Hello, Pelly here. Happy Monday.

Normally I set dev diaries alongside the developers and then we all edit and look through them. However, this time behind my last barricade of resistance before they breach the door, I must say they have gone a little wild this time. So, please excuse the slightly more…loopy prose in places. 

I’ll get right back to you all, I can hear chants of “1000 more words” so they must be massing for an assault again. 

Hello. This is Victoria, Narrative Design Lead of Victoria 3. Pelly wishes to call me “loopy”. This is, of course, undialectical nonsense. “Loopy” as a descriptor relies upon a point of comparison that is by no means transhistorical. It places a real individual up against the shining ideal of the bourgeois citizen, an utterly dull paragon of civic virtue to whom no mere mortal may ever compare. This is to say, it is pure ideology, and thus unworthy of our limited word count.

Besides, I am possibly the sanest person to ever exist.

When I wish to challenge this ironclad sanity, I think about Communism. Every time a Communism-related question comes up in a design discussion, it prompts much pacing and head-holding. A recent example of these questions relates to the lack of a communist-flavoured Labour Associations law. This question has proved to be both quite difficult, and one of the easier Communism-related questions that we have faced whilst developing this game.

The reason that it is quite difficult is because the positions that historical communists have taken regarding labour associations are largely tactical and circumstance-driven. A “labour association” is a historically specific form of organisation. Our other laws in this category represent a variety of policies advocated for within the context of the capitalist state. They imply the existence of a political state that exists independently of and superior to labour associations, a predicate that communists seek to abolish. To fill the Communism-shaped hole in this lawgroup, then, one must create a law that is not a law at all, but rather its negation.

The reason that it is one of the easier questions is because we have been able to answer it.

Factory Councils is a “law” that is activated exclusively by certain sorts of revolutions. It represents the organic emergence of workers’ councils to coordinate labour activities in a period of crisis and revolutionary tumult. When Factory Councils is activated, a portion of the industries in the country will come under worker control, and the practical experience of such will make workers inclined to seek political control.

One may note that Factory Councils does not require a Council Republic. Factory Councils represents bodies such as strike committees and workers’ associations seizing control of the economy, whilst a Council Republic represents these bodies seizing political power. In certain circumstances, one may achieve a kind of “dual power”, such as that which characterised the space between the Russian February and October revolutions. In such a scenario, a Republic or Monarchy finds itself needing to contend with an economy that has largely been seized by workers. Likewise, if a group of dedicated socialists somehow seize control of the government outside of such a revolutionary situation, one may establish a purely formalist Council Republic, without Factory Councils to provide its base.

Hello Victorians, I am Leon (Norindo), a modest QA on the Vicky team. I have previously added free content such as Sweden & British Monarchy events and new historical characters in previous patches but today I come to you with a special feature of mine that I have been developing internally for a while, with the help of our talented programmers.

I wanted to make Vicky a bit more replayable from an A-historical point of view but to mainly have a bit more fun with it by having the ability to start the game with a different Ruler than the one you are given at game start.

In order for this feature to be available, you will need to have Fantastical Content Game Rule enabled but this is enabled by default so you should be able to see it when you start the game.

Here is where the button is located on the country selection screen.

Next you will get this window of the available Rulers you can select to start your new campaign with.

There is a randomize button in the top left corner of the pop up if you are not happy with the three characters on screen. The pool is limited, but this can be modded for more characters to show in the selection screen.

SET_RULER_NUM_OPTIONS # The number of potential rulers to generate for a country at game start

SET_RULER_POOL_SIZE # The max number of potential rulers to generate for a country at game start

So when you are decided on a Ruler, hit the select button and you will get a warning that all historical content will no longer be available for that historical ruler you are replacing.

The only characters that can appear in this selection are politicians and you can mod in customized or other historical characters. I will possibly be adding some fun characters in a future patch so keep your eyes peeled for more about this later.

I hope you will enjoy this feature and I look forward to seeing what playthroughs you do with a new ruler!

Hello Dave, yes you, specifically you Dave, in Des Moines. Hello to you! But no one else.

Anyways, @Ofaloaf here, I wanted to implement more improvements in Africa after slamming in some East African additions earlier this year. We've rightfully gotten sass for how South Africa has been set up, so I wanted to make some improvements to it. This is not a comprehensive lump of South Africa content, and this does not include the Boer Wars or the Anglo-Zulu War - it's more like something to help rectify the starting setup and get some action going, and make you have to work a little to get gold and print money.

The basic revisions start, of course, with the map:

The challenge with South Africa in 1836 is that a bunch of people were in the midst of trekking, and I don't mean Captain Kirk and Spock being best buds. The southern tip of South Africa had been held by the Dutch until the British seized it during the Napoleonic Wars, and the farmers ('Boers' in Dutch) who had settled in the Cape before the British takeover begrudged rule from London, doubly so once Britain abolished slavery. 

This unrest led to many people leaving the Cape and attempting to move north, beyond the limits of British authority, culminating in what's been called the "Great Trek", when thousands of families moved in the mid-1830s north of the Orange River, into what's now northern South Africa. Two early Boer settlements, Winburg and Potchefstroom (historically founded in 1838, but set here a little earlier to avoid making you have to switch tags a year in to play as them), eventually became the respective nuclei of the Orange Free State and Transvaal (officially, the South African Republic), which previously were the two Boer states present at game start in V3.

Northern South Africa wasn't an empty region, however, and the Boers weren't the only people moving then either. The Griquas (added as a new culture in this patch) were another frontier people, born from a mix of Dutch settlers and local Khoikoi, San, and Bantu families, and they were equally eager to establish their own lands beyond the British frontier. The Zulu Kingdom, meanwhile, had boomed in power and prominence under Shaka Zulu in the 1810s and '20s, and triggered a series of migrations, movements, and consolidations from both their own exiles and neighboring Bantu realms.

Some of these kingdoms, like Basutoland and Swaziland, have survived into the present day as Lesotho and Eswatini, but not everyone was a winner, and one of the most notable losers was Mzilikazi and the Ndebele people he led. Pressed by Boers on one side and Zulus on the other, he left the Transvaal region in 1838, taking followers with him but leaving many people behind, and eventually invaded the Rozvi realm in what's now Zimbabwe.

All this means that everyone is in a mad scramble for land in the 1830s. The Boers have just begun to settle these populated lands, and both Winburg and Potchefstroom now begin as unrecognized countries, struggling to gain diplomatic prestige, land, and easy access to foreign markets. The Ndebele migration north will give the Boers - and the Zulu kingdom, if it chooses to be proactive - a chance to make significant gains in Transvaal, and Boers from Winburg, led by Piet Retief or some other enterprising figure, can try to untactfully negotiate land cessions from the Zulu - talks which are unlikely to go well. The Griquas, for their part, will desperately hang on to what they can, and the Cape Colony will eventually want to impose some order on all this chaos happening north of the frontier.

This leads to every South African country starting with a new Journal Entry, the Struggle for the Highveld. The goals and interactions available vary a little between countries, but they all still have one fundamental theme: one country must secure supremacy in South Africa. For the Cape Colony, this means that all the lands of South Africa must be under their rule, either directly, as subjects of the Cape, or as subjects of Cape Colony's own colonial overlord. For everyone else, be they Zulu, Sotho, Nguni, Boer, or Griqua, they must remain independent, become recognized, and have access to the sea so that they depend on no-one else for access to the growing world of international trade.

There are also methods to expand into your compatriots' territories:

Griquas and Boers both have the option to confederate with other respective Griqua and Boer states, if they are strong enough and have researched nationalism.

This isn't initially usable by the Cape Colony, however, as the Cape now starts with only English as a primary culture - but this can change.

Cape Colony can give either the Boers or the Griquas equal legal status to the English, via exclusionary options. To make the colony appealing to the Boers again, the Cape's rulers will have to give up the citizenship laws it starts with and match the most exclusionary laws of any existing Boer republic, appealing to crass attitudes in order to get the Boers on-side. To appeal to the Griquas, meanwhile, the Cape must become less exclusionary, and work hard to bring the Griquas to a higher status in Cape society before they can be accepted as a primary culture in the colony. If either the Boers or Griquas become a primary culture of Cape Colony, their respective confederation options will become available to the Cape.

Should any country succeed in completing the Struggle for the Highveld, they will gain claims on all of South Africa and annex any same-culture countries in the region that are independent or are subjects of the winner. Both Cape Colony and the Boer states also get new names and flags, reflecting their realized South African ambitions. Meanwhile, all other countries still competing will fail the JE, losing any claims they had in South Africa and generally just having a real bad time.

And… yeah! The starting situation has been changed in South Africa, there's now a JE to encourage everyone there to scramble a bit more, and you can try to consolidate the region under your rule, whoever you play as! Good luck and I hope you enjoy South Africa, a region thematically appropriate for a patch and DLC all about Iberia!

