Special Rules

When playing as Toulouse you are a firm believer in the Cathar faith. Your ancestors died by the tens of thousands in the Albigensian Crusade to defend your religious homeland and achieve the long desired freedom from the tyrannical and oppressive King of France. Now with him dead England is trying to subjugate you, this must not happen - the only way to stop another tyrant from controlling Toulouse is to become the King of France yourself and acquire power necessary to fend off the English!

Rules for your region:

• Like all other French cultures duchies, your goal is to 'become France' through the casus belli of retaking Paris and holding it. This will be difficult as there are lots of contestants and the task itself is not easy. 

• You are not allowed to take provinces from other French duchies unless you have a core on their province.  The French people are strong believers in titles and it would burn your reputation to the ground if you began to take provinces that are outside of your core realm, hurting the legitimacy of your claim for the throne of France. There will be events and missions that grant necessary cores for you to become France.

• You are allowed to vassalize other French Duchies. If you are a player nation and become a vassal of another player, you must roleplay as loyal. While you might have high liberty desire as a ruler, but your people and soldiers are not. However, it is strictly forbidden to integrate vassals - unless you have a mission that does it for you. 

• Once a player has held Paris for long enough to become a potential King of France, they will be allowed to integrate their French vassals. 

Rules specific for Toulouse:

• You are not allowed to change religion unless your religious unity is below 20%.  If you are able to change religion through an event or mission, you can do so.

• You are allied with the Jews unless they become a direct threat to your plans of uniting France or stop funding you.

• You have no desire to see another 'King of France'. You will do whatever it takes to prevent others from becoming France, even if that means helping your enemies.

• By the year 1600, you will be able to form Occitania, a  unique formable for your nation.  Through this, you will become  immune to the subjucation of the 'King of France'  and you  will be a contestant for the regional power in the French region with your capital as its center - not Paris, effectively overshadowing France.

Current Relations 

After achieving your independence 200 years ago, you became diplomatically isolated. Any Catholic that would negotiate with you would risk excommunication, so none of them did. For almost a hundred years you stood alone, but no one really had time or resources to attack you,busy dealing with their own issues. So, your former rulers decided to keep a low profile and stabilize their nation. The reputation of your castles being a place where large crusades end did indeed help keep the peace in this period.

In the year 1302 the War of Sicilian Vespers ended. The mighty Kingdom of Aragon had conquered Sicily from the Kingdom of Naples in an ambitious move to extend their influence further into the Mediterranean. But they did not know that this would turn the tide.

The Reconquista in Iberia has been slow, and the Christians has been unable to throw out the Muslims. In the year of 1333 another war between the Christians and Muslims occurred. This one ended in the favor of the Muslims, as Aragonese fleet was sunk just outside of Mallorca. With no ships to protect their isolated island dominions, the Sicilians broke free, but by an unusual faction. The Jewish merchant family of Raffaelli allied themselves with Barbary pirates and Jewish families across the Mediterranean and seized their independence.

The Jews are a peculiar people, and unlike the Catholics, the Sicilians opened their harbors to Toulouse and began establishing good relations. Wealth began to spread into Languedoc region via trade.

Things started to go uphill. The Republic of Genoa was also dominated by Jewish, but while you have great relations with their nation, they dare not oppose the Catholic Holy Roman Empire and have official dealings with Toulouse. Unlike Sicily that is protected by its large navy, Genoa is surrounded by potential enemies and has to act more carefully.

In 1428 an event of large importance occured. A royal marriage between the heir of Aragon, Prince Enrique, and Princess Catherine of Navarra was held in the Zaragoza at the palace of Aljaferia. Just a day into the celebrations, the Kings of Leon and Castile left urgently as rumors spread that the Muslims in the South were planning to break the truce and take advantage of the distracted Catholics. After Christian Kings left, a terrible fire spread across the palace, leading to large amounts of death in the noble lines of East Iberia. This led to civil war as a Valencian nobles declared for independence.

At this time in the Aragonese conflict, you received an interesting letter from your friends in Palermo, Sicily. Apparently, the Jewish family Suasso in Barcelona was waiting for the perfect moment to strike and declare their independence from Aragon, just like the Sicilians did a hundred years ago. And for this to happen, they needed the army of Toulouse. In exchange, we would be granted the province of Rosellón and more gold than Toulouse had seen since our independence. 

Toulouse accepted.

Alliances

Rivals

Other relations:

• You have great relations with Genoa, but they fear an open alliance would provoke their neighboors into gathering up against your alliance.

• Galicia dislikes you for the religious differences and partly blames instabily of their pilgrims routes through France on you.