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Tinto Talks #16 - 12th of June 2024

Welcome to another Tinto Talks, you know, the happy Wednesday, where we talk about the top secret and very much unannounced game we refer to as Project Caesar. Today we’ll talk about another rather new, and more or less, unique system.

The Cabinet is one of the core functionalities in the game, covering areas which in previous games have been handled by envoys or mana, or may not have scaled nicely. The Cabinet in Project Caesar is a core part of many aspects of the game.


Last week we talked about characters, and we inferred roles like generals, admirals, rulers and regents. We also mentioned two roles we were not ready to talk about as well. Being in a cabinet, while being a good use of a character is NOT one of those roles, so you still have two other things to look forward to regarding characters.

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Can you trust Sir Robert???

The size of your cabinet varies depending on several factors, the most important though, is how advanced your country is. At the start of the game, most countries will have a cabinet size of two, while every age will add at least one. Some government reforms or laws may also grant a bigger cabinet size, for some other drawbacks.

Who you pick for your cabinet matters as well, as each cabinet member from an estate gives +10% power to that estate. And it may not always be ideal to have a cabinet member of the wrong religion or bad culture, no matter how great they are. One example, includes the fact that the Pope might be upset if you employ an heretic as a Catholic ruler.

There are currently 45 different actions that can be assigned to a cabinet position, and more are added as the game develops. Some of these are always available, some require more advances, and some are unique that only a few have access to. Each action belongs to one of three categories, administrative, diplomatic or military, which determines which attribute is used for it.

Some actions impact the entire country, and some impact a province.

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Increasing control in a single province may be good, but it's but a single province…



How efficient is a cabinet action then? The relevant attribute from the ruler and the cabinet member has a big impact, but your societal values, laws, reforms and even some estate privileges can affect it. Not to mention your crown power.


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If you want people to leave Stockholm, winter is not enough.

Speaking of migration, next week we will talk more in detail about how the pops function when it comes to migration, growth, how they change, and what they need.
 
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I'll talk more about it in detail, but development is a value in a location between 0 and 100% that can increase over time if you build buildings and have high prosperity in a location. Venice is like 40% at the start of the game while Ísafjörður is at 1%.

CK3 "development" is way too much abstraction, nice that in Project Caesar this is alleviated by things like buildings.
 
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What does "development" mean, and what is being represented by your cabinet person arbitrarily increasing it? Is it something like farming efficiency in MEIOU&Taxes 2.X i.e. a collective abstraction for the many subtle influences on rural quality of life and productivity (access to good quality livestock, tools, practical agricultural education, etc) that are too minute to simulate explicitly? It's the best interpretation I can come up with that in not out of place in what was supposed to be a non-abstract economy.
 
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Can I have Glitterhoof as a cabinet member?
 
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1. So you can assign people with roles (general, admiral, etc.) to cabinet, and vice versa, or are these tasks mutually exclusive?
2. Can we help cabinet members to get better at their job, like you can promote advisors in EU4?
3. Also, how does developing a province work? Is it related to pops?

Many thanks!

1 - they can only have one role at a time
2 - no, its not an rpg
3 - no pop relation (except higher developed locations can sustain more pops)
 
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I'll talk more about it in detail, but development is a value in a location between 0 and 100% that can increase over time if you build buildings and have high prosperity in a location. Venice is like 40% at the start of the game while Ísafjörður is at 1%.
Will development decrease for some? Like is there an opposite to prosperity
 
I'll talk more about it in detail, but development is a value in a location between 0 and 100% that can increase over time if you build buildings and have high prosperity in a location. Venice is like 40% at the start of the game while Ísafjörður is at 1%.

Please PLEASE tell me there's ways to lower development? Especially if population falls.
 
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Sorry if I missed it,
Do these characters also have traits that affect their ability to function as Cabinet members? Or will the actions be based on their stats alone?

Also is there a 'Loyalty' mechanic between characters? I see the "can you trust Sir Robert" haha

Thanks as always. Really looking forward to all of this :)
 
So, since Johan expects us to discuss about the screenshot...

From top to bottom, I'm not sure what the three icons on the top are about. They look like things that are constantly here, not buttons, not mere modifiers. Maybe it is to remind you that this is a monarchy, the second one is administrative efficiency and I have no idea about the third one.

Then we of course have the religion and flag or crest of the country (the flag should be bigger, imho)
You have the name, age and sex of the character.

The calendar-like icon may be in order to review the important dates of the life of the character. The next three icons are of course his stats from last week. The golden rings icon should be in order to marry him. Two of the three icons may be his traits. The last one is probably a spare trait not yet rolled. And the "8" below the child is obviously the heir and his (her, I believe) age. The triangle icon should be for her education, and probably shows very simply which branche she is on right now.

Then you have a general screen that changes depending on which panel you are interested in. We already know there are estates and cabinet, but this TT confirms there will be a Parliement (or legislative body, probably), "politics", meaning whatever it means, and values are probably the societal values.

You have a value of "cabinet efficiency", influenced by... something, the cabinet size that was discussed in the TT.

Then you have the various advisors, their skills, and their current tasks and ages.

Now, my only fear with that system is that for big, or even medium size empires, just a few cabinet members will quickly feel like you don't have enough to improve your country.

edit : I was missing the medal icon at the top. I also have no idea about it.
 
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How does expelling pops work? Is it so you can spread your population from one location over your entire nation? Can you choose for the expelling of pops or encouragement of migration to only apply to specific cultures and religions?

expel pops is to make people move away from one province
 
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Sad to see 'diplomatic reputation' make a return since it's really a meaningless modifier that confers magical benefits. It should only be based on your actual reputation (broken agreements, unfair peace deals, etc.) and not some guy sitting there with an 'Diplomatic Relations' task checked. Even then, it should only be indicative. If a player can ignore it freely, the AI shouldn't be affected by it either.

could call it "diplomatic skill" instead
 
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Can the cabinet stop you from doing this you want to do (a la Conclave, the best CK2 DLC)? Or perhaps affect negatively your goals in some way?

No. this is not ck
 
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Sad to see 'diplomatic reputation' make a return since it's really a meaningless modifier that confers magical benefits. It should only be based on your actual reputation (broken agreements, unfair peace deals, etc.) and not some guy sitting there with an 'Diplomatic Relations' task checked. Even then, it should only be indicative. If a player can ignore it freely, the AI shouldn't be affected by it either.
I mean I like the general idea. You have a very skillful guy whose job is to gaslight everyone that us constantly breaking up with our allies is their fault, but YOU are special and we'll have everything different together.

Peak diplomacy
 
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I have a suggestion for the UI, could the cabinet actions be separated by stat (adm/dip/mil)? something like when adding the national ideas for a custom nation in eu4, I think it would be better than a big alphabetical list with all the actions, too much scrolling down
 
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In lategame imperator there's the problem of simply not having enough characters (or having ones with terrible stats only) in your nation to cover much needed roles, how has this problem been resolved here?
 
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