Tinto Talks #18 - 26th of June 2024

[Johan]

So from what i understand, changing a policy completely removes the original policy’s buff?

si claro

 

[Johan]

Will England/GB have a special form of parliament or will it just be represented by the generic parliament mechanic?

they have some more or less unique aspects

 

[Johan]

That is an awesome way to collaborate! I hope it all pays off, so it can set a nice precedent. It is looking highly promising so far.

I kind of like it.

Usually, we have "playtime" from 15-17 on wednesdays, and after people gather in the meeting room or the garden depending on weather and start discussing gameplay feedback or a topic from the backlog. I usually don't attend for the first 35-40 minutes, as people may listen to me a lot, and I don't want to bias the creativity, and then I enter for 5-10 minutes to listen to what they have come up with and go "doable, "not doable, "you have to think about X or Y", and then let them continue for 30-45 more minutes talking, and then eventually we get notes at maybe 1/2 to 2 pages that often enough gets into the game.

My team has become really good at ironing out what will work and what will be good now after a few years of this.. And it makes me, who is soon 50 years old and maybe have 2 decades left working, happy to know I got so many great people here at Tinto that knows how to make good game design decisions..

I so LOVE my team at Tinto, so talented and great individuals!

 

[Johan]

An excellent, meaty dev diary. I love how laws are going to work in Project Caesar.

I was a bit worried that people would complain, as I'm only talking about a single feature this time..

 

[Johan]

Damnn you guys trying to make game with 600 years range . 1337-1936 . Im sure news paper are not even for napoleonic era . this game will contain ck3/eu4/vic3/hoi4 combined

I actually based the design of 18th century sweden, and saw it was applicable to most of europe during that time

 

[Johan]

If we are going from Same Religious group (-10%) to Any Religious Group (-50%), on change of the law do we (a) reset to 0% and 'grow' to -50% over time (or ~2% per month assuming 24 month 'enactment'); or (b) go start from -10% 'grow' to -50% (~1.66% per month)?

you will lose the -10% immediately.

but then you start at (iirc) 10% of the next bonus so its -5% or so.. so for a short period they have a better target satisfaction.

 

[Johan]

@Johan Please, I'm really begging for an answer, is there an option to have the name of the overlord sprawl over their subject lands like in CK2?

to not show the subject name at all?

sure, I guess its doable.

 

[Johan]

Well that guy is a genius. Because changes taking time to implement is one of the most important things for strategy.

That's by far one the worst things in EU4, most things are instant. You can turn a small village into the biggest city in the world in 1 day.

So thank you, Markus.

He is great, but so are all at my team. I am so in awe of what they are creating.

 

[Johan]

Enacting policy will cost money, but where does those money go to? Do they disappear in the air?

To the same place the money building ships or roads or buildings go to.

 

[Johan]

In your long history of working at Paradox, what is the worst idea someone has ever had (for any game) that they were completely serious about?

I don't recall ideas that I rejected.

 

[Johan]

That's a bit of an ambivalent statement though, either you don't remember bad ideas or you didn't reject any

I have the nickname "NO-han" for a reason.

 

[Pavía]

@Pavía Unrelated to today's TT, but what was the topic of your dissertation?

“The royal towns and the administrative structure of Castile and Leon. Power and society in the reign of Alfonso X (1252-1284)”.

 

[Pavía]

I just hope "unique" laws make sense (like the Papacy one), and aren't things that could easily be enacted elsewhere, but kept as "unique" for flavour reason.

'Unique' means 'non-generic', sometimes country-tied (e.g. Papal succession), and sometimes culture or region-tied (e.g. Turkish succession). The first uses a more restrictive trigger, while the second is more open.

 

[Pavía]

Why would the most Catholic majesty want to become an heretic? Please help me @Pavía

IDK, you can't even have a proper Inquisition in that case...

 

[Pavía]

How do you decide what's to be a unique law tied and locked to a certain tag, and what's to be broadly available but locked behind stringent requirements? I like the looks of things but would prefer it if the implementation of a "unique" law might be tied to a rare opportunity and perfect combination of skilful advisors and cultural & environmental circumstances, so to enable the RNG machine to produce super rare circumstances of e.g. a "non-Ottoman" adopting some rare extra good "Ottoman" law?

This is a good question. Usually, our thought process is to identify first what could be considered unique flavor content; then, we think about the triggers for it to be applied and thus decide if it's something country-related, culture-related, religion-related, etc. If, let's say, the institutional combination that would lead to it triggering is deemed too complex, or simplified through other means, then it may be simplified in a certain way.

Let's put an example of something that I've already mentioned a few times in this thread (IDK why so much, but whatever). 'Inquisition Law', which is unlocked by [REDACTED], currently has two default policies for all the Catholic countries, 'Papal Control' and ''Local Courts'. There were a few institutional advances in some parts of the Catholic world that led to 'State Inquisitors'; one of the triggers of it is not being the Pope (obviously), and the other is culture-tied (as a way of simplifying those institutional advances), making it available, among others, to Iberian countries. But then other institutional advances made the Inquisition a key institution in early modern Spain, for several reasons; we've simplified those into being the country 'Spain', which is a formable one with its own set of triggers to be formed, which therefore has another policy, 'Spanish Inquisition', available to pick.

Obviously, the different sets of triggers, and what deserves to be content for country, culture, religion, etc. may be a matter of discussion, but I hope that I've clarified the way we work with unique content.

 

[Pavía]

Hello devs, Pier here, I am a PhD Candidate in Law with a focus on comparative law. I think that the concept of Civil law is a little too simplicistic and it may represent well the evolution of this systems. Before the 19th century it may be considered even premature. I would recommend a few changes and I am happy to write something more extensive and with the appropriate academic references.

-most Catholic countries deployed the so called Utrumque jus, "the one and the other laws", namely Canon Law and Civil (Roman) Law. The latter based mostly on the Justinian code. Canon Law was not limited to religious matters, but had the monopoly over many concrete aspects of life (from family relations to education, but also the limits to the sovereign's powers). At the same time, local customs were also legal sources to complement these two laws. In game, this legal system should reduce the power of the monarch and centralisation. The first major shift is the Reformation, with princes taking control also of the rulemaking of what was before under Canon Law. After all, national churches were under their control (is there a law in game for religious organisation and governance?). The Enlightenment brought the idea of codifying the law and therefore monopolising its production. On the one hand, the spirit of the encyclopedia and the desire to make laws understandable and predictable to cast aside the intricacies of multilayered legal sources (national/local/religious; written/customary). On the other, the centralising impetus in favour of the Legislator (be them an absolutist monarch or a Parliament embodying the nation). I think that only with the early codes (the Code Napoléon is the most prestigious of them) we have the civil law as we understand it today. In game, this should result in more crown authority and centralisation.

Hello Pier! Happy to discuss a bit about medieval comparative law (I had to do some readings about it for one of the chapters of my dissertation).

As you say, Utrumque jus constitutes the legal basis for most of our period, until the 'Napoleonic Legal Revolution'. But something that is usually not so well known is that there was a first codifying movement, in this case of the Civil (Roman) Law of the 'Reception', in the 12th and 13th centuries. Examples of this are the Liber Augustalis, the Siete Partidas, the Magnus Lagabøtes landslov, etc. These codes were all based upon the principle of rex est imperator in regno suo, and established the primacy of the rulers to set the civil law of their countries, and a precedence of the different legal systems cohabiting in them (royal law, consuetudinary law, feudal law, etc.). It's upon those that we've based the Civil Law policy in our game:

"Civil Law, a legal system with roots in ancient Rome, is known for its precise written codification of laws and regulations. However, the rigidity of its structure can hinder the adaptation required to address the evolving needs of the people. Nonetheless, Civil Law can bring peace and stability to even the most turbulent of lands."

 

[Pavía]

Wow, I just paid attention, that the rulers have epithets by their name. I suppose they are dynamically generated? How big is the base for the nicknames?

Big. We're trying to have as many as possible added for the historical starting characters, and then to have a common dynamic database of nicknames.

 

[SaintDaveUK]

Can the parliament have a different name for monarchies at least. Same functions just call it something else please.

Why? The name 'Parliament' originated in monarchies of this era.

 

[SaintDaveUK]

suggetsion: what about that each parliament would have its name different in different countries(like you do with locations) like Poland's parliament name will be Sejm, Castile's will be Cortes Sweden's will be Riksdag etc?

We do that already Any more suggestions for parliament names?

 

[SaintDaveUK]

That's a bit of an ambivalent statement though, either you don't remember bad ideas or you didn't reject any

He's just being polite, I know I come up with several bad ideas every day