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Tinto Talks #28 - 4th of September 2024

Welcome everyone to another Tinto Talks, the Happy Wednesday where we talk about the top secret game with the codename Project Caesar.

Today we will delve into the most hated of all seasons, Winter. Luckily for us, we don’t have to live with it for the entire year…


Climate and Winter
So what impacts whether a location has winter or not? Well, primarily it depends on the climate, but also on the time of the year and the level of winter currently nearby. Of course, when there is winter it is different for the northern and southern hemispheres. Every day each location does its calculations for when it should be changing its winter level.

There are three levels of winter. Technically it is four, but “no winter” is not really winter is it. And during the course of a season, a location could experience all types of winter. We have mild, normal and severe winters.

What is common for all levels of winter is that they affect attrition for your armies, so winters will always kill off some of your soldiers.

Pops living in climates that regularly experience winters have a higher demand for fur.

Food in Winter
Food production is severely reduced when winter comes, while pops still eat normally. A mild winter is a reduction of 25%, while severe winters basically reduce food production to 0. So unless there is a lot of food stored in the province, a severe winter may cause starvation in your locations.

Constructions
One other drawback of winter is that normal and severe winters will impact constructions, and with impact, we are talking about stalling them completely. This affects everything from constructing a building to building a ship. It makes the gameplay experience in a country like Sweden or Norway a bit more difficult, as you have to plan around the fact that you lose several months of the year at times.

stalled.png

Placeholder icons for locking, but useful tooltips..


Freezing Seas
Narrows, Inland Seas and Lakes have the possibility of freezing over during winter. This can happen when a seazone has had severe winter for over a week, and will then last until winter is no longer severe in that location.

A frozen seazone can be traversed by armies and this allows greater military control over the lands it reaches; however, it will cause navies to get stuck until it thaws. Be careful when the weather changes, it can thaw with catastrophic consequences if an army is on the ice. Navies can also not enter any seazone that has frozen over.

frozen_over.png

When Storebælt and Lillebælt freezes, you don’t need navies to reach København…


Mountains
You already know that warfare during winter is a bit more risky, but Project Caesar adds another element to it. Any location with the topography of “Mountain” will be blocked for army movement during normal and severe winters. This can help create natural borders, and some interesting strategic gameplay.


winter_level.png


Tooltips are always helpful..

Sadly there will not be a Tinto Talks next week as we have a holiday that day, but after that we will be back and talk more about roads, development, prosperity and more..
 
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Would you be able to cheese the AI by declaring a war in Winter, while not raising your army, let the AI waste their manpower on your borderforts and smack them with your nearly full manpower at winters end?
 
The term Eurocentric does not apply. Many places experience cold winter besides Europe. I am Canadian.
Eurocentric refers to European countries and their colonies, Canada is one of the single funniest countries you could've picked to say this and I'm also Canadian

Canadian seasonality still very much abides by European understandings of seasonality, as does much of the US (especially the parts that are most relevant in this timeframe). Over 2/3 of the world's people live between 35 degrees north and south and all of them are more impacted by monsoon cycles than winter. The focus on seasonality is both cool and good for the game but only including winter doesn't even make sense for Europe given how much wet/dry cycles and monsoon winds impacted colonisation patterns
 
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Never thought I agree with the "Wow" post more.
So much much more than I anticipated and hoped for.

I am really curious how it shapes out with the winter coditions for food. Most games tend to shy away from fluctuations as it makes for harder balancing acts. So this makes me even happier.
This potentially also opens the door for bad harvests and over rainy or dry seasons impacting.

Man, each passing happy wednesday gets me more excited for this unannounced game!
 
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Eurocentric refers to European countries and their colonies, Canada is one of the single funniest countries you could've picked to say this and I'm also Canadian

Canadian seasonality still very much abides by European understandings of seasonality, as does much of the US (especially the parts that are most relevant in this timeframe). Over 2/3 of the world's people live between 35 degrees north and south and all of them are more impacted by monsoon cycles than winter. The focus on seasonality is both cool and good for the game but only including winter doesn't even make sense for Europe given how much wet/dry cycles and monsoon winds impacted colonisation patterns

Hmmm yeah Canada was a European colony in 1337 and is one currently....

Btw this topic is completely stupid as they said that winters would effect appropriate regions and there would be hurricane and monsoon mechanics.
 
