Welcome to another Happy Wednesday, for the 20th Tinto Talks, where we give out a lot of secret information about our absolutely 100% super-secret game Project Caesar.
First of all, I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your great feedback, which is helping us shape this into an even better game.
Today we talk about what will replace the Technology Levels and National Ideas of EU4. While some aspects of the Idea system are covered by the Societal Values and/or the Laws of a country, this new system will cover the rest.
Maybe these advances are good for us?
What were different effects from the Technology Levels and Ideas are now something we call “Advances”. Advances can unlock new diplomacy, new units, new abilities for units, new character actions, new subject interactions, new estate privileges, new laws, new policies in laws, new inheritance systems, new casus belli, new government reforms, new cabinet actions, new buildings, additional levels for buildings and new production methods. An Advance can also unlock mechanics like investing in stability, building roads, collecting taxes and much more. Last but not least, advances can also give you important stats like more literacy for your nobles, or better military tactics.
At the start of each age, each country will get a new Advances Tree, which will be unique to that country. A tree usually contains about 100 advances, some which are common, and some that are specific to who you are playing. Every tree, except the Age of Tradition, has 4 different starting points, a common one, and one from each institution. The ones from an institution tend to unlock relevant advances to that institution.
Eventually all advances will have fitting and often unique icons, but for now, the sickle is good!
About 70% of all advances in a tree tend to be common for every country, but the rest depends entirely on which country you are playing. Over one third of the advances in a tree in Age of Renaissance and Age of Discovery does not require any institutions to research.
This is part of the tree unlocked by the Meritocracy Institution..
We also took the national ideas and adapted to advances. Some of them made no sense and were lost, but in general the starting bonuses ended up as two Age of Traditions advances you start with already researched, and the rest is spread over the rest of the ages, with what was the finishing bonus as an advance in Age of Revolutions. In many cases they have been moved to the appropriate time as well, so currently many unique and powerful Swedish advances are in the Age of Absolutism. We have also heavily revised those whose names survived, and when we work in making unique content for a country, we aim to add more advances as well.
Poland currently has 16 unique advances...
We also have a lot of unique advances for what culture you are playing, or what religion you are playing, if you are a country that can own locations or not, and for what type of government you have.
Some of the ideas from the idea groups ended up directly as advances unique for certain types of countries, like the Horde Government ones were converted to unique advances for Steppe Hordes, and the Divine Ideas as unique advances for Theocracies.
However most of the ideas ended up being sorted into an administrative, diplomatic or military focus, with at least 10 in each category for every age, starting with the Age of Renaissance?
Why 3 categories? Well, at the start of each age, you will pick one focus, which will add those advances to your tree for that age. Now you may think, why would anyone pick something else than the military? First of all, there are different powerful benefits and tough choices you have to make. Let's take a look at the choice in the Age of Renaissance.
Hard or easy choice?
At the start of an age, the tree is populated with the advances depending on what your country is at that time as well, so you will only get relevant advances to choose from in that age. If you switch tags or change religion or government form, that will be seen in the next age.
The Advances tree for Age of Traditions is a bit unique in that it has many starting points, and there are many countries, particularly in the New World, who do not start with all of them. Metallurgy, Agriculture, Written Alphabet, Ship Building & Meritocracy are different starting points who all have trees. Feudalism, which requires to have embraced the institution to research, is in the Agriculture tree, and requires Horse Riding researched first. Legalism is part of the Written Alphabet tree and requires Codified Laws and the institution to have spread to unlock their sub-tree. Many of these are more expensive to research.
This together with lots of unique advances in the first three ages provides an interesting progress as a new world or similar type of country outside of the Eurasian Core.
Each advance has a research cost that is the same for almost all advances. There are a few keystone advances such as “Written Alphabet” that are far more costly though. Every country generates “research” each month, which is “paid” directly into the advance you are currently researching. While a bit unrealistic, but good from a quality of life perspective, you can store up to a year's research without having an advance being researched. There is also a sort of catch up mechanic where advances from an earlier age are cheaper than the current age.
The amount of research you do depends on what type of country you are, if you are a settled country, or still a nomadic group of pops, and on the power of your liturgical language. The satisfaction of the clergy estate and the average literacy of your country also impacts how quickly you research.
As you build up the literacy of your population you're research will grow .
You can also fully automate research and let the AI keep researching for you, and of course we got a proper research queue, so you can just select which techs you want to get, and it will add all prerequisites to the queue as well, and you can keep adding any valid advance to the queue.
Stay tuned, as next week we will delve into the fun and joy of exploration..
First of all, I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your great feedback, which is helping us shape this into an even better game.
Today we talk about what will replace the Technology Levels and National Ideas of EU4. While some aspects of the Idea system are covered by the Societal Values and/or the Laws of a country, this new system will cover the rest.
Maybe these advances are good for us?
What were different effects from the Technology Levels and Ideas are now something we call “Advances”. Advances can unlock new diplomacy, new units, new abilities for units, new character actions, new subject interactions, new estate privileges, new laws, new policies in laws, new inheritance systems, new casus belli, new government reforms, new cabinet actions, new buildings, additional levels for buildings and new production methods. An Advance can also unlock mechanics like investing in stability, building roads, collecting taxes and much more. Last but not least, advances can also give you important stats like more literacy for your nobles, or better military tactics.
At the start of each age, each country will get a new Advances Tree, which will be unique to that country. A tree usually contains about 100 advances, some which are common, and some that are specific to who you are playing. Every tree, except the Age of Tradition, has 4 different starting points, a common one, and one from each institution. The ones from an institution tend to unlock relevant advances to that institution.
Eventually all advances will have fitting and often unique icons, but for now, the sickle is good!
About 70% of all advances in a tree tend to be common for every country, but the rest depends entirely on which country you are playing. Over one third of the advances in a tree in Age of Renaissance and Age of Discovery does not require any institutions to research.
This is part of the tree unlocked by the Meritocracy Institution..
We also took the national ideas and adapted to advances. Some of them made no sense and were lost, but in general the starting bonuses ended up as two Age of Traditions advances you start with already researched, and the rest is spread over the rest of the ages, with what was the finishing bonus as an advance in Age of Revolutions. In many cases they have been moved to the appropriate time as well, so currently many unique and powerful Swedish advances are in the Age of Absolutism. We have also heavily revised those whose names survived, and when we work in making unique content for a country, we aim to add more advances as well.
Poland currently has 16 unique advances...
We also have a lot of unique advances for what culture you are playing, or what religion you are playing, if you are a country that can own locations or not, and for what type of government you have.
Some of the ideas from the idea groups ended up directly as advances unique for certain types of countries, like the Horde Government ones were converted to unique advances for Steppe Hordes, and the Divine Ideas as unique advances for Theocracies.
However most of the ideas ended up being sorted into an administrative, diplomatic or military focus, with at least 10 in each category for every age, starting with the Age of Renaissance?
Why 3 categories? Well, at the start of each age, you will pick one focus, which will add those advances to your tree for that age. Now you may think, why would anyone pick something else than the military? First of all, there are different powerful benefits and tough choices you have to make. Let's take a look at the choice in the Age of Renaissance.
- Administrative - Better Administrative Efficiency, Lower Interests, better proximity propagation, Cheaper Mercenaries and more..
- Diplomatic - Better Merchants, More Diplomatic Reputation, March Subjects, Cheaper Warscore Costs and more.
- Military - More Prestige from Battles, Monthly Tradition gains and more.
Hard or easy choice?
At the start of an age, the tree is populated with the advances depending on what your country is at that time as well, so you will only get relevant advances to choose from in that age. If you switch tags or change religion or government form, that will be seen in the next age.
The Advances tree for Age of Traditions is a bit unique in that it has many starting points, and there are many countries, particularly in the New World, who do not start with all of them. Metallurgy, Agriculture, Written Alphabet, Ship Building & Meritocracy are different starting points who all have trees. Feudalism, which requires to have embraced the institution to research, is in the Agriculture tree, and requires Horse Riding researched first. Legalism is part of the Written Alphabet tree and requires Codified Laws and the institution to have spread to unlock their sub-tree. Many of these are more expensive to research.
This together with lots of unique advances in the first three ages provides an interesting progress as a new world or similar type of country outside of the Eurasian Core.
Each advance has a research cost that is the same for almost all advances. There are a few keystone advances such as “Written Alphabet” that are far more costly though. Every country generates “research” each month, which is “paid” directly into the advance you are currently researching. While a bit unrealistic, but good from a quality of life perspective, you can store up to a year's research without having an advance being researched. There is also a sort of catch up mechanic where advances from an earlier age are cheaper than the current age.
The amount of research you do depends on what type of country you are, if you are a settled country, or still a nomadic group of pops, and on the power of your liturgical language. The satisfaction of the clergy estate and the average literacy of your country also impacts how quickly you research.
As you build up the literacy of your population you're research will grow .
You can also fully automate research and let the AI keep researching for you, and of course we got a proper research queue, so you can just select which techs you want to get, and it will add all prerequisites to the queue as well, and you can keep adding any valid advance to the queue.
Stay tuned, as next week we will delve into the fun and joy of exploration..
However, the number of countries with their own advances needs to increase. The huge difference in "technology types" between some countries may make competition impossible. (Ex: British may take every diplomatic focus in each age and you will never be able to beat up their ships.)
