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Tinto Talks #5 - March 27th, 2024

Welcome to the fifth Tinto Talks, where we talk about the design for our upcoming top secret game with the codename ‘Project Caesar.’


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The state is me! Oh, you meant E-state, sorry.. not me ..

Today we will go into detail about one of the core systems in the game, and talk about how estates work.

First of all, there are four estates in Project Caesar, which mostly map 1 to 1 with a social class: Nobility, Clergy, Burghers and the Commoners. There is also the Crown, which represents the state itself.

Each estate gains power based on the amount of population belonging to the estate, which is also modifiable by local attributes of where the population is, where some nobles may have very high power in a certain area, or whether a specific city has entrenched burgher rights there.

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This is the estates part of the government view, where you can see their power, current satisfaction, the equilibrium its trending toward, and what privileges it currently has.

Every 1,000 nobles gives +50 estate power to their estate, while 1,000 peasants merely give +0.05 estate power as default. Then these are modified locally in every location, as mentioned above, and then in the entire country by laws, reforms and most notably the privileges that you have given the estates.

The total power of all the 4 estates and the crown then together all add up to 100%, which is the effective power they have.

Depending on your crown power, you either get a scaling penalty or scaling bonus, on aspects like the cost of revoking estate privileges, the cost of changing policies in laws, the efficiency of the cabinet, the expected costs of the court, and other things. If your crown power is weak, you need to have the estates really satisfied, or you will not get much out of any parliament you try to call.

Each of the four estates has a current satisfaction and an equilibrium it will move towards. Some estates, and some countries, will have the estate satisfaction moving quicker to the equilibrium than others. Each estate has 2 factors per type of estate in which their satisfaction impacts the entire country, where satisfaction above 50% gives a scaling bonus, and below, a scaling penalty.

If the satisfaction is below 25%, this estate will not provide any levies. Most importantly, the estate satisfaction also impacts the satisfaction of the pops that belong to that estate, possibly creating rebel factions or even civil wars.
  • Nobility impacts your prestige gain and your counterespionage.
  • Clergy impacts your research speed and your diplomatic reputation.
  • Burghers impact your merchant power and the production efficiency.
  • Commoner impacts your food production and your stability costs.

So what impacts the satisfaction equilibrium of an estate? The privileges they get, the current stability, some reforms may impact them, some laws may, how you tax them, and much more. Some examples include clergy being happier with higher religious unity or burghers liking having more market centers in your country.

# estate privileges
Estate Privileges then? You may feel forced to grant privileges to estates to be able to tax them more, and you may be forced to grant privileges to get their support in parliament. All privileges impact the power of their estate, and many also increase their satisfaction equilibrium. They all have some impact on gameplay fitting the privilege, and often they also impact a societal value of their country.

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WiP ui, temporary graphics and no icons etc.

There are many different privileges, and many unique ones depending on where and what type of country you play.

We mentioned taxes before, and while this is not the development diary where we go into details about the economic system, it is important to mention that the estates of a country have wealth that is increased by the amount of money that you have not taken from them in taxes. Rich estates will use their wealth on many things, primarily to invest into things that benefit them, but will often also build things that also benefit the country.

Next week we will talk about a few new concepts that are rather new to this game that have not been present in previous games, as we will talk about proximity, control and maritime presence, all concepts that need to be talked about in detail, before we go into the economy system.
 
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Will the demands, bonuses and equilibrium of the different estates depend on the state's culture, government or tag?

Those impact the tools you can use.

However there is no "You play Scotland so your nobles have -10 satisfaction"
 
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Each estate gains power based on the amount of population belonging to the estate, which is also modifiable by local attributes of where the population is, where some nobles may have very high power in a certain area, or whether a specific city has entrenched burgher rights there.
How does estate power evolve during conquest and vassal integration ? Proportionally to the assimilated pops (culture/religion) ?

What do you mean by “based on the population belonging to the estate “ ? Is it gonna be like at the beginning in EU4 (ie one location belonging to one specific estate) or more of a general state percentage (as in late EU4 patches)
 
If its my decision alone, achievements should ALWAYS require ironman.
I'm perfectly fine with that. The reason my EU4 currently looks like this;
1711551777856.png

has nothing to do with ironman and everything to do with lucky nations. If EU5 has no lucky nations mechanic, I will get achievements :)
 

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Any chance of ‘crown privileges’ that affect things like administrative corruption, etc.?

there is a chance for those yes.
 
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Those impact the tools you can use.

However there is no "You play Scotland so your nobles have -10 satisfaction"
Such a fantastically promising comment. God speed Johan, our hype levels are becoming dangerous
 
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just noticed Venice owns a few regions of land on the map, and they're just called "Venice".
Same with Genoa, they're just simply "Genoa".

So it seems like the dynamic naming mentioned in TT#4 only occurs for certain countries, and most of them (Serbia, Bulgaria, Venice, Genoa, etc.) don't have dynamic names (at least not at the start of the game).

I would personally much prefer to have each country have titles (e.g. Kingdom of Serbia, Serene Republic of Venice, etc, to go along with TT#4's mentioned Crown of Aragon and Kingdom of Sweden).
 
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Will countries start with set privileges or slot will be almost empty as in EU4?

They will mostly start with historical privileges and be setup in a way to not have a brewing civil war at the start.
 
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If its my decision alone, achievements should ALWAYS require ironman.
Another question regarding achievements. Will them like previous titles in which they're disabled if we're using mods or will be like the newer titles that allow them even with said mods?
 
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Ironically, I've never really played MEIOU beyond testing it. I do have employees from the mod, and I really enjoy talking with @gigau and his friends at every Pdxcon.
Convergent evolution is helped when M&T has been making extremely good choices on estates for years - so when you ask yourself "what's the best way to model estates" of course you end up with similar output!
 
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Then you could have a mod that trivializes all achievements :rolleyes:
Ah, another person who doesn't know Steam Achievement Manager exists.
 
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If anyone wants to do that, then they are lame and that is their problem. Achievements are personal, so why gatekeep them? Not being able to play mods because achievements are not unlockable with them is my biggest gripe with eu4 and I am glad they changed it for other games. Achievements are attainable goals that make the game more enjoyable (to me). Mods make the game more flavorful, which also makes it better (for me).

I personally still play on ironman, but can use all kinds of fun mods on ck3. That option just makes the game much better, and I would like it for project caesar as well, and will keep advocating for it.
For me if a mod changes gameplay it should disallow achievements because it alters the meaning of that achievement. Also I don't fully agree with they being just a personal thing. Personally, if I see that the most challenging achievements are easier or even trivialized by using a certaing mod I automatically don't want to chase it. Totally kills it for me.
 
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Will we be able to toggle impassable terrain (aka wasteland) being the same colour as the country that has most borders with it, ala EU4?

Yes, its a toggle.

I have it off, as I hate that look when its colored.
 
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I love so much of this - thanks for sharing it with us!


Hopefully modding will solve this issue for me, and clearly plenty of people like this new modern style map. I really don't though - there is such a great balance that can be achieved between still feeling physical and tangible, yet keeping the clear obvious political boundaries.

I feel like M&T nails this so well (similar ish area and era for comparison)

I really hope this comes across in the constructive way I intend it - but the top of these maps for me just absolutely blows the bottom out of the water in terms of beauty. Obviously WIP, much can change, this may just be a "flat political" version, many possible caveats - just wanted to share the direct comparison .

View attachment 1103832

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The map in M&T is the most beautiful I've ever seen.
 
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Uh . . . Why is the map so dark? My screen doesn't have 5000 nits of brightness.

oh, i was playing as Aragon, and had fog of war over the area.
 
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This is honestly a really cool dev diary, and seems like a much better estate system than the one we have in eu4, my only complaint or worry is that the clergy seem to have the strongest nerf out of any faction

Strongest nerf?
 
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No save scumming! I respect that decision.
Save scumming has nothing to do with ironman, you can save scum just as well whether it's on or off. Judging by his answer though I think we might get the Vicky 3 treatment where achievements won't be tied to ironman, otherwise he wouldn't have said if it was up to him, he'd have came out with a definite confirmation/denial.
 
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For me if a mod changes gameplay it should disallow achievements because it alters the meaning of that achievement.
And with Vic3-tier UI moddability, there is almost no way to verify that except by saying "all mods might affect gameplay".
 
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  • Nobility impacts your prestige gain and your counterespionage.
  • Clergy impacts your research speed and your diplomatic reputation.
  • Burghers impact your merchant power and the production efficiency.
  • Commoner impacts your food production and your stability costs.

Beyond renaming each group, will different countries get different power structures? E.g. Clergy providing nobility and/or burghers attributes?
 
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