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Tinto Talks #6 - April 3rd, 2024

Welcome to the sixth Tinto Talks, where we talk about the design and features of our not yet announced game, with the codename ‘Project Caesar’.

Hey, before jumping into todays topic, I would like to show something very fresh out of the oven, based on your feedback last week. This is why we are doing these Tinto Talks, to make Project Caesar your game as much as ours...

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Today we will delve into three concepts that are rather new to our games, but first, we’ll talk about locations a bit more.

Not every location on the map is the same, especially not in a game of such scope as Project Caesar. By default, every ownable land location is a rural settlement, but there are two “upgrades” to it that can be done. First, you can find a town in a location, which allows you to increase the population capacity of the location and allows for a completely different set of buildings than a rural settlement. Finally, you can grant city rights to a town, which allows for even further advantages. Now you may wonder, why don’t I make every location into cities? Besides the cost and the population requirement, there is also the drawback that each of them tend to reduce your food production, while also adding more nobles, clergy and lots of burghers to your country.

Stockholm, Dublin and Belgrade are examples of towns at the start of the game, while cities include places like Beijing, Alexandria and Paris.

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Here you can see the control that Sweden currently has.

Control
Every location that you own has a control value, which is primarily determined by the proximity it has to the capital, or another source of authority in your country. There are only a few things that can increase it above the proximity impact, but many things that can decrease it further.

This is probably the most important value you have, as it determines how much value you can get out of a location, as it directly impacts how much you can tax the population in that location, and the amount of levies they will contribute when called. A lack of control, reduces the crown power you gain from its population, while also reduces the potential manpower and sailors you can get, and weakens the market attraction of your own markets, making them likelier to belong to foreign markets if they have too low control.


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Proximity
So what is proximity? It is basically a distance to capital value, where traveling on the open sea is extremely costly. Proximity is costly over land, but along coastlines where you have a high maritime presence you can keep a high proximity much further. Tracing proximity along a major river reduces the proximity cost a fair bit, and if you build a road network that will further reduce the proximity costs.

There are buildings that you can build, like a Bailiff that will act as a smaller proximity source, but that has the slight drawback of adding more nobles to the location, and with a cost in food for them.

Maritime Presence
In every coastal location around your locations, or where you have special buildings, you have a maritime presence. This is slowly built up over time based on your ports and other buildings you have in adjacent locations. Placing a navy in the location helps improve it quicker, but blockades and pirates will decrease it quickly, making it absolutely vital to protect your coastlines in a war, or you’ll suffer the consequences for a long time.

As mentioned earlier, the maritime presence impacts the proximity calculations, but it also impacts the power of your merchants in the market the seazone is a part of.

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Stay tuned, next week we’ll be doing an overview of the economy system, which has quite a lot of new features, as well as features from older games.
 
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That being said, will there be a limit to Bailiffs? Or can I just slap Bailiffs in every province and call it a day?

Because then it will just be a matter of coin to circumvent blobbing maluses via proximity.. Other than the aforementioned boosts into the estates, it should cost something to make it prohibitively reasonable in number so they can be placed strategically.
Bailiff's promote pops to noble status, which increases the Nobility's estate power relative to both other states, but also the Crown. And presumably noble pops have higher food requirements than other pop types, so having a lot of them can stress your food production. Also, I'm sure there are estate privileges for the nobility that allow them to pay less in taxes, much how it was in France during the Ancien Regime. Having a significant portion of your nation's wealth in the hands of an untaxed elite is Not Good.
I hope the roads show on the map like Imperator Rome. I really love the visuals in that game.
You can already see the roads on the map Johan posted. They are the dashed line leading out of Stockholm.
 
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Rural Settlements into Towns into Cities...

POPs...

Food...

Roads...

Among all new stuff from a EU4 to EU5 viewpoint, the most interesting of them come from (or are present in) Imperator Rome. PDX should give I:R another chance.

Concise and interesting DD by the way.
 
