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Tinto Flavour #24 - 3rd of June 2025

Hello, and welcome one more Tuesday to Tinto Flavour, the happy days in which we take a look at the flavour content of Europa Universalis V!

Today, we will be taking a look at the Golden Horde! Being the most important Steppe Horde in 1337, it has a good mix of both unique and generic content. Let’s start, without further ado:

The great Činggis Khān managed to forge a great empire for all Mongol peoples, bringing into his fold great swathes of land from Europe to China. All people learned to fear the sound of the Mongol armies galloping and the might and power of the Great Khān.

As heirs of his legacy, the dream of bringing back the glory of the greatest Mongol Horde is still alive. It was Khān Borjigin Jochi, son of Činggis, and his son Khān Borjigin Batu who carried on the legacy of the Great Khān and established the Golden Horde.

Controlling the westernmost expansion of the great empire, they are in control of the vast steppes and many of the European countries are subservient to them, afraid of their great might.
Click to expand...

Country Selection.jpg


Golden Horde.png

Diplomacy.png

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

Steppe Hordes are a type of Army-Based Country, and it has some specificities:
Government Horde.jpg

As you see, it starts with some Reforms and Privileges:
Estates1.png

Estates2.png

Legacy of Cinggis.jpg

Privilege Tribal Host.png

Privilege Share of the Spoils.png

Here you have some of the unique advances of the Golden Horde, as usual:
Advance Kipchack Khanate.png

Advance Legacy of Jochi .png

Advance Legacy of the Golden Horde.png

Advance Perso-Mongol.png

Advance Tatar Traditions.png

The Mongol Steppe Hordes have access to two unique units:
Horse Archers.png

A'Urughs.png

These illustrations were recently added to the unit tooltip; the first is the one for the East Asian graphical culture for Age of Traditions Horsemen, while the other is the generic one for supply units.​

And also a couple of unique buildings:
Kurultai.png

Caravanserai.png

The Golden Horde has access to a unique mechanic to portray its relationship with the Russian Principalities, the Tatar Yoke, which is an International Organization:
Tatar Yoke1.png

Tatar Yoke.png

Tatar Yoke2.png

As you see, there are three statutes, the Tatar-Overlord (the Golden Horde), the Grand Prince of Vladimir (which in 1337 is Muscovy), and the regular members:
Tatar Yoke3.png

Tatar Yoke4.png

The Grand Prince of Vladimir collects the tribute from the regular members, and sends it to the Tatar-Overlord:
Tatar Yoke Payments.png

Tatar Yoke Payments2.png

Tatar Yoke Payments3.png

…Or not, because each member has a special section in the country budget to pay more or less tribute, and then, the Grand Prince of Vladimir also chooses how much of that goes to their Tatar-Overlord:
Tatar Yoke Payments4.png

If any member, including the Grand Prince, pays less than 50% of the capacity, it will get a development malus, portraying the small-scale raids conducted by the Horde to put the princes in line. If the budget is over 50%, the members will get a bonus on their diplomats, and the Grand Prince, on its Prestige.

Finally, there are a couple of additional actions in the IO. One allows any member of the Tatar Yoke to declare war to break it, while the other allows any member to request the Tatar-Overlord to become the new Grand Prince of Vladimir:
Tatar Yoke5.png

Tatar Yoke6.png

Tatar Yoke7.png

Let’s now move into the narrative content. The most important piece of content is the Horde Civil War, a disaster that can appear if the horde unity dips too low. Once it starts, a pretender rebellion will be formed.
Horde Civil War Starting Event.png

Horde Civil War Starting Event effect.png

Horde Civil War Tooltip.png

Horde Civil War Panel.png

There are some events that can happen while the disaster is active, usually with not the best of outcomes:
Horde Civil War Rebellion Event.png

Horde Civil War Rebellion Event Option A.png

Horde Civil War Rebellion Event Option B.png


Horde Civil War Murder Event.png


Horde Civil War Border Event.png

Neighboring countries may take this opportunity to attack…​

Once the rebel progress of the pretender reaches 100%, an event will fire, giving the option to either accept their demands or make it escalate into a full civil war.
Horde Civil War Rebel Progress Event.png

Horde Civil War War.png

It is treason then…​

If victorious in the civil war, the pretender will be put in his place, but as long as the disaster is still active, another one will soon rise again:
Horde Civil War Winning Event.png

Horde Civil War Disaster Continues.png

Only when there are no more rebellions or civil wars active, and both stability and horde unity have been restored, will the disaster finally end:
Horde Civil War End.png

… And much more, but that’s all for today! Tomorrow, in Tinto Talks, we will talk about the mechanics of the Islamic religion!

And also remember, you can wishlist Europa Universalis V now! Cheers!
 
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KaiserWilhelmI said:
Will big nomadic empires naturally feel the pressure to convert into a settled state in order to survive? Timur was the last great nomadic conqueror. In EUIV hordes are incredibly strong even in late game, whereas historically they failed to stop the advance of settled empires. (Russia and Qing China)
Click to expand...
This is moreso an advancement of firearms than a settled state issue and, more importantly, it didn't change the historical calculus for nomadic empires until after the end of the game

They couldn't compete with the Qing (partially composed of nomads at the time) and Russia but that doesn't mean the Kazakhs could've just settled the steppe and remained a viable state even if they wanted to

It is strange that EU4 hordes don't have to do anything to avoid falling off though
 
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A bit of an awkward topic but generic pontic steppe tartar characters should probably use european 'fenotype' models over east asian ones.
 
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matfer13 said:
Can steppe hordes(ABCs) become un-landed if they loose all their locations but not the army? Because I still don't understand the diffeence between the two beside the fact that if you loose your army as an ABC your country splits, if that's all there is then I don't understand why go and make a whole different type of country which seems to be just worse
Click to expand...
Yes, with what we have learned, an Army-based country (I prefer military based polity) continues to exist while the army exists. We also know that if the ABC loses its army while it still has land it has a chance to splinter.
  1. Army but no land: still exists but you want land fast since you cannot support your army
  2. No Army, no land: you cease to exist
  3. Land but no Army: You may be fine, you may splinter.
 
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GeneralNoob said:
View attachment 1311956
Also please elaborate why we are incentified to play rural. Sarai was one of the largest european cities in that time period. There was a fair bit of urbanization and settlement. GH are not tent-nomads anymore.
Click to expand...
Sarai was an exception for the vast sea of nomadic tribes of the steppe, the presence of sedentary peoples and vassals is undeniable, but the essence of the Golden Horde, as well as subsequent khanates, were precisely nomadic leaders and batyrs, even in the late Crimean Khanate the basis of the army and power were nomads, sedentary peoples were tributaries and traders
 
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Kaiserslautern said:
I see that the Tatar Yoke is an international organization and I guess it was already discussed extensively in many other topics (sorry but I am not following all the topics like the others :D ), but have we not come to a better nomenclature for these "agreements" instead of "international organization"? It really hurts reading this applied to some situations that are more applicable to the late 1800.
Click to expand...
There are quite a few of these terms (RGO or 'resource gathering operation' also comes to mind) that are more descriptive terms for gameplay mechanics than period flavour themselves. I don't expect you'll actually see the term 'international organization' in game - instead you'll see the specific name of the IO itself, so in this case what you'll see in game will be 'The Tatar Yoke'. IO is just the catch-all term for the mechanic of grouping countries situationally like this.
 
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matfer13 said:
I know it's very generic but maybe rathen than "Crown" steppe hordes should have they main estate just called "Horde"?
Click to expand...
I agree completely that 'crown' doesn't work. 'Horde' is fine, but potentially a bit confusing. I might at first take it to mean the equivalent of the 'army' estate in another realm, i.e. the military as distinct from the ruler. How about just 'Khan'? After all, this seems to have been a society where power was vested in the person of the ruler, rather than impersonal symbols of sovereignty.
 
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  • Wrong balance of weight in the picture. Keep the model size and change the background size and aspect ration to a portrait shape. Put the flag (no longer needing a fancy frame, the country name/state, leader name/stats along the left side of the model.
  • Do we need the variable names of 'Primary Culture' and 'Primary Religion'? If so I would reduce their font size and increase the size of 'Mongolian' and 'Sunnism' as they are the important information.
  • Why doesn't this include important information like Location count, tax base, and other things that are part of the country tooltip?
  • Remove the border from the flags in the 'diplomacy' section.
  • Looks like there was room for more that 8 flag. If you are going to limit to 8, then move the +3 and the flags closer to each other so neither are crowding the adornments
  • Not sure what 'purple box' means? (vassals?)
Country%20Selection.jpg


  • As this is the first time showing the Symbol on the right in the header it would have been useful to indicate what it is. (Going by what was seen in streams I am assuming this is a map link?)
  • I feel that when you have paragraphs of text it is much cleaner to have then Full Justified
  • What does 'Prefers Court Language to be Common Language +10' even mean?
Government%20Horde.jpg


  • So after adding the two more possible estates you didn't think to figure out how to have them all appear without scrolling?
  • The Dhimmi background is to close to the Dhimmi triangle color
  • Change the background within the satisfaction donut chart to transparent, if that doesn't look good they try the tan of the privilege line. The black makes the icon look poor.
  • If possible I would increase the eyes and mouths on the masks as the are blending into the icon.
  • remove the | in the Crown power line
  • Right justify the word 'Satisfaction' like was done with 'Reforms'
  • Can we work on proper rounding? Because you are truncating all the relative powers only add to 97% and not 100%.
    • When you truncate the error between n*0 and n*LSD (random selection would put the average in the middle). For this case n = 6 and LSD is 1%. so from 0 to 6% with a typical value of 3%
    • When you round the error shift down by LSD/2. from -n*LSD/2 to + n*LSD/2, again with the average result in the middle at 0. For this case it would be -3% to +3% with a typical error rate of 0%.
  • I like how the tan section has a 'hewn' look, the problem is that each is hewn exactly the same. increase the texture size and randomize the start location and direction to remove the sameness.
Estates2.png


