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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.


burgher_capacity.png

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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Within a market yes
Can you explain why it makes sense to limit migration to within a market? If folks are on the edge of a market, it seems more likely they'd move to a wealthier province nextdoor in the other market than move halfway across Germany for example to a wealthier area within the same one. Also, wouldn't comparative wealth of markets influence migration between them same as between provinces?
 
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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.
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.
 
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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.
 
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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.
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?
 
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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"?
 
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Speaking about migration. If migration is only in market, will the instance of pop migrating after a hostile conquest be depicted ?Like the heavy rajputs migration to Himalayas after the siege of chittorgh?
 
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Speaking about migration. If migration is only in market, will the instance of pop migrating after a hostile conquest be depicted ?Like the heavy rajputs migration to Himalayas after the siege of chittorgh?
It's not only in market.

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.
 
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Also, like said before, if migration happens only inside the market if we create a new market or colonize a new land the pops will only be ale to move inside the territory of said market or owned land of the nation? We won't be able to attract pops from outside the market?
 
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You plan to tell us when the release of this game or at least its name. Even if we know that it is Europa Universalis V it seems to be dev diaries like during the development of other games a year before their release. is it coming out in 2025?
 
This is from 1475:
View attachment 1150618
Was it AI generated because many of the fingers look way too long and deformed, and some hands appear to only have 4 fingers?
I'm not saying that it's 100% not AI-generated, but hands not looking 100% correct isn't enough to say that a picture was AI-generated.
Use your eyes and see that even if it's not 100% photorealistic, you don't have 5 fingers showing when the thumb is missing and everything is cohesive and has a reason for being there, all the basics are there. Open your eyes and actually look.

The reason you see 4 fingers is because you can see that the thumb is supposed to be hidden from view, it's how it's supposed to look in that case.
 
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Use your eyes and see that even if it's not 100% photorealistic, you don't have 5 fingers showing when the thumb is missing and everything is cohesive and has a reason for being there, all the basics are there. Open your eyes and actually look.

The reason you see 4 fingers is because you can see that the thumb is supposed to be hidden from view, it's how it's supposed to look in that case.
Maybe you should open your eyes and read the post by one of the artists responsible for these pictures, who clearly stated that these weren't AI generated?

You bunch of geniuses who think that all imperfections in art must mean it's AI generated completely blown tf out. As always, people love talking about things they have no clue about.
 
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So, enjoying so far. Trying to not get too hyped.

My main concerns at this point are: optimization (please, Vic 3 is an example of what not to do) and warfare (again, Vic 3 is an example of what not to do).
 
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Will tribesmen pops "use up" more or different amounts of the Population Capacity of a location? Nomadic and semi-nomadic agricultural methods had a substantially lower yield per unit surface area than intensive sedentary "civilized" agricutural packages of the early modern era, which is why 'tribal' societies generally had lower population densities than fully settled Europeans or Asians. On the flipside, some very marginal land is only suitable for herding, with conventional farming outright impossible so it shouldn't be possible to replace X number of desert camel herders with the same number of farmers in the Sahara.
 
Ethicists and legalists are generally in agreement when the question is "can a company use someone else's artwork without asking them"?

I believe there is more to use of AI than just infringement of the intellectual monopoly... some of those are perfectly legal.
 
While this happened historically, I'm a bit ambivalent about portraying "culture x is better at Y than Z"
As a counterpoint, there are instances where migration occurred due to one culture being perceived as "less valuable," namely my own culture of Burgenland Croatian. Following the Hungarian defeat at Mohacs in 1526, much of the frontier between the Ottomans and Hungary (namely Croatia) became devastated, alongside the border region between Hungary and Austria as the Ottomans tried to push their advance towards Vienna in 1529. As a result, the Austrian nobility decided to invite specifically Croatian nobles to settle that border along with their serfs, partially to use as a buffer and partially to repopulate the area from the even more devastated Slavonia region. Wikipedia's page on the Burgenland Croats is a good starting point, but I can certainly point towards other sources as well if needed during the Carpathia Tinto Maps. Considering my own background rooted in internal migration, this is still a mechanic I'd like to see.
 
As a counterpoint, there are instances where migration occurred due to one culture being perceived as "less valuable," namely my own culture of Burgenland Croatian. Following the Hungarian defeat at Mohacs in 1526, much of the frontier between the Ottomans and Hungary (namely Croatia) became devastated, alongside the border region between Hungary and Austria as the Ottomans tried to push their advance towards Vienna in 1529. As a result, the Austrian nobility decided to invite specifically Croatian nobles to settle that border along with their serfs, partially to use as a buffer and partially to repopulate the area from the even more devastated Slavonia region. Wikipedia's page on the Burgenland Croats is a good starting point, but I can certainly point towards other sources as well if needed during the Carpathia Tinto Maps. Considering my own background rooted in internal migration, this is still a mechanic I'd like to see.

The problem is that for the game, we would have to create a hierarchy of cultures that would not be acceptable to the modern population. I may think of some system that could be less problematic but it would take time.