Hello again, Lufthansi here. I'll keep this brief and sane. Building on Mike's South Africa map work, I'd like to use the opportunity to go over some other misc. changes arriving alongside the free patch, mainly map and database related. 

\[Left 1.11 Right: 1.12] Political map of Iberia in 1836. The eagle-eyed amongst you may spot the new Carlist revolt, but we've also shrunk down Gibraltar, Ceuta, and Melilla to make the borders more reflective of the historical situation. 

\[Left 1.11 Right: 1.12] The much despised union of Valencia and Murcia has finally been dissolved, Cantabria has been given to Old Castile, and León has been turned into a separate state. In Portugal, the state regions have been reworked with the mid-19th century provincial map of the country in mind, with some necessary merges. Also, the shape of the Rif now enables more historical borders. Dynamic state names have also been added across the Iberian region. 

\[Left 1.11 Right: 1.12] Asturleonese and Aragonese pops have been added to Iberia, and the total population of each state reworked based on slightly upscaled numbers from the Spanish Census of 1833. Portuguese numbers in turn are derived from misc. secondary literature estimates.

\[Left 1.11 Right: 1.12] Big changes to the Saharan political map, with the addition of numerous Arab-Berber and Touareg tags. Also note the changes to the Western colonies along the African coast. For example, the British colonies are now all controlled by 'British West Africa', a colonial entity including the settlements in Gabon, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, and Fernando Po. Note that the Spanish have access to a decision to revoke the British lease of the latter island. 

\[Left 1.11 Right: 1.12] The Bidan culture now represents all Hassaniya speaking Arab-Berber populations in the Sahara-Sahel region, with Bedouin reserved for actual Bedouin tribes. Also, the Tubu people no longer live in the core Tibesti mountain range alone.

\[Left 1.11 Right: 1.12] These changes were already shown in a previous Dev Diary, but as always, it's good with a side-by-side comparison to better illustrate the changes.

\[Left 1.11 Right: 1.12] Mike has already shown off most of the South African changes, but here's another nice side-by-side comparison as well. Note the size reduction of the Portuguese colonies to better reflect the historical 1836 situation. Portuguese control of Mozambique was mainly limited to the area surrounding the Zambezi river, with smaller garrisons and trading posts along the coast. Quelimane had been burned down by Gaza warriors some years earlier so it's not depicted as being under Portuguese control.

\[Left 1.11 Right: 1.12] Pan-Cuban state no more. The island now consists of three state regions, modeled on the Western, Central, and Eastern Cuban departments of 1827. The new Cuban state traits will mean that certain regions are better suited than others for certain industries, with coffee and mining being more viable in the east, Tobacco and Sugar being more viable in the west, and ranching being more viable in the centre. 

Hubs on both the Greater and Lesser Antilles have been reworked, resulting in, among other things, Port-au-Prince, Santo Domingo, and San Juan now being the capitals of their respective states. Very nice! The possible treaty ports are also much more sensible now, but looks- and selection-wise. Guantanamo Bay, Mole St. Nicholas, and the Samana peninsula can now all be secured for your state if you so desire. 

Have no fear, honorary Iberian Dutchmen, we have not forgotten about you either! The Dutch West Indies is finally a thing. Depicted here is also the large Jewish community in Curacao and their Papimiento speaking neighbours. 

With 1.12, we've also used the opportunity to add a boatload of new traits to the game, mainly centered on Iberia and the Caribbean. Some examples include the Riotinto Basin, the Sierra Minera de Cartagena, the Douro Valley of Portugal, and the Tierra Roja of Cuba. The Volcanic Fertility state trait has been applied to relevant islands in the Atlantic-Caribbean region, making these small, but highly productive islands more valuable than they were before. 

\[Left 1.11 Right: 1.12] Additionally there's been a global rework of sugar and wine production in 1836 based on available historical data such as the Annual Database of Global Wine Markets, 1835 to 2016. For sugar this means a greater concentration of the global sugar industry in producers such as Spain, Britain, Brazil, the US, and the Netherlands.

\[Left 1.11 Right: 1.12]

While for wine it has resulted in a large nerf to wine production outside of Europe, with France (especially Southern France), Italy, and Spain being the big winners, and the US and Russia being the great losers. The massive Ukrainian wine anomaly has now been contained and locked away forever. 

Hello everyone, Alex here. The despot Pelly didn’t give me a dev diary this time, so I had to take matters into my own hands and hijack this one. Today I bring you the latest Victorian technological advancement coming for Treaties: Addenda, also known as Free Text Articles.

Since we first came up with the idea of doing treaties, one type of article I really wanted us to include was simply being able to write a text message in treaties. We couldn’t do it for the release of 1.9, but I finally found some time to do it for this release instead. To be clear: this has absolutely no mechanical effect on gameplay. It’s purely there so you can insult communicate with the other party in the treaty.

Mostly though, I look forward to seeing how this is used by our multiplayer community! Including formalized custom agreements and stipulations in a treaty should hopefully bring some extra spice to your negotiations.

Negotiations almost fell apart while discussing the Philadelphia Agreement as the involved parties couldn’t agree on how to spell certain words.

Well we're done here, see you soon!

Hello, again. As this is the last narrative dev diary in this cycle, the time has come to post our bibliography for Update 1.12 and Iberian Twilight. 

