Tinto Talks #1 - February 28th 2024

[Panagean]

Believable World

You should be able to play the game and feel like you are in a world that makes sense, and feels rich and realistic. While not making the gaming less accessible, features should be believable and plausible, and avoid abstraction unless necessary.

Setting Immersion

Our games thrive on player imagination and “what if” scenarios. We ensure both a high degree of faithfulness to the setting which will give a “special feel” to the game. We will strive to give this game the most in-depth feeling of flavor possible.

I just also wanted to jump in say that two things that really sell me on both of these concepts is a distinct and ideally ludonarrative art-style (that isn't just a modern-UI-handbook) and good writing - both of those things make me really buy into the fantasy that I am inhabiting by playing the game. Both are really hard to define but among games I've played recently Victoria 2 had it, Against the Storm largely has it, Deep Rock Galactic, Pathologic 2, Disco Elysium, Suzerain all have it.

On all the points you raise as core to the vision is that a game that makes me groan-in-a-good way ("How the bloody hell am I going to do that? Wait, if I - and then - uhhh - but then - Hm!") when I come up against a difficult problem (or even lose to it!) is probably a good litmus test!

 

[Metz]

In terms of EU5, I think a large map and granularity of domains could be the way to go forward. Each region should feel unique in terms of culture, politics, geography, and resources. The game will take place mostly throughout the early modern period, and the big question of that timeframe is how to harness and exploit your resources in an efficient manner. Centralizing (removing regional aristocrats and sovereign realms that exist within your "natural borders" as defined by the people that live there) and standardizing your domain (culturally, linguistically, and administratively) are part of it. Beyond is to monopolize resources abroad whether its cash crops in the Caribbean, gold and silver mines in South America, tribute and living space in North America, factories and outposts in Africa, or trade posts and entrepots in India and the rest of Asia.

Each endeavor should have its unique challenges especially depending on who is dealing with who and achieving even the slightest concessions should help change the way you or the AI will play the game going forward in that one timeline.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

With a deep and complex game, there should be so many choices and paths that the player should feel they can always come back to get a new story with the same start.

CK3 (and 2) nails this one, and the reason, I think, is that there are so many actors on the stage i.e. agents. Starting from scratch, I wouldn't think POPs are always the answer here, but you do need to feel that you're sharing the world with a LOT of other decision makers who all have their own goals and their own impacts.

 

[Aeroclub]

Believable World

You should be able to play the game and feel like you are in a world that makes sense, and feels rich and realistic. While not making the gaming less accessible, features should be believable and plausible, and avoid abstraction unless necessary.

Setting Immersion

Our games thrive on player imagination and “what if” scenarios. We ensure both a high degree of faithfulness to the setting which will give a “special feel” to the game. We will strive to give this game the most in-depth feeling of flavor possible.

Replayability

There should be many ways to play different starts and reasons to replay them. Different mechanics in different parts of the world create a unique experience depending on what you choose to play. With a deep and complex game, there should be so many choices and paths that the player should feel they can always come back to get a new story with the same start.

Not sure many would agree with me, but I think that the PDS game that fits all these criteria the best is actually HoI4. But this is coming from somebody with 5k hours across the PDS titles, so here goes:

I mean the world is believable and makes sense because in no other games can you achieve historical outcomes with the actual game mechanics (as opposed to "Click here to inherit Burgundy" for some reason). If the enemy divisions push you because you can't pierce the armor on their tanks - well, you better start producing something that will pierce some armor, not just click some arbitrary button that somehow gives your troops +10% bonus to all stats.

In case of immersion, it has a load of in-depth country content, fantastic music and visuals.

In case of replayability, the amazing replayability of HoI4 actually derives from the first point. Since the game is the most "realistic" one, it also provides the biggest challenge for playing minor countries....Which means that even after 1k hours in, you can still find challenging things to do.

Granted, one can say that HoI4 has an extremely abstracted economy that revolves around the CIVs...but I think it's not fair. It is a conscious decision of leaving something outside of the scope of the game (and it works well), rather than abstracting a core component of it.

Speaking of the other titles, EU4 is abstracted into oblivion with all it's mana and development, CK3 creates too many wonky and crazy unbelievable stories, while Vicky really lacks in terms of replayability as you're literally following the exact same blueprint for any nation that you play.

