Tinto Flavour #11 - 21st of March 2025 - Ethiopia

[Pavía]

Hello and welcome one more week to Tinto Flavour, the happy Fridays in which we take a look at the content of the super secret Project Caesar!

Today we will be talking about the Empire of Ethiopia! Let’s start without further ado:

The Empire of Ethiopia is an ancient realm rich with history and traditions. Nestled in the Horn of Africa, it boasts lush highlands, plateaus, and the Great Rift Valley. Its beauty is captivated by golden sunsets on the Simien Mountains.

Ethiopia's enchanting tapestry weaves diverse ethnic groups like the Amhara, Afar, and Tigre. United in trials, it remains resilient like the ancient baobab tree, enduring through time.

Inspired by ancient origins, Ethiopia cherishes legendary unions like the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon. The legacy of their son Menelik, the first member of the Solomonid dynasty, echoes through time, connecting this land to ancient Israelites.

Through the years, Ethiopia's epic tale unfolds, shaped by destiny and the unwavering spirit of its people. Triumphs and tribulations weave a rich tapestry of life's ebb and flow.

However, this nation stands as a realm encircled by adversaries eagerly waiting to seize any opportunity to strike. Managing not only to survive but thrive will be a challenge.

Please remember that any UI, 2D and 3D art is WIP, as usual.

The Ethiopian Empire is in 1337 the strongest power in the region.​

The Sultanate of Ifat starts subjected as a tributary to Ethiopia:

These are the starting Works of Art for Ethiopia:

And these are some advances; I’ve decided to show this week one per age:

Ethiopia also has one of these advances per age, that unlocks a building, and one unique unit per age:

This is for example the unit for the Age of Renaissance:

And this one for the Age of Revolutions:

Now let’s move to the narrative content since we have some interesting events for Ethiopia.

There’s a unique mechanic for Ethiopia, that can be unlocked early on in the game:

This may allow to enact this government reform, which will trigger a capital change at the start of each reign:

Some other events:

The last option unlocks a unique estate privilege:

…And much more, but that’s all for today, I hope you enjoyed it!

Next week we will have to skip Tinto Flavour, unfortunately, since we have an internal event scheduled on Friday and no one on the team will be available; but we will compensate with a double, intense schedule for the following week. On Monday 31st we will have the Tinto Maps review of Persia and the Caucasus, while on Friday 4th we will take a look at the content for Persia and the Timurids, which includes a starting IO, the Ilkhanate, and a situation, The Rise of Timur. Lots of exciting content is coming! Cheers!

 

[Pavía]

Nice. Will there be flavor for the Ethiopia-Portugal alliance, as well?

Yes!

 

[Pavía]

I apologise if this is off-topic, but will this post of yours also include the situation with regards to the Caucasus? I am asking as it's known that Georgia had left the Ilkhanate around 1330. Thanks!

Hmm, not initially, but I'll consider it since it fits thematically. But, to be honest, if I see that the post is already too long with Persia, the Timurids, etc., we'll leave it for another day (and don't worry about that, Georgia is one of the countries with unique content ).

 

[Pavía]

wondering if Ifat has events to break free, and doing a scripted war as a challenge to the Ethiopian empire in the early game?

or maybe I should say what are the biggest hurtle to the Ethiopian starting position that you have seen?

1. We have the proper mechanics in place to portray Ifat breaking free from Ethiopia, so there isn't narrative content about that.
2. The Mamluks. We asked for a new Ethiopian report to our QA last week, and, boy, it was tough for him...

 

[Pavía]

This looks great! I'm quite interested in how the mechanics work for coffee, given how important it is for Ethiopia and its region. How does it get to - say - Brazil? Is this handled by the Columbian exchange mechanics, and if so, does it start to be grown even in locations which are not controlled by an 'Old World' power?

I also assume there are events, or other mechanics to herald the formation of the sultanate of Adal and the wars that follow?

There's a way to start planting coffee in Brazil, we will talk about it in a future Tinto Talks.

 

[Pavía]

Why is there an increased penalty to the move capital cost, shouldn't it be the other way round? Or is it that when a new ruler ascends to the throne, you get an event pop up allowing you to select a new capital for free, and then if you want to change the capital during the rule of that ruler, you'll incur that penalty to the cost?

I'd also suggest being able to move capitals during wartime at a reduced cost as a unique mechanic for the Negusa.

The second option you mention, exactly.

 

[Pavía]

Does Ethiopia have some unique content tied to the Coptic faith like Hungary had with Catholic?

The Coptic Church is quite unique on its own, with its own flavour, etc. We'll show it some time in the future.

 

[Pavía]

Is it common for the Mamluks to conquer down the Nile and into the Horn of Africa currently?

They are more of a blocker if you try to move upstream river Nile. But take this as very WIP, AI behavior is not something we want to talk about more in detail yet.

 

[Pavía]

How is the quality determined?
An obilisk is a masterpiece, but a literal cathedral in Novgorod is only "very good"?

Our content designers have varied artistic tastes...

This is a topic that we want to balance a bit more, eventually. But take into account that different places in the world have different artistic styles, and what they consider a work of art.

 

[Pavía]

Off topic but it came to me when I read tooltips with estate names. I have no clue which estates are those and it's probably easy to figure out after a while but perhaps there could be an option to use standard/default names rather than localized? I would probably play with localized names for european/christian countries but outside of europe I would change it so I don't need to guess which estate I am dealing with (like Ulema/Umera have pretty similar names that mean nothing to me).

It may be a bit more difficult to identify in a random tooltip, but the estates have always the same icon, coloring, description, game concept, etc., independent of the flavour name. But we'll consider it, thanks for this feedback.

 

[Pavía]

I was more asking in the sense of unique advances/ reforms/ privileges which require Ethiopia to have Coptic or another Oriental Orthodox denomination as the official religion.

Is there something like that and could you show us some?

Oh, yes. A bunch of the events require the religion to be Miaphysite (it's the name we're using for the entire Oriental Orthodox religious group), the Debere Meshwa'e building, the Double Sabbath estate privilege or the Fetha Negest also require it, etc.

 

[Pavía]

View attachment 1269280
are you sure Ifat is a vassal? The coins make me think of a tributary

Actually, yes, it is a Tributary, good catch. Correcting it in the post, thanks.

 

[Pavía]

Is the wandering court gov reform really a thing only for Ethiopia? I know you guys already mentioned that there's a law/policy for it that some countries start with but it seems quite different from this reform, why don't countries like Castile and Aragon have the refirm as well?

We're fully aware of how Iberian monarchies acted in the Middle Ages. Since the Ethiopian court worked a bit differently, we decided to implement this feature here as a test case; if we end up expanding this feature to other countries, it will probably be in a different, more or less overhauled way.

 

[Pavía]

I don't like the writing for events and unique descriptions. It's like the writing for the codex and newspapers in Suzerain. Using big words to sound better even though they don't convey any new information. The flavor writing in EU4 was better; short and to the point, conveying useful historical context to the player.

We're looking forward to revisiting some of the event texts. You may have noticed in previous TFs that we have a 'historical info' fluff in some of them, which is something that we're slowly expanding, to detach more 'gamey' descriptions from the historical flavour. This 'historical info' will also be a hoverable option, so the player doesn't have to read it if it's not their cup of tea.

 

[Pavía]

View attachment 1269281
I don't understand, If this is not a capital only building(as there is no star on the top) then does that mean that i only get those location bonuses if I build it outside my capital?

1. You get the first modifier if it's in the capital location).
2. You always get the location modifiers.

 

[Pavía]

Any chance you guys change Miaphysite to Oriental Orthodox? The term miaphysite isn't that preferred nowadays, and Christology is such a messy area, I'd rather the game not refer to the religion by this one belief category they had.

We considered it, but we thought that 'Oriental Orthodox' would overlap too much with 'Orthodox'; we think that Miaphysite is a broader term compared to, e.g., Coptic, and also makes for a good differentiation.

 

[Pavía]

I see the suggestions I previously made for Horn of Africa, didn't get included sadly. Currently Ethiopia is way too consolidated on the map, and Ifat wasn't directly holding like 50% of the currently shown land on the map, but many regions were simply in their zone of influence. I would hope for some more division in that region. Like.. seeing the kingdom of Harla, Tanade Sultanate, which lied in the Bari region/Somalia, Warsangali Sultanate, The Ethiopian vassal state of Hadiya, which was ruled by Garad Amano in 1337, just to name a few. Some more indepth research could be done by me or someone else on the region, but would love to see more love for that corner of the world, which even in Eu4 didn't receive the accuracy I would have hoped for.

We aren't yet done with the Tinto Maps feedback for the Horn of Africa.