Primary Sources:

1826. “Constitutional Charter of 1826”. Lisbon.

1996. Griqua Records: The Philippolis Captaincy, 1825-1861. Compiled and edited by Karel Schoeman. Cape Town.

Borges Carneiro, Manuel. 1820. Portugal Regenerated in 1820. Lisbon.

Bowring, John. 1859. A Visit to the Philippine Islands. London.

Cortés, Juan Donoso. Translated by Rev. William McDonald. 1879. Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism and Socialism, Considered in their Fundamental Principles. Dublin.

Rizal, José. 1912. The Philippines a Century Hence. Manila.

Secondary Sources:

Alvarez-Junco, José. The Emergence of Mass Politics in Spain: Populist Demagoguery and Republican Culture, 1890-1910.

Ballou, Maturin M. 1885. Due South; or, Cuba Past and Present. Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Birmingham, David. 2003. A Concise History of Portugal. Cambridge.

Blair, E. H., Bourne, E. G., & Robertson, J. A. (n.d.). 1907. The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 51, 1801-1840.

Burniol, José. Translated by Thomas Aloysius Becker. 1912. A History of the Philippines for Class Use. Philippines.

Buschmann, R. F., Slack, E. R., & Tueller, J. B. 2014. “Introduction: Iberian Pacific Navigations.” In Navigating the Spanish Lake: The Pacific in the Iberian World, 1521-1898 (pp. 1–16). University of Hawai’i Press.

Clarke, Henry Butler. 1906. Modern Spain: 1815-1898. Cambridge, UK.

Etherington, Norman. 2001. The Great Treks: the Transformation of Southern Africa, 1815-1854. New York.

Francia, L. H. 2013. History of the Philippines: From Indios Bravos to Filipinos. New York, NY.

Garner, Jason. 2016. Goals and Means: Anarchism, Syndicalism, and Internationalism in the Origins of the Federación Anarquista Ibérica. Chico, CA.

Gregory, J.W. 1921. The Rift Valleys and Geology of East Africa. Seeley, Service & Co. Limited.  London.

Hodges, Tony. 1984. Western Sahara: The Roots of a Desert War. London.

Klein, Herbert S. 1966. “The Colored Militia of Cuba: 1568-1868”. Caribbean Studies 6(2). 17–27. Puerto Rico.

Lawrence, Mike. 2020. Nineteenth Century Spain: A New History. Abingdon-on-Thames.

Leon, Byron Josue de. “Peasant Violence in Early Nineteenth Century Philippines and Guatemala: The Cases of Apolinario de La Cruz and Rafael Carrera in Comparative Perspective.” Southeast Asian Studies 10.1 (2021): 119–140.

Mallet, Robert. 1857. “Seismographic map of the world, showing the surface distribution in space of earthquakes as discussed from the British Association catalogue by Robert Mallet.” G. Falkner, Geography and Map Division. Manchester.

Martin, Benjamin. 1990. The Agony of Modernization: Labor and Industrialization in Spain. Ithaca, NY.

Miller, Susan Gilson. 2013. A History of Modern Morocco. New York.

Mintz, Frank. 2013. Anarchism and Workers’ Self-Management in Revolutionary Spain. Oakland, CA.

Morris, Donald R. 1965. The Washing of the Spears: a History of the Rise of the Zulu Nation under Shaka and its Fall in the Zulu War of 1879. London.

Pérez de Perceval Verde et al. 2006. "Spanish Mining in the 19th and 20th Centuries”. Murcia.

Rafael, V. L. 1990. “Nationalism, Imagery, and the Filipino Intelligentsia in the Nineteenth Century.” Critical Inquiry, 16(3), 591–611.

Rogers, R. F. 2011. “Twilight of Pax Hispanica 1800–1898.” In Destiny’s Landfall: A History of Guam, Revised Edition (pp. 84–101). University of Hawai’i Press.

Ross, Robert. 1976. Adam Kok's Griquas: A Study in the Development of Stratification in South Africa. Cambridge, UK.

Santamaría García, Antonio. 2009. "Tecnología y términos azucareros. Siglo XX", Sin azúcar no hay País: La industria azucarera y la economía cubana (1919-1939). Seville.

Simpson, James. 1995. Spanish agriculture: the long Siesta, 1765-1965. Cambridge.

Tapia et al. 2021. The Roots of Land Inequality in Spain. Madrid.

Thomas, Hugh. 2001. Cuba: A History. London.

As usual, we have not included the many webpages that we visited over the course of our research, of which we have not kept records. Also not included are works with which we did not engage with beyond quoting for flavour text. For those interested in the latter, we typically include attributions within our localisation files, appended to the string in question.

Pelly again, we seem to have gotten through it all in one piece. Congratulations. 

I hope you enjoyed this dev diary as much as we enjoyed writing it. Though, we may all have lost something along the way. Hopefully we don’t return to this level of writing ability for a long, long time.

If you didn’t catch it earlier we just announced[forum.paradoxplaza.com] that there will be a Last Chance Bundle for Expansion Pass 2 from December 11 around 18:00 CET. Yes we will have another pass next year this time titled the much more thematic Volume 3, which we will reveal more about next year!

This Thursday, however, we join the art team for a look through the art and times of Iberian Twilight.

PORTUGAL MENTIONED

Hello, and happy Thursday. This is Victoria, Narrative Design Lead of Victoria 3. Today, we will be covering the narrative content for Portugal and a unified Iberia coming in Update 1.12 and Iberian Twilight.

Please note, as ever, that any screenshots attached are from a work-in-progress build, and certain elements may not be final.

In 1836, Portugal finds herself at the end of one conflict, and the height of another. The victory of the liberals in the aptly-named Liberal Wars of 1828-1834 has opened the way for another conflict between the factions of the victors. The Cartist Party, represented by the Petit-Bourgeoisie and the Armed Forces, stands for a modernising oligarchic liberalism under the Constitutional Charter of 1826, whilst their progressive opponents desire Portugal’s modernisation to be carried out under a democratically-promulgated Constitution.

At the start of the game, Portugal has two unique ideologies, Cartist and Miguelist. They refer to two political conflicts that characterise Portugal at the start of the game – the first to the political conflict that characterised the reign of Maria II, and the second to the aftermath of the still-recent Liberal Wars. 

The Cartists represent the more conservative side of the Portuguese liberal consensus. They are defined by support of the Portuguese Constitutional Charter of 1826, a document granted by King Pedro IV. This document is the law of the land in 1836, and is bitterly opposed by the more progressive liberals. The controversial nature of the Charter arose both from its origin as an imposed constitution issued by royal authority, and the oligarchic “devourist” political system that it fostered. The Cartist ideology replaces the Meritocratic ideology for the Portuguese Petit-Bourgeoisie, and advocates for an oligarchic political system and strong, centralised state.

The Miguelist ideology, meanwhile, represents the losing side of the Liberal Wars of 1834. It supports the claim of the deposed King Miguel I, advocating for a traditional monarchy and the reversal of the liberal reforms of Pedro IV and Maria II. Miguelism may be considered similar to Spanish Carlism or French Legitimism, though it was historically unable to launch any major uprisings following its 1834 defeat.

Portugal begins the game with a set of somewhat liberal laws, an antiquated taxation system, and more institutions than her bureaucracy can support.

Her Oligarchy law has both the Electoral Clientelism amendment discussed in Dev Diary #165, and the Chamber of Gentlemen Deputies, an Amendment which represents the elected chamber of the Portuguese Cortes Geraes. This Amendment gives Portugal a small franchise, political parties, and elections from the start of the game.

The Portuguese political regime of 1834-1836 was not a popular one. The efforts of successive Cartist governments to balance Portugal’s crippling debt and budget deficit through the sale of public and church lands gained this period the moniker of “Devorismo”, referring to the perceived devouring of the Portuguese nation by corrupt politicians. It is, indeed, the case that this period was characterised by grotesque corruption. The sales of public and church lands, more often than not, led to the concentration of land in the hands of liberal oligarchs, with minimal actual state revenue to show for it.

The policies of this period are represented by the Reign of the Devourers Journal Entry. For as long as this Journal Entry is active, Portugal will be forced to privatise state-owned buildings, and suffer decreased legitimacy and a burden upon her treasury.

This Journal Entry has four possible outcomes, representing various permutations of Cartist and Constitutionalist victories. It will end in a Cartist victory if the government either manages to pay back Portugal’s debt, or remains in power whilst privatising a sufficient number of buildings. The first outcome is the most favourable for the Cartists, and will grant loyalists and bonuses for either the ruling government or the public treasury.

On the other hand, the Constitutionalist side may triumph by either popular revolt, or enacting a non-Oligarchy voting law and electing a legitimate government with no Cartists. If the government falls to a liberal revolution, the progressive opposition may be instantly swept into power, a Constitution enacted, and the head of the Cartists sent into exile. 

If the revolutionary outcome occurs, for the remainder of Maria II’s reign, the name of the Liberal Party will change to reflect the month in which the revolution occurred.

In addition to the Reign of the Devourers, Portugal starts the game with the Second Liberalism Journal Entry. Whilst the Reign of the Devourers is designed to quickly end with a tone-setting victory for one side, Second Liberalism will typically linger for some time. This Journal Entry serves as a framing device for the period of constitutional monarchy that lasted from the end of the Liberal Wars in 1834 to the declaration of the Portuguese Republic in 1910.

