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Tinto Talks #4 - March 20th, 2024

Welcome to the fourth iteration of Tinto Talks!

Today we’ll give you an overview of the different mechanics of the Government part of the game. There will be development diaries going into much more detail for these later on.

First of all, we have 5 different government types in the game, which determines a fair bit of what type of mechanics you get access to. As an example, a Republic does not have access to royal marriages, and a Steppe Horde has a different view on how war, peace and conquest works compared to other types of countries.

  • Monarchy, which uses Legitimacy
  • Republic, which uses Republican Tradition
  • Theocracy, which uses Devotion
  • Steppe Horde, which Horde Unity
  • Tribe, which uses Tribal Cohesion

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An illustration from our game..

These, together with country rank, government reform, and local flavor gives countries names like “Crown of Aragon,” “Kingdom of Sweden,” “Principality of Wales.” Not all countries are countries that are based on owning locations on a map though; more on that in later development diaries.

Each country also has a ruler, or they may be in a regency, if there are no possible adult heirs.

One of the most defining parts of the government of a country in Project Caesar is the Estates mechanic. This has been one of the core parts of the game, with a full connection between the population and the estates. Keeping the estates satisfied while keeping their powers low is an important part of the gameplay loop. In this game, the Estates are also active entities and will do things on their own if they get enough power.

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Two government reforms, one culture specific and one government specific.

As time passes, different government reforms and reform-slots will be available. They can also be based on tag, culture or religion.

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These are the two available possibilities in the Law 'Language of Pleading' for the country I tested.

Something that is different from a reform is what we call a Law. A Law can have several different policies you can pick from, and several laws have unique policies only available to certain tags, religions, cultures, government types or other factors.

There are some drawbacks to adding new reforms or policies though, as it takes a few years for it to have full effect, depending on your country's administrative efficiency. (Yes, it's a name for something else in another game, but it fits here.)

Regularly, if your government allows it, you can call in a Parliament. If you don’t do it often enough the estates will start to get irritated, but each parliament has issues that need to be resolved, and the estates will have agendas they want done for their support. Of course, you also have options to push through what you want from a parliament, if you are willing to accept the demands of the estate, like changing a particular law.

Another part of the government is the cabinet, which also grows in size as you become more advanced, allowing you to do more things. This is something that can be viewed as a hybrid between EU4 Advisors and the CK2 council actions.

Some of you may remember the domestic policies from EU2 and EU3. In Project Caesar we are bringing the idea back in the form of Societal Values. There are seven that we took from these games, one that was split in two, and we added four new ones, bringing the total to 13 different Societal Values. Societal Values are primarily affected by what other actions you do, like what policies you pick in a law, or what reforms you pick. As with so many other things in our game, this is not an instant action, but a gradual change over time.

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oh look, its eu3!

Next week, we will go into much more detail about estates and how they work.
 
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imagine bringing back a mechanic that sucked in previous EUs, but hey, people will like it the sixth time around, as if they hadn't already tried to put it in ck3 and failed miserably
Congratulations, for now Eu5 seems like the wheelchair child of vic3 and ck3
 
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Will "Societal Values" give buffs and debuffs at the same time?(as in eu3) Or just accumulate bonuses?
Imo, the worst thing that was done in EU4 was accumulating bonuses, with no real disadvantages.
 
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Sounds promising.

Another week, another W.

Regarding Mission Trees

As a modder is must admit that from all the paradox games that ive played and modded that I like Victoria 3s arsenal of Events/Decisions and Journal Entries system the most.

So naturally I hope that you have those plus something else in mind as mission trees themselves are okay but their usage is most often not due to too much interconnectivity and selfblockage.

But in the end they do indeed give a nice overview and an outlook of ideas from which an unfamiliar player could be inspired by.
 
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The granularity of the map makes me wonder : will their be any form of autonomous (vassal) conquest AND/OR POPS/estates autonomous building ?

EU4 monarch-directed construction for 4000 locations as the XVIIIth century British or Qing god-monarch would be absolute pain
 
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Me too but I am scared of the potentially mediocre translation to other languages. EU4 in Spanish already shows ugly names like "francesa México" following the English syntax and random genders, instead of "México francés". I assume some other languages have similar issues.

I hope they prepare the ground for good localization from the start. I can tell new monolingual players in particular are often unnecessarily confused in a game that is already confusing enough at first.
I'm also very enthusiastic about this mechanic. But we have the same problem in French as you seem to have in Spanish. I really hope that one day they make a big improvement in the localisation for other languages. It is good for non-English speakers to understand the game, it is better for them to have good translations in their language.
No more unintelligible sentences/names in French (or any other language)!
 
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Maybe I am a bit late for this. But I would like to ask if vegetation is a changeable value. Just ask yourself, does farmlands even make sense if this location is uncolonized or has minimal development? Why cannot we have a massive project to clear woods of marshes?
I think just an option to in some way of form transform your realm will bring much deeper connection to your playthrough. Options to developpe mines, clear forests, build roads and so on (and possibility to ruin it all) may add so much immersion to gameplay and bring felling that your country transitions from late medieval to early industrial.
Of cource I don`t suggest that everything should be turned to farmlands. One option is to add value of natural land fertility for farmlands development. This would explain why one location advances faster than the other. Also it may bring nice technology and infrastructure progression which could increase said fertility value and furthermore explain population growth.
 
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one day (soon)
I would love to see the pops of Livonia. Assuming that the game starts in 1337, I really hope it includes Couronian, Semigallian and Livonian cultures additionally to Latvian (Latgalian). The conquered Baltic nations hadn't been assimilated into Latvians yet, although Selonians might have mostly disappeared by that time.
 
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I said no to EU4 style MT's, nothing else.

Mission Trees could be replaced by Achievements
IMHO, the two flaws with EU4 mission trees were that (a) every mission completion was rewarded with a modifier, cash, or mana boost, leading to power creep and (b) the fact that mission trees were restricted to particular DLC made balancing more difficult; how do you make sure that Portugal still colonizes Brazil even if hasn't got that extra boost to colonization speed, etc?

I wonder whether whether the first flaw could be solved by replacing the more 'tangible' rewards of EU4 with Steam Achievements. This would give players a feeling of satisfaction on completing something. It also means that Tinto no longer has to have two sets of artwork, two sets of Content Designers, and twice as many bugs, for fundamentally the same purpose: suggesting goals to players and giving them a feeling of completion when they achieve the goal.

The second problem could be solved by having a clearer differentiation between Historical Achievements and Alt-History Achievements. Historical Achievements would be things like 'be the Western European kingdom with the largest number of colonies in North America in 1700'. The eligible English, French & Spanish AIs might periodically check whether it's set to achieve the goal, and increase or decrease some AI_Desire number for the appropriate actions/targets depending on its progress. Some Historical Achievements might even be DLC-locked for the player, but the AI would use always use them for its decision-making, so that the devs can check whether hands-off Historical games play out as intended.

In contrast, Alt-Historical Achievements would be the meme goals like 'Conquer the world as Ryukyu' or 'Control the Holy Roman Empire as Ulm', as well more plausible things like 'Expand France to its natural borders' and 'Keep Poland alive to the end of the game'. There would be no problem with making Alt-Hist Achievements DLC-locked, since they would necessarily be taking Project Caesar games off course. And in fact you should probably have to tick a box at game start to enable them. They also wouldn't be guaranteed to occur in such games, so human players wouldn't necessarily know whether Ulm was set on making a bid for greatness or not, and whether France was going to try to colonize North America or re-create Outremer.

If Achievements were used this way, restricting them to Ironman games would be unsustainable. But you could still have an Ironman version of the Achievements for those players who value that if Tinto wanted. You could literally just put an asterisk at the start of the name and give the icon a different border or a superimposed star. The Ironman version of each Achievement could even be created by a script (on a dev computer, not in the game) for maximum cost-effectiveness.

Mission Tree Rewards could be replaced by Characters
Separetely from the suggestion above, if Project Caesar had more fleshed-out characters (like Imperator), then you could also reward players by giving them an in-game character when you complete some Achievements. If you are the first to start the Reformation, then you get Luther (as a German tag), Calvin (as a French tag), etc., and the AI could be prompted to give them some job that increases literacy through the normal in-game mechanics. If you are the first to get the North American colonial Achievement above, you get de Moscoso or Montcalm or Penn. They shouldn't have superpowers, but their particular combination of traits might shape what you (and the AI) do next.

Also, while we are on the topic of governments, probably my biggest wish for totally-not-EU5 is a deeper dynasty system where you have actual family members to marry off and can make actual strategic marriages for dynastic plays instead of the system we have in EU4 where you have a century internal clock deciding on the outcome of royal marriages in case of heir-less death of a ruler that also turns to the next stage whenever the Pope or the HRE emperor dies just because. Obviously not fully fledged characters with their own agency because that's what CK3 is (supposedly) for, but something a bit closer in that direction.
Yes, this is a big reason why a broadly Imperator-style character system would work so well in this time era. I know that Imperator doesn't allow inter-country marriages, but this would be a sensible expansion of that system, without going all the way to a CK3 system.
don’t know about that, but there was no significant change in warfare between 1640s and 1836 that could not be covered by the mechanics of EUIV or it’s successor.
The main revolution of the 1350 was the « trace italienne » and gunpowder.
The main revolution of the 1800s was the increased gunpowder firepower and the gradual disappearance of traditional fortified cities.

Even if they chose to cut the end of the game, mods would still be able to compensate.

The only important change, in Europe, of 1648 was the so called « Westphalian order » of diplomacy or balance of great powers in Europe.
18th century warfare is really not my era, but I think the mass armies of the Napeoleonic era were a fairly major change, weren't they?

And they depended on the rise of nationalism and liberalism. It's the ideological justifications for warfare that are so very different from the 1330s, I think.
 
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Oh, another thing. Since one of the reason I'd personally prefer a later starting date (my perfect starting date would be around late 1370's, early 1380's) is the fact that Habsburgs are split into two lines (then 3 a generation later), which should be reflected in EU4 already but isn't because reasons, yet in 1337 they are still united (albeit it's before they get their hands on the county of Tirol), another question dawned on me.

Since 1337 is before the blatant Habsburg forgery that is privilegium maius, does the HRE emperor get an opportunity to call the Habsburgs on their illegal bluff if they try it in-game and impale the entire family into non-existence?
 
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Please have a beautiful map like Imperator: Rome.

And please make the performance good until the end date. I fell asleep after 10 years in Vicky 3.

Also is the UI final? It really feels like the game is a Vicky 3 mod or something lol. 'Cause the UI is too similar with Vicky 3.
 
This looks very nice and interesting. However, I hope we get information about new MT system soon because i believe despite what extremely loud minority here thinks, MTs in eu4 were great and steam reviews that last dlc's received kinda shows that.
 
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I'd like to share something I think is important for the future of the game, so even though I know my comment is a bit long, I'd really like you to read it in full.

(I used a translator, I'm sorry if the translation isn't of good quality)

I think we should change the way the war of conquest works, and I'm not talking about the units, I'm talking about the way the war unfolds. I think you should be able to declare war on one or more claims, and that you can, by winning a few key battles, besieging the enemy capital and if the claims are really important, occupy the claimed territories, be able to take what is claimed.

On the other hand, occupying territories should be much more costly and difficult to maintain, but if you occupy territories you haven't claimed, you should naturally annex them at the end of a war, unless you give them back in exchange for something else in the peace treaty.

Speaking of peace treaties, I think they would represent the times much better if we could make offers as well as demands. This has often happened in history, for example, I ask for a territory and in exchange I offer commercial advantages. This would limit the need for long and costly wars.

I also believe that humiliation should not be imposed as part of a peace treaty. Humiliation should be done automatically when we win any war quickly and far less expensively than the opponent, and only if the opponent is our rival or has insulted us recently.

Another system that I think could greatly enhance immersion is a more dynamic claim system. We should be able to claim any border area, but at first the claim is very weak, and nobody takes it seriously, but by investing time and effort we could make it more and more legitimate and we could ask or force other countries to recognize our claim.

I think a similar system would be interesting for legitimizing a territory (by territory I mean a set of locations that have been taken in a recent war). Legitimizing a territory, especially if the claim is weak or non-existent, would be a difficult process, requiringi mportant countries to recognize our right to these territories.

Thanks for reading, I really hope I've given you some good ideas.
I like the idea of being able to make concessions as well as demands in a peace treaty. Like I will take this very rich province adjacent to my existing provinces but to make the deal a bit more palatable to you I will give you this poor province I own quite far away from my core lands. Of course the other party should attach more value to such a province if it is contiguous with its existing lands, and none whatsoever if it is in a region where they have no interests at all.

I also like the idea of the legitimacy of holdings. This could interact well with the concept of people as well, so that if you conquer a province with a large share of the population being part of your primary culture, most people would quickly recognise your right to that land, but if the culture and religion of the people is completely foreign to your country, it would take a lot longer, especially for countries that has that culture/religion, or closely related cultures/religions.
 
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imagine bringing back a mechanic that sucked in previous EUs, but hey, people will like it the sixth time around, as if they hadn't already tried to put it in ck3 and failed miserably
Congratulations, for now Eu5 seems like the wheelchair child of vic3 and ck3
Your first post on this forum and you decided to do this. Tells me more about you than the 4 Tinto Talks did about Project Caesar.
 
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Start date is more or less confirmed, I wonder what will be the end date? If they have day-night cycle (something like Vic 3) it would certainty hint ending in early 1700s. Otherwise, if a Single Day is the smallest unit of time, it could be same as EU4.

This is important, since usually late games in paradox games are a lot less polished in terms of gameplay and stability, I hope regardless of the time period, there will be more polish towards the mid and end points of the game compared to EU4.
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