• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

Tinto Talks #58 - 9th of April 2025

Hello, and welcome to another Tinto Talk, the happy Wednesdays where we talk about our entirely super-top-secret game with the codename Project Caesar.

Today, I will be your host instead of Johan since we will be talking about the flavour mechanics. These will be basically IOs, Situations, and Religions, and we will be talking about a bunch of them for some weeks, although from time to time Johan will come back to present some other stuff. So, let’s start without further ado with the Holy Roman Empire, the most convoluted organization invented by mankind only Imperial polity that existed in Western Europe for most of the game period.

In 1337, it’s a very different beast compared to previous installments in other PDX GSGs. The Great Interregnum that started in 1254 after the deaths of Frederick II and Conrad IV of the House of Hohenstaufen, and the double election of two contenders (Richard of Cornwall and Alfonso X of Castile) in 1257 led to a period of weak and diminishing Imperial Authority. In the coming decades, the Houses of Habsburg, Luxembourg, and Wittelsbach would fight for the Imperial election, making the Electorates increasingly more important.

HRE Map.jpg

A beautiful beast! The color code for every country:
  • Yellow: Emperor
  • Light Blue: Prince-Elector
  • Middle Blue: Archbishop-Elector
  • Dark Blue: Imperial Prelates
  • Light Green: Free Imperial Cities
  • Middle Green: Republics
  • Pink/Brownish: Imperial Peasant Republics
  • Grey: Imperial Princes
  • Purple Stripes: Imperial Land not owned by an HRE member
  • Other stripes: Land owned by an HRE member not yet incorporated as Imperial land

Here is an overview of the HRE IO panel and all the different member types that you can find by scrolling down on it:

HRE Panel1.png

Prince-Elector.jpg

Archbishop-Elector.jpg

Free Imperial City.png

Imperial Prelate.jpg

Imperial Peasant Republic.jpg

And here is the sub-panel that show all its members:

HRE Members.png

The HRE comes with a bunch of mechanics and features, which you can easily grasp in the IO’s tooltip:

HRE Tooltip.jpg

HRE Tooltip2.jpg

Let’s start with the most important base feature, the Imperial Authority, which is the currency used by the Holy Roman Emperor to enact Imperial Laws. There are a few sources to either add or subtract Imperial Authority:

Imperial Authority.jpg

Note: the missing +0.01 comes from value rounding which is not reflected in the tooltip.

Imperial Laws create different effects that impact the members of the HRE. At the start, there are only two available:

Imperial Laws.jpg

You may notice that there’s a category, ‘Fundamental Laws’, with only one policy possible, the ‘Golden Bull’. This was the single most important law approved in the HRE, becoming its base political constitution up until its dissolution after being enacted in 1356. In Project Caesar, the Emperor has a very high incentive to pass it as soon as possible, as it unlocks additional laws and actions:

Golden Bull.png

When you have 35 Imperial Authority, you can try to enact it, and a Vote in the Imperial Diet will happen:
Golden Bull vote.jpg

That works quite similarly to country parliaments, as you have to secure a positive vote of the different HRE members:

Golden Bull Diet.png

And this would be the situation after the law passes, with 8 new Imperial Laws available:

Imperial Laws2.jpg

Imperial Laws3.jpg

In general terms, most of the laws have 5 policies available, with the starting ones usually being in the middle positions of the 5. This is how it works (these are 'instructions' in the script):

#With the enactment of the Golden Bull, most HRE laws are set to the 3rd policy which has limited or no modifiers active at all
#The HRE Emperor can try to change the policy to the next adjacent one (so from 3rd tier to 4th or 2nd tier)
#The left tier is the 4th and 5th and is more in favor of benefitting the HRE as a whole
#The right tier is the 2nd and 1st and is more in favor of benefitting the HRE Emperor first and foremost

#Some laws have only 3 policies in which cases there are not pro-Emperor vs pro-Member positions

#The only law which does not follow the rule is the power_of_the_emperor_law which starts at improved_imperial_authority_policy (4) policy.
#The reason for this is to delay the unification of the HRE + there is not much design space for an even further decentralized HRE.
#As such, having 2 policies for the decentralized HRE are not really doable.

# LAW
# Pol 5 Pol 4 Pol 3 Pol 2 Pol 1
# |--------------|--------------|--------------|--------------|

Let’s take as example the Imperial Voting Law:

Electorship Law1.jpg

Electorship Law2.jpg

The Imperial Election is then a key feature, since it elects the Holy Roman Emperor, who then sets all the Imperial Laws, Diets, etc. Here you can see an example of how it works:
Imperial Election.jpg

The King of Bohemia got backed by most of the Electors, and thus, became the Holy Roman Emperor after the death of Ludwig IV of Upper Bavaria.

This event will trigger if a different country gets its ruler elected as Emperor, as in this example:

Imperial Coronation1.jpg

Imperial Coronation2.jpg

One of the factors behind the election is the Dynastic Power, a new value that is currently only used for the HRE mechanics (although it could potentially be used for other IOs, as it’s a scriptable/moddable feature), which impacts the likelihood of a certain country from a powerful dynasty to be elected or re-elected as Emperor:
Dynastic Power1.jpg

Dynastic Power2.jpg

Dynastic Power3.jpg

Last but not least is the Imperial Contribution. It is an amount of money and manpower that any member of the HRE may contribute to the Emperor, who can later spend it in Imperial Actions, and also defending the Empire (in theory…):
Imperial Payments1.jpg

Imperial Payments2.jpg

… And that’s all for today, since it’s already a very long TT! Next week, we will be taking a look at the Catholic Religion and the Catholic Church IO. Cheers!
 
