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Tinto Talks #32 - 9th of October 2024

Welcome to another Tinto Talks , the Happy Wednesday, where we talk about our upcoming, unannounced, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious game with the codename Project Caesar.

Today we will talk about what happens when some of the pops in your country are not entirely convinced of its greatness.

Rebel Factions

There are five different categories that a rebel faction can belong to.
  • Nationalist, for all independence movements.
  • Pretender, for when they want another ruler.
  • Slave, for when they want to be free.
  • Religious, if a different religious group they want independence, else they want to convert the country
  • Estate, for when they are really unhappy and want their society to change.

patriots.png

A fair number of pops, and 12 locations, this could be a challenge..

Pops and Rebel Factions
Now let's go back to Tinto Talks #17, where we first mentioned that Pops have satisfaction, and when that is low enough a pop will join a rebel faction. The levels at which a pop joins or leaves a faction have some different factors, but the way to keep a pop from joining a rebel is to make sure they are satisfied with life.

Now, let's take a look at some Sardinian peasants in Cagliari, which has recently been conquered by Aragon, just before the start of the game.

sardinians.png

For some reason people tend to be a bit upset when conquered.

Sadly we can not make the commoners estate more happy in Aragon, as they are already at 100% satisfaction, so the +25% bonus is the maximum we can get. Otherwise to make the estates happy you can always reduce taxes or grant them more privileges.

One obvious solution here is to make them integrated which would reduce the conquered penalty of 50% to 10%, however that will take about 25 years, which may not be quick enough to avoid an uprising. If we build a castle we could add another 10% of satisfaction, and we could also station an army there to keep the peasants in line.

As they lack access to wine and legumes, and currently trade in a muslim market, we could try to deny market access to Al-Jazair, and they would be slightly happier as the wine would be easier to get from an Italian market.

All of this would make the satisfaction positive at least, but we need to get it above 29.74%, which is not feasible right now.

join_reb.png

A stable country has a higher threshold for rebels to join..

Sadly we can not yet use the Pacify Population cabinet action which you can get in the Age of Absolutism which reduces the threshold for joining rebels by 5-10% depending on the competence of your monarch and cabinet.

If we go back to rebel factions again, they have a progress value, where when it reaches 100%, and here the rebels, which will take about 23 years, so the uprising is likely to happen before the integration is done, unless you can weaken their power, or increase control over their territories so they get less money.

rebel_progress.png

Sadly Sardinia is a bit too far away for a road from Barcelona..

So what happens when a rebel faction has progressed to 100% then? Well, one of two things will happen, either there will be a civil war or a revolt. First the rebel faction forms a new country, with a relevant name, and takes ownership of the locations where it has a strong support.

Revolts
If they are a rebel type that wants to be independent, then they will start a revolt, which is almost a war where the defender can re-annex any revolter without further aggressive expansion and can always afford the peace cost.

If the culture of these revolting countries is from a country that exists on the map, they will call in the country they used to be a part of it into the revolt, and if they join, and the war is won, the revolter will become a part of the country that they belonged to in the past.


Civil War
These are started by pretenders, some religious rebels, or estate type rebels. Civil Wars work differently than other wars in that you do not have to negotiate a peace. In Civil War, as soon as you would have taken control of a location from a siege or occupation, the location would immediately flip ownership of that location instead.

This means that Civil Wars are almost always fought to the bitter end, and only one country can survive.


End of a Civil War.
As this system has a few similarities with the Civil War systems of Imperator Rome, we have to alleviate some concerns here. In Project Caesar there is no Game Over if you lose a Civil War, but instead you have the option to continue as the winning side. One thing to consider here is that the winner will have different rulers, maybe a different religion, perhaps a new government type, dramatic changes to societal values, reforms and/or privileges.

After all, if the peasants revolt and win, you will not keep your glorious full serfdom monarchy as it once was.

civil_war_lost.png

You don’t have to continue, you can pick the other option for the game over screen!



Next week we will talk more about Diplomacy, and that will for most of you be something you already are aware of, but it will list quite a few new aspects.
 
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this system has a few similarities with the Civil War systems of Imperator Rome
Please don't tell me annoyng location-level occupation/flipping is back, it completely ignores zone of control and even a 1k stack (or whatever the minimum for sieging locations is in PC) could flip all your locations in a province while ignoring the forts in said location, while to win the civil war you had to completely siege ALL locations (or close to all) of the enemy even if they had gotten completely stack-wiped (and in the mean time the would rebuild the annoying minimum-size stacks and carpet siege a bunch of locations again, rinse and repeat, making civil wars much longer than needed)

I would make it so that, during the war, once you've traditionally occupied an entire province for a while (like 6 months, idk), it flips to you (so that would also take into account forts 'n stuff).
 
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First the rebel faction forms a new country, with a relevant name, and takes ownership of the locations where it has a strong support.

