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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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Man, Johan, you cut off just before showing anything in Romania.. could we get a peak at the region? Is Transylvania a thing?

Not today, sorry.
 
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Looking at the map I noticed that they don't display their full names (I.e. Crown of Aragon in the previous Tinto talk). Will it be possible to have these names displayed instead on the map?

I think we have some rules for it, so when countries are smaller they get the shorter name..
 
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If one of the estates get disloyal and rebel, will they be represented as rebels, like in EU4? And if so, will they become own separate nation, when they enforce the demands, like with Cossacks estate or how does that aspect work?

Its rather different, closest is the Civil War mechanics in Imperator.
 
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UI mods in Vic3 are covered by the checksum because they are too powerful to not have them covered by the checksum.
I'm sorry but I'm unfamiliar with the terminology. Does 'covered by checksum' mean that they don't alter the checksum and are thus allowed for achievements?

I should have clarified that whatever mods don't affect the game balance (as in give buffs, alter AI behavior, etc.) should be allowed for achievements :)
 
Does it really make sense to have estate power based on population? A province having five noble families instead of one noble family doesn't make the nobility in that province fiv times more powerful. In fact, the nobility would probably be weaker if it's split among multiple smaller houses instead of a single noble house controlling all the land. Nor does a noble family becomes twice as powerful if they have 10 family members instead of 5.

This is one of the abstractions we were willing to make.
 
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Speaking of Stability. I wish that stability would be closer to the Imperator model than the EU4 model.

Meaning in a scale 0 to 100 and moves toward the equilibrium of 50. Rather than a scale of -3 to 3 and static.
 
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Will the weird black borders between land and sea stay, because like this they feel disconnected and the island in greece not looking as good as could be

Maybe
 
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Hello Johan,
Will the estate mechanics going to have a linear action sequence, like we always try to reduce it power (like the landowner in vic 3 where we always try to reduce it and we try to improve intelligensia).
We should have a incentive to have strong estate also, like for prussia like country player will benefit a strong nobility and a country like venice with a strong burgher
 
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- Will we have localization for different cultures/countries, or do you anticipate unique estates? For example of unique estates, the Cossacks or Eunuchs. On the other hand, for simple localization, would the Nobles in a country like the US be Planters, instead? On top of the usual translation.
- Can you have an estate totally absent, either due to literally having no pops of that estate or due to some governmental restrictions? Would the bonuses/penalties for that estate just null out, in that case?

There will not be any unique estates like that, but estates will

An estate with no pops will have no power nor impact.
 
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Johan will San Marino, Monaco (it was bigger at the time), Liechtenstein, and Andorra be represented in the game? I feel like the tiles are small enough to represent them.

Edit: perhaps this may incentivize an answer, if these nations or even just San Marino are represented I will probably pre order the game (though tbf was likely going to do that anyway)

Andorra is on the map.
 
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Lol maybe. Anyway it's so dark that it looks like it has a layer of 50% opacity black slapped on top. Hopefully that's not how the map will look in game.

fog of war
 
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How come that peasant satisfacation is linked to food production? I know that it was the peasants that grew food back then, but they couldn't really refuse to do that if they were unhappy with their king since they'd starve otherwise. Is the explanation that they withhold the taxes the food encompasses? Or is it the other way around, that the peasantry isn't satisfied because they can't produce enough food?

Either way, I'm really happy peasants will be added as an estate! I feel that after a few decades in EU4 the estates stop being worthy of attention, you add enough privileges and reforms until their loyalty is high and their influence manageable without any real input. If they're more active, and have conflicting interests outside of random events, they'll be way more interesting

Its simply that an unhappy and rebellious peasant is not working JUST as efficiently as before, so yeah, food output may drop maybe 20% if they are full revolt?
 
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