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Tinto Talks #51 - 19th of February 2025

Welcome to the 51st Tinto Talks, the Happy Wednesday where we give you information about our entirely secret game with the Codename of Project Caesar.

Today we will talk about subjects and how they function in our game


Subjects and their Overlord
In Project Caesar, as it starts at the end of the Medieval Era, and reaches into the Post-Napoleonic World, we have to have a system that works for feudal states and also for grand empires spanning the world. This is simulated by our subject system.

A Subject is any country that is subordinate to an overlord. It typically has limitations on its diplomacy in return for protection in a war. Subjects may also suffer subject taxation, and have a certain percentage of their great power score exacted by their overlord. Additionally, a subject may not become a great power. The exact rules are dependent on the subject type. Subjects have subject loyalty towards their overlord, and a liberty desire - both of which indicate their current stance on their subordination. Any subject may in turn be the overlord of other countries, allowing long chains of Subject-Overlord relationships.

An Overlord is a country that has any number of subjects as its subordinates. In return for protecting each subject in wars, it typically receives subject taxation, and exacts a certain percentage of the subject's great power score. The exact rules are dependent on each subject's subject type. Any Overlord may in turn be the subject of other countries, allowing long chains of Subject-Overlord relationships.


Subject Loyalty
Every subject has a Subject Loyalty towards their overlord. Ranging from 0 to 100, and when a subject has less than 50 subject loyalty towards its overlord, it becomes a Disloyal Subject. When in such a state, it will no longer join the wars of its overlord and cannot be annexed.

There is also the concept of ‘Liberty Desire’, which represents a subject's current drive for independence from its overlord, and it affects subject loyalty. Its value is from -100 to +100, but it has a monthly decay towards 0. The value is also used as a currency in some Subject Interactions.


subject_loyalty-png.1256229

The Bretons are loyal.. for now..



Diplomatic Capacity
As we mentioned in earlier Tinto Talks, the cost of having a subject is not a fixed number as in previous games we have made, but depends on many factors, including the type of subject.

diplomatic_capacity.png
Of course we have nested tooltips to find out detailed information..



Create New Subjects
If you have locations in more than 2 different provinces, you’ll always have the possibility to create a subject of one of your provinces. You can also select from the valid types of subjects that your country can have in that province. After you have selected the type of subject you want, you may, if the type of subject allows it,also pick the character to be the ruler of the new subject.

There are also ways to convince your subject to change from one type of subject to another type, where it would be valid.


Vassal
The most typical type of subject, a vassal oversees its territory on behalf of its overlord, pays vassal fees and joins the military campaigns of its overlord.

Almost all countries can make Vassal Subjects.

vassal.png

Probably needs to improve and merge some lines here to make tooltip less unwieldy..

Fiefdom
A Fiefdom is a junior title that is the property of its overlord's ruler. This can only be created and maintained by a Monarchy though. There are some drawbacks to it, as it can not be created by diplomatic offers, and does not grant any prestige.

March
A March is a subject country focused on defending our domain, acting as a barrier between their overlord and external threats.

A March pays half the gold that a vassal does and can not be annexed, but the March gets a discipline boost and gets better-lasting forts that are also cheaper.

Colonial Nation
A Colonial Nation is a subject centered around the administration of overseas colonies on behalf of its overlord.

There are two ways to create a colonial nation. First of all, you can make one from a conquered overseas territory, but secondly, and most commonly you have the option to create one directly from when one of your colonial charters finishes.

A Colonial Nation gives up 33% of its trade capacity and trade advantage to their overlord, while also giving up 10% of their manpower and sailors, and pays 20% of their tax to the overlord.

Conquistadors
Conquistadors are the leaders of a private army who have signed contracts with their rulers to explore and conquer certain territories in exchange for the title of Governor, and a share of the new lands and spoils.

This is a unique type of subject that is only available to Catholic countries with the Capital in Iberia, and this advance is available from the Age of Discovery.

A Conquistador can be commissioned by selecting an area in America, and then a character to lead them. It will also require about 2,000 manpower and some gold to start. It will start with preparing in a nearby good port.

conq_1.png

Just a few months…. And then it’s Conquest of Paradise.

Afterwards the Conquistador have gathered enough resources for their expedition they will set sail, and you will hear from them the next time in a few months time, informing you that they have started their activities.

conq_2.png

Let's see what he can do!

This spawns an army-based country in a location in the area, starting with about 2 regiments of conquistadors. They start at war with the owner of the location where they spawn, and will automatically conquer any location they get control over. They also have the capacity to raise levies from the local people, even if it's from a non-accepted culture. If they manage to get to peace or get enough locations they will convert into a colonial nation of yours.


Some other unique subject types we will go into detail on when we talk about countries that can use them in a Tinto Flavor include Appanages, State Banks, Hanseatic Members and more..


Playing as Overlord
Several types of subjects allow the overlord to annex a subject. Annexation is when an overlord completely takes over one of its subjects. The overlord will gain all of the subject's owned locations, and any character not fleeing to other countries.

A disloyal subject can not be annexed though, and the cost of annexation depends on the amount of cities and towns that a subject has, with rural locations having less of an impact.

scania.png

Less than 30 years, should be worth it..

There are also plenty of different subject interactions, like giving locations or provinces to your subjects, take land, manpower, gold or sailors from them and much more.

actions.png

And of course there are other unique ones..

Playing as Subject
If you play a country that is a subject you have a few tools at your disposal. First of all there are two different cabinet actions that you can use.

Frustrate Annexation
This action uses the administrative ability of the ruler and the cabinet member assigned to the task to slow down annexation.

By hindering their delegates with an archaic constitutional legislature and obstructing them at every turn, we can increase the amount of time it will take for our overlord to annex us.

Sow Disloyalty
This action uses the diplomatic ability of the ruler and the cabinet member assigned to the task to reduce the loyalty to your overlord.

By spreading cruel rumors about our overlord and espousing the benefits of ruling ourselves, we can decrease our own subject loyalty, potentially becoming a disloyal subject.


disloyalty.png

Maybe I need a better cabinet member to do it?

And if you want to become independent there are two ways to do it.

First of all, there is the classic option of just declaring war on your overlord, but that is often not entirely a good idea, especially not if you have a tax base at about 1% of your powerful overlord.

However, the other option in Project Caesar, is to start an independence movement. This is somewhat similar to a coalition in that it is an international organization with a target country. You can invite other countries to join it, including other subjects of the same overlord, and when you have gathered enough strength in your movement, often securing the backing of another powerful country, you can start the war and have a chance at liberty.



Stay tuned for next week we will delve into weather and natural disasters.
 

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Hmm, it might be interesting to have an event chain where a random soldier or explorer goes rogue and becomes a conquistador and offers the result (if successful) to you as a subject, remaining independent if you refuse. Probably game-breaking, though.

Also, I know it's going with a more historical historical path this time, but why the restriction to Catholic countries? It's true that the Protestant nations had a different approach to conquest and colonization, but that feels as much cultural as religious - there might not be as many missions established in the process, but I could imagine Andalus or even a Lutheran Spain (gasp!) still getting the idea of "send a guy with a small army of well-equipped troops to conquer this area".
 
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How much of a province’s locations will a released vassal take? If I try to release a vassal can I decide what locations they get in a specific province or will they always be released with all locations within that chosen province? Can you release multiple vassals from one province?
 
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I am not sure I like create own subjects option. I know eu4 had it two but it was late game thing and AI didn't really use it. Not being able to create own subjects created limitations that were kind fun and in my option made world more believable, as all tag (more or less) existed in one point in time.
 
This tooltip is kinda visually contradictory. The numbers not adding up notwithstanding, the values being green in the tooltip but red on the list feels bad, I'd invert the colorings in the tooltip, with anything adding to the cost being in red while anything detracting from it being in green.

you are correct
 
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Aside from Liberty Desire, will there be any way of representing desire for autonomy (not independence)?.

At least in most of the Spanish American colonies, their independence struggle started only as a struggle of autonomy. The local criollos (european-descended) wanted to be the ones to run the government but in loyalty to the crown as realms under it. Essentially turning the colonies into Fiefdoms.

Even at the end of the Mexican independence war, they requested for the King to take the crown and rule Mexico in a Personal Union.

Could there be any way to represent this "loyalist liberty desire", it was certainly widespread historically.
 
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They will flee?

Anyways:
What is preventing the AI from just annexing all their subjects immedietly? It's a pretty frustrating thing that happens in EU4 - IRL the French vassals lasted all the way until the 16th century (they're there if you manually change the date, too), but in the game the French AI just immedeitly annexes then after the 10 years timer runs off.
Disloyalty
 
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Really not a fan of the conquistador and annexation mechanics

Firstly on conquistadors, the idea of it being an ABC is really unique and well thought of. However, the whole mechanic of them conquering every location they occupy and being able to magically raise non-accepted cultures as levies seems to me both extremely ahistorical and disapointing in terms of gameplay.

It kinda feel like those mechanics are there to make sure that conquistador are able to conquer a whole region on their own, which, perpetuates hurtful clichés about the conquest of Mesoameria and the Andes by conquistadors and also leaves out a whole lot of potential diplomatic gameplay for conquistadors

Why can't conquistadors simply be an army based country that can conquer territories and also has a special cassus belli against overlords which allows them to conquer the lands of the overlord and get the former overlord's subjects as subjects of its own. Subjects of the attacked overlord would then have the option of joining the conquistadors in their war if they are disloyal enough and friendly enough with the conquistadors
I see it less like "magically raising" and more like "forcibly recruiting" or outright slaving native pops. Something that happened most of the time.

However, I agree that that approach shouldn't work against the big empires and your CB against overlords sounds like a good solution to represent the conquests of Mexico and Peru.
 
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This means that we do not have to have colonial nations, and we can directly control our lands on the new continent??
I believe they confirmed this was the case but probably you would not want to do it because low control in such a faraway land would make it practically useless.
 
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Since apparently conquistadors automatically annex any location they occupy, what if I, as the native who is being attacked, occupy that location afterwards during the same war? Do I annex it back, or do I have to take it back in a peace deal? What happens to its integration in my country, does it go back to zero, or is it still integrated? And since they are ABCs, if I completely wipe out their troops, do I automatically win the war and get back my lands?
Edit: Another question: do I have any way of stopping the colonizers from constantly sending their conquistadors in my land?
Edit 2: I've just noticed this TT is not a sticky thread. Maybe you've forgot to put it there I see you've fixed it!
 
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Is there any benefit to having your territory split among many vassals, or is the best choice always to slowly annex them into your own state?

Assuming administrative control is balanced correctly, distant lands should have zero administrative control and therefore provide zero value (tax, manpower, etc) to your nation. The only way to get value from them is to keep them as subjects. They would have 100% administrative control in their land which you can then tax.

I imagine players will figure out pretty quickly what the administrative control tipping point is for generating more value between direct vs subject control.
 
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Conquistadors sound fun and I love the army-based country mechanic but the descriptions also make me concerned they could end up a bit overpowered. Are there any restrictions in place beyond the possibility of them losing the war? You state that conquistadors start at war with the owner of a given location. Does that mean conquistadors can only target settled states (and maybe SOPs)? Because if so, that seems like the best option, since conquistadors often had the easiest time conquering settled states (i.e. the Aztecs and Inca) while struggling greatly with less organized societies (i.e. the Comanche, Apache, Mapuche, etc. all retaining independence until the very end of the game).

If they can go anywhere I worry given the already low populations you'd see, for instance, Spanish Texas in the early 1500s every game even though the first Spanish settlement didn't begin until the 1690s, or Spain regularly controlling the entire eastern seaboard of North America before Britain or France can get a chance to go across the Atlantic. I just really hope that it won't lead to a repeat of EU4 where the Americas are fully colonized by ~1600, despite a huge amount of the Americas (including almost all of the modern US/Canada) still being uncolonized by that point and even by the end of the game. It should definitely be hard to stay independent as a native SOP but it shouldn't be impossible given how many survived to 1837 irl or very nearly did.
 
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Can we get atleast the names of all the special types of subjects added to the game so far? I was hoping they will be listed in this tt, but I guess the Conquistadors are the only ones we will know about for now. A Samanta was teased earlier - is it simply a flavour variant of Vassal, or a special type of subject unique to the Indian subcontinent?

(Also it isn't just a suggestion I am begging you guys to provide a list of the subject types added to the game, even if you can't provide all the details so pleaseee Johan...)
 
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Conquistadors
Conquistadors are the leaders of a private army who have signed contracts with their rulers to explore and conquer certain territories in exchange for the title of Governor, and a share of the new lands and spoils.

This is a unique type of subject that is only available to Catholic countries with the Capital in Iberia, and this advance is available from the Age of Discovery.

A Conquistador can be commissioned by selecting an area in America, and then a character to lead them. It will also require about 2,000 manpower and some gold to start. It will start with preparing in a nearby good port.

View attachment 1256232
Just a few months…. And then it’s Conquest of Paradise.

Afterwards the Conquistador have gathered enough resources for their expedition they will set sail, and you will hear from them the next time in a few months time, informing you that they have started their activities.

View attachment 1256233
Let's see what he can do!

This spawns an army-based country in a location in the area, starting with about 2 regiments of conquistadors. They start at war with the owner of the location where they spawn, and will automatically conquer any location they get control over. They also have the capacity to raise levies from the local people, even if it's from a non-accepted culture. If they manage to get to peace or get enough locations they will convert into a colonial nation of yours.

Calling the army-based country itself a “Conquistador” sounds odd to my ear. What about calling them “Captaincies?”
 
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