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Tinto Talks #40 - 4th of December 2024

Hello everyone and welcome to another Tinto Talks, the Happy Wednesday when we talk more about our upcoming top secret game with the codename Project Caesar.

This week we will go into details about the government reforms and look into some specific ones that you may use or not.

Representing everything from ancient traditions to progressive amendments, Government Reforms outline the shape of governance in a country. Each one is unique, but they often give powerful trade-offs or open up unique play styles.

At the start of the game, countries are only allowed 2 government reforms, but in every Age there is at least one advance that unlocks another slot for reforms. Some specific reforms also add another slot, so they are essentially “free” for that country. On average in the final Age of the game, a country may have 7 or 8 reforms.

Common Government Reforms that are available to everyone are likely to have an Age requirement, spreading out their availability over the game.

Some reforms are major reforms, and a country may not have more than one major reform at the same time.

There will be a diverse selection of reforms in each age, with about 5 common new ones added each age, and another 2 per government type. The unique ones are far more plentiful, and diverse, with over 150 currently in the game.

In the User Interface, the government reforms exist in the Crown’s part of the Estates Screen, as the Crown does not really have any estate privileges…

french_estates.png
France can have 3 reforms, but are the current ones actually beneficial?



Removing a Government Reform currently costs 20 stability, which is a bit cheap, but that may change. Some reforms can not be removed at will though, and are locked until specific circumstances allow them to be removed.

Adding a new reform does not have a cost, but it takes up to 2 years before the benefits are fully implemented.



Common Reforms
Here are some examples of early government reforms that many nations have access to from the start.

Religious Tolerance
For when your country is populated by people who practice different beliefs and confessions. Therefore, it would be prudent to govern in a tolerant manner with them, ensuring their support for the government.

religious_tolerance.png

It will make your country a bit more communal though..

Diplomatic Traditions
From time immemorial our people have favored the word above the sword, giving us the ability to forge lasting relationships with our allies and friends and a reputation as honest and loyal.

diplomatic_traditions.png

For certain types of countries, this is rather important..


Military Order
This is a major reform that catholic theocracies have access to. It is one of the types of reforms that truly defines a country.

The Military Orders were created in the Middle Ages as a militant body of the Catholic Church. Its members are both warriors and monks who take religious vows and are destined to defend and expand Christianity.

military_order.png

Military Sponsorships are vitally important to a Holy Order!



Unique Government Reforms
So let's take a look at some of the more unique government reforms that we have in the game right now.

Family Sagas
This is a unique reform that anyone with the primary culture of Icelandic can get, which both Iceland and Greenland starts with.

Our ancient sagas passed orally through the generations tell of adventurous expeditions to a distant and wild land over the western sea. Perhaps one day we may follow in the footsteps of our old compatriots.

family_sagas.png

If only they had the population to exploit it..

Three Departments
This is available to any country that has Chinese or Korean as their court language.

The Three Departments System originates from the ancient Chinese empires and is the primary administrative structure of the state. All departments focus on several aspects of the process of drafting, establishing and revisiting state policies.

three_departments.png

If you want laws changed, this is the reform to have..

Magna Carta
This is a unique reform that England starts with, and is also possible for any country with the English primary culture, or if their overlord has this reform.

The 'Great Charter' is a constitutional law that distributes power away from the monarch and towards the barons. First signed in 1215, it is also one of the earliest documents to enshrine the idea of civil liberties, such as the right to a fair trial, and protection against illegal imprisonment.

magna_carta.png

It gives some power to the nobility, and shapes the country towards certain ideals.


Stay tuned, as next week we will look into all the different types of Parliaments, and how you interact with them...
 
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Hey guys, this is wild, you'll never guess what I found in the EU4 wiki:

1733430230680.png

Did anyone notice they have this bonus? Does anyone care? How many Icelandic colonial empires do you usually see in EU4?
 
