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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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I assume that "like napoleon at the Austerlitz Battle" canon / artillery on frozen water may have a bonus in defense maybe ? or 3x more casualties to the enemy ?

 
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Incredible! We've heard about winter now; can we expect summer mechanics as well, including status for monsoon season and other tropical seasons?

Will the cycle of winters be able to change across years? The Little Ice Age takes place over PC's time scale, will we see winters grow harsher during this period?
 
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…

As a Spaniard living in Andalusia, let me doubt this... (*profusely curses in 40ºC*)
 
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Are there some sort of "upgrades" for troops to survive the winter or at least make for example, Russian armies have better odds surviving winter than, let's say, some French armies that found their way to Russia for some weird reason?
Better access to the fur trade good I would imagine
 
If your army is in home territory will winter still impact them? If they're just sat around in their barracks it doesn't feel like you should be losing any/many to winter, expect maybe if it's so severe that you run out of supplies
 
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Tunisia should have a special exception for moving through the Alps in winter...
I know youre just joking but... Hannibal started crossing the alps in July...
 
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3 questions

1. Can you make Wetlands better traversable for armies during winter, increased movement speed?
2. What are the effects of a frozen over seazone for strait crossings?
3. You mention frozen over seazones being traversable for armies, are lakes also traversable?
 
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If two hostile armees meet at frozen seazone, do they fight as normal? If so is there a greater risk of ice breaking?

I imagine two armies fighting, then the ice breaks and they all die, and the two warring countries staring at each other after their whole armies drowned:

sori.png
 
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Not sure if asked already, but how long will winter phases last? If normal or severe winter only lasts for a few days and blocks movement through mountains, it'll probably not be enough to actually corner an enemy army.

Also, can't coastal provinces still fish during winter, even when it's cold? Or can we have certain techs that allow it? Not sure what history is regarding fishing in winter.

Also not sure if I'm a fan of armies being able to drown on frozen seas. I hope we have some foresight in what the weather will be. I mean, IRL even if it's a warm day, if it was freezing long enough, not all ice is suddenly lost.

I do like what you did with development, food and pops on winter though. Realistic. Will make playing in iceland a real challenge.
 
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that is the intent. not sure it is in yet.
I can see this being annoying if you're blockading say St Petersburg, but have to keep retreating your navy during the winter months to keep them from being captured maybe we could have something like “Go home for the winter” that would move our Navies back and forth for us?
 
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winter is more likely to make sieges fail, as your army may dwindle.
And what about the defenders? Wouldn't winter be catastrophic for them too if the're already short of food and other winter supplies, thus making the siege more probable to success if it's been there for a long time?
 
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I hope smaller rivers could freeze over like during 1794 to 1795, which had a significant impact on fighting during the war of the first coalition. Now, this is provided you actually do end up simulating rivers… it would be cool if they were divided into major and minor rivers, which both impact movement and gameplay in their own ways
 
we will talk about monsoons/storms in a later TT
Would be nice if river crossings are untraversable during monsoons/storms, and if trade winds reverse seasonally corresponding to the monsoon season, causing trade nodes to shift seasonally; it would really make the Indian Ocean region feel alive and dynamic.
 
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