This Journal Entry has three possible outcomes, representing a victory for the constitutional monarchists, the Republicans, and the Miguelists. To earn a victory as the constitutionalists, one must overcome Portugal’s bureaucratic woes by establishing a bureaucracy surplus and completing the Regeneration, retain a voting law, avoid coups or revolutions, and marginalise the Miguelists.

One may also achieve the historical outcome, in which foreign policy failures, increasing mismanagement, and overreach by the Portuguese monarchy led to the fall of the monarchy and the establishment of a Republic.

The idea of “Regeneration” held sway over Portuguese liberalism over much of the nineteenth century. In the eyes of “Regeneradors” like Fontes Pereira de Melo, the Regeneration referred to a political regime which would stabilise Portuguese politics, modernise the country, and lay the foundation for future economic development. Its name derives from the 1820 political manifesto of Manuel Borges Carneiro, one of the leaders of the Portuguese Revolution of 1820 and a leading politician of the “First Liberalism” from 1820 to 1823. In this manifesto, Carneiro presented a vision of a Portugal that was meritocratic, virtuous, transparent, and governed lawfully by a constitutional King and Cortes.

An interesting component of the political mindset of the Regeneration period was the notion of politics as reducible to transportation. This notion is essentially an adaptation of Carneiro’s proposed mode of reform to the era of the railway. To quote chapter IX of his Regenerated Portugal:

“The great work of our regeneration must proceed with regularity and peace. It is not possible to suddenly set in place the springs of a machine that has become entirely disordered. Nevertheless, your virtues, your civilisation, your generosity – of which you have given an unprecedented example in the history of the world – fully assure us that everything will be hastened through your cooperation with the Government, and that the spirit of frenzy which brought so much blood and so many tears to France will not find its way into Portugal.

Forget past oppression. Be steadfast in establishing new institutions. Let moderation in all things remain your guiding principle. We know that the civil liberty which was stolen from us is not to be confused with licence, audacity, or insubordination to laws and authorities.”

The Our Fortunate Regeneration Journal Entry will be activated once Portugal researches Nationalism, has a legitimate government composed of liberal interest groups, and has not had a revolution or coup for ten years. Upon its activation, all of the Regeneration sub-Journal Entries will be added along with it.

When this Journal Entry is added, the Petit-Bourgeoisie will gain the Regenerator ideology, which will orient it towards Protectionism and Interventionism, and against child labour and slavery.

Portugal’s Regeneration may be contrasted with Spain’s. Whilst Spain’s Regeneration is largely focused around economic development, Portugal’s is focused around the development of solid institutions, a strong and centralised state, and public works programmes. To represent this difference, the Portuguese Regeneration has no option to utilise creative accounting, and will remain until it is either completed or Portugal either defaults on her debt, or falls to a coup or revolution. Additionally, Portugal is expected to retain a budget surplus for at least half of the time that the Regeneration is active.

The three pillars of Regeneration are transportation, modernization of the countryside, and state institutions. To complete these tasks, one must construct railways throughout the country, ensure access to the market, research technologies crucial to communications and agricultural mechanisation, enact more advanced production methods, and strengthen the bureaucracy and education system.

As one completes these portions of the Regeneration, one will receive events showcasing the progress that one has made.

A successful Regeneration is largely its own reward. Nonetheless, successfully completing the Regeneration grants increased investor confidence, and strong bonuses to the popularity of those who made it possible. 

Portugal is one of the world’s oldest colonising powers. The Portuguese Empire was the first truly global empire, and also the longest-lasting, historically spanning from 1415 to 1999. Most notable for our period was her colonisation of Angola and Mozambique. Whilst Portuguese presence in these areas had been continuous from the early sixteenth century onwards, it was in the nineteenth century that the formerly small coastal settlements expanded into vast territories that spanned multiple millions of square kilometres. The colonisation of Africa for the purpose of plantation agriculture was a priority of the Portuguese government from the late-nineteenth century onwards, with chartered companies such as the Mozambique Company established for this purpose. 

Once Portugal finishes colonising any state in Angola or Mozambique, she will receive the Além-mar Africano Journal Entry, which will grant claims on the remainder of these territories.

Once one completes the colonisation of Angola and Mozambique, one will be able to lay claim to the land between it with the Pink Map decision.

Historically, Portugal’s attempt to realise this project in 1890 was hampered by Britain rejecting her claims to the Zambezi Basin, leading to a diplomatic crisis that reduced Portugal’s stature on the world stage. This diplomatic humiliation was one of the conditions that set the stage for the fall of the Portuguese monarchy twenty years later.

