Tinto Talks #3 - March 13th, 2024

[viola]

There are serious conversations

Byzantine fanboys getting so deep in their Roman larping that they no longer just promote the plight of a dead medieval warlord state and its fantastical claims, but now even suggest to delete any mention of Greek cultured, Greek speaking people as inconvenient to their fantasy of Romans in togas being a thing in the 14th century, are not serious in the least.

Changing the culture of Greek people is even worse than changing the name of the state, because it literally deletes the real existing medieval Hellenic culture of the area in favour of a nationalist fantasy. Because this is what it is: a nationalist fantasy that gets it off by insistingly claim a direct relation to the Roman Empire.
In reality, Greek culture predates the Romans, has shaped Roman culture and not the other way around, and Byzantine larpers should really start to show some respect to the people they supposedly fanboy over.

Do you know the story of the Kingdom of Jerusalem's later claimants? Apparently, half of Europe at some point claimed to be the legitimate heir to the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Do we want to change Naples' name to Jerusalem, for the sake of not hurting Neapolitan identity of their legitimate Christian Levantine crusader character?

 

[naq29]

Let's also not forget to rename China "Middle Kingdom", to better represent how they assumed to be the center of the world and civilization, Russia to "Third Rome", as they considered themselves legitimate heirs to the Roman Empire too, the Holy Roman Empire as "Roman Empire" as they also considered themselves the legitimate continuation of the Roman Empire since the throne became vacant in 797 with Irene's illegitimate ascension (the Pope was very clear about women not being able to be Roman emperors), and of course let's rename the Ottomans to "Roman Empire" as well since, you know, from their point of view they legitimately inherited the Roman throne with their conquest of Constantinople in 1453.

Byzantine fanboys, man.

I am fine with calling China "Middle State/Nation" (except modern China, which officially accepts to be called China in English). But every Chinese dynasty already has an official state name (Great Ming State, Great Qing State, etc...), so calling them China or Middle Kingdom would actually be less correct.

Russia and Ottoman also had official state names. And the Holy Roman Empire did call themselves... Holy Roman Empire so what is the problem here?

Byzantine Empire, however, never called themselves Byzantine Empire.

 

[Linbot#6018]

Just in case it wasn't mentioned here before: "Greek" culture should be renamed to "Roman" or "Romaioi". Anthony Kaldellis' books, especially "Romanland" and "Byzantium Unbound" go in depth on the topic on Medieval Roman identity and what kind of damage the denial of that identity by Western Europeans did (to be replaced with "Greek"), as well as that Muslim nations never denied it. Having the proper name of the culture by default would make a huge stride towards normalizing Roman identity in general public. You could switch that culture to Greek if Rhomania (name suggested by Kaldellis for Byzantium) falls, giving fields for emergence of Greek national movements as we know them from history.

Renaming "Byzantium" (I pressume that's what the name will be) to Rhomania (or Romania, though that might be confusing) or even Roman Empire would be excellent as well, but maybe too controversial.

My personal chaotic evil suggestion is to instead rename the Byzantine Empire to "Greece", because in a medieval context we can consider "Greeks" to be the English translation of "Rhomaioi", because that is exactly what it meant.

Let's also not forget to rename China "Middle Kingdom", to better represent how they assumed to be the center of the world and civilization, Russia to "Third Rome", as they considered themselves legitimate heirs to the Roman Empire too, the Holy Roman Empire as "Roman Empire" as they also considered themselves the legitimate continuation of the Roman Empire since the throne became vacant in 797 with Irene's illegitimate ascension (the Pope was very clear about women not being able to be Roman emperors), and of course let's rename the Ottomans to "Roman Empire" as well since, you know, from their point of view they legitimately inherited the Roman throne with their conquest of Constantinople in 1453.

Byzantine fanboys, man.

Now on the other hand, this post exhibits a sort of phenomenon I have observed, where people take a perspective on Medieval Greece's usage of "Roman" as an autonym that appears to imply they believe the most important thing about calling onself Roman is that one is claiming to be Classical Rome, even though as I understand it "Roman" was, as I have said, the Medieval Greek word for "Greek" and its usage didn't necessarily imply that Greek people were trying to LARP as ancient latins.

