Welcome to Tinto Talks, the Happy Wednesdays, where we talk about what is happening with Europa Universalis V.

Here, one more week, your friendly Content Design Lead, Pavía. Today, we will be presenting to you the first sneak peek at the upcoming DLC, Across the Pillars - so let’s start by taking a look at our vision for it.

A Strait, Two Realms and the Prize Between Them

Across the Pillars is our first Chronicle Pack DLC. What does it mean, and what makes it different from Fate of the Phoenix? The main difference is that the latter was an Immersion Pack, so it was more of a focused experience, mostly revolving around one country, the Byzantine Empire (or however you prefer to call it with our in-game rules!); whereas a Chronicle Pack is more of an immersive experience encompassing a region with multiple countries involved, and roughly double the amount of content in comparison.

Therefore, we have developed content and mechanics for Across the Pillars around two main starring countries, Castile and Morocco, and the struggle they were involved in during the central decades of the 14th century, known by historians as ‘the battle of the Strait [of Gibraltar]’. An important side actor in this struggle was Granada, a true third party between them, sometimes leaning towards one side (either in a friendly or forced way), sometimes towards the other, most of the time trying to assert its own independence between two behemoths. But not only that, other countries and peoples around them, both Iberian and Maghrebi, were involved in this struggle, usually following their own objectives and goals.

Our focus has been both wider and deeper compared to FotP, in terms of how many countries have gotten content and how deeply that content is connected to other mechanics and features. The time scope has been limited mostly to the first two ages of the game (1337-1537), as it’s where most of the narrative of this struggle and period remains consistent. This doesn’t mean that there isn’t any content based on the post-1500s history - you’ll see a bit about that later down the road in that post, and we have also worked on unique Expeditions based on colonial endeavors, etc. However, we wanted to center the scope of the DLC on the narrative and content of the development of the Iberian and Maghrebi countries in the Late Medieval period.

Let’s now move from this general vision into the two main content features that structure the narrative that I’ve just talked about - two entirely new situations available with Across the Pillars.

The Battle for the Strait

Starting in 1337, the situation for Castile, Morocco, and Granada was different, but all of them led to the campaign that historically ended with the Castilian victory at the Battle of Río Salado in 1340, and following it, the siege and conquest of Algeciras in 1344 - this was probably the most defining point in the reign of Alfonso XI of Castile, Abu al-Hasan Ali of Morocco, and Yusuf I of Granada.

We have portrayed this in the DLC with a new situation, called ‘The Battle for the Strait’. It portrays the struggle between these countries, pivoting mostly on control of the Strait and, most importantly, Granada, which is the key strategic point for everybody involved. 

This is done in the situation via two axes. The first is called ‘Influence over Granada’; the tug-of-war between Castile and Morocco over the control of Granada. There are 3 shared actions, and some unique ones (4 for Castile, 6 for Morocco, and 6 for Granada). The Castilian ones mostly revolve around enforcing Parias over Granada (which starts as its Tributary), while Morocco can establish its influence both in peaceful and forceful ways.

The second axis is called ‘Granadan Sovereignty’, which is a unique value that empowers the country against its powerful neighbours. There are several actions that Granada may take towards firmly establishing its Sovereignty, and it will have to play a delicate balance between the Castilian and Moroccan influence to be able to win the situation on its own.

It should be noted here that the AI has been instructed to fight tooth and nail to win the situation. Both sides have a wide variety of options to put their thumb on this scale such as Cabinet Actions, events, country interactions, winning wars, taking territory and more. And speaking of that, to win the situation, each country has its own set of different winning conditions and rewards:

To end up with, you have here some of the actions, both generic and unique, and flavour associated with the situation - which is wide: Beside the situation actions, there are Cabinet Actions, Character and Country Interactions, 2 Decisions, and more than 30 events:

Let’s now move into the second situation of the DLC…

The Golden Century

There are actually three different versions of this illustration, one for each of the potential starrings of the situation (Castile, Morocco, and Granada) - this one is the Granadan one.

Whoever wins ‘Battle for the Strait’ will get a second situation, called ‘The Golden Century’ (I promise this time we are committing to doing it well!). It portrays the follow-up narrative of whoever won, would likely become the hegemonic power in Iberia and Northern Africa, and as such, it would lead to both trying to extend its influence abroad, while being contested and countered by other neighbouring countries and powers. Therefore, it’s more of a mid-game challenge for an already-winning country.

What you have is two axes to interact with, ‘Colonial Dominance’ and ‘European Dominance’. Each of these has 4 thresholds, which unlock both passive bonuses for the player and its contenders, plus a unique powerful action for the player.

An interesting aspect of this situation is that there are 2 mirrored versions of it. One for Spain/Castile and the other for Andalusia/Morocco. Both versions offer completely different actions. Many events will also be either exclusive to each version or completely different, both in terms of effects as well as localization. Let’s take a look at some interesting events for the Golden Century from the perspective of a powerful and resurgent Al-Andalus!

A unique new IO, ‘The Grand Alliance’, is created at the start of the situation for countries that resist the rise of Spain/Andalusia/Morocco in and beyond Iberia, and will act as a counter to the rising power. It will also be able to rise in power in turn, as it will get in members and influence / strength based on how strong you are and every 25 years they may come together and attack you / try to undo your dominance values if they reach a too high value.

A new feature that we have added to this situation is Flashpoint Events. These are events that occur when you reach a Flashpoint threshold, and are more meaningful an important than regular events, being either obstacles to overcome or opportunities to grow bigger, with both huge rewards and penalties depending on how they’re handled. In the Golden Century, they’re mostly based about the history of Spain around the 1500 - adapting also that to an alt-historical, but plausible win of either Morocco or Granada. Because, speaking of that, although we’re only showing today the Castilian/Christian version of it, the situation is symmetrical, by having two mirrored versions, that use the same base mechanics, but with an entirely different set of features and associated content.

Finally, there are different outcomes to the situation - another new system that we’re using to flesh out the ending conditions and effects of situations. Here you have the GC ones, and the effects in case you win as Castile:

And that’s all for today! Next week, we will be talking about the machinery that a proper empire needs to work - the ‘mechanical content’ of the DLC: unique Bureaucracies, Expeditions, Iberian Military Religious Orders, the Iberian Union, and much more! But before that, remember that tomorrow, Thursday 1st of October, we’ll start with the 1.4 Open Beta - we hope that you enjoy it! And stay tuned, because we might have some more news coming along with it - cheers!