The Pink Map decision sends an event to Great Britain, requesting Britain recognise Portugal’s claims to the land between Angola and Mozambique. As Britain, one may either allow Portugal to proceed, charge a fee for doing so, or refuse Portugal’s request. As Portugal, if Britain declines one’s offer, one may proceed regardless, at the cost of tremendously decreasing one’s relations with Britain.

The Pink Map Journal Entry requires one to successfully colonise all of the land between Angola and Mozambique, realising the historical “Pink Map”.

Pictured: The minimum requirements to complete this Journal Entry.

Successfully realising this ambition will lead to Portugal gaining both domestic and international acclaim, as well as rewarding the ruler’s Interest Group.

The independence of Brazil is even more recent than the independence of Spain’s American colonies. Brazil was briefly in personal union with Portugal in 1826, and post-independence relations between Portugal and Brazil were, comparatively, much better than those between Spain and her former colonies. The opportunity is thus rife for strengthening economic, diplomatic, and cultural bonds between the two countries.

If Portugal declares an interest in Brazil, and establishes positive relations, she will receive the Old Empire Journal Entry. 

This Journal Entry enables two unique interactions. The first is available if one owns Colossus of the South, and enables a strong Portugal to assist Brazil in preventing a coup against Emperor Pedro II, at the cost of Pedro’s popularity. The second allows a Portugal that has caught up with Brazil to seek a restoration of the United Kingdom between the two countries.

On October 30, 1835, the Brazilian General Assembly promulgated a law which stated that Queen Maria II had forfeited her place in the Brazilian line of succession. This law formally split the House of Bragança into Brazilian and Portuguese branches. Such a succession was a pressing concern at the time - were Pedro II to die at a young age, Maria II of Portugal would have succeeded to the Brazilian throne, restoring the personal union between the two countries. Under the terms of this law, Princess Januária Maria would become the designated heir, until the Emperor was able to produce an heir of his own.

It is not particularly plausible that this law would have been revoked. The Brazilian political establishment would see this as a breach of Brazil’s sovereignty, and the historical balance of power between the two nations was such that Brazil really had no reason to care about what Portugal thought about anything. Nonetheless, for the United Kingdom to be restored, it must be revoked - and, so, the premise of this Journal Entry reveals itself.

For Portugal to pursue the United Kingdom, she must first eclipse Brazil in both Prestige and GDP. Once she has done so, one may choose to Pursue Reunification, and so activate the United Kingdom Journal Entry.

Whilst this Journal Entry is active, Portugal will have access to a new Treaty Article, which requests Brazil amend her succession law to permit Portuguese candidates to succeed to her throne.

If Brazil accepts a treaty with this article, the sitting monarch of Portugal will become the heir of Brazil. At this point, any male heir produced by Pedro II would be ahead of the monarch of Portugal in the order of succession. However, Pedro II did not historically produce any surviving male heirs, and so we can safely assume that the Portuguese monarch may keep their place.

Once the King \[or Queen] of Portugal becomes the heir of Brazil, one must wait for Pedro II to die or abdicate. As a Republican coup is a serious threat to their ability to succeed to the throne, this Journal Entry will also keep Portugal informed as to the situation in Brazil. If the succession is threatened, one may use the Support Emperor Pedro interaction in the Old Empire Journal Entry to tilt the balance back in one’s favour.

Once Pedro dies or abdicates, the ruler of Portugal will succeed to the Brazilian throne, and the personal union between the two countries will be restored. Past this point, one simply needs to hold onto it.

In the previous dev diary, we showed a screenshot featuring a Portuguese power bloc named “Quinto Império”, or “Fifth Empire”. In that case, it was simply what I chose to name my Cultural Commonwealth to show off the Spread Primary Culture interaction. The “Quinto Império” refers to the messianic concept of a universal “Fifth Empire”, most famous for its appearance in Fernando Pessoa’s Mensagem. In Pessoa’s poem, the first four Empires \[those established in the “past”] are Greece, Rome, Christianity, and the amalgamated empires of Europe. The Fifth Empire, the one yet to be established, would be a spiritually Portuguese universal empire headed by the resurrected King Sebastian of Portugal.

It is somewhat arrogant to proclaim oneself as the Fifth Empire, in the absence of a resurrected King Sebastian. Nonetheless, if one manages to restore the Union with Brazil, one may be inclined to refer to one’s empire in those terms.

As pan-national sentiment arose in Italy, Germany, and the Balkans, so too did it come to Iberia. Whilst Pan-Iberism was never as prominent as the aforementioned movements, one may point to several prominent advocates both within the state and out. In 1870, deputies of the Provisional Government with Pan-Iberian sentiments rallied around electing King Luís I of Portugal as King of Spain, a post that Luís rejected. His father, Fernando II, would similarly reject their offer. This option, favoured by the Petit-Bourgeoisie, is portrayed in the Glorious Revolution Journal Entry shown in Dev Diary #165[forum.paradoxplaza.com]. These deputies represented the “dynastic” wing of Pan-Iberism, wishing to establish a shared royal dynasty and customs union between Portugal and Spain.

