Tinto Talks #29 - 18th of September 2024

[Ekyman]

My thinking was that saying development has been previously described as something and then offering a different descriptor would mean a break from that previous description.

That could be, of course. But the causes and bonuses of development that we see in these screenshots make me think nothing much has changed.

That does make a lot more sense than purely agriculture. But there’s still a bit of an abstraction reach here. Why is steppe land so useless when controlled by pastoralists?

It's not. Erase EU4 from your mind. We can see the effects of development in this TT, development is not a modifier to production. Development mostly modifies a location's capacity, not its current state. Almost every effect of development falls into 1) population capacity 2) production capacity 3) logistics/connections. Only group 3 is an effect on the active state rather than capacity, and I think those mostly make enough sense.

Your pastoralists will be able to produce things just fine. There just won't be as many of them in a single location and their potential maximum production won't be as high. I don't think that's particularly inaccurate.

All land use is not infrastructure, and not all production comes out of buildings. For agriculture, land use and productivity is located in the soil (quality). For pastureland it’s in the grasses on top of it. For aquaculture (which would be the primary source of food for at least some cultures located entirely on coasts), it doesn’t count.

Yes, and building a well doesn't increase the amount of iron in a mountain. Some things are just gonna be abstracted, and in this case that's development giving a global increase to max RGO size with no care for the good produced. It'd be cool to have systems for land quality and resource volume, but it seems that's not this game (at least at launch). Theoretically you could not have it increase RGO max size for certain goods, but I suspect the game is balanced around RGOs growing significantly over time and I don't know what you'd replace it with for those resources that wasn't equally abstract, assuming we don't get soil quality and similar metrics.

And from what we've seen development has literally zero direct effect on the production from a single building, so that comparison doesn't actually fit.

Also, I still have those questions about the development map. Some places have lower development to neighboring locations that at least seem unexplained (the patch east of Kiev) while others have development that seems impossibly low for its history (the Tarim Basin, Nubia, Kanem’s capital, someone’s mentioned a city north of China proper).

I mean, Pavia already talked about how it's a starter algorithm and WIP. Absolutely give feedback, but "I don't understand, it doesn't make sense" probably just means they need some feedback and some tweaking, not an indication of mechanical function.

 

[Fawr]

Two comments:

1. You've got a fair point regarding the difference among regions, as we used them as a basis to set the development, and they're basically functional units for map-making purposes. Our plan is to finetune after we finish the map review, as we will have more accurate provinces and areas by then, making easier the task. And that will also impact this map, which will also be more finetuned, before thinking in further iterations.

2. This is just the situation of the starting setup, which is necessarily an abstracted simulation of the reality in 1337. Just after the game starts, it will organically diverge, by the means described by Johan in the main post, at a location level. So, let's say, even if you have a country-wide modifier on Prosperity, as 'Market Fairs', then its effect on the Development of each location will be different, as it will be affected in turn by terrain and other modifiers. So, let's say, you can make general decisions, but those will usually have a granular effect.

Is it worth running a simulation? Like build the map mode for 1300 and then run 37 years of modifiers over it (assume peace, then add devastation on the areas where there was warfare)?

It always feels funny in these sorts of games where day1 results don't factor into account the formulas that every other day uses.

 

[QuinnMallory]

Even though they are presented in the same TT, I'm pretty sure these represent fairly different things. Development is the long-term "extent of cultivation", while prosperity is the short-term economic health. These can be the opposite of each other, for example a region in China wracked by civil war would have low prosperity but high development, while a peaceful region in Siberia would be the opposite of that.

Yes, but that could be handled through the climate system. I guess the question is to what extent in the real world improvements damaged by war or natural disaster add value through reducing the time needed to get effective infrastructure.

 

[Xero_99]

German states outpace other regions because Germany region have higher location density and more countries. More locations means more money and manpower (since population mechanic added in Project Caesar I don't count it). And more countries mean faster development gain which means even more money and manpower.



This all shows that some factors still tied to location. Or these:

View attachment 1189635View attachment 1189636View attachment 1189637

Again, I still think they did a good job and it might not possible to equalize every region.

More locations doesn't mean more money and manpower, 20 desert provinces with 20k population are not going to provide more money and manpower than 1 Chinese location with 1mil pops. Development in EU4 was an abstraction of population and economy, not EU5s development is an abstraction of the base infrastructure and how land is tended is, they are completely different things.

Also, most of these modifiers affect pops the same regardless of whether they're in 1 location or spread over 10.
If you have 1 million pops in 1 location you have to build 1 building to affect them all and the location's development, if 1 building is 100 gold, thats all you spend.
If you have 1 million pops in 10 locations, you have to build 10 buildings, costing 1000 gold to cover the same number of pops.

