Tinto Talks #29 - 18th of September 2024

[Johan]

Also, do locations the road passes through also get the bonuses or do JUST the two endpoints benefit?

Roads are "all" the connections.. so from Stockholm to Kalmar its about 9 "road" connections between locations.

 

[SaintDaveUK]

Oh, I would love to have the possibility to completely switch off the location/province borders in the settings. So that you see whe wholeness of your country – cities, towns, rural locations, connected by the roads, bridges etc.

We have something affectionately-named the 'Naked mapmode' that shows the 3D world as God intended, free of borders and other UI icons

 

[SaintDaveUK]

So... a terrain map mode?

No the 'terrain mapmode' or default mapmode is similar to other GSG games like EU4, it shows things like borders and common gameplay information on top of the 3d world

 

[Pavía]

By the way, looking at the header image of the TT showing development/prosperity(?) values across the map, did/will you input (as close as possible) estimations/historical values for each location, or is it randomized for the game start? Northern Italy/China/Northern India are lit up, and while those are places which — based on superficial knowledge of the state of the world in 1337 — one would expect to be prosperous, I'm curious if any research went into it or the team just 'went with the flow' of which places should begin more prosperous.

I am no expert, but I feel really weird about this map (I assume this is a development map). China is a blob of hyper-devloped region and central Europe in general is more developed than most of the world? Baghdad, despite being burned by the mongols is doing fine (but Samarkand isnt)? I was expecting more dark/brownish colours across central Europe and more green/yellow around Yemen and certain areas of the golden horde. Even certain sub-saharan region look more developed than most of Anatolia, which strikes me a bit odd. Cities like Konya, Tokat, Ankara and Bursa were on the anatolian silk-road as well as the pilgrimage roads. Kinda weird how they are all still darkish blobs (with the exception of Bursa).

Some of it is rather weird, yes, like the Central Asian silk road has multiple VERY populous locations (last Tinto Maps revealed that Merv, Bukhara, Samarkand etc. had populations in the hundreds of thousands cathegory), so one would think that they would probably have to have at least medium high Development to facilitate those populations.

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.

 

[Pavía]

View attachment 1189197

I'm guessing this is either the development or prosperity map? Having development follow country borders almost 1:1 seems like a weird balancing choice. Looking at China, and seeing places which have been impoverished for centuries and (SEVERELY) underdeveloped for most of their history having a higher value than the majority of places in Europe seems like a major oversight. The Yunnan-Guizhou plateau, and not to even mention the Gobi Desert, shouldn't have higher development values than the plains of France.

Are there plans to make development, within the confines of a nation, be more partial to local conditions as opposed to national conditions? It'd make sense for larger empires to have a dichotomy between what's considered the (urbanized) core and the (rural) periphery. A location's potential shouldn't be primarily tied to a nation's government or ideas. Going merely by this map, I'm foreseeing some issues, let's give some examples:


- Spain owning the Low Countries shouldn't hamper its urbanization and developments in trade.
- Afghanistan conquering down to the Indus Valley shouldn't suddenly make the people living there lose their agricultural productivity
- Ming owning all of Manchuria shouldn't suddenly have it turn into a bread basket by the graces of the Mandate of Heaven

View attachment 1189237 View attachment 1189238

Extremes within the borders of one country seem entirely non-existent, that was my point. While, on this map, once you leave China proper you just fall down a development crevice. Seeing Liaoning be almost devoid of any development, just because they fall beyond the China nation, whereas literally deserts and deep mountainous areas have more development than France, is an oversight.

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.

 

[Pavía]

@Pavía Since the development map has been shown in this Tinto Talks, will/can you share the development map mode in future Tinto Maps for potential feedback?

Sure.

 

[Pavía]

Every week Pavía's workload increases

It's fun because it's true.

 

[Pavía]

But sources were before or after Temur..?

Oh boy, Temur won't be good for the Development value of a bunch of places...

 

[SaintDaveUK]

The dev said that life expectancy is about characters stationed at the location. So I think it is ok because more developed civils tend to have their aristocrats live longer, who can afford ancient healthcare and pay for herbs and etc.

But, I think this should tide with trade goods and tech much more than only developments. In most occasions, eastern civils got better healthcare and diet than Europeans not because they born smarter but because the higher variety of foods (meat and veg), spices and herbs. Especially Chinese and Indian (Hindu) due to climate related higher bio-diversity. Which Europeans gained access and knowledge about only as late as 18th century onwards, by colonisation.

Every age already has an advance that slightly increases character life expectancy of all characters in your country. Interesting point about access to different goods, I'll think on that a little.

 

[SaintDaveUK]

uh oh, could we like, make an undersirable heir member of the cabinet and send him to develop siberia?

In theory you could use the cabinet system to do that, but cabinet actions are one of your most precious resources so there's likely going to be a more gainful usage

 

[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.