 

[gela1212]

Well, if you want feedback on which games best exemplify these pillars, i'll give it a go:

Believable World - This is something that games are generally really bad at, and it's the one that I think is both the heaviest lift and the most potentially impressive for the project the Tinto team is undertaking. I think that basically none of Paradox's attempts at generating a believable world from a first-principles simulation have worked out. The most believable games are the ones where there are gentle nudges and railroads to ensure plausible outcomes -- there should be specific "what ifs". The Burgundian Inheritance was a great example in EU4. There's technically a system meant to simulate this, but of course in practice it would almost never happen in a historically plausible way. So sometimes Austria inherits and controls the Low Countries and you get a pretty historical outcome -- but there's also the specific 'what if' scenario of some other power inheriting the Low Countries. It's important to note that what is being done here is a specific question is being asked. It's not just, what structural dynamics created this outcome so we can recreate them, it's, this is a specific event that occurred and let's try to entertain a few what-ifs. Another example from Vic 3 is that the Taiping Rebellion happens, but of course sometimes the Heavenly Kingdom wins.

Key point here: narrowness is a necessity for believability. Create 20 inflection points that have a few possible outcomes each and you suddenly have a wide variety of world states that are believable, comprehensible alt-history scenarios. This isn't to say we should abandon the sandbox approach entirely, but Tinto should strongly consider trying to strike a balance here and avoid feeling any discomfort with historical nudges to the world state.

Setting Immersion

See my point above! But I do think there are some really good examples of setting immersion to draw from. Anbennar (the EU4 fantasy mod), which I've had the pleasure of working on as a contributor for some years and enjoying as a player for even longer, attempts to achieve this by creating really big set-piece events for different parts of the world that make it feel dramatic and dynamic. As some examples, we have the discovery that the primary god of the Pantheon is dead, the fire raining from heaven, various disasters in the Serpentspine, the unification of the Centaurs and the Lake Federation, etc. These are predictable events that would never happen from a first-principles simulation and notably people really like them. When something like the Escanni Wars of Consolidation happen, it's interesting to see who emerges on top this time.

Replayability

Everything else I've said applies here, but I do think having clear 'builds' for nations is another way of increasing replayability. We have this to an extent in EU4, but unfortunately for a variety of reasons it ends up being a bit constrained. There's not enough radically different options with their own synergies that enable extremely distinctive nation builds. To use a random example, assume you have Nation X that gains bonuses to all of its cloth producing provinces, while also getting different bonuses for the amount of cloth productin that it has. You also have some tools at your disposal to create new cloth producing areas, and of course there's always the option to conquer more cloth producing provinces. You could pursue a long-term strategy simply on the basis of trying to secure a cloth monopoly that leverages these synergies. But maybe another playthrough of the same country is pursuing a different strategy based on controlling trade centers, and acquiring different synergies with trade centers. In this situation you might end up with a much smaller territory, more naval focus, etc.

 

[WombatOverlord]

If its fantasy, I need something to get me invested in the setting before I'd consider scooping it up. Things like Anbenaar sounds cool with a lot of nations and mission trees, but I don't really have a reason to care for the setting or countries enough to play it. For me a good video series by the marketing team discussing the setting akin to Kaiserreich may be enough to get me excited, but I imagine it'd be hard to get that investment if I didn't watch development.

Even fantasy settings that I enjoy such as LotR, Game of Thrones, etc have the problem of me only really caring about the characters and the party, so the idea of "playing Rob Stark" in a GoT mod is kind of dull to me because it was his personal decisions and connections which made him interesting, but The North is too similar to the other kingdoms of Westeros to be interesting in a GSG. It needs to be a setting with interesting and unique kingdoms and realms. Mount and Blade is pretty good at this with unique items and units per realm. Total War Shogun did a great job introducing me to different Japanese clans each with their own personality and play style through their unique units and bonuses.


If its EU5, good luck.

 

[Torakka]

Not sure many would agree with me, but I think that the PDS game that fits all these criteria the best is actually HoI4. But this is coming from somebody with 5k hours across the PDS titles, so here goes:

I mean the world is believable and makes sense because in no other games can you achieve historical outcomes with the actual game mechanics (as opposed to "Click here to inherit Burgundy" for some reason). If the enemy divisions push you because you can't pierce the armor on their tanks - well, you better start producing something that will pierce some armor, not just click some arbitrary button that somehow gives your troops +10% bonus to all stats.

I haven't played HoI4 that much lately, but aren't the focus trees basically "click here to annex Austria"? Of course the combat mechanics themselves are fairly extensive and general, but majority of societal and economical changes are handled through focuses in non-general, nation specific way (and usually somewhat implausibly fast).

 

[Aeroclub]

I haven't played HoI4 that much lately, but aren't the focus trees basically "click here to annex Austria"? Of course the combat mechanics themselves are fairly extensive and general, but majority of societal and economical changes are handled through focuses in non-general, nation specific way (and usually somewhat implausibly fast).

You're absolutely right, but that's what I meant later in the post:
It's one thing if you're consciously leaving out something that isn't a part of the core gameplay loop (say, money definitely isn't a part of the HoI4 gameplay loop).
But it's a different story when you're abstracting something that IS a part of it (like mana in EU4 which is at the core of everything).

