• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

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!
 

Attachments

  • Novgorod First Chronicle.jpg
    Novgorod First Chronicle.jpg
    46,3 KB · Views: 0
  • Saint George in Yuriev.jpg
    Saint George in Yuriev.jpg
    74 KB · Views: 0
  • 107Like
  • 89Love
  • 3
  • 3
  • 2
Reactions:
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?
I guess the soviet godspod will have an annoying effect should you decide NOT to pick it. That and cabinet efficiency looks also interesting, given cabinet member replace mana, anything increasing cabinet size and/or cabinet efficiency seems quite attractive imo.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions:
I guess the soviet godspod will have an annoying effect should you decide NOT to pick it. That and cabinet efficiency looks also interesting, given cabinet member replace mana, anything increasing cabinet size and/or cabinet efficiency seems quite attractive imo.
Veche republic also gives the same cabinet efficiency.
 
  • 2Like
  • 1
Reactions:
"Patriarchs" is a bit of an odd name for the Orthodox clergy estate, because in a given country there's at most one patriarch (with the possibility of zero for non-autocephalous churches), so it doesn't really make sense to call the clergy as a whole Patriarchs.

I suggest the following alternatives:
  • Just stick with "Clergy" as in Catholic countries (per Florence last week), which isn't wrong, but I imagine you want more flavor than that
  • Change "Patriarchs" to "Patriarchate", which suggests the estate being the singular Patriarch's powerbase as a whole rather than suggesting multiple Patriarchs. The issue here is that quite often the Patriarchate of a given country was not really acting as a unified entity, leading into my next suggestion
  • Call them "Monasteries" -- in the major Orthodox nations of the period, monasteries were significant landholders and power blocs that caused problems for the state, the Patriarch that supposedly had authority over them, and each other.
 
  • 15
  • 7Like
  • 2
Reactions:
Thanks for your answers!

This
2. Checking with our language expert.
description could be at least localised based on Ruthenian language or Ukrainian dialect in the game.
This will definitely help avoid a lot of unnecessary negative hype later :)
 
Last edited:
  • 3Like
  • 1
  • 1
Reactions:
I have a questions about novogroods succecion law. do we invite the prince before the previous one dies or its like the elective monarchy on eu4 where you only choose when the next monarch dies? aslo it is posible through good realtions and trade to invite a prince from another country that is not a neighbour? for rp purpuses.
 
  • 4Like
Reactions:
Having smashed those Livonian crusaders its now time to finish the job. Annex the Livonian order! Especially as there is a very convenient war between the teutons (know nothings) and their southron neighbors. Also the Riga trade center would be very useful and profitable.

Maybe even make a deal with the Danes. Lets split sweden - a nuisance to both? And that baltic province, really just a distraction? We might even toss in some siilver from our profitable Riga market :p

Anyways, should serfdom really be a goal in a veche republic with voting rights for peasants? Freefolk sounds more plausible. Now if you change into a sovet gospod that disempowers burghers and peasants, then maybe, while also being on a fast track to monarchy. No doubt very convenient to that money bags muscovite prince to break the power of novgorod and make us into a smelly monarchy too.
 
Will Russia have unique flavor separate from Muscovy or Novgorod, or will Russia's content depend on who forms it? (and same with other formables). One thing I didn't like about eu4 flavor is that it forces you into historical circumstances regardless of situation, for example forming Netherlands as Holland forces you out of the HRE even if it doesn't make sense in context. In the same way I hope that forming Russia as Novgorod allows me to keep all these unique laws and advances.
 
  • 7Like
  • 2
  • 1Love
Reactions:
You should probably settle on one transcription system for the /j/ sound in russian words, as words "Velikiy", "Tysiatskii", and "Kormlenije" all seem to do that differently
If you go with "Velikiy", then you should probably change the others to "Tysyatskiy" and "Kormleniye"
If vice versa if you go the polish/serbian style with "Kormlenije" then spell the others as "Tysiatskij" and "Velikij"
Or if you go with "Tysiatskii" then spell the others as "Velikii" and "Kormleniie"

Personally, I suggest to go with the first option, because english-speaking people, pretty justifiedly, tend to pronounce the letter J the english way rather than the polish way
 
Last edited:
  • 13
  • 3Like
  • 1
  • 1
Reactions:
I think that the biggest issue with the veche "pick your prince" representation is that it gets the situation backward. It's not like the veche arbitrarily picked a prince, it's mostly that the strongest Russian prince imposed itself as the prince of Novgorod. Throughout the game's period, that was always Muscovy.

Initially, Muscovy was preferred over other powerful princes for its distance (Tver tried to annex Novgorod before the game starts), but the last century until the end of their independence was just Muscovy slowly tightening the noose around their neck.

First they encroached on their lands in the east, then, when they soded with shemyaka in the civil war, they were forced to sign away their independence https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Yazhelbitsy
And eventually, when they tried to elect a "heretic" polish-lithuanian prince, they got annexed.

So TLDR, I suggest adding limitations on the size of the prince to be selected, the possibility for the prince to consolidate power in a significant way (we'll see how modular are unions next week :)), and severe consequences for electing a non-russian, non-orthodox prince (like giving a special CB to all eligible princes)

Hopefully it will make playing Novgorod more historical, challenging (I assume they have the most development of all Russian tags?) and less prone to gamey strategies
 
  • 7Like
  • 1
Reactions:
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!
For those people who asked about clothes, these are the images I found on the Internet of Ivan Kalita. The Catholic Crown instead of a hat on the Russian prince looks unusual...
View attachment 1246834View attachment 1246835View attachment 1246836
Great examples! I think they really should change the crowns of all Orthodox rulers. They all had a round hat-like shape. Not sure how widespread was this design, but certainly much more than pikes that are currently in the game.

Byzantium:
1737735053052.png
1737735076255.png


Serbia:
1737735099670.png


Monomakh's cap

1737735201609.jpeg


Is there at least an ability to get one in game?
 
  • 8
  • 4Like
Reactions:
This is my suggestion for a single spelling paradigm (it is not the only one possible!):

At the beginning of word, after ъ or Ь or after vowels: Я, е, ю, ё could be spelled ja, je, ju and jo or je (depends on whether you prefer phonetic over phonology or not).

After consonants: я, е, ю, ё could be spelled 'a, 'e, 'u, 'o (or 'e, same) but when following ш, щ, ч, ж they should be spelled like а, э, у, о (i.e. as a, e, u, o).

BUT e is simply spelled e after к, г, х, ц.

Ы as y, и as i, й as j.

Ь as '

Ъ not spelled.

ш as sh.
щ as shch.
ч as ch.
ж as zh.
х as kh.
ц as either c or ts.
 
Last edited:
  • 2
Reactions:
Thanks for sharing details on Novgorod.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions: