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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.

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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.

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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.


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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.

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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?


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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.


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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…
 
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Will the Great Pestilence stop at some point? How it is determined when new world population become immune or resistance to the this? Will the death percentage go down by the time or they become immune all at once?
I would think that it would be handled with a situation. Similar to how the Black Death will be handled.
 
Will Bubonic Plague become endemic in most of Eurasia after the initial wave in the 1340s-1350s? At least in Europe there was basically an outbreak of the plague at least somewhere on the continent for every year except for 1445. Constantinople was dealing with outbreaks of the plague basically every year in this time period.

 
How does disease resistance work? Do populations, after having survived a plague gain a slight immunity to it in the future? And do native american pops gain immunity by assimilating into european cultures?
 
Regarding unconventional Diseases

You mentioned that diseases effect pops based uppon their origin.
That means that Malaria effects European pops more than African pops (because malaria comes from Africa).
But what happens to African pops when they go to Europe or other northern lands? Will they get a "Vitamine-D deficiency disease" or "Vitamine-D deficiency debuff" for their army?
 
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Will African pops who leave Africa slowly loose their malaria resistance? This was historically an issue with Liberia where the Afro-American colonists had all the same issues Europeans did, as their innate resistance to the endemic diseases lapsed over their generations in America. Also will the Tsetse Fly be represented somehow? Or is that considered grouped in with malaria?
 
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Given that my profession is that of a physician diseases are close to my heart…

I woild like to draw attention to a lesser known disease endemic to Tropical Climate: Schistosomiasis

Also known as as snail fever it is a narly disease caused by blood flukes.

While not as deadly as malaria it is still quite a dangerous disease and would have surely caused a lot of pain to european colonizers before modern medicine.

To put it in perspective an estimated 200 million people are estimated be infected today and an average of 100,000 die every year.
 
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Additionally trypanosomiasis or rather sleeping sickness as an endemic disease MUST BE ADDED

Not only is it a human killer but it’s the primary reason horses and livestock ahould be extremely expensive in Sub Saharan Africa as those animals are primarily effected by it.
 
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It is called Beeswax, but represents all apiary goods including honey

I believe a better name for the good would be 'Honeycomb' since the honeycomb is what contains both the honey and beeswax so it perfectly fits in with the definition of the good. You wouldn't ask for beeswax if you wanted to make your own mead at home.

To the Devs: Thank you for your time and good luck on 'Project Caesar'!

Edit: Edited to make this forum post to sound less confusing as it was originally its own separate thread.
 
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  • Do water sources impact disease spread?
Rivers, lakes, and wells played a big role in spreading or preventing disease. Contaminated water could accelerate outbreaks, but practices like hand-washing (as seen in Crusader Kings 3) could slow it down. Will this be represented at the population level?
 
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  • Will marshy terrain affect disease spread?
Marshlands have historically been breeding grounds for disease, fostering conditions for outbreaks and increasing risks of transmission. Will such terrain naturally increase disease risks, and if so, will it also temporarily impact movement and development in affected areas ?
 
  • Will malaria persist in tropical areas for the entire game?
Malaria has historically been a long-term challenge in tropical regions, and even in modern times, it has not been completely eradicated. Will malaria remain a persistent threat in these areas throughout the game, even with medical advancements?
 
This is a follow-up to an earlier post, now that I've had some time to write a proper response. If I understand the description of the Great Pestilence correctly, we have a disease that starts as soon as Europeans get a foothold anywhere in the Americas, then quickly sweeps across both continents leaving an empty landscape for Europeans to step into. This doesn't fit the actual history, and the mechanic should probably be removed.

I'll focus on the Southeastern US here, my main source being Paul Kelton's Epidemics and Enslavement. To oversimplify things a bit, Kelton's thesis is that the right conditions for smallpox, measles, or influenza to spread over a large area did not exist during the protohistoric period, and the historic record doesn't support outbreaks of any of these diseases until much later. He does think its possible that the Spanish spread malaria to North America at an early date.

The first permanent European settlement in this region was St Augustine Florida in 1565. The population of Spanish Florida (modern Florida and southeastern Georgia) dropped by more than 90% during the colonial period, with none of the original tribes existing after 1763. However, nothing about this worked the way the Great Pestilence would represent it.

The first epidemic wasn't recorded until 1614, and was limited to the area around St Augustine. A smallpox epidemic spread across northern Spanish Florida in 1649, but not beyond it.

More importantly, disease was only one cause of depopulation. People left to avoid the Spanish administration, particularly the labor draft. Many people were killed or forced to flee north during revolts in 1647 and 1656. Florida missions were easy targets for English allied slave raiders. Mission Indians also appear to have been unhealthy in general because the Spanish forced them into compact towns and to rely more on corn and less on hunting and gathering for food. John Hann has several great books on the native tribes of Florida and the Spanish colonial period if anyone wants to learn more.

The first regionwide smallpox epidemic started in 1696, after English traders had spent decades building an extensive trade network across the Southeast. The major items of trade were muskets and powder in exchange for slaves, so the southeast was a violent place. Small villages consolidated together for protection. War interupted usual cycles of agriculture and hunting leaving people malnourished. The slave trade meant movement of raiding parties, captives, and runaways across the region. This greated conditions for smallpox to spread from the English colonies across the southeast to the Mississippi Valley and possibly from there north into the Illinois country.

By the way, the epidemic started with serious outbreaks in Virginia and Charleston, whereas the Great Pestilence allows Europeans to spread disease to Native Americans without first getting sick themselves.

Kelton estimates that most tribes in the southeast lost between 50% and 75% of their population to all causes during the late 17th and early 18th cecenturies. Writing in Mapping the Mississippian Shatter Zone, Robbie Ethridge estimated that the native population dropped by 54% with half of that directly due to the slave trade and rest due to war and disease. Neither comes close to the 75%-90% figure for disease alone that the Great Pestilence uses.

Based on all that, the Great Pestilence is too deadly and happens too quick to represent how diseases actually spread in North America (And probably the rest of the Americas as well, but other people on the forum can speak to that better than I can). On the other hand if this is intended to give Native Americans an ahistoric nerf, there are much simpler ways to do that. I think the smallpox, measles, and influenza diseases would work fine on their own, possibly with an event to bring them to the Americas in the first place.
 
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