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Tinto Talks #18 - 26th of June 2024

Welcome everyone to another Tinto Talks. This is the time of the week where we will be focusing on gathering your helpful feedback on how to shape this secret game with the code name of Project Ceasar together.

Today we will get back into politics, and discuss how Laws function in this game. Sadly, when this is going live, I’m technically on vacation, so might not be able to reply. The good news for you though, is that @SaintDaveUK and @Pavía are more than happy to reply.

We have had various forms of laws in previous grand strategy games, everything from deciding how the Upper House in Victoria 2 is composed to simpler things like decisions “The Education Act” in EU3 that gave you a permanent bonus. In Project Caesar what we define as a Law is something that has 2 or more policies to choose from, and where you can change the policy for a cost.

Many Laws have lots of unique policies that are available for certain tags, religions, cultures or other unique restrictions.

Currently most countries start with about 12-15 laws that they have policies on from the start, and there are about 40 more laws that appear over the ages.

law_categories.png

Four different administrative laws here, all for the ideal way to run our country.

Enacting a policy for a new law is merely a cost in gold, but changing a policy is far more costly. At a base cost of 100 stability, it's rather costly, and while a high crown power reduces it, having low crown power, which would be very common in the early part of the game, would increase that cost further.

So how do you pass a law then without plunging your country into chaos? Call in the Parliament and convince them to approve law changes! How that works in detail we will talk about when we talk about parliaments.

Also to take into account is that while you immediately will lose the benefits of the previous policy, enacting a new policy takes time. Depending on your administrative efficiency it can take several years until you reap the full benefits of a +1% Tax Efficiency, just like in real life..

Not only countries have laws, many international organizations have laws as well, where in some of them it's something the leader like The Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire could enact on their own, in some there are specific countries that can vote on the policy being approved or not, and many more options possible. We will go into details about those when we talk about specific International Organizations.

So what type of policies do we have in the laws? Well, they are not just modifier-stacks like many things in previous games, but they enable and disable mechanics, they make estates happy or unhappy, and have impact on your societal values.

Here are a few examples of laws.

The Levy Law here is an interesting choice. 2% more of the peasants is a fair bit more than 20% of the nobles, but over time it has an impact over what your military focuses on.

levy_law.png

Or is it a way to kill nobles more efficiently?

Naval Doctrines was a concept in EU4, and here it is a law with lots of different options depending on who you play as.
naval_doctrine.png

Wooden Wall, the best for England right?

Your Legal Code has many different options depending on who you play, but as England you definitely have the important choice.

common_law.png

More efficient government or more happy estates? or just the traditions?

In the later part of the game, the Press Laws is something you have to decide upon..

press_laws.png

This is a tough choice, isn't it?

If you go with free press, the burghers might start building these in different towns and cities.
local_newspaper.png

There should be no drawbacks to this... right? right???

Here is an example of a religious law, about what religion your heirs can belong to.
heir_laws.png

Clearly the clergy are not as tolerant as they need to be.



Speaking of Heirs, the “Succession Law” mechanic is not technically a law, but uses another mechanic, primarily because we want to always ensure that it's valid, and enforcing a country to always have one. This Special Law is very much dependent on government type.

We have lots of unique ones, like the Papal Conclave, where when the pope dies, the cardinals gather to debate who will be the new pope. This can be quick, but sometimes it may take several years. We have different election methods for republics, and of course the old classic Salic and Semi-Salic Laws as some of the options for Monarchies.
salic_law.png

A difference on view of this will never cause any wars I'm sure..

For all of you that like to modify games, all of these are 100% controlled from textfiles.

Stay tuned, because next week we will finally talk about ages and institutions, which is something we have hinted at for many weeks.
 
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Johan keeps hyping me up. This is even better than I expected for the DD, very informative, great mechanics.

I love the trade-offs laws and values will provide. I also very much like that things are not instanteneous and it takes time to take effect. It makes the game be more about long term strategy and commitment rather than short term button click for benefits.

I can't take credit for the "laws, privileges, etc should take time to implement" idea, as that was the idea of one our content designers, Markus, who suggested it during it during one of our weekly brainstorming sessions.

We work with game design a bit differently here at Tinto where we have no dedicated game-designers/ideas-guys, but everyone can and do shape the features to the game. I'm there to make sure we follow the vision we set out, and be able to make the final "yes/no" decision, but Project Caesar is truly a collaborative design effort by our great team here in Sitges.
 
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pretty sure the appanage goes back to be a part of france then.

What does it mean for the player when playing as an appanage that is annexed by France?
 
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I'm not a zealous 3D hater but honestly these look awful. Especially the babies.

The babies are literally a 2d image :p
 
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If you have a government type with an upper house and lower house will you need to get support from upper house to pass a law like in victoria 2? where you need more than 50% to pass a law. Not sure how parties would work, but it should be possible to not be able to pass laws because your vehicle of government is deadlocked, like poland-lithuania towards the latter years of its life.
Relatedly, do different governments/laws mean you need different percentages approval in your parliament to pass law changes? If certain types require very high approval, and foreign powers can use espionage/bribes to made your parliament oppose you a bit, you would need to eat big stab hits every time you wanted to change a law. That would allow the paralysis and fall of Poland-Lithuania to be organically simulated!
 
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The more I read about EUV the less I'm able to play EUIV to which I returned after learning EUV is finally in the works (some sort of a farewell after decades of fun). EUV looks like a total upgrade of every aspect so far.
 
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Are there any other Legal Codes besides the 3 listed (civil, common, traditional)? I would imagine at least Sharia and Chinese (I’m sure a better name could be picked) should be there, as well. Maybe even Napoleonic as an ‘upgrade’ to Civil.

Also, I love how you’ve systematized something that was ad hoc across many other games. Almost always a good thing. I hope you can expand upon the importance of picking a legal code. It is more than just a law but the entire framework through which all other law is established and codified and maintained. It really should influence the other laws you adopt in some fashion.
 
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We work with game design a bit differently here at Tinto where we have no dedicated game-designers/ideas-guys, but everyone can and do shape the features to the game. I'm there to make sure we follow the vision we set out, and be able to make the final "yes/no" decision, but Project Caesar is truly a collaborative design effort by our great team here in Sitges.
That sounds like a very good way to run things. It's a sort of ship that requires strict steering, but you seem an excellent helmsman Johan.
 
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Will you be able to mess with the laws of other countries? E.g. force a subject to abolish serdom or use a war goal to force a country to tolerate your religion?

Anything mechanic which allows you to substanially mess with other countries without annexing territory from them is a good thing in my book.
 
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Back on the hype train! I was concerned with how the TT's got shorter but this is hearty. 3D models also look like they belong to their social class now, which is better than the English kings IMO.
 
Can we expect the inquistion as part of religious laws?

View attachment 1153945
There is an Inquisition Law, with [checks the script] 5 different policies, of which some are common for all the Catholic countries, and some are unique (and, of course, there's a Spanish one, as everybody expected!).
 
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Will we see some form of Leyes de las Indias ( Laws of the Indies ) that Spanish Crown created for governing its colonies outside Europe ?
Some of these laws could have direct influence on gameplay like the Law of Burgos and the ''New Laws'' that were in place to regulate the interactions between the settlers and natives.
Yes!
 
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Curious about Religious Laws. Will those affect conversion rate by any chance? I am specifically thinking about England, but many countries enacted religious laws that either persecuted minorities, limited their freedom, etc.

In England, the Act of Uniformity (which in EU4 was a decision) required that all people go to a Church of England service once a week of face a fine. And while some staunchly Catholic aristocratic families paid their fine and went about their business, high office and government positions were limited only to Protestants; also admission to universities like Oxford and Cambridge required subscription to the Protestant 39 Articles of Religion.

Basically, what exactly will Religious Laws affect, if we could get some extra info on that? Not just inheritance laws I hope.
 
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A few questions that came to mind:

1 Can laws be forced through by the estates if they are powerful / unhappy?

2. Can a law change cause revolts that aim to return a previous law?

3. Can I force law changes through war? Like abolishing slavery or ending serfdom.

1 - if they are powerful yes.
2 - not yet implemented, but its something we are talking about.
3 - good idea, something we could add to later ages
 
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Agincourt had NO impact whatsoever on the french nobility right :p
True, another example is the Swedish nobility during the Great Northern War, whom lost a staggering amount of members during the war. But in both cases, natural growth from inside the nobility eventually replaced the majority of those whom were lost.

But what I'm trying to say is that I'm of the opinion that the Noble and burgher pops should have natural growth, and primarily grow that way. Doing it so will make the players decisions more impactful by making the pops more valueable, as they are difficult to replace.

Also you said we would learn to hate the nobility in the game, and how are we meant to do that if they can't grow freely and demand more privileges so that they can continue to grow and not pay taxes?
 
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Are there any other Legal Codes besides the 3 listed (civil, common, traditional)? I would imagine at least Sharia and Chinese (I’m sure a better name could be picked) should be there, as well. Maybe even Napoleonic as an ‘upgrade’ to Civil.

Also, I love how you’ve systematized something that was ad hoc across many other games. Almost always a good thing. I hope you can expand upon the importance of picking a legal code. It is more than just a law but the entire framework through which all other law is established and codified and maintained. It really should influence the other laws you adopt in some fashion.
Of course, there are many.
 
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