Tinto Talks #38 - 20th of November 2024

[5camp]

Do non-landed countries have societal values as well? A lot of these seem like they don't fit non-landed gameplay

 

[Traianus the Great]

Posting my comment over from the EU5 Reddit:

Mixed feelings on this. Some of these, I quite like: they're the best you're going to get in a game in terms of feeling realistic, fair, and balanced.

Others... I'm not so sure on. Some of the trade-off pairs seem weirdly game-y. I can think of quite a lot of countries that were just generically militaristic and were very good at both offence and defence. The same goes for being land- versus naval-focussed. The modern US rather seems to be excellent at both! It's not apparent to me that one has to be good at only one or the other. Others I think should be significantly more acute (if they should be "values" at all): capital economies are just better than traditional economies at pretty much everything. It's not a trade-off economically, as the game seems to be presenting it, it's just hard to do.

That gets me onto the next thing. Not all of these are very evidently "values" to me. Again, a capital-based economy is a thing you have, not a thing you think you have. Same goes for free trade, which really means a set of policies. Liberalism and authoritarianism are more arguable, but I can see that really being policy-based too. Given the huge amount of thought and effort going into internal political management in this game, it confuses me that these things are abstracted into "values" (which makes continuous certain obviously binary variables, and makes into popular sentiment matters of law or policy) rather than just made into part of some kind of "policy" menu.

That links in to the idea that a lot of these things shouldn't really have "trade-offs" so much as just be difficult to implement. Breaking the traditional economy and replacing it with a capital economy should be really hard! It should face active and persistent resistance, and it should take a long time. It's just that it should then be better. Agricultural output was generally excellent in capital-based societies, because they invested in technologies to increase productivity! I'm also a little worried about this therefore being a bit too "balance brained". I would hate to see EUV become a modifier-stacking game. However, there shouldn't be a fear of making one choice sometimes just be better than the other, which I fear there is here (if imperfectly; some of the bonus profiles we've seen seem clearly better than others).

Does that make any sense?

 

[Wildrake]

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.

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.

I feel like this one should be worded around Social mobility like "Rigid vs mobile" (like caste system/serfdom/slavery vs egalitarian), because serfdom is a specific form of farming labor organization, and it is not even a binary choice. Some societies used slaves for this, some serfs, some used hired workers, some used free farmer labor. Also, I feel like buffs and debuffs could be reworked because "peasant food consumption" for serfdom is bizarre, maybe bigger estate power or lower promotion speed would be better.

 

[AHumpierRogue]

I'd argue plutocrats

Considering the outright hostility the imperial government often had to merchants, I'm not sure I'd agree. Burghers should absolutely be repressed in a "standard" imperial china.

 

[ts227]

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.

Agree. Pious v Ecumenical, maybe? Or is that too specifically Christian? TBH I'd be happy enough with Faith v Toleration too.

 

[SlaveOfWant]

What if there was a quality vs. quantity equivalent for the economy? Like maybe craft vs production? Could have influence, prestige, and culture bonuses versus raw production and faster build times.

 

[nyetflix2]

Will having different societal values from your subjects make it harder/more gradual to integrate them?

 

[Johan]

Can we ask a cabinet member to move one of the societal values to -100? Or will it always move to 100?

You can ask them to move to -100 or +100

 

[MrOobling]

I'd like to suggest additional societal values for gender (patriarchal vs heterogeneity) and cultural attitudes (cultural elitism Vs multiculturalism)

While I understand there are already laws for these topics, having a slider representing societies attitude towards women and cultural minorities would be interesting and add another layer of depth and interaction to the laws.

 

[Rule Britannia]

Could we see the starting societal values of England, please?

 

[Tavolo87]

You simply represent that by having the slider in the middle?

I'm not sure why people are commenting things like "Prussia had a high quality army but also conscripted a large percentage of its population" when that just means that they're not specialized either to the right or left of the slider. That's how it's supposed to work, you don't have to pick one or the other extreme.

if you put it that way then there's no reason for a slide at all given that most countries will have the slide in the middle. What you say makes no sense. Some countries escripted a large part of the pop, some had quality armies, some did both some did neither.

There are 8 options (when you take into account middle grounds too) with the current quality - quantity slider representing only 3 of them. Damn right I'll ask for more sliders

 

[Jayyeff]

Is there any mechanic that allows an overlord to sway these societal within their subjects/sphere? Curtailing any liberal thought or maximizing resource extraction seems well within the interests of any superior power that relies on efficient vassals

 

[Álvaro Núñez de Lara]

I dont like that each choice gives different bonuses. There is no point in graduation from -100 to +100. That made sense in EU3 when going too much in that direction had too big a drawback depending so you had to choose carefully how much to steer. If each gives different set of bonuses there is no reason to have it lean to 0 or close to 0 so you dont get any benefits or drawbacks.

Might as well just be a pick like ideas instead something that goes between -100 to 100 but that would be a shame. I much prefer the EU3 approach

 

[Rule Britannia]

Does assimilation require same religion before it can start (like in EUIV where you must first convert a province before you can change the culture) or can you assimilated pops with other religions without first converting them?

 

[Johan]

Whenever a strategy game offers the choice between technological progress and anything else, tech. progress is nearly always the better option as it eventually gives the opposing side's bonuses.

So what stops Innovative from doing the same things Traditionalist does but better?

the impact on research is maybe 2% at the extreme over a full game.

 

[darcler]

Looks promising, but are these societal values impacted in any way by the cultures the country has? Because most of the values should be derived from the culture itself, rather that from some arbitrary estate privileges or other administrative means. While, say, freedom vs serfdom would indeed be something decided above the heads of those most interested (that is, the peasants), things like Traditionalist vs Innovative, Spiritualist vs Humanist or Individualism vs Communalism sound like manifestations of cultural traits and traditions. I know that, should there be two separate sets of "sliders", based on two distinct ideas, it would pointlessly complicate the UI, but perhaps the aggregation of various cultures that happen to be within a tag's borders should have some impact on the increase or decrease of the various societal values? Like, say, some cultures would be more spiritual, while others would be more humanist, others would be more conservative, while others more innovative, and so on? This would be something to consider when planning one's expansion, as incorporating territories populated with traditionalist cultures might not be the greatest idea when trying to be the king of innovation.

 

[Johan]

Looks nice but id hope we would stop seeing Navy-Army and Offensive-Defensive as polar,exclusive opposites..

We don't have any navy-army slider. We have what is basically a "coastal" and "inland" focus slider.

 

[Atromb]

Aragon has

centralization_vs_decentralization = 50
aristocracy_vs_plutocracy = -20
serfdom_vs_free_subjects = -10
traditionalist_vs_innovative = -20
spiritualist_vs_humanist = -50
mercantilism_vs_free_trade = 0
offensive_vs_defensive = -40
land_vs_naval = 10
quality_vs_quantity = 0
belligerent_vs_conciliatory = -10
capital_economy_vs_traditional_economy = 90
individualism_vs_communalism = 10
outward_vs_inward = -20

If I understand the directions right, is the team really sure about aragon being centralized? It was basically a federal kingdom and didn't even have an official capital.

 

[Jord1000101]

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.

Could we have ones exclusive to religions or governments? Like mysticism/legalism in Islam or Democratic/authoritarian for a republic(I understand that could be simplified with liberalism/absolutism but just as an example)?

 

[Johan]

Agreed with the thought that -50% Fort Defense seems immensely harsh. Maybe the equivalent of fort maintenance could be higher in Offense countries because they have less experience defending such places and thus are rather inefficient at it?

Its not been in the top 10 complaints yet in internal testing.