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. We will be talking for the third week in a row about the content for the upcoming DLC, Across the Pillars, plus some of the new content that is available for free in the 1.4 ‘Río Salado’ update - and that is in Open Beta since last week! On that note, yesterday we released the 1.4.1 Beta patch, with lots of fixes based mainly on your reports and feedback; thanks for that! This is also one of the reasons why we delayed yesterday’s scheduled TT to today - as we needed hands on deck for the patch release.

Let’s now come back to our main topic for today, which will be the Flavour Content created not only for Across the Pillars, but also for the 1.4 ‘Río Salado’ update. This is the biggest content addition to Europa Universalis V in a single update since its release nearly a year ago, with hundreds of Advances, Events, Government Reforms, Estate Privileges, Policies, Units, Decisions, Cabinet Actions, Town Rights, and other content assets added. We won’t be able to go over all of them (both because there are too many and because we also have to leave you fresh stuff to discover while playing the game!), so what we’ll be showing today is a high-level overview of the Flavour Content structure, with specific examples over here and there. Let’s start now with it, without further ado:

Iberian Flavour Content​

Let’s get started with the main star of Across the Pillars, Castile. As such, it gets lots and lots of Flavour Content, of which here you have some:

One example of the type of content we have is that around the ‘Santa Hermandad’. If you research one of the new advances in Age of Renaissance, ‘Hermandades Concejiles’, it will unlock a Decision in Age of Discovery that, in turn, unlocks a Government Reform, which unlocks a Light Infantry unit. This is what we call ‘chained content’, and we think that works pretty well, as the player can more clearly see a progression of their decisions in a more effective way.

New Estate Privileges:

A new Law, the ‘Limpieza de Sangre’, which is unlocked by the old Torquemada event:

Don’t you think baby Torquemada is cute?​

New units:

New Decisions, both Free and Paid:

New Country Interactions:

The other Iberian sidekick of the DLC, Granada, has received a big content package - making it now a country with a solid flavour content background to play with - here I’ll share some examples:

But the other Iberian countries will also get a lof ot unique flavour content, on their own - here you have more examples:

A good example of this is Mallorca, which, albeit being a minor, has also received a solid content upgrade:

We also gave some love to Andorra!

We have also added a lot of new advances for free in the 1.4 ‘Río Salado’ update - About 350 new advances for 48 countries and 8 culture tracks. In Iberia, not only Castile, Aragon, Portugal, Navarra, or Granada have now their advances split between country and culture ones; we have also added advances to minor countries, not only the setup-present ones such as Mallorca or Andorra, but also the releseable/formable ones (Algarve, Toledo, Valencia, Galicia, etc.). Also, now all starting Iberian tags are reformable ones, opening up new possibilities and combinations.

And last, but not least - there’s a new pack of both advances and flavour content for Jewish countries, and a series of events based on the troublesome and challenging coexistence between Christian, Muslims, and Sephardim in Late Medieval Iberia.

Maghrebi Flavour Content​

The other main country in Across the Pillars is Morocco, which means that it has also received more flavourful and immersive content - but not only that, but the entire Maghrebi countries and cultures have also received a big content package, in both the DLC and the free update:

This is an interesting Law available to Morocco at the start, which will determine its stance towards its greatest strength and weakness at once - its Tribesmen!:

The entire Maghreb is receiving a bunch of new Town Charters with the DLC, as well:

And units, which are now mainly based on their culture:

And a general package of unique naval units, half free, half DLC:

On specific countries, I’d like to mention Tunis, which has not only received an important content overhaul, but also an interesting ‘puzzle’ to start with:

And regarding advances, the same goes for the Maghreb: Twenty-five countries from, from Tunis and Tlemcen, to Algeria, Kel Ahaggar to Zab, are receiving new advances in 1.4, as well as different cultures: Algerian, Hassaniya, Moroccan, Tunisian and Amazigh, with unlocks such as the Tuareg Veiled Cavalry and the Andalusi Arquebusiers to the Barbary fusta naval levies.

Iberian Military Religious Orders​

The Iberian Military orders are covered in Across the Pillars, as a unique Religious Order Type for Iberian countries:

They start with holdings across Iberia, concentrated in the lands that they historically held:

With their historical starting Grand Masters - characters that are especially fit for war:

And that’s all for today! Next week, our dear @PDX Ryagi will be back in charge of Tinto Talks, showing the Achievements, Art, and Music for Across the Pillars. In the meantime, we hope that you keep enjoying the 1.4 Open Beta, and once again, thanks for your feedback and reports in the Open Beta subforum, and in other relevant channels. A last word from me: it was a pleasure to be back with you on TT during this month, and also an honor to have been part of the video that we’ve just released. In the upcoming weeks, I’ll be back to focus on the 1.4 ‘Río Salado’ and Across the Pillars DLC release - I hope the best for both! Cheers!