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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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I agree. Seasons should have a bigger impact than they do in EU4. For war, military campaigns were planned around seasons. Even in non-war related things, when sending exploration fleets, navigators took into account the ocean currents which change seasonally, but predictably.
There should be monsoon climate extended to the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, as there were periods when navigation was clearly dangerous and avoided. Make it get naval attrition (also to AI).

And considering the northern seas, the Hudson Bay, St Lawrence, Labrador strait, the Baltic Sea and White Sea, as well as Okhotsk, should all get seasonal ice. Navigation was totally impossible for several months a year, stopping trade routes in the HBC and Canada until spring. Besides, it played a significant role in the fall of Quebec, allowed once for the Swedish troops to cross to Denmark by foot, and finally was an essential geopolitical cause for Russia to reach the « warm seas ». It even is today.

Also, regarding land warfare, something was regularly overlooked : during the wet season, it was still common to have mosquito-borne-epidemics such as the malaria even very far north. In « The British Are Coming » (about the American revolution), a very well documented book with lots of sources, it’s explicitly stated that more than half of the dead were due to malaria, smallpox and dysentery. Attrition should be drastically increased to actually matter, and AI coded so as not overstack 100K in the same province siege
Disease during the revolutionary war
 
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I'm curious if the map for this project will be a globe (Imperator: Rome) or a flat map (CK3, Vic3, EUIV)?
Johan already confirmed it was flat, in the first tinto talk.
Actually imperator was no real sphere but a flat map too, only the view was moving along a rotation point which created the illusion (not sure how distance calculation adapted that tough). That was possible since the map was finished, but in EU / VIC, where it’s tileable (you can go full 360° both north and south) that would not be
 
Assuming climate and vegetation effect building and development then I can definitely see why. Not much grows in Greenland after all, compared to the Low Countries. (I excluded topography as mountainside farms exist) Really excited to see how it's gonna play out! :D
Simply because, as stated in TT#2, population will be the base of the economy. Given that there was about 100 colonists in Greenland, while there were tens of thousand in Flanders, it makes sense that the generated output of (let’s say a manufactory as Flanders was well known for that) would not be the same
 
probably.. Its far easier to play tall if you play, lets say Flandern, than the Jarldom of Greenland.
Greenland is a starting tag? Now that’ll be quite the challenge.

Do they have any nearby neighbors in Newfoundland and Labrador that are playable? Maybe the Innu, or Naskapi, or the other Inuit groups, or the Beothuk?
 
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I hope the Ottomans are not gonna be as OP as they are in EU4. There was no flavor or uniqueness to the Balkans/Levant, every single game they all fell to the Ottomans without a challenge. Hope they are more balanced.
 
Btw, shouldn't Albania be limited only to Durrës (and also be a Neapolitan PU/vassal)? The area of the Albania shown on the map was mostly controlled by independent chieftains/clans at the time.
 
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Have you considered a darker green for Bulgaria on the map? I am used to see it either in red or darker green in historical atlas maps. The lighter green in the screenshot is indistinguishable from the Ottomans color. Not that the purplish ash grey in EU4, CK and Victoria is better though - not a fan of it.
 
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Oooooo I really hope this date means that Portugal will have a unification causus belli on Castille (because of Ferdinand I or Portugal). After the murder of Pedro of Castille in 1369, Ferdinand made his claim to the throne of Castille, coming surprisingly close to succeeding! How exciting!
 
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Oooooo I really hope this date means that Portugal will have a unification causus belli on Castille (because of Ferdinand I or Portugal). After the murder of Pedro of Castille in 1369, Ferdinand made his claim to the throne of Castille, coming surprisingly close to succeeding! How exciting!
They should actually start at war with Castile in 1337
 
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I'm glad you liked it, and certainly many offensive Russian wars were either directly or indirectly to secure viable water access. It would be cool to have a way to model in-game the reasons behind the Russo-Japanese war as you mentioned, but also the Crimean War, The Great Northern War, Ivan the Terrible's wars, the modern Ukraine war, and many others. I hope there's a way to utilize waterways more effectively, and specifically like my British in the Black Sea example because it would be really funny to trap the British navy in the Black Sea, take all of the coastline, and watch them starve
To me it sounds also like a navy would have far more impact on land warfare in coastal or even riverconnected tiles than has been the way until now. The effect of a navy in eu4 has been represented by the blockade feature, but this is wholly insufficient.

Or what about the arbitrary difference between soldiers and sailors. As if sailers only spring from the ground in coastal provinces. Oh, you live in paris, sorry you cannot become a sailor, you have to live in Toulon.

There's such a big extra part of the game and military if you give navies an important position.
 
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I won’t lie, I’m very concerned about the decision to pull the start date back. In EU4, the parts I was most interested in was the globalization / “baroque” parts of the game- I really didn’t care for the medieval parts. Will there be things done to make that latter half of the game interesting? Will you split EU4’s timeline into two games?
 
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There should be monsoon climate extended to the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, as there were periods when navigation was clearly dangerous and avoided. Make it get naval attrition (also to AI).

And considering the northern seas, the Hudson Bay, St Lawrence, Labrador strait, the Baltic Sea and White Sea, as well as Okhotsk, should all get seasonal ice. Navigation was totally impossible for several months a year, stopping trade routes in the HBC and Canada until spring. Besides, it played a significant role in the fall of Quebec, allowed once for the Swedish troops to cross to Denmark by foot, and finally was an essential geopolitical cause for Russia to reach the « warm seas ». It even is today.

Also, regarding land warfare, something was regularly overlooked : during the wet season, it was still common to have mosquito-borne-epidemics such as the malaria even very far north. In « The British Are Coming » (about the American revolution), a very well documented book with lots of sources, it’s explicitly stated that more than half of the dead were due to malaria, smallpox and dysentery. Attrition should be drastically increased to actually matter, and AI coded so as not overstack 100K in the same province siege
Disease during the revolutionary war
I would love to see these things implemented in game, especially the ice cutting off certain regions by sea in winter or freezing in fleets for the winter etc. Just don't let it go mad like freezing the English channel or the entire north atlantic etc. It should be confined to the arctic or inland seas at higher latitudes.
 
I would love to see these things implemented in game, especially the ice cutting off certain regions by sea in winter or freezing in fleets for the winter etc. Just don't let it go mad like freezing the English channel or the entire north atlantic etc. It should be confined to the arctic or inland seas at higher latitudes.
I had represented these, based on historical research, in my mod "Typs Orbis Terrarum 1.25" (a continuation of the original one from Bizarcasm, that I maintained for some time). You can see the covered area in some screenshots, although there misses the screenshot for Okhotsk Sea and the southern Baltics (only covered during hasrsh winters).
Also, Barents sea should be navigable in EU period, during a limited summer season period. It was used notably by the Pomor, and Mangazeia was located on the route. It was later banned by the russian government to avoid british penetration
TOT 1.25
 
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I had represented these, based on historical research, in my mod "Typs Orbis Terrarum 1.35" (a continuation of the original one from Bizarcasm, that I maintained for some time). You can see the covered area in some screenshots
Thanks for the awesome mod. Used the map for my own. Really makes a difference.
 
As someone from southern Italy, I'm very interested in seeing its map in all of its glory, since we've only kinda seen it in very little detail as of now. Is there going to be a province/location in Benevento belonging to the Pope? I've seen that one location in the province of Bari is Andria, and being from Bari myself I find that putting Trani in the game would be better. Trani was at its peak during those years, it was the second major port in all of the Adriatic and it held a big portion of Jewish merchants (which could be represented in the game?). I'm also curious as what the locations are themselves, since not every one of them are readable. Can we have a little peak at them, possibly?

Also, another question. Do province/location names change based on culture or do they stay the same?
 
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I always look forward to these Tinto talks!

(I use a translator, the translation may not be of good quality)

I think this game should provide at least as much content for the ahistorical paths as for the historical paths.
For example, if I play England and win the Hundred Years' War, there should be content, events, missions, maybe even government reforms or unique laws. I think that's really important for immersion, and knowing that you can play the same country in many different ways with just as much content no matter how you play it really enhances immersion in my opinion.

I also think that the AI, instead of making decisions in semi-random events, should make decisions based on what's going on in the world, which would reinforce immersion and make the AI much stronger.

In any case, this game seems to be heading in the right direction, even if I'm still a little worried about the release date.
What translator do you use lol, this is great.
 
Please don't forget to also add the Principality of Muzaka, which at the 1337, was ruled by Andrea Muzaka II, one of the most competent Albanian military figures in history (though of course he does not reach anywhere near Skanderbeg). He is known for his resistance against Stephan Dusan's incursions in Albania, for his victory in the battle of the Pelister mountain against the Serbs, for leading the Principality of Muzaka to its territorial and political peak, etc. Muzaka not being added would be an insult to Albanian history, so please add them.
 
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