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Tinto Talks #26 - 21st of August 2024

Welcome everyone to the 26th Tinto Talks, the Happy Wednesday where we tell you interesting information about our super top-secret game with the code name of Project Caesar.

Previously in Grand Strategy Games, playable entities, or countries as we usually refer to them, always required you to own land, and their existence was based upon owning land. You annexed and eliminated a country by taking all their land. Now during the four years since we created the first iterations of this system, things have changed, and you will soon have landless playable characters in Crusader Kings III.

Anyway, in Project Caesar we currently have four categories of playable countries.

country_type.png

This tooltip may make it 100% clear?


We have been talking about making a navy based country type, and it would be fairly easy to do, but we haven't really found any country that fits that category.

Settled Countries
These are countries that are based on owning locations. These function the same as you would expect a country to work in a GSG, these countries own land, they build buildings, have cores, raise armies, etc.

Army Based Countries
This type of country is very similar to the location based countries with a few differences. While they can still do everything that a location based country does, they also have one strong advantage and a strong disadvantage in comparison.

The advantage is the fact that as long as they have an army, then the country will still continue to exist, which we use to simulate REDACTED amongst other things.

The disadvantage, depending on your point of view, is that if the country does not have an army at all, it can shatter into multiple pieces.

Many of the Steppe Hordes at the start of the game are ‘ABC’, which fits nicely into their other mechanics. Yes, I do like the acronym ABC for “Army Based Countries”

Extraterritorial Counties
These are countries that are based around the buildings they own. They can’t own land directly, but can have subjects that own land. Their buildings often have pops directly linked to the building, and those pops are also tied to the country.

One risk with them is that they need to keep positive relationships with the places they have buildings in, or they may not be able to survive.

map.png

Various banks, holy orders and Hanseatic League holdings in 1337..

There are many types of playable entities that we simulate with these systems, and here are a few of them..

Banking Countries
There are a few of these countries in Europe at the start of the Game, with Peruzzi and Bardi, and later on you get Fuggers and more. They have main offices in certain cities and have the possibility to build more branches around the world.

Other countries can request loans from them, and they also have the diplomatic ability to take over any estate loan that a country has, and force that country to pay interest to them instead. They also have far lower interest rates on their estate loans, so they can easily become rich from other countries' debts.


banking_advance.png

This is an advance only available for banking countries.


Trade Companies
During the Age of the Reformation you can set up Trade Companies in overseas places, which will be a good subject to get trade going to benefit their overlord. We will go into more detail about these in a later Tinto Talks.

Hanseatic League
This is represented by a building based country which has a few subjects that are normal land owning countries. This is a playable country from the start, and one that is really fun if you want to focus on a purely trading game.

hansa.png

Maybe the trade monopolies estate privilege is less than good for us..

We also have Holy Orders, as a building based type of country, and while I can’t go into details about it at this point, at the start of the game, the Daimyos of Japan are using the building based country mechanic..

Society of Pops
This is one of the most challenging types of countries in the game, as most of the mechanics are not available to them. They own no land, but instead are entirely based upon the pops associated with them. As they own no land, they do not interact with RGO’s nor can build most buildings. Almost all of them start without advances for taxation, codifying laws or constructing cities.

A lot of the world has different societies of pops, where larger groups of people live but are on the fringe of more organized and advanced states. In the New World there are a mixture of settled countries and society of pops.

These types of countries can migrate their pops from one province to another over time, and they can also force the allegiance of pops to change to them through warfare with another society.

The borders between different societies and even settled countries are extremely fluid, and they can be in the same location as either of them.

They can raise levies directly from their pops, and their armies can live off the land anywhere, gathering some small amount of food from any type of land. Their armies can always force any pop of their culture and religion to swear allegiance to their society.

Amongst the ways they can stop being colonized is forcing colonizers to the peace table, forcing them to cancel their colonial charters.

A settled country can in a war force a Society of Pops to abandon pops that they own, and if they no longer “own” any pops, that society will no longer be an existing country.