I will obviously speak only for myself, but I absolutely hate this mechanic where a country simply materializes out of thin air, with all the armies and whatnot. I understand that a rebellion, if it's supposed to be of a greater threat than rebels in EU4, has to have resources to support itself and pose a real challenge to their hated overlord, but is creating a new tag really the best way of tackling it? Perhaps under some specific circumstances, like 0% control in a province, or its remoteness from the overlord (i.e. overseas territories) it indeed could make sense, but apart from that wouldn't it be better to establish one of these fancy new country-but-not-a-country type of, well, country? Heck, I could see it provide quite interesting gameplay scenarios, where if a country has been carved up and split between several of its neighbors, then its pops could try to organize across the borders in an effort to oppose their occupiers. Perhaps they could even engage in some limited diplomacy before they raise up in arms, gathering potential support from other powers in the form of funds, manpower, perhaps even outright support for their independence? The occupying powers could then try to counter said support, either by spending their resources in an effort to crack down on the dissenters, or to dissuade the supporting countries from continuing said support. That would be cool, engaging, and if an armed rebellion would indeed occur in the end, then at least it would emerge organically from the overall situation, rather than game deciding that this province and that province that you've spend several in-game years acquiring now belong to someone else, enjoy.

In Civil War, as soon as you would have taken control of a location from a siege or occupation, the location would immediately flip ownership of that location instead.

This is another mechanic I have always hated with passion. Yes, it makes civil wars harder, but it's not an enjoyable type of difficulty, as far as I'm concerned, as it basically devolves into playing whack-a-mole with the AI, who will always have the leverage of seeing everything at once and reacting in the split of a second. Could there at least be a game option to disable such behavior in favor of a normal occupation mechanic?
 
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a negotiated "we end civil war for these demands?"

Sure, could always add a "surrender" button :)
Surrener Button for Civil Wars is nice ...

i also like your 10% power criteria, so we have to fight first .
Prevents us from a gamy instant-Surrender just to get rid of our 1-1-1 Leader to get our 10-10-10 pretendor :)
 
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is satisfaction level ever used for anything else? like, is it either "WILL REBEL UNTIL FREE OR DEAD" or "this is perfectly fine"? i feel like this system could be used for more, for instance;
  • > 55% - very happy, produces more RGO (or whatever positive modifier
  • 55% > 35% - fine, no affect
  • 35% > 25% - not fine, will demonstrate, destroy property etc, be rebellious - some negative modifiers
  • 25% > then join rebellion
 
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Still, a nationalist revolt is not at all representable for the majority of the timeframe this is played in.
I agree, but that was never my point. Even then, quite a few medieval historians have argued that we can observe highly embryonic forms of national sentiment even as far back as the Hundred Years War and I personally consider that thesis to be quite reasonable, based on my own reading on the matter.

Moreover, it portrays and maintains a problematic idea that nationalism in this form has always existed.
Nationalism in a *codified* form hasn't always existed, true. But... nationalism in a sort of informal xenophobia and affinity for a "national territory" beyond one's village or region/province *has*.

Or that nationalism has always been a grassroots movement, rather than also top-down with states nationalizing its people.
As you say, nationalism appears in both forms. The French revolution was, in part, also a nationalist revolt against its own monarchy. Really, most of France's post-1300s history has been the long road of a monarchy unwittingly abolishing itself through its sheer power-consolidation and top-down "nationalization". Obviously it wouldn't make sense mechanically to portray the French revolution as "nationalist" in game terms, but historically it was that too.

The ideas of nationalism has more to do with creating a nation-state where legitimacy comes from serving the specific people, than the particularism of a cultural group wanting to secede from a tyrant. This has more to do with anti-imperialism and not wanting to be governed by an outsider, which in modern times were used by nationalist movements, but are not the same. Else you could consider tribalism nationalistic.
Again, I would agree, but not fully. An Occitan revolt against France maybe would be regionalist, but the men of a Marseilles regiment during the French revolution were apparently so devoted to the country that spent centuries stamping out their local identity that they sung a song which, through them, would become the literal anthem of the revolution.

On the second point about anti-imperialism, again, one could argue the Hundred Years War from the French point of view to have been an "anti-imperialist struggle", but the criteria that would make such a thing even possible to say can equally be said to have made it a "national struggle". They aren't actually different, xenophobia manifests in both, for example.
A history simulator with alternate developments could see the idea of nationalism sooner or not at all, but it should not be misunderstood as being the same as separatism.

I hope the game will portray the development and spread of enlightenment ideas and changing basis of legitimacy of rulers and states, and the varying role of pops and estates in an interesting and historical way that links properly with this rebel system.
No real disagreements here!
 
If the culture of these revolting countries is from a country that exists on the map, they will call in the country they used to be a part of it into the revolt, and if they join, and the war is won, the revolter will become a part of the country that they belonged to in the past.
i feel like the revolt can ask anyone to join their war, didnt stop the dutch seeking assistance from both the french and english in the 80 years war
 
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Still, a nationalist revolt is not at all representable for the majority of the timeframe this is played in.

Moreover, it portrays and maintains a problematic idea that nationalism in this form has always existed. Or that nationalism has always been a grassroots movement, rather than also top-down with states nationalizing its people.

The ideas of nationalism has more to do with creating a nation-state where legitimacy comes from serving the specific people, than the particularism of a cultural group wanting to secede from a tyrant. This has more to do with anti-imperialism and not wanting to be governed by an outsider, which in modern times were used by nationalist movements, but are not the same. Else you could consider tribalism nationalistic.

There are quite a few developments in philosophy and liberalism; state- and legal structures; technological advancement in mass media and education; and some degree of class consciousness missing for these identities to be constructed and distributed for it to be ‘nationalist’ separatism.

A history simulator with alternate developments could see the idea of nationalism sooner or not at all, but it should not be misunderstood as being the same as separatism.

I hope the game will portray the development and spread of enlightenment ideas and changing basis of legitimacy of rulers and states, and the varying role of pops and estates in an interesting and historical way that links properly with this rebel system.

The problem is that nationalism is being used here for ease of understanding so everyone knows what is being talked about. Is nationalism a modern idea born from the liberal revolutions and the birth of the nation state to tie a group of people with common cultural traits to the idea that they have a right to their own state? Yes. Does that mean that before nationalism in the rationalist, liberal and modern sense there was no sense of common belonging, patriotism, and political community and shared homeland? Of course not. Patriotism and shared cultural heritage and homeland has always existed. It just was not tied to a specific state because the state did not exist. At least the modern state, the state that nationalism comes from, so to speak.

But calling it patriotism would be weird because patriotism has too much of a good connotation to be associated with the risk of revolt in the game. Separatism? Yeah fine but can be confusing. I think nationalism while not 100% precise, it does represent a common understanding of a sentiment that very much existed at that time.

The problem is not so much to call it nationalism. But to give that nationalism malus an effect it did not have in real life. Before the modern nations and the idea of nation states, people did not care very much what kingdom they lived under or where their king was from so much as whether the kingdom and king they were under respected their culture and their rights, liberties and privileges. That is why you don't see many separatist uprising in the first half of the game's timelines, only when triggered by a ruler who persecuted specific culture, mistreated them, try to erase them or movilize them or violated their local customs and laws. That is why you could have multicultural kingdoms like Angevin Kingdom, Spanish Empire, the HRE or the Austrian Empire. The game regretably does not represent these local cultures rights and privileges and local laws, and therefore those conflicts do not exist in this game, so the only way to represent frictions and conflicts between cultures is through this nationalism malus.

But to end this post and reiterate, I don't think the name is problematic, people are just being pedantic to sound smart. Name it what you will but represents something that has always existed.
 
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Do people always hate being conquered by a third party?

So like, Spain takes a province from France, France gets it back, obviously the French people in the province are happy.

But what if Granada gets taken by Spain and then the Ottomans conquer it. They're not Andalucian in culture, but I'm sure the main pop in Granada would much rather have them than Spain as the ruler.

Or, as happened in the early Muslim conquests, Coptic Egyptians who were facing severe restrictions under the Byzantines were fairly open to the Muslim conquerors who let them practice as they wished (at least at first).

Point being, there were definitely historical cases where being conquered by some 3rd party (i.e. not your own people) was viewed as a good thing.
 
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Do people always hate being conquered by a third party?

So like, Spain takes a province from France, France gets it back, obviously the French people in the province are happy.

But what if Granada gets taken by Spain and then the Ottomans conquer it. They're not Andalucian in culture, but I'm sure the main pop in Granada would much rather have them than Spain as the ruler.

Or, as happened in the early Muslim conquests, Coptic Egyptians who were facing severe restrictions under the Byzantines were fairly open to the Muslim conquerors who let them practice as they wished (at least at first).

Point being, there were definitely historical cases where being conquered by some 3rd party (i.e. not your own people) was viewed as a good thing.
The "conquest" separatism is only applied to unaccepted cultures.

I agree, though, that it could use some nuance.
 
Wouldn't the logical result of that be that, if a civil war looks unwinnable, the player will simply do a 180° turn and try to lose faster? You know, so as not to waste his time and the "other" side's resources.
I think it would be more fitting if you got the choice to switch when the civil war starts, rather than when it ends.
 
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In regards to revolts.. does this mean that I could potentially encourage my pops to emigrate to neighbouring provinces of another country, then encourage them to revolt, help them in that revilt, and then have those provinces join my country instead??
 
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If the culture of these revolting countries is from a country that exists on the map, they will call in the country they used to be a part of it into the revolt, and if they join, and the war is won, the revolter will become a part of the country that they belonged to in the past.
Are religious rebels able to call the defender of their faith in (if one exists) or otherwise get help from other countries with their religion?
 
They'll be nicely given the exile flag and have to walk home first.
What is the rationale here? Does not necessarily make sense to me that they would be suddenly exiled, maybe it would be better if those units that are from the rebelling pops have a chance to join the rebellion and otherwise not. I can see gaming this otherwise, maybe you see the rebellion is about to kick off and you move your troops just outside the area that will separate. I find myself doing this in IR already.