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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.


Screenshot 2025-02-12 123920.png

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'm not sure why you classify the Latin empire as "ahistorical" but the kingdom of Jerusalem as "plausible", when the Latin empire is more recent and some of its successor states still exist in the region at the start date.

Why wouldn't a particularly successful e.g. achean ruler reclaim the Latin imperial title?

The achean prince kept claiming the titular Latin emperor ship until 1383, so, at least on paper, the Latin empire still exists at the start of the game.

I would move it to plausible.

Also I would add Lombardy as a tier 2 plausible formable for northern Italian country, since at the time the entire of northern Italy was called Lombardy and since many rulers who tried to hegemonize the region (chiefly Milan) harkened back to the iron crown/kingdom of Lombardy of the early middle ages.
 
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What tier is Poland in-game? I would have thought it starts at tier 3, which would mean that the AI never forms Poland-Lithuania even if it has the right conditions?

Also, Can you form a country as a subject of another? For example, say I am the King of Spain and conquer the Holy Land, if I released Syria as a dominion and fed it the rest of the Levant, could it form Jeruselum?
 
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If we form the Angevin Empire for example

Will we have access to both English and French advances ?

How will something like this work?
 
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United Kingdom is additional flavor for the Great Britain tag
How variable will names be for formables, for instance Emperor of the British Isles was proposed title for George III when the act of union was passing meaning an highly plausable alternative name for the UK would have been Empire of the British Isles or British Isles for short.

Edit: does this mean Irish tags can form Greate Britain/United Kingdom?
 
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I would propose to add Romagna as a formable for the tags near the Ravenna Area. The Duchy of Romagna briefly existed in 1501-1502 as an indipendent domain under Cesare Borgia's rule, but was dismantled as soon as he lost all of his powers in the region.
 
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Some ideas for additional formables:
Austria-Hungary (plausible) - already in EU4, existed since 1848-ish
Great Moravia (ahistorical) - already in EU4, existed in early middle ages
Gaul/Gallia/Bro-C'hall (ahistorical) - replaces France for Britanny?
Sarmatia Europaea (ahistorical) - PLC wet dream
Iberian Union (plausible) - teoretically existed for a while, a mega-Spain, basically
Sweden-Norway (plausible) - existed IRL as a PU between Sweden and Norway (duh)
Old Saxony/Great Saxony (ahistorical) - bigger version of Saxony before Charlemenge annexed them
Franconia
Swabia
Hesse
Brandenburg (if they were to ever shatter)
Hannover
...
here actually you could add a lot of HRE minor titles that got destroyed and re-created)
...
Romania (plausible) - alsmost formed under Michael the Brave
Ukraine (plausible) - the logical endpoint of cossack uprisings
Ruthenia (plausible) - technically formed during the game span by Galicia-Volhynia when they converted to Catholicism and got named "kingdom of Ruthenia"
Mongol Empire (ahistorical) - as a re-creation
Antioch, Edess, Tripoli (all plausible like Jerusalem) - other crusader states
The Levant (ahistorical) - union of the above
The Caliphate (plausible) - the Ottomans argualby held the title
Rheged (ahistorical) - possible formable for a Cumbric culture, that should still be more or less around
Pritann (Britannia) (ahistorical) - GB for the Celts
Rhineland (plausible bordering on ahistorical) - can also represent a unified Rhine League
Westphallia (plausble)
West Rome (ahistorical)


That all I could brainstorm quickly
 
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Glorious. Love the proper setup of tiers and game rules. Will allow for great player choice and cleaner moddability.

The more that are implemented now the easier modding will be as people will add additional flavour to existing tags instead of having 5 different formable mods with same tags.

Some quick ideas
FormableTierRule
Illyria3Ahistorical
Intermarium4Ahistorical
Occitania (if cathar exists)2Ahistorical
Maghreb3Ahistorical
Czechoslovakia1/2Ahistorical/Plausible
Belgium1/2Ahistorical/Plausible
Azerbaijan2Plausible


Also a game rule for subjects (split between normal and colonial) being able to form new nations would be great.
 
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Some Input:
-Change Malaya name into Nusantara
-Make Arabia and Malaya tier 4 Formable as it doesn't make any sense that Malaya and Arabia are tier 3 formable, which contain Banten and Egypt.
 
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I doubt I would ever personally aim to form any of the following but they might be nice for some players:

1) Angevin Empire (if you control both England and France, though why people would prefer this to GB I do not know).
2) Frankish Empire (Reforming the Empire of Charlemagne, controlling HRE + France).
3) Lotharingia
4) Iberia (Spain + Portugal, someone with more knowledge of Iberian history may correct me here and say that Spain suffices for this constellation).
5) Baltic Empire (any country controlling the majority of the territory around the Baltic Sea).
6) Germanic Empire (similar to Latin Empire but for the Germanic areas of Europe)
7) Slavonic Empire (similar to above but for the Slavic parts of Europe)
 
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Could there be a game rule that allows the AI to form formables of the same rank (with a check to prevent them from cycling back and forth between the same formables)?
 
Brilliant Dev Diary!

Wondering why Ulster (Uladh) and Connacht are formables and Meath (Mhí) Leinster (Laighean) and Munster (Mumhan) aren't formables? Or to be added I suppose. Wondering as well can you have subjects that can make formables?

Say as an example, if you are Napoleonic France could you force your subjects into a Rhinebund.

Essentially building a strong ally for yourself that you would never vasselise.

Say you do have a subject that can make a formable, and they do and their rank is higher than yours, does that elevate them above you? Or break the subjugation?

Also when you form Russia it unified the culture group. What does this mean? Do all cultures within the Russian group convert extra bonus assimilation within that group etc? And is it for that tier of title or just Russia? Say if you form Celtica would that create a new unified Celtic culture?

Sorry for all the questions its a super meaty dev diary!
 
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