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Tinto Talks #25 - 14th of August 2024

Welcome to another Tinto Talks, the 25th one, the Happy Wednesday where we give you lots of information about our upcoming, still secret and unannounced game, with the codename of Project Caesar.

Today we delve into the mechanics of colonialism, another aspect of painting the map.

Power Projection
One important factor that has a big impact on the colonialism game is Power Projection. Each country has a power projection value, and it is primarily to allow a country to be able to exploit those with a lower power projection. Power Projection is very dependent on how advanced a country is, where each age has an advance that gives you about +10 of it. It is also modified by societal values, rank of the country and more. One important aspect is that the +10 advance for Age of Traditions is in the advance tree from the Meritocracy.

You do not gain Power Projection by doing specific actions, like in EU4, but it's entirely based on your country's current setup.

power_projection.png

Sadly, the “Sweden is properly balanced” modifier has not been developed yet..


Colonial Charters
So, how does colonization work in ‘Project Caesar'? Well, you colonize by starting a colonial charter in a province for an upfront fee in gold. Then each month some of the population will be moving from the homeland to the colonial charter, until all locations that can be owned are owned by you.

In almost all cases, there are people living in a location you want to colonize, so for you to be able to have a charter to flip to your ownership there are a few rules. A location needs to have at least 1,000 people living there, and a certain percentage of the population needs to follow your state religion and be of an accepted culture of your country.

colonial_progress.png

Progress for the sake of progress must be discouraged!

This percentage depends heavily on the difference in power projection of your country and the countries in the location. Yes, I said countries in plural, and next week you will understand what we are talking about. This has the implication that at the start of the game, Yuán could in theory start colonizing Europe, if it only had been closer and discovered. How the countries and pops already present in a location react to your colonization is something that will be clarified in a later Tinto Talks.

As long as you have a colonial charter, people from your owned locations will start moving to the locations in the colonial charter. The amount of people moving is rather low in the beginning of the game, but there are advances that will increase it in later ages. Societal values have an impact on it, and so does the distance to the colony.

One thing to take into account is that colonization does not magically create new pops out of thin air, and being able to create a huge colonial empire is not a feasible strategy as a low population country.

monthly_migration.png

Full speed ahead! Only 40 months per location to get to 1,000 pops!

Colonial Charters are not free, and moving people are definitely not free, and countries need to support them. The higher the population in the target province, the more expensive it is to colonize, the distance also has an impact, but colonizing in the same area or region as your capital is significantly cheaper. You can always cut costs to your charters, but that will also reduce the amount of pops moving every month.

colony_cost.png

Not too expensive, so we can easily afford it..


Colonial Nations
When a colonial charter is finished, and all possible locations in that province have become yours, you have multiple options for what you want to happen to that charter. If the province is close, and you think you can get decent enough control over it, you may want to just keep the locations as a part of your home country. You also have the option to have the province form a new colonial nation, or have it join an adjacent colonial nation.

Colonial Nations are a subject type that can not be annexed, but has a few advantages, or disadvantages depending on your point of view, in that while they start transferring less gold than a vassal would, they also grant some manpower and sailors, while also giving part of their merchants to their overlord.

To clarify, you can make colonial nations anywhere on the map where you can colonize.

Supporting the Colonies
If you feel that your charters or colonial nations are not growing enough, there are two tools you can use in the cabinet. Both of these become available from advances in the Age of Discovery

With ‘Supporting a Colonial Charter’ you will move pops from a province you decide upon and to the colonial charter you decided. The amount of pops getting moved depends on your current colonial migration capacities, so when you use it you can about double the migration to a specific

With the ‘Supporting Colonies’ you can move 100 pops every month from a selected province to a target province in a colonial nation subject. This can be useful when you want to boost a colony and you have overpopulated provinces at home, or when you think your country would be in a better situation if you could expel some minorities.

Restrictions on Colonization
There are several ways which can block other nations from colonizing certain places, including diplomatic treaties. At the start of the game, Norrland, Finland, Karelia and Kola are under the claims of Sweden and Novgorod who have divided the area between them.

We also have the situation ‘Treaty of Tordesillas’ where the New World will be split among two Catholic powers, causing lots of interesting dynamics.