  • Can we have an icon on the right side in the title bar instead of using two lines to indicate 'Major Reform'?
Legacy%20of%20Cinggis.jpg


  • I feel that the plus on the crate on the horse is redundant. The crate means production, being on the horse means that it is horse production. The values indicates whether it is an increase or a decrease.
  • Still not aware about the usefulness of the implement date and status. Feels unneeded to know both things at the same time unless there is something that is not indicated (which should that be indicated?).
Privilege%20Tribal%20Host.png


  • Don't need the Age line as we have the Age icon
  • Isn't Horde Unity the same thing as Legitimacy?
    • Is this advance only valid for Monarchy and Hordes?
    • Shouldn't it be called just 'Unity' or do we need 'Monarch Legitimacy'?
Advance%20Legacy%20of%20the%20Golden%20Horde.png


  • This tooltip was already too big so you decided to make it bigger? o_O
  • The color formatting makes no sense without comparison. Is unit weight per strength just inherently bad?
  • Has there been thoughts to going to an 'icon and value' style for the unit statistics (like you did with the country tooltip)?
  • Can we unify around using the single model icon for manpower (like you use up in Kipchak Khanate)?
  • When you are listed goods please should the same number of decimal places. (Change horses to 1.0 in the first list and 0.20 in the second list)
  • If this is a generic tooltip, would it not make more sense to indicate the total maintenance values instead of making us do the math every time? (those are per capita still correct?)
  • I still don't like the Combat performance or Terrain impact boxes but would need more information to try to come up with a better solution
  • Do the archers truly consume 0 manpower monthly? (please tell me that is a bug)
Horse%20Archers.png


  • Don't need the building type banner as it is already in the sub-title
  • Can we unify on an icon that means trade? Will it be the barrel or the apple for fish? Unless those are indicating different things called 'trade' they should use the same imagery.
  • looking at the Building Advance Icon makes me wonder if it should all fit within the circle? Isn't there a 'advance' donut chart in the main UI? Does that not indicate the current advance? Doesn't that need to fit into the donut?
  • For the "Kurultai" I would change the recruit line to the following as it already indicates that it is a location benefit.
    • 'Recruit Regiments' <--> 'Allowed'
Caravanserai.png


  • I see the 'owner but not member' method disappeared from IO abilities.
  • The 'Tatar Yoke' gets:
  • 'Unjustified Internal Wars' <--> 'Blocked'
  • Is tribal cohesion different that Horde Unity?
  • Have a scrollbar on the member list instead of '...and <many> more'
Tatar%20Yoke1.png


  • If you are keeping this at least do something with the alignment of the flag and crest. I feel the model and image doesn't do anything to 'immerse' me into the feel of the 'Tatar Yoke'
  • Can we get non generic UN looking icons
  • Background abruptly end when getting to the Members section title
  • The member section is an example of generic UI failing. Having so much space taken up to show the two one country groups doesn't make sense.
  • If there can be only one member in a group, could you use the extra space to indicate the name of the country as well.
  • In the generic member section either remove the frames from the flags or add space between the frames.
  • 14 flags feels like an odd value to use to wrap
  • (Should 'Special Status' be 'Tatar Yoke Status')
Tatar%20Yoke2.png


  • Can there ever be more than one payee?
  • Have the 'payers' section (payors?) independently scroll while leaveing the payees section static
  • Align the columns between the payee/payer sections
  • Split the payments into two columns
  • Decimal align the Proportion column
  • Can this be sorted?
  • Is there any indication what the contribution rates of the members are or if any are under 50%?
  • Does the Overlord get a CB or any recourse if they are under 50%?
  • Does this make sense as a tab in the Tatar Yoke instead of a tooltip? Isn't this taking the concept of a tooltip too far?
Tatar%20%20Yoke%20Payments2.png


  • What happened to their eyes?
  • I do not like the style of background, row of random people doing random things, row of one or two big models. This feels more like a carnival game where I need to knock down the second row of people while both rows jitter back and forth instead of inspiring art for events and such.
  • I prefer calling these things Crises and not disasters as it better fits the 'disasters' that have been shown.
Horde%20Civil%20War%20Starting%20Event.png


  • I think the check list section would be better served if the vertical bar of subclauses originated from the clause headers checkbox.
  • Need a better presentation method for the 'All Rebels in Country' clause
Horde%20Civil%20War%20Tooltip.png


  • Looks like a position or size glitch on the left guy
  • Cannot see/enjoy the image because the models are too prominent.
  • "Rivaling Warlord of the Golden Horde"
    • 'Rival Warlord'
  • The 'chance each month' sheet feel uninspired.
  • look at all the empty space that is uselessly covering the map.
Horde%20Civil%20War%20Panel.png


That is all for now. It has been hard to keep up. Please don't take my silence as approval.
 
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