Tinto Talks #17 - 19th of June 2024

[Johan]

How do food and food-related raw materials interact?
Is food entirely just for population growth/starvation? And raw materials like wheat are consumed for satisfaction? Why can't pops just consume more generic food for satisfaction instead of needing specific goods like wheat or livestock?

food = survive

different food types = happy

 

[Johan]

How does goods discovery work? Pops don't want tobacco initially because they don't know about it, but what happens once a European in the New World decides to try to smoke it? Will the whole continent back home suddenly have nicotine cravings like there's no tomorrow, or will it permeate slowly?

Its a threshold before it grows

 

[Johan]

Is it possible for your provinces to get negative migrant attraction due to the actions of nearby/neighboring countries?

yes

 

[Johan]

How likely we will ever see a dev clash on this very secret game ?

Greater than 0.

 

[Johan]

And if they're killed off in battle are they just replaced by promoting peasants?

over time

 

[Johan]

The way I understand it...
If a pop has better literacy, it receives better positive effect from a low market price, or greater negative effect from having overpriced goods, from whatever the standard price of a good is set as in the game files.
So if you're market is garbage, ignorance is bliss?

Yes

 

[Pavía]

Hi there! A side note on the 'tribesmen' pop concept, and why we chose it. The design vision for them is more or less what has been stated: people with a parallel social organization, which is not exactly the same as that of the majority of their country; in game terms, it means that they can't work on RGOs, buildings, etc. We discussed internally what would be the best possible term for them, and we obviously took a look at the trends in Social Anthropology research. We decided to go for 'Tribesmen' for the pop and 'Tribes' for the estate as they're still useful anthropological concepts; however, they obviously need to be used with caution, as the state of the art is not the same today as it was in the 1950s and 60s; a good starting point to know more about the controversy that is the Wikipedia page, as usual.

And precisely because of that, we've tried to be careful about how they're described as a game concept:

tribesmen_desc: "These represent communities that populate [rural_locations|e], subsisting on their own as farmers, shepherds, or hunter-gatherers, and that we can hardly govern, since they maintain their own differentiated social structures and organization."
tribes_estate_desc: "This estate represents the different tribes and clans present in our [country|e]. They are traditionally organized into lineages and kinship groups scattered throughout rural areas, who live and work in very diverse ways. Their distance and relative independence from the main centers of power make them difficult to govern, while their distinct customs give them a reputation as fearsome and unruly warriors."

 

[Pavía]

@Pavía Since you're here right now, can you alleviate my worries and tell me that the HRE map thread isn't planned for the 28th?
I wouldn't have time to post my many pages of research or join discussions for a week or so...

No, it will be a different region.

 

[Pavía]

Please tell me you're not seriously basing your game mechanics on the Wikipedia, Jesus Christ....

No, I'm basing these game concepts I've written on the Social Anthropology courses and readings I took while doing my Degree, Masters, and PhD. in History (and even with that, it may still be a matter of discussion, as any academic topic). But for the people who might not have taken those readings and would be interested in expanding their knowledge about the matter, it is a good starting point, which were the exact words I've used.

 

[SaintDaveUK]

The topic of generative AI has come up a few times so I think it's worth addressing. As with any tech company, we try to be at the forefront of technology as it comes. Everyone in tech is encouraged to use tools to boost their efficiency where possible, whether it's through software or technique. When it comes to illustration, we also use every tool available to us, from reference image libraries, new software features, and yes, the newfangled generative AI.

But the goal is that none of this is ever visible to the player, whether its the latest Photoshop plugins, 3D Blender bases, or AI. They are just part of the process to speed illustrators up. This speed is the best way to meet player expectations of a varied game with lots of visual content and variety.

Furthermore I can say with certainty that many of the illustrations shown have not actually had AI used at any point in the process, and neither are all the elements highlighted as AI actually AI. To be blunt, so far the community's detection of AI has been quite inaccurate. Most things that are suspected as AI are certainly not, and some things which indeed have an AI base are not picked up on by the community at all. This heightened alertedness to AI is understandable though, with the times we are going through.

With the illustrations that we intend to show small on the UI (e.g. every image shown so far in Tinto Talks), there are inevitable shortcuts taken on inconsequential details that won't be discerned at a small size, due to time restrictions. These shortcuts will be taken whether we have AI available to use or not, as they are not visible at the size they are shown ingame. And then we have another category, that is simple mistakes made by the artists, and me as their lead.

Critically, none of the images shown in Tinto Talks have been designed to be zoomed in on and have tiny details circled. Those details and mistakes would never actually be visible in the end product when they are scaled to proper size, about 25% screen width, and actual player experience ingame is our paramount driving force behind the art we make.

We share with you the images from the game (which, like the rest of the game, are in various stages of development) which our artists feel most match the theme of the talk. We don't choose only those that we hold up as final top quality fullscreen marketing material, because that's not what Tinto Talks is about and it never will be.

That said, we have taken your feedback onboard and we will work a little more to make all images meet your expectations. Because that kind of dialogue is what Tinto Talks is about.

 

[SaintDaveUK]

My concern is the same as every artist. That the generative AI tools rely only on models that were trained without copyrighted material, so no plagiarism can take place. Some generative AI providers offer models trained 100% on the public domain (or otherwise on images that they acquired the rights for). Adobe is not one of these companies, of course.

As long as creative rights are being respected, and the resulting artwork is good, I don't mind new and upcoming technology being used, as long as the shortcuts you're taking are entirely ethical.

Naturally. We have VERY strict rules for ethical use of AI developed by our legal department. The list of approved services doesn't even need a scrollbar.

 

[SaintDaveUK]

Why does the legal department determin the ethicality of anything? Everything that is legal is ethical? Why is there no ethical department or equivalant (internal or external) or alternatively, why do they work under the legal departmen?

Ethicists and legalists are generally in agreement when the question is "can a company use someone else's artwork without asking them"?