  • 146Love
  • 115Like
  • 8
  • 6
  • 1
Reactions:
What does forbidden unjustified wars cover? Just no cb? I think wars in the HRE should mostly be succession based because there wasn't really any time HRE princes attacked each other for land until the 18th century. It was always a claim on a title and seizing that title.

Agreed, are there any other limits to wars in the HRE other than no-cb? How does the Landfriede law work? Are AI minors in the HRE less likely to be warmongers?
Outright wars of aggression should be pretty rare in the HRE, it wasn't exactly your classic thunderdome...
 
  • 13Like
Reactions:
A beautiful mess!

Is there a mechanism for members to secede or neighboring countries to join the HRE?
Yes, for both.
 
  • 42Like
  • 5Love
  • 4
Reactions:
How long will the HRE elections take? Same as EU4 with immediate succession, or is there a possibility for interregnums?
They're immediately resolved after the death of the former Emperor if there's a majority; if there isn't a majority, then there's an interregnum until there's a majority.
 
  • 73Love
  • 44Like
  • 8
  • 1
Reactions:
It looks like Frisia is the only peasant republic in the empire at start of game? Is the peasant republic something that can happen through revolts and/or events, eventually leading to more like Dithmarschen in EU4's start of game, or would you have to expand it forcefully by playing as Frisia?
-- EDIT: looks like in the time that it took me to type this whole comment this question was already answered lol


I do have a few other questions that I've built up after reading the previous Tinto Talks and hope that they're okay to ask here:
- Will PC have the dev console built directly into the game, or will we have to launch the game in "debug mode" like V3 or CK3? EU4's ability to open the console without having to exit and re-open the game just to fix something like a modded event not working as intended, or spawning in easter egg nations like the Synthetics or Jan Mayen is sorely missed when playing V3 and CK3.
- Is there potential in the future for multiple Tinto Flavors to happen in a week? It feels that we kind of are getting this currently with the next unspecified amount of Tinto Talks being focused on International Organizations and their mechanics, I hope that there can be the potential for multiple Flavors being gone through in a given week
- Is there a timeframe for when we will start seeing AARs from Dev campaigns, or are those still a long way off as mentioned in a previous Tinto Talk?
- In the weather Tinto Talks it was confirmed that there would be a map mode of volcanoes/faults, will there be something similar for weather systems themselves? It would be frustrating to put ships out to sea just for them to be swept away by a Cyclone that was being built up in a weather system that couldnt be seen.
 
Last edited:
  • 2
  • 1Like
  • 1
Reactions:
The "invite to the Holy Roman Empire" option should be able to be turned off at the start of the game or heavily limited. As far as I know, no country joined the HRE between 1337 and 1806, and even Imperial powers, like Prussia and Austria, did not add their newly acquired lands (in Poland, East Prussia, or Hungary) to the Empire. Obviously, I understand why people want the mechanic included, but for those of us who prefer more realism, there needs to be an option to turn it off.
 
  • 17
  • 8Like
  • 5
  • 1
Reactions:
What's up with Valentinous? It is half full grey, half colorless.
It's a bug, it should have a coloring similar to that of those locations owned by Brandenburg that are blue stripes.
 
  • 23Like
  • 7
Reactions:
1. How dynamic is IA gain/loss – can external factors (like major wars involving members) significantly impact it, or is it mostly driven by internal HRE factors?
2. Besides enacting imperial laws, are there other uses for imperial authority?
3. What are the key gameplay differences and unique interactions for the less common member types (Imperial Prelates / Imperial Peasant Republics) compared to standard Princes or Free Cities?
4. Is these a broader 'Imperial Reforms' system like in EU4, allowing gradual (de)centralization, with distinct stages and associated benefits or drawbacks?
5a) Is Imperial Contribution automatic or can members choose not to contribute (perhaps at the cost of relations or IA)?
5b) Can the Emperor influence the amount contributed?
6. How do non-HRE countries interact with the HRE as an IO? Can they easily join or leave the HRE and what are the requirements or consequences?
7. How does this IO-based HRE fundamentally change the gameplay loop compared to EU4?
8. What unique actions or decisions does the Emperor have beyond proposing laws in the Diet and managing IA? How much direct influence can the Emperor exert over members?
9. What are the key strategic considerations for a regular HRE member? Is the primary goal always to become Emperor, or are there viable alternative paths within the HRE structure?
 
  • 5
  • 3Like
Reactions:
Good dev diary. Can anyone (outside of the HRE) be elected as emperor?
 
  • 2
  • 1Like
Reactions:
Anyway, are there any big reforms possible to reshape how the HRE functions, like trying to make it a universal empire made of Frankia, Germania, Italia and Sclavinia like Otto III wanted, with large swaths of new lands being introduced at once, including some of them getting an elevated position straight away?
Some based on historical situations. For instance, these are the policies possible in the 'Power of the Holy Roman Emperor' law:

Power of the Holy Roman Emperor.png
 
  • 50Like
  • 9
  • 1Love
  • 1
Reactions:
They're immediately resolved after the death of the former Emperor if there's a majority; if there isn't a majority, then there's an interregnum until there's a majority.
Can the interregnums also last decades like IRL? If so, does it weaken the HRE to foreign adversaries in some way? And is there no King of Germany intermediary step between getting voted in by the Electors and getting coronated as the Emperor by the Pope in the earlier years?

Also, in regards to other countries joining, is the process different compared to EU4? Are big countries also unable to enter?
 
  • 9Like
Reactions:
If powerful enough, can you reform the HRE into one country?
With the 'Renovatio Imperii' policy that I just showed, yes.
 
  • 51Like
  • 7Love
  • 6
Reactions:
1744205706893.png

Why are these displayed differently if they’re basically the same thing?

Anyways seems HRE is kind of similar to how it was in Eu4, just more fleshed out, which is cool.
 
  • 7Like
  • 1
Reactions: