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Tinto Flavour #3 - 24th of January 2025 - Novgorod

Hello, and welcome to the third installment of Tinto Flavour, the happy Fridays in which we look at the flavour content of the super secret Project Caesar! This week we will be traveling to the cold north, where the Sovereign Lord Republic of Velikiy Novgorod lies beside Lake Ilmen:

"Originally founded by Slav and Norse people as Holmgård, the 'new city' of Novgorod became the main political and economic center in the north of the lands inhabited by the Russian people. Fiercely independent, the Novgorodian council elects its Prince among neighboring rulers, although the true power is held by its people, who thrive thanks to the commercial routes linking the rich inland resource-gathering outposts with the Baltic and White Seas.

However, in recent decades, the war with Sweden has been almost a constant, nowadays halted after the creation of the buffer state of Oreshek. Meanwhile, to the south, Muscovy has become a dominant power, with the backing of the Golden Horde. The proud inhabitants of Novgorod may have to face difficult decisions at these crossroads."

Country Selection.jpg

Grand Prince Ivan Rurikovich I ‘Kalita’ of Muscovy is the Prince elected by the Council of Novgorod. As usual, please consider the UI, 2D and 3D art as WIP.

And here are the lands of Veliky Novgorod:
Novgorod.jpg

Today with a different camera angle!

This is the starting situation of Novgorod:
Diplomacy.jpg

Subjects.jpg

Pskov and Oreshek, the two first shown in the subject list, are vassals. The other subjects are pop-based tributaries; we need some work to make them visible on this screen. Besides that, Muscovy and the other countries with a similar color share a PU with Novgorod throughout their ruler, Ivan I.

Let’s now take a look at Novgorod itself. The first thing is the country's government type, which is a Republic. As per that, and Novgorod’s main culture belonging to the Russian culture group, two different things get unlocked. The first is a major government reform, the Veche Republic:
Veche Republic.jpg

The second is this Age of Traditions advance:
Veche Advance.jpg

This in turn unlocks the Veche Selection, a succession law that allows your country to select the ruler among neighboring countries:
Veche Selection.jpg

You might have noticed that Estates are important and powerful in the governance of Novgorod. This is also reflected in the unique privileges it starts with, with 3 unique privileges for Nobility:
Kormlenije.jpg

Ryad.jpg

Tysiatskii.jpg

And one for Burghers:
Ivan's Hundred.jpg

There are also some unique policies. The first is for the Legal Code law:
Russkaya Pravda.jpg

And the second is for the Administrative System Law:
Pyatina Policy.jpg

Novgorod also has some unique works of art, such as:
House of Holy Wisdom.jpg

This will reappear later in this Tinto Flavour, keep an eye on it!

And a type of work of art that is unique to Orthodox and Miaphysite countries, the Icon:
Saint George in Yuriev.jpg

Speaking of Orthodoxy, there’s some Orthodox-related stuff that I’m just going to tease, as we will talk in detail about this in a future Tinto Talks, like this Law available to all Orthodox countries:
Role of the Patriarchate.jpg

Patriarchates, a concept that you will either love or hate as an Orthodox country!

Now let’s move into taking a look at some of the unique advances that are available to Novgorod:
Birch Bark.jpg

Novgorod First Chronicle.jpg

Funding Ushkuyniks.jpg

Northern Center of Arts.jpg

Posadnichestvo.jpg

The last one unlocks another unique government reform, after it has been researched during the Age of Renaissance:
Posadnichestvo Office.jpg

Finally, let’s take a look at some of the events that Novgorod may get. The first appears early in the campaign, after an event that triggers to Sweden:
Theological Debate.jpg

Shall we debate with Swedish about theology, or just forward them for a Byzantine debate?

Another one that may trigger early on is this one:
Karelian Rebellion.jpg

These Swedes are troublemakers!

