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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.


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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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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I get not giving the conquistador system to everyone, but have you considered giving it to Russia? The model of "send a small army into unexplored territory and see what they conquer" sounds ideal for Cossack armies in Siberia.
 
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Some time back, I proposed mechanics to model royal appanages, specifically because normal vassal mechanics can't really deal with the complicated succession issues that rose between, say, France and Burgundy, leading to the Burgundian succession and all that.

It would be better to have natural mechanics where something like the Burgundian succession can emerge organically instead of being some hardcoded event specifically for one tag. And for Project Caesar, this is especially important now that the starting date means there won't be any reason to hardcode a Burgundy closely descended from the royal line, but we presumably would still like interesting things like succession wars over appanages to happen.

At the time, the devs said that it was too late in EU4's life cycle to implement these mechanics. But now we have a new game coming, so there is no reason not to implement these mechanics now instead of waiting until the code becomes too settled to change.

Burgundy and Brittany should be appanages

If France is going to have an appanage system, then Burgundy and Brittany should be included among its subjects. Both of these tags are supposed to be ancient appanages under the French crown. In fact, they were the prototypes behind the entire French appanage system.

Burgundy was the original appanage, granted by Henri I of France to his brother Robert in 1032. This appanage was maintained under Robert's descendants for over three centuries until their extinction in 1363, upon which Burgundy reverted back to the French crown and Jean II de Valois immediately re-issued it as a new appanage under his son Philippe, founder of the EU4 de Bourgogne dynasty.

EU4 Brittany began as an appanage (as the county of Dreux) given to Robert I of Dreux by his father Louis VI of France in 1137. One of his descendants married the heiress of Brittany (at the time a separate vassal of France) in 1213, securing its dynastic control under the French crown.

Whatever appanages are in the game, their mechanics should be built accurately enough to sensibly include both Brittany and Burgundy, and at the same time be flexible enough to allow these two tags to be independent actors as they were historically. Burgundy was in a civil war with Orleans, Armagnac, and other French appanages in the early 1400s. Brittany had an on-and-off alliance with the English throughout the Hundred Years War.

Ideally, introducing a new subject type would finally give us a way to model the long-time vassalage relationship that Burgundy and Brittany are supposed to have under France, which the game currently pretends doesn't exist.






Provence should also be an appanage, renamed Anjou

Rene de Anjou's senior title was Duke of Anjou, making him a peer of France and a prince of the blood. His great-grandfather Louis I was the son of Jean II de Valois, who in 1356 issued the County of Anjou (later elevated to a duchy in 1360) as an appanage to Louis, around the same time that Jean II appointed his other son Philippe Duke of Burgundy.

When Rene died in 1480, the Duchy of Anjou passed to his nephew Charles IV. When Charles IV died without an heir, the Duchy of Anjou reverted back to the control of the French crown.

The examples of Burgundy and Anjou demonstrate a general principle about appanages: they "expire" when the cadet branch ruling them goes extinct, whereupon the land returns to the King of France.






Appanages should be quasi-independent entities

To model this, I think appanages should be allowed to declare war on one another, on France, hold their own subjects, and also be able to conduct their own independent foreign policy. In some respects similar to Japanese daimyo.

One possibility would be to allow appanages to progressively unlock more diplomatic options such as foreign royal marriages, foreign alliances, and declaring wars as their development exceeds certain thresholds (relative to France). Basically, appanages become more like independent states as they grow more powerful relative to the crown. This way Burgundy would behave like an independent state, Bourbonnais would behave more like a loyal vassal, and Brittany would be somewhere in between.

But wars between France and its appanages should be uncommon events which are hugely destabilizing to French society, and so these should come with serious penalties for the attacker. If France attacks an appanage, then this should massively lower loyalty and trust with all of its appanages and also give a diplo rep hit. On the other hand, an appanage which attacks France should take a huge hit to legitimacy, stability, diplo rep, and trust/opinion with other appanages. In both cases the defender should get a -100 opinion of the attacker. A feudal lord is supposed to protect his subjects; the subjects are supposed to remain loyal.

These penalties should still apply in a reduced form if either France or the appanage gets called into war by an ally against the other. The prototype case here is Burgundy being called by England into the Hundred Years War against France. Historically, this was a difficult and desperate decision made by Philippe III of Burgundy, who was caught between England on one side and his Orleanais enemies on the other. He considered siding with England to be the least bad of the terrible options he had, but this was naturally seen as a huge betrayal by French society, bringing many ill consequences for Burgundy as a result. So in the game, I think Burgundy should indeed get the penalties above for doing this (but not as much as if it had been the main attacker).





Diplomatic annexation should not be a simple thing with appanages

The main reason why appanages caused such a headache for French kings is precisely because they had protected feudal rights which prevented the crown from simply revoking (i.e. annexing) them at will. So appanages should not be something that France can just annex after waiting for 10 years. And, of course, we definitely don't want France to just start annexing Burgundy in 1454.

To model this, I would tentatively propose that diplomatic annexation of an appanage should only be allowed if France holds a PU over that appanage for 20 years. In other words, France has to jump through all of the usual tricky hoops for getting a PU, except that the bonus here is that it only has to wait 20 years instead of 50 to start integration. To implement this idea, the game needs to be able to recognize a subject which is both an appanage and a PU.

But what if another nation gets a PU on an appanage, or if an appanage should die without an heir?

While an appanage should be allowed to RM other nations, it should be blocked from falling under PU to anyone aside from France, in the same way that nations at war currently cannot become junior PU partners. Instead, they get a new ruler of the RM partner's dynasty.

As for dying without an heir, this leads us to the next section, which arguably should be a central distinguishing feature for appanages, given how the nature of being a feudal appanage is fundamentally based on dynastic ties with the French monarchy.






Mechanic proposal: dynastic succession in appanages

First of all, appanages should be locked into being feudal monarchies. They are by definition feudal subjects of France created for cadet branches of the royal dynasty, so no republican or theocratic nonsense should be allowed here.

That said, I think an appanage which dies without a male heir should trigger an event about being re-absorbed into the French crown. This is famously what happened to Burgundy when Charles the Bold died and Louis XI declared the French duchy of Burgundy reverted to the crown, which led to the succession war we call the Burgundian inheritance in EU4.

On the other hand, when the line of Burgundy went extinct in 1363, Jean II decided to re-issue the appanage under his son Philippe as the new Duke of Burgundy. So there should be different possibilities for how to resolve a succession crisis for an appanage.

One way of implementing this would be to have France get an event when an appanage ruler dies without a male heir. When this happens, France gets an option to either re-absorb or re-issue the appanage under a member of the ruling French dynasty:

----- 1) If France chooses to re-issue, then the appanage gets a new ruler of the French dynasty and a big loyalty bonus to France. France gets 100 diplo points.

However, if the appanage is very large (say >100 development, or more development than France), then the appanage gets the option to refuse a re-issue order (this being a rather bossy demand to impose on such a powerful subject), upon which France can choose to compromise by recognizing the current appanage ruler. The outcome here is similar to that of re-issuing: France gets a +100 opinion bonus from the appanage and again 100 diplo points.

If France doesn't like this counter-offer, then it can flatly refuse, which automatically reverts it to choosing the next option...

----- 2) If France chooses to re-absorb, then it immediately gets cores on all French region land held by the appanage + its subjects (so for Burgundy this would include the French duchy of Burgundy, but not Burgundian land in the Low Countries). Then the appanage gets an event where it can decide to either accept or refuse the decision.

---------- 2a) If it accepts, then these French lands are surrendered by the appanage + its subjects and given to France as cores (this may mean complete annexation by France). The appanage gets -100 opinion of France, on top of the now-present "has a core" and "wants your provinces" modifiers.

---------- 2b) If it refuses, it immediately breaks the appanage relationship, France gets a -100 opinion of the appanage (on top of the now-present ""has a core" and "wants your provinces" modifiers), and France gets a special re-absorption CB.

So what is this re-absorption CB? It has a long timer, say 50 years, and it lets declare France war on its former appanage to re-instate the appanage relationship and/or also take French cores for very little AE. In particular, France can take some cores and also re-instate the appanage, but it isn't allowed to re-instate the appanage if it takes all of the appanage land in the France region (as this would make no sense).

The point of this design is to offer two strategic choices with neither one being always superior to the other. If an appanage has grown extensively beyond its native French lands (such as Burgundy), it may be better for France to play the long game, re-issue or recognize the appanage to maintain friendly relations, and aim for a future PU rather than rushing to re-absorb it by force, which may get it only the French domains and lose the chance of winning the whole prize.






Proof of concept: modeling the Burgundian inheritance through appanage succession mechanics

So how might these succession mechanics work in practice?

Well, suppose Burgundy's ruler Charles dies with a female heir Marie. Marie becomes the new ruler.

Marie of Burgundy gets a letter from France demanding re-absorption. France gets cores on Dijonnais and its state, Artois, Picardy, etc.

Marie refuses. Therefore Burgundy breaks its appanage from France and becomes an independent state under Marie.

Meanwhile, France gets a special re-absorption CB on Burgundy.

After considering several offers, Marie decides to marry and ally Austria.

France attacks Burgundy + Austria and grabs all of its cores back (but doesn't re-instate the appanage).

Marie continues to rule the remaining (independent) Burgundy.

Later, Marie dies and Burgundy falls under a PU to Austria.

Long story short, we have re-enacted the historical Burgundian succession crisis, done organically through a natural mechanic modeling French appanages, rather than through a one-time railroading event designed specifically to hit a specific ruler of Burgundy (the game even prevents us from disinheriting him just to force the crisis to occur).

Thus, we get an EU4 France with appanage mechanics complex enough to re-create the historical Burgundian succession, while at the same time flexible enough to allow for an open-ended sandbox of possibilities. They could lead us to a Breton or Orleanais succession instead of Burgundy.






In conclusion: if the game is going to do French appanages, then it should do them right. This means a more ambitious mechanic design which can capture all of the historical situations outlined in this post.
 
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Like others in this thread have said I also agree that Conqistadors being locked to Iberians only is weird. I understand that they are meant to represent the unique turn of events that caused the Spanish conquests of Mexico and Peru but many other European explorers and early colonizers acted in a similar way - they were funded and prepared by a European country, then sent on their merry way and showed results based on their own merit.

We already have an explorers mechanic similar to the Conquistadors mechanic as shown above - where we fund an explorer and when he is ready he sets sail on his own. I think these mechanics should be tied together, since they're so similar anyway, to be called Expeditions. You should be able to prepare Exploration Expeditions (as was already shown before) or Military Expeditions (the Conquistadors as shown here, but available to any colonizing nation that has a valid target area).

Explorers should have the option to be given permission to establish outposts, giving you free locations sometimes, which would model the many many times explorers ended up founding colonies wherever they arrived.

Military Expeditions (Conquistadors) are a logical continuation of explorers, its what happens when you send an "explorer" to "explore" a developed native empire. There is absolutely no reason why French or English "explorers" wouldn't have done the same thing to the Aztecs that the Spanish did should they have arrived first.

(...)

By the way, now that I mention Timofeyevich, it's interesting to add that his expedition was funded by the noble Stroganov family and not sanctioned by the Tsar. There are numerous other cases of explorers that were not funded by the head of state of the country they explored for, but rather an estate - a noble family, a charter company of burghers, etc. What if some expeditions will launch with the funding of estates without the player's permission?
Fully agree, perhaps Iberians and Russians should have an unique interaction where their nobles launch it at their will, even if in only specific areas and sectors.

As a complete mechanic, it probably should be extended to would be colonial powers everywhere, even if later in the game or ties to specific requisites.
 
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In EU4, Ottomans often vassalizes and annexes Wallachia, but historically Wallachia survived until the beginning of V3

Will there be a solution to the problem of EU4 countries always turning their March states into Vassal states.
 
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What's the advantage of establishing a Colonial Nation vs maintaining direct rule over New World locations?

Regarding "Conquistadores", two things:
1) Perhaps a rebalancing in trade goods requirements is in order. It seems a bit odd an exepedition needs as many horses as it needs weaponry or liquor. Also, no firearms?

2) Can such an expedition be directly sent to tagless/unowned locations as a way to fast track the establishment of a settlement? (Thinking about São Salvador da Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo...)

Best regards
 
Please tell me that Antagonism has replaced Aggressive Expansion, and that it's not just a name change, but is instead like the threat mechanic that was suggested in the related TT.
 
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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.
is this available to third parties? can another nation, e.g. england, start an independence movement within france, or will england have to be invited by already unruly subjects?

example I could think of(out of time, I know): carthage during the second punic war instigated disloyalty in rome's allies.
 
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  • It is not obvious what the parenthetical numbers represent. mayby it needs a title
  • I would decimal point align both of the number sets in the Available column
  • I like seeing the completion date but can we also get a time remaining count. Might not really by needed with short ones but with the 30 year annexation of Scania it might get tiring to do the math to see it is 13.5 years remaining.
conq_1.png


  • What does the red X mean?
  • If it is something that we can never do (i.e. we cannot have fiefdoms) please hide the option.
  • The list should be grouped better and not just alphabetical
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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.
Presumably, there are some harsh limits on how much territory can be directly controlled early in the game? Or annexing subjects is really slow and/or expensive then, and faster later?
 
I prefer having individual diplomats to diplomatic capacity. Diplomats turn diplomacy into active gameplay rather than passive gameplay. The player has to be alert and be on the lookout for opportunities (like getting a powerful ally or vassalizing a minor power) to send diplomats and seize the moment. If they are a little on the slow side those opportunities might be snatch up by the AI, but it is not the end of the world because there will be other opportunities.

Diplomatic capacity makes everything to same-y and gamified.
 
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Its for Flanders there, but..
The calculation is also inconsistent. The total is 1.15 according to the background but if you do the math in the tooltips you're far from it. The closer I get is 1.14 if I sum the cost of economy and navy minus the cost of army. I think this should be reviewed.
 
In contrast to many others I find the conquistadores as a separate subject just for the Iberians a terrible mechanic. Because what else is it but the crown giving the nobility (the conquistadore) the privelage to create crown colonies where the crown gets its 'fair' share in the profits and a temporary small boost in noble estate loyalty (so there is an incentive to send out further conquistadores. Just create a set of requirements (need to be a kingdom or higher rank) to be able to hand out this privelage etc that as a result makes this privelage available to the Iberians, but also any other nation fulfiling the requirements. That way you can also hand out this privelage from other nations. You can even use the same mechanic to give a privelage to the burgher estate which starts creating private enterprise colonies like the Dutch did with the WIC/VOC. And why should such subjects be limited to the Dutch/Low Countries?
 
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On the availability of the conquistador mechanic. Isn't that a good candidate for a game rule? 'Historical', 'anyone with a colony in the Caribbean', 'everyone', or something like that?
 
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