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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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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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I glossed over this before, but it's very big. Privileges aren't just minor stat boosts but can enable certain game mechanics.
 
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Love the map so far. I hope in the final game, there will be a paper map mode inspired by the Age of Discovery, with illustrations of sailing ships, sea monsters and other misinterpreted animals like unicorn narwhals and such. This era is known for having the most fantastical, beautifully illustrated maps so the art team should lean into that.
 
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Dear Pdx Team,

Pretty please change the UI style to something diffrent than what it is in Vic 3, i don't know how about others but for me this new UI just dont work, imo eu4 UI just a bit modernised would be perfect, why change things that worked well it dosen't have to be breakthroug in every ascpect :)
Thank you
 
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It would be cool if, in the last screenshot, the gradient banner behind the estate was a bar graph representing either power, or satisfaction. Having two different percentage systems represented by just a number and icon seems like it would get confusing.

I'm also wondering about "stability cost" existing-- given that mana points don't exist because they are an abstraction not based in reality, the idea of pressing a button to increase "stability" seems just as bad. I would have thought stab was a passive modifier affected by your other actions, like I guess how some of the population stuff works.
 
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Will there be anything on the map that shows the buildings/population, such as developing in EU4 adding some houses, or creating a fort in HOI4? And what would be the extent, Ex: If I wanted to make Wales the most populous and developed country in the world, would that show on the map, possibly making those locations "urban"? Or are you thinking more of a standard/flat-looking map?
 
What does the crown become called when its not a monarchy in power? What about the nobles when there is no nobility like in the USA?
 
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I have got a question regarding the new world.
The north American natives had complex societal structures, practiced agriculture and had towns and cities. After the arrival of the European diseases, the Americas lost 90% of their population, and as a result they became more of a "horde-like" type of society, caused by the circumstances of the collapse (but also due to the adoption of firearms and horse-riding).
Similarly, there have been discoveries of cities, roads and sophisticated civilisations in the Amazon (hitherto undreamt of) which stopped existing at around 1500 BCE. Probably for the same reasons.
I wonder if you are going to implement something like this in-game. I think it would make the Americas much more interesting.
 
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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.

It's all very exciting stuff, but I'm thinking about countries like Byzantium or Imperial China, which had notably complex secular bureaucracies - couldn't this be represented with increased game difficulty by balancing a fifth estate which imparts some sort of bonus in exchange for being a thorn in the eye of all other estates. Might be slapped on as a late game challenge too
 
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Dear Pdx Team,

Pretty please change the UI style to something diffrent than what it is in Vic 3, i don't know how about others but for me this new UI just dont work, imo eu4 UI just a bit modernised would be perfect, why change things that worked well it dosen't have to be breakthroug in every ascpect :)
Thank you
In Tinto Talks #3, Johan confirmed that they will not be using the bubbles, as Johan himself does not like it either. They said they're merging ideas from previous games for this one.
 
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Is it just me or did Paradox just switch the colours of Serbia and Albania around.
View attachment 1103952View attachment 1103953
Idk, to me collor of Serbia looks the same. Only collor difference is in the case of Albania.

On a side note, if Byzantium is restorable nation, it will be fun to restore it as Serbia and fulfill the dream of Serbian Tsar Dusan who at one point wanted to install his dynasty as the new rulers of the Roman Empire in Constantinople.
 
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Looks amazing!

The -ler in Turkish is a suffix to make the plural. I would rather put Ahis.
 
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Suggestion: make the game a bit brighter. It's more pleasing to the eyes.
 
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Seriously hoping "food production" means famines and bad harvests are real.
I'm fairly certain Johan mentioned in another thread (about concerns about pop growth) that war, diseases, and famines would all be ways for pop growth to be kept in check.

Also, lazprune: Johan has said that the map has a Fog of War on it because he was playing as Aragon when he took the screenshot.

 
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