 

[Romancommander95]

Will parts of the former Roman Empire that has led to the current Medieval period in 1337 already have cobblestone roads especially places such as Italy and France?

 

[Dev2150]

Does development also have a maximum value?

Since at 100% it reduces distance to capital by -100%, yes

 

[evilon]

Cost of roads and the following lack of connectivity away from fjords and other coastlines is where it makes more sense to me to make my Norway a challenge, combined obviously with the shorter growing seasons, rather than not being able to build things in most of winter (which I guess could be a challenge for outsiders).

It makes sense to be that building stuff like roads and similar infrastructure is hard/expensive when there's always a big mountain or five in the way, while I've never understood why that would make increasing the size of an already existing harbor or a bank more expensive (beyond the cost of transporting materials I guess).

 

[Pavía]

Will parts of the former Roman Empire that has led to the current Medieval period in 1337 already have cobblestone roads especially places such as Italy and France?

We have some of the old Roman roads that survived as routes throughout the Medieval period, such as the Via Egnatia, already scripted in the setup. But that the routes would still be similar doesn't mean that the roads are the same; in general terms, those that survived were replaced by the Medieval type of road, as the maintenance on the Roman style was in general terms not possible anymore.

 

[Tavolo87]

yes

so will we be able to build railroads in the Sahara then?

 

[Tavolo87]

This is the first iteration of the development mapmode, something that is not trivial to calculate (because answering the question of 'How much developed was each location of the world in 1337?' is... complex).

The way we crafted this first iteration was by setting the highest value we wanted for the most developed location in the world, which we considered to be Beijing, as being the main capital of Yuán, and a very, very impressive place by all the accounts of contemporary travelers. After that, we also discussed, coming from our experience on the map-making research process, some 'regional champions': Paris, Cairo, Delhi, etc. And from there, we 'irradiated' decreasing development values into neighboring areas and regions. Those values are also automatically adjusted by the different terrain types (as each one has a different positive or negative value), and then we made some manual adjustments, based on other factors that we aren't considering (like soil fertility). A last step was adding specific values to certain locations, to round up relative consistency.

Albeit not being perfect, we think that this is a decent system for a first iteration, as it also allow us to do further adjustments quite easily, based on playtesting and player feedback.

I am very glad to hear this. Most parts on this development map are inconsistent even in their own region (besides the obvious eastern - western) divide, so I am very glad to hear that you're going to be open to feedback about it

 

[raktari]

In a previous Tinto Talk a few weeks ago you said that there won't be navigable rivers. Is this decision final? Tbh these days I can't really start a single player camping without a mod that makes them navigable. For some nations it's not a big deal but it makes landlocked campings a lot more interesting and these rivers can serve as pretty good defensible borders too.

 

[Sithodox2286]

Beijing should be the most developed location in China.

Yeh, that’s often the misconception or stereotype. Although I would expect more from historical nerd devs of our games


tbh Beijing was never the Capital choice because it is the most developed city back in the days. It’s like Washington D.C. or Canberra. The political and strategic push outweighs the economic and social enjoyment. And of course development.

For Yuan though things might be different, Beijing or Khanbaliq is an easy choice because the city was a side-capital of the Jurchen-Chinese empire they overthrown. Though other locations may be better, but Hebei province was developed enough to support a capital. + the Yuan was about to conquer the Southern Song empire with massive mongol like purges. So, the south didn’t recover until like around 1290s.

But the but is how Mongol govern. The merchandise focuses, multiple entities’ wars on China domnination since 1130ish, frequent civil conflicts and above all the one-year civil war in 1328 (两都之战) have devastated effect on the potential of the northern China and Mongolia part of the empire.

Historically speaking, it is hard to determine the status of Northern China at the game start. Due to the time of troubles in coming and Yuan’s style of record keeping. But from my pov that green crunch should be shrunk and the population might be shifted. Ming’s campaign to push Yuan remains out from Northern plains even encountered environmental disaster like sand storms near the yellow river. Which isn’t a nice sign of environmental and humane friendly governance.

Ultimately, I think is the devs view on east asia that makes the decision. To what extend do they want the region (or sub continent quoting Eu4 definition) to be vanilla playable or interactive. Before coming back to redo it 3~4yrs later.

 

[Dev2150]

100% location development means that its proximity will be equal to the best of its neighbors?

 

[AHumpierRogue]

Yeh, that’s often the misconception or stereotype. Although I would expect more from historical nerd devs of our games


tbh Beijing was never the Capital choice because it is the most developed city back in the days. It’s like Washington D.C. or Canberra. The political and strategic push outweighs the economic and social enjoyment. And of course development.

For Yuan though things might be different, Beijing or Khanbaliq is an easy choice because the city was a side-capital of the Jurchen-Chinese empire they overthrown. Though other locations may be better, but Hebei province was developed enough to support a capital. + the Yuan was about to conquer the Southern Song empire with massive mongol like purges. So, the south didn’t recover until like around 1290s.

But the but is how Mongol govern. The merchandise focuses, multiple entities’ wars on China domnination since 1130ish, frequent civil conflicts and above all the one-year civil war in 1328 (两都之战) have devastated effect on the potential of the northern China and Mongolia part of the empire.

Historically speaking, it is hard to determine the status of Northern China at the game start. Due to the time of troubles in coming and Yuan’s style of record keeping. But from my pov that green crunch should be shrunk and the population might be shifted. Ming’s campaign to push Yuan remains out from Northern plains even encountered environmental disaster like sand storms near the yellow river. Which isn’t a nice sign of environmental and humane friendly governance.

Ultimately, I think is the devs view on east asia that makes the decision. To what extend do they want the region (or sub continent quoting Eu4 definition) to be vanilla playable or interactive. Before coming back to redo it 3~4yrs later.

Yes. Beijing was the capital for the Yuan because of proximity to the steppe. If they moved the capital further south, firstly it would discomfort the mongol nobles who didn't like the heat, but a lot more importantly it would risk losing control of the steppes if they moved too far away from their base of power. For the Ming, Beijing was the capital(after a brief period in Nanjing) for the purpose of being on the front lines with the steppe in order to watch it more closely. Drawing the lines of defense south of the steppe would be the equivalent to surrendering it, after all, so it makes sense to put the capital on what is essentially the edge of the Frontier.

So yeah, honestly I would say that yes, the dev map for China should be reconisdered even within China proper. At this point in time the population is fundamentally driven to the Yangtze, and while it's not like north china is a slouch it's a far cry from the glory days.

 

[Fawr]

Should trade increase prosperity? So for example busy ports in good harbours, or being on the main route between adjacent Markets, or being on a river or having many road connections?

Historically many of the most prosperous places in Europe were the trading centers. Think of why places like London, Venice, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Seville, Lisbon or Genoa became prosperous. While on the other hand being in a backwater without much trade is a good sign of low prosperity.

 

[GeneralUrist]

no

Aww man, why? Having piracy be detached from the actual prosperity of regions feels very railroaded. If I have a Pacific empire with trade flourishing around Australia and the Pacific Northwest while the Caribbean is a smoking wreckage, why shouldn't the pirates come and trouble me instead?

roads are not in a location, but on the connection between two locations

Logical, but I'm quite curious how that's done from a technical standpoint. Does that mean the game save needs to keep track of all possible land connections, on top of the many actual locations, to check which ones have roads? Hope that's not a performance or memory hog.

 

[Oglesby]

Logical, but I'm quite curious how that's done from a technical standpoint. Does that mean the game save needs to keep track of all possible land connections, on top of the many actual locations, to check which ones have roads? Hope that's not a performance or memory hog.

I would think that they already need to calculate and keep data for a province compared to its neighbors for trade and control calculations, this is just adding a has road segment variable to that data. Also I assume roads would be used for those calculations so it make sense to add it there.

I think it makes sense to have the road being an item between (adjacent) locations as opposed to just a modifier on the location as connections between some locations should be more difficult (i.e. northern connection is through the mountains but east west is a coastal road). I am coming at this from a larger province mindset and smaller locations might make this moot.

 

[Lycaniz]

please for the love of god, do not have 'hold mouse button to confirm' be a feature, that is such a controller thing and should not be a thing on pc/keyboardmouse

is there a 4th type of map such as old roman roads in italy that exist at game start? is it possible to 'repair' such fragmented roads, or perhaps add a cost reduction to building new roads if you use remnants of old roads integrated in your new road projects?

 

[Kubus12369_]

Welcome everyone to another Tinto Talks, the Happy Wednesday where we inform you about how things will work in our super secret game with the codename Project Caesar.

In today's Tinto Talks we will delve into a few different and not entirely related topics, but they are important for what we need to talk about as they will be referenced a fair bit in future Tinto Talks.

Prosperity & Devastation
In Project Caesar this is a single value in a location ranging from -100% to +100%, where positive is prosperity and negative is devastation.

Prosperity represents how prosperous and resourceful a location is. A prosperous location increases development over time. Prosperity will slowly rise, unless different negative circumstances reduce it. If it goes negative it will cause devastation.

