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Tinto Talks #35 - 30th of October

Hello everyone and welcome to another Tinto Talks, as it's a Happy Wednesday, the day of the week where we spill information about our super-mega-fantastically-secret game with the code name of Project Caesar.

Today we’ll talk about three relatively related topics, relating to Country Ranks, Great Powers and Hegemonies.

Country Ranks
There are four ranks that countries can have in Project Caesar. It is more similar to EU4 than Imperator in that changing country ranks is something you actively do on your own. Besides having various rules on what a country can do, they also give some benefits, and rather importantly to the player experience, they impact what the countries are called.

The code supports multiple types of ranks at the same level, so modders could in theory add dozens of variants of a duchy rank if they so desire.

The default rank is the County Rank, which all countries default to, unless set up to be something else.

The first rank above that is the Duchy Rank, where you can now guarantee other countries, and a little bit higher diplomatic capacity and power projection. Countries that start on this level include the Duchy of Brittany or the Duchy of Lithuania. To be able to upgrade from a county to a duchy, you can not be in any International Organizations that disallow rank changes, but you also need at least 100,000 pops of your primary culture.

The next rank above that is the Kingdom Rank, which requires 1 million pops of your primary culture and gives a larger diplomatic range and other abilities. This includes countries like the Kingdom of Sweden and the Sultanate of Delhi

The final rank, the Empire Rank, which is the hardest to promote to, allows for a wider variety of diplomatic actions, and other abilities. At the start of the game there is only one Empire in Europe though, the Eastern Roman one. A country must become a Great Power before they are able to attain this rank, and there are special restrictions on Catholic countries from pretending to be emperors without the Pope’s permission.

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Yeah, Livonian Order with about 380 Prussians has a bit of a challenge here..

Great Powers
A great power is a country that through advances, population, land area, development, and other factors has risen to be one of the most powerful countries in the world, and as such gains the ability to influence other countries simply by throwing its weight around.

The countries with the highest great power score become great powers. Subjects and countries fighting for their independence may not become Great Powers.

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The countries you’d perhaps expect to be Great Powers in 1337 right?


Currently there are always eight different countries that are the Great Powers, but this is not a design we are 100% satisfied with. We have been talking about making the amount variable per age, or by using a threshold. We’ve also talked about mechanics for regional powers, but all designs so far have some severe drawbacks, for example how we would define the geographical area to make it feel good.

gp_benefit.png

There are some advantages to being a Great Power after all…


Hegemony
This is another feature that was introduced in the ‘Emperor’ DLC for EU4, but here will be a part of the base game. In that game this was a late game mechanic that would pit the most dominant countries against each other. This created a mechanic that most people never saw, and if they saw it in single-player, it was merely a tool to make the player even more powerful when he had already won the game.

In this game, however, the Hegemony mechanics unlock through an advance in the Age of Discovery.

We currently have three types of hegemony, Military, Navy and Economic, in the game, similar to EU4, and you can only be one type of Hegemony at the same time. We could be open to adding maybe a Cultural Hegemony as well, as the next few weeks Tinto Talks will show things about Culture-related systems.

To proclaim a Hegemony you need to be a Great Power, and then have a bigger army, navy or economy than all other great powers. After you proclaim it, you get a bonus where most of it scales with how long you have held the hegemony.

In a game where a casus belli is not always easy to get, the fact that you can always create a Casus Belli on any hegemon, if you are not one yourself, can be beneficial.

If you ever lose a war as a hegemon, you will lose your hegemony.

And remember, if you lose your hegemony, your prestige and diplomatic reputation will suffer.

hegemon.png

This one is kind of fun to have..

Stay tuned, as next week, we will do the first development diary about our new cultural mechanics in Project Caesar.
 
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Mamluks were not only ruled egypt. And population shouldnt have that effect of rating. India doesnt have a powerful state like Delhi in eu4. And after some years we dont see them in the list. But they have so much population.
But apart from Egypt, other regions have limited populations as they are close to desert ecosystems. So the overall population of Mamluk will not be too large. And in terms of game ratings, population is clearly a significant factor that occupies a large proportion of ratings. I don't understand the latter sentence. Are you trying to say that there is no country as powerful as the Delhi Sultanate in EU4? But I remember there was a Bachmann in the GP at the beginning of EU4
 
Which continent is the Mamluks in? Ottomans?
Maybe instead what countries are considered "great powers" is different to each country. Every country has it's great power score, but it can be multiplied by a distance factor. That way it allows for regional powers to be considered great powers but only the largest ones will be recognised outside their vicinity.

It would be hard to implement i would imagine. But the unique diplomatic options the great powers have could only work on the countries that "consider [____] a great power". Japan may be a great power to Korea and therefore can use diplomatic powers to leverage against them, but may not be considered a great power by Brittany who would be influenced much more by their powerful neighbours.
 
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But apart from Egypt, other regions have limited populations as they are close to desert ecosystems. So the overall population of Mamluk will not be too large. And in terms of game ratings, population is clearly a significant factor that occupies a large proportion of ratings. I don't understand the latter sentence. Are you trying to say that there is no country as powerful as the Delhi Sultanate in EU4? But I remember there was a Bachmann in the GP at the beginning of EU4
In the beggining yes but after some years spain portugal etc. Come to list and after that maybe mughals come from India to the list. Expect that none of indian states usually dont become a gp. What i meant is population is important but not that important. For me the reason why Delhi sultanate is there is its military power than its population i guess
 
I didnt even say Ottoman should be on the list. Yes France May was most powerful country in europe, but that doenst make France as a global superpower. Come on guys, we are talking about history. How can mamluks has 500 point on the list while japan is 5th. Mamluks almost were as powerful as golden horde. They should be 3 on the list by sure.
Well I guess your comment would be fair, if I stated that France should be as strong as Delhi, and if I agreed with the ranking. That isn't what I said though. I also was comparing France, to the Ottomans of the 15th and 16th centuries, when they were gaining power, and in past games that did have them ranked highly at the start. Literally all I am saying dude, is compared to a lot of powers of the time France was significant, and should be at least not far off the list of super powers. That doesn't mean they are anywhere close to the power of the Yuan or Delhi Sultanate. If we cut France down to probably your power ranking suggestion (I hope that was an actual country rank suggestion) that would make them straight up insignificant I bet. The power gap in pop is pretty high for the Dehli Sultanate however, compared to the Mamuluk's the effective power gap of what early 14th century France could raise isn't as high as your making it out.

You need to calm down on the defensiveness lol.
 
Maybe instead what countries are considered "great powers" is different to each country. Every country has it's great power score, but it can be multiplied by a distance factor. That way it allows for regional powers to be considered great powers but only the largest ones will be recognised outside their vicinity.

It would be hard to implement i would imagine. But the unique diplomatic options the great powers have could only work on the countries that "consider [____] a great power". Japan may be a great power to Korea and therefore can use diplomatic powers to leverage against them, but may not be considered a great power by Brittany who would be influenced much more by their powerful neighbours.
My plan is to have a discovery and distance based powers rank, each country with their calculation over who are powers.
Rule 1 - A country only knows POWERS within their DISCOVERED WORLD.

Rule 2 - DISTANT powers are NOT considered POWERS in realpolitik.
It is useless to compare France and Delhi unless they are within each other's discovered world and distance to project their military, and this global rank, though may be easy to program, is against the immersed experience in gameplay.
 
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Maybe instead what countries are considered "great powers" is different to each country. Every country has it's great power score, but it can be multiplied by a distance factor. That way it allows for regional powers to be considered great powers but only the largest ones will be recognised outside their vicinity.

It would be hard to implement i would imagine. But the unique diplomatic options the great powers have could only work on the countries that "consider [____] a great power". Japan may be a great power to Korea and therefore can use diplomatic powers to leverage against them, but may not be considered a great power by Brittany who would be influenced much more by their powerful neighbours.
Japan is not a major power towards North Korea, as their populations are not much different. The King of North Korea even considers himself to have a higher diplomatic rank than Japan because he is closer to China. It should be noted that before modern Westerners broke the tribute system, the only core of East Asia was China
 
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In the beggining yes but after some years spain portugal etc. Come to list and after that maybe mughals come from India to the list. Expect that none of indian states usually dont become a gp. What i meant is population is important but not that important. For me the reason why Delhi sultanate is there is its military power than its population i guess
Colonizing countries, due to their ability to rapidly colonize the Americas, often lead to a rapid rise in rankings, while Eastern countries find it difficult to accept trends, resulting in a decline in rankings. Additionally, India often has a major power during its travels, such as consuming Tibet and Bengal in western China, and the unbroken Timurids turning into Mughal territory after consuming a few pieces of land. Combined with Russia and the Ottoman Empire, a very large green patch often appears on the map, spreading from China all the way to Hungary
 
Japan is not a major power towards North Korea, as their populations are not much different. The King of North Korea even considers himself to have a higher diplomatic rank than Japan because he is closer to China. It should be noted that before modern Westerners broke the tribute system, the only core of East Asia was China
I'm referring to the great powers list. Japan is listed, Korea is not. Therefore, Japan is a great power to Korea, no?
 
I'm referring to the great powers list. Japan is listed, Korea is not. Therefore, Japan is a great power to Korea, no?
Because this list is obviously unreasonable, many people in the last development log have reported that Japan's population is too high and Korea's population is too low
 
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Because this list is obviously unreasonable, many people in the last development log have reported that Japan's population is too high and Korea's population is too low
Okay, not related to my comment in any meaningful way though. That discussion is for tinto maps feedback, i'm talking about the great power mechanic and I used Japan as a random example for an analogy. I could have used Delhi, it makes no difference to my comment.
 
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Because ranks cannot easily be lost, I think that it is useful to frontload the conditions of ranking up. That also helps with preventing situations where some nations are empires from the start while they weren't formally recognized as such until much later. The number of 8 great powers is also quite large and static. All nations that somehow become a great power at some point will instantly become empires.
Maybe the following can help:
  • start with a lower number of potential great powers, increase the number as the ages go on (like three GPs in 1337, add one per new age)
    • the mechanisms behind GPs only really developed later, this gives the rank just to the obvious contenders in the beginning (Yuan, Delhi, Golden Horde), a new slot will become available soon enough.
  • add a minimum great power point rating to become a great power - if fewer than the maximum number of countries fulfill the condition, the slot stays vacant
    • this should help reduce fluctuations - if there are many smaller powers, the top X rated powers switch fast without actual change
  • add a condition that a new great power must be "tested in war" to actually change its rank to empire. This could mean having a recent victory in a war against another great power
    • this helps with upstart GPs immediately becoming empires, as they need to prove their rank. This would be akin to Frederic the Great becoming King of Prussia rather than King in Prussia after winning in the Seven Year's War. Or Japan defeating China.
    • this condition could be waived, if there is no other great power in diplomatic range or in a reasonably sized area (e.g. the Mughals should not need to fight China).
    • Or proclaiming an empire requires GP rank as well as a higher threshold of GP points. The victory over a GP then gives a temporary boost that does not affect the ranking but will count aginst this threshold.
 
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One way to do the Great Powers could be to require each great power to have a certain percentage of the global population (perhaps modified by some other variable)? That way the number of great powers can vary.
 
I think that the Emperor of the HRE.. I mean +250 Great Power Points for the Emperor
Not at game start, when the Emperor is Louis IV the Bavarian of Wittelsbach, duke of Bavaria* & count palatine of the Rhine*, ruling duke of Upper Bavaria. Due to Louis IV only having Upper Bavaria as his hausmacht by that point, he isn't. However he later would gain Lower Bavaria and become jure uxoris count of Hainaut, Holland & Zeeland, becoming more powerful.
His successor of the house of Luxembourg, Charles IV, king of Bohemia, probably will be able to become a Great Power. For the Habsburgs only the Austrian Hereditary Lands might not be enough, but the Burgundian Inheritance and later personal unions with Bohemia and Hungary (& Croatia) will be.

As for the Hohenzollerns later becoming king in Prussia, the usage of "in" instead of "of" had nothing to do with the soft rule of restricted number of kingdoms in the HRE, but rather, because at that point, western Prussia aka Royal Prussia was held by the kingdom of Poland. It's only after Prussia-Brandenburg conquers western Prussia from Poland-Lithuania, that the style changed from king in Prussia to king of Prussia. Now the choice for Prussia, before the promotion a sovereign duchy outside the HRE, was tied with this, since such a promotion was a simpler bilateral deal.
In theory promoting a fief inside the HRE to a kingdom was possible, as is seen in the negotiations between the HRE and the Valois dukes of Burgundy, but much more complex and will face more opposition of the Imperial Diet, especially other great princes in the Empire.

(*= dynastic titles of the house of Wittelsbach, later only the ruler of Bavaria would be duke of Bavaria, every other male Wittelsbach would from then on be duke in Bavaria, until in the 18th century there were only two Wittelsbachs left and duke in Bavaria also became unique, but I digress)
 
for example how we would define the geographical area to make it feel good.
This would have to change with the era's. In the last era for example, the whole world would be one geographical area for the purpose of determining who are the great powers.
At the start of the game japan can be its regional power independent of what india might do or not do and so forth...
 
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