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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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It's crazy how accurately we can predict the start date based on a few obscure screenshots. They gave us this one to confirm that we are right.

As I said a few Tinto Talks ago, while we were in the midst of figuring it out, Johan knows us well enough that he was no doubt giggling with glee as he dropped all the hints and watched us scurry around to pinpoint a date. Fun for all us history nerds!
 
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I have a few questions about the naming of Turkish beyliks.
First of all, I realise that while most beyliks have "-s" at the end of their name, Ahis are written as "Ahiler" in the map, "-ler" being Turkish equivalent of "-s". I suggest the use of Ahis instead, for the consistency, otherwise it is weird to use Turkish version for one and English versions for the rest of beyliks. Also Germiyanids seem to be missing an "-s" in their name on the map.
My other question would be about "Candarids", "Tadjeddinids", "Haciemirids" and "Inanjids" on the map. I found it weird that "Tadjeddinids" use "dj" letters as equivalent of "c" letter in Turkish while in "Candarids" and "Haciemirids" the Turkish "c" is used instead of "Jandarids" and "Hajiemirids", as that would be the appropriate sound for English. So I would suggest to either use "c" or "j" for all of them, and also I find the extra "d" before j in "Tadjeddinids" to be unnecessary. Also I have seen more sources use double t instead of double d for "Tadjeddinids" but I suppose both are correct spellings. So at the end my suggestion would be to use either "Jandarids","Tajeddinids/Tajettinids", "Hajiemirids" and "Inanjids" or "Candarids", "Taceddinids/Tacettinids", "Haciemirids" and "Inancids". I prefer the first option because that would sound the most correct and appropriate for English.
 
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Well, yes and no: Athens and Neopatras (Atenes, Neopàtria) are Aragonese vassals through Sicilly in this period, often ruled by Catalans directly as a result of a weird kerfuffle that happened a few decades earlier. Bit weird that they don't seem to be represented.
I'm guessing that the Kingdom of Sicily (and its vassals in Greece, as the Duke of Athens and Neopatras -it was a combined title at the time - and the Count of Salona at the start of the game were the sons of the King of Sicily) is considered to be separate from (although presumably allied with) the Crown of Aragon as it's under a different ruler. Frederick of Sicily had been king there for over 40 years at game start (although he died only a couple of months later), so it would be hard to consider him a vassal of Aragon at that point. But it is a borderline case.
 
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Will Genoa have Galata in Project Caesar? How small can locations be on the map and how will affect the historical accuracy of the map? especially that trade republics had small locations everywhere or the cities in HRE can be pretty small on a map
 
slaves currently give no power

Will there be a consequence for locations that have too many slaves? Ex. Saint-Domingue slave revolt and expulsion of the French masters/settlers (but they allowed other European merchants and Polish mercenaries to stay).
 
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@Johan

Will countries favor different combat styles/unit types or will advantage in battle be more tech and terrain based?

Also will you be able to have "concessions" as modifiers for locations? Like the user said about about Genoa having Galata in the Constantinople location.
 
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First love the map with one exception

why not call the Roman Empire the Rhoman Empire to differentiate from the old Roman Empire instead of the ahistorical Byzantine Empire name.

from wikipedia
the Byzantine Greeks self-identified as Romans (Greek: Ῥωμαῖοι, romanized: Rhōmaîoi)

how will the estates work in goverment forms that are ruled by one of the estates(merchant republic, noble republic, theocracy, peasent republic)
will those estates and the crown be the same estate or remain seperate?

can't wait to see the location map of the Netherlands really curious how many island locations it will have and what the coastline looks like
is it possible to get new locations with land reclamation?
 
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I have a few questions about how combat and battles will work in this game though I will hold most back until we get to those talks
in a broad sense though, how different will battles be in this game compared to previous games like eu4 and imperator?
 
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Was it so difficult to add Esrefids? Why can't you start 10 years ago?

I sent a suggestion e-mail for this, as someone coming from Esrefids, I was very offended.
.
At least add its culture. The culture of a principality that was destroyed only 10 years ago cannot be lost. Let's at least do something by revolts.
 
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@Johan I have questions about two issues: Will pastoralists in nomad societies just be modelled as commoners, maybe ones that live in locations with pastures instead of farms and are more mobile? How will they differ from settled peasants in the same state?

As estate influence differs between locations, will we also have the opportunity to give out local or regional privileges? Like town rights or a tax privilege to "the nobles of lower Silesia"? A bit like edicts in EU4, but affecting estates
 
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Had to look that up and that's Chios? If so, Chios was briefly owned by the Byzantines from 1329 - 1346. It was actually owned by Genoa before (1304 - 1329) and later (1346 - 1566), after which it fell to the Ottomans.
Umur Bey of Aydins get the Chios from Byzantines as a reward of aiding Byz fighting Genoa, you didnt even mention Aydin, it owned Chios at some point during the reign of Umur beg, but I am not sure what the date is
 
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Please tell us we'll be able to sort mods by the game version, I never understood why that's not a feature in the steam workshop for any paradox title
 
Based on the quote of King Louis XIV and on the picture of him(?) it's quite safe to assume that the timeline will go all the way to the 1700s at least. Perhaps to 1821 as in EU IV?
Johann mentioned that it will at least go to 1789. My hope is that it ends in 1832 or even later.
 
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When will Byzantine empire have a proper name , as they never considered themselves Byzantines, shouldn’t we give it a more historical name whether its eastern Roman Empire , Roman Empire or empire of the Romans or something as Byzantium is a modern concept to separate them from the Holy Roman Empire
I presume that there will be formable nations so the Roman Empire will probably be a tag. From my perspective Roman break aways like Byzantium, Trebizond or even Cilicia should be able to restore it. However the requirement should be lower. I personaly would go for the borders of emperor Basil 2. Also for simplicity sake I would put Roman culture to Hellenic culture group along with Greeks and Copts. I think that's fair compromize where everyone could be happy.
 
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Probably too soon to ask, but does devastation / war have any residual effect on estates? Like is there anything you can say in regards to their reaction to conflict, whether positive or negative?
 
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Nice political map! Also glad to see the Sun King, which starts to dispel rumors of the game ending earlier than EU4.

Are the impassable terrain features going to be filled in when they are sufficiently surrounded like EU4? I feel Candar should "own" that mountain range for example.
It doesn't look like they'll be filled in unless you sufficiently zoom out
 
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So here we are, estates!

- Louis XIV
If there is one thing to guess, it is that the end date is at least the 1700, for I would not see an art piece be comissionned but not used in game (outside specific cases of change of plans midway)

- Estates
So 4 estates, and the crown. apparently no specific regional estates on top, which makes sense if we want to avoid weird situations upon conquest. People wanting their Cossacks might see specific privileges instead and it feels more robust long term, I like that

On the picture, we can see both a current and target "happiness" value, so we already can rule out "click and forget" buttons on that front. Icons for their privileges and interesting monochromatic choice here. My only fear is, icons too close to each other in term of appearance. From them I can assume some of those, like Nobility having some sort of union privilege, the crown gives me Royal marriage feels, or for the last one, being about a landed nobility. The commoner one is shown later, showing the ability to move and not be attached to their land. No plus sign for the Crown, yet I half expected the government related stuffs to be there

Power per head, then locally modified. I can hear the "Local estate power +100%" for something like Versailles, or even just a capital modifier

Privileges having impact on how the game plays, I like that, this should get the "everyone plays the same" crowd reassured, I hope. One thing I DO expect is that if the country is corrupt, peasants WILL migrate even if not allowed.

No mention of of the Truenamers, good!

Wealth per estate. Good, because if you want your taxes, now it will cost you levies the nobility cannot pay for. At last will we get some "push and pull" from your nation. And them being able to build is a good way to not click those pesky building one by one in the macrobuilder!

Next week is no surprise, we saw roads in the first DD, and colored sea tiles in the fourth. Someone said Communication Efficiency? Safe waters?
 
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@Johan
Prompted by a youtube video I watched, where numerous Johan's post were being commented, I thought I should come here to repeat a longtime gripe I've had with EUIV. It's summed up as "total wars in the 15th-18th century are not fun gameplay, and definetly not historical".

I'd appreciate mechanics that encourage limited wars, where the player/AI chooses the war theather, same as he can choose which claims to press or which provinces to set as war goals in other games. This choice could be directed by some sort of values, resources, "claims" (CK-style), etc.
 
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