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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

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.

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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.

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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.

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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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Why are pop capacity flat per locality and not based on locality size? Doesn't this mean places that have more localities to represent fragmented regions end up with higher pop density?

if that was the ONLY factor.. maybe
 
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I know you have already said terrain changes aren't gonna be possible. Meaning that for example you can't cut a large amount of forest and woods to make space for farmland. But maybe there could be a modifier that increases development and food production?
 
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1. So the cost of the road stays the same, only the time changes?

2. Is there a map mode to check battle conditions (like defender bonuses), similar to the "simple terrain" mode in EU4?
I know the 3D map can handle this, but I’m worried it might not completely avoid confusion about where exactly a river counts or where the hills are.
If we have to watch out for forests, hills, and rivers all at once, it might mean switching between two modes while moving armies.
I'm really curious about your thoughts on this topic. Your response would mean a lot to me!
 
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I think giving attacker diceroll modifiers from both topography and vegetation is a bit severe. This would mean many provinces have a -2 penalty for the attacker. Judging from my eu4 multiplayer experience where we have had to ban ramparts because of it, a -2 penalty is very harsh. I see that many mountains are also woods/forest resulting in a -3 diceroll. In eu4 mp that is practically impossible to attack into.
 
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The problem with that is that undeveloped wetlands aren't good for food production at all.
A good example of this is Sumatra, where (until the 19th century) the majority of the population lived away from the extensive wetland plains. The coastal cities that were surrounded by wetlands were fed by rice exported from the highlands.
I would dare to argue that is probably more related due to it being densely forested as a wetland, rather than it being a wetland itself.
Also, wetlands are generally a major attraction spot for wild animals. Living at the edge of wetlands (read: living on dry spots within wetland regions) meant a steady income of game, regardless of vegetation.
 
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So you're telling me that we cannot harvest algae for delicious sushi?

the ck1 beta is just a sushi or two away??

i don't eat sushi, and I don't like algae
 
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With mountains blocking vision and being snow covered in winter, have the Alps just become hell on earth for an attacker?
Also, does the lack of vision now mean ambushes are a thing? Or is there some sort of recon/scout unit available
 
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Why only wheat has a malus on arid and not rice for example?
Or is rice not possible at all on arid?
Although there is agriculture such as dryland rice, rice is generally not tolerant to drought and cold. Even dryland rice requires a large amount of water. Rice needs to grow normally in the monsoon climate zone during the rainy and hot seasons. So this is reasonable.
 
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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.
 
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I would dare to argue that is probably more related due to it being densely forested as a wetland, rather than it being a wetland itself.
Also, wetlands are generally a major attraction spot for wild animals. Living at the edge of wetlands (read: living on dry spots within wetland regions) meant a steady income of game, regardless of vegetation.
Sure, the dense tropical jungle is a factor as well.
But as far as I know, wetland areas were typically developed after other more desirable types of terrain. In Italy for example, the wet Po Valley couldn't be farmed effectively until the Middle Ages and there are many examples like that.
So I would argue that "natural" wetland is difficult to farm on and needs significant investment to become fertile farmland.
Unfortunately the game doesn't let you change wetland terrain to something else (which would remove that malus), so whatever the modifier is going to look like, it's always going to be 'unrealistic' one way or the other.
 
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I don't think that the mediterranean sea can freeze though

I know but it is considered as inland sea. Same for the inland seas in Baltic and around Japan, places where there can be snowing and thus be cold enough to freeze water. Going with game logic, not really much with real life logic.

It was mentioned in the TT about winter that you need severe winter for the sea to freeze.
So not going to happen in the Mediterranean.
 
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