• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

Tinto Talks #49 - 5th February 2025

Welcome to another Tinto Talks, the Happy Wednesday where we discuss details from our secret upcoming top secret game with the codename of Project Caesar.

This week we will talk about our disease system.

outbreak.png

This is the tooltip of an outbreak together with the spread...

We have 2 types of diseases, environmental, which does not spread through movement of trade nor movement of people, and those that spread. A disease does not just infect the pops in a location, but can also infect armies.

Each disease has many different attributes, all of which can be complex calculations, and this is a very flexible system entirely modeled through script.

  • A chance for it to spawn each month.
  • How often the disease processes, i.e. how fast it ticks.
  • How quickly it spreads to other pops.
  • How it spreads between location and pops.
  • How quickly it stagnates in a location or unit.
  • How many pops and/or soldiers die or become resistant, each tick.
  • How many pops and/or soldiers die each tick (of the above).
  • The mortality for characters.
  • How quickly resistances decay.
  • How much presence is needed before it spreads to adjacent locations.
  • If you want specific pop types affected…
  • And more…

When diseases are present in a location, the resistance to it builds up, making further outbreaks less effective. Pops, locations and sub units can have resistances. So if pops move around they can bring diseases they have with them that they themselves are immune to. Likewise, a unit carrying disease may spread it to any locations it travels through.

disease_in_location.png

There is a big Smallpox outbreak here in Saint-Marcellin, but the resistance is already nice.


So let's take a detailed look at the different diseases we have.


bubonic_plague.png
Bubonic Plague

With the default options, this will happen in 1346, start somewhere in Central Asia, and spread throughout the Old World.

It spreads relatively quickly and the mortality rate for pops is between 30% to 60%.

A great pestilence that sweeps through busy trade routes, sparing neither low nor high. Those infected suffer black swellings in the groin and armpits, terrible fever, and death. Some believe it is carried by the vermin that scurry in our streets and fields, spreading foul sickness from one poor soul to another.

great_pestilence.png
Great Pestilence


This will spawn in the New World whenever someone from the Old World colonizes a location, and spreads from there. It represents the collection of diseases that the European colonizers brought to the Americas. It can and will spawn at multiple places. It doesn’t impact pops from the Old World as they are immune to most of these.

This has a gigantic mortality effect, killing between 75% to 90% of all pops.

Terrible news reaches us from abroad. Misery and plague sweep the lands, and death runs with them, apparently brought by mysterious bearded foreigners. This plague is not something our elders have ever heard of, and no answers in our ancestors' memories could help us face the catastrophe if it reaches our settlements. Will our people perish, or will we somehow resist when this walking death reaches us?


malaria.png
Malaria


This is an environmental disease that is pretty much permanent in most Sub-Saharan Africa. Most of the local people have limited resistance to it, but any colonizers from abroad will die.

There will be regular outbreaks that can kill 10% to 20% of the pops that do not have resistance in a location.


The ancient bane of humankind, Malaria, is an infectious disease transmitted from person to person by the bite of an infected mosquito. This illness produces chills, headaches, sweating, and a very intense fever that repeats every three to four days.

typhus.png
Typhus


Outbreaks will appear in the areas of the old world where one of the three types of Typhus are endemic. It will also spawn in forest, woods or jungle locations, spreading from there.

It spreads relatively slowly, but the mortality is between 4% to 40%.

This deathly sickness creates on those stricken by it a great deal of fever, a big red rash that might extend over the entire body, and a confusion of the mind that might get worse, to the point of full-on delirium. Those poor souls that reach that point would develop gangrenous lesions and invariably die

influenza.png
Influenza


This will spawn during winter and spread in a relatively short period of time. It will not appear in the Americas until the Great Pestilence has ravaged the continent fully.

This kills off on average about 1 in 1000 people, so it is not the most lethal of diseases.

Known by the common folk as the Flu, it is a widely spread sickness with usually mild symptoms like a runny nose or a fever in healthy individuals, but that might be extremely dangerous for those that are too young or too old or already weakened by injury or another malady.

measles.png
Measles

This will spawn in most locations around the world, and it's far more likely to spread in towns or cities.It will not appear in the Americas until the Great Pestilence has ravaged the continent fully.

It is a bit more deadly than Influenza, but about 2 in 1000 people will die from it.

Measles, also known as morbili, rubeola, and red measles, is a plague that spreads extremely fast from person to person, causing fever, coughs, sneezes, and a great flat rash that eventually covers the entire body. It preys most eagerly on children, who are at great risk of death if they fall on its claws.

smallpox.png
Smallpox


This keeps spawning in most locations around the world, but not in arid or arctic climates. It will spread in a small region and is highly contagious. It's far more likely to spread in locations with a lot of trade.It will not appear in the Americas until the Great Pestilence has ravaged the continent fully.


The mortality is between 5% and 30%, so an outbreak where there is low resistance can be deadly.

