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Tinto Talks #50 - 12th February 2025

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.

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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.


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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)



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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.


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


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But it might be worth it…


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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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I feel like Europa is an outlier in terms of improbability even my the standards of the ahistorical label. Specifically if you’re already the HRE or some other quasi-universal empire. I suppose I can just ignore it though.

For a more cutting question can we consolidate our subjects into various formables if they collectively meet the criteria? Oh, and why no duchy of Prussia? Is that its own tag? The dominant partener in Brandenburg-Prussia was Brandenburg, and the whole kingdom thing was a weird loophole to become a kingdom while being an imperial prince (elector).
 
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Also, two suggestions for a few more plausible/ahistorical formables:

* Yugra (T2) - formable for the Khanty and Mansi principalities, the collective term for the Khanty-Mansi statelets as a whole, and one of the Russian Tsar's titles. Yugra would serve as a good unifier tag for the small states of the region.

* Adria (T2) - a phantom kingdom consisting of papal Emilia and Romagna, promised by Antipope Clement VII to Louis I, Duke of Anjou if he could unseat the pope at Rome. Historically Adria existed only in paper and never materialised as a political entity - but several de jure kingdoms had similar origins, like how the kingdom of Sardinia existed only in paper for almost 30 years before the Aragonese conquest of Sardinia, or how the Kingdom of Frisia and Lotharingia were only relevant during the Duchy of Burgundy's attempts at acquiring a royal title. So who is to say that an ambitious ruler couldn't carve their own kingdom out of Papal territories and declare the Kingdom of Adria?
 
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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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I know the SoPs won't be playable at release, but any chance AI SoPs will be able to form countries? For example the "Five Civilized Tribes", Kingdom of Rwanda, etc... It could be a good way to transition them from SoPs to settled tags for the tribes that did settle during the timeline
 
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I assume not. Otherwise, it would be East Slavic. Ruthenian cultures probably have their own culture group that is able to form Ruthenia.
Agree, I would also expect Belarusian and Ukrainian culture groups within th Ruthenian culture group.

For example, Smolenskian culture would belong to both Belarusian and Russian culture groups.
Polesian culture – to both Belarusian and Ukrainian culture groups.
 
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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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Since we got this very versatile system I would not feel as guilty to suggest more crazy formables like culture group union wages such as Slavia(slavic speaking countries) latim union/West-romam empire(romance language countries), Germanic union(Germanic languages) and etc.

Maybe a united muslim caliphate tag would also be appropriate? I think it would be a good reward for someone reunifying the shattered Muslim world.

Curious to how this works on countries that are named after dynasties, is it like eu4 where your dynasty is fixed or the name dynamically changes ? Examples being Iran/Persia , daymios and China

The flag thing is amazing and I can see a lot of scenarios it can be used ! Imagine if you are playing Bulgaria and you conquer de Balkans and Byzantium , getting then to reform Byzantium but now it has a different flavor name and flag based on your culture ! Imagine the same for Serbia Albania creation etc, anyone claiming the mantle of Rome having a flavor such as that.
We could even go beyond and like imagine you as Albania conquering the whole of Italy and holding it for centuries... Flavor name and alt flag ! This one I see as more work demanding but would be cool regardless.
 
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little mistake there .
Hindustan is the name of the Mughal empire as an entity but it also refers in general to any arabo persian islamic domain in india since its the muslims who did call the region India inspiring it from the hindou river just like the greeks before them but not the locals . the locals obviously call it baharat but foreigners dont so Hindustan is an exonyme. Hindustan already exist in the game.
Ain-i-Akbari 16th-century detailed document refered to the Mughals as Hindustan
Bahadur Shah II also called it Hindustan.

other names of Mughal holdings are Saltanat al Hind - Bilad al Hind - Wilayate Hindoustan for ( Hind Sulatant - land of India - Dominion of Hindoustan) respectively.

Mughal itself is not a real name but a kind of slur turned to an exonym that remind the locals and rival nations like persia that the rulers are mongols related to the chagatai khanate .
the real dynasty's name is Gūrkāniyān.
so Mughal empire is not a true name , the correct name is Wilayate Hindoustan as stated in Ain i akbari document.
Mughal come from the perso arabic Maghul that means "mongol"
That is why I think the name of the empire in the game should be "Mughal Sultanate of Hindustan" or "Gurkani Sultanate of Hindustan" and the country itself should follow the Hindustan country tag. Originally during Babur's invasion it should start as Mughal sultanate of Kabul, then progress to Delhi, then eventually when a certain amount of land is conquered and incorporated, it should be able to from the Mughal Sultanate of Hindustan (at the empire rank). Mughals shouldn't be its own country just like the Tughlaqs aren't, its still the Sultanate of DELHI.

A radical suggestion in this vein would be the "Ottomans" showing up on the map as just Ottomans, but the official name should be Ottoman Beylik of Anatolia, and when they become the empire they become the "Sublime Ottoman Empire", as they will transcend regional restrictions (existing on three different continents).
 
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Or it could be a dynamic name for going feudal or peasant republic.
Perhaps the monarhical form could have been given the name Greater Carinthia or just Carinthia and the title Kingdom. The democratical from could be called Slovenia. In a theocratic form, it could be called Sveta Krka/Drava or after the capital (location), as is the case with Salzburg and Aquileia.
 
Id be interested in Portugal getting a "Reino Unido" formable nation, where it unifies with a large-size colony to form a pluri-continental empire (a la HOI4). Is that any way in the cards? :)

It could be an excellent solution to give Portugal players a tag upgrade that isn't Spain. It's benefits could be geared towards marine military pursuits, overseas ambitions and colony integration/development, as opposed to local culture group integration.

Another possibility for a "Reino Unido" path is an alternate Spain formed by a Portugal and Castille Iberian Wedding, with flavor more geared towards that hypothetical path. The earlier start date of the game certainly puts the region much closer to where that point of divergence could have happened.
 
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