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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…
 
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Are there ways to influence your subject's societal values ? For instance having a Capital Economy but nudging your vassals towards Traditionalist so they contribute more raw goods to your market

no, but could perhaps be done
 
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I assume the full picture would be more readable, and I'm sure the UI is not final, but Yaomanry and Magna Carta giving +0.10 doesn't really indicate that it's +0.10 toward Free Subjects. B

yeah, clarifying that as we speak.
 
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So are the societal values judged based on the regions the countries are in or the world as a whole?

'Innovative' and 'Capital' Economy kinda have an association with Europe, given Europe spearheaded much of innovation in the early modern era and the development of proto-capitalism, so compared to Europe, basically no other country outside of Europe would be comparatively 'innovative'.

But some states like the Aztecs possibly come to mind as being 'innovative' and 'capital' in the context of Mesoamerica- they were very revolutionary militarily and societally and oversaw a commercial transformation in the region. Of course when compared to European powers, they are less 'capital' economy and 'innovative' but in the context of their region, they were.
 
will we have "tools" to our disposition to stop the values to a specific point? Maybe you want to be at 0 for Land vs Naval.

depends on laws and privileges and x and y
 
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Shouldn't mercantilism be renamed to protectiomism?

mercantilism vs free trade is a traditional name we have had for 20+ years though.
 
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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.

What's the reason behind peasant eating more or less depending on the societal value? If there's serfdom in the kingdom peasants will eat two dinners, but when they are free subjects they eat only one, and even then only half of it?

According to the memoirs of the XIX century peasant (a book I've just read) serfs lived a quite miserable life and often struggled to get the proper amount of food (resorted to eating literally anything possible in early spring when their own stocks were running low and there was no fresh crops yet). They also had problems tending to their own fields because they were forced to work on their owner's fields. I don't understand why serfdom should "increase the amount of food they will eat".

If anything, then free subjects should increase that. No more working on their owner's fields meant they had more time to work on their own fields/gardens which resulted in higher yields for themselves. They were also allowed to migrate or work elsewhere, increasing their (meagre) wealth which caused some of them to buy stuff (even "luxury" items like watches and coffee). That could also cause higher/better food consumption.

Their quality of life increased greatly after abolishing serfdom.
 
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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.
Religious exclusivism vs. Religious pluralism would be a more accurate option, imo.

Calling it secularism would probably be a better alternative
That would also be an anachronistic name, since secularism refers to the idea of separation between church and state, which only appears at the end of the game's timeframe. For example, during the 16th century the Ottoman Empire was certainly more tolerant of its religious minorities than Spain, but it would be ludicruous to call it a secular country.
 
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LOVE the EU3 sliders returning and being slowly influenced by your choices, but I think there's a small problem with the modifiers you get. Either side gives you some pretty good bonuses, while only giving you a single drawback (often minor).

This seems like it will strongly motivate you to go to either -100 or +100, while being balanced will be a huge drawback. There are a few main ways I can see to fix this

1) when you're more towards the middle (between -50 and 50, or -30 and 30) you get a weaker version of BOTH bonuses, weighed towards the side you're closer too, with 0 giving you a perfect balance of all very small bonuses, but no maluses

2) Increasing maluses exponentially as you reach the extremes, and introducing new maluses that only activate at ~ ±75/80 and scale faster than the bonuses - say, focusing too much on Land starts cuts your sailor growth, naval proximity or naval morale

3) A natural decay towards 0 that grows as you reach the extremes. This is nothing new to Paradox modifiers, Prestige already works this way. This means that you won't be pulled fully towards one end by simply having one modifier to a very long time, and unless you have many different things or active cabinet attention, you'll eventually reach an equilibrium, say, having 0.3 growth towards Free Subjects stalls out at 37.21 or whatever

I think doing some or all of this would make the change more gradual, give you more drawbacks to consider and make your exact goal positions also be a consideration, instead of simply going either -100 or +100 every single game.
 
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Are these societal values tied mechanically to culture, or cultural tradition/influence? Both culture and values are things that drift and impact the ideas of neighboring populations, and I'm wondering if that's modeled. Do countries have the ability to influence the societal value shifts of other countries if, for example, they are winning an active culture war?
 
Land vs Sea:

while on paper it makes sense and yeah, it's in theory nice, how would you represent countries like Spain which were both the dominant army on the continent and had a vast colonial empire? Cause the Spanish Empire was just both, not "land or sea". Well, at least militarily.

You could create 2 ledgers, land trade - sea trade, land doctrine - sea doctrine, which while not perfect it would still be at least better than what you show us now
 
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Chuffed that these are back, having missed them from EU3.

About that: in EU3, certain government types capped how far you could move a slider in a certain direction. Can any factor cap the value drifts in PC, other than a counter-drift? Because looking at England now, if I calculate correctly, in 90 years society will have moved all the way towards free subjects - or perhaps in 30 years if the court language becomes English. That seems drastic.

Alternatively, will the drift of a societal value in itself make the estates put pressure on the crown to reassert the status quo? That seems to me like a historically accurate way to model what happened in England after the Black Death, where Edward III aligned himself with the nobility in passing laws to curtail the freedom which some peasants had started gaining due to the increased cost of labour.
 
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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.
Not sure if I understand the reason behind the bonus, shouldn't communalist countries have the greater moral (the communal bonus, individuals in the army are more coordinated and motivated because they are fighting for the "common good" ) but individualists get better generals/characters and posibly bonuses to innovativeness? It also seems reasonable that individualism increases satisfaction and influence of the burghers (they are able to pursue for profit ventures and don't have to sacrifice profit for morality) and satisfaction of nobles (the get to be seen as exceptional individuals descendants of great lineages and whatnot) while communalism does the same but with the influence and satisfaction of the clergy (they get to influence what is seen as the common good and influence public morality) and the peasantry (society is more egalitarian and peasants are not explicitly seen as lesser, even if they still remain the lower class).
 
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There might be Victoria 3 problem of one true way of playing here. In vic3 everyone just looking for same laws and all countries play more or less same. I fear stuff like innovativeness could be same here
 
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Great TT, I love new societal values not existing in EU2/3, but also the strengthen bonuses for "weaker" ideas from EU4.

Are you open to possibility of adding more specific/unique societal values for certain cultures or religions, like there's one for China?

Spiritual Humanist doesn't seem the best name for what societal value they provide. Religious vs Tollerant, seem better suited.
Spiritual should be opposed to Materialistic, and Humanist opposed to Divine? Perhaps there's a possibility for new soc values.
 
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Will these values synergize with eachother? What happens if a society that values "free subjects" and is "spiritualist", will heathens and heretics be less free if not outright serfs? What about values that seem to clash, like "decentralized" and "absolutist"?
 
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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.
Devotion vs Tolerance?
 
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Land vs Sea:

while on paper it makes sense and yeah, it's in theory nice, how would you represent countries like Spain which were both the dominant army on the continent and had a vast colonial empire? Cause the Spanish Empire was just both, not "land or sea". Well, at least militarily.
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.
 
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Would a state governed by an elite class of scholar-officials, produced through the imperial examination system, be considered an aristocracy or a plutocracy? Or might it occupy a position somewhere in between on the spectrum?
Imo, for the time period, it should be on the plutocratic spectrum. How much would depend on how accesible said exams actually are for the general public.
 
For Free Subjects Vs Serfdom, I think it should be somewhat the opposite, with serfdom getting less food consumption and free subjects getting more, while free subjects get high tax than serfdom, due to your subjects now not being tied down and able to improve their lives.
 
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