Tinto Flavour #21 - 26th of May 2025

[Turk Pasha]

This is what you can see at the start with a Mediterranean Christian country (we considered that the knowledge was kind of common by the mid 14th century, as the 'Catalan Atlas' and other portulans show:
View attachment 1306889
As usual, this isn't final, neither the map itself, nor the terra incognita background.

I don't think average Southern European Christian nation would know who controls every specific province at the time, perhaps only capital areas in China, Chagatai and Delhi, in addition, I think they would know slightly more about East Africa due to the Christian missionaries? Perhaps the capital areas at very least.

 

[Sulphurologist]

Does Genoa have any building based countries or banking countries with presence in other trade nodes?
For instance their trading charters in Bruges were super important (so I can imagine a trade charter or banking country having some buildings in Bruges).

 

[Sulphurologist]

Oof, the origin of Christopher Columbus, I'm not willing to get into that rabbit hole... We're following here the 100% accurate historical data, so there's an event in which Columbus offers his services to Portugal, and in case of being rejected (which is the historical, AI-default option), then he goes to Castile/Spain.

Any sort of historical dynamism added to this?
Perhaps if the Portuguese have not yet rounded the cape, there's a chance ai Portugal would be more willing to 'risk' hiring Colombus?

One could argue that in addition to Colombus' miscalculation of distance, a part of the Portuguese's refusal of Columbus was that they had already rounded the cape and already had trade dominance on goods with Eastern Africa and India, after having rounded the cape in in 1487-1488.

Perhaps bit of a niche request, but could give an interesting yet plausible shake-up of how the colonisation game plays out for the ai.

 

[Kalus]

I was waiting this "Tinto Flavour" for a long time. Genoa is my favorite nation to play in EU, and in Paradox games you can play it from Imperator up to 1821/26 when it was unlawfully annexed to Piedmont creating Sardinia Piedmont.
This was possible for a number of reasons and I would like to ask to the Devs if some aspects have been address in EUV.

1. Genoa walls and fortresses. At its peak Genoa had 7 fortresses on 7 peaks, all connected by walls, plus an internal line of walls, that will go down from the mountains to the sea, making it impossible to siege, as it would have been nearly impossible to also guarantee a sea blockade, the city couldn't be starved. Even when the HRE wanted to put their hands on it, the Emperor' spies reported that a siege would have been suicidal.

2. We have to wait Napoleon's national army to make Genoa bend the knee, but Napoleon was born in Ajaccio, from Ligurian parents, that moved there for work from Sarzana. So if Corsica isn't sold to France, is there going to be a Genoese event chain where Napoleon becomes a General/Doge of some kind?

3. I see that the Columbus point has already been made, but I am not concerned about the birthplace, as the fight is mainly between Cogoleto and Genova, but the fact that before Portugal and Spain, he asked to the Genoese Republic to be financed, historically Genoa refused because Colombus couldn't give guarantees. But when Spain accepted, the crown asked the money to fund him to Genoa, that now having a guarantor in between, gave the money. Spain was loaning a lot of money from Genoa, there is a motto "Gold is born in the Americas, Dies in Spain, and get Buried in Genoa". When Spain defaulted like 7 times cause of inflation and overspending, Genoa got a big blow to its coffers, but some patrician families got paid in South America lands.

4. Kaffa wasn't a colony or commercial port, but was considered Genoese mainland, the law, language, customs where all applied like if it was Liguria, so in game it should be a core. The Genoese fortress donated to the locals when Genoa left is still there and nowadays a museum.

5. The Genoese Crossbowmen where a professional army, they had a Guild, recruitment requisites, salary, training, and Genoese Galleys had the obligation to employ a platoon with a sergeant on them. Pirates will avoid engaging in any ship holstering the Saint George cross. That's why England "rented" the flag from Genoa, to sail safely in the Mediterranean, unfortunately, according to the papers it's over 250, years that the rental fee hasn't been paid...and they say that the Scots are stingy. So I understand that in game, a merchant republic should focus at the beginning on mercenaries as a mechanic, but there should be some professionalism modifier linked to them. Also they were rented and the money of the contract would go directly to the Republic, we see them employed in wars from Europe to the Steppes.