Mind you - I love mana as a mechanic, I think it does a great job of representing what it's supposed to represent (putting limitations on how and what you can do based on your rulers and court skills). But does it fit the criteria outlined here? Absolutely not.

 

[Silens]

Believable World

Setting Immersion

Replayability


Which games do YOU think represent these pillars well?

I think Imperator and CK3 really managed to represent those pillars right, in their own way. Although both fell short where the other shined.

Imperator (2.0) plays more like EU4, you're a nation, the game is centered around deep and well-made management mechanics. Characters are an afterthought, they don't matter. They're mostly reduced to two or three stats, they're devoid of personality. It's quite fun to manage huge growing cities, grow an empire, build your military and start campaigns. See the numbers go up, see your borders grow. But it's all very abstract, you don't care about the people in that world, they come, they die, they get replaced.

CK3 is the exact opposite. The realm and holding management is shallow, there is no population, no economy to manage, warfare/army management is weak. It's mechanically bland. And honestly, I should have been tired of the game long ago. And yet... the character focus makes the game extremely immersive and replayable, sets a very believable world. You care about your dynasty, about the people living in the world, about their escapades, their friends, their enemies, their vendettas. You care about who achieves what, it's a medieval life sim and that is more fun than I'd care to admit. It tells excellent stories and makes for memorable experiences.

I came into Vic3 from CK3, and while especially the trading and economy simulation was highly complex and a welcome change from the simple CK3 mechanics, I suddenly missed the character focus of CK3. I can have a monarch as head of state, can be von Hohenzollern, can be the Ottoman Sultan, doesn't matter, there is no dynasty to keep track of, no marriage politics, no personal relationships between people who did have those ties, like Wilhelm II, Nicholas II and George V, who were all first cousins. CK3 would keep track of such blood ties, Vic3 just didn't, and I missed the character-driven depth of the world. Ruler died years ago and was replaced? Huh, didn't even notice. The US have the first black and female president? No big deal.

Whatever led to the CK3 devs suddenly make their game about characters and not realms/nations, I think they hit a nerve here, and it's worth exploring in other games as well. Humans, and I assume most players of PDX games are humans, usually respond well to having virtual people they can identify with. Not just a name and/or a portrait of a leader, but actually *being* someone in that world, seeing the world through the eyes of that person, making decisions *as* that person, having other people react to one's own actions.

When thinking what I'd love to see in EU5 this new mysterious game, it would certainly be a deeper character focus. Doesn't have to be as elaborate as CK3, as feudalism was on the downturn in that era. But historical events are still driven by people, not nations. Reducing nations to a bunch of colors and numbers on a sterile map reduces the appeal of a game for me.

It wasn't Spain that landed in America, it was Christopher Columbus, who was funded by Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain, and named the first settlement after the queen. It wasn't Spain that defeated the Aztecs, it was Hernan Cortes. Not the Polish led the charge at Vienna, it was King Sobieski III with his Winged Hussars. Not the British beat the French at Trafalgar, it was Nelson who won the day. Not the French conquered Europe, it was Napoleon. And he wasn't stopped by the British, but by the 1st Duke of Wellington.

Events are driven by people, and history remembers people more than the flag they fought under. Deeper characters would be something to look forward to in any potential PDX game.

 

[Trunting]

A fantasy GSG comes to my mind.

 

[ImperatorRoman]

Oooh this is very exciting! I'm definitely looking forward to more of these "Tinto Talks"

 

[Nicolas-]

1453 and the Artwork used here definitely hint at EU5. And it makes sense. The title is very popular and a sequel is way overdue.

 

[Imp0815]

Hi Johan,

It's exciting to hear about your continued focus on my favorite genre—map games—especially with the emphasis on early community involvement in the development of this unannounced title.
To answer your Question for games that embody the pillars of a believable world, immersion, and replayability Gothic 2 instantly comes to mind for its immersive world, exceptional soundtrack, and the depth of its character interactions and factions, which indeed foster replayability.
But I believe this conversation could already extend beyond seeking parallels in existing games.

Given Paradox's commitment to incorporating community feedback at such an early stage, it's essential to pivot towards a broader vision. Rather than drawing direct comparisons with existing titles that the community admires, it might be more constructive to explore how these pillars can inspire innovation within the framework of what Paradox is known for. The goal should not merely be to replicate the success of games we like but to push the boundaries of what's possible in creating engaging, innovative, map-based games.

