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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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Gulp...
Next week, if it isn't about "playing an American nation" (of course I mean true american, indigenous of the whole continent), then it seems it wiill be about the great bane of human history, true colonialism and imperialism, aka war crimes against humanity. Things might get ugly.

Hopefully we will have trade, diplomacy and cultural exchange options of mutual agreement, respect and coexistence. Not always I'm in the mood to play genociders, nor paint the map red. After all, what is the fun of playing a historical game if only to replay it exactly as it was every playthrough?

Either way I'm looking forward to it, and hope to have some very cool option to deal with stateless and state(ful) nations around the map.
 
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The game should simulate both the difficulties and lack of reason for Europeans to go inwards:
I think this is a great list, I wanted to add that one of the ways in which Europeans were able to go around local resistance- which was one of if not the most important factor in preventing colonization - was using African coastal auxiliaries or former slaves to create an army resistant to the diseases, knowledgable in African geography, warfare and tactics, and adapted to the climate. These auxiliaries were often led by European officers, and proved crucial to conquest and enslavement. It was common for mercenary groups, and local rivals to do the fighting for colonists as late as 19th century Congo. The Portuguese fought and lost several wars against the locals prior to the 18th century, it was a mix of victories and losses.
 
While micromanaging individual locations would be atrocious, I think allowing the player to designate what location they want to receive priority, and possibly even locations they want to deprioritize or even not colonize at all (automatically canceling the charter if they’re the only ones left) should be acceptable additions.
 
you can't cherry pick locations, you make a charter for a province.
I can see this being something players would grow to resent very quickly. If I as the UK send my expedition to the New York province first, my colonists arrive and randomly start colonising the location at the end of Long Island, whereas say Spain arrives a few months afterwards and their charters randomly selects Manhattan, that would be deeply annoying. I got there first, spent more resources, yet due to RNG will now have a worse colony and didn't get any say in trying to make that not so. The province charter arbitrarily lengthening or ruining colony set up due to randomisation of location selection seems odd.

If youre spending that much money and resources to set up a colony, you should be able to tell your colonists to settle in the best location no? I don't see any problem in cherry picking locations with the best resources, natural harbour potential etc, as that's what was done in real life.

The same could be said for Africa. If you get to the cape, It would be annoying to have to leave your charter colonising the cape coast until the point at which the colonists decide to get to the actual Cape, when in reality that should obviously be the first place to settle as it has the best location for a colony and an excellent natural harbour.
 
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I can see this being something players would grow to resent very quickly. If I as the UK send my expedition to the New York province first, my colonists arrive and randomly start colonising the location at the end of Long Island, whereas say Spain arrives a few months afterwards and their charters randomly selects Manhattan, that would be deeply annoying. I got there first, spent more resources, yet due to RNG will now have a worse colony and didn't get any say in trying to make that not so. The province charter arbitrarily lengthening or ruining colony set up due to randomisation of location selection seems odd.

If youre spending that much money and resources to set up a colony, you should be able to tell your colonists to settle in the best location no? I don't see any problem in cherry picking locations with the best resources, natural harbour potential etc, as that's what was done in real life.

The same could be said for Africa. If you get to the cape, It would be annoying to have to leave your charter colonising the cape coast until the point at which the colonists decide to get to the actual Cape, when in reality that should obviously be the first place to settle as it has the best location for a colony and an excellent natural harbour.
If only we had a way of determining good harbor locations to start in!

I joke, but I do think certain provinces like those two should automatically give the first nation to have a charter there the obvious harbor locations first - if they lose the settlement to war or disease or what not, they should start there again or the next country should start, etc.
 
I can see this being something players would grow to resent very quickly. If I as the UK send my expedition to the New York province first, my colonists arrive and randomly start colonising the location at the end of Long Island, whereas say Spain arrives a few months afterwards and their charters randomly selects Manhattan, that would be deeply annoying. I got there first, spent more resources, yet due to RNG will now have a worse colony and didn't get any say in trying to make that not so. The province charter arbitrarily lengthening or ruining colony set up due to randomisation of location selection seems odd.

