Tinto Talks #21 - 17th of July 2024

[Johan]

I imagine this is the case, when you explore a coastal sea area you discover the land that touches that sea? Like in eu4?

no, those are separate areas.

 

[Johan]

We've already seen conventional "uncolonised" land in Finland, from the Russia tinto maps. Was that just a placeholder, or will non-European natives work differently from European ones?

What makes you think they are uncolonized?

 

[Johan]

Did you take this screenshot zoomed out, rotated it, and then cropped it to a rectangle? Or is turning the camera like this possible in-game?

you can rotate the map how you like.. and just turn off the reset in the options to keep the rotation you prefer.

 

[Johan]

Is it other countries on the same sub-continent as the explorer or on the same sub-continent as countries that know about the discovery?

For example: Portugal discovers the Caribbean. It spreads to Western Europe in both cases. But does it spread to Eastern Europe only once an Eastern European nation has discovered it themselves, or when an Eastern European nation has knowledge of the Caribbean through whatever other means are possible?

Only when they have done the discovery themselves.

 

[Johan]

I suppose for modding concerns, is there ability to grant specific area "maps" via effect? Or know whether or not a given area was explored as a condition?

yes and yes

 

[Johan]

I'm glad to see, that we can still send our 0/0/0 heir go find some "new land" and be very 'sad' when he does not return.

Its a viable career choice!

 

[Johan]

Will it be extremely difficult for Japan to explore americas via pacific due to winds?

It should be harder yes.

 

[Johan]

The system works also for non-American exploration too? Like in South-East Asia, or the Mamluks recruiting a land explorer to go check the sources of the Nile?

should work the same yes

 

[Johan]

Max repair at sea stat, interesting

Yes, its a way to make naval gameplay more interesting

 

[Johan]

So they're just glorified types of army and military mana then, in essence?

if you want to count actual people dieing as "mana" then yes..

 

[Johan]

I mean more precisely than "in this area"?

no

 

[Johan]

will the unexplored provinces goods still be randomized or will they be locked (fingers crossed)? really frustrating colonizing brazil and ending up with 100 provinces with fish and grain and lifestock, while the DLC brits can have gold and gems everywhere.

They will be locked.

 

[Johan]

Will we be able to name places we discover?

Like chosing the name for the new world, or that oceans get named after explorers that discovers it.

Not planned for no.

 

[Johan]

Since manpower and sailors are coming from pops now, will you portray losses (attrition, inherent risks, whatever else), or is it just subtracted from the pool when you start a mission? I understand that most of the cost (both monetary and human) probably represents the preparation of an expedition, but people actually died on these regardless if they were ultimately successful or not, and it would be cool and immersive if the game included that.

Yes, we count them all as "dead" when the mission starts.

 

[Johan]

Like, no never or no, not for another 150 years? Because it would be kind of strange if it's 1750 and Russia doesn't know where the New World is without sending their own explorers out...

its easy to design a chain.. lets say "adjacent sub continent" after another 50..

 

[Johan]

Will spreading of discoveries happen in every nation at once after 150 years, or will it be a gradual process, with nations closer to our borders getting the discovery earlier?

Every nation at once. As it does not really matter that much, I elected with a simple system that has no performance impact.

 

[Johan]

Oh, so this whole thing is implemented in script + scripted GUI?

That's perfect. Means that if someone just wants to implement an entirely different system, they're free to do so.

Yes. We got something called "generic actions" that are pure script that can handle a chain of N scope selections in the UI, and you can do AI logic for it as well.


Here is the current exploration action.. Now in this case, the "visible" triggers and AI calculation, have for performance reasons been made into c++ code that it calls, but in theory you could do whatever you want.

# scope:actor = country, scope:recipient = country
start_exploration = {
    type = owncountry
    
    potential = {
        scope:actor = {
            modifier:may_explore = yes
            OR = {
                is_ai = no
                country_tax_base > 30
            }
        }
    }

    allow = {
    }
    
    price = {
        if = {
            limit = {
                exists = scope:target
                scope:target = {
                    adjacent_to_owned_by = scope:actor
                }
            }
            value = price:start_exploration_land
        }
        else = {
            value = price:start_exploration_sea
        }
    }
    
    select_trigger = {
        looking_for_a = area
        source = world
        source_flags = possible_exploration_areas
        name = "start_exploration_select_area"
        none_available_msg_key = "start_exploration_no_areas"
        column = {
            data = area_exploration
        }
        visible = {
            not = { is_being_explored = scope:actor }
        }
    }

    select_trigger = {
        looking_for_a = character
        source = actor
        cache_targets = yes #this list of targets doesn't rely on the previous target so we only need to do it once
        cache_order = yes #whenever we make an assessment, the best character will always be the best character, so only calculate it once and don't repeat all the different combinations of area, character
        name = "start_exploration_select_character"
        none_available_msg_key = "start_exploration_no_characters"
        column = {
            data = character_explorer
        }
        visible = {
            is_valid_for_exploration = yes
        }
    }

    effect = {
        scope:actor = {
            if = {
                limit = {
                    exists = scope:target
                    exists = scope:target_1
                }
                start_exploration = {
                    area = scope:target
                    character = scope:target_1
                }
            }
        }
    }
    
    days_between_checks = {
        if = {
            limit = {
                num_of_ports = 0
            }
            add = 365
        }
        else = {
            add = 30
        }
    }

    ai_will_do = {
        add = "scope:actor.exploration_utility(scope:target|scope:target_1)"
    }
}

 

[Johan]

How many undiscovered areas are there at the game start for a typical future colonizer such as England or Portugal? Will we have to manually send exploration missions to all of them individually in order to discover the entire map?

I'd expect it to be somewhere between 50 to 250 that you want to explore as a colonizer, unless you want to catch them all.

 

[Johan]

in one of your replies, you mention that Portugal can barely afford to explore at the start and that perhaps Flanders or Brittany could gamble on it. I assume this means that e.g. England or Castile could as well?

Yeah, England, Castille and France can easily afford it..

 

[Johan]

So does this mean that:
1) The player may always try to/have the potential to explore if their country's tax base is above 30 (naval range notwithstanding)?
2) Is 30 tax base something that an England/Castile/France size tag can easily have by the Age of Discovery? Is that a lot in the current balance? What's the average tax base of a medium size country?

its trivial to get.. just didnt want every single HRE state to spend time evaluating if its a good idea to explore