There is no direct way for the player to increase prosperity, but having a peaceful country will have it increase slowly over time.

View attachment 1189194
‘Market Fairs’ is a nice privilege to give.


Devastation represents how ravaged a location is. It includes burnt-down farms and abandoned villages, and the biggest sources of devastation are blockades and occupation.

It has a rather huge impact on a location over time, reducing how much food and raw materials it produces and the population over time.

If you have high devastation in any location in a province, the Age of Renaissance has an advance that enables a cabinet action, where you can focus on recovering devastation in a province, until it has recovered fully.

Ideally, you do not want any sort of war or conflict happening on your own lands.

View attachment 1189129
Not ideal, let's end this war asap…

Development
One concept that has been in many of our previous GSGs is development. It has been used for various things, but in Project Caesar development represents how cultivated the land is, and how much it is used by the pops living there. The higher the development, the more people can live there, and the more it can be exploited.

As mentioned in earlier Tinto Talks, this is a value that the player mostly only has indirect control over, but you can have your cabinet working on improving development in an entire province at once.

Development helps a fair bit in improving the quality of a location, but all of these values here are still constantly being balanced.

View attachment 1189128
The Woods probably has some other advantage…


Roads
We have had roads in many of our former games, and this game will also have roads. In Project Caesar this includes one of the most in-depth systems of roads we have ever made. A road is basically a connection between two land locations that reduces the proximity calculations from 40 down to 20. Most settled nations start with the capacity to build gravel roads, but there are three advances in later ages that will introduce new types of roads that can be built. Those roads will reduce proximity further, and increase movement speed for armies.

Now this may sound like it could be a lot of micromanagement if we had used the ways railroads were built in Victoria 2, or how roads were built in Imperator, but we have a few easier ways to build or upgrade road networks.

View attachment 1189127
Here we have Kalmar selected and we are looking at building a road to Idre, which technically is in Norway at the start of the game. You can always build a road INTO the location of any country that has a positive opinion of you, so road networks can and will be connected for trade.

• The green locations are locations you can afford to build a road from Kalmar to at the moment.
• Striped locations are locations with a road network.
• The white-outlined locations are the proposed path for the road between Kalmar and Idre.

Road building is one of the most important and fun parts of the control-growing gameplay loop.


Piracy & Privateers
To clarify here, a privateer is a pirate sponsored by a specific country. The ability to sponsor privateers has several different ways to unlock. First of all, every nation has access to an advance in the Age of Absolutism called Letter of Marque that reduces the cost for privateers while also making them sturdier. There are also unique advances in the Age of Discovery for some countries that allow them to hire privateers, while if you pick the Diplomatic Focus in the Age of Renaissance you have the possibility to recruit privateers that early.

Sponsoring a Privateer can be done in an area, and cost about 250 sailors per privateer, and 10 sailors each month they are active. A pirate/privateer in an area, depending on its current strength, can reduce the maritime presence of all non-friendly countries in all sea zones in that area. This hurts relations and will give them a way to get a casus belli on you though.


So how do you fight privateers? Well, you have a fleet of ships in any location in that sea area, and they will actively reduce the capacity of those pirates. Galleys are a bit better than heavy ships at hunting pirates, but light ships are by far the best at dealing with pirates, where a single light ship is about ten times as effective as a heavy ship at the start of the game.


View attachment 1189126
You need sailors for your privateers, or they disappear..

There is a situation in the later half of the 16th century where piracy will start to grow in certain areas of the map. Pirates also have a chance to spawn from locations with pirate covens. These are buildings that peasants will build in coastal locations where control is very low.

View attachment 1189125
This privilege when granted to the Burghers will help your privateers be more cost effective…




Stay tuned, as next week we will focus on Conquest, Integration and Casus Belli’s.

It would be great to have cossack raids present in the game as part of ottoman harrasment of polish crown

 

[Oglesby]

please for the love of god, do not have 'hold mouse button to confirm' be a feature, that is such a controller thing and should not be a thing on pc/keyboardmouse

is there a 4th type of map such as old roman roads in italy that exist at game start? is it possible to 'repair' such fragmented roads, or perhaps add a cost reduction to building new roads if you use remnants of old roads integrated in your new road projects?

From what I remember it is selectable between 'hold to confirm' and an 'are you sure' pop-up.

(Now I will have to go back and dig from where I remember that)

Edit: found it

Would you rather want a confirm dialog? if so, then you just switch to that option. Project Caesar has hold to confirm OR confirm dialog as a user option for non-reversible decisions..