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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.

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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.

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Subtropical

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

Subtropical represents areas with high average temperatures and mild winters.

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

Oceanic represents areas with mild winters but high humidity.

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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.

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

Arctic represents areas with very cold winters.

Vegetation

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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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Well, they will benefit from a coastal bonus :p What kind of fruit garden are they know for? I would guess different berries? You can clearly see fjords (sea locations) have a green colour, so no harsh winters
View attachment 1241761

They produce apples, pears, plums, apricots, cherries and several berries. Hardanger produce like 40% of the fruit in the country alone and got one of those region protected brand names for its specific cider, similar to champagne only being from Champagne. Sogn used to be the biggest producer and today is #2 in most categories, and the leading national brand of juice and jam is from there.
 
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Had a thought about vision- can weather impact vision? I think that'd help make weather much more impactful.

I'd argue that blizzards, sandstorms, and monsoons (at least the heavier ones) should effectively blind units. I could also see something like tornado's or hurricanes or volcanic explosions doing the same if they are added.

Also it'd be an incredibly minor feature but now I'm wondering if the path of eclipses could be modeled. You wouldn't have to make those dynamic given eclipses happened at very specific points in time and places. I'm just reminded of stories of armies calling truces until the eclipse was over then resuming battle. Also just the meme potential of having like a roaving 'comet sighted' event that prowls from province to province. Like I said probably WAY too minor to include, but it'd be funny.
 
Oh- also since the time-progression is smaller than that of a day, does that mean there's a night-day cycle? I don't know if that was confirmed or not (like say how it's a feature in HOI-IV), but I'd also imagine that night would also blind armies. Flashlight technology hadn't been invented yet. I would figure visibility would only be possible on like owned cities (who can probably figure out if an army is moving around right outside the town limit) or owned territories (presumably locales will notice an army stomping around and go around informing the government of this). Don't know if a 'lighthouse' building could detect boats on nearby coast. I mean- they were more for ships to spot the lighthouse than the lighthouse to spot the ship after all. Plus there's the whole expression 'ships that pass the night' to point out how sailing ships constantly passed one another in the dark.
 
However, we still have a large exception. Northern China and Eastern Europe, which do not eat rice.
The harsher continental climate in the game makes these densely populated areas less populated. And now northern China is not farmland but grassland terrain.
Tbf it definitely will change into farmlands, the current setup is lefotver from early mapping, and there definitely will be other factors like Development (very high in China) that affect pop cap. Especially Development
 
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I understand that the game will not be able to change the terrain, but will it be possible to change the vegetation of location, for example, cut down forests and turn grasslands into farmlands? If so, will such changes be reflected on the graphical map? For my personal happiness this will be more than enough.

Changing it in the game-logic is trivial. Its just that it will not change how it looks in terrain mapmode.
 
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I think it makes more sense to make a tooltip for: free capacity doesnt attract pops,
And desert vegetation should make the location unattractive, maybe mountains to except for some cultures, having some cultures attracted to deserts, mountains may solve the issue
 
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I think it makes more sense to make a tooltip for: free capacity doesnt attract pops,
And desert vegetation should make the location unattractive, maybe mountains to except for some cultures, having some cultures attracted to deserts, mountains may solve the issue
Making different cultures have different preferences to where they settle and move would be nice. Like how the nordics tended to migrate to the north of north america cause it reminded them more of their home. Some trait like cold weather adapted or something like that could make it work probably.
 
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Yes but that kind of detail exists in the unit definitions instead of terrain definitions.
Does it work the same way for attrition in different climates?
Like Swedish unit types will suffer higher attrition in Arid, Tropical climates, Mamluk units in Arctic etc.?
 
Since changing terrain is a hardcoded legacy engine issue, does that mean there will be no terrain changing mechanic for eu6,eu7 and all other grand strategies?

If then, I support remaking engine as terrain change is such a missing opportunity for accurate simulation of game’s timeframe
 
I think most players prefer it being in the game without graphical change to not having it at all.

If then, terrain maps will be useless and misleading as you think you are defending a forest but it turned out to be grassland etc,

Important part of the strategy game is decisionmaking based on maps, and rewuired to read location modifiers in battles which may involve hundreds of locations due to maneuverability is gonna be extremely annoying I guess
 
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I'm kinda surprised by the fact that vegetation doesn't contribute to lumber production, I feel like woods, forests and jungles should have modifiers that improves Rgo lumber output
 
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We share the opinion that it would be a perfect feature for Caesar, but if it was as simple as us agreeing then it would have fixed it 12 months ago. Unfortunately it's a bit deeper than that. With the unprecedented worldwide level of detail that Caesar has, it's a unique engineering challenge to make the required improvements to the graphical system as we really are on the cutting edge in several respects.
Changing it in the game-logic is trivial. Its just that it will not change how it looks in terrain mapmode.
Looking forward for the graphical system dd, to know exactly how you do it. I would really like to understand the specific problems.

I'd imagin it is an everchanging map, and think every location has base feature (terrain, climate, vegitation) and dynamic features (Population, Seasons, Buildings,...).
 
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Changing it in the game-logic is trivial. Its just that it will not change how it looks in terrain mapmode.
Gotta say I'm pretty disappointed by this. Like you guys can modify the engine to accommodate this right? It feels kind of weird for a new game to be hampered by engine issues.

This means that tons of terrain changes won't be feasible in game that happened in the period, or will resort to work arounds like province modifiers, which is what modders have to do since they don't have engine access.

At the very least is this something we could expect post release?

Edit: I missed Saint Dave's comment on this, apologies, but I still very much am confused about why this so difficult and would like to know if it's something we can expect in the future.
 
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In the #29 TT you said "in Project Caesar development represents how cultivated the land is, and how much it is used by the pops living there"; it's strange that deserts have a smaller malus to dev growth than woods and forests (and maybe even jungles), a desert for definition it's a place where (almost) nothing can be cultivated and grow...
 
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Tbf it definitely will change into farmlands, the current setup is lefotver from early mapping, and there definitely will be other factors like Development (very high in China) that affect pop cap. Especially Development
Thinking about the frequent Yellow River floods in EU4, I don't think the high development at the beginning of the game can have any effect.
 
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