A society of pops can attempt to settle if they achieve certain advances, after which they will take control over all locations where they have pops and are the dominant culture and religion, and then become a Settled Country.

Currently though, the gameplay experience is not where we want it, and unless that is improved by beta, they are very likely to be AI only at release.

kvenland.png

Here the Kven People have settled…

And to clarify, Society of Peoples and Army Based Countries have ways to become Settled Countries through mechanics, but there are no other normal ways of changing Country Types, except through special events.

Stay tuned, as next week we go into detail about buildings you can build outside your own country.
 

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Can the Hanseatic League and other building-based countries (BBCs ?) declare wars? Historically, that happened more than once, but we haven't gotten much information about how these entities actually play (like, how do they raise armies and navies, is their manpower pool also coming just from these buildings?).
 
Welcome everyone to the 26th Tinto Talks, the Happy Wednesday where we tell you interesting information about our super top-secret game with the code name of Project Caesar.

Previously in Grand Strategy Games, playable entities, or countries as we usually refer to them, always required you to own land, and their existence was based upon owning land. You annexed and eliminated a country by taking all their land. Now during the four years since we created the first iterations of this system, things have changed, and you will soon have landless playable characters in Crusader Kings III.

Anyway, in Project Caesar we currently have four categories of playable countries.

View attachment 1177031
This tooltip may make it 100% clear?


We have been talking about making a navy based country type, and it would be fairly easy to do, but we haven't really found any country that fits that category.

Settled Countries
These are countries that are based on owning locations. These function the same as you would expect a country to work in a GSG, these countries own land, they build buildings, have cores, raise armies, etc.

Army Based Countries
This type of country is very similar to the location based countries with a few differences. While they can still do everything that a location based country does, they also have one strong advantage and a strong disadvantage in comparison.

The advantage is the fact that as long as they have an army, then the country will still continue to exist, which we use to simulate REDACTED amongst other things.

The disadvantage, depending on your point of view, is that if the country does not have an army at all, it can shatter into multiple pieces.

Many of the Steppe Hordes at the start of the game are ‘ABC’, which fits nicely into their other mechanics. Yes, I do like the acronym ABC for “Army Based Countries”

Extraterritorial Counties
These are countries that are based around the buildings they own. They can’t own land directly, but can have subjects that own land. Their buildings often have pops directly linked to the building, and those pops are also tied to the country.

One risk with them is that they need to keep positive relationships with the places they have buildings in, or they may not be able to survive.

View attachment 1177033
Various banks, holy orders and Hanseatic League holdings in 1337..

There are many types of playable entities that we simulate with these systems, and here are a few of them..

Banking Countries
There are a few of these countries in Europe at the start of the Game, with Peruzzi and Bardi, and later on you get Fuggers and more. They have main offices in certain cities and have the possibility to build more branches around the world.

Other countries can request loans from them, and they also have the diplomatic ability to take over any estate loan that a country has, and force that country to pay interest to them instead. They also have far lower interest rates on their estate loans, so they can easily become rich from other countries' debts.


View attachment 1177034
This is an advance only available for banking countries.


Trade Companies
During the Age of the Reformation you can set up Trade Companies in overseas places, which will be a good subject to get trade going to benefit their overlord. We will go into more detail about these in a later Tinto Talks.

Hanseatic League
This is represented by a building based country which has a few subjects that are normal land owning countries. This is a playable country from the start, and one that is really fun if you want to focus on a purely trading game.

View attachment 1177035
Maybe the trade monopolies estate privilege is less than good for us..

We also have Holy Orders, as a building based type of country, and while I can’t go into details about it at this point, at the start of the game, the Daimyos of Japan are using the building based country mechanic..

Society of Pops
This is one of the most challenging types of countries in the game, as most of the mechanics are not available to them. They own no land, but instead are entirely based upon the pops associated with them. As they own no land, they do not interact with RGO’s nor can build most buildings. Almost all of them start without advances for taxation, codifying laws or constructing cities.

