Tinto Maps #27 - 22nd of November 2024 - Oceania

[Pavía]

Hello, and welcome to another Friday devoted to map worship! You may remember me, Pavía, from previous Tinto Maps, as @Roger Corominas has been dutifully taking care of the last 6 dev diaries. Now he’s focusing on some other tasks, and I’ll be in charge of the last 4, as it’s planned that the war Tinto Maps will be over by Christmas. This doesn’t mean that we will be done with the maps of Project Caesar, though - we will continue posting Tinto Maps Feedback posts in the next few months. And the next one will be a very much anticipated one - the Balkans, next week! But let’s focus now on today’s region: Oceania!

Countries

A bit different map today, as there are no regular countries in the entire region… All of them are Societies of Pops! Also, down to the right, that is not ‘Linear Atlantis’, but our ‘3D Material Testing Island’, where our (great) 3D artists test how the different combinations of terrains look in-game.

It may be relevant to repeat our guidelines for how to categorize countries and societies, by the way:

• Settled Countries (State Societies)
  • Organized through States, which implies a public power holding:
    • Monopoly of violence
    • Tax collection
    • Public works
    • Writing/record-keeping systems
• Societies of Pops (Stateless Societies)
  • Societies lacking a State properly, but that have some complex organizational features, such as (not necessarily all, but some):
    • Chiefdomly authority
    • Permanent settlements
    • Agricultural development
    • Some kind of taxation
• Non-Tag Cultures (Bands/Kin Groups)
  • Simple societies, usually hunter-gatherers or shifting agriculturalists, don't organize around power structures, but through horizontal ones
  • Their pops won't be part of any type of tag, akin to EU4 natives

Societies of Pops

There are a few Societies of Pops in Oceania, in three main hubs: Hawaii, Fiji-Samoa-Tonga, and New Zealand. We’d be interested in listening to your feedback on this matter, nonetheless.

Locations

Spoiler: Detailed Locations Maps

Plenty of different maps today, to be able to show as many different regions as possible. This is very highly WIP, and some of the islands may end up dying because of their size and being unimportant. By the way, you may notice that some of the islands are weirdly rounded up - that’s because they have a different type of terrain, ‘Atoll’, which is the last one that we were able to add to the game in due time during the development process.

Provinces

Areas

Terrain

Now you may fully notice the purpose of Terrain Testing Island!

Development

Not a very developed region in 1337…

Natural Harbors

There are some very good natural harbors in the region, including a very infamous one in O’ahu…

Cultures

Tons of different cultures today!

Languages

Papua is not the most homogeneous place in the world, language-related…

Religions

As mentioned last week, we’ve split Animism into several ‘cultural confessions’, which we want now to recombine into broader families; so, again, any suggestions are welcome!

Raw Materials

Spoiler: Detailed Raw Materials Maps

Resources are, in general terms, quite basic, food-oriented ones; although Australia is more varied, obviously, and there are some areas very rich in Pearls.

Markets

Ternate is the main market of the western part of the region, although you may notice that there’s very little access in most of the locations.

Population
There are some issues with the Population distribution map of the region this week, but I’m letting you know that the total population is 1.885M.

And that is all for today! If you want a more detailed map of a given area, just let me know, as I’m aware that the scale of the region shown doesn’t fit well with the usual format of Tinto Maps.

Next week we will take a look at the last continent remaining, starting with the region of North America. See you!

 

[Pavía]

Will there not be any countries to represent the Aboriginal people?

Also, I presume the languages aren't fully done since that's a pretty big lacking of language for such a diverse area irl.

1. Could potentially be, depending on feedback, but right now there aren't.
2. They're mostly done, but we will be open to review, as usual.

 

[Pavía]

When you guys say you want to recombine religions into broader groups, does that mean into new religions or into religion groups? I think the former but I'm not sure.

Could be both, depending on how they are categorized.

 

[Pavía]

Will there be event/decision to grow wine/fruit in Australia?

Also, is there an updated British Isles coming soon?

We're thinking of ways to be able to move raw materials around...

 

[Pavía]

Will there be a Tinto Maps extra covering the remaining islands in the Indian Ocean?

Very likely, yes. Atlantis Chagos deserves its own DD!

 

[Pavía]

Will there be additional threads regarding Low Lands - France - Iberia etc? Not only for the many charges proposed after the first review, but also for the features Johan introduced after the map was reviewed?