My personal theory is that many of the people who take this attitude (though not necessarily including the author of this post) have some sort of quasi-religious awe for Classical Rome, under which perspective, calling yourself "Rome" is only appropriate if you are actually worth of it. A dying 14th century Greek country that cannot defend itself against the Serbs calling itself "Rome" is therefore basically an act of nomenclatural vandalism. There also might be some element of CK game mechanics mixed in here too where it is physically impossible for more than one person to hold the title "Emperor of the Romans" at once but I'm not totally sure. This sort of attitude also might contribute to why it is possible for the Roman Empire in EU4 and CK to "form" the Roman Empire, even though it is not entirely clear what that actually means and even less clear why the Greeks would want to conquer a bunch of land that has never been part of Greece (the HRE for instance despite also claiming Roman heritage and possibly being more into LARPing as ancient latins than the Greeks were, did not show any particular inclination to recovering the former borders of Classical Rome either, they were more concerned with the community of Christendom which makes sense because it was actually, like, relevant to medieval europeans as opposed to the borders of classical rome).

Also for the record, "Third Rome" was not a serious official name for Russia, likewise for the Ottomans, nobody has ever called Naples "Jerusalem", and the Holy Roman Empire is in fact called the Holy Roman Empire in the game, nobody is proposing renaming it to "Germany" or "the Empire" to cut down on displays of presumptuousness. As such I don't think it is particularly out of place for a country whose monarch was called the "Emperor of the Romans" and whose people referred to themselves as "Romans" (which none of those other countries did, Germans remained Germans Russians remained Russians Neapolitans did not become "Jerusalemites" and the padishah didn't think anything of calling Greeks "Rumi" even though he was supposedly claiming to be kayser-i Rûm), to be called "Rhomania". It's definitely better than calling it "Byzantium".

 

[Dongerino]

I think it'd be more intuitive if the filter icons were aligned with what they're filtering, like this:

 

[Arizal]

I think it'd be more intuitive if the filter icons were aligned with what they're filtering, like this:
View attachment 1097113

That annoyed me as well, but I'm sure in the release version they will manage to make it fit.

 

[gigau]

View attachment 1094402

When do we get it ?

 

[SupBros]

As far as I've read, this looks like it is EU5 and so far I'm liking everything mentioned here. Can't wait for the next Tinto Talks!

 

[LAVA7171]

Dai Viet population looks to be a little off.
Considering China with 88 million people, this is likely the mid 1400s. In the early 16th century, Dai Viet's population was estimated to be 5-8 million. In 1400, it was estimated to be somewhere between 1.5 and 3 million. Its population should be adjusted to reflect this unless I am missing something (like the start date being during the Lam Sơn uprising). Looks good other than that!

 

[Jespoke]

Dai Viet population looks to be a little off.
Considering China with 88 million people, this is likely the mid 1400s. In the early 16th century, Dai Viet's population was estimated to be 5-8 million. In 1400, it was estimated to be somewhere between 1.5 and 3 million. Its population should be adjusted to reflect this unless I am missing something (like the start date being during the Lam Sơn uprising). Looks good other than that!

The discussion in this thread theorizes that we are looking at the mid 1300s. I don't know if that lines up with the numbers for Dai Viet, but it should be closer at least.

 

[viola]

My personal theory is that many of the people who take this attitude (though not necessarily including the author of this post) have some sort of quasi-religious awe for Classical Rome, under which perspective

I don't think that's the case.

The guys who are so enamored by the glorious empire who delivered peace and civilization through mass enslavement, mass crucifixions and general genocide are these byzantine fanboys who, I believe, particularly gravitate toward the Byzantine era because it combines the narrative trope of the underdog with the "cool factor" of the Roman Empire. As you can see, it's not history that is on their mind.
When this gets to the point that these people are trying to warp historical knowledge (the Byzantine Empire was a Greek speaking, Greek cultured state with historical links to the Roman Empire of old, and the name "Byzantine Empire" serves exactly to denote the particular character of this period of the empire, even if causes strange emotional reactions to Roman larpers) to better suit their fantasies, however, is time to stop.

If you want to use the way people referred to themselves in the time period, call the Byzantine Greeks "Rhomanoi" and then also everyone else as they called themselves in their own language, so we have "Angleterre" on game start since the Plantagenet kings spoke French and would have much rather ruled in Paris. Otherwise, call people by their common English name, and so use the normal academic term to the refer to the Greek-speaking polity that emerged from the disintegration of the Roman Empire in the centuries going from the 5th to the 15th, primarily based on the city of Constantinople, also known as Byzantium.

 

[Amyldor]

Absolutely love everything coming from your team, it seems you are truly doing everything in your power to make the creation of this game a community process, every dlc released in recent time for eu4 has been a hit (in my opinion) and the new mission trees are something that makes eu4 flavorful and extremely fun, genuinely big ups and keep doing what you are doing, loving these weekly talks.