A lot of the world has different societies of pops, where larger groups of people live but are on the fringe of more organized and advanced states. In the New World there are a mixture of settled countries and society of pops.

These types of countries can migrate their pops from one province to another over time, and they can also force the allegiance of pops to change to them through warfare with another society.

The borders between different societies and even settled countries are extremely fluid, and they can be in the same location as either of them.

They can raise levies directly from their pops, and their armies can live off the land anywhere, gathering some small amount of food from any type of land. Their armies can always force any pop of their culture and religion to swear allegiance to their society.

Amongst the ways they can stop being colonized is forcing colonizers to the peace table, forcing them to cancel their colonial charters.

A settled country can in a war force a Society of Pops to abandon pops that they own, and if they no longer “own” any pops, that society will no longer be an existing country.

A society of pops can attempt to settle if they achieve certain advances, after which they will take control over all locations where they have pops and are the dominant culture and religion, and then become a Settled Country.

Currently though, the gameplay experience is not where we want it, and unless that is improved by beta, they are very likely to be AI only at release.

View attachment 1177036
Here the Kven People have settled…

And to clarify, Society of Peoples and Army Based Countries have ways to become Settled Countries through mechanics, but there are no other normal ways of changing Country Types, except through special events.

Stay tuned, as next week we go into detail about buildings you can build outside your own country.
Can you pay off debts with locations? Will it create new countries?
 
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Navy based country: the pirates of the Caribbean. Or the brotherhood of Nassau as i think they were called.
There is also this Chinese lady called Zheng Yi Sao that had a huge pirate fleet and dominated a huge chunk of the south asian trade and controlled gambling houses and other stuff in mainland China and I think Singapore.
Honestly probably any famous pirate could be represented by a Navy-based country that forms through an event around the time when they historically appeared. Certain pirate havens like Tortuga could also be represented as an NBC if NBC’s work like ABC’s but with navies as the lifeline.

Theres also the Buccaneers, and even the Polynesians were famous for being island-hopping settlers via “navies” and there’s a [very small] argument that could potentially be made that the T’ui Tonga empire could be represented this way (assuming that I’m not getting my history mixed up and they were active/at their zenith during the game period)

Grace O’Malley as the Pirate Queen of Ireland, the tag-team duo of Sayyida al-Hurra and Barbarossa basically controlling the entire Mediterranean between them (and Sayyida later became ruler of Tetouan, representing an NBC becoming a settled country)
 
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Can new pop societies be created by event or by our own actions during the course of the game, or are the ones we have on the map at game start the only ones we have for the entire game?
 
What was the philosophy around how to partition International Organisations and Extraterritorial Counties?

Obviously the latter constitutes a player of the game, whereas the former is a framework for various players to interact, but I can see enitites like the Papacy, should they be landless, falling either side of it depending on whether you're considering the Pope as truly directing the Bishops, or being a leader among an organisation. Same with supranational entities - I see discussions already around the best way to represent Federations - are they multiple players inside a framework (IO) that may have a leader, or multiple players as vassals of another (EC).

Is there any intent to have pathways to shift between those structures?
 
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Chould make privateers a navy based vassal country?
Privateers would probably not work that well. Their letter of marque was usually granted within the context of conflicts which means that once the conflict ended, their letter would be revoked and they would cease their activities. Generally, their scope of operations was much more limited. There might be other ways to represent them though.
 
First of all very great DD with amazing features for PC. I can not wait to play one of those countries.

1724259114605.png

I assume this is very much WIP so I thought I might share this follwoing map:
View attachment Hansestädte und Handelswege um 1400.jpg
(map tilte in english: "Hansiatic cities and trade routes around 1400"; source: Dr.Walter Leisering (Hg.), 2022, "Historischer Weltatlas"(102.Auflage), Wiesbaden: Marix Verlag)

This map shows the extant of the Hanseatic trade network throughout the North and Baltic seas in 1400 with it all its trade depots etc (the Hansiatic cities are those in red). I know this does not depict the situation in 1337 accuratly (a time gape of 63 years to be fair), but I think its gives at least some great visual refrence point to grasp the extant of the Hansa trade network and a base for research, feedback and discussion about which cities should/could be part of the Hansa. Hence I thought it would be nice to share, beside it being a very pleseant map to look at.
 
