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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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Will there be Machiavelli and his masterwork "Il Principe"? Its 26th chapter talks about united italy and freedom from foreign powers, should it unlock italian unification casus belli???

The concept for a united italy also was closer to an International Organization of all the different italian states to defend from foreign invasions. I would really like to see italy unified as a special, maybe elective, IO or to see defensive/offensive pacts aimed to defend italian independence.
Will this be possible with mods if it will not be in the final game?
I believe that the IO would be very good also because it will not cover the possessions of Venice and Genova in the mediterean/black sea leaving only the mainland protected and it will not stop internal warfare witch should be the core of the italian experience.

Also very happy to see Giovanni Acuto represented, i can't wait to hire him!
"Il Principe" doesn't really talk about Italian unification directly. It's just about statecraft and surviving in the hell called late medieval Italy(therefore it includes how to survive without dying to foreign powers intervention). The sentiment of unification is of course existent, since the roman times actually, but I'm not sure that it should be strictly connected to this book.
 
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This pains me so much.

Like, it's not your fault because this is just the mechanic that you're contending with, but it's just yet another example in the long litany that is "fixed ranks based on French peerage do not work globally or even regionally".
Some time ago I proposed that we should have 5 ranks. The first should be a lordship, then the rest county, duchy, kingdom and empire. Because in the Holy Roman Empire and Italy there were many small entities (such as Volterra, Duino, Salona, Saint-Martin-du-Chêne, Anholt, Heinsberg, etc.) that did not have the status of a county. Even with a lordship, the status of communes for democracies would be covered. Counties, on the other hand, could be the status of a Republic for Italy and Free imperial city for the Holy Roman Empire.

But it seems to have been ignored, I just didn't get any feedback on why it couldn't be done or what the problem is.
 
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Unique, unique… I wish mechanics could be used by other countries meeting more or less severe criteria.

This doesn’t in any way prevent one country from starting in a unique position with its own stuff already in place, and potentially difficult to get rid of. It’s just, unique mechanics harm the experience of forging your own state, for me.

So now is the time when my appreciation of Project Caesar / EUV starts to decline.
 
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This is off topic, but will Project Caesar support dynamic province and area names? So, for example, if Germans controlled the Tartu area in the Baltic it'd be called Dorpat, or if Italy controlled Provence and in particular, say, the Dracenois province it might be renamed Provenza and the Dracenese.

It'd be really nice for immersion, given that it's always bugged me how in EU4 if you retook Anatolia as Byzantium the states would all still have Turkish names, or if you were playing as an Indigenous people the province would have a colonial name, or if you say, colonized Canada as Spain the province names would be based on English names with no hope of changing them. Will this be a feature of Project Caesar? Have you already confirmed this and I didn't see?
 
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Some time ago I proposed that we should have 5 ranks. The first should be a lordship, then the rest county, duchy, kingdom and empire. Because in the Holy Roman Empire and Italy there were many small entities (such as Volterra, Duino, Salona, Saint-Martin-du-Chêne, Anholt, Heinsberg, etc.) that did not have the status of a county. Even with a lordship, the status of communes for democracies would be covered. Counties, on the other hand, could be the status of a Republic for Italy and Free imperial city for the Holy Roman Empire.
Right, but that doesn't solve the greater problem of trying to convert between systems. Like, there's no parallel hierarchy for republics. Each one just called themselves whatever seemed appropriate to describe what they were. Commune is just a description of mutual self-defense and coordination (the former more for urban communes and the latter for rural ones). In some cases this was done to account for the absence of governance (rural communes, primarily) ; in others it was done to reject the existing governance (urban communes, primarily). Didn't always lead to an independent state, but when it did, there was no guarantee that the resulting state would call itself anything other than what it was. Like, the whole premise of a commune is the circumvention or rejection of landed noble-led defense and governance.

There's not really any particular reason why we refer to some independent city-states of this sort as "communes" and others as "republics", aside from the extent of which there's much written about (or by) the smaller ones. I suppose if you wish to try to create some sort of "categorization" here, a commune refers to a singular city-state that ruled over no other cities, and a republic is a commune that has managed to wrest control of at least one more city.

However, that doesn't mean that there's any parallel with the system as presented, because no state would ever deliberately refer to itself as a county. County implies subservience. No independent state is going to deliberately choose a title that suggests subservience. The only reason that it was the Duchy of Florence and not the Principality of Florence (the most generic notion of sovereignty in the Catholic world, and one that wouldn't require Papal acquiescence, not that the Medici had much problem attaining that) is because whatever the state was, remained nominally subservient to the Holy Roman Empire. Consequently, no "sovereign" title could be granted to it, because it was de jure not sovereign. So the Pope went with granting them (or really imposing on the Holy Roman Emperor that they grant them) the title of greatest status within the peerage of the Holy Roman Empire: that of Duke. This was not an elevation; the title was created out of whole cloth, because Republics aren't titled nobility.

The Pope then made up the title of "Grand Duke" for fun after Florence managed to expand further, and again "granted" (the Pope has no authority to grant these titles, mind you; it was more that the Pope obliged the Holy Roman Emperor to grant) them the title of "Grand Duke". Which still took 7 years before the Holy Roman Emperor actually went through with it, and even then forced them to go through the notion of "buying" the title.