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Hmmm yeah Canada was a European colony in 1337 and is one currently....
Not sure how that's relevant. The focus on winter doesn't come from a desire to model West Cree migration patterns or Algonquin winter raids as shown by the examples used and the game mechanics at play

Btw this topic is completely stupid as they said that winters would effect appropriate regions and there would be hurricane and monsoon mechanics.
We've been told there will be *storm* mechanics and hurricanes and monsoons were brought up in that specific context. What people are talking about in the thread is the seasonal monsoon, the primary determinant of the wet and dry seasons that define life for the clear majority of states both now and in 1337
 
Not sure how that's relevant. The focus on winter doesn't come from a desire to model West Cree migration patterns or Algonquin winter raids as shown by the examples used and the game mechanics at play


We've been told there will be *storm* mechanics and hurricanes and monsoons were brought up in that specific context. What people are talking about in the thread is the seasonal monsoon, the primary determinant of the wet and dry seasons that define life for the clear majority of states both now and in 1337
Even if they were unclear I assume they would have seasonal monsoon mechanics because they were in more recent versions of Eu4...
 
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This sounds awesome! How long are winters? 1 turn, 5 turns, 10 turns? Or rather, how long are turns? Does it depend on the area (like the Alps might be multiple turns of winter)
 
no, but you can tell by seeing nearby areas thawing

Combined feedback on freezing:

1. It would be good to establish temperature ranges for the 3 types of winter for more detailed/scientific feedback. My proposal :

Mild Winter : 8 to -2 Celsius during the day
Normal WInter: -2 to -12 Celsius during the day
Severe Winter: anything below -12

2. Effects on water of those temperatures:

Seas and anything with salt water should only freeze during Severe winters and thaw even during Normal Winter

Lakes should freeze during Severe winter, but stay frozen through Normal Winter as ice wouldnt get thinner during negative temperatures. Thaws during Mild WInter (If possible lakes can be split into Major and Minor ones, with Minor ones freezing during Normal winter)

Rivers should lose defensive advantage during Severe Winter as they become easily passable (potentially Normal also), shown by Mongols

Rivers should gain a significant defensive advantage during MIld Winter after Normal/Severe (AKA Spring) due to thin ice or due to ice moving. Crossing would be effectively impossible


3. Effects on Military - thawing should go in stages because it is possible to cross on foot for much longer than with artillery.

Cavalry (Heavy) should have a minor malus on ice (See Battle of Ice for reference for what happens to Knights on Ice)

Artillery should have a bonus to attack value due to breaking of ice with shot

There should be stage of Thaw where all the artillery and horses drown but infantry can still survive. All Cavalry and Artillery regiments to be converted into Militia Infantry
 
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Freezing Seas
Narrows, Inland Seas and Lakes have the possibility of freezing over during winter. This can happen when a seazone has had severe winter for over a week, and will then last until winter is no longer severe in that location.

A frozen seazone can be traversed by armies and this allows greater military control over the lands it reaches; however, it will cause navies to get stuck until it thaws. Be careful when the weather changes, it can thaw with catastrophic consequences if an army is on the ice. Navies can also not enter any seazone that has frozen over.
Maybe this can also be added for other Paradox games. During WW2 the Soviets even built road on Lake Ladoga when it was frozen.
 
Is there going to be genocide, expell, move population buttom? Would be really great
And also, about maritime countries... What about trading companies? They could actually play in their own
With trading company investments and sometimes even land
Would make even more sense if there would be possibility to move products around world with ships for example
 
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Since we're touching the climate thingy a bit in this Dev Diary:
What about spring flooding and rivers becoming: "uncrossable" ( that is, unless there's a 'permament bridge infrastructure' build on at least one river bank) during the spring snow meltdown... most of dirt roads from that period would become one big mud, making traveling with wagons very unpleasent, but most notably major rivers would be fueled with extra water from melting snow, making fords unaccessible, causing local floodings, sometimes destroying weaker bridges (literally washing them away).

My question is: will that be reflected somehow in games mechanic?
for example: if the winter was severe or at least normal: there's a non zero chance that parts of major river in the region will become uncrossable and certain locations might become flooded ( which is pretty good for food production on farmlands, but having your buildings being sunk every other year is probably not good... but who the hell would build on floodplains to begin with...)
 
Since winter spreads Russia is more likely to get winter than Hungary I guess since winter will usually start spreading in arctic areas north of Russia
Sure, but large parts of Russia has the same climate as Hungary in the game(continental).. If climate is the only thing in the game which impacts winter, then the game won't be able to differentiate between the two areas, even though there is a definite difference in the real world..
 
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Will pops in winter areas also demand wood? This was one of the driving factors of deforestation in Europe, a growing need for fuel.