If youre spending that much money and resources to set up a colony, you should be able to tell your colonists to settle in the best location no? I don't see any problem in cherry picking locations with the best resources, natural harbour potential etc, as that's what was done in real life.

The same could be said for Africa. If you get to the cape, It would be annoying to have to leave your charter colonising the cape coast until the point at which the colonists decide to get to the actual Cape, when in reality that should obviously be the first place to settle as it has the best location for a colony and an excellent natural harbour.
I feel like there should be some kind of algorithm that selects locations based on how much control you would have there if you owned them. Which would probably typically produce intuitive results.
 
Hey everyone, I have a few questions after reading the latest dev diary on Power Projection and Colonial Charters in Project Caesar.

  • How does power projection affect your ability to mix with or dominate the native populations during colonization?
    -Will the local culture and religion blend with yours, or does having higher power projection mean your culture takes over?
  • Can two nations colonize the same province or region at the same time?
    -
    If so, does the one with higher power projection always win the race, and what happens to the cultures and religions in that region afterward?
  • What happens if your power projection drops while you're in the middle of colonizing?
    -
    Will it slow down the migration of your people, or could it even cause the charter to fail?
  • Is it risky for a country with a small population to try and build a large colonial empire?
    -Could they end up draining too many people from their homeland and struggle to support their colonies?
  • How do the native population’s modifiers and their societal values impact your colonization efforts?
    -Will these factors make it easier or harder for your colonization to succeed, or even affect how much control you can actually exert over the region?

What do you all think?
 
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Today's Tinto Maps on East Africa just retroactively killed my hype for this TT when we learnt that non-state areas being solidly covered by Societies of Peoples like Finland is not universal and a lot of the map is conventional passive "uncolonized" provinces.
 
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You can't colonise someone of the same religion group..
Wait, does this only apply to provinces already owned by someone? Will African nations for example be able to expand into grey locations around them which share religion and often culture, or will that be impossible?
 
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Wait, does this only apply to provinces already owned by someone? Will African nations for example be able to expand into grey locations around them which share religion and often culture, or will that be impossible?
I’m guessing yes or else Kitara could instantly colonize all its surrounding states due to sharing a religion and culture with them. Which is presumably the exact situation this rule is intended to prevent. On the other hand that’s really bad since it’s not realistic that an African or American state would need to convert to a foreign faith to colonize its stateless neighbors.
 
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I’m guessing yes or else Kitara could instantly colonize all its surrounding states due to sharing a religion and culture with them. Which is presumably the exact situation this rule is intended to prevent. On the other hand that’s really bad since it’s not realistic that an African or American state would need to convert to a foreign faith to colonize its stateless neighbors.
It still costs money. It's not entirely illogical to suppose that funding gifts and diplomats to minor villages will allow you to bring them into your fold. But it does seem like there should also be a minimum wait time, maybe depending on distance from capital and/or control mechanics.
 
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You can't specifically choose to send religious minority pops, and the system is biased towards sending pops from true faith majority home locations. It would be a waste of time anyway as you need pops to be of your culture and religion for a colony to flip in your favour.
Is there a way to simulate the Quakers in Pennsylvania? That became a colony despite having a religious minority settling from the homeland. Maybe by letting the colony flip if the religious group matched (rather than the specific religion)?
 
The focus is always on a specific target location until it flips, then it moves to another one. Currently it's weighted towards coastal locations of high population.
I'm worried how this might work for the Russians moving into in Eastern Siberia. You wouldn't want them to slowly expand overland, then skip a few provinces and do the far coast.


I'd also suggest factoring in the harbour suitability of the province, distance to friendly ports, land connection up/down a river & land connection. I suspect Islands might also have priority over colonising largely populated coastal mainlands.
 
Is there a way to simulate the Quakers in Pennsylvania? That became a colony despite having a religious minority settling from the homeland. Maybe by letting the colony flip if the religious group matched (rather than the specific religion)?
I feel like something like expelling minorities to get colonies might be a mechanic for later ages or specific cultures/religions.