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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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Keep up the good work.

About the cabinet, few questions:

Would certain countries have specific cabinets (in terms of size and departments), replicating their historic form?
Are those cabinet members give certain bonuses/maluses, based solely on their personality, aside from the bonuses (whatever they might be) from the position they represent?
Would those bonuses differ depending on their experience and age, or are they gona be fixed, like in EU4?
Are the corelations between members of the cabinet impact country's stability, corruption etc?

Is there gonna be a family tree for monarchies, so we could see who's next in the line of succession, and act accordingly if needed?
Are there going to be province governors, with similar traits as cabinet members?

Since 5 types of pops have been announced, are there going to be same number of estates, or we look to something similar as in EU4, with 3 base estates, and several country or culture specific?
 
Yes, I imagine the localisation for names is simply done literally word to word, which creates these bad translations. It's particularly jarring when zooming out to see the political map and you see these big nonsensical names around.

I often wonder how aware devs are of this issue that they may have never encountered themselves, and given that most of the people who have do not come to give feedback in English language to these forums.

But now Project Caesar is at that early stage of development where dynamic names can be coded with proper localisation to most languages in mind.
I hope localization is vastly improved over EU4 since Paradox Tinto, which have a bulk of Spanish developers, is doing EU5.
 
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It looks really good so far. But please, Johan, make sure that the UI reflects the era. That contributes significantly to immersion. When it comes to well-designed user interfaces, I’d like to highlight Crusader Kings 2 and Europa Universalis 4. They had their own unique aura and, combined with the music, practically transported players back a few centuries. Unfortunately, none of the newer Clausewitz games have resonated with me in the same way. Neither Crusader Kings 3, Victoria 3, nor Imperator felt particularly atmospheric in this regard. The UI of these games seemed too polished and modern. It’s okay to be a bit extravagant again.
 
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I know this is not the topic today, but will you add natural disasters? I mean volcanic eruptions, seisms, floodings, epidemics... These things had massive repercussions on some countries (just the death plague...), and they were really lacking in EU4...

I was gonna ask if they wanted to include the 1452/1453 mystery eruption (that according to ice spikes was among the top 3 most severe volcanic eruptions in past 1000 years alongside Tambora (year without a summer) and Samalas eruption in 1257, and apparently i never made the link with the fall of constantinople. I'm very interested in geology & geography so it's kinda weird i never made that link. It did most likely happen at the Kuwae volcano in Vanuatu (being present in local folklore).

The eruption occurred just before the fall of Constantinople, the last bastion of the once-mighty Byzantine Empire. The Ottoman Turks, led by Sultan Mehmed II, laid siege to the city on 5 April 1453 and conquered it on 29 May 1453. Pang found mention of the volcano's after-effects in chronicles of the city's last days. Historians noted that the city's gardens, that spring, produced very little. On the night of 22 May 1453, the moon, the symbol of Constantinople, rose in dark eclipse, fulfilling a prophecy of the city's demise. On 25 May 1453, a thunderstorm burst on the city: "It was impossible to stand up against the hail, and the rain came down in such torrents that whole streets were flooded". The next day, on 26 May 1453, the whole city was blotted out by a thick fog, a condition that is unknown in that part of the world in that month.

When the fog lifted that evening, "flames engulfed the dome of the Hagia Sophia, and lights, too, could be seen from the walls, glimmering in the distant countryside far behind the Turkish camp (to the west)", historians noted. Residents of the city thought the strange light was from reflection from a fire set by the Turkish attackers. Pang said, however, that the "fire" was an optical illusion by the reflection of intensely red twilight glow by clouds of volcanic ash high in the atmosphere.

 
Not personally a fan of the new UI. I think its way too bubbly and spacey with it's icons. For example, that language UI could easily be a third of the size that just shows:
Language:
(two buttons) Court Language, Common Language
Then display more info under tooltop rather than directly under.

I just think a lot of space is taken up by nothing, like theres a lot of blank space in each UI element.

The style might look alright, but I like the very decorated EU4 UI with gold ornaments and stuff around the UI.
I agree with this 100%
 
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Well, interestingly enough Castille & Portugal are also at war with Morocco & Granada in 1337, while France & England are about to start their 100 years war. So a lot of big nations/tags would be at the start of a war.

I've been wondering what tags/nations would be advertised as a tutorial nations (like Castille, Portugal & Ottomans in EU4) given we're talking about a century earlier.
Yep Portugal and Castille at war till 1339, then 1340 they join up in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Río_Salado
Politics in Iberia will sure be interesting.
 
Not personally a fan of the new UI. I think its way too bubbly and spacey with it's icons. For example, that language UI could easily be a third of the size that just shows:
Language:
(two buttons) Court Language, Common Language
Then display more info under tooltop rather than directly under.

I just think a lot of space is taken up by nothing, like theres a lot of blank space in each UI element.

The style might look alright, but I like the very decorated EU4 UI with gold ornaments and stuff around the UI.
Yes, that Baroque style fits EU well and it does for immersion on that time what flavor content does to nations.
A few times playing Imperator I've felt it'd be much more immersive with very simple UI changes like adding a long vine plant around whatever window I'm looking at. Simplistic mobile phone UI are not popular in the Paradox community because they fail to provide immersion, diminishing the effect of what are otherwise beautiful graphics.
 
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I do hope estates and government reforms will have more interesting gameplay effects to consider than in EU4. Most of them are a complete nobrainer, and therefore is more of a chore than interesting game mechanics.

I would guess they have a company marketing policy not to announce more than one year in advance, and Johan being Johan gets to skim around it but not to blatantly violate it.
Vic 3 was announced in May 2021, and released in October 2022, so any such policy seems to be dead. Imperator dev diaries started about a year before release. With Project Caesar dev diaries seemingly starting further away from release than Imperator I wouldn't be surprised if we are looking at a late 2025 release at the earliest. Recent big titles developed/published by Paradox (CK3, Vic3, CS2) also points towards an autumn release.

Johan saying "no" to EU IV mission trees is the best thing I have ever seen in my 7 years as a content designer. May I say, based?

I love you Johan.
Unfortunately he is far more fond of Imperator mission trees.
The real issue with dropping mission trees is how the AI will make strategic decisions. That's really the core purpose of HoI4, NFs, EU4 missions, etc.
Johan have said nothing about dropping mission trees, only that there won't be EU4 style mission trees.
What about the Imperator:Rome style individual mission branches that allow for far more modularity and even procedural generation?
Procedural generation is good, but locking it behind a tree structure still "forces" the player to do things in another way than what occurs naturally through the simulation. Unless the tree structure, or the rewards, are removed completely some of the core problems with the EU4 mission trees will remain.
Damn! The more I hear about project Caesar the more I'm disappointed. Mission trees are great! Hope you reconsider. Or perhaps this changes into something different, like the journal entries in Vicky 3. Please clarify.
Again, Johan has only "killed" what he considers to be EU4 style mission trees, not mission trees jn general.
Please rename "Orașul de Floci" to something else. In modern Romanian it means "Pubic Hair City". Maybe use "Ialomița" or "Flost" instead.
No. It is the historically accurate name and refers to "wool". Other meanings which may have evolved from the original meaning of the word should be irrelevant. We also don't need to rename Ganja because it has a different meankng.
In a game that will emphasize on estates and pops, do you truly think it will not incorporate the Revolutions? If anything it might run up to 1848.
Saying it will emphasize pops might be a bit of a stretch. Pops is merely a way to model population.
I know this is not the topic today, but will you add natural disasters? I mean volcanic eruptions, seisms, floodings, epidemics... These things had massive repercussions on some countries (just the death plague...), and they were really lacking in EU4...
I would expect then to be implemented in a similar way to other Paradox games, including EU4, through events. Hopefully they will be more realistic than in Vic 3.
I'm really hoping it's something akin to how they appeared in Imperator.
Judgibg by Johan's earlier comments that seems likely, which also means mission trees will likely remain a big source of complaints in the years to come.
 
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Will national ideas, like in EU4 be a thing in definitely-not-EU5? Or will it be more like Vic3 where the laws/governments/economy etc are entirely what determines what a nation can do?
 
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Judgibg by Johan's earlier comments that seems likely, which also means mission trees will likely remain a big source of complaints in the years to come.
I don't understand all the hate around mission trees. You aren't locked into them in anyway and from what I see in gameplay from twitch and youtube streamers, they are ignored entirely. Just my opinion, but I like missions trees since they provide a set of objectives to follow or as a suggestion for what you can do with a nation.
 
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I don't understand all the hate around mission trees. You aren't locked into them in anyway and from what I see in gameplay from twitch and youtube streamers, they are ignored entirely. Just my opinion, but I like missions trees since they provide a set of objectives to follow or as a suggestion for what you can do with a nation.
Content which is ignored entirely is bad content. Especially when it is used as a/the primary way of adding content and tag specific flavour. It is also perfectly possible to have such objectives without requireing the player to complete them in a specifc order. Remove that feature, aka the tree structure, and you will remove one part of the problem. An even better option would be to remove the rewards. Your objectives would still be there, but the incentives which makes it feel bad not to do them is not.
 
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