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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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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.
Got it! Don't necessary agree its bad content, maybe bad to make it the main selling point of new DLCs to generate revenue. I also don't think the "feel bad" part of it should play a factor, but I do agree with making it an objective without tying some sort of additional bonuses which over power you is a good idea. Its not like England and Scotland uniting granted them plus 10% combat ability and 20% more siege ability or whatever. It just makes good strategic sense to shore up your backyard for avoid hostiles using it to their advantage.

Thank you for providing that context, I see now what people are asking to get rid of it and it makes sense. Just hope they keep it in, in some way.
 
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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.
Firstly, EU4 mission trees lead to power creep which then make game balancing difficult. Unless I am confusing EU4 with another PDS game, I believe that the AI also uses them. So then everything has to be balanced for with and without mission trees that are often DLC locked. And power creep just isn't fun anyway. EU4 has so many modifiers that it's already satirized as a spreadsheet; adding yet more modifiers has become overkill. There are at least two websites dedicated to analyzing EU4 save files..... o_O

Secondly, it was immersion-breaking when conquering Bavaria made your Army more professional or whatever the reward was. The devs were doing their best and with a smaller number of missions it was more reasonable, but EU4 now has so many missions (surely high hundreds, maybe over a thousand?) that they are having to use increasingly implausible ones. E.g. in King of Kings, converting provinces to your culture completes a Language of Poetry mission that

Reduces the spy network cost of the Covert action "Fabricate Religious Conflict" by −20

There is a logic there, that more people speak your language, so you have more good poets, so your spies can write better propaganda, so you can fake religious disputes, so you can start wars more easily... but it all seems a bit tenuous to me.

Thirdly, they eat up enormous amounts of artist, programmer, and particularly Content Designer time. Mission trees have been the main features of recent EU4 DLC. We used to get substantial country-specific content like Parliaments for England and the States-General for the Netherlands, which is fun whether you go down the predetermined path or not.
 
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I have suggestions and nitpicks, but damn that map is gorgeous! This is by far the best Balkan map I've seen from any Paradox game, and thus obviously any game in general, lots of choices in names and locations that show real work and research went into this!! (there are very very few anachronistic names)
 
This was probably asked already in a previous TT (Tinto Talk) but would MANA be making an appearance in EU5 or are you looking at moving away from that?
No mana
 
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Firstly, EU4 mission trees lead to power creep which then make game balancing difficult. Unless I am confusing EU4 with another PDS game, I believe that the AI also uses them. So then everything has to be balanced for with and without mission trees that are often DLC locked. And power creep just isn't fun anyway. EU4 has so many modifiers that it's already satirized as a spreadsheet; adding yet more modifiers has become overkill. There are at least two websites dedicated to analyzing EU4 save files..... o_O

Secondly, it was immersion-breaking when conquering Bavaria made your Army more professional or whatever the reward was. The devs were doing their best and with a smaller number of missions it was more reasonable, but EU4 now has so many missions (surely high hundreds, maybe over a thousand?) that they are having to use increasingly implausible ones. E.g. in King of Kings, converting provinces to your culture completes a Language of Poetry mission that



There is a logic there, that more people speak your language, so you have more good poets, so your spies can write better propaganda, so you can fake religious disputes, so you can start wars more easily... but it all seems a bit tenuous to me.

Thirdly, they eat up enormous amounts of artist, programmer, and particularly Content Designer time. Mission trees have been the main features of recent EU4 DLC. We used to get substantial country-specific content like Parliaments for England and the States-General for the Netherlands, which is fun whether you go down the predetermined path or not.
Thanks for sharing that perspective, I had not considered it before and it makes total sense. The power creep of a lot the bonuses just makes you snowball further and removes a lot of challenges to the game. I'd still like an objective like mission "tree" but not tie it to bonuses.

I think you wisely used your diplo points to successfully culture convert me to team no mission tree. But it looks like we are getting some sort of different mission tree, which I am hopeful for.
 
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@Johan How many Tinto Talks ahead is current game development? As in, up to which week do you already have the things you'll be talking about by then?
 
Wonder if we will get some sort of character interaction with our nation, like in Imperator: Rome or Vicky 3. Will help with arranging alliances and marriages and just give a more personal feel to the game. Would to hear if you can share information on this, if its a straight yes or no, or still hush-hush.
 
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Some names and shapes of countries may be off if deeper research is still needed before the game is released.

Earliest date is probably May 20, 1336 as by then two things happened: Vijayanagara is founded and the Ilkhanate has collapsed.
 
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