Trying to shove republics into the same hierarchy as European feudal states doesn't work because they're entirely different systems and there's basically no regard for those territories as being any sort of "titled" anything at all. In the event of those republics becoming monarchies, they had to be granted a title to fit, because they aren't in the feudal hierarchal system without that.
 
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Not really a fan of railroaded content but everything else looks really juicy!

...and since we are in the region:
- Has Terni been added to the map?
- Any chanche to be able to play as Giovanni di Vico and steal Rome and Latium from the Pope?
 
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Yes, and that would make Florence a Theocracy instead of a Republic.
Will you still have elections? Fro mwhat I've read Savonarola didn't want to abolish the elections but in fact expanded the electorate.

Would this also give us a rename into New Jerusalem?
 
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The flavour is most impressive but I feel like I need to have to comment on the 3D characters. I like how they look and I very much like how the background looks but I cannot stress how much I dislike the combination of both. The style is different, the light comes from entirely different directions and one carefully looks like it could have been painted by a human with a brush in a skilled hand while the other just doesn't.
It kinda reminds me of how matte paintings were clearly painted background in 80s movies.
I do get the need for procedurally generated charachter models but please find a way to emulate the style of the background.
 
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Also, since this Tinto Flavour included the Medici country, I want to repeat that I think there should be a "Corporate" government type added, since "Republic" really doesn't fita banking family. Beyond the banking countries it can include the Hanseatic league, the colonial trading companies, and the Chinese Kongsi.
 
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what does "presence in the region of its capital" mean tho? If France occupy Florence Florence elect a French ruler? Or can they just randomly elect any character from any Italian minor around them as their ruler?
Does it mean I wonder that if you're a BBC based in florence you could be elected leader?
 
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Right, but that doesn't solve the greater problem of trying to convert between systems. Like, there's no parallel hierarchy for republics. Each one just called themselves whatever seemed appropriate to describe what they were. Commune is just a description of mutual self-defense and coordination (the former more for urban communes and the latter for rural ones). In some cases this was done to account for the absence of governance (rural communes, primarily) ; in others it was done to reject the existing governance (urban communes, primarily). Didn't always lead to an independent state, but when it did, there was no guarantee that the resulting state would call itself anything other than what it was. Like, the whole premise of a commune is the circumvention or rejection of landed noble-led defense and governance.

There's not really any particular reason why we refer to some independent city-states of this sort as "communes" and others as "republics", aside from the extent of which there's much written about (or by) the smaller ones. I suppose if you wish to try to create some sort of "categorization" here, a commune refers to a singular city-state that ruled over no other cities, and a republic is a commune that has managed to wrest control of at least one more city.

However, that doesn't mean that there's any parallel with the system as presented, because no state would ever deliberately refer to itself as a county. County implies subservience. No independent state is going to deliberately choose a title that suggests subservience. The only reason that it was the Duchy of Florence and not the Principality of Florence (the most generic notion of sovereignty in the Catholic world, and one that wouldn't require Papal acquiescence, not that the Medici had much problem attaining that) is because whatever the state was, remained nominally subservient to the Holy Roman Empire. Consequently, no "sovereign" title could be granted to it, because it was de jure not sovereign. So the Pope went with granting them (or really imposing on the Holy Roman Emperor that they grant them) the title of greatest status within the peerage of the Holy Roman Empire: that of Duke. This was not an elevation; the title was created out of whole cloth, because Republics aren't titled nobility.

The Pope then made up the title of "Grand Duke" for fun after Florence managed to expand further, and again "granted" (the Pope has no authority to grant these titles, mind you; it was more that the Pope obliged the Holy Roman Emperor to grant) them the title of "Grand Duke". Which still took 7 years before the Holy Roman Emperor actually went through with it, and even then forced them to go through the notion of "buying" the title.

Trying to shove republics into the same hierarchy as European feudal states doesn't work because they're entirely different systems and there's basically no regard for those territories as being any sort of "titled" anything at all. In the event of those republics becoming monarchies, they had to be granted a title to fit, because they aren't in the feudal hierarchal system without that.
Why then define a rank for democracies? Then only monarchies and theocracies should have a rank. Democracies should only have a status that can change depending on the way they are governed.
 
I don't get the idea behind the Upstart Precher event options. An option where I can just forfeit the flavour of my government system in favour of a standard theocracy might as well not be there. It's not that it would work with more negative consequences for not inviting him attached, it's that I as a player would always opt for the option with flavour attached. I know you're focusing on historical content over alt-history but if he doesn't just appear no matter what and getting rid of him is part of the challenge you need to come up with some flavour for a Florentine theocracy. Considering Florence has a family that could buy itself a papacy and their pope would anger a German monk so much he split the church there is some potential here.
 
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A lot of this feels like developers struggled to separate nobility and burghers in Florentine politics because the line was somewhat blurred. Is there any methodology to divide what constitutes nobility and what constitutes burghers?
1737142049282.png
1737142071540.png
1737142084693.png

Personally, burghers should represent merchant class (which includes trading guilds of Florence), while nobility should represent landowning class
 
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I think it is cool that we have those flavour stuff in their respective language but if you can also make a literal translation of them not just explanation it would be better