Tinto Talks #45 - 8th of January 2025

[kubin22]

one question, I know polders and stuff is not possible, but can we actually deforest lands or turn grasslands into farmalnds, or burn and leave farmlands abandoned for long enought to turn into grasslands. what I;m asking is if vegetation change is possible in the game engine or this too is just not possible

 

[Sigismund der Münzreiche]

No, there are no winters in the Andes or mountain tops of Ethiopia and mountains already impact climates anyway... like they are continental because they are mountains, you are double dipping the fact they are mountains

I don't think you really understood what I'm suggesting. I'm saying mountains should modify the potential severity of winter relative to the climate that the mountain location is in. Most of ethiopia seems to be in tropical climate that can't have winter at all so it doesn't apply there at all and most of the Andes seem to be in tropical, mediterranean or cold arid climate which would meant that there's still no winter in the tropical andes, no winter in the mediterranean andes but the in the cold arid mountains there's a chance that the max mild winter could be a max normal winter. In Europe, where the climate is continental normal winter could potentially go up to severe winter in the mountain locations. How would that not be realistic? Winter in the alps is usually significantly more severe than in flatlands of central germany but in EU5 they would be the same.

 

[RouteVenus]

How moddable is this system? If I wanted to add a fourth layer of terrain variation called level of magic or something would that be possible?

 

[SAmaster]

Also- any word on weather like Winters and Monsoon season? I thought the addition of monsoon seasons was a nice way to add flavor to a lot of the not-northern parts of the map. There seems to be an increased focus on weather here, what with lakes being able to be frozen over. Now monsoons got some small flavor events, but I feel that winters, at least the harsher ones should too. Anyway I'd love to see a 'weather map mode' like in EUIV. Sandstorms got a mention which is nice. Can there be other ones?

I feel like tornado's and hurricanes would be great to mimic too. Since they tend to get channeled down the same corridors, I could easily see having them spawn maybe once a year with varying intensity and getting hurled somewhere on the map, affecting sub-regions as they pass with increases in devastation depending on their severity. A similar thing could maybe be done with wildfires. Arctic storms too now that I think about it, which occasionally come down from the north. I even wonder if it'd be possible to simulate 'the little ice age' that hit Europe. Something that could would be real fun for modders- you could ramp that up to make a Paradox: The Ice Age Strikes Back mod. Or like say the freezing of Atmora in an Elder Scrolls mod. I can understand if making it so climate regions can shift might be too big to look into right now, but I think you should make the tools available to modders at least and look into it for future updates. A similar system could also be used to simulate deforestation like some people have suggested, or the filling in of landmasses in wetlands (looking at you, the dutch).

You added volcanoes to Imperator Rome, and I could see them making a return here. Earthquakes are pretty random but you could make them more common along fault-line areas. I could even see tags like Japan getting modifiers to increase devastation recovery to simulate how they had to adapt how frequently natural disasters would strike. Wonder if perhaps tsunami's could also be tied to an earthquake system like that, or if they just periodically strike the regions they do in real life.

 

[SaintDaveUK]

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?

Multiple things give vision and the exact algorithm is a little complex, but these terrain modifiers that block vision mostly counts for vision into uncontrolled neighbouring locations.

The simplest rule is that you usually have vision over locations and armies that you and your allies control, and the location modifiers affect non-controlled locations next to them.

 

[SaintDaveUK]

How moddable is this system? If I wanted to add a fourth layer of terrain variation called level of magic or something would that be possible?

The 3 types of terrain are quite hard coded as they impact the visuals and also so they are optimised, but you can add custom modifiers to locations like "Heavy Magical Activity" that has more or less the same effect as a terrain type.

 

[Bestiliand]

Arid attracts Pops, but Cold Arid not. I think this is a typo error. Also is VERY weird that Valencia has no rain, snow or Pop attraction. You should turn cold arid into Semiarid and make more attractive

 

[keaswaran]

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.

Does that mean that you don’t explore adjacent tiles if they are that terrain, but you do if they are other terrain?

 

[Demetrios]

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

i don't eat sushi, and I don't like algae

LOL Johan. I'm not sure many here would actually remember the original CK1 development team and their never-ending sushi dinners while very little actually got done...

 

[SaintDaveUK]

Does that mean that you don’t explore adjacent tiles if they are that terrain, but you do if they are other terrain?

Doesn't impact exploration and terra Incognita, it only impacts tactical fog of war. You will know that there is a location with a forest there. You can even see the fort and city there. But you can't see if there is an enemy army hiding there.

 

[keaswaran]

It’s weird and gamey and anachronistic to make Mediterranean the best terrain for population. For modern people who work office jobs and have running water, Mediterranean is obviously best, and arid is a pretty good second best (since we don’t like winter or rain). But if you are a farmer and don’t have the 20th century hydrology projects, these climates are much worse for agriculture than oceanic, subtropical, and probably even continental.

You’ll never get me to move out of a Mediterranean climate, but for a game set in 1337-1837, you’ve got things very wrong here.

(Also, as others have said, it’s weird that wheat is the only crop that is affected by aridity. It makes sense that maize and cotton and sturdy grains would be affected differently from wheat, and that rice might be impossible in arid areas, but making wheat the only one that is affected is really weird.)

 

[SAmaster]

Oh, also as the son of a Scotsman, can you tell me the rationale for removing the Highlands terrain type?

 

[SaintDaveUK]

Oh, also as the son of a Scotsman, can you tell me the rationale for removing the Highlands terrain type?

IIRC the EU4 Highlands terrain basically represented sparse hills, which is modelled in Caesar with Sparse vegetation in Hills topography.

 

[Ispil]

Actually thinking about it, latitude isn't gonna be too useful: the equation for figuring out location area while compensating for distortion won't be doable with the operations presently supported with in-game variable scripting (I think there's some trigonometry involved, or maybe a square root).

Fortunately making a script for this is easy, and doubly so because you can refer to locations by their color codes.

Though... @SaintDaveUK, what's the exact latitude cutoff for the top and bottom of the map?

Also, how many pixels wide is the map?

 

[lxlTiagolxl]

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.

Instead of Farmland as a terrain type, it could have it's related bonuses tied to development, and a forestation related mechanic could also be tied to it.

 

[keaswaran]

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.

Mediterranean definitely shouldn’t be perfect in this game (dry summers are great for urbanites, but pretty bad for agriculturalists, which most people are during the time period of the game).

But I think there’s a confusion about what the word “winter” means here. Winter exists in Mediterranean climates, in the sense that there is a cool and wet season with less sunshine. But it’s not “winter” in the game sense - it’s very rare to even get overnight frosts anywhere with a Mediterranean climate, and I think overnight frosts is what “mild winter” means in game terms. (Daytime highs below freezing are probably “normal winter”.)

 

[Chaotic_Good]

Dont have too much sense that catalonia and valencia coast don't be Mediterranean.

 

[Daniel the Finlander]

probably not gonna be feasible

If dynamic terrain won’t make it, then it might be worth considering the removal of ”farmland” terrain. Land that is developed and intensively farmed can be represented by population+development instead. Either that or use it to represent high-fertility land ideal for agriculture, no matter if it is actually used in 1337. But not sure if this is a good idea.

In any case, it was always weird for me to see farmland in uncolonized areas in Eu4, solely because historically it ”became” farmland later after game start.

 

[kittybird]

I much prefer the wording of wetlands where it says "are a terrain" rather than the wording "represents". It's a bit awkward for a game to draw attention to its own abstractions.

 

[ArVass]

Shouldn't Cold Arid have "normal" winters instead? The steppes and praires often get rather severe winters instead