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Tinto Talks #45 - 8th of January 2025

Welcome to another Tinto Talks! Happy Wednesday where we talk about our super-secret game with the codename Project Caesar, asking you for feedback!


Today we’ll go into the details of how terrain works in the game. To iterate from the Map-Tinto-Talks from almost a year ago, each location has three different attributes instead of a single one as previous games had. This creates more variation and allows us more granular control over game play.

Each location has a climate, a topography and a vegetation set. Sea locations do not have vegetation though.


Climate

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The climate of a location impacts how well pops can live there, including how much food can be produced. It also affects the maximum winter level of a location.

tropical.png
Tropical

Population Capacity +50%
Development Growth -10%
Life Expectancy -5
Free Capacity Attracts Pops
No Winters

Tropical represents areas with high average temperatures and no winter.

subtropical.png
Subtropical

Population Capacity +100%
Free Capacity Attracts Pops
Max Winter is Mild

Subtropical represents areas with high average temperatures and mild winters.

oceanic.png
Oceanic
Population Capacity +50%
Free Capacity Attracts Pops
Max Winter is Mild

Oceanic represents areas with mild winters but high humidity.

arid.png
Arid
Wheat Production -10%
Life Expectancy -5
Free Capacity Attracts Pops
No Precipitation
No Winters

Arid represents an area that has a severe lack of available water.

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Cold Arid

Wheat Production -10%
No Precipitation
Max Winter is Mild

Cold arid represents an area that has a severe lack of available water but experiences winters.

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Mediterranean
Population Capacity +150%
Free Capacity Attracts Pops
No Winters

Mediterranean represents areas with a perfect climate!

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Continental
Population Capacity +50%
Free Capacity Attracts Pops
Max Winter is Normal

Continental represents areas with cold winters.

arctic.png
Arctic
Population Capacity -55%
Development Growth -25%
Life Expectancy -5
Max Winter is Severe

Arctic represents areas with very cold winters.

Vegetation

vegetation.png


Vegetation represents the foliage cover of a location.

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Desert

Can have Sandstorms
Movement Cost for Armies +10%
RGO Build time +50%
Road Build time +100%
Development Growth -10%
Food Production -33%
Population Capacity +10k

Deserts are barren landscapes with little precipitation and almost no potential for plant or animal life.

sparse.png
Sparse
Road Build time -10%
Population Capacity +25k

Sparse represent large flat areas of land with few or no trees.

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Grasslands
Food Production +10%
Population Capacity 50k

Grasslands represent terrain dominated by grass with little or no trees or shrubs.

farmland.png
Farmland
Movement Cost for Armies +10%
Road Build time +10%
Development Growth +10%
Population Capacity +100k
RGO Maximum Size +10%
Food Production +33%

Farmland represents anthropogenic terrain, devoted to crops and/or extensive pastures.

woods.png
Woods
Movement Cost for Armies +25%
Attacker Diceroll in Battle -1
Maximum Frontage in Battle -2
Road Build time +25%
Population Capacity +50k
Development Growth -20%
Food Production +10%
Blocks Vision from Adjacent Sea

Woods represent terrain with less dense vegetation than forests.


forest.png
Forest
Movement Cost for Armies +50%
Attacker Diceroll in Battle -1
Maximum Frontage in Battle -3
Road Build time +50%
RGO Build time +33%
Population Capacity +25k
Development Growth -25%
Blocks Vision from Adjacent Sea
Blocks Vision from Adjacent Land

Forest represents terrain with dense vegetation.


jungle.png
Jungle
Movement Cost for Armies +100%
Attacker Diceroll in Battle -1
Maximum Frontage in Battle -4
Road Build time +200%
RGO Build time +50%
Population Capacity +50k
Development Growth -50%
Blocks Vision from Adjacent Sea
Blocks Vision from Adjacent Land

A jungle represents terrain with dense forest and tangled vegetation that makes doing anything on the land difficult.




Topography

topography.png


Topography represents the roughness and elevation of the land within a location. Flatter Topography is generally better for growing Towns and Cities while rougher Topography is easier to defend.


These first ones are land related topographies.

flatland.png
Flatland

No special attributes

Flatland represents terrain that does not have any major topographic variation, so there are no impediments for army movement or building development.

mountains.png
Mountains
Movement Cost for Armies +100%
Attacker Diceroll in Battle -2
Movement is Blocked in Winter
Maximum Frontage in Battle -4
Road Build time +200%
RGO Build time +100%
Population Capacity -80%
Development Growth -70%
Food Production -20%
Blocks Vision from Adjacent Sea
Blocks Vision from Adjacent Land

Mountain terrain has high altitude and also steep slopes with relatively few and narrow flat areas, so it is more difficult for armies to cross and fight in it, and also more difficult to develop.

hills.png
Hills

Movement Cost for Armies +50%
Attacker Diceroll in Battle -1
Maximum Frontage in Battle -3
Road Build time +50%
RGO Build time +25%
Development Growth -30%
Food Production -10%
Blocks Vision from Adjacent Sea
Blocks Vision from Adjacent Land

A terrain with hills has variations in the topography, but the slopes are not as steep nor as high as those of mountains, so the penalties are also not as bad.

plateau.png
Plateau
Movement Cost for Armies +25%
Attacker Diceroll in Battle -1
Maximum Frontage in Battle -1
Road Build time +50%
RGO Build time +25%
Development Growth -25%
Blocks Vision from Adjacent Sea

They represent relatively flat areas situated at high altitude, so they have some penalties compared to flatlands due to their elevation.

wetlands.png
Wetlands

Movement Cost for Armies +50%
Attacker Diceroll in Battle -1
Maximum Frontage in Battle -3
Road Build time +75%
RGO Build time +25%
Development Growth -30%
Food Production -10%

Wetlands are terrain that is partially flooded, generally due to being near a river, lake, or coast.


The following are the naval ones.

ocean.png
Ocean
Naval Attrition +1%

This is the open seas between the continents, where only the best of ships can travel.

deep_ocean.png
Deep Ocean
Naval Attrition +2%

This is the open seas between the continents, where only the best of ships can travel, in the furthest areas from any coast.

coastal_ocean.png
Coastal Ocean
No special attributes

This is the open seas between the continents, where only the best of ships can travel, but in the areas closer to the coast.

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Inland Sea
Can Freeze over during winter

Inland seas represent the land-enclosed seas like the Mediterranean or the Baltic.

narrows.png
Narrows

Can Freeze over during winter
Movement Cost for Navies +20%
Attacker Diceroll in Battle -1
Maximum Frontage in Battle -2
Blocks Vision from Adjacent Sea

Narrows are areas of sea with proximity of coast on many sides, like straits or the sea inside archipelagos, where there is not much space for movement.


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

Stay tuned, as next week we’ll delve into the wonderful world of military objectives.
 
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If changing vegetation is impossible, then i think we need to really rethink a lot of things, namely farmland terrain probably either shouldn't be a thing or should be implanted in all areas that could be farmland, even if they aren't at the start. Probably should just remove it.
And also, man does the eastern two thirds of North America need more love.
 
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If terrain can't be change then farmland seems too OP, besides it's not even a type of vegetation but a sign of development.
As for climates Mediterranean seems a little too good, but it's not as bad as farmland.
 
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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.
I know, it doesn't make a lot of sense but I think dev on purpose put it that way, I disagree that mediterranean is perfect climate and it is misleading to say it has no winter, winters are mild but exist.
 
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If terrain can't change, are there considerations for areas that lost forests or became farmland over time? Are there ways to give ukraine some farmland-esque bonuses if it's developed? Same for the mississippi or similar locations.
 
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With the large difference in max pop and food production between something like farmland and say forest. Doesn't this mean that if your location just happened to develop into farmlands in the 1450s instead of 1350 you're SOL?
 
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If the vegetation itself can't be changed on the map (for instance, woods to grassland or wetlands to farmland), perhaps a good bandaid is simply a "building" that represents the terraforming? "Land Clearing" for turning woods to grasslands, "Land Development" for turning grassland to farmlands or "Drainage" for turning wetlands to farmlands etc. Just ideas.

These "buildings" can give modifiers that counteract the actual vegetation's negative modifiers so that it functionally becomes the same as what it's meant to be "terraformed" into. Obviously they should have high requirements in population and tech and perhaps be influenced in part by the amount of pixels a location takes up.

EDIT: and ofc in some cases if these special ""buildings"" are destroyed, they have a lingering effect to represent the time it would take for a region to become reforested or flooded again, assuming Mongol tier destruction and devastation of sorts.
 
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Cold Arid icon with snowflakes (e.g. in Spain, Africa, Crimea) may look really confusing to the broad public, even though the naming is scientifically correct.
Crimea and Costa del Sol are hardly associated with the terms 'cold' or 'snow' in terms of climate.
View attachment 1241088

I suggest:
  • Rename cold arid into just arid and somehow get rid of the snowflakes in the icon
  • Rename your arid into hot arid or just hot
This will be far less confusing for the players who do not know about Koppen classification.
Semiarid is the correct term for Spain (or Dry Mediterranean)

Also, is a big problem that Continental only have Normal Winter. This means that there is no posibility of Severe Winter in Western Russia and Ukraine. Maybe have possible Severe Winter but less probable
 
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Ok, this is definitely the tinto talk for this, but ever since the Anatolia tinto map I have been wondering.
Why is the only temperate jungles in the entire game in Australia! Cascadia and Chile both have great rainforests, and both are just forest in game. More developmented rainforests like the Pontic rainforest it makes a bit more sense, but still, why is Australia the only exception?
 
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Semiarid is the correct term for Spain (or Dry Mediterranean)

Also, is a big problem that Continental only have Normal Winter. This means that there is no posibility of Severe Winter in Western Russia and Ukraine. Maybe have possible Severe Winter but less probable
When it comes to it I think both normal and severe should be possible
 
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Semiarid is the correct term for Spain (or Dry Mediterranean)

Also, is a big problem that Continental only have Normal Winter. This means that there is no posibility of Severe Winter in Western Russia and Ukraine. Maybe have possible Severe Winter but less probable
1736360753196.png
This is the literal map Project Caesar uses for Cold Arid, and this two categories are mixed with another Koppen climate, which is Cold desert climates (BWk).

That is also the reason Soria and Atacama desert has the same climate (o_O but ok)
 
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I still believe that classifying swamps as a distinct vegetation category, as I mentioned in my post under Tinto Talk 1(https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...-may-2024-low-countries.1675505/post-29624062), would be highly beneficial. This approach would allow wetlands to receive the bonuses they rightfully deserve, as outlined in Sulphurologist’s post, while still accurately representing the harsh and challenging nature of true swamps, such as those found in Finland or the Bourtangermoeras. Marshes have already been renamed to wetlands so halfe the work has already been done :p.
 
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View attachment 1241210This is the literal map Project Caesar uses for Cold Arid, and this two categories are mixed with another Koppen climate, which is Cold desert climates (BWk).

That is also the reason Soria and Atacama desert has the same climate (o_O but ok)
I was always for making semi arid climates its own climates and not merged with arid ones, I hoped for more detailed climate in general
 
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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
That could work for the north and the internal mountain ranges, but not really for the subtropical coasts that still receive heavy snowfall. (Hokuriku and Northern Chugoku specifically) I don't think it would be that strange to give the region a specific modifier, I imagine the Nile will probably have special modifiers to represent mosquitos and the like despite being an arid climate type.


 

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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?



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)
I think Hokaiddo is considered Continental Climate, no (Dfa/Dfb)?
 
Mediterranean climates are often too dry/hot to perform agriculture all year round. Summer is often devastating for lots of crops, especially in Hot Summer Mediterranean Climates. Considering Northern Italy hosted the largest population density of Europe (Subtropical), and so did subtropical Asia, I don't agree Mediterranean should be 'the best' climate in the game.

Oceanic being equal to Continental is also not very realistic.

Oceanic +75%, Mediterranean +100% and Subtropical +125% would make more sense imo.
EDIT: actually, mediterranean should imo be equivalent to oceanic. Looking at which cities/nations line up with oceanic/mediterranean, mediterranean does not look like a much better region vs oceanic, pop-cap wise...
It would be weird seeing Spain growing more and faster than France, when the later has a much larger population density and economy
 
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>No vegetation on sea tiles
Think maybe those could be modded in? I think modders could have fun maybe adding in 'kelp forest' or 'coral reef' vegetations to sea-tiles perhaps?

When it comes to 'vision' what informs vision? Like is that only for troops? Would I have vision in all the jungle provinces I own or no? Would captured forts have vision that's blocked off? I also assume that vision from boats is cut off right? Would I get vision on vassal or allied provinces?

Also given that multiple factors impact road building and cost, could you factor this in to potential road or building map modes? Rather than needing to cross reference terrain and vegetation it'd be better if it's like I go into building mode and like redder provinces show up informing that roads built in these locations would increase cost or building time so I can lay them down more strategically. In addition: When it comes to building roads I hope that the presence of towns and cities make building roads in those provinces cheaper. Like say if I want to build a road down in New Orleans I would assume if New Orleans is a city that there's already a bit of infrastructure that would make building roads their easier. Likewise I'd appreciate if the presence of towns and cities help speed up troop movement even absent roads on the same logic. At least towns and cities owned by friendly countries (own territory, vassals, and allies).

I'm surprised there's not more gameplay to 'ocean terrain'. Seeing the modifiers, I think what I mentioned in another thread that I think there's a strong argument for 'arctic ocean' water tiles where there's increased attrition, much more so than 'deep ocean'. I think also there should be some sort of bonuses for coastal ocean, narrows, and inland seas (probably lakes too if you can get boats on them) for naval movement, perhaps supply, since until a lot of innovations in the age of sail boats hugged the coastline, and that was important for regular resupplies of food (and sailors since sailing had a high attrition for sailors). Likewise perhaps this can impact trade range/control range? I imagine that it's easier for a kingdom to exert control over stretches of flatland than mountains, and likewise over coastal stretches of water than stretches of open ocean. In EUIV galleys got bonuses in inland seas, is that not making any sort of return? Also I wonder if perhaps there could be local modifiers of 'shark infested waters' like there is in HOIIV. Perhaps this could also be used for 'arctic ocean' too, but that was for 'casualties on ship sinking' and I don't know if there's a similar sort of 'sailor recovery mechanic' in 'project caesar'. If there is, there could be some fun 'King was leading a boat that sunk and got eaten by a shark' events.

Also I'm wondering if maybe something could be done to simulate wetlands having been vectors for disease back in the day? I feel they should have a similar 'life expectancy -5 years' modifier to them, they should probably get some low level attrition at least. I'd say mountains too, but mountains are separate from vegetation so some mountains might be covered in jungle or woods where armies can still scavenge for food. But mountains without much vegetation should also get some light attrition.
 
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