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

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.
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Country Selection.png

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

Ethiopia.png

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

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

Vassal.png

These are the starting Works of Art for Ethiopia:
Works of Art.png

King Ezana's.png

And these are some advances; I’ve decided to show this week one per age:
Ark of the Covenant.png

Solomonid Claim.png

Prester John.png

A True Ethiopian Church.png

Origin of Coffee.png

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

Cawa Units.png

Cawa Barracks.png

This is for example the unit for the Age of Renaissance:
Cawa Arquebusiers.png

And this one for the Age of Revolutions:
Cawa Columns.png

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:
A Wandering Court.png

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

Some other events:
Lalibela Cross.png


Kebra Negast.png


Ewostatewos Abebe.png

The last option unlocks a unique estate privilege:
Ewostatewos Abebe2.png

Both Days Sabbath.png


Justice of Kings.png

Justice of Kings2.png

Fetha Negest.png


Debere Meshwae.png

Debere Meshwae2.png

…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!
 
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IMG_9381.png


Hello, I think it would be more immersive if flag looks like it is hanged from the top ui bar just below the country name, and if we click or hover to the flag it twist all the way up so that we can see background scene more clearly, I think it would blend into the ui nicely as right now it just looks like it is copied Pasted in front of the scene (allthough flag quality greatly improved),

And I would suggest making flag size on ui a bit smaller as it clips into the rulers who wear big hats like this guy

Also, it would be cool if everytime we open this creen the flag hanged at the top ui bar does a free fall (from twisted form) and remain hanged afterwards ofc
 
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pheonicia said:
"Objectively" when it comes to art is a pretty bold call. I'd say that 'ave maria' is objectively better sung in German than Latin, but it doesn't stop people from playing the inferior Latin version on the radio every Christmas.
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Do you think it's a bold call so say that Gustav Mahler's 8th Symphony is a higher quality work of art than "Baby Shark"?
Cultural influence and fame don't necessarily have to correlate with 'art quality', which is why I don't think that 'art quality' is the right choice for categorizing works of art in this game.
 
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Mef said:
Do you think it's a bold call so say that Gustav Mahler's 8th Symphony is a higher quality work of art than "Baby Shark"?
Cultural influence and fame don't necessarily have to correlate with 'art quality', which is why I don't think that 'art quality' is the right choice for categorizing works of art in this game.
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Suppose instead of Quality's it's distinct, or awe inspiring, common. Rather than putting up or down other artifacts/works of art
 
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Mef said:
Do you think it's a bold call so say that Gustav Mahler's 8th Symphony is a higher quality work of art than "Baby Shark"?
Cultural influence and fame don't necessarily have to correlate with 'art quality', which is why I don't think that 'art quality' is the right choice for categorizing works of art in this game.
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When baby shark gets added to the game as a work of art call me. Until then, you're making a wild argument about something unrelated to the game on order to prove your subjective opinion "correct".

And personally, I think cathedrals are pretty mediocre buildings in general.
 
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Ethiopia adjacent question. Will the Sudd be represented on the map with any special terrain modifiers or maluses? It's the vast swampy region located in modern South Sudan that has been one of the main historical impediments in searching for the source of the Nile River. (The source of the Blue Nile being Lake Tana in Ethiopia.) It would likely be a major obstacle for anyone controlling an Ethiopia bent on western expansion.
 
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pheonicia said:
When baby shark gets added to the game as a work of art call me. Until then, you're making a wild argument about something unrelated to the game on order to prove your subjective opinion "correct".

And personally, I think cathedrals are pretty mediocre buildings in general.
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I don't think I need to prove that a cathedral is a higher quality of work than a stone. Everyone automatically understands that.
 
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Mef said:
I don't think I need to prove that a cathedral is a higher quality of work than a stone. Everyone automatically understands that.
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And that's where you're wrong.
 
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Ollfardh said:
How can there be a "real" one if it never existed in the first place?

I'm sure the few top priests in Aksum who are allowed in that church make that claim, but it's still total BS.
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Not sure what the point of this post is. I never weighed in on whether the item in Ethiopia was made 3000 years ago, in Yemen or wherever it is said to have been made. I'm telling you that there is an artifact people believe is the ark of the covenant, which exists in a church in, if I recall, Northern Ethiopia. Are you going to seriously start arguing that Christian artifacts and relics that are known to have been believed in and influential, shouldn't exist in this game, because "they probably aren't actually really what people say they are"?

Mef said:
If you say so. I'm not going to stop you from making yourself look like a total fool.
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Another "what is the point of this" argument. And no, it's not just "a stone". No idea why we're denigrating human heritage over this. The obelisk is a genuinely amazing historical item.
 
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Mef said:
If you say so. I'm not going to stop you from making yourself look like a total fool.
Click to expand...
Mef said:
Do you think it's a bold call so say that Gustav Mahler's 8th Symphony is a higher quality work of art than "Baby Shark"?
Cultural influence and fame don't necessarily have to correlate with 'art quality', which is why I don't think that 'art quality' is the right choice for categorizing works of art in this game.
Click to expand...

The fact you are calling it a "piece of stone" and comparing it to Baby Shark already kinda betrays your lack of objectivity in analysing it. I'm not saying that the stele is a more impactful, important or 'high quality' work than the cathedral but I'm not saying otherwise. The Notre Dame cathedral has all sorts of complexity and calculations behind it that did not go into the construction of the pyramids of Giza. Am I going to argue that the Notre Dame cathedral is superior to the pyramids? That would be dumb. They were made in different time periods by different civilisations with different materials and intents.

I think these principles of art are better left to the dev team to make according to the individual regions and individual countries they work on, rather than trying to make some global scale and comparison. Not even sure why they have a grading level for works of art.
 
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Mef said:
Shouldn't the tiering be something like "cultural impact" rather than "art quality" then?

Ranking the quality of art is obviously somewhat subjective, but there are also objective standards... surely a large cathedral with all its intricacies and smaller works of art contained within is objectively "better" than a culturally significant stone?
Another example would be the paintings of Flemish or Italian masters, they are better than what most of the rest of the world could produce at the time period.

If "art quality" is what these works are ranked on, then I'm worried that historical flavor will be lost if works from all over the world are given equal ranks irrespective of the objectively measurable differences in quality.
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I'm gonna be real, building the stelae of Axum required just as much technical prowess and skill to carve and place as most cathedrals. The Obelisk of Axum is a single 160 ton slab of stone that is 24 meters tall, King Ezana's Stele is 21 meters tall and also over a 100 tons, these are incredible examples of premodern engineering.
 
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Disregarding the non-sequitur that is the argument over the quality of King Ezana's Stele, there is a bit of a point regarding the term "Art Quality". Specifically, if we look at the other works of art of Ethiopia:
1742584999569.png

"Regionally well-known" is not a descriptor of quality, but of reach. Going to other flavor posts, even as near-back as Hungary:
1742585085312.png

Those are more clearly descriptions of quality rather than reach.


So, I think the term "art quality" is already on its way out in favor of "cultural reach" or somesuch, but the localization change hasn't been completed yet.
 
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ArVass said:
West Africa at least has the Ashanti region in it lol
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Yeah but comparing this
travel-insight_unesco-world-heritage-sites-to-visit-in-ghana_ashanti-traditional-houses_2020-11-18_69_1481-xl.jpg

1742585014040.png

1742585028549.png

To This
1742585084180.png

1742585132303.png

1742585143360.png

... lol

I just get worried that people will make a lot of noise about Ethiopia being inaccurate, and then the devs will perhaps go and fix that, but the rest of Africa will still suffer from the exact same problem... meaning the solution will be partial, and one of the most immersive parts of the African continent will remain... meh.

Don't let modern regionalization fool you; the divide between the Savannah/Sahel and Forest areas is about as stark, in terms of architectural heritage, as India is from China.
 
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Bigsoulja9 said:
Yeah but comparing this
travel-insight_unesco-world-heritage-sites-to-visit-in-ghana_ashanti-traditional-houses_2020-11-18_69_1481-xl.jpg

View attachment 1269469
View attachment 1269470

To This
View attachment 1269471
View attachment 1269473
View attachment 1269474

... lol

I just get worried that people will make a lot of noise about Ethiopia being inaccurate, and then the devs will perhaps go and fix that, but the rest of Africa will still suffer from the exact same problem... meaning the solution will be partial, and one of the most immersive parts of the African continent will remain... meh.

Don't let modern regionalization fool you; these areas are about as distinct, in terms of architectural heritage, as India is from China.
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Don't worry, I'm fully aware; I actually made several holding packs for CK3 mods, including one for the Sahel, one for the Gold Coast (primarily Yoruba and Edo in inspiration, I started a separate Asante set too but did not finish that one), and one for Aksumite Ethiopia.
 
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Glad to see that we'll finally see a country in Asia for the Tinto Flavor!

That 50% reduction of attrition for all of Ethiopia's special units seems really powerful, especially when considering they already have attrition in mountains, hills, and plateaus being reduced by 50%. Does it make sense for them to get both of these reductions to attrition?
 
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donbg said:
The fact you are calling it a "piece of stone" and comparing it to Baby Shark already kinda betrays your lack of objectivity in analysing it. I'm not saying that the stele is a more impactful, important or 'high quality' work than the cathedral but I'm not saying otherwise. The Notre Dame cathedral has all sorts of complexity and calculations behind it that did not go into the construction of the pyramids of Giza. Am I going to argue that the Notre Dame cathedral is superior to the pyramids? That would be dumb. They were made in different time periods by different civilisations with different materials and intents.

I think these principles of art are better left to the dev team to make according to the individual regions and individual countries they work on, rather than trying to make some global scale and comparison. Not even sure why they have a grading level for works of art.
Click to expand...
Why did you put quotation marks around "piece of stone" when I never said that? I called it a stone. That's what it is. Sure, a culturally significant work that required a lot of effort to erect, but it's still just a single stone.
While the Great Pyramid is probably not as architecturally intricate as a cathedral, its huge size makes it impressive, especially since it was built so long ago. It definitely deserves to be in the highest category.

ArVass said:
I'm gonna be real, building the stelae of Axum required just as much technical prowess and skill to carve and place as most cathedrals. The Obelisk of Axum is a single 160 ton slab of stone that is 24 meters tall, King Ezana's Stele is 21 meters tall and also over a 100 tons, these are incredible examples of premodern engineering.
Click to expand...
In what world does carving and erecting a 24 meter stone take as much technical skill as building an entire 50+ meter tall church? (I'm referring to the Hagia Sophia which was constructed two centuries after the obelisk) Not to mention all the cathedrals built in this game's timeframe which were taller and even more complex.
That's just an absurd claim.
 
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Ispil said:
So, I think the term "art quality" is already on its way out in favor of "cultural reach" or somesuch, but the localization change hasn't been completed yet.
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The issue is, how does that actually get measured? Like, realistically speaking, a very impressive and significant monument might only be locally known to a small group of people (ie: Sungbo's Eredo), while a similarly impressive monument might be more widely known, simply because the peoples who made it are in contact with a greater part of the world (say, the Theodosian walls). Unless works become more widely known over the course of the game, then, I'm not sure this attempt at more neutral language really makes much sense.

ArVass said:
Don't worry, I'm fully aware; I actually made several holding packs for CK3 mods, including one for the Sahel, one for the Gold Coast (primarily Yoruba and Edo in inspiration, I started a separate Asante set too but did not finish that one), and one for Aksumite Ethiopia.
Click to expand...
Hey! I have you to thank, then!
 
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