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Tinto Talks #17 - 19th of June 2024

Welcome everyone to the 17th Tinto Talks, in this Happy Wednesday, we will give you further information about the most secret game you could ever think of, the one with the codename Project Caesar.

Today we will delve into the depths and mechanics of how the population system of the game actually works.

As a recap, we have 6 different social classes, with Nobles, Clergy & Burghers viewed as upper class, while Peasants, Tribesmen & Slaves make up the other three. Every location has a population, and each combination of social class, culture and religion creates a unique “pop” in the game. That Pop may contain 1 person, or 250 Million, but it is still referred to as a “pop”.


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Design copied from an old game I made a decade or two ago… UI is a bit placeholdery, but i like the browsing capabilities..


Population Capacity
Each location has a population capacity which depends on quite a lot of factors. The core of it is vegetation, topography and climate, while the amount of buildings and development increases it as well. If your population is higher than its current capacity, then there is a very large impact on its migration attraction and population growth.

While there are no restrictions on how many peasants, slaves or tribesmen there can be in a single location, the amount of upper class pops there can be is limited, and depends on what infrastructure there exists for that type of pop. Of course, if their estates have money, they tend to want to construct buildings that increase how many they are to further increase their power in the country.

There are reasons why you want upper class pops, and not just always creating an egalitarian “all are peasants” society, and that is when the capital economy developing during this era depends heavily on burghers, so you want to have a fair amount of those. You also want clergy of your national religion as they will help with stability, and having nobles of proper culture will help with your diplomacy and warfare.


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Having levies raised from a specific class, reduces the maximum population there can be for that certain class.


Promotion & Demotion
If there can be more pops of a certain social class, pops will promote to become that class over time. While there is a base value, promoting to some classes like nobles will just be a fraction of that each month. If you wish to speed this up in your country, you can use a cabinet member to increase it. There are many factors that impact how quickly pops can be promoted, some are affecting your entire country, some others are more local, like during Devastation or a Lack of Control. Demotion happens when you have pops over your capacity, and will happen much, much quicker than promotion.

promotion.png

16 peasants will be promoted every month to become what is needed in Kalmar...


Population Growth
Only peasants and tribesmen grow organically on their own, but all types of pops can die off from negative growth.

Overpopulation, Lack of food, War exhaustion and Devastation have a significant negative impact on population growth, while having access to free land & lots of food increases the growth.

Not to forget, the population can die directly from diseases and warfare as well.

pop_growth.png

Peaceful and nice, the population should grow nicely here…


Assimilation
Assimilation is a very slow process, and pops will assimilate to the primary culture in core locations if they belong to a culture that your country does not appreciate. Societal Values and Lack of Control have a significant impact on this, but there are buildings and other things that can impact it. In most majorly populated areas the natural growth of pops will outpace the assimilation. However, there is a cabinet action where you can increase assimilation in a specific province.

monthly_assimilation.png

Sadly this is a slow process in this location, 3 pops will assimilate next month..

Conversion
Converting pops works similarly to assimilation, but there are two major differences. First of all, there are mechanics and systems that sometimes change the religion of pops from what your country may desire. Secondly, there is normally no conversion, but you have to actively enforce religious conversion in a province by using a cabinet. The amount of the population that convert each month depends on what type of buildings you may have, your societal values, laws you can enact, or the privileges given to the clergy. If your clergy is very powerful as well, conversion is quicker.

monthly_conversion.png

103,26% of 0 base conversion is still going to be 0 pops.

Migration
There are several ways for pops to migrate, multiple ones regarding the colonization aspect of the game will be talked about in a later Tinto Talks. There is also content that does migration, where events, disasters or other scripted content will set up specific migration from one place to another.

However, there is also a natural migration mechanic, where the population will move between locations. Pops will move away from locations that have a negative migration attraction, and will go to one with higher migration attraction in the same market. Upper class pops are usually allowed to migrate, while not many countries allow their peasants to move freely.

As for other things, you can use your cabinet to control this, where you can have one member of the cabinet leading an effort to expel people from one province, severely reducing their migration attraction, while another one could attract people to another province. You can also construct buildings in lowly populated locations to attract pops to move there.

migration_attraction.png

The price of stone in Kalmar is not inviting, but it's calm and plenty of land is available..


Literacy
Each pop keeps track of its own literacy as well, and there are buildings, advances, laws and other things that impact how quickly it can grow and how high it can be. The average literacy of a country has an impact on the research speed of that country, and the literacy of a pop has some impact on its satisfaction. However, there is also an immediate impact on the location of the average literacy of all of the same social class. Amongst other things, the average literacy of the nobles in a location has an impact on how quickly control can increase there, and the average literacy of slaves in a location increases the unrest of the location.

literacy.png

Literate Burghers will definitely make you richer over the long term..


Population Needs
Each pop has its own needs for goods, and if they can’t get all of those goods, their satisfaction will be lower. The goods that a pop requires depend on their social class, their culture, their religion and where they live. They also may start caring about goods when they know about them, as the demand for tobacco will only appear in Europe when the pops actually know about it. Obviously people in colder climates want more lumber or coal, while a Jain pop is not wanting any fur at all.

pop_needs.png

I am not entirely sure why these burghers want mercury…

Satisfaction
The population needs impact their satisfaction in two ways. If they can't get the goods that they want, it's a penalty to their satisfaction. However, the prices of the goods also affect their satisfaction, as if the prices are high, then satisfaction drops, but if you can get the goods they require cheaper in the market they live in, their satisfaction will increase, but their literacy impacts how much they understand the price impact though.

Satisfaction also depends heavily on the status of their culture in the country, the religion they belong to, and how satisfied their estate currently is. There are other ways to make pops more satisfied like certain buildings, or the good old method of stationing armies.

Pops with low satisfaction will join and start supporting a rebel faction.


satisfaction.png

Of course, these poor pops lack one of the most important things in life.

Even though pops may not be upset enough to rebel, their satisfaction has other impacts, as the average satisfaction of all pops in a location has an impact on prosperity and control.


average_satisfaction.png

Here even the paradox maths check out!


Stick around, as next week we’ll be talking a bit about laws!
 

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This Tinto Talk is about pops, not governments. Tribesmen pops are people who live outside of the simulated economy of settled civilization.
I don't see *who* is in this situation, how many huntergatherers were there in europe in 1337 ? I know some monastic orders were living far away from towns and autonomously, but that would be a very small amount of people, are there considered tribesmen or clergy ?

And that's for tribesmen, i was asking about "tribe" as in "tribe governement" from tintomaps on ireland.
 
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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."
 
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I found just now the topic where they were mentionned and this was explained, and i'm okay with that because that's a lot of small local comunity ruling it covers.

But what about the tribe governement ? How is it different from a kingdom, even if reaaaaally decentralised ? Is it a "council of elders", then it's kinda an oligarchy. If it's common decisions from the "tribe" then it's a republic.
 
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A problem you'll run into with naming the people on the peripheral, is that main society will generally make the words to describe them slurs. I don't think tribesmen is with problematic connotations I also doubt there's a better term.
 
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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."
Well since you mentioned it, what is the effect of "|e" used here?
Modding question basically :p
 
Hands have always been notoriously hard to draw for humans, and I don't see any obvious signs of AI, like additional fingers, in these examples.
Dude that's been a consensus since pretty much the first drawing they've released in conjunction with a TT that the art has been generated by AI

Check this out, for example. No human would make these mistakes:
1717129566915128.png

Personally, I don't mind. PDX has been for years citing budgetary reasons for packing little content into their DLCs, especially for the other franchises (they've been doing it over the week in the CK3 subforum), and I'd prefer them to spend more of their budget on mechanics and events — actual tangible flavour — rather than on paying artists for art that isn't that important in this type of game and doesn't really have to be of a high quality anyway
 
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@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. ;)
 
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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. ;)
 
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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. ;)

i would also be interested to know which features or approach makes this version better/ stand out than the one before, so we can early course correct at least im looking for a healthy dose of realism and therefore more replayability, where can we post features we would like to see in the game?
 
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Great dev blog, you guys are doing good work. Just a couple of things though, firstly I agree with other people in saying there should be a distinction between the different types of peasants. Lumping them all as peasants instead of peasants, serfs, and commoners or something along those lines just feels a bit lazy to me. The other thing is when speaking about migration you mention that many countries do not allow their peasants to move freely. Seeing as the peasantry makes up like 98% of most countries, are you saying that 98% of the population of most countries can't migrate? Or can they just not migrate out of their country to another country within their market? If they simply aren't able to migrate, does that still apply even under exigent circumstances such as devastation from warfare? Do these things change later on in the game such as the enlightenment era?
 
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Hope you change the fact that there is normally no conversion it makes conversion feel to artificial to me. Maybe make it just like base 2 or 2.5.

So it remains slow but you won't need a cabinet to enact conversion. It feels too much like 1.0 Imperator.
I tend to disagree. There are lots of examples of vast territories and populaces that were under monarchs of a different religion for centuries and still did not convert - Ireland under Anglican England, the Indian Hindus under the Mughals, Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria under the Ottomans are a few obvious examples.

Of course, it should be possible to convert POPs to your religion, and there should probably be other means and factors than just the cabinet, since large-scale conversions did happen in the EU4 era. It just shouldn't be something that happens naturally always and everywhere, which is what a base conversion speed would do.

Cultural assimilation, on the other hand, is something that I would very much prefer to be much harder and rarer than in EU4.
 
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"Market price of Raw Materials here" affecting Migration attraction. Isn't the market price of a good set at the market level? With market access simply deciding which locations gets first dibs?

Meaning that this modifier is the same for the entire market, which is the only place anyone can migrate to. What am I missing here?
 
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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.
 
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"Market price of Raw Materials here" affecting Migration attraction. Isn't the market price of a good set at the market level? With market access simply deciding which locations gets first dibs?

Meaning that this modifier is the same for the entire market, which is the only place anyone can migrate to. What am I missing here?
As far as i understand it, it is based on the price of the Raw Materials produced in the specific location. That means if a location is producing fish costing 2 and a different location is producing gems costing 7 the one with the gems will be more attractive to migrating pops as there are better opportunities there