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Tinto Talks #37 - 13th of November 2024

Hello everyone and welcome to another Tinto Talks. This is the Happy Wednesday, the day of the week where we tell you information about our super secret game with the code name Project Caesar.

This week we will talk about art and culture; not why it's important to the world, but the impact it has in our game. To begin with, every Culture in Project Caesar has two important attributes: Cultural Influence and Cultural Tradition.

Cultural Influence

This is the attack power of a culture in the context of culture war, representing how impressive it appears to other cultures, and the reach it has beyond its own borders.

It has a monthly increase depending on prestige, some cultural buildings and also increases upon the completion of a work of art.

influence_1.png

The influence of the English is weak… for now..


Cultural Tradition

This is the defense power of a culture in the context of culture war, representing how strongly this culture's traditions resonate with its people.
Tradition has a monthly change dependent on relevant buildings, but also on the amount of art you have in your country. The average literacy of your nobles also have a significant impact on your cultural tradition as well.

cultural_tradition.png

Some nested tooltips, you can also see the details of every location by hovering over that value as well..

As you may see in the screenshot above, the primary culture of the country is the one benefiting from your art and nobles.


Culture War
So what is cultural influence and cultural tradition impacting then. Well, we have this concept called Culture War which impacts several aspects of the game. For the part where culture is relevant, the cultural influence of the “attacking” culture is compared against the cultural tradition of the “defending” culture. If it's positive you will get bonuses, but if it's negative, you will face penalties.

There are plenty of diplomatic actions where having a dominant culture is a benefit for the other country to accept your deals, not to mention the fact that building a spy network is far faster if you have a cultural dominance.

This also has an impact if you have conquered some land and want to integrate it, as if your cultural influence is bigger than their traditions you will integrate the territory faster. This is also valid if you want to annex a subject.

You also assimilate people faster if you have a higher cultural influence than the pop’s culture’s traditions. There is also a small impact on sieges as well.



Cultural Investment
One of the most important advances in the Age of Renaissance is the ‘Patron of the Arts’, this one is early in the part of the tree that requires the Renaissance Institution, and it allows you to invest into culture. The cost of this depends on the size of the economy and how many artists you wish to employ.

patron.png

How can you be a renaissance man without sponsoring the arts?

There is a direct impact from the investment you make each month on your prestige as well as an impact on the skill of the artists and the art they create.

There are some countries outside of Europe that already start with advances that unlock investing into culture.

Artists
These are characters that appear in countries that are investing into culture. They will spend their time creating new art, or figuring out what art they should create. They will also increase their skill over time, depending on how much money you will throw at them. If you get frustrated with them not producing new art, you can always commission art directly by throwing even more money at them.

Various buildings and advances can impact the skill floor and ceiling of a new artist as well.

artist.png

One artist that exists at the start of the game..

If you have less than double the number of the supported artists in your country, you can always poach an artist from a smaller and less rich country. That artist will then move to your country and all the art they create will benefit you, however the influence of the culture of the country you invited him from will increase.