No, but we check the existing ones from time to time regarding new feedback.

 

[Pavía]

Could we get close-ups of the religion map?

Not very worth right now, to be honest, as most of the religions are the same of cultures.

 

[Pavía]

World conquest as 3D Material Testing Island will be fun

Very polygonal!

 

[Pavía]

Now that all the constituent maps have been released, could you post a full zoomed out political map of Europe, Africa, Asia and Oceania?

I think that the Reddit map-makers will be pleased, yes. And there's even a new continent appearing there!:

 

[Pavía]

hi @Pavía! Should Easter Island not have been covered here? or will it be shown on the south American tinto map?

Either South America or a Full-Pacific Tinto Maps Extra.

 

[Pavía]

any progress/change with playabiility for Societies of Pops? meaning did you have ideas how to make it fun or does the cutting floor still loom over it?

We have plenty of ideas, but the feasibility of them is very low at this stage, to be brutally honest. We'll confirm it in due time, but we prefer to be honest with the community, and not create non-realistic expectations.

 

[Pavía]

Oceanian cultures should have a buff for Rugby skills

Oh, man, the other day the Spanish team was close to defeating Fiji in a test match... But they're so good!

 

[Pavía]

Oh god.

I think Paradox either has made both a good Polynesia and a bad Polynesia. I don’t have the time now but know I am incredibly disappointed in the choice of making all of the countries that are definitely organized enough to be settled countries especially those that were present in EU4 to be just Societies of Pops, it’s incredibly disheartening and just a shame.

There’s also a lot more gripes I have but I simply need some more time to process my thoughts because this is… just sad.

- Yasha

The language/culture diversity is insanely good, but I am very disappointed about no settled countries in Polynesia. I hope you lax your standards a bit to make at least, Tonga, Fiji, Samoa, Hawai'i and Maori playable, as all of those came to possess kingdoms by the end of the game.

It's understandable. We needed to set these country categories to make a first selection based on a realistic historical approach, as we want to deliver with Project Caesar one of the best historical simulations ever. But as I usually say, we're always open to revision and changes, that's why we're doing the Tinto Talks and Tinto Maps, in the first place, to listen to the community early on.

 

[Pavía]

@Pavía please sir may we know when this awaited event will occur?

On Monday.

 

[Pavía]

Are these the Banda Isles (They seem just the tiniest bit too far East, but that might be some weird projection thing or my imagination), and are they a playable location?

View attachment 1219989

As of now, yes, but we might have to make them an island wasteland in the map review, as being too small in size.

 

[Pavía]

Hello Pavia, I see that there are 'tropecientas' cultures here. Your documentation work is simply amazing.
I imagine that with so many cultures, the code itself must not be very long for all these "indigenous" cultures.
It would be wonderful, for those of us who are very interested in modding cultures, if you could share the code of a native culture from Oceania compared to the code of a, let's say, large culture from Europe. So that we can get an idea of the magnitude of certain projects.
If it could be possible, of course. Thank you very much for your work.

Script-wise, they're very similar and very moddable: you can set their language, color, graphical culture, opinions of other cultures, and some naming-related fields (for characters).

 

[Pavía]

“we will continue posting Tinto Maps Feedback posts in the next few months.“

few months??

Other regions looks far less polished compared to Europe, but somehow feedbacks of Europe gets more time than rest of world combined lol

I feel like feedbacks of these reigons will be super rushed despite requiring more time (most doesnt even have minorities etc, so there will be less time for revising feedbacks as they need to complete the maps first)

It's a way of talking, as I can't publicly disclose how much time we will be doing Tinto Maps Feedback or the next DD series that we'll start in January, 'Tinto Flavor'.

 

[Pavía]

Does North America in the next TM include Mexico and the Caribbean or only US-Canada?

Current-day USA and Canada; there will be separate Tinto Maps for Central America and South America.

 

[Pavía]

@Pavía please sir may we know when this awaited event will occur?

Surely you can put more effort into asking him out than that!

Romanticism is dead...

What about having a cup of tinto wine, preferably Ribera del Duero, while taking a look at historical maps?

 

[Pavía]

Why some wastelands have natural harbor bonuses? Is this somehow involved into gameplay?
View attachment 1219979View attachment 1219980

Occam's razor: it's a graphical bug.