Reconquista mod, a proposal

**Cururu** · June 16, 2007, 05:55 PM

Hi everyone,

For about a month I've been working on a map for what I've envisaged as a mod for the Reconquista. The map is mostly done, the only thing lacking now is to assign settlements for each faction and QC the regions to avoid unreachable places within a given province, put some trees etc...

The map encompasses south of France, the Iberian Peninsula, and North Africa (present day Morocco and Algeria, mostly). It is 300 x 229 pixels and includes 174 regions.

So now the next step is to populate this huge map with new factions. The ones I would like to see in a first phase for this mod are:

1) Christian:
Reino de Portugal
Reyno de Leon
Reyno de Castilla
Reyno de Navarra
Corona de Aragon
Comte Toulouse
Aquitaine (Angevin)
RHE (or Comte Provence)
France (maybe)

2) islamic
Almoravides (al-Murabitun)
Almohades (al_Muwahhidun)
Hammadides (or Egypt)
Andalusian ( concentrating in Valencia & Murcia)

Marinids (spawn later in the game)
Hafsids (idem)
Nasrids (idem)

I often think about eras, since the Reconquista actually spans from 1030 to 1492. For this first phase I am thinking about a period between 1145 to 1300. Maybe in the future two other periods could be in the mod : an earlier starting on 1030 including the Taifa Kingdoms; and another on the later period starting on 1280 featuring the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada...

So is there anybody interested in helping? To get a feeling of the map follow the link to see some screenshots

http://gallery.filefront.com/sapocururu/

PS - many thanks to Gundug and Wilddog for their patience and help with this newbie

PS2 - for the moment I am using the Portvcale mod as a base for my mod, since they already have two of the factions (Navarra and Aragon) I needed for the mod.

**kelvintyk** · June 16, 2007, 11:01 PM

Another reconquista mod, lusted has already started on one. Who knows? Yours might be better.

**Yuiis** · June 17, 2007, 10:35 AM

Yep, lusted has already included a reconquista campaign, but its just got vanilla factions(3)!!! This one appears to be much more historically accurate and better worked out, I would be glad to help in anything regarding historical issues if you need them!

**kelvintyk** · June 17, 2007, 10:36 AM

Yea, this one seems more promising.

**MunichRules** · June 17, 2007, 04:30 PM

hi,

sounds and looks very interesting

May you could include south of france and part of Italy (vatikan, south of italy and the island korsika, sardegna and sicily) in your map. This is concerning to the expansion of Aragon to east !!!

Starting Point at 1145 A.D. is ok, but not accurate. Leon is founded 1157 and Castilla also. Aragon and Catalunia is united in 1137. For example if playing as Aragon you could implement as first mission to conquer Catalunia. Portugal is founded in 1139. You could also implement uprising Nation for these dates ???
South of Toledo at 1130 you have the empire of the Almoravides which followed or even expunged by the Almohades in 1147 A.D. This event could be like mogols or timurids in vanilla MTW2

So, i like the topic a lot .
I can support you with ideas and propositon.

**Yuiis** · June 17, 2007, 05:46 PM

Originally Posted by MunichRules

hi,

sounds and looks very interesting

May you could include south of france and part of Italy (vatikan, south of italy and the island korsika, sardegna and sicily) in your map. This is concerning to the expansion of Aragon to east !!!

Starting Point at 1145 A.D. is ok, but not accurate. Leon is founded 1157 and Castilla also. Aragon and Catalunia is united in 1137. For example if playing as Aragon you could implement as first mission to conquer Catalunia. Portugal is founded in 1139. You could also implement uprising Nation for these dates ???
South of Toledo at 1130 you have the empire of the Almoravides which followed or even expunged by the Almohades in 1147 A.D. This event could be like mogols or timurids in vanilla MTW2

So, i like the topic a lot .
I can support you with ideas and propositon.

Munich have you read your post??

You say that adding the Crown of Aragon and Portugal is not correct for 1145 but then you say those kingdoms were founded in earlier years. That...makes no sense to me, maybe its just I haven't understood you well. Also, making Aragon conquer Catalunya would also be historically incorrect. The Crown was a union of both the Count of Barcelona and the Kingdom of Aragon. It wasn't a military conquest of the kingdom of Aragon. In fact the Aragonese kingdom was under castilian menace, a pair of years before, Zaragoza had been invaded by castillian forces. The union was an alliance of both independent territories so that they could defend themselves united against exterior foes and this way avoiding mutual destruction.

**Cururu** · June 18, 2007, 11:02 PM

Yuiis and MunichRules,

I did not intended to make a big mod. All I wanted at first was to have a more detailed map (meaning more cities in the area of the reconquista) and more factions... For a very first realease I would have only vanilla factions plus navarre and Aragon, based on the ones from Portvcale, as long as those guys are ok with that... So the factions would be:

Portugal
Leon-Castille
Navarre
Aragon
Moors
Egypt
France
HRE

Egypt is there to represent the Hammadides who by 1145 were already separated from the Fatimid Caliphate and occupied most of present day Algeria. France for the moment will stand for the Comte toulouse and the Avengin (I might put the English faction there instead, again historically inaccurate, since it is only in 1154 that Henry marries Eleonor of Acquitaine). Again I think that gameplay is as important as historical accuracy.

In the future, as the new factions are added, like the Andalusians, then we can start to change the rosters and to add new units, but again they will have to be based on vanilla ones, because I have no clue (or time) on how to build entirely new meshes etc... For example, the army of Leon needs to be less advanced than those from Castillians; the almoravides will only have limited access to siege engines, because they were pretty bad at that. Aragon should have a more "French" flavor to them, but overall the catholic armies in Iberia are quite similar, as they were historically. Finally I think It would be nice to add the religious orders, especially because they played a big part in the Reconquista, especially those of calatrava, Aviz and alcantara...

**Cururu** · June 18, 2007, 09:28 AM

MunichRules and Yuiis,

Thanks for the historical discussion

! The reason for the starting date of 1145 is that it represents one of the first years of the transition between the almoravides and almohads in Morocco and in al-Andalus. WIth that there was the rise of the second taifa kingdoms period (1144-1147), which would allow us to have an independent, albeit feeble, Andalusian faction. That means that the game starts at a very interesting historical point, with lot of opportunities for growth for the factions and a very hard game for Almoravides and Andalusians. Plus it adds more to the "what if" character of the M2TW game I think.

I also thought much about the Leon and Castile issue, and my take was to make two separate factions, even at 1145 (12 years before they were historically separated again). The advantages I saw were:
1) Leon can be a playable faction;
2) This is easier to implement than spawning a Leonese rebel army in 1157, which would result in a non-playable faction anyway;
3) A Leonese kingdom would bring more balance to the game, reflecting more of the historical division between the Christian kingdoms, which was one of the historical reasons why the reconquista dragged for so long after the end of the Ummayyad Califate in 1030.

Concerning the map, for the moment I would not like to expand it. The reason is that it will be a lot of work, thus delaying even more the opportunity to release the mod for other interested people. Moreover, another problem is that we have to draw a line somewhere, otherwise the focus on the reconquista scenario is shifted and diluted. For the reconquista mod I had in mind one of the key things was to have as many cities as possible in Iberian Peninsula and north Africa, which are at the core of this mod. Adding Sardinia, Corsica,Italy and Sicily would mean that we would have to have less dense distribution of cities in the map. So at some point I chose to ignore the Aragonese expansion into Sicily and treated that as a different scenario altogether, more akin to an all European or mediterranean focused mod.

One of the problems for my map choice is the Pope. So far I don't have the papal states in my mod at all, so there is no Pope. Since the Pope is a central figure in the reconquista scenario (e.g., the first Portuguese king to avoid Castillian Vassalage, declared himself a vassal of the Pope) I am thinking of giving Avignon to the Pope and have it there as well. What do you guys think?

By the way, with a Comte toulouse faction I think there will be plenty of action for the Aragonese crown in two fronts: south of France, especially Provence (which will be in agreement to historical facts) and the front against the Andalusians in Valencia and Murcia.

Thanks for the input and I hope we can keep the discussion up!

cheers,

cururu

**Yuiis** · June 18, 2007, 09:55 AM

Cururu,

Your mod looks very promising. Your map looks great and although you are leaving out the mediterranean, I love it because there's a whole bunch of cities and regions to play with. About the pope...here's my idea: Couldn't you create an island the farthest you can into the mediterranean, and have the papal states rest there, so you would have an actual Pope. I would do it this way, or in any way similar, so that the pope doesn't interfere within iberian politics/wars. I dont know, its just a suggestion right out of my mind.