Next week we will be back to talk about the difference between countries, and why owning locations is not all there is to life…

fun_map.png

And what is this teaser for next week about?
 
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Great a few questions:
1-Can you create colony tags on the same continent where you capital is?
2-Are there unique colony types like trading companies?
3-If for example I play as Poland and conquer Lithuania can I make create a colonial tag there or there are restrictions?
 
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This probably has been answered already in the past, but I couldn't find it, so here it goes.

Since the game spans a long time, is it possible for some forest locations to become plains (or something else) due to excessive logging industry?
 
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Are there any systems in place to prevent China from quickly colonizing Taiwan? Historically speaking they were very reluctant about settling the island, but for any player it seems like it would be an obvious choice. Most of China’s historical colonization took place overland, like the settling of Southern China or the colonization of Yunnan that occurred during the games timeframe.
 
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We've all been waiting for this one! Thanks Johan.

What defines colonial range now? Is it just the monthly expense and affordability and the penalty on migration numbers or is there a distance cap set by technologies. And of course needing to have explored it first.
 
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This probably has been answered already in the past, but I couldn't find it, so here it goes.

Since the game spans a long time, is it possible for some forest locations to become plains (or something else) due to excessive logging industry?
Dynamic terrain is still WIP and depends on some technology tinto is trying to develop
 
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I wonder how countries with very tiny populations will colonize provinces. I'm thinking of Greenland, new colonial nations, many of the tribal countries like the Chukchi,...
Especially if power projection is a factor too, I wonder how playing with these nations will not simply feel awful because all you could do to grow stronger is being limited by factors which only get solved by growing.
 
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Yes there can be multiple competing colonial charters in the same province. But it's not first-come first-served; rather the first country to reach their threshold of religion and culture in each location wins the ownership.
Maybe it will be talked more next week, but if multiple countries are competing for the same province I assume they would each get a casus belli on each other so if you are loosing the race you can force your claims through force?

Will colonial war (only between colonies) still be a thing? So that colonies can fight amongst themselves without involving their overlords?
 
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Can you create as many colonial nations as you like or there's a limit like, let's say, colonial regions?
Since the smallest land area for a charter is a province, and upon completion you can decide to annex it, create a new colony or let it join an already existing one, the upper limit presumably is the number of provinces pre-defined in the world.
 
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Interesting TT. So we can finally expel minorities, unlike in EU4 where it did not change the culture at all in the first province.
I hope nations will colonize places that make sense to them and expand more organically than in EU4 where it can feel a bit random.

My main wish is to see colonization happen much more slowly and more like in real life, with smaller outposts on the way to Asia. Simulating diseases both for settlers or natives in the new world could be interesting, I hope we will have that too.
 
ok, this is exceedingly cool and realistic, I quite like it

just a question though : how will trade companies (for example like the VOC) work then?

also

I'd imagine that a broken up Indonesia to have a lot of small nations with not much power projection. While a strong Majahapit Empire, whether it be an appannage like system like France or an IO like Germany (I'd rather prefer this one), would have a lot more power projection and make colonizing in Indonesia much more difficult

correct? And I'd reckon the same with the Indian subcontinent no?

last thing

I'd have both a warfare and a trade related question, is it fine if I ask it on this thread?
 
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Also how involved will states be with the wars of their colonial subjects, will Spain send over endless armies from Europe to smash some native South American tribe, or are colonial nations mostly responsible for their own defense?
 
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1. Could you create a colonial nation in conquered land? For example, if you are playing as the British could you create a colonial nation in India, or even southern France...

2. Also, can you violate other nations' colonial treaties? Like, could I as France start colonizing Northern Scandinavia if I wanted to. And likewise, go to war to "enforce claims" on the land I colonize?
 
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Thank You for TT! So far, this system looks more interesting than EU4's.
1. Since Power Projection is not gained through actions, it means it's semi-permanent (does not decay), right?
2. Do diplomatic restrictions on Colonization completely block You from colonizing there, or does it restrict, by giving a relation hit/CB to the other country?
3. Other than scripted events/situations, can we lay claim on territory to colonize throughout the game (like a diplomatic interaction or a mechanic)?
4. Will we be able to select colonial policies?