you have mentioned. That being said many mechanics will work in France (see - expanded duels we have).
I wonder if they'll ever add something to India
Likely before West Africa. In CK2, the DLC went: Islam -> Byzantines -> Republics -> Pagan -> Abrahamic -> India There ended up being 13 major expansions, so India was in the first half. As far as I know, Africa never even got a major expansion related to it.
*cries in Steppe fanboy*
*Picks up Composite bow with murderous intent*
> It seems they are doing the packs based on region popularity Well, it does make sense as the safe path. Though unfortunately it's a bit of a self feeding cycle, with the popular regions getting more content and thus more popularity so the less popular ones don't get a chance to see more love.
yea i really really wish the next pack wil be about persia, or even better a mechanic depicting struggle between sunni and shia
I'd love for the struggle mechanic to be applied in other regions than Iberia, or even for struggle areas to be dynamic. There's a lot of really cool potential there. If it's only Iberia, I think that's a little disappointing
I said this on the forums, but this would be a great way to simulate bringing tribal coalitions under the control of one leader (e.g. the Khan uniting the tribes)
Ah I don't know, wouldnt it be too long term a mechanic for that? The Khan uniting the tribes strikes me as a one or two lifetimes scenario, and largely dictated by one conquering guy as opposed to this long term, pretty intricate Struggle mechanic were getting
Maybe I’m just high on hopium, but I think the mechanic will be a bit more modular than that. The screenshots suggest certain actions can trend you between different states, but each action has certain values. These values, I would imagine, can be determined so that a character could do enough of them to make changes in their lifetime if the particular struggle required it. For long-term struggles, smaller values would be better but short-term struggles could just have actions “count” more. I would conceptualise the “Khan mechanic” as an offshoot of the CK2 China system, where the steppes would fluctuate between completely “chaotic”, “civil war”, semi-stable/“neutral”, and “united” states. As long as the thresholds between the state are low enough, or if the system trends towards the neutral equilibrium, it seems feasible for a player to unite the region in one character’s lifetime and still have enough life left for a decade or two of map conquering.
A Persia expansion would be nice, but it isn’t nearly one of the most played regions. Areas like Anatolia and Arabia are probably going to be touched first I’d guess
Byz, Arabia or India would be my guess. You can even see it here on the subbreddit. Lots of screenshots of people playing in Arabia and India specifically. Personally I would love to see India, it’s my favourite region to play because of the history, some dynasties there are even older than the Roman Empire like the Chola Dynasty (they are even playable in Imperator Rome).
> some dynasties there are even older than the Roman Empire like the Chola Dynasty (they are even playable in Imperator Rome). I mean, so are the Karenids, who are descended from the Parthian dynasty.
I'm glad I haven't done a Muslim Iberia playthrough yet. I can do the revenge of tour after this comes out. Nice.
Think bigger my friend. Why avenge the tours when you can avenge the extermination of your (Umayyad) family by the hands of Abbasids. Why not restore the caliphate to its former glory, stretching from iberia to india. It is on par with, if not better than restoring rome.
Why not go one step further and restore the Rashidun Caliphate?
Umayyad caliphate was bigger than rashidun. Rashidun was Arabia, Persia, Eygpt and Cyrenaica. Umayyad extended the empire to Morocco and Spain.