 

[Oceanflex]

"Is this system easily modded? I'd like to add tribal and nomadic pops."

yes

This is absolutely terrifying, not even a hint of "in a future Talks" about how non-Western European pops will be handled. Slaves doesn't accurately describe Mamluks or Eunuchs, and Tribesmen (or similar) is pretty distinct from Nobles or Peasants outside of Feudal nations. I guess it's more important to say that it's moddable, but I really hope we won't have to wait for DLCs just to have a different faction represented by pops.

 

[Johan]

"Is this system easily modded? I'd like to add tribal and nomadic pops."

This is absolutely terrifying, not even a hint of "in a future Talks" about how non-Western European pops will be handled. Slaves doesn't accurately describe Mamluks or Eunuchs, and Tribesmen (or similar) is pretty distinct from Nobles or Peasants outside of Feudal nations. I guess it's more important to say that it's moddable, but I really hope we won't have to wait for DLCs just to have a different faction represented by pops.

We are insanely unlikely to add other poptypes, and we have removed some we had earlier in development.

differentiation is not only about pop type, but a lot of other statistics.

 

[Swirly Mango]

I'm really curious how Tribal nations are setup and when tribal nations conquer settled peoples.

 

[christian908]

I was not here when these talks diaries started but I'd like to mention.

This is a wonderful idea! Being able to include people in the dev process and get feedback at an early stage before things are ready for announcement. I really appreciate the involvement.

 

[Diamss]

We are insanely unlikely to add other poptypes, and we have removed some we had earlier in development.

differentiation is not only about pop type, but a lot of other statistics.

It's your choice, and I'm not against it, but will pop types be able to change their names after certain events? For example, if the state religion becomes Protestantism, the clerics become the pastors.

 

[Stevo2940]

Greek national movement

Just want to mention that while Kaldelis has done wonder for the medieval roman byzantine field I must say that me and many other people don't agree with him about the loss of Greek idenity. Sorry but while the Romaioi idenity was the predominant one it does not change the fact that throughout the existence of Rhomania their is so many sources of people know that they are also Grraikoi/Hellenes. Kaldelis exaggerates too much but I do like what he is doing in the field and using the correct terms like Rhomania and Romans and all that but to say that the Greek idenity was because of a Greek national movement after the fall is just wrong when people already knew about this identity but it was a secondary one as to them they were descadents from both the ancient Hellenes and the Romans.

 

[Linbot#6018]

The guys who are so enamored by the glorious empire who delivered peace and civilization through mass enslavement, mass crucifixions and general genocide are these byzantine fanboys who, I believe, particularly gravitate toward the Byzantine era because it combines the narrative trope of the underdog with the "cool factor" of the Roman Empire. As you can see, it's not history that is on their mind.

This is also true, to be fair.

 

[fraughtGYRE]

We are insanely unlikely to add other poptypes, and we have removed some we had earlier in development.

differentiation is not only about pop type, but a lot of other statistics.

I'm with you here on adding tribals, especially since culture is already represented. Social organization is heavily influenced by culture, and vice versa. So as you conquer the steppes as Russia, simply having Tatar culture pops is sufficient to know that they are nomadic tribes with their own way of life.

Really the only thing I hope you will consider is an urban population beyond burghers. Unskilled urban residents were very diverse throughout history, so the culture argument has less effect. Additionally, the legal regime for those living in cities has historically been significantly different from people living in rural areas. In many places extremely harsh tenancy laws led to land abandonment and migration into cities. Having these important factors properly represented is crucial for the time period, as it was during this time that the great urbanization began. In 1300 something like 1% of the world lived in cities. Combined with population growth and average urbanization increasing by a factor of 10, this era saw an incredible increase in the population of cities.

I'm sure you already have systems under design to properly register urban populations, so I'll withhold judgment and won't get to groveling just yet . Excited to see what other designs are in the works

Edit: ah, is it the case that "Burghers" represents all urban pop? Both politically significant (wealthy merchants, guild masters etc) AND the urban poor?

 

[ItThatAltersSanity]

We are insanely unlikely to add other poptypes, and we have removed some we had earlier in development.

differentiation is not only about pop type, but a lot of other statistics.

I'm not surprised the number had to be trimmed down. Every new pop type is a threat to performance and must justify its existence. While the DD says "nobles, clergy, burghers, peasants and slaves", what I'm actually hearing is "3 estates pops, 1 for slaves and 1 for everyone else". I take it distinguishing pops for the 3 estates (i.e. people who could matter for politics of the era) was considered necessary to have sufficient simulation depth. Just wouldn't feel the same if there were only 3 pop types: "the high, the normal, the oppressed".

Most people asking for pop types are really asking for how to express "this social tier in this region was different to a similar tier in that region". Johan already said "serfs = peasants with X and Y" which the DD has not presented so clearly there's a lot more details yet to be revealed.