Got a pair of questions: About the factions, are you planing to create new unit rosters and skin out new units? Are you adding historical banners? Are you adding religious orders? Are you adding titles for regions? what is your general plan other than what you have already shown to us=> That great map and ideas

. Well these are more than a pair, xD I'm just curious about what you plan to do, although I realize that these projects can grow in the future and maybe now you will just add some some few things to get it started.

**Shaba Wangy** · June 19, 2007, 12:56 PM

Looks cool. I am making one for my own as well, but with much more empahsis into historical accuracy and recreatign teh precise political situation at the time. Much smaller though, I am afraid that your map might turn into a siege-fest.

**Cururu** · June 20, 2007, 10:10 PM

Shaba Wangy,

Thanks for the encouragement. As far as the siege fest goes I really did not test whether that will be true. But then, warfare in the middle ages was exactly a siege fest, with few pitched battles.

BTW, you've mentioned that you had a lot of historical material about the Reconquista, would you be willing to share it?

cheers,

Cururu

**Ludicus** · June 26, 2007, 08:37 AM

Very interesting.Good map.Keep the good work.

**Shaba Wangy** · June 26, 2007, 09:12 AM

Originally Posted by Cururu

Shaba Wangy,

Thanks for the encouragement. As far as the siege fest goes I really did not test whether that will be true. But then, warfare in the middle ages was exactly a siege fest, with few pitched battles.

BTW, you've mentioned that you had a lot of historical material about the Reconquista, would you be willing to share it?

cheers,

Cururu

More than happy to. What did you have in mind?

**Ludicus** · June 26, 2007, 01:25 PM

Literature:
http://libro.uca.edu/stanislawski/Chap10.htm : Moslim domination
http://libro.uca.edu/bishko/spr1.htm : Spanish and Portuguese reconquest
http://libro.uca.edu/socwar/war.htm : A Society Organized for War
http://libro.uca.edu/stanislawski/Chap11.htm : The Reconquest of Iberia
http://libro.uca.edu/stanislawski/Chap12.htm : Final Steps Toward Portuguese Independence
Maps:
http://libro.uca.edu/payne1/maps.htm : some Reconquest maps.
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~rs143/reconque.jpg :another reconquest map
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~rs143/umayyad.jpg :Map of Spain after the Fall of the Umayyad Caliphate in the Periods of the Party Kings and of the Almoravids
http://historymedren.about.com/libra...tmapsp1030.htm : Ibéria 1030 map
http://historymedren.about.com/libra...tmapsp1210.htm : Ibéria 1210 map
http://historymedren.about.com/libra...tmapsp1360.htm : Ibéria 1360 map
With the name of some important cities.
More maps and cities:
http://libro.uca.edu/socwar/map1.jpg : Reconquest Frontiers
http://libro.uca.edu/socwar/map2.jpg : Northern Hispania
http://libro.uca.edu/socwar/map3.jpg : Central Castile, the Cordillera, and Arago-Catalonia
http://libro.uca.edu/socwar/map4.jpg : Portugal and Leon
http://libro.uca.edu/socwar/map5.jpg :Lower Meseta and Andalusia
http://www.zum.de/whkmla/region/spain/taifas.html :Taifas maps
Second taifas:Between 1144/1147: 20 taifas:
Arcos , Carmona, Constantina ,Jerez,Mallorca, Mertola, Niebla,Silves, Almeria,Baleares,Badajoz,Cadiz,Córdoba,Granada,Guadix,Jaén,Málaga
Murcia,Valencia,Sevilla

**Tulius Hostilius** · June 26, 2007, 05:44 PM

I wish you good luck!
The map seems to have a nice scale. I paid more attention to the present day Portuguese territory and notice that you introduce some cities/castles that are important today but in the Reconquista period where not that important, and didn’t introduce other that where. But that can be changed (if you like) during the development.

I am waiting for the release.

**Cururu** · June 27, 2007, 09:51 PM

Originally Posted by Ludicus

many thanks for the links! Many of them I had already looked before, some are new. I really appreciate the help!

**Cururu** · June 27, 2007, 09:48 PM

Originally Posted by Shaba Wangy

More than happy to. What did you have in mind?

I am very curious about the second Taifa kingdoms, the ones occurring between 1144-1147 and the domains of the king Lobo (al-Mardanish). Do you have illustrations about their units, colors, banners?

cheers,

Cururu