On the Republican side, both Francesc Pi i Margall and Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla were supporters of Pan-Iberism, the first advocating for a federal union, and the latter for a unitary state. In 1885, Zorrilla predicted republican revolution in Spain and Portugal, followed shortly by their unification into a single republic. Though this prediction was somewhat detached from reality, it is useful for understanding the mentality of the Pan-Iberian republicans. In many cases, nineteenth-century Spanish and Portuguese republicanism retained the messianic outlook that had long been displaced by particularist nationalism amongst the more developed European republican movements. As late as the 1890s, Spanish republican exiles commonly made use of the French republican calendar, debated electoralism, abstentionism, and anti-electoralism, and considered revolution as a matter of fact.

Nonetheless, this was not to last. When a lasting republican revolution did make its way to Iberia, sweeping away the Braganças in 1910 and the Borbóns in 1931, no particular attempt was made to unify the Portuguese and Spanish Republics. As is so typical throughout history, the realities of state power swiftly drowned the aspirations of a movement that had hitherto held none.

Pan-Iberist attitudes were also common amongst communists and syndicalists throughout Iberia. Throughout the 1910s and 1920s, Spanish and Portuguese syndicalist organisations sought to establish an Iberian Syndicalist Confederation, a project that was stymied by the harsh repressions of the Spanish and Portuguese dictatorships of the 1920s. In 1927, this project was revived in the form of the Iberian Anarchist Federation \[FAI], which aimed to unify Portuguese and Spanish anarchist organisations. The FAI was originally proposed to be headquartered in Portugal. However, this proposal was declined by the Portuguese anarchists themselves, citing the larger number of Spanish militants within the organisation. Though Portuguese anarchists would have little further role in the development of the organisation, and the FAI would always remain overwhelmingly Spanish, its goal of pan-Iberian – and international – revolution remained.

When the first Iberian country researches Pan-Nationalism, she will receive an event that allows her to pursue the ambition of unifying the peninsula. If any country accepts this ambition, all Iberian countries will receive a follow-up event, offering the chance to either express interest in the project or remain separate. If only one country expresses interest in the Iberian project, unification may only be realised through conquest.

Every Iberian country that expresses broad interest in unification will become Involved in the Iberian Union Journal Entry. Broad interest, however, does not imply immediate interest. In order for these countries to properly unify, they must be in a stable position, and share a certain number of laws.

The “Establish Real Union” button may be pressed once all Iberian countries have sufficiently synchronised their laws, and possess good relations with one another. Shared Governance Principles are essential – a monarchist Portugal will never be able to diplomatically unify with anarchist Spain.

But, one might ask, what if we do the unthinkable, and play as something other than a constitutional monarchy?

And not an absolute monarchy, either.

But what would that entail?

The community demands the real movement.

But you just said-

The real movement.

Oh, fine.

The button which allows for diplomatic unification has different variants depending on one’s Governance Principles, with two theocracies instead signing a Concordat, or two anarchist territories coming to consider themselves as shared units within a Confederation.

In addition to the prior button, the communist and anarchist iterations of this Journal Entry permits for the creation of a new culture for the Federation-to-be. If the date is after 1890 \[the historical invention of the Esperanto language], one is playing as a Council Republic, and one has either Cultural Exclusion or Multiculturalism, one may recognise the Esperanto language as an official language of the Federation.

Depending on the choice one makes in this event, one will either gain the new Iberian culture, or instate the Iberian culture as the exclusive primary culture of Iberia. In this case, we have opted for the latter.

Upon forming Iberia, a certain portion of one’s pops will adopt the Iberian culture. The Iberian culture has the Iberian heritage trait, and the Esperanto language trait, with Esperanto being placed within the Romance language trait group.

As a finishing touch, if one chooses to make the Iberian culture the exclusive primary culture of the Federation, all of the states and cities in Iberia will adopt Esperanto names.

We have also added many new flags and map colours for Iberia. If one unifies Iberia as a liberal republic, one will be able to choose between three possible flags in her unification event.

We have also been inspired by Paradox Tinto’s extremely visionary flag system. If one forms monarchist Iberia, one’s flag will change depending on one’s ruling dynasty, with custom inescutcheons for every royal family in the Glorious Revolution Journal Entry.

Pictured: The flags of Iberia ruled by House Bragança, Hohenzollern, and Espartero, respectively.

And that is all. Thank you for reading. Next Monday, we will cover the remainder of Update 1.12 and Iberian Twilight’s narrative content, as well as the changes we have made to the map. Then, also next week, on Thursday we visit the art team for a tour through the art of Iberian Twilight.