In this vein, I envision a game that not only captures the essence of Paradox games strategic depth, akin to elements seen in Victoria 3, but also integrates the dynamic control and real-world implications found in titles like Democracy 4. This approach could redefine immersion by allowing players' indirect actions to have significant, tangible effects on the game's world, further enriching the pillars of a believable world and replayability. Such a game would benefit from a system where even minor adjustments could lead to profound, long-term impacts across a web of interconnected systems, offering a fresh gameplay experience each time.

Tl;dr: Basically, a simulation sandbox with customizable tools that allow for problem solutions on multiple levels with different impacts. Less of "Press the Remove Problem button to remove the problem (costs 10 problem-solving resources)."

 

[Davincie]

If this is a fantasy game, please have set nations. I could get immersed in AOW1-3 as the nations are set, they have a strong identity. Newer games like Millenia and AOW4 with their randomly generated nations where everything goes, they lack connection. I can't immerse myself in it. I can see a nation in 1 match and think they look cool and want to play them. Whereas if you generate you just end up drifting towards optimization.

 

[regne_valencia]

With the rise of new AIs, can we expect significant improvements in the AIs of upcoming video games?

 

[AlfredRWallace]

Keep in mind this thread was posted at 14:53.

Our first clue!

I'm assuming the following is a second clue:

75Gat6Ca0JARLF-eHpc0xp2z3YF0TVk52GfaumAeqLZ6P7oo6xgKIwUNNX9X39fYPtxhQEml5DbEwZNFnEb2S66M9BusrOI4iViiKiE8UzOx_TFSFyA4g2oWc2BC7bADhEKV1NPPQcwiFSchIt2z2mk

Could it be a Caesar cipher?

 

[Harfus]

Well, I'll give my few cents. I want conquered or distant land to always have a bit of friction. I want the people from a place to always leave their impact on it. Like, I don't like how easy it is to just click culture convert in europa, and then see the culture change and unrest go away, with no trace of who was there before.

Especially, the dynamism of a land changing into something new. I love Crusader kings 3's hybrid cultures, because they tell a story of who was there, and who came in. In the same vein, I really liked imperator rome's pops. It took a long time to change a culture, and slaves imported to your cities and capital felt like looking at the mark of a conquest.

Often when playing a paradox game, it feels like our capital cities become these large homogenous places, where we can't see the metropolitan melting pots that large cities are.

I've always been fascinated by the stories that come out of grand strategy games. I hope to see some dynamic and interesting ones.

 

[Ethanol]

My take :

Immersion : it's generally well done in most paradox games because the art and the music are really well done, the maps get more gorgeous to look at with every title and there is a real effort to try to abstract historical phenomenons via mechanics (with some hits and misses but the intention is there).

Its pulled downwards by two factors :
- gamey elements : the best example for that are "eternal modifiers", that these come from national ideas or mission rewards or event rewards they work as long as you follow the intended path the modifier were created for, but they feel quite gamey when you diverge from the historical/intended path. Since you only need to have the conditions for the event/mission whatever you do afterwards doesn't change the bonus you got even if your situation means that the reason behind the bonus doesn't make sense anymore. NI's are even worse in this respect since you can be a georgian siberian nation and have defensive modifiers due to historical mountain forts even though your nation does not have one mountain province owned. Monument are just a "collect them all" thing to get even more op bonuses.
- One way of progress/doing things : whatever country I play in stellaris I (except for a few particular exceptions that are obviously distinct) I always build my fleets in the same manner because nothing in the way my society is structured requires me to adapt my fleet compositions. Same with EU4 : Apart from cav focused nations every nation I play, be it a peasant republic or an absolutist monarchy has the same army composition because there is no reason to do so otherwise (and some of it is logical, but when it permeates every facet of the game such as buildings, ideagroups and tech advancement then it becomes stale because the choices you make fail to have a meaningful impact on the way you play the game).

And i'm not talking about the click button = reward thing that is the most gamey immersion breaker thing ever (and is frustrating since I forget about half of them considering how much they are in EU4).

Replayability : Same as above, as long as the strategy is broadly the same whatever country you take, the only difference is the nation bonuses and the starting positions and that's just duct tape to maintain the illusion a bit longer. HOI4 and V3 manage to avoid part of that issue by the fact that you can't just conquer any province around the world and make it virtually unrecognizable from one of your starting provinces, but that's duct tape too to be honest.

In addition there is the issue that there is no challenge outside of war in EU4 and all other games except for V3 and CK3. It means that not only don't you get any fun if you don't go to war but once you get big enough you just lose all incentive to play because there is no meaningful challenge left and so you start over and over with the same frustrating result that if you don't go to war you get bored but if you do go to war you get bigger and you lose all challenge and get bored.

 

[TheBlahJ]

Could it be a Caesar cipher?

Or just a convoluted file name.

 

[Kongo87]

2024 is the year of Paradox Pinto!