There are several different types of artists, and they create different types of art.
  • Painter
    • This type of artist creates images by depicting the world or purely from their imagination. It is done by applying pigment, coal or other sources of colors to a solid surface like a canvas or a wall. Famous painters of the era include Leonardo Da Vinci, Rembrandt, and Raphael.
  • Sculptor
    • A sculptor shapes clay, stone, marble, wood, and other materials into art. Famous sculptors of the era include Donatello, Michelangelo, and Gianlorenzo Bernini.
  • Composer
    • This is an artist that creates music, including anything from a motet to a symphony. Famous composers of the era include Johan Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Carl Michael Bellman.
  • Writer
    • A writer describes artists that can write anything from a poem to a novel, as well as writing entire plays. Famous writers of the era include William Shakespeare and many more of lesser talent.
  • Architect
    • Architects are the artists that design the buildings that create the beauty of our cities. This also includes monuments, mansions and palaces. Famous architects of the era include Minar Sinan, Christopher Wren, and Michelangelo.
  • Philosopher
    • This type of artist defines reality and helps us shape our understanding of our existence. Famous philosophers of the era include René Descartes, Immanuel Kant, and Baruch Spinoza.
  • Jurist
    • An expert in legal matters, proficient in analyzing and commenting on the different legal codes. Famous Jurists of the era include Bartolus de Saxoferrato, Francisco de Vitoria, and Jeremy Bentham.
  • Scientist
    • A person of knowledge and a scholar of thought, questioning the aspects of nature which have been granted as given in the past. Famous Scientists of the era include Isaac Newton, Leonardo da Vinci, and Joseph Fourier.
  • Iconographer - Only for certain religions
    • Iconographers create religious icons. Famous iconographers of the era include Eulalios, Georgios Kallergis, and Manuel Panselinos.
  • Metalsmith - if you have metallurgy
    • Metalsmiths are skilled artificers, capable of creating anything from decorative weapons to kingly regalia. Famous metalsmiths of the era include Johann Joseph Würth, Vidal Astori, and Jehan Cambier.


Works of Art
A work of art is something that an artist has created. When the art is created, it will directly increase the cultural influence of the primary culture of the country that the artist is working in. Not all artists will necessarily live in a capital, or create their art there either.


work_of_art.png

There is of course art already present at the start of the game..


When a location is conquered through a siege or normal occupation, there is a chance for Works of Art to be looted or destroyed. If it's looted, it will be transferred to your capital, so you can create a nice Museum a few centuries later. Having some art in your country has some benefits, increasing your prestige and traditions.


art_in_country.png

You might become more innovative if you have lots of art though..

There is also a direct benefit to all locations that have works of art as well, depending on how much of the art you have, and it provides some good benefits.

art_in_location.png

A true melting pot..

Prestige
This is a concept that has existed in many of our previous GSG and it is present on Project Caesar as well. Here it's a value between 0 and 100 and will decay to 0 if nothing else increases it, where the decay is bigger the higher the prestige is.

Prestige in this game is heavily tied to the cultural part of the game, but it also has an impact on diplomacy and trade.


prestige.png

If the nobles were just a little bit more happy…


Stay tuned, as next week we will go into detail about all the societal values we have.
 
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Would a character like Orban, the weaponsmith who created the cannon that finally brought Constantinople down, be represented as an "artist" in these terms (a metalsmith, for example)? Granted, his cannon exploded and immediately killed him, but not without breaking the walls of the Second Rome!
 
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think they are "painters"

Do you think it would be possible to lock specific artists behind culture-specific advancement/technology? It seems that different genres of art cull different benefits, it could be a great way simulate the the important adherences of culture groups, with certain forms of art becoming a cultural export


  • Writer
    • A writer describes artists that can write anything from a poem to a novel, as well as writing entire plays. Famous writers of the era include William Shakespeare and many more of lesser talent.
  • Architect
    • Architects are the artists that design the buildings that create the beauty of our cities. This also includes monuments, mansions and palaces. Famous architects of the era include Minar Sinan, Christopher Wren, and Michelangelo.
  • Metalsmith - if you have metallurgy
    • Metalsmiths are skilled artificers, capable of creating anything from decorative weapons to kingly regalia. Famous metalsmiths of the era include Johann Joseph Würth, Vidal Astori, and Jehan Cambier.

Will the "effectiveness" of specific art types benefit from technology? I would imagine literary works would become more culturally important with the introduction of the printing press, Architectural projects become more grandiose with the improvement of building materials and our understanding of physics, and metalsmiths can further advance the intricacy of their works with advancements of alloying, for examples
 
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Feeling a bit of Civilization vibes. Which sounds interesting. However, after the previous TT i was hoping for systems tied to shaping your own coutry's culture, especially in the context of having potentially a lot of them within your borders. Sadly, none of that in here. Which leads me to suspect that cultures will only serve as pure limiters for expansion, without offering anything particularly interesting gameplay-wise.

Yes, there'll be a lot of cultures, which is fine. Yes, they'll all have opinions about eachother - which is also fine. But then there's this very arbitrary "culture capacity" thing, which is simply a variation of EU4's accepted cultures thing, which has always been a very rudimentary thing. I'm disappointed that, by the looks of it, it'll stay just as rudimentary and static, perhaps with just a tad more flair. I was hoping for something more, something that'll be engaging throughout the game and provide space for interesting interaction. For instance, why does, by the looks of it, waging wars against culture X doesn't affect people of said culture living within your own borders? I:R did that years ago, and even though it was rather rudimentary in and of itself, it at least was something. Likewise, having good relations with a country with primary culture X, or where culture X is followed by some significant % of the population, should also improve the opinion of pops of said culture within your borders. Trade could serve as a means to promote and propagate one's culture as well, as it has always been throughout history, and is so even today. Foreign policy should influence something more than just an arbitrary opinion number countries have towards each other. This way, various diplomatic actions would require a bit more thought on how they would reflect upon your own society, making them less of a "I don't give a damn if these OPMs will hate me" concept...
 
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Can works of art be moved to another location within the country? Are they moved if the capital changes? Excluding monuments of course

most dont move
 
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Are newly created works of art always situated in the capital? I think it would be cool if major works of art were spread among the main centres of the country with a bias towards the capital. Maybe a random (but weighted) distribution for the "passively" comissioned works of art and a deliberate choice of location for commissioned works?
 
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We got a dynamic naming system
Dwarf Fortress instincts awakened. Will there be dynamic text descriptions to go alongside the dynamic names of these ahistorical works of art that some ahistorical OPM-turned-megablob produces? When you commission art, how much can you specify what you want produced?
 
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Does looted art count for cultural tradition as equally as art created in the country?

yes. if its art in your capital, its YOUR culture.
 
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Can art be lost? And are there any fun shenanigans that can happen involving replicas, forgeries etc.?

Also, I'm deeply dissapointed you seemingly won't let us steal abstract and/or heavy objects like philosophy and cathedrals. Museum% needs to be a thing! /s
 
1.Do poets fall under the writer category?

2.Shouldn't religious scholars be artists considering the fact that philosophers are?there were many cases of Mullahs moving betweem sponsored countries,for example due to the lack of established Shia clergy in Iran the Safavids invited a ton of them from modern Lebanon and Iraq.

1 - yes
2 - religion is a different thing.
 
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unless sweden added a full hour then yes he was late by a whole hour . it used to be 14:00 now its 15:00 . was there a change am not aware of ?
We (aka we Swedes) switched over to winter time the 27th of October.
So yes, in fact that is exactly what happened.
 
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Great dev diary as always! I do have a few questions though:
  1. Could cultural influence tie into hegemonies? For example, could a military hegemon influence how other cultures develop their military traditions, so they have a strong cultural influence.
  2. How does the cost of investing in art compare to other things, like recruiting regiments, building roads, or buildings?
  3. Are there events or decisions tied to looting or destroying art during sieges?
  4. can the estates commission art?


1 - we have a cultural hegemony
2 - similar to navy or court.
3 - no, you have no control over its destruction, as soldiers are unruly when sacking.
4 - no
 
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There really should be a way for a country to take back their own works of art in a peace deal - the Stone of Scone and Llewellyn's Coronet both seem like something Scotland and Wales would demand from England should they win a war.
 
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That's great, thank you.

Is there a geographical aspect to culture wars and cultural influence, or are the calculations the same for neighbouring countries as for the countries on the other side of the world?

no geographical aspect to the actual culture comparison, its applied seperately where valid.
 
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Those works of art have some detailed names and descriptions. Is there a finite number of works of art in the game?

Flavor-descs are only for historical pieces of art. Those at start or from events.
 
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