This is an event you will get to expand the Cathedral of St. Sophia, with an option to start constructing a building on top of the WoA:
Cathedral St. Sophia.jpg

This is another event that you can get after 1400:
Sovet Gospod.jpg

That will unlock a new government reform, that will replace the Veche Republic as your main government reform:
Sovet Gospod2.jpg

…And much more content will be available for Novgorod, but that’s all for today! I hope you enjoyed today’s Tinto Flavour, next week we will be taking a look at Mali, the land of Mansa Musa! Cheers!
 

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I saved this picture because I wanted to ask about the flag of Novgorod, the form of government of Pskov and Vyborg. You have already answered two questions, but I wanted to clarify about Vyborg, is it possible to add it as a separate tag? There is a historical ruler and a corresponding coat of arms.
IMG_20250124_171223.jpg
IMG_20250124_171239.jpg
IMG_20250124_170633.jpg
 
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Hello, and welcome to the third installment of Tinto Flavour, the happy Fridays in which we look at the flavour content of the super secret Project Caesar! This week we will be traveling to the cold north, where the Sovereign Lord Republic of Velikiy Novgorod lies beside Lake Ilmen:



View attachment 1246774
Grand Prince Ivan Rurikovich I ‘Kalita’ of Muscovy is the Prince elected by the Council of Novgorod. As usual, please consider the UI, 2D and 3D art as WIP.

And here are the lands of Veliky Novgorod:
View attachment 1246719
Today with a different camera angle!

This is the starting situation of Novgorod:
View attachment 1246720
View attachment 1246721
Pskov and Oreshek, the two first shown in the subject list, are vassals. The other subjects are pop-based tributaries; we need some work to make them visible on this screen. Besides that, Muscovy and the other countries with a similar color share a PU with Novgorod throughout their ruler, Ivan I.

Let’s now take a look at Novgorod itself. The first thing is the country's government type, which is a Republic. As per that, and Novgorod’s main culture belonging to the Russian culture group, two different things get unlocked. The first is a major government reform, the Veche Republic:

The second is this Age of Traditions advance:

This in turn unlocks the Veche Selection, a succession law that allows your country to select the ruler among neighboring countries:

You might have noticed that Estates are important and powerful in the governance of Novgorod. This is also reflected in the unique privileges it starts with, with 3 unique privileges for Nobility:

And one for Burghers:

There are also some unique policies. The first is for the Legal Code law:

And the second is for the Administrative System Law:

Novgorod also has some unique works of art, such as:
View attachment 1246735
This will reappear later in this Tinto Flavour, keep an eye on it!

And a type of work of art that is unique to Orthodox and Miaphysite countries, the Icon:

Speaking of Orthodoxy, there’s some Orthodox-related stuff that I’m just going to tease, as we will talk in detail about this in a future Tinto Talks, like this Law available to all Orthodox countries:
View attachment 1246738
Patriarchates, a concept that you will either love or hate as an Orthodox country!

Now let’s move into taking a look at some of the unique advances that are available to Novgorod:

The last one unlocks another unique government reform, after it has been researched during the Age of Renaissance:

Finally, let’s take a look at some of the events that Novgorod may get. The first appears early in the campaign, after an event that triggers to Sweden:
View attachment 1246775
Shall we debate with Swedish about theology, or just forward them for a Byzantine debate?

Another one that may trigger early on is this one:
View attachment 1246777
These Swedes are troublemakers!

This is an event you will get to expand the Cathedral of St. Sophia, with an option to start constructing a building on top of the WoA:

This is another event that you can get after 1400:

That will unlock a new government reform, that will replace the Veche Republic as your main government reform:

…And much more content will be available for Novgorod, but that’s all for today! I hope you enjoyed today’s Tinto Flavour, next week we will be taking a look at Mali, the land of Mansa Musa! Cheers!
Is Novgorodian colonisation present in some way in the game?
 
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Is the title of grand prince given to Kalita due to the fact that he's the grand prince of Vladimir or beacuse Novgorod is a tier 3 tag?
Both.
 