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Did you mean 'found' a town rather than find one?
No, I think Johan chooses his words very carefully. There will be a system of "hidden towns" that you can find in the game. Excited to see the relevant TT for that.
 
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May i ask why the Livonian crusader state looks like its own nation on the map mode presented? Will it not be represented as an autonomous branch within the Teutonic order? Or is the latter the case and it's just the map mode being silly?
 
Got two questions.
Firstly will Proximity be modified by Terrain like for example the Alps being a barrier that lowers control of a united HRE over Italy?
Secondly does Trade Warfare make more sense now that markets can shift and Maritime Presence is more important for Trade?
 
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Not every location on the map is the same, especially not in a game of such scope as Project Caesar. By default, every ownable land location is a rural settlement, but there are two “upgrades” to it that can be done. First, you can find a town in a location, which allows you to increase the population capacity of the location and allows for a completely different set of buildings than a rural settlement. Finally, you can grant city rights to a town, which allows for even further advantages.
This is something I've been wanting in CK3 and VIC3 for a while and am very excited we're getting it in Project Caesar.
Every location that you own has a control value, which is primarily determined by the proximity it has to the capital, or another source of authority in your country. There are only a few things that can increase it above the proximity impact, but many things that can decrease it further.
I love this. Gives you way more reasons to take neighboring territory instead of one that's on the other side of the continent. It also makes blobbing really inefficient early game until you can grow your infrastructure to support a large empire properly.
 
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ngl, I'm not a fan of building roads :oops: they always felt super micro-managmenty to me
(edit: I know fully well though that a lot of people DO like them)

I'm also curious, how will proximity affect countries with exclaves, for example like how Burgundy is pretty much split in half in EU4?
 
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For areas with 0 control or even low control, can the population be influenced by another country? For example, this other country might promise the nobles more power so that in the event of war these nobles rise up against the country they are a part of.
 
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Specific and Temporary Measures such as martial law or sttioning an army in a town, though I suppose these could be useful still for towns with low control.
Mattins of Bruges comes a knocking when your local French garrison gets massacred by Flemish militamen. Also the Sack of Antwerp by the Army of Flanders comes to mind. People really do not like when foreign armies garrison their lands and pillage/mutiny. The latter event also caused the Pacification of Ghent which in turn produced an irreconcialable split between regions in the Habsburg Netherlands.
 
So was warfare and colonization. Will the game come with complimentary diphtheria and malaria? It's just a question about QoL for a game, micromanagement is a painful mechanic.
, plain and simple, someone who dedicates their time micro and to look after his provinces and someone who doesnt should never have the same control, thus if you dont want micromanage your provinces to make them wealthier and more controllable, dont do it
 
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Control
Every location that you own has a control value, which is primarily determined by the proximity it has to the capital, or another source of authority in your country. There are only a few things that can increase it above the proximity impact, but many things that can decrease it further.

This is probably the most important value you have, as it determines how much value you can get out of a location, as it directly impacts how much you can tax the population in that location, and the amount of levies they will contribute when called. A lack of control, reduces the crown power you gain from its population, while also reduces the potential manpower and sailors you can get, and weakens the market attraction of your own markets, making them likelier to belong to foreign markets if they have too low control.


View attachment 1110187
Hi Johan does this mean that rural locations with less control will naturally have a higher population/population growth due to not dying in wars?
 
Will proximity directly impact AI actions? For example, will AI annex new territory based on the proximity it will have once conquered? And if a nation has no/very little control over an area then will the AI decide to form a subject there or will it have any similar reaction?

Also, if I understood well, markets will be fixed like in EU4, right?
 
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ngl, I'm not a fan of building roads they always felt super micro-managmenty to me

I'm also curious, how will proximity affect countries with exclaves, for example like how Burgundy is pretty much split in half in EU4?
it may seem like that but man is it satisfying to conquer a rebellious guy and build a road to his front door so he doesn't do it again.
 
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