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Tinto Flavour #2 - 17th of January 2025 - Florence

Hello, and welcome for the second week to Tinto Flavour, the new series in which we will show the flavour content of the latest super secret Project Caesar!

Today we will be taking a look at Florence! I hope you get visually stunned by what you see, but not a rapid heartbeat, fainting, confusion, or hallucinations, as it happened to Stendhal when he visited the city in 1817. So, let’s start!



The Florentine domain stands strong at the cusp of a new age! Our republic has stood the test of time and is located in a prime position to take advantage of our region's prosperity and affluence. Around us, rivaling states and potential allies all make their moves in a bid to influence and expand their territory in Italy. \n\nHowever, few are as well known for their aptitude in arts and cultural influence as our forums of thought in Florence. Under the guidance of a capable administration and an educated people, the coming century will elevate our people and have us shine brightly as pioneering innovators during a time of great enlightening.

Country Selection.png

As usual, please consider the UI, 2D and 3D art as WIP.

We have two elements here that appear in the Country Selection screen, AKA the Lobby. The first is the flavour immersion text that countries with unique content have. They have dynamic localization keys, which are the two words in bold that appear in the text, and which while hovered, allow to check a game concept. The second is a screenshot of the country name, flag, ruler, and the three main elements that define the country - Government Type (Republic), Country Type (Settled Country), and Country Rank (County). The courtroom illustration is the generic one for European countries, but it can potentially be unique.

Let’s jump into the country itself...
Florence.png

Tuscany is a lovely place, isn’t it?

The Republic of Florence is a Signoria, which is a unique, major Government Reform for Italian countries:
Signoria.png
Signoria Description.png

This reform unlocks a Succession Law, the Elective Potestate:
Elective Potestate.png

Florence also has a unique Estate Privilege for its ‘Senate’ (the flavour name of ‘Nobility’ for Republics, the ‘Signoria Council’:
Signoria Council.png

And a unique Estate Privilege for the Burghers, ‘Florence Guilds’:
Florence Guilds.png

This unlocks a unique Socioeconomic Law, the ‘Primacy of Florentine Guilds’, in which you can pick one of three different policies to embrace, promoting one of the three different types of Guilds:
Primacy of Florentine Guilds.png

Primacy of Florentine Guilds 2.png

Florence has another unique policy for the Legal Code Law, which is the 'Consiglio Maggiore':
Consiglio Maggiore.png

Florence also has unique advances, 13 in total, spread among the different Ages, of which I’m going to show a few selected ones:
Arte della Lana.png

Fiorino d'Oro.png

Florentine City Militia.png

Uffizi.png

You might notice that 3 of them have unique icons/illustrations, while the one for the Florentine Citizen Militia still uses a generic one.

Speaking of the Florentine Citizen Militia, it unlocks a unique type of Army Levy Unit:
Florentine City Militia 2.png

Florentine City Militia 3.png

And the Uffizi unlock a unique building:
Uffizi 2.png



All that I’ve shown you so far is what we internally consider ‘structural content’, that is, the type of content that would show up and could be (mostly) checked when starting a new game and digging and hovering over the different panels in the game. Let’s now start with the ‘narrative content’, the one that appears dynamically as you play the game. Oh, and one comment: although we usually have a minimum amount of 'structural content' and 'narrative content' for each country with unique flavour, it's widely diverse, so some countries have more 'structural ones' than others that have more 'narrative content', and vice versa, with others having a balanced amount of each type.

Florence can suffer two disasters during the game, an outlier in the game. You may see that they have some associated effects as long as they’re active, and that they also have associated events that may also trigger (8 for the Ciompi, 13 for Savonarola). Here you have the first one, the 'Ciompi Revolt':
Ciompi Revolt.png

Ciompi Revolt.png

And here the second one, 'The Rise of Savonarola':
Savonarola 1.png

Savonarola 2.png

Savonarola 3.png

Savonarola 4.png

The background illustration is the generic one, but it will receive a unique one. Oh, also, inviting Savonarola to Florence might not be a wise decision…

Besides disasters, there are a bunch of interesting flavour DHEs (‘dynamic historical events’) that can happen to Florence, of which I’m going to show you a selection.

The first is the creation of the Medici bank, in the form of a Building Based Country, ruled by a member of the Medici family, of course:
Medici Bank.png

If you select the first option, you will continue playing as Florence, while the second makes you to continue playing as the Bank of Medici! This is not a common type of content, at all, but a very special one, worth showing.

The event creates a building in the location of Florence, a Bank, and also an independent BBC, the Bank of Medici:
Bank.png

Bank of Medici.png

Two more banking countries are starting in Florence in 1337, the Banks of Peruzzi and Bardi:
Peruzzi, Bardi, Medici.png

It also showcases the Medici, after triggering the event.

There are more events related to the Medici's rise of power in Florence, but let me not reveal all the interesting content today, so let’s continue with other events…

An interesting historical character in Florence’s 14th century is Sir John Hawkwood, an infamous condottiere:
John Hawkwood.png

If you decide to hire him, you will be able to hire a unique mercenary company, the ‘White Company’, led by Hawkwood as general:
White Company.png

We also have some famous artists from the Florentine Renaissance, such as:
Leonardo Bruni.png

Da Vinci.png

Donatello.png

Do we have here two of the Ninja Turtles, maybe?

But besides characters, you also have events that may be related to buildings, such as the construction of the Duomo of Florence, that may end up with a unique Work of Art:
Event Florence Cathedral.png

Duomo.png



… And much more Florence-related content, as there are dozens of unique flavour events! But I think that this is enough showcase for today, as we don’t want to spoil the fun of starting a game for the first time! Next week we will be taking a look at the unique flavour content for Novgorod, cheers!
 

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Artists don't have families and descendence, that would be too performance-heavy, and Project Caesar is not a game based around characters, as CK3 may be, so we prefer to put the performance cost in other fields (such as markets and trading!).

Will the game treat cadet branches as new families or will there be some sort of legacy or indicator linking for example the Lancasters to the Plantagenets and such?
 
Great Britain is a geographical region here, not a country.

Maybe rename the region to "Britain to avoid any confusion with the country?
 
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The first is the creation of the Medici bank, in the form of a Building Based Country, ruled by a member of the Medici family, of course:
Medici Bank.png

If you select the first option, you will continue playing as Florence, while the second makes you to continue playing as the Bank of Medici! This is not a common type of content, at all, but a very special one, worth showing.
The event creates a building in the location of Florence, a Bank, and also an independent BBC, the Bank of Medici:
Bank.png

Bank of Medici.png
Question about BBCs: Will their pops be counted for the country they are in or not? Those 100 burghers in this building still count as Florence's pops, or are they Medici's pops? Who do they pay taxes to? Whose estates do they empower?
 
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I know a lot of people were hating on the 3d models, but the examples they showed today are significantly better than what we saw before. I'm confident they'll look good at release now.
 
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Great Britain is the most accurate name for the region of England, Scotland, and Wales. British Isles almost always includes Ireland but that's a separate region.

I would personally just call it Britain because:
1. It removes the anachronistic connotations of the future state
2. The only other Britain (Little Britain), was referring to Ireland, but that distinction died out millennia ago.
 
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Amazing. One thing though. What happens if you do not invite Savonarolla to Florence? Does the Disaster not trigger then? Doesn't that kind of defeating the point? You should not have a say whether he comes or not surely?
He is quite persistent, he may come back.
 
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A question about Savonarola disaster:
It seems that all events during his rise have an equal chance of appearing at a given time, but judging by their names at least some suggest a logical order of gradual escalation. Shouldn't it be more weighted, as in you have a higher chance of "Savonarola preaches" as the first event, and "Savonarola Takes Control" has no chance until couple other events happen?
There are already some internal checks for that in the triggers of the events so that it creates an escalation.
 
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Great and very fun to read TF!

I'm not a native speaker myself, but there are some phrases and wordings that seem off to me or that I've never heard before. Maybe a native speaker could check if that's just my personal impression...
- Signoria Council: "renovate the council" -> reelect the council
- Primacy of Florentine Guilds: "social context" -> social fabric/structure of society
- Fiorino d'Oro: "golden purity" -> gold purity/purity of gold
- Florentine Citizen Militia (The unit): "quickly militarize" -> quickly mobilize (you used that in the description of the advance)
 
You should totally market PC as an educational game, because this is a cool way to learn history. Time to indoctrinate a new generation of PDX players and get them while they’re young!
 
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PDX is really banking on this one as their first flavor DD.

Also, I like that we're getting more Tag-unique units, especially from the start, but I hope they won't be too age-restricted. Having important unique characters is also cool, but something I feel should be more widespread. If I really invest in artworks as Lithuania, for example, should I not get my own automatically-generated Ninja Turtle?

On the half shell, they're the heroes four
In this day and age, who could ask for more?
 
Ever since they were announced I’ve been planning to have my first play through be a bank.
W/o spoilers, if I start at Florence, will I be able to directly effect the Medici Bank starting position and is the event a chain of decisions, a single average-time-to-happen event, or a static event?
 
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just to know, will we get a flavor for minor tags and formable tags? I feel especially about Italy that there's a bit to talk about given its... crispy political situation
 
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Ever since they were announced I’ve been planning to have my first play through be a bank.
W/o spoilers, if I start at Florence, will I be able to directly effect the Medici Bank starting position and is the event a chain of decisions, a single average-time-to-happen event, or a static event?
An event that triggers after 1390 while playing as Florence. If you want to outright start with a Bank, I'd recommend the Peruzzi or Bardi, then.
 
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