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Tinto Flavour #7 - 21st of February 2025 - Bavaria

Hello, and welcome one more week to Tinto Flavour, the happy Fridays in which we take a look at the flavourish content of the new, super-secret Project Caesar.

Today we will be taking a look at Bavaria. Or, to be more precise, at the Duchies of Upper Bavaria and Lower Bavaria, as the Wittelsbach divided their lands among different branches; in addition to these two, the Treaty of Pavia (1329) also established the lands of the Electorate of the Palatinate of the Rhine (best known as The Palatinate) to be ruled by a third Wittelsbach branch.

"The Heartland of the Holy Roman Empire endured the long period of the Great Interregnum and looks to the next decades with worry. In the face of the advancing age of Holy Roman Emperor Ludwig IV. von Wittelsbach, the families of von Wittelsbach, Luxembourg, and von Habsburg once more prepare for a competition for the imperial crown. While imperial authority south of the Alps is deteriorating, German merchants scramble to secure their trade routes into Italy while Hanseatic League are enjoying their dominance over the region of North Germany.

Under the leadership of Holy Roman Emperor Ludwig IV. von Wittelsbach, the Duchy of Upper Bavaria is at the height of its power, as he commands respect and authority among the imperial princes. While the Duchy of Lower Bavaria is ruled by Duke Heinrich XIV. von Wittelsbach, his health is steadily declining due to his leprosy, and his expected early death could lead to a reunification of Bavaria.

With strong relations among the von Wittelsbach rulers of Europe, Bavaria is ready to claim its right to the imperial crown and dominance over central Europe against their rivals in Bohemia and Austria."

Country Selection.png

You might have noticed that the courtroom is different from other European rulers we’ve shown previously; this is the Throne of Charlemagne, part of the Palatine Chapel in Aachen, used in the coronation of Holy Roman Emperors; thus, is the one used by these rulers. We’d like to eventually keep adding some more unique art, such as the Imperial Crown; but, as usual, please take the UI, 2D and 3D art as WIP.

Here you have the core lands of Bavaria, divided among Upper Bavaria, Lower Bavaria, and the Palatinate:
Bavaria.png

Don't you love how Bavarians decided to split their lands into multiple polities?

The position of the Wittelsbach is quite strong, as Emperor Ludwig’s son, also named Ludwig, rules over the Electorate of Brandenburg, thus making the dynasty control 2 out of the 7 Imperial Electorates effectively:
von Wittelsbach.png

Here you can see the lands controlled by the Wittelsbach dynasty, and also their two main rivals for the Imperial Crown, the Luxembourg and Habsburg dynasties.

One of the main objectives for any of the branches of the Wittelsbach dynasty will be to unite these lands, and create/recreate the Kingdom of Bavaria, one of the formable countries that we presented in last week’s Tinto Talks:
Form Bavaria.png

You might have noticed that we fixed the starting country of Bavaria, and now is Tier III, which is the Kingdom rank.

Let’s start today with the narrative content, namely events, linked to the aforementioned dynastic issues. Early in the game, if the Duke of Lower Bavaria dies of his leprosy, leaving an underage ruler, you might receive this event:
Duchy Lower Bavaria.png

The first option makes Lower Bavaria a vassal, the second directly annexes it, and the third leaves the Duchy on its own.

If you select either the first or the second option, a follow-up event about the revision of the Treaty of Pavia may trigger:
Treaty of Pavia.png

I promise this treaty is historical, and it's not related to my vanity!

If we select the second option, this may happen:
Palatinate falls in our hands.png

Wittelsbach lands are reunited! We need to do some fixes for the dynamic localization of the Palatinate of the Rhine to appear properly in all instances, by the way.

Leading to this outcome:
Bavaria reunited.png

The Kingdom of Bavaria is recreated!

And you will also get this another event, as you may decide to change your succession law at this moment:
A New Law.png

Cognatic Primogeniture sounds like a more stable law, indeed.

Besides the Wittelsbach dynastical troubles, other Bavarian dynamic historical events that may be of interest:
Ockham.png

Ockham’s Razor in action!