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Hey guys, this is wild, you'll never guess what I found in the EU4 wiki:

View attachment 1226738
Did anyone notice they have this bonus? Does anyone care? How many Icelandic colonial empires do you usually see in EU4?
In fact I had quite a few, the problem was that Iceland had no flavor, that's why it wasn't popular, apart from the fact that by freeing it as a vassal, you could conquer all of Iceland and have few cities (5?), it was simply that I had no reason to play colonial with Iceland if I had Spain, England, France and a bit of the Low Countries (Africa and Southeast Asia), even any other Nordic country was better in that aspect, in the end I resorted to the challenge of trying to form Scandinavia (At the point of sinking transports xd)

PS: Apart from that, you would have to eat at least Ireland to have the necessary resources so that your three colonial subjects do not rebel due to development and military strength.
 
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From my point of view, which might be horribly wrong, being tolerant means working more in community, and intolerant is faced towards Individualism.

Did the Inquisition fostered a sense of community? I think not. My 0.2 ducats on the matter. Religion is not my thing.

I'm not sure about the Inquisition, but I would think that a highly religious society would have something that united them. It would have a common bond. Not only that, it would have a powerful in-group/out-group effect against those that don't share their religion. This would make for a very tight knit community, i.e. communal.

A more secular society would lack this bond. It would lack the in-group/out-group effect. As a result, this society wouldn't be as tight knit. And not being as tight knit, members of this society wouldn't care as much about their neighbor, i.e. individualistic. For good (religious tolerance) or ill (less likely to work together, sacrifice, etc).

France might be more communalist than England, partially because individualism is one of the main characteristics of english culture and due to protestantism being a far more individualistic faith than catholicism, but by the end of the game both nations would be placed in the individualistic spectrum. All european nations would become significantly more individualistic by the end of the game.

The russian empire was, in fact, a fairly tolerant place (religion wise that is), that allowed the practice of islam and catholicism and granted rights to said communities, it could in fact, be a great example about what the early game reform 'religious tolerance' could refer to. The United States doesn't exist for 90% of the game's time frame and should most definitely not be what people should have in mind when discussing early games institutions. An 'age of revolutions' institution called 'freedom of thought' would be more representative of the american position.

Fascinating. I did the briefest of searches and the AI Overview corroborated this information. According to the AI Overview, the Russian Empire was not only highly tolerant, but considered it a core part of its identity. I think the Russian Empire was also highly feudal and communal, so this would be a counterexample to the England/France example.

More research would be needed, but if there are many contradictions like this, then the thing that would make the most sense is to de-link religious tolerance and the individualism/communal spectrum. There simply is no consistent pattern to the two.

Edit: To clarify, I am fine with de-linking them. I was more questioning religious tolerance = communal in my OP than I was trying to argue that religious tolerance = individualism and religious intolerance = communal. I did propose an explanation to that effect in this post, but Russia pretty much shoots a big hole in that explanation.
 
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I think the same is true for the Azores, the norse might have found it but not settled it(which is the same with Vinland too...)
yes but there's no telling if these mice (which is the proof used to backup the viking discovery of Madeira) came with the vikings. Azores, on the other hand, has cattle feces, signs of ancient fires and even a bunch of rocks that might have been used to build structures, which gives some more proof, although still not enough to be completelly certain of any settlement
 
Speaking about religious tolerance... They should rather just raise "humanism" which would also make it much better "tolerant" apart from covering EVERYONE instead of just Christians, they can also take advantage and change "Spiritualist" for orthodoxy or another similar term (In case they think they will be confused with orthodox Christians).

Returning to the reform itself, it is very problematic to establish if it makes a country more individualistic or communalist, since it depends exclusively on how it is managed within the countries (Which I think would be more appropriate for a law), we have enough evidence that it can go both ways, but I think that in the last era of the game there should be a stronger equivalent that does increase individualism (Secularization perhaps?)
 
Hey guys, this is wild, you'll never guess what I found in the EU4 wiki:

Did anyone notice they have this bonus? Does anyone care? How many Icelandic colonial empires do you usually see in EU4?

For someone who doesn't seem to find the Iceland debate that interesting, you're sure being catty about reigniting it lol Barely took you half a page to get back into it.

But yeah, not that it matters to my original point, but, yes, I have seen both Iceland and Norway (who also gets a Saga colonizer in EU4) do it a number of times, because it turns out that when the AI is given enough time and potential targets, it will explore all of the tools available to it to seize more objectives. Including the minute, flavor tools just added in for fun.

So, just because EU4 did something incorrect, it doesn't mean Project Caesar should, too. Even if its economic system is way better at limiting the AI's options.
 
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I'm not sure about the Inquisition, but I would think that a highly religious society would have something that united them. It would have a common bond. Not only that, it would have a powerful in-group/out-group effect against those that don't share their religion. This would make for a very tight knit community, i.e. communal.

A more secular society would lack this bond. It would lack the in-group/out-group effect. As a result, this society wouldn't be as tight knit. And not being as tight knit, members of this society wouldn't care as much about their neighbor, i.e. individualistic. For good (religious tolerance) or ill (less likely to work together, sacrifice, etc).

Agree. Organized religion is (in most cases) largely about creating communal bonds, common myths and common hierarchies. It has no interest in tolerance unless it is as a statement against a more powerful rival religion. If anything, powerful religious institutions with high control over their groups encourage narrow-mindedness and hostility to foreign ideas.

Now, if you worshiped Satan, though... that's another story : p
 
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The thing was that the Nordic countries had a considerable time ago abandoned their exploratory culture, in favor of establishing greater control in the Baltic Sea and fighting the Hanseatic League in the following centuries, they were also busy with the Kalmar Union, because if they had focused their sights on the North Sea and explored further they would have settled in northern Canada a long time ago
Not trying to restart the debate, just wanted to correct a couple of your points.

The Greenlanders DID try to settle Canada, but they were repulsed by the Miqmaq. The site of l'Anse aux Meadows is indisputable proof that the Norse got to the Americas and at the very least built temporary settlements. It's not that if they had wanted they would have done it, there were people living in those lands already and they weren't going to sit idly by and watch it happen.

but they decided to abandon Greenland (Not even the name allowed it to attract the unwary forever xd), since it was a waste of resources or they did not really know if Vinland really existed, and even if they had known, they did not see enough wealth in the area to continue trying and decided to further increase their control in the Baltic trade
At least in Greenland and Iceland, they did know Vinland existed; ships had been there and back multiple times. They also certainly saw wealth there, it was just wealth that was too difficult to obtain due to local resistance. But just because the Greenlanders knew didn't mean that the Danes knew, the culture was widespread and the decisions made in Kalmar were mostly independent to the ones made in Greenland.
 
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Not trying to restart the debate, just wanted to correct a couple of your points.

The Greenlanders DID try to settle Canada, but they were repulsed by the Miqmaq. The site of l'Anse aux Meadows is indisputable proof that the Norse got to the Americas and at the very least built temporary settlements. It's not that if they had wanted they would have done it, there were people living in those lands already and they weren't going to sit idly by and watch it happen.


At least in Greenland and Iceland, they did know Vinland existed; ships had been there and back multiple times. They also certainly saw wealth there, it was just wealth that was too difficult to obtain due to local resistance. But just because the Greenlanders knew didn't mean that the Danes knew, the culture was widespread and the decisions made in Kalmar were mostly independent to the ones made in Greenland.
That's my point, they wanted to recover the colonies in Vinland, they were not willing to continue exploring before they were safely established there, which I think was the goal before doing another exploration at the level of the colonization of Greenland without having close support for their ships and their people, being in fact the name of Greenland a way to attract settlers to the island (Which worked for much longer than one would expect), here the thing is not to deny what the Icelanders or Greenlanders did, but on the contrary to really show what their priorities were immediately at the beginning, it was not to explore the seas like the reform, but to stabilize the settlements and recover Vinland, that's why I think the ability to invite settlers (Who are from their cultural group) was almost the only thing they needed both before and after the start date, then if one or the other manages to stabilize Vinland they should be able to start having in mind exploring the coasts and forests of northern Canada

The other issue why I name the rest of the Nordic countries is because both Greenland and Iceland were colonies themselves, they were not independent countries that could support themselves and decide whether to continue fighting to keep where they already lived or whether to expand into a dangerous area, walrus ivory and fishing kept them relevant to their overlords, but not enough for a real effort to even be attempted to keep Greenland, because although Iceland survived after it fell and even knowing that it exists, it never tried to venture alone to claim the site or to explore beyond the seas they already knew, it was not until quite some time later that the Nordic countries attempted to resume the exploration of the seas outside the Baltic and part of the North Sea, achieving some outposts in both America and Africa
 
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but giving them the ability to explore means that they already have to have the desire to explore (For something it is a reform as such),

This pretty much sums up my thoughts. The question isn’t whether they can, but why they need to?

Let’s say colonization isn’t viable for another 200 years, and you gain more money and power by focusing on other priorities (like trade in the Baltic, as you mentioned). In that case, this reform would be pretty useless.

Based on everything discussed, the most optimal choice at the start of the game might be to drop this reform in favor of something more practical.
 
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giving them the ability to explore means that they already have to have the desire to explore (For something it is a reform as such)
An alternative view would be that giving them the ability to explore (i.e. access to the reform) is recognizing that they demonstratively had the ability to explore. Desire to explore is represented by the player (or AI) choosing to slot the reform into their government in place of something else, and then by the actual act of exploring.
Based on everything discussed, the most optimal choice at the start of the game might be to drop this reform in favor of something more practical.
That's fine. Flavor doesn't have to be optimal. Play doesn't have to be optimal in general.
 
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While this whole Iceland debate was completely fruitless and I don't want it to continue either, I think it's indicative of a broader topic that we should think about as a community: how much do we want this game to forego total historical accuracy or "plausibility" when adding flavor for fun?

In EU4 there are now paths like Eranshar (Zoroastrian Persia), Angevin (England inheriting France and becoming French itself, then conquering western Europe) and many more that are very historically implausible but are still well designed and fun to play. As an EU4 player, as long as such a path (or a silly outcome for a country, like the Teutons becoming a horde) was unlikely to be achieved by the AI in most games I was absolutely fine with it existing. So does the community prefer for such things to not exist in Project Caesar? Do we expect a more "rigid" historical simulation without flavor that gives openings for implausible "what ifs"?
This even extends to how EU4 countries had national ideas that were sometimes based on things that happened before the scope of the game. I never thought much of it in EU4, I was just glad to have more flavor for each country.
Ultimately I'd be happy with the game either way but I'm curious what others think about this.
 
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While this whole Iceland debate was completely fruitless and I don't want it to continue either, I think it's indicative of a broader topic that we should think about as a community: how much do we want this game to forego total historical accuracy or "plausibility" when adding flavor for fun?

In EU4 there are now paths like Eranshar (Zoroastrian Persia), Angevin (England inheriting France and becoming French itself, then conquering western Europe) and many more that are very historically implausible but are still well designed and fun to play. As an EU4 player, as long as such a path (or a silly outcome for a country, like the Teutons becoming a horde) was unlikely to be achieved by the AI in most games I was absolutely fine with it existing. So does the community prefer for such things to not exist in Project Caesar? Do we expect a more "rigid" historical simulation without flavor that gives openings for implausible "what ifs"?
Ultimately I'd be happy with the game either way but I'm curious what others think about this.

Like I said from my very first post, before everyone started dogpiling me and everyone who agreed with me vocally, I don't know how to feel about it. My protest was one of vexation, not outright rejection, which is why I kept suggesting 'softer' versions of the same benefit, like specialised Artic settling (which would make colonisation more likely, ironically).

But one possible solution for this sort of thing would be to implement a "Wild Wasteland Trait" game option, where all the unlikely, fantasy or 'outrageous' scenarios become a playthrough option for players that don't mind this sort of thing or, alternatively, mind it very much indeed. I believe it's already even a feature in a couple other PDX games, if memory serves correctly.
 
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While this whole Iceland debate was completely fruitless and I don't want it to continue either, I think it's indicative of a broader topic that we should think about as a community: how much do we want this game to forego total historical accuracy or "plausibility" when adding flavor for fun?

In EU4 there are now paths like Eranshar (Zoroastrian Persia), Angevin (England inheriting France and becoming French itself, then conquering western Europe) and many more that are very historically implausible but are still well designed and fun to play. As an EU4 player, as long as such a path (or a silly outcome for a country, like the Teutons becoming a horde) was unlikely to be achieved by the AI in most games I was absolutely fine with it existing. So does the community prefer for such things to not exist in Project Caesar? Do we expect a more "rigid" historical simulation without flavor that gives openings for implausible "what ifs"?
Ultimately I'd be happy with the game either way but I'm curious what others think about this.
I want a historical start, but so that I can follow the path of alternative history. Let's say create a Slavic empire, otherwise with the same success i can read historical literature.... It will be more interesting
 
Not trying to restart the debate, just wanted to correct a couple of your points.

The Greenlanders DID try to settle Canada, but they were repulsed by the Miqmaq. The site of l'Anse aux Meadows is indisputable proof that the Norse got to the Americas and at the very least built temporary settlements. It's not that if they had wanted they would have done it, there were people living in those lands already and they weren't going to sit idly by and watch it happen.


At least in Greenland and Iceland, they did know Vinland existed; ships had been there and back multiple times. They also certainly saw wealth there, it was just wealth that was too difficult to obtain due to local resistance. But just because the Greenlanders knew didn't mean that the Danes knew, the culture was widespread and the decisions made in Kalmar were mostly independent to the ones made in Greenland.
While you can interpret the sagas in that manner, I don't think there is conclusive evidence to say that Norse settlement failed primarily/mostly because native resistance.

Also there were no MikMaqs in the 11th century so far north, likely not even the Beothuk we later see were present, the native population was extremely low and scattered, so it's also not likely they could have had put such a consistent amount of resistance that the Norse could have never overcome... there were more Norse in Greenland than natives in all of Newfoundland

I wonder what natives pushed the Norse out of the Azores or even Madeira...
 
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Its in the Saga's.

Its the same feeling for players that want to reform Rome even if its been dead for over a millenia...
It's literally still alive at the start of the game smh
 
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It's literally still alive at the start of the game smh
Preatty much this.
Cultural traits and heritage sets a society on a path and it takes very very long time (at minimum ~300 years, usually around ~500) to change it in an meaningful way.
Well apocaliptic events may speed things up, if you even manage to survive them. Most don't.
 
An alternative view would be that giving them the ability to explore (i.e. access to the reform) is recognizing that they demonstratively had the ability to explore. Desire to explore is represented by the player (or AI) choosing to slot the reform into their government in place of something else, and then by the actual act of exploring.

That's fine. Flavor doesn't have to be optimal. Play doesn't have to be optimal in general.
It is that recognizing that they were explorers and giving them that capacity for that very reason is more debatable in general, we know that the exploration of the North Sea happened a long time ago, but it is not something that they had so present for a long time, Vinland failed more due to disinterest and lack of effort than due to the problems associated with colonization, Iceland and Greenland had already abandoned the idea of exploring for, well, staying alive through trade, otherwise I think that quite a few countries both inside and outside Europe should have the capacity to explore from the beginning, for having their attempts at exploration and colonization, we will have to give the majority of Muslim countries the capacity for exploration but with more commercial overtones, the hordes for their exploits traveling from Siberia to Eastern Europe, also the countries of India for having discovered the southeast through religious expansion, the Andean nations for having begun the exploration of the mountain range recently, apart we must know that exploration is not exclusively maritime but also terrestrial, I think that those who do have to have active exploration and with general benefits in this They are the nations of Indonesia, since the exploration of the Pacific and its techniques can be used in all latitudes.

I am not against exploration, but if they are going to give it to someone for certain reasons, they have to give the same advantage to the rest who also meet such reasons, apart from the reason should not be to discover America since it is cheating, did the Nordics visit it first? Yes, can it be called discovery when that knowledge disappeared until almost current times? No.

Among other things, all the Nordics and the Russian principalities must have the ability since they share the same Viking exploratory past, apart from Mali, did they try and fail without discovering anything? Yes, but the important thing is that they already wanted to explore the Atlantic and they tried, only they gave up at the beginning due to the sadness of the death of the heir and then for reasons that may or may not happen, depending on the AI, the player or how scripted their fall will be.
 
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