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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 always in a quandary here, we're actually historically somewhere in the middle between Carantania and United Slovenia. Maybe it would be best to simply call it Slovenia, the condition would be that you have control over at least 70% of the common locations in the areas of Carniola, Carinthia and Styria and that the primary culture is Slovenian. Slovenia should be the 2nd tier of formable country so that you can establish it either with Carinthia, Carniola or Styria.
Or it could be a dynamic name for going feudal or peasant republic.
 
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I've just noticed, Hannover isn't a formable. IMO it should be and tied behind a lower-saxon nation getting the electorship or becoming a kingdom if the HRE is destroyed.
 
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"Welsh belongs to the Celtic group"

So uhhh we can change this???


Also there's a distinct lack of American nations in that list. Brazil, Chile, Texas even.

Oh, you mean if we could change what culture group cultures belong to!

I thought you were suggesting the welsh weren't celtic!

But, uh, yeah - you'd assume there'd be more colonial tags.
 
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Wrote up a quick list, definitely missed many in India, but I'm not very knowledgeable about most of those areas anyways.

South America:
  • Peru-Bolivia (Plausible)
  • Gran Colombia (Plausible)
  • La Plata (Plausible)
  • Centroamerica (Plausible)
  • Amazon (Ahistorical)
  • + all irl countries

North America:
  • Each of the following states (All Plausible):
    • Virginia (incl. WV)
    • Carolina
    • Pennsylvania
    • Texas (Old Borders)
    • Florida (incl. West Florida)
    • Louisiana (incl. og colonial boundaries)
    • Ohio (Ohio Valley, Not the State)
    • Utah {only for christians}
    • California
  • New England (Plausible)
  • Vinland (Ahistorical)
  • Quebec (Plausible)
  • Acadia (Plausible)
  • Cascadia (Ahistorical)
  • Hispaniola (Plausible)
  • Caribbean (Ahistorical)
  • Greenland (Plausible/Ahistorical)

Europe:
  • Swabia
  • Brittany
  • Aquitania (Plausible)
  • Euskara {only for basque culture}
  • Galicia
  • Lotharingia (Ahistorical)
  • Belgium (Ahistorical)
  • Galicia-Lodomeria (Plausible)
  • Transylvania (Plausible)
  • Naples
  • Sicily
  • Idel-Ural (Ahistorical)
  • Causasia (Ahistorical)
  • Balticia? (incl. Old prussian) (Ahistorical)
  • Finno-Ugria (Ahistorical) {only for uralic cultures}
  • Ukraine (Plausible)
  • White Ruthenia/Belarus (Plausible)
  • Western Roman Empire (Ahistorical)
  • Illyria (Ahistorical) *insert balkan argument here

Africa:
  • Sahara (Ahistorical)
  • Greater Egypt (Plausible)
  • Upper Egypt (Plausible)
  • Lower Egypt (Plausible)
  • Mutapa {only for bantu cultures}
  • Great Zimbabwe {only for bantu cultures}

Asia:
  • Mongol Empire (Plausible) {only for tungusic, turkic, and mongolic cultures}
  • Persian Empire (Plausible)
  • Turan (Ahistorical)
  • Khalistan (Ahistorical) {only for sikh}
  • Kurdistan (Plausible) {only for kurds}
  • Dzungaria (Plausible)
  • Korea
  • Shandong
  • Gansu
  • Liaoyang
  • Henan
  • Sichuan
  • Yunnan
  • Jiangxi
  • Jiangzhou
  • Jiangbei
  • Huguang
  • Guangxi
  • Guangdong
  • Guizhou
  • Shaanxi
  • Fujian
  • Zhejiang
  • Zhongshu
  • Lingbei
  • Liaodong
Edit: The Chinese formables should not retain their provincial name, but rather should change their name based upon what the name of which power formed it. The main point of their inclusion is to hasten the process of Chinese reunification, and allow certain states to easily gain claims on land often associated with where they are based. If you want more historical formables, then go to zerousi's post.

Oceania:
  • Polynesia (Ahistorical)
  • Micronesia (Plausible)
  • Australia
  • Aotearoa
  • Australasia (Ahistorical)
  • Hawai'i

Also, think about changing the current "africa" formable to "ifriqiya" if you make a formable for all of Africa.
 
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Why should forming al-Andalus require that all other independent Iberian nations be Muslim? It doesn't make sense, since in real life Al-Andalus existed alongside independent Christian kingdoms in the north of the peninsula. The requirements to form al-andalus should be mainly territorial, like in EU4.
 
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Could there be two rules of the game:
-The first one is that the color on the map remains that of the country that formed the country, or a variant (I don't like in my CK3 or EU4 games that Great Britain is red when I form it with Scotland, it reminds too much of England ahah)
-The second is that the country that forms a new country can keep its original flag.
 
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Here's what I think is missing from this list
Occitania, Gascony, Lusitania, Qing, France, Westphalia, Franconia, Swabia, Saxony, Japan, Sardinia Piedmont, Tuscany, Dalmatia, Romania, Hetmanate/Zaporozhia, some regional ones like unified Maghreb or Levant would be nice
and if you have US, Mexico or Canada as a formable you'll also need Brazil, La Plata/Argentina, Australia, Gran Colombia etc. as formables with maybe differences in name depending on who colonizes it
 
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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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I propose Dalmatia to be a plausible formable country by the Dalmatian culture (Ragusa maybe?).

Historically, it was never an independent country, but a newly created kingdom for a few decades within the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the final stages of the game's timeline. And, if it counts, it was a province of the Roman Empire until the barbarians took over the place.
 
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