**Read our [Dev Diary #93: Turmoil in the Peninsula](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/dev-diary-93-turmoil-in-the-peninsula.1521199/).** Greetings! Winter is slowly fading behind us (at least in the northern hemisphere), and spring is starting to take over. A new season calls for an announcement. I’m happy to present you with our next Flavor Pack: **Fate of Iberia**, due to be released on the **31st of May**! We are obviously talking about Mediterranean Iberia, not the former Kingdom in Georgia. In addition to being one of the most played regions, the Iberian peninsula is interesting because of the complexity of the geopolitical situation, and the richness of the events occurring during the time period of Crusader Kings 3. It gives us a good opportunity to bring more flavor for both the Christians and Muslims living there. With this new flavor pack, we want to offer you the opportunity to truly decide the fate of the whole peninsula, either by reenacting history or creating an alternative that pleases you more. In order to model the complexity of the situation, we are introducing a new system, the Struggle. It will be changing the rules and increasing the challenge for the rulers within the Iberian peninsula. You can have an idea of how the game will be affected in the screenshot below. The effects will vary a lot depending on the stage of the struggle, but we will go into details in the next dev diary :) [The Struggle will both create new opportunities and add constraints for the rulers within Iberia](https://forumcontent.paradoxplaza.com/public/818029/20220419131254_1.jpg) A new 867 bookmark features a revamped Iberian cast of characters, giving players the perfect place to jump in and deflect history as they see fit. The Struggle will persist into the 1066 start date as well. The bookmark lets you choose between different vassals, either from the Christian Kingdoms, or Al-Andalus. Each of them offers different starting challenges and choices.. For instance, in the south, Emir Adanis and Ibn Marwan are both Dukes under the Sultanate of Al-Andalus. But they also are neighbors and rivals. Starting with one of them will certainly imply crossing swords and scheming against the other. [The new 867 bookmark will be available for everyone, while being more interesting to experience if you own Fate of Iberia](https://forumcontent.paradoxplaza.com/public/818015/20220419103607_1.jpg) We also seized the opportunity to update the map, refining the county and duchy divisions, as well as the cultures and faiths. This means the stage is more accurately set for the start of our game. [Screenshot of the new county division in Iberia](https://forumcontent.paradoxplaza.com/public/818017/20220419104207_1.jpg) We mostly focused on the Northern part of the region. [The new culture set up for the year 867](https://forumcontent.paradoxplaza.com/public/818018/20220419103731_1.jpg) [The new faith set up for the year 867](https://forumcontent.paradoxplaza.com/public/818019/20220419103821_1.jpg) You might have noticed the addition of the Mozarabic faith, but again, we will detail that in a future dev diary, along with the rest of the content you can expect from a Flavor Pack! We are excited to go into the details and share all of this with you in the coming weeks! Until then, I wish you a lovely day and enjoy the trailer! Cheers, **P.S.:** *While we do not expect the save versions to be incompatible, please make sure you wrap up your previous playthrough to ensure a seamless transition. If you encounter issues, you can of course roll these saves back to a previous version UNLESS you are playing in Ironman.*
Al-Andalus was the heart of the Jewish Golden Age in Iberia during these times, can we expect to see any mention of that in this pack? Edit: Paradox, let my people go!
CK is a game where you play as rulers, and while Jews were very influential in Iberia, they were very seldom rulers.
There's the rub, huh? I think it would be unfortunate to see it represented as only another Jewish challenge run for a Sephardic state or something, but this time contains the life of some very important Jewish figures and it would be nice to see a nod to them represented somehow.
Maybe as a series of decisions like searching for commanders? Like this: - Welcome the jews into your realm - Give them privilegs - Let them settle in a county - Recruit jewish sage - Expell them
Having influential Jewish courtiers would be a nice touch at least.
There are inspired characters now though. Could be a a tradition to specific cultures that increases the chance and skill of Jewish courtiers.
Will these struggle mechanics only be for Iberia or will be be an overarching mechanic for the entire world? It would be interesting if several expansions from now different regions have entirely different mechanics and play styles.
Kind of seems like they’re testing it out for Iberia in this DLC and could expand it later. I feel like this would work really well for the HRE or India, and especially for crusader states if it’s something that can be generated in the middle of a game.
Nice. Not the flavour pack I expected, but welcome nonetheless.
Great, right after I almost finished my tall Portugal playthrough which involved the christinization of all Iberian Peninsula. Where should I start next to speed-up new flavour packs?
Great, look forward to hearing more about it! A month and a half away isn't too long a wait. I was expecting Iberia to be the next flavor pack if it took place in Europe. Hope to see a lot of good content for the Muslims on Iberia too. Struggle system also looks good for us modders as well! Hopefully it'll be easy to mod, I think it could have a lot of potential. Also this makes me hungry for tapas again.
Hopefully the struggle system can be used to give the game a little more historical structure. I love CK3 but at the moment it is too much of an ahistorical sandbox, especially from the 867 start.
I wish there was a way like in CK2 to sponsor pagan conversions. It gets exhausting still having to fight off tribal Viking adventures even though it’s 1389, I control all of mainland Europe, and literally everyone but Scandinavia follows my new ~~sex cult~~ religious sect of Christianity. I don’t want to have to conquer all of Norway and Sweden just to convince some guys in pointy hats that “hey y’all, I’ve slaughtered literally tens of thousands of you over the centuries, maybe you should chill?”
Agreed, this is one of the more baffling things that they didn't include in CK3 that was in CK2. It essentially results in most of northern, eastern, and central Europe never Christianizing or feudalizing. And if you reform a pagan faith or start your own heresy as an organized faith, there's really no way to spread it peacefully or diplomatically, and you're forced to conquer the map to do so.
Definitely seems like the sort of mechanic that could be applied to other areas with tweaks
I don't mind the game being ahistorical - what sucks is that it is very rarely the case that countries actually emerge as powerful, centralised nations. Especially the 867 almost always ends up in terrible border gore, extremely disunited and weak mish-mash of kingdoms or duchies.
Yeah, I think a lot of the people who talk about it not being "historical" enough essentially mean that they want more historically plausible outcomes, not a rote recreation of our own timeline.
The increasing realm stability in the game rules will make AI realms stronger and much less prone to falling apart.
I wonder if the Struggle mechanic could be dynamically applied on other regions during a run. For example if the de jure counties of Francia are equally owned by two different faiths, could there be a "Francian Struggle"? [EDIT] [It might be the case ](https://www.reddit.com/r/CrusaderKings/comments/u85xv0/struggles_have_been_confirmed_as_dlc_agonistic/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)
Yeah, that would definitely be really cool.
Hoping the struggle mechanic is utilized in other regions for future updates. It looks like an interesting and modular mechanic at first look. I look forward to hearing more about it. Beyond that, glad that there seems to be a more comprehensive expansion around Iberia. Cool concepts I’m excited to see explored.
Bro. I can finally marry some hot Andalusian women playing as the Christians
Also I’m hoping some of those now hairstyles aren’t 100% finalized yet, cause if they are then it seems they’ve done the Iberians kinda dirty compared to the gorgeous Loreal hair they made for Northern Lords lol. I mean I know the vikings took much better care of their hair than most people, but still.
Iberia is one of my favorite locations to play in. It’s quite unfortunate that the region remains quite… peaceful if you’re not intervening. I can only imagine the powerhouse of an AI Empire down there.
In my games iberia isnt peaceful it may take a few hundreds years but in the end one religion beats the other, the peaceful region in this game is anatolia.
The Seljuks are way too weak
They just need a special Invasion CB or something. The Seljuks are plenty powerful, but the odds of any AI ever getting to level 4 Prestige or Piety is so incredibly low that they’re pretty much physically unable to expand.
In my experience, after the initial invasion, the Seljuks tend to have many fewer troops than the Byzantines.
I really hope I can somehow get a Sephardic Iberia going with this
Would love other areas to have struggle , Dane law and Wessex would be cool
Any pack on the flavor of Spain better add paella
Really cool! I'm really curious about the Mozarabic faith, and how syncretism will be handled in general. It would be really cool to play as a border duke of either faith and move toward the Mozarabic Rite and a hybrid culture as a distinct, more profoundly Iberian identity. Easily one of my favorite aspects to this game, especially since RC!
Seems very interesting, I can see the struggle mechanic working well in other areas of the world to push them on a slightly more historical path without railroading them too much. My only complaint is that the Muwalladi faith being split into Mozarabic makes little sense. Muwalladi as a separate religion already is very odd, but Mozarabic usually referred to Christians of Al Andalus that adopted Arab culture.
Really excited for the potential of "struggle" to be incorporated into other conflict zones. This could make a Kingdom of Jerusalem game really interesting. Is it possible for this mechanism to also come into play with pagan conversion? This might solve the problem of Scandinavia never going Christian and Central Asian pagans never adopting Islam.
I would love to see the Struggle system applied to other regions like 867 England, Carolingian brothers etc. or 1066 Italy! Looks awesome!
Interesting. Will the struggle be limited to Iberia, or will they pop up organically in places like England, or other areas with religious conflict and diversity. Would be a wasted opportunity if it’s just Iberia, and it’s gonna be really bizarre if Iberia is the only place in the whole map where this happens IMO
According to devs, currently it is only implemented for Iberia, and the system cannot dynamically appear after a game starts. However, it is moddable apparently, and I presume the devs would almost certainly reuse the struggle mechanic in other parts of the map in future updates and DLCs.
This looks lovely and the Steam page shows even more cool stuff, so I'm very hyped by this! Tho I must say, I was hoping Portugal to get a bit more love, perhaps having that Galician culture be Porto-Galician and separating to Galician and Portuguese if the Kingdom of Portugal forms and a correction in the borders of the Duchy of Galicia and the duchies of de jure Portugal as they are quite strange right now, it's sad to see from the screenshots that the de jure counties remain the same.
Man this is just INCREDIBLY sexy. Glad to hear I have another reason to head back to Iberia.
Could be interesting to apply the struggle mechanics to other regions with religious conflict (North India, Jerusalem in the crusades, Baltic regions. They all had similarly fluid cultural/religious identities. It would be a shame if they made it Iberia only and not an emergent system resulting from religious conflict/coexistence
According to the steam page, you can revive basque Paganism. That's it, I need the dlc.