Tinto Talks #45 - 8th of January 2025

[Zaragoza]

might be a good idea

It may be going a bit too deep into agronomy, but different crops have different yields depending on weather, soil and other factors. For example, in medieval Pyrenees the choice between wheat and barley (trigo vs ordio, if @Pavía wants to go into the bibliography in Spanish ) was important. Barley has better yields than wheat in high altitude land but wheat is usually more productive for lower altitudes.

From the prior DD I count these crops:

1. Tea
2. Cocoa
3. Coffee
4. Fiber Crops
5. Spices
6. Wine? (I don't see grapes and wine as different goods in the DD)
7. Cotton
8. Sugar
9. Tobacco
10. Wheat
11. Soybeans
12. Maize
13. Rice
14. Sturdy grains
15. Legumes
16. Potato
17. Olives
18. Dates
19. Fruit

The engineer in me thinks that we could have a yield matrix associating the productivity of crop X in a location defined by (weather, vegetation, topography). Potentially, it could scale to a yield defined by (weather, vegetation, topography, irrigated) to model hydraulic works as buildable projects.

Some related ideas that can be added would be getting certain agricultural developments (like cotton cultivars changing the cotton market as historically, or the modern strawberry development, that historically happened in Project Caesar timeline). As well as potentially getting the effect of some winters in certain commodities (the medieval climatic optimum temporally generating a particularly wine-prone situation would be an example. A harsh winter should have more effect on certain crops than other.

Finally some natural events (volcano eruptions were already in EUIV) may also be added to this system.

Johan said he would add some 100 extra raw goods, some agricultural example may make sense only if we have this mechanic.

 

[ivj9]

I've just exposed pixel count of each location as a location_size trigger so modders can do whatever they want with that information.

Does that correct for the map projection distortion? A pixel at the equator and a pixel in London are two VERY different things.

 

[Nikicaga]

I think the penalties to Cold Arid and Arctic climates are too harsh, as in-game they also cover vast areas of *semi*-arid and subarctic climates - in fact, especially for Arctic, most of the locations are in fact of the milder subarctic type.

So unless they're split up as some people suggested early on - and I know this is not happening before release at least, as it would require massive reworks, they should probably be made a bit more hospitable - currently you get 105% swings in population capacity going from one part of Finland or Russia to the next location over, which seems too extreme.

Especially Cold Arid should likely still have pops attracted if under capacity (it covers wide areas of decently populated lands, such as the US inland west, Spain, Anatolia, Patagonia, south Ukraine, Lower Volga, Iranian highlands - all have large cities even if their density is lower than in better climates.

Allowing for some rare precipitation in Cold Arid and Arid climates on account of them including semi-arid areas also makes sense, depending on how the mechabic works in game.

 

[GDQuirm]

Is it relatively simple to mod in additional types of 'sandstorms' that similarly use specific terrain?
If mountains have -70% development growth, and jungles have -50%, how does the math for this work in parts of southeast asia/china? Is it multiplicative, IE, -85%? Or is it -120%, and you need other bonuses to have any dev growth?

 

[Atromb]

tbh there was malaria around the Nile, if that's the reason it should actually not be present in desert terrain. I really am not convinced either way

I would hope that malaria would be represented differently, tied to areas where it was historically located rather than climate.

 

[JohnCro]

I think the penalties to Cold Arid and Arctic climates are too harsh, as in-game they also cover vast areas of *semi*-arid and subarctic climates - in fact, especially for Arctic, most of the locations are in fact of the milder subarctic type.

So unless they're split up as some people suggested early on - and I know this is not happening before release at least, as it would require massive reworks, they should probably be made a bit more hospitable - currently you get 105% swings in population capacity going from one part of Finland or Russia to the next location over, which seems too extreme.

Especially Cold Arid should likely still have pops attracted if under capacity (it covers wide areas of decently populated lands, such as the US inland west, Spain, Anatolia, Patagonia, south Ukraine, Lower Volga, Iranian highlands - all have large cities even if their density is lower than in better climates.

Allowing for some rare precipitation in Cold Arid and Arid climates on account of them including semi-arid areas also makes sense, depending on how the mechabic works in game.

I think arctic should be split into boreal

 

[GDQuirm]

If capacity does not attract pops in some climates, does this mean that all growth in places like greenland can only come from local population growth, or are there other ways to attract pops?

 

[GDQuirm]

Seems strange that Mediterranean is a better climate than Subtropical, when the climate is a big part of the reason that the Po valley is the main population centre of Italy.

Same for China and the Ganges, the most populated parts of the map.

 

[andseanfor]

Seems a bit strange that woods give a much higher development penalty than deserts. It's hard to tell exactly looking at the world tinto maps, but almost all the major cities of the Middle East are on sparse, farmland, grassland, or woods vegetation (Alexandria, Cairo, Jerusalem, Aleppo, Damascus, Mosul, Baghdad, Basra, Tehran, Kabul, Ashgabat, Khartoum, Shiraz, Sana'a, the entire North African coast). Only a few major cities in the ME seem to be on desert vegetation, like Muscat, Dubai, Bahrain, Isfahan, and Medina. Since there are so few major population centers on desert locations -10% dev seems a little low, although I'm sure the reduced food production is crippling in its own way.

On the other hand, woods and forests get -20% and -25% dev, respectively. I know you can't build where trees are but clearing forests for fields (or construction) might take a small community only a day or two depending on the size of the field, and it yields useful construction materials. Looking at a map it seems like cities shun forests, but I think it's more often the case that forests tend to get cleared around cities since they're a convenient source of heating fuel and building material. Like idk if it makes sense for instance for Saint Petersburg's location to have -20% dev growth from woods when it underwent such massive growth during the late PC era (albeit with state intervention).

Also, I don't think plateaus should have so many penalties, in particular the +25% movement time. Looking at pictures of the terrain, I don't see why armies should move slower crossing the Inner Mongolian Steppe (almost all plateau) compared to the Kazakh Steppe (almost all flatland). Maybe if possible, there could be penalties specifically for traversing between plateau and flatland/wetland, to represent the elevation change?

 

[SaintDaveUK]

Sorry, just to clarify. If you had troops next to a forest would you not be able to see the forest location itself and anything behind it, or just anything behind the forest?

Units have vision in their current location and (by default) any directly neighbouring locations.

If one of the neighbours is forest or mountains, they cannot see into that neighbour.

 

[H.A.S.E.V.I.R.]

Okie so the sole land available is arctic sparse mountains. 25k pop -135%. "Wir machen das".
..would require techs?

 

[JohnCro]

Seems strange that Mediterranean is a better climate than Subtropical, when the climate is a big part of the reason that the Po valley is the main population centre of Italy.

Same for China and the Ganges, the most populated parts of the map.

I think it is more or less dev joke because of his personal prefrences

 

[Monty is staring at me]

I've just exposed pixel count of each location as a location_size trigger so modders can do whatever they want with that information.

Could you guys make a population density map mode by doing location population / location pixel size? That would give players a better understanding of major population centers, I would think.

 

[JohnCro]

Mild summer and mild Winter would be a perfect climate

 

[Tavolo87]

I assume there simply aren't any arid-rice locations... As it should be.

yes, but you could have buildings that produce it as a good, or you could have events / stuff to change the rgo in your location. Having an RGO stuck forever in a location seems not ideal

 

[Blust]

why is jungle +50k pop but forest +25k ? while jungle have -4 front battle and forest -3

that does not seem coherent

 

[AntarcticRanger]

Reposting my comment from the Japan Tinto Maps

How do you guys plan to represent Japan’s snow country, the climate is subtropical and temperate generally, but due to its geography it’s gets some of the heaviest snowfalls in the world. Can you just give it a special modifier that gives worse winters despite the climate?

Snow country (Japan) - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Japan is the world's snowiest country, 51% covered by snow | | Salam Groovy Japan

Surprisingly, Japan is the snowiest country in the world.According to the US-based AccuWeather survey, Japanese cities are among the top 3 in the world for annual snowfall in cities with over 100,000

www.groovyjapan.com

The heavy snowfalls of Japan's snow country are caused by moisture-laden clouds bumping up against the mountains along the backbone of Honshū and releasing their moisture under the influence of westerly winds blowing off the continent or down from Siberia. As a result, the region includes some of the world's snowiest spots at the same latitudes, many localities are also frequently visited by avalanches.

Frequently snow is so deep in some places that buildings have a special entrance on their second story; people must remove snow from their roofs to prevent its weight from crushing their homes, and special care is taken to protect trees from the snow's weight. In some towns, people used to tunnel paths to one another's homes, and streets were lined with covered sidewalks to ensure that people could get around. Today in areas where temperatures are high enough to make it practical, many roads are equipped with sprinklers using warm ground water to keep them passable by melting the snow.

The most recent record snows were brought by the blizzards of December 2005–February 2006, when well over 3 m (4.5 m in one part of Aomori Prefecture) of snow accumulated in many rural areas, and anywhere from 46 cm (Tottori) to nearly 1.5 m (Aomori) piled up even in several major cities.


(Map of Japans snow country)

It looks like Japan snow country is mostly contained within this game's continental climate? Which hopefully will be sufficient, after all the second snowiest region in the world after Japan also has a continental climate, that being upstate New York and southern Quebec

 

[GenericType]

Do we have weather modifiers for sea provinces like storms or terrain modifiers such as doldrums and trade winds where currents are faster?

EDIT: Oh sorry, I think we already have sea provinces simulated as routes.

 

[Doctor Bones]

Lakes, Salt Pans and Atolls exists, but are just graphical variants of Coastal Oceans, even if lakes could freeze over during winter.

Shouldn't they then be classified as graphical variations of inland seas?

 

[GDQuirm]

I think it is more or less dev joke because of his personal prefrences

The climate is the best climate in the game. It's strictly better than Subtropical. Med gives +150% pop capacity, which is three times the bonus you get for continental, is 50% better than subtropical, and also doesn't get winters.