Some of these aspects made Genoa able to keep its independence through time, be able to trade, loan money, rent troops, etc., from it, outweighed enormously the costs of conquering it.
The Roman consul sent to Liguria to annex it wrote back to the Senate "the only way to pacify them is to kill them all, and I don't have enough men or time to do it, so I propose we look for an alliance", proposal that was accepted, being allied since the Punic wars and being on of the first Italian populations to get the Roman citizenship. The 1746 citizen revolt against the Habsburg occupation of the city during the War of the Austrian Succession, and the fact that during WWII Genoa is the only city where a regular army surrendered to a civilian population, shows that the mentality didn't change much. So if occupied by another nation a big bonus to independentism revolt should be mandatory.

 

[Kristijan]

I will post it here, now, tomorrow, on steam when it launches, on reddit on twitter and on your forehead, post 1355 Serbia is ahistorical, thats why besigeing Viena is easier with Serbia then with Ottoman Empire. Serbia in 1427 not fragmented is fictional work!

But the game doesn't start in 1427. There's no reason to push any nationalistic agenda.

 

[Spatafrano]

I hate all this!
It's impossible to play the inferior eu4 anymore!
I can't wait to play in multiplayer Genoa and Venice. Frenemies dividing the world in two!

 

[Wixsz]

don't know how WIP the water FOW shader is, but right now it's jarring how hard the border is. I think a foggy blur on the borders would be easier on the eyes

 

[Marco Dandolo]

So why is Udine called Udin and Padua Padova, but Venice still Venice?

 

[Lucas60195]

Hi, will we get to see unique naval units from Venice too, like Galeasses and maybe a more standardized galley from the arsenal, beign maybe cheaper or faster to build? I feel like Venice should be the most powerful naval nation up until the age of Reformation.

 

[Oglesby]

View attachment 1307643

don't know how WIP the water FOW shader is, but right now it's jarring how hard the border is. I think a foggy blur on the borders would be easier on the eyes

I don't think that this was a FOW indicator, but instead a 'highlight this country' filter.

 

[aantia]

Two things:
1) I really like the way the sea zones are highlighted in these screenshots. It makes it really easy to pick out all the little colonies.
2) I don't understand how the works of art ranks work. They aren't intuitive at all - 'masterpiece' and 'magnum opus' are more or less synonyms, and they aren't clearly better or worse than the 'regional XXX' levels. Couldn't you just number them? E.g. 'Tier 1 Artwork'.

 

[Farfour]

Only one can wow and you are not him

This is outrageous! It’s unfair! How can you be first to wow and not be granted the rank of wowster?

 

[Thorum]

This is what you can see at the start with a Mediterranean Christian country (we considered that the knowledge was kind of common by the mid 14th century, as the 'Catalan Atlas' and other portulans show:
View attachment 1306889

I'm assuming this means you will be able to follow live whatever happens all of these locations?

Especially for visibility like the Chinese snake here, would it be possible to add some delay on this knowledge?

 

[Ulpia Batavorum]

Because the Venetian arsenal built all kinds of ships, later on in life it was building line ships, beyond the end of venice it was producing some of the large standardised ships of the line typical to france. The arsenal also produced bronze guns as well as various other things necessary for maritime supplies

I'm not sure the bonuses are the same but this was shared earlier in a TT for what the building might look like, I'm not sure if its been adjusted since then

View attachment 1306968

This is from Tinto Talk 24

Not disputing they should build all types of ships at the arsenal, but as far as I know the production advantage was limited to a certain class of ships and not for all classes (not the heavy warships). So limiting the production capacity to not include such ships would make sence to me.

 

[eightarmed_willy]

This is what you can see at the start with a Mediterranean Christian country (we considered that the knowledge was kind of common by the mid 14th century, as the 'Catalan Atlas' and other portulans show:
View attachment 1306889
As usual, this isn't final, neither the map itself, nor the terra incognita background.

Could the outlines of the continents also be hidden for terra incognita? It's not like people at the time had accurate maps, let alone know what the landmasses looked like on the side of the world they knew nothing about.

 

[crowdemon]

Good Tinto flavour on Venice and Genoa.

