• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

Tinto Talks #38 - 20th of November 2024

Hello and Welcome to another Tinto Talks. The day of the week where we spill information about our top secret game with the codename Project Caesar.

Today we will delve deeply into the world of Societal Values.

Societal values describe the attributes of a country. Different countries start with different societal values, creating a unique and different experience. Please that values are all subject to testing and balancing.

The societal value ranges from -100 to +100 , where a -100 value is completely to the left, and +100 to the right of the value.


They change slowly over time, primarily influenced by the estate privileges, government reforms or laws that the country has. However, if you feel that you can’t wait for your society to change, you can always have a member of the Cabinet focusing on attempting to nudge a societal value to something else in your country.

cabinet.png

A character with good diplomatic skill is useful for this action..


There are 13 common Societal Values that all countries have from the start, and currently one unique for countries in and around China, which will be talked about in a later TT. We have another one added in the Age of Absolutism as well. Some of these societal values you may recognize the name, or the design intent from previous games like EU2 or EU3, but they almost always have different impacts.


Centralization vs Decentralization
A centralized country may be more efficient, while a decentralized country is more resilient.

cent_v_decen.png

Centralization increases crown power dramatically, but being decentralized has other benefits.


Traditionalist vs Innovative
A traditionalist country prioritizes stability and tradition over all other values, while an innovative country wants a more literate population and faster adoption of any new institution.

A Traditionalist country will have a higher estate satisfaction, stability will grow faster and a bigger cultural tradition growth, while institutions will be far more costly to embrace.

An Innovative country will have a higher maximum literacy, bigger cultural influence growth, cheaper institution growth but stability will be much slower to grow.


Spiritualist vs Humanist
A spiritualist country is pretty much organized around its Clergy, while a humanist country is much more tolerant towards heretic and heathen religions.

A spiritualist country will convert pops faster, increase the amount of clergy in towns and cities, and increase the tolerance of the true faith, while reducing the speed of assimilation.

A humanist country will assimilate pops faster, increase tolerance of heathen and heretics, but reduce the speed of conversions.

Aristocracy vs Plutocracy
An aristocratic country is about having the leadership from those with noble blood, while a plutocratic country takes their leadership from the richest and most powerful.

An aristocratic country will increase the amount of diplomats you get, the amount of noble pops of cities, increase the power of the nobility and the expected cost of the court.

A plutocratic country will increase the amount of burghers in cities, reduce the cost of the court, increase trade efficiency but dramatically increase the power of the burghers.


Serfdom vs Free Subjects
A country with high serfdom is about exploiting the peasants as much as possible, whereas a country with free subjects treats peasants as human beings.

serfdom.png

Magna Carta and Yeomanry will make England slowly go towards Free Subjects.


As you can see a serfdom focused country increases possible tax for peasants, the raw materials they produce, and the supply limit in your country, while it also increases the amount of food your peasants will eat.

A country with free subjects on the other hand will increase monthly prosperity, make pops promote faster, reduce the food consumption of peasants, but reduce the amount of tax you can collect from the peasants.


Belligerent vs Conciliatory
A belligerent country is a country that does not worry about the opinion of other countries. A conciliatory country appeases others, either due to being weaker, or it just believes that it's easier to catch flies with honey.

A belligerent country will create casus belli faster, get cheaper warscore costs, and faster spy network constructions, but the diplomatic reputation will suffer significantly.

A conciliatory country will increase the efficiency of the cabinet, the loyalty of subjects, and improve the diplomatic reputation, but casus belli will be far more difficult to create.

Quality vs Quantity
An army that focuses on quality is focused on making each soldier perform better, while an army focused on quantity tries to get more people to fight in the battles.

A country that leans towards quality will have morale recover faster, gain a bonus to military tactics, and have far higher initiative, but the maintenance costs will be higher.

A country which favors quantity will have a higher possible frontage, cheaper armies, less food consumed by armies, but the initiative will be far worse in battle.

Offensive vs Defensive
A country that is focused on offensive prefers the attack, and using their armies and navies in enemy locations, while a defensive country relies more on their forts to defeat the enemy.

off_v_def.png

Do you want to attack or defend? Easy choice or ?

Land vs Naval
A country focused on land is usually a country without much of a coastline, while a naval-focused one may be those that values its coastline more than others.

Here we have actively wanted to avoid military-only attributes, as otherwise 99% would always go land.

A land country will trace proximity quicker over land, trade over land, have larger RGOs, but trade over sea is more expensive.

A naval country will trace proximity quicker over water, trade over water, maritime presence is faster, but trade over land is more expensive.

Capital Economy vs Traditional Economy
A country with a capital economy is more focused on earning money, particularly from trade and towns and cities, while one with a traditional economy is more oriented about living off what the land provides.

A capital economy country will have cheaper buildings, lower bank interest rates and higher production efficiency while food production is reduced.

A traditional country will produce more raw materials, produce more food, and have a higher population capacity, but buildings will be more expensive.

Individualism vs Communalism
A country based on individualism may get more exceptional characters, while one focused on communalism is all about the greater good of society.

An individualistic country will have higher morale in its armies and navies and a far faster migration speed for its pops, but a slightly lower estate satisfaction.

A communalist country will have a lower satisfaction threshold for pops to join rebels, far cheaper to revoke privileges from the estates, a slightly higher estate satisfaction, but pops will migrate far slower.


Mercantilism vs Free Trade
A mercantilist country aims to protect the market price of the produced goods in their country, while a country focused on free trade wants to benefit more from trades around the world.

merc_vs_free.png

This determines how you handle trade in your country..

Outward vs Inward
An outward country focuses more on interacting with other countries, while an inward country looks inside its borders.

An outward country will have a higher power projection, higher diplomatic capacity and faster migration to colonies but a lower cultural tradition growth,

An inward country will have a higher crown power, higher control, faster cultural tradition growth, but the colonial migration will be very slow.


Liberalism vs Absolutism
A Liberal country will emphasize the importance of civic liberties and legislative governing bodies, while an Absolutist country will focus more on the centralized authority of its ruler while reining in the power of the different estates.

A liberal country will get a higher cultural capacity, easier to get through requests in parliament, its pops are less likely to support rebels, but the impact of estate power from cabinet positions is higher.

An absolutist country will have a higher crown power, cheaper-to-revoke estate privileges, quicker integration, but the expected cost of the court is higher.

As mentioned earlier, this societal value appears from the Age of Absolutism, and shapes the last two ages dramatically.



Stay tuned, as next week we revisit a topic as it has been revised…
 
Last edited:
  • 215Like
  • 110Love
  • 8
  • 8
  • 5
Reactions:
The system seems interesting; I just hope it's not like in vic3, where there are laws that are only there for the player to remove as soon as possible, like serfdoom (in vic), I hope there are countries that, depending on their circumstances, are encouraged to go for them. So we can have some variety in the gameplay depending on the country.


I love the proposed approach for naval-land, it sounds like it could work.


Regarding offensive vs defensive I think that -50% defensiveness seems like a lot. I also want to remember that defensiveness is very useful offensively. For example, I remember an MP game where they transferred all the sieges to Switzerland with 200% defensiveness. So even if the defenders won a defensive battle, they couldn't recover their own territory because it took them ages to take the fort, and the aggressors had reorganized by the time the fort was about to fall.
Could it be made so that defensiveness only applies to own territories? Or can we have two different modifiers? One for your owed provinces and other for occupaid provinces?
Maybe defensive ideas can have defensiveness in your owned provinces, and offensive can have defensiveness in occupaid provinces? This way they encourage you to go on the offensive even when you are defending yourself.
 
Last edited:
  • 3Like
Reactions:
I feel there are not enough negatives. Just from looking at it, the right play is always to pick a side and go full at it, even though you could argue certain countries would historically be more in the middle. Having more (and stronger) negative modifiers would let staying in the middle be a valid option imo.

Adding on to this: I know people love positive reinforcements but I believe these sliders are a case where we need the opposite: when you go after a extreme, it means you are "specializing" your country, so you should lose something on the way and you should feel it. Offensive's -50% Fort Defense seems insane but it is at the level of (supposed) impact I'd expect from these sliders. You should leave the center only if you really want the bonuses on either side, instead of being pushed passively and then enjoying the rewards without noticing. Imo it should be more "am I willing to take X nerf for a Y buff" instead of "am I willing to give up on X buff for the Y buff".

Yes I liked the karma slider in EUIV, how could you tell?
 
Last edited:
  • 6
  • 1Like
  • 1
Reactions:
The -50% defensiveness definitely gave me some sticker shock but I do like that they feel substantial and not just an ignorable downside. I do expect there to be no end to the complaints though.