Codex Bavarica1.png

Codex Bavarica2.png

What about a new Code of Laws?

This is an interesting set of events. If the player decides to build the Munich Residenz, a unique building will be constructed, also opening the option to get further expansions:
Munich Residenz1.png

Munich Residenz2.png

Munich Residenz3.png

Munich Residenz4.png

Let’s now move towards the structural content of Bavaria. German countries start with this privilege for the nobility, coupled with their succession law:
Right to Inherit.png

Bavaria also has a policy that portrays its itinerant court:
Itinerant Court.png

As the Holy Roman Emperor, Ludwig starts in possession of some unique works of art, the Imperial Regalia:
Coronation Gospel.png

Saint Stephans Purse.png

Imperial Crown.png

Imperial Orb.png

Bavaria also starts with this local work of art:
Marienkapelle.png

Which may be expanded via an event:
Old Marienkapelle.png

Finally, some Bavarian advances, covering from the Age of Traditions to the Age of Revolutions:
Bavarian Dukedom.png

Dreams of Unification.png

One Faith for Bavaria.png

Bavarian Purity Law.png

However my favourite is this one:
Skilled Brewers.png

That unlocks this production method:
Bavarian Breweries.png

Which you can compare with the other PMs for Breweries:
Brewery Production Methods.png

And that’s all for today! I hope you enjoyed it! Next week we will be travelling back to the Mediterranean shores, to the land of Morocco. Cheers!
 
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Since it seems you renamed it what's the full name of the Palatinate? The official name was the Electorate of the Palatinate only after the golden bull of 1356, before that in it was the County Palatinate of the Rhine so is there a dynamic change of the name?
The way it works right now is dynamic, the country name itself is 'Rhine', there's a dynamic prefix which is 'Palatinate', and then you get the 'Electoral' prefix on top of that. This doesn't work exactly fine in all cases, and have to polish it a bit; but I think that it's a good example about how our country dynamic naming system works.
 
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Does the Palatinate/Lower Bavaria get a choice to be annexed or not? Might be a quick game over if it happened suddenly with a player on it, SP or MP.


 
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I really like the Itinerant Court Policy.

@Pavía are there any plans to represent countries with two capitals? Like summer capitals and winter capitals? Surprisingly, many states employed such models of governance historically. In the case of Georgia, Tbilisi was the main capital, and Kutaisi, due to its warm climate, was the winter residence of the king and court.

Perhaps such a system gives some lesser control, trade, and other modifiers to the secondary capital, but deprives that same power from the main one?
 
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Question, do you mean with this
View attachment 1257112
the Upper Bavarian Land Rights (Oberbayerisches Landrecht, 1346)? I actually haven't seen the name "Codex Bavarica" mentioned in any of the literature about Bavaria.
There's also a typo here: [...] is an collection [...]

It should be "a collection".
 
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What in game benefits are there for constantly moving your capital? The itinerant court policy only seems to make the penalties to moving your capital slightly less bad, rather than giving you any benefits for constantly moving your court around. Also I feel like an itinerant court should be represented as constantly moving with the ruler, but I figure there might be some gameplay issues with that?

(I figure it’s biggest asset should be the ability to rapidly move around your capital in order to propagate control in newly conquered/destabilized regions, with the main downside being the lack of a built up administrative capital.)

View attachment 1257100
It might be a viable strategy in a highly decentralized country, but in others, it might be an outdated policy to change (as it happened historically).
 
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German merchants scramble to secure their trade routes into Italy while Hanseatic League are enjoying their dominance over the region of North Germany.
So why is Bavaria in the Prague market then? Shouldn't Augsburg start with a market center to represent the German merchants trading across the Alps?
 
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But this text is in English...
Yes, but we're incorporating this type of language flavour in a bunch of instances, such as Parliament names, etc. I'm thinking that we will probably have a game rule to have everything in standard English, and then another for this type of flavour.
 
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Not unique ones; not every country has a unique disaster to face.
The Ortenburger Conspiracy or maybe even the Munich riots of 1397-1403 could be candidates, though :p
 
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