Hello everyone and Merry Christmas to you all! Today we are celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, and thus here is a special gift for you all.
So for today we’ll be talking a little bit about how it is when you start playing in Project Caesar, and we’ll start as Norway..
We start in a union with Sweden, as we have the same king, who is only 20 years old at the start of the game. He is married though to Blanche of Namur, who in history gave birth to Håkon who became the King of Norway. The current heir is Eufemia, the king's younger sister, who is married to Albrech of Mecklenburg.
Norway is a rather big country, but most is sparsely populated and not much developed. There are a few main concentrations of population. Around the Oslo Fjord in the south, around Tröndelag in the north, and on the western coast around Bergen & Stavanger.
These are the 6 towns of Norway, and these populations include the entire countryside of the location, including all peasants. Oslo has about 900 burghers at the start of the game. This creates a bit of a challenge, as we do not have either a concentrated population nor a big population.
These population numbers are of course going to change dramatically in a few decades, as the Black Death is not exactly avoidable.
There are a few other challenges to consider as well. We do not have our own market and trade through the Lübeck market.
This has some benefits and some challenges. First of all, it's a market which has a lot of Hanseatic Merchants and access to goods will be plenty. The heartland around our capital in the south also has great market access. However, the rest of the country is not as lucky.
So what shall we do at the start though?
First of all, as Norway has a small population, I can’t rely on large scale raw material production, but should perhaps aim for a more capital economy. One way to achieve that is to grant a privilege to the Burghers. It will make them more powerful, but I think it's worth it.
Another way is to check the alerts and we see that our population has some needs that are not fulfilled. While we may not care all that much if the pops in Orkney get what they need from the Dublin Market, we can at least look into addressing the needs in Lübeck.
A lack of wine, beer and silver. The amount of wine needed is nothing I care about now, but it is clear that we could benefit from addressing the other needs.
First of all, we have a Silver Mine in Kongsberg, which we can expand.
We currently have a level 1 mine here, and due to the development of the area we can get up to a level 6 mine, employing up to 6,000 peasants in total. There is a demand far higher than supply in the market, but fully upgraded we should be able to supply it fully. It will be an important part of our economy, and we are already able to collect 5% of our taxes only from this location.
I start expanding the mines, with 1 level for now, and look into doing more diversification for my economy. The beer demand will easily solve itself over the next few months, as either the burghers will import more, or The Hansa or someone else will import to fulfill demands or some AI minor will build more breweries.
I want to get a higher trade capacity. I could build market or fishing villages in the countryside, but for now I think a Wharf in every coastal town would be the best benefit, as they impact the proximity calculations and give some sailors as well.
Wharfs are not the most expensive to build for us, especially with the access to lumber and masonry in the market.
There are other things to consider at the start of the game as well. Assigning the cabinet to their duties is one. As we start with 70 legitimacy, I assign a noble to increase the legitimacy of the King.
Probably only Norwegians or some very knowledgeable people about scandinavian medieval history who find it absolutely hilarious for this guy to do this
The goal now is to slowly build up an economy based around my towns and survive the Black Death as best as possible.
The goal during the next few decades would be to build up a simple gravel road from Oslo past Hamar over Tynset to Nidaros.
This is just a quick small overview of the start of the game in one country…
Next year we'll be back with another "bonus style" Tinto Talks, where we'll look into every trade goods.
So for today we’ll be talking a little bit about how it is when you start playing in Project Caesar, and we’ll start as Norway..
We start in a union with Sweden, as we have the same king, who is only 20 years old at the start of the game. He is married though to Blanche of Namur, who in history gave birth to Håkon who became the King of Norway. The current heir is Eufemia, the king's younger sister, who is married to Albrech of Mecklenburg.
Norway is a rather big country, but most is sparsely populated and not much developed. There are a few main concentrations of population. Around the Oslo Fjord in the south, around Tröndelag in the north, and on the western coast around Bergen & Stavanger.
These are the 6 towns of Norway, and these populations include the entire countryside of the location, including all peasants. Oslo has about 900 burghers at the start of the game. This creates a bit of a challenge, as we do not have either a concentrated population nor a big population.
These population numbers are of course going to change dramatically in a few decades, as the Black Death is not exactly avoidable.
There are a few other challenges to consider as well. We do not have our own market and trade through the Lübeck market.
This has some benefits and some challenges. First of all, it's a market which has a lot of Hanseatic Merchants and access to goods will be plenty. The heartland around our capital in the south also has great market access. However, the rest of the country is not as lucky.
So what shall we do at the start though?
First of all, as Norway has a small population, I can’t rely on large scale raw material production, but should perhaps aim for a more capital economy. One way to achieve that is to grant a privilege to the Burghers. It will make them more powerful, but I think it's worth it.
Another way is to check the alerts and we see that our population has some needs that are not fulfilled. While we may not care all that much if the pops in Orkney get what they need from the Dublin Market, we can at least look into addressing the needs in Lübeck.
A lack of wine, beer and silver. The amount of wine needed is nothing I care about now, but it is clear that we could benefit from addressing the other needs.
First of all, we have a Silver Mine in Kongsberg, which we can expand.
We currently have a level 1 mine here, and due to the development of the area we can get up to a level 6 mine, employing up to 6,000 peasants in total. There is a demand far higher than supply in the market, but fully upgraded we should be able to supply it fully. It will be an important part of our economy, and we are already able to collect 5% of our taxes only from this location.
I start expanding the mines, with 1 level for now, and look into doing more diversification for my economy. The beer demand will easily solve itself over the next few months, as either the burghers will import more, or The Hansa or someone else will import to fulfill demands or some AI minor will build more breweries.
I want to get a higher trade capacity. I could build market or fishing villages in the countryside, but for now I think a Wharf in every coastal town would be the best benefit, as they impact the proximity calculations and give some sailors as well.
Wharfs are not the most expensive to build for us, especially with the access to lumber and masonry in the market.
There are other things to consider at the start of the game as well. Assigning the cabinet to their duties is one. As we start with 70 legitimacy, I assign a noble to increase the legitimacy of the King.
Probably only Norwegians or some very knowledgeable people about scandinavian medieval history who find it absolutely hilarious for this guy to do this
The goal now is to slowly build up an economy based around my towns and survive the Black Death as best as possible.
The goal during the next few decades would be to build up a simple gravel road from Oslo past Hamar over Tynset to Nidaros.
This is just a quick small overview of the start of the game in one country…
Next year we'll be back with another "bonus style" Tinto Talks, where we'll look into every trade goods.