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I saved this picture because I wanted to ask about the flag of Novgorod, the form of government of Pskov and Vyborg. You have already answered two questions, but I wanted to clarify about Vyborg, is it possible to add it as a separate tag? There is a historical ruler and a corresponding coat of arms.View attachment 1246827
I Already asked them in the Scandinavia TM recently and I've put thr name of the ruler of Vyborg there if you want to check it out!
 
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I assume you are mostly keeping these out of scope for these Dev Diaries, but I was hoping to see more goals one could hope to achieve with flavor. These modifiers and stuff seem interesting if they add up to different estates being in control and they cater to and enforce different playstyles, but it's difficult to hook onto why I would want to play Florence or Novgorod from reading these.

I guess I'm really missing the "this is how you form Novgorod Russia, and this is how it is different to play from Muscovy Russia" or "when loading up at Novgorod you will feel the restrictions on your northern ports, and this is how you can try and adapt to that." or "Florence's control and proximity to so many banks allows a more deficit spending playstyle, here's how low I got my loan interest rate, compared to when I played Naples"
That's a good point, but what we're trying yo show is the 'country flavour setup', pretty much as we did with Tinto Maps being the 'geographical map setup'. So we don't really want to nudge players to play country A on a X playstile, or country B on Y playstile, because we think that these are things that the players need to explore and discover when we release the game and they start playing it.
 
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About unique advances:
  1. How impactful will these be? Maximum Literacy e. g. seems quite powerful.
  2. Will it be a strictly bad choice to play as a tag without special advances?
  3. Wouldn't it make more sense to lock them behind culture and/or location instead of tag, to make historically less important tags more viable for the player? (E. g. another (Russian) tag conquers the city of Novgorod and thereby gain access to the "Northern Center of Art" advance?)
1. Matter of balance.
2. No, there are lovely countries to play without so much unique content. We've used them a fair bit, as they are really good to playtest base mechanics, as they're better on that than 'flavourful' countries.
3. There are also religion and culture-locked advances.
 
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Also, do I see an ongoing attempt at dynamic event images of the landscape in the bottom?
Karelian%20Rebellion.jpg

Sovet%20Gospod1.jpg

They do look very WIP for now, but I adore the idea!
 
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Is Novgorodian colonisation present in some way in the game?
Colonizing the northern provinces is one of the most interesting things to do with Novgorod, yes.
 
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1. Matter of balance.
2. No, there are lovely countries to play without so much unique content. We've used them a fair bit, as they are really good to playtest base mechanics, as they're better on that than 'flavourful' countries.
3. There are also religion and culture-locked advances.
can it be sad that "flavourless" countries are a better choice for a tabula rasa "sandbox" playstyle? Afterall they are lkely more customizable (you can go virtually any direction from the initial setup), while countries with more specific flavour may inherently be destined to follow a more "historical" playstyle? (eg, Novgorod having a LOT of content for a strong Boyar rule)
 
Boyars are quite powerful in Velikiy Novgorod at start, yes:
View attachment 1246821
Why would you ever pick sovet gospod then, since it primarily increases the power even further but doesn't give you that much more loyalty since they're almost capped?
 
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Country%20Selection.jpg
  • 3d doll still appears to be standing in front of a green screen.
  • Cloths and crown appear to be floating
  • Flag looks photoshopped into the picture
  • Most of the information about the place appears to be relegated into three icons in the upper right of the picture
    • first means it is a republic
    • second is Land based polity (the bank in Florence TF had only the building and a flag to indicate it was a building based polity)
    • third is rank (bank and Florence had a I under the crown)
  • This provides little information for the amount of space it takes.
    • We are playing as the (spirit of the) Country and not the Character, correct?
 
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Why do you use word Russian, instead of Rus, in context of post Kievan Rus states?
I, for one, fully expect Tinto to use the word Ruthenian when discussing Lithuanian flavour. In context of post-Kievan-Rus states, Russian denotes eastern states/sources and Ruthenian denotes western states/sources. That's how Rus is already modelled in culture and language maps.
 
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