One thing that could be done would be to lower defensiveness across the board by fifty percent, give fifty percent back at equilibrium and give a hundred at full defensive. So it doesn't look like a massive penalty with a huge red number but it still is.
 
  • 2
  • 1
Reactions:
Will countries, at least the popular majors/minors get their own diaries with their starting circumstances (alliances, economy, values, etc.)? That way we can check how some are more tilted to naval/land while others are more free subject/serfdom.
 
  • 1Like
  • 1
Reactions:
Spiritualist vs Humanist
A spiritualist country is pretty much organized around its Clergy, while a humanist country is much more tolerant towards heretic and heathen religions.

A spiritualist country will convert pops faster, increase the amount of clergy in towns and cities, and increase the tolerance of the true faith, while reducing the speed of assimilation.

A humanist country will assimilate pops faster, increase tolerance of heathen and heretics, but reduce the speed of conversions.

This feels pretty slanted against Spiritualist / towards Humanist countries - Spiritualist Countries are worse at cultural assimilation (a significant drawback since non-accepted cultures apparently don't grow?) whereas Humanist countries are worse at religious conversion - which they make much less relevant by tolerating wrong religion pops to mitigate the downsides.

(both because it feels like cultural intolerance hits harder than religious intolerance and also that Humanist directly mitigates its own downsides whereas Spiritualist doesn't)

I feel like Spiritualist Pops should assimilate same religion pops better (since they share common values and religion is strongly intertwined with cultural identity anyway) but assimilate wrong-religion pops slower and have worse heathen/heretic tolerance and Humanist should do something else entirely. Maybe be better at cultural dominance?
 
  • 5Like
  • 2
Reactions:
Aristocracy vs Plutocracy
For authoritarian or absolute monarchs, it seems that they want to destroy both to zero rather than making a choice between them. For example, Chinese emperors would choose to train their own civil servants rather than considering favoring aristocracy or wealthy plutocracy.
I would actually classify the training of civil servants in China as plutocratic, though with some nuance. While only elites were typically granted permission to pursue this education, the selection of civil servants placed greater emphasis on performance in the exams rather than on upbringing or lineage.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions:
Why does Serfdom vs Free Subjects affect food consumption? And if this is going to be an effect of this societal value, shouldn’t it be the other way around? Throughout history, a more free society will consume more food than a restricted one. This is largely due to free peoples generally having more individual wealth and the society having a greater supply of food though, rather than because of additional liberties, and this is why food consumption should not even be an effect for this value IMO.

Regarding this part of the Tinto Talk: “A country based on individualism may get more exceptional characters.” Does Individualism actually improve characters? I ask because you didn’t list it as an effect of this value, with the following being the three bonuses: “higher morale in its armies and navies and a far faster migration speed for its pops.”

And a question regarding modibility. Similar to the Liberalism vs Absolutism, which unlocks later in the game, or the unique one for China, can modders put limits on when a societal value will be valid?
 
  • 7
  • 2Like
Reactions:
Please find a different name for it than humanist, because in this game's timeframe humanism describes a scholarly movement that started in the 14th century that argues for studying the humanities. It was championed by many clergymen, including popes like the famous Pius II.
It makes no sense to contrast humanism with the clergy and humanism has nothing to do with tolerance for other religions.
Maybe "secularist" or "separationist"?
 
Alongside the option to have a cabinet member push towards either -100 or +100 I think you should be able to have them push towards 0, for the situations where you actually want a balance.

As for everyone asking about peasant food consumption, my assumption is that it’s about self-sufficiency. If you have full serfdom the peasants have no ability to grow much if their own food or build up food reserves, so they are a greater burden on the state and the market, when they have more freedom and wealth the peasants take care of themselves and each other more so they generate less market demand for food because they grow it themselves.
 
  • 1Like
  • 1
Reactions:
Do the Societal Values increase/decrease slowly up to +100/-100, or are there Equilibrium Values to which they tend for, like Stability in Imperator: Rome.

I hope it is the second option.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions:
Meanwhile, the guy with the book is saying "Listen to this one, sire! A dwarf walks into a bar with a donkey and a honeycomb..."
Is it an Opium bar? .... an English book you said it was? hmmm... Must be one of those weird kinky establishment frequented by local gentry ...

Go on...