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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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Will the ai of countries that only have ports that are basically guaranteed to freaze over every year actively engage in conquest to get an ice free port similar to what Russia has tried to do for most of its history?
 
Perhaps this is more for next DD but will roads allow for passing through mountains in the winter? Looking at the current Italy terrain map this would result in Italy being entirely inaccessible to France for certain parts of the year. How is overland trade effected by season?

trade is less affected
 
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Will Project Caeser add similar weather effect that block army's movement in Southeastern Asia's rain season?

we will talk about monsoons/storms in a later TT
 
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Suggesting that frozen sea zones "thaw" once the winter reaches mild or no winter, instead of thawing when normal winter hits. If it was severe enough to freeze the damn thing, it won't thaw "that" suddenly.
 
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Love it all.

Could you tell us how far reaches the line of possible "severe winter" in Europe? More or less.

severe winter does SOMETIMES happen in some climates, and some places like Arctic climate is guaranteed weeks to months of severe winter.
 
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hourly ticks make you feel this much more.
Does this mean the game is meant to be played slower than eu4? I would love if there was enough to do over the course of, say 1 year or 10 years, that it made it worthwhile to slow down. In eu4 it felt like you had a few years of doing a lot, then speed 5 to get to the next wars when. Cores and missionaries dont require maintenance, rebels can be automated, etc.

Would love to feel like ive accomplished something meaningful in just a few years (maybe only a small change, but that it would take enough effort to feel proud of)
 
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Will ocean currents be taken into account? Will mountain ranges have an effect like for example the Alps making the Po valley warm or Tibet and the Himalayas ensuring northern India's fertility?

Thats what we have the climate classifications for.
 
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What happens to sea trade routes when Sea tiles get frozen? Or land trade routes when mountains get severe winters?

Will Trade stop due to blocked path?

they might get rerouted for higher costs if there is a cheaper path, but they will transfer far less goods otherwise
 
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I think it’s realistic to cross a frozen St. Lawrence at Quebec city, but it would be totally unrealistic to do so between Anticosti and Gaspésie, for example or Newfoundland and Cape Breton Island.
 
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I must say winter freezing the coast and making it accessible by armies marching on it is cool.
Can large lakes freeze too and let armies march through it too?