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Are there modifiers for the culture and religion conversion rates of pop of a society of pops for the country owning the location ? Are they harder to convert as they already belong to a political entity ?

You cant convert or assimilate them through normal means,
 
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Where will the line be for determining between a state and a society? Are there playable "states" in North America for EUIV that will be "Societies" in Caesar?

What are the criteria for dividing the two? There were several tribes in EUIV that did not seem to have a system of borders or land ownership. However there also were Taino chiefdoms that had territorial delineations that were treated as uncolonized space in the same game.
 
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Currently though, the gameplay experience is not where we want it, and unless that is improved by beta, they are very likely to be AI only at release.

What experience do you want to achieve? If you're worried that there won't be anything to do with them for a long time, here's an idea: divide them into dozens of countries representing families/clans/small communities, grouped into larger generic "[culture] people" IOs.

IOs are a fantastic tool for niche game features. With them, migratory societies will have many stages and struggles before they can settle down as a unified government. This unification could either be peaceful with a slow progression (like HRE's reforms, with the most populous society at any time being the equivalent of the emperor), or through wars between members of the same "people" IO. Since we can't expect individual members to have much pop, perhaps allow wars only between members of the same "people" while wars against other "people" IOs and other types of countries are only possible if the members are at peace (so they are all allies in the war).

While "community" countries roam the map, the leader of a "people" IO could also decide on a region where members are more likely to migrate, similar to the large-scale migrations that historically occurred among indigenous populations.

Also, since these societies can migrate, an interesting game goal could be to look for wild game modifiers of varying sizes that randomly spawn in unowned locations. These would provide small growth boosts to the population until they are depleted (depletion being faster the more pops there are in the location). When the modifier runs out, you will need to migrate elsewhere and repeat, but be sure to secure your community or people's advantage by expelling competing societies through wars.
 
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1) How is the British East India Company’s direct control of territory simulated? Are they upgraded from an extraterritorial to a land-based country?

2) Could modders create an event to form a custom extraterritorial country (such as a Bank, a Trade Company, et cetera)?

3) Which non-land-based countries may be vassalized?

4) Which non-land-based countries may participate in International Organizations?

5) Is there any association or connection between Tribal Pops and Societies of Pops?

Thank you!
 
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Where will the line be for determining between a state and a society? Are there playable "states" in North America for EUIV that will be "Societies" in Caesar?

What are the criteria for dividing the two? There were several tribes in EUIV that did not seem to have a system of borders or land ownership. However there also were Taino chiefdoms that had territorial delineations that were treated as uncolonized space in the same game.

My guess is that tribes that were settled (like the ones Hernando de Soto met in his 16th century expedition) will be treated as Settled, while more nomadic/seminomadic tribes will be Societies. Same thing with Brazilian tribes, I expect Kuhikugu and the Marajoaras to be Settled while the myriad peoples of the coast will just be Societies.
 
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I have a few questions:

1-Do societies of pops will be able to rebel against occupying forces ?

2-If we can play societies of pops, would we be able to play them inside of a land country ?

3-Would we be able to declare wars (or maybe raids) against other countries as a society of pops ?

4-How would we create a land based country as a society of pops? How would we centralize it ?
 
Privateers would probably not work that well. Their letter of marque was usually granted within the context of conflicts which means that once the conflict ended, their letter would be revoked and they would cease their activities. Generally, their scope of operations was much more limited. There might be other ways to represent them though.
I saw someone bring up the idea of pirates as a navy country and though if pirates get that why not privateers, but I was thinking in eu4 terms where you can just privateer a trade node whenever. I see your point it whould be dumb to have a landless vassal that has ships do nothing unless you're in a war. If they want to hey chould make it so privateers protect trade while not in war but that's also not ideal.