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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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Levies? That means standing armies aren't in the game until the mid- to late-game (unless appropriate), right?

Looking forward to talking about proximity and maritime presence, whatever they mean (though I assume maritime presence is "are there boats here or not?"). Also, economy? Like a proper, watered-down Vic3 system?
 
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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.
Those are good points, but honestly that might just unnecessarily complicate things. I think we'll might have to just imagine that the nobility has certain amount of influence / power in certain location due to 'reasons'.
 
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This looks promising. I have 2 questions

1-Will every member of each estate have equal contribution to estate power? For example can there be one very powerful noble in the realm or is this modeled by a concentration of nobles in a specific area?

2-And how will the number of people belonging to an estate change over time? By your policies, their well being or by the trends of the age perhaps?
 
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Moving to London from Scotland also needs to be seen in the light of how weak the Scottish monarchy's hold on the scottish realm was then, with Mary I being deposed and her son James I raised to the throne as a year old boy, going to London would escape such plotting nobles.
The case would not be so for Henry V living longer or having a son other than Henry VI, where Parliament was granting large subsidies during the war. The Paris Parliament was far far weaker than the London Parliament even then

Plus, London is more easily secured, being on an island. And the wealth difference of England v France in this period is not exactly as drastic as everyone likes to think. While the overall economy of France was almost always larger, the crown of England was generally much more efficient at extracting what it wanted from the English economy than the French crown was, regarding the French economy. There's a variety of evolving reasons for that, from the centralization of the early Norman conquests on up to the financial innovations of the early modern era. Suffice to say: the monarch of a combined realm would almost certainly want to bring as much of the English system over to France as they possibly could - but that would certainly annoy the French nobles, who were much more powerful relative to the crown than the English nobles were. That is not necessarily where the monarch would want to hold court.
 
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Those are good points, but honestly that might just unnecessarily complicate things. I think we'll might have to just imagine that the nobility has certain amount of influence / power in certain location due to 'reasons'.
They've already said they have other factors besides population determining estate power, so decoupling pop numbers could actually potentially make things simpler, rather than more complicated.
 
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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.
Great, so we will likely see burghers funded navies and manufactories, and noble funded castles ?
 
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I assume we will learn how trade and navies will work next week and as colonial powers enthusiast that sounds like one of the more important Tinto Talks entries to me. Now i just hope you will show us colonization in near future after covering how we will earn money to establish them.
I also feel that updating MEIOU and Taxes mod from eu4 to eu5 won't be needed.
Oh and political map mode looks cute. :3
 
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Seeing the connection between estates and population excites me greatly, but can the estate privilege system fully reflect all aspects of the estates? Like in M&T, the governance of noble estates, tax systems, and conscription systems are all reflected by estate laws/privileges, which is more ideal. However, simply adding or removing a few privileges to a estate seems still overly simplified.
Moreover, I'm sorry, but the UI of this estates interface is really unattractive, with a web game style and a plastic feel, lacking the sense of historical depth and elegance that EU5 (yes) should possess. This UI even makes me feel that it is not as good as EU4. I really hope you can improve on this aspect, as the current UI really doesn't match the great work of EU5. Perhaps this is just the WiP UI, but I sincerely hope that you can confirm that these are not what we will ultimately see.
Anyway, I am looking forward to TT every week. I believe I am witnessing the birth of a revolutionary and great game, and the content you have already introduced excites me to the extreme. I hope it will be even more perfect.
 
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Levies? That means standing armies aren't in the game until the mid- to late-game (unless appropriate), right?

Looking forward to talking about proximity and maritime presence, whatever they mean (though I assume maritime presence is "are there boats here or not?"). Also, economy? Like a proper, watered-down Vic3 system?
Johan has mentioned that part of the early game at least will be the transition from feudal levies to professional standing armies
 
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