 

[Fluffy_Fishy]

Not disputing they should build all types of ships at the arsenal, but as far as I know the production advantage was limited to a certain class of ships and not for all classes (not the heavy warships). So limiting the production capacity to not include such ships would make sence to me.

The production advantage was quite universal, the point of the shipyard was to deliver a centralised safe shipbuilding facility capable of producing and also importantly maintaining as many military ships as the republic might need. The arsenal also oversaw significant work outside of the facility specifically but mainly in roles that could easily be undertaken outside like careening and painting.

The main thing to probably think about is that there's such a significant amount of large dock sheds unlike any other facility in the world at this time and could be organised to fit demands as needed, the peak performance known for being a mix of galleys and galleass in the lead up to lepanto of just over 100 ships launched in about 2 months, however from the early 1600s onwards the Venetian arsenal adapted itself to more modern demands producing a large number of war Galleons and Ships of the Line, these ships were also built with the same systematic approach to galleys, standardising designs for peak efficiency and ease of production as has been done since the 1300s

The other benefit of the Arsenal is that it was a roofed facility that meant that ships could be produced either quickly or slowly as demand required and in some cases could be put on hold at various stages of their building in ways that was impossible for every other european nation. When at typical productive capacity over the 18th century they could produce a ship of similar size at a high quality around a year quicker than any other european nation. However, this typical productive output wasn't what it was in the 16th or 17th century due to the state not hiring the same number of workers or having the same amount of input resources during the peak productive periods where 14000 people worked there, a more typical number during the 18th century where much larger ships were produced was around 3000-4000, with more during wartime. The extra workforce was readily available from all over the republic, especially the commercial shipbuilding industries around the rest of the city.

I think the other thing we really have to point to is that the Venetian Arsenal simply had a significant advantage in number of large building sheds unlike any other shipyard, there are over 65 large sheds, 35 of which could potentially house at least an 80 gun ship of the line (I'm unaware of anything larger being built here with the largest ship I know made at the traditional facility being the French Bucentaure class at just over 60m in length) and over 100 sheds in total although they would be mixed in use of wood storage and other activities at any one time as well as one large shed being the permenant home to the Venetian state galley. As a comparison a typical largest state shipyard like Chatham, Brest or Cadiz might have a mix of around 6-8 slips and drydocks by 1800.

There simply isn't another shipyard like it and it was never really overtaken in potential productive capacity until the age of ironclads and steel superseded the technology available due to the basin being too shallow, even then it was extended outwards with major modernising works to give it the ability perform as the backbone facility to the Austrian and later Italian Ironclad Fleet.

I hope this provides an adequate answer

 

[Zovskj]

Hi guys, I really admire your work. I just wanted to point out that I saw a linguistic map of Northern Italy and noticed that Friuli was marked as a Venetian-speaking area. In reality, the Venetian language only began to spread in Friuli after the Venetian conquest of the region, and even then, it was limited mainly to urban centers influenced by Venice's political and mercantile power.

It's also worth noting that even in the Veneto hinterland, before the Venetian conquest, people didn't speak what we now call modern Venetian. Instead, they spoke languages that, in some respects, were closer to modern Friulian. The same goes for Trieste, where people used to speak the Tergestine language.

I know your workload is huge and that these are minor details, but for someone who lives in these regions like me, it's quite important—especially because there’s still some hostility today between those who speak Friulian and those who speak Venetian, rooted in a difficult past between these two ethnic and especially social groups.

Also, it would be amazing if there was an option, when playing as Venice, to build the fortress of Palmanova—one of the greatest military structures in all of history and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

 

[Antimonum]

Will we get something for Bulgaria?

Apparently there is some flavor, but judging from the country rank - probably deliberately unhistorical.

 

[Trepanator]

Apparently there is some flavor, but jugging from the country rank - probably deliberately unhistorical.

I think wrote that once before but it's understandable since Bulgaria stops existing 50 years into the game, hell the only reason Serbia is getting anything is because its rise facilitates the fall of byz. They definitely should be putting in Vidin and Dobruja break off as events though. I don't have a doubt in my body that every nation in Europe will be getting a lot of stuff down the line with dlc's though.