Smallpox is a terrible disease that produces on the sad victim fever, vomits, and finally an enormous amount of liquid-filled blisters that cover their entire body. The outbreaks of this plague are very deathly and those that survive are commonly left blind for life.




There are ways to reduce the impact of disease in your country. First of all there are medical advances in most ages, and there are also buildings you can build.


First there is the Hospital that you can build in any town or city with at least 20 development. This is available at the start of the game for more advanced countries.


hospital.png


Then after the Scientific Revolution you can research the advance for Medical Schools and build them in your town and cities.

medical_school.png


Next week we will talk about how forming new countries will work…
 
  • 203Love
  • 121Like
  • 7
  • 6
  • 1
Reactions:
"At least 20 development"

Maybe I can take this opportunity to make sure:

Can Devastation reduce Development, or does it only slow down its growth?
Does Development have an upper limit?
 
  • 4Like
  • 2
Reactions:
I agree, Africa should be more impervious to colonization and it should punish more harshly the colonizers, as most of the scramble for Africa happened in the XIX century.
 
  • 9Like
  • 2
Reactions:
This will spawn in the New World whenever someone from the Old World colonizes a location, and spreads from there. It represents the collection of diseases that the European colonizers brought to the Americas. It can and will spawn at multiple places. It doesn’t impact pops from the Old World as they are immune to most of these.

This has a gigantic mortality effect, killing between 75% to 90% of all pops.

Say goodbye to all your Aztec/Mayan/Incan empires.
 
  • 7Like
Reactions:
Feels weird to heart eye react a dev diary based on disease but looks really good and full.

One question is it possible to deliberately infect your enemies? I think I remember reading that steppe hordes would catapult bodies of infected people to spread disease deliberately. (This could be wrong) Is such a system possible other than interacting with different cultures, i.e. small pox to the new world.

Second question would certain culture groups be more susceptible to certain diseases as well? Like small pox affecting devastatingly the Americas population at that time?
 
  • 3Like
  • 1Love
Reactions:
The amount of things that can be done with this mechanic is unimaginable and I am not just referring to disease issues but an infinite number of other things. It's another very flexible mechanic added to the game, I can't imagine what more creative modders will be able to do with this game.
 
  • 6Like
  • 1
Reactions:
Could you say what is your intention regarding balancing frequency of these plagues (apart from great pestilence and malaria, which have their own rules)?
Do you intend the outbreaks to be frequent enough that player will have to learn to live with it, or will they be rare enough that they will cause "Oh, my God!" every time they appear?
 
  • 6Like
  • 2
Reactions:
Considering Typhoid and Cholera were typically caused by poor water sanitation consumption, perhaps it can be added as a plague that is triggered when overpopulation occurs in a province with lack of water management?

It could be a cool, natural, punctual punishment for keeping too many humans in your "Tall Empire", or whatever kids call their microstates these days.
 
Last edited:
  • 24
  • 16Like
  • 1
  • 1
Reactions:
Is the Tsetse fly not present in the game, or is this dev diary just listing a couple of the diseases present in game? (Reposting my old comment from the Tinto map thread for West Africa.)

Post in thread 'Tinto Maps #14 - 9th of August 2024 - Western Africa'
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ust-2024-western-africa.1698675/post-29819084

Another facet of the disease discussion is that the tsetse fly made it impossible for the southern African states situated in the jungles to field much cavalry, unlike the the Islamic states of the Sahel like Mali or Songhai. The Oyo Empire was one of the few southern states to use cavalry to may meaningful degree, and that was largely because it held lands in the north and trading with other northern powers.

“Even such things as cattle and horses then, and still in many areas, will die in West Africa thanks to the Tsetse fly. None of this even touches things like Sleeping Sickness, Malaria, and a whole host of other diseases we never contemplate in the West today. All of these were much more common in West Africa than in Europe. Approximately, from the first establishments of Europeans as trading agents (1500s) until imperialism and the full conquest of Africa (late-1800s), at least 33% of all Europeans who went to Africa died there within 2 years -- depending on how you frame the parameters and if you narrow to just West Africa, that number becomes 50%. With the diseases and a climate so different from what they knew and loved in Europe, West Africa was hardly a place any European wanted to settle in, let alone en masse.“


“The Oyo Empire was one of the only Yoruba states to adopt cavalry; it did so because most of its territory was in the northern savannah.[15]The origin of the cavalry is unclear; however, the Nupe, Borgu and Hausa in neighbouring territories also used cavalry and may have had the same historical source.[35] Oyo was able to purchase horses from the north and maintain them in metropolitan Oyo because of partial freedom from the tsetse fly.[36] Cavalry was the long arm of the Oyo Empire. Late 16th and 17th century expeditions were composed entirely of cavalry.[15] There were drawbacks to this. Oyo could not maintain its cavalry army in the south but could raid at will.[13][37] Despite its drawbacks, Oyo managed to amass one hundred thousand cavalry horsemen, earning the fear of many kingdoms and empires across West Africa.[38]

 
  • 17Like
  • 10
  • 3
  • 1Love
Reactions: