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SaintDaveUK

Art Lead @ Tinto
Paradox Staff
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Jun 20, 2012
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Hey everyone, and welcome back. Johan is busy today (allegedly) so instead I will walk you through this Tinto Talks on Formable Countries in our little project called Caesar. It’s a fairly tight feature so this should be nice and quick.



What are Formable Countries?

Basically, formable countries are new tags that you can switch to. Typically they represent historical unions and conquests, but some represent aspirations that never materialised.

Generally speaking, the vision behind Formables is to offer roleplaying and historical immersion, and support player fantasies, rather than modifier stacking. They will change your country name, national flag, and map color. So while you may unlock some content such as advances or other minor unique content, the tag change is often the goal in itself.

Screenshot 2025-02-12 113332.png
Screenshot 2025-02-12 112612.png

Spain gets some unique advances in the later ages, but not all do.

Rather than your country changing automatically every age, you achieve it by completing certain objectives. Usually, you'll need to control a certain percentage of a predefined set of locations, for example Scandinavia needs 75% of the locations in the Scandinavia region.

There’s typically additional requirements as well such as your Primary Culture belonging to a certain Culture Group. Forming Spain also requires you and all the independent countries in Iberia to be Christian, as it is thematically closely tied to the completion of the Reconquista. Iberian Muslims have the reverse rules for forming Al-Andalus.

Some are directly tied to actions in International Organizations, like the Holy Roman Empire or the Ilkhanate.

Formables also have a Tier that represents their natural order of precedence. You can only form countries that are the same or higher tier than you. For example, England (Tier 2) can form Great Britain (Tier 3) but Great Britain can’t form England. The AI will only form countries that are a higher tier.


Screenshot 2025-02-12 124554.png

Country formation is just a click away.


There are 3 settings to the relevant game rule.
  1. Only Historical Formable Countries
    1. Only countries that actually formed in the game’s time period will be allowed.
      1. Examples are Spain and Great Britain
  2. Allow Plausible Formable Countries(Default)
    1. Countries that could plausible have formed, or formed just after the time period will be allowed.
      1. Examples are Germany and Italy
  3. Allow Ahistorical Formable Countries
    1. Aspirational or fantasy countries can be formed. Examples include
      1. North Sea Empire (which is a Tier IV) if you control Britain and Scandinavia
      2. Europa (Tier V)



Screenshot 2025-02-12 121247.png

Some countries have different flags depending on the exact manner in which they are formed. For example this variant of the Union Jack with a dominant saltire when you start as Scotland.


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And some formables come with little treats to sweeten the deal.


Screenshot 2025-02-12 123920.png

The Teutonic Order has a long way to go before they can become Prussia…


Screenshot 2025-02-12 124144.png

But it might be worth it…


Screenshot 2025-02-12 121702.png

Some exist to fulfil common player fantasies, but only appear if the player chooses in the Game Rules to have the less historical ones.



This is our current list of formable countries, let us know which ones you would like us add!

FormableTierNote
Europa5Ahistorical
Rome4Ahistorical
Hindustan4Plausible
Holy Roman Empire4Plausible
Byzantium4
Ilkhanate4
Iran4
Mongolia4
Mughals4
Rûm4
Russia4
United States4
Celtica3Ahistorical
Latin Empire3Ahistorical
North Sea3Ahistorical
Al-Andalus3Plausible
Arabia3Plausible
Canada3Plausible
Egypt3Plausible
Germany3Plausible
Italy3Plausible
Malaya3Plausible
Ruthenia3Plausible
Scandinavia3Plausible
Shan3Plausible
Banten3
Bengal3
Deccan3
Delhi3
Ethiopia3
Great Britain3
Gujurat3
Hausa3
Inca3
Kongo3
Manchu3
Maratha3
Mexico3
Poland-Lithuania3
Punjab3
Rajput3
Siam3
Sokoto3
Spain3
Timurids3
Two Sicilies3
Yamato3
Africa2Ahistorical
Carthage2Ahistorical
Hen Ogledd2Ahistorical
Aotearoa2Plausible
Greece2Plausible
Jerusalem2Plausible
Livonia2Plausible
Maya2Plausible
Albania2
Armenia2
Austria2
Ayutthaya2
Bahamis2
England2
Georgia2
Golden Horde2
Holstein2
Ireland2
Navarre2
Nepal2
Netherlands2
Poland2
Prussia2
Scotland2
Serbia2
Sweden2
Switzerland2
Tibet2
Wales2
Connacht1Plausible
Ulster1Plausible
Aïr1
Bavaria1
Beja1
Mazovia1
Mecklenburg1
Mossi1
Nassau1
Northumbria1
Pomerania1
Sardinia1
Saxony1
Silesia1


That's it for today's dev diary. Thanks for reading, and we'll see you next time, where we will talk about Subject Types, and an interesting part of the Castilian player fantasy…
 
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In the text you say that England is tier 3 and Great Britain is tier 4 but in the table is is tier 2 and 3, which is correct,
The table is correct, I'll fix the text

Are there any advantages to being a higher tier or does it only impact which tags you can form?
Tier is purely to prevent you from forming lesser tags.
 
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Both Byzantium and Rome are in tier iV, so does that mean Ai Byzantium will not form Rome?

Why would the Roman Empire form Roman Empire? :p
 
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Shouldn't Denmark be reformable? It would make sense as an achievement to get the old "Estridsen" dynasty back by starting as Slesvig and reforming Denmark.

I might lose my citizenship but.. I agree
 
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I suppose that the "Cross of Burgundy" as the Spanish flag is only possible if the former is somehow linked to Burgundy (conquest, PU...)?
This is the default option, but clearly the best flag
 
What flag are you gonna use for The Netherlands? The prinsen flag (orange white, blue) or the staten flag (red, white, blue). I prefere the staten flag.

Prinsenvlag
 
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News tormorow: Strategy game designer hauled before Swedish court for high treason

thank god I live in a civilized country these days
 
Is there still this nonsense of 'Lowlander (English)' culture and 'Highlander (Celtic)' culture? I think I could accept it so long as one of the two is one of the 'hybrid' cultures keeping them in the same group. Either Lowlander (English) inside the Celtic group, or what I'd prefer Highlander (Celtic) in the English group.
The Scottish cultures belong to the following (Groups) and [Languages]:
  • Scots (British, Scottish) [English Language]
  • Highland (British, Scottish, Celtic) [Gaelic Language]
  • Norse-Gael (British, Scottish, Celtic, Scandinavian) [Gaelic Language]
 
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Shouldn't the formables depend instead on percent of development in (required) regions instead of literal location count? (ie. own 75% of dev in Scandinavia instead of 75% of locations) Dev seems more logical to me (maybe combine dev and location count? Location count on its own seems to be a bit ignorant of the possible in-game situation).
We thought about that kind of thing, using development or population to give locations a score towards country formables.

It becomes more difficult for players to understand what they need to do to achieve the goal though, and also it could lead to a weird situation where the player makes Denmark super developed and can then claim "Scandinavia" without even setting foot in Norway or Sweden.
 
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I would like to heavily criticize your "Scotland forms Great Britain" Flag. Scotland did form Great Britain. The English throne was inherited by Scotland. The Stewarts were Scottish and nephews of Robert the Bruce who famously defeated the English. The normal union jack is the "Scotland forms Great Britain". There's always the narrative in EU games that is was the other way around, which always ends with England ahistorically conquering Scotland.
Although James VI was Scottish, on balance England was the initiator and the 'winner' in both the 1606 personal union and especially the 1707 political union (which the formable most closely represents). Both were plots driven from London and went on to strengthen London as the political centre of the island, leaving Edinburgh politically weaker.
 
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Hen Ogledd did surprise me though, even if the "Celtica" name is very silly to me.

Celtica is a horrendous name for a Pan-Celtic tag, not only is it derived from an exonym, it also just isn't used in any historical context,

Yeah I'm trying to think of a name myself as Celtica seems very Latin lol


The concept of pan-Celticism is a modern one so it will be hard to find a single name that works perfectly in the historical context. But the name "Celtica" does have some currency as it was coined by pan-Celticist historian Peter Berresford Ellis to discuss his proposed Celtic nation and has been used by others since.
 
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Why are most Latin American republics missing despite achieving independence prior to 1837? There's only Mexico, we're missing Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Central America, Rio de la Plata, just to name a few. Would be nice to have Quebec, Louisiana, California and Texas as well.
A lot of the Colonial nations will naturally be called that way and won't need to use the formable system. There's definitely a few good suggestions here that should be formables that we can add though.
 
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