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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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Cultural traits is definitely a good idea and something I definitely would like (culture also need a rework compared to EU4). But it's worth to note even if nations share a similar culture, some would still be different - depending on for instance government form, religion, maybe dynasty, etc. Like Venice, Papal States & Florence are all Italian but all would have different priorities. Or Flanders and Netherlands have a similar culture but the different religion makes the two uniquely different. (tho not at the start date yet). And in EU4 both flemish & dutch are classified as Germanic (which would be the same as Austrian), so it really would already have to be a trait at the lowest cultural level/distinction.

One caveat though is that this also opens up the possibility of meta cultures to accept because for optimal gameplay they might be better than others. Mughals in EU4 already sort of do that.
Yeah, things like religion or government could also be incorporated that. Then you could even get some ideas that only unlock when you get a specific combination of two factors or even all three. As for meta-gaming, that's the same with religion or government in EU4 already. Some people are always going to min-max, but I wouldn't say they are a majority by any case.
 
Its just a unique color per location.
On this matter of location colour, could we also expect the provinces.bmp file to have location colours that are significantly different from the ones they border? In EU4, ocean tiles are often times way too similar in their RGB, which makes modding harder.
 
How would court language work in the language of pleading law if you have a multicultural nobility? Burgundy for instance, what if it shifted from being French to a more Dutch or German nation via conquest and the moving of the capital to say Antwerp, Amsterdam, or even Aachen?
 
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Thanks. If the metric on start date is used to decide that no alternative start dates are needed, I wonder what other metrics there are and how they'll affect Project Caesar.
I would be surprised if the popular tags have not been taken into consideration when deciding on a start date. Again, the source I'm quoting for those are rather old, so it may have changed over the years:
These are the top 23 most played countries in EU4 measured in new starts and saves loaded as that country (not counting duplicate starts/loads on the same day). These stats are not the same ones I mentioned last week. Playing a Custom Nation is still the most popular choice, so these are the top 23 historical nations played.

1) England
2) France
3) Ottomans
4) Castile
5) Brandenburg
6) Austria
7) Muscovy
8) Portugal
9) Poland
10) Great Britain (presumably mostly from continued saves)
11) Sweden
12) Teutonic Order
13) Papal States
14) Byzantium (yes, you made the top 20)
15) Prussia (presumably mostly from continued saves)
16) Spain (presumably mostly from continued saves)
17) Japan
18) Hungary
19) Denmark
20) Ming
21) Netherlands (presumably mostly from continued saves)
22) Commonwealth
23) Burgundy

The reason for 23 is that our regular metrics summary cuts off after that and lumps the rest into 'Other'. About 1/3rd of games are played as 'other'.


Fun Fact of the Day
Somewhere around 40-45% of users have at least one mod activated while playing. This number drops sharply after any major patch (due to mods being broken) but then eventually stabilize back around that level.
 
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We could have a system like in Victoria III where cultures can be part of several groups at once.
So catalan could be part of the Iberian group, of the Mediterranean group and of the European group.
I saw nothing about that on the wiki. It only states that cultures have traits, and noes not specify anything related to groups, subgroups or whatever. Only ethnicity.
I hve not played Vic3, how do culture work ?
 
1. I officaily reguest to finaly called Byzantium the proper name as Roman empire, or greek-roman empire, or in greek name but i fien with late estern-roman empire too,
2. I hope ther is will be a changes to roreplay Loius the great of Anjou succes againts Venice, dont forget Venice agreed the terms of Hungary kings to tribute and once on year use hungarian flags, and dont forget the Naples Succesion crisis that saved europa economy from gold and silver crisis! So please be more gently this old great kigndom! I know the splotlight will be the relivalizasion of english and france, but this happen in balkan to more specific thats why the turks can have place to counger cause succesion crisis in roman empire so at least the balkan that make so much diverstions in history of europa can be more representative! (i mentioned Loius crusade agints Lithunia with Poland?)I
It’s funny how the less-Eurocentric development of later patches got many indigenous countries or provinces renamed to their autonym (ie tribes in America like the 6 Iroquois nations) while Byzantium always stayed Byzantium although they always considered themselves as “Romans”
 
This has me extremely worried,i play these games for the roleplay aspect of each nation having goals and beeing unique,i dont want a game where playing Brandenburg and Saxony is the exact same with the difference beeing in mechanics or how hard it is to form germany. Mods like Anbennar,Europa Expanded and Ante Bellum are great exactly because how much effort they make into each country beeing unique with its own goals and objectives.

Tho im probably in the minority of players idk i like playing Hoi4 and Eu4 (Wich are the main ones i play) as roleplay games where i can enjoy the fantasy of building up this nation and helping it go trough its history and struggles and end up in a satisfying place and i think having clear objectives is what makes the games enjoyable.

Hopefully it still keeps the flavor and objective of the MTs without adding too much sandboxing or genericness to it. I know some people like playing EU4 like a math game to get as much number stacking as possible but i hope PDX still remembers that many people also like the unique aspects and aspirations of each nation.
CK3 has no mission trees. CK2 neither. Yet they have been praised for their role paying, writing of your own history, etc.

Sure, that would be sad if Prussia and Saxony got exactly the same gameplay, but after all, in 1337 (or even 1444) there was absolutely nothing to prevent one from doing what the other did. What made Prussia unique was how they maneuvered the geopolitical context to their advantage and unified Germany, not that they were predisposed to do so.

That can perfectly be achieved through some some sort of dynamic events / journal missions or some other type of less static tree.
 
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I would be surprised if the popular tags have not been taken into consideration when deciding on a start date. Again, the source I'm quoting for those are rather old, so it may have changed over the years:
I don't think start date is the most important thing to decide from the popular tags. I think they can be used to decide which tags get most flavor, including country specific mechanics if the game will have such. For better results, the popularity should be weighed against the amount of flavor at the time of measurement, as those with more flavor are more likely to be played. But those with little flavor and still played a lot can be in line for more flavor. Or perhaps this is not something they'd do when working on a new game, but when deciding on DLC.

I hope they're not looking at how many play to 1800s and decide by that to make the game shorter, when there's also the option to try and make late game more interesting.
 
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"Estates being active powers and will do things on their own if they are strong enough"

Does that mean merchants traders will try to gain land/money for the country and for themselves? like say they are much more advanced the indian merchants that they trick them? like what happened with Dutch east indies and British india

or nobles getting land from a different realm

and tribes being there without actually being on the map similar to how the Americas colonised with their treaties etc?
Let’s hope so.
Actually, the early modern era is notably characterized by the emergence of private interests.
Be them explorers like Columbus pushing their own cards to different monarchs to explore new trade opportunities, certain conquistadors forging their own conquest and kingdoms like Cortes, proprietary colonies funded by individual investments like Pennsylvania, trade companies being funded and gaining royal charters for autonomous management, diplomacy and warfare, the Stroganov and Ermak conquest of Siberia…

Monarchs were less heavily involved than EU4 would make us think, on the contrary, in many cases they acted not as the central character, but they shaped the economic policy of the nation who allowed such initiatives to be taken.

(I do hope though that tribes will be represented on the map. I would not want a Vic3 map where all natives are unplayable nations)
 
Not a fair comparison. CK focuses on characters. EU focuses in countries.
Not relevant, as you can totally roleplay a kingdom in CK, even if you ultimately play the character

Sure, you can marry and get claim on several kingdoms. But you can also totally play geopolitical.
- byzantinists trying to reconquer Anatolia and Syria.
- castile/Leon/Navarre/aragon players pushing for the reconquista.
- Mongols trying to form the Empire
- Christians going for crusade
- Scandinavian kingdoms invading the Rus or great Britain
- a carolingian successor state, trying to restore the empire

Besides, although you do certainly play characters, there are many mechanics which revolve around building a coherent unified kingdom.
- separatism and rebellions from multiculturalism / religion
- requiring a collection of neighboring duchies to form the de jure kingdom / empire above it

All of this participates into creating a strong, centralized country. Sure, you can theoretically inherit Rus state as a castillan count, but your chances of keeping it in the long term are about none, mostly at succession.

So in the end, there is no mission trees, yet you still do play a certain regional flavor, based on the situation at game start, but also on the evolution of it.
 
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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.

This sounds absolutely wonderful :)

The seats system of EU4 parliaments was shit. It did not age well.

I wouldn't be quite that harsh, but it's fair to say it had rough edges and didn't scale well with country size :) Certainly wouldn't suggest repeating, but instead look at something that scaled better with country size in future.


In terms of taking individual locations in wars, appreciate I'm stating the obvious but good to spend a decent amount of effort on the UX for this, so that a large war with lots of locations changing hands isn't a pain in terms of clicking on things.
 
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I saw nothing about that on the wiki. It only states that cultures have traits, and noes not specify anything related to groups, subgroups or whatever. Only ethnicity.
I hve not played Vic3, how do culture work ?
In Vic3, cultures have traits for their heritage, language, and other things. Cultures that share traits with one of your primary cultures can be accepted depending on your citizenship law.
  • "National supremacy" only accepts cultures that share both heritage and another trait.
  • "Racial segregation" considers only cultures with shared heritage traits acceptable.
  • "Cultural exclusion" considers any shared trait at all to be enough to accept a culture.
  • "Multiculturalism" is really tricky to get, but it accepts every culture.
 
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As opposed to having all countries play generally the same and then running out of possible different ways to play because development capability to deliver on alternate playstyles will run out years before you'd run out of tags in EU4? Yeah, longevity ain't the argument here either. And that's even before we get into how many mission trees, especially among the recent ones, have different paths to take.
This is what I mean, with respect, about not understanding what the people disagreeing with you are saying at all.
OK, and how does this Prussia's flavor differ from any other nation when you play it as a peaceful trader in this case?
Because:
  • they're on the Baltic, and so control of the Oresund is of critical importance.
  • they control the Vistula and therefore (playing as a trading state themselves as opposed to a militarist state that just taxes trade on the way past) the grain trade and timber trade from Eastern Europe, giving them a potential stranglehold on the bulk trades upon which urbanisation and naval power in Western Europe depend, so they have a strong diplomatic hand vis-a-vis France, England and the Netherlands.
  • they have to make a choice between cheapish galley fleets which do well in the Baltic but rely on hundreds of oarsmen (slaves? Citizen sailors? What does that imply for the structure of power in their state?) or expensive ship-of-the-line fleets which could also dominate the North Sea and strike out into the Atlantic.
  • they have to navigate the Reformation as a trading nation, trying to protect their commercial interests from religious conflict, whereas Mediterranean trading states operate in a world of Christians and Muslims.
  • they have an expansive hinterland and have to reconcile maintaining order in large territories (traditionally the domain of the nobility) with a powerful merchant class in their urbanised hubs. How do they manage tension between the two classes given that they're unusually reliant on not one but both of them?
  • And so on.
Each of those points and more could be a global mechanic, each of which would combine with other global mechanics to make countries in different positions and doing different things and with different situations more or less unique.

Bearing in mind there are only like 90ish countries with unique mission trees in EUIV after seven years of development, I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that between regional mechanics and global mechanics designed to accommodate a variety of potential country-states it would be pretty easy to outpace the rate at which developers can turn out "mission tree grants claims and personal unions" #104. Notably EUIV with a less-expansive interest in global mechanics managed to capture and expand a large audience pre-mission trees, suggesting this is entirely possible.
 
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Depending on war, you should be able to take more provinces. For example Ottoman conquering all of Mamluks in a single war.
Or Napoleonic Wars, where Napoleon was able to conquer/subjugate almost all of Europe (through separate peace deals).
Something like that should be available to do here as well but at the same time, how do you balance it out, so someone can't just World Conquest everything in a few years. (Even though that is also possible to do in EU4)
Perhaps you can take more depending on the lack of country stability? If there's general unrest, you could take more as the former government has fewer means to exercise legitimacy over the lands. This could also work for problem areas like Hungary in Austria - if unrest is high enough, releasing them could be very cheap. Of course, if you annex lands with considerable discontent, you should also have to deal with said unrest. The latter example could also promote espionage, sowing discontent and all for dismantling unstable multicultural empires.
 
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