• 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 #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...

1712136748556.png




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.

EaMX4E1GNzy0P9fHqbFWuoyX3mTUo0i8He3V3QHENQ5s7GCgU534Pg30YtA5_9AeZZn1wTdCFUc1n5Pl88qbfm1YOW3BsFDQQkRjvlDWr2ydETNKCk9_3zNeRVQ8YQuznfJXxTdsIgZLE8GBuecztX0

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.


1712141069161.png


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.

LkfBoN7Vx3MIHx2sSqcN7jYlJFbRYR6EzczGu3xlsixWZ-jSIxbGI_cC2i64-13G3SrtT0wVZ8XeXZDI8pXnpPlUBw2ZGPmYVqwoVfXEsu1kkQf3TAia9shMDkEf6oE83ihwG2VtA_CCydlJeXuaULM


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.
 
  • 385Love
  • 210Like
  • 21
  • 9
  • 3
  • 1Haha
Reactions:
It would be nice if some "peasants" would not care what is their religion. Something like "ideologically neutral". Maybe each culture group could have split between activists, sympathizers, bystanders, conformists, uninterested/ignorants/disengaged, and fearful stagnationists. Unrest would be when activists would be growing group in certain fraction. Some subgroups would be more prone to conversion to other subgroups if appropriate factors would occure, some would be prone to conversion to other totally different groups (and willing to become assimilating enthusiasts of other groups)...

I would like also some mechanics that would trigger differentiation of new group. Moment of split when "activists" would build their own identity. Either as a manifestation of reactionism towards the behavior of the elites (crown? nobility? clergy?) - anxiety, dissatisfaction - or as a manifestation of internal changes - heresy, schism cultural/geographical/linguistical rift
 
Last edited:
why don't Crown have popularity?
it does its called legitimacy

with low popularity
what does low popularity even mean

It would be nice if some "peasants" would not care what is their religion. Something like "ideologically neutral". Maybe each culture group could have split between activists, sympathizers, bystanders, conformists, uninterested/ignorants/disengaged, and fearful stagnationists. Unrest would be when activists would be growing group in certain fraction.

I would like also some mechanics that would trigger differentiation of new group. Moment of split when "activists" would build their own identity. Either as a manifestation of reactionism towards the behavior of the elites (crown? nobility? clergy?) - anxiety, dissatisfaction - or as a manifestation of internal changes - heresy, schism cultural/geographical/linguistical rift
that game is already out
 
How will the Sámi and Birkarls be represented in-game? By 1337 the Birkarls are just beginning their cooperation with the Swedish and to even call them a part of Sweden at this time would be a stretch. The Sámi were basically glossed over completely in EUIV and I wonder how they'll be handled here. With a more detailed map and population stats I assume we will see plenty of Sámi all around Scandinavia.
 
  • 1Like
  • 1
Reactions:
I imagine this game to be based on fuzzy logic rather than the discrete logic known to me from EU4. Where each time we manage transformation. I imagine that while in EU4 we had to build a building, here potentially it may rather be necessary to allocate funds for the development of "crown investments" or for the development of "common infrastructure" from which the crown will not have a direct profit, or regional investments, which may even sooner support local interest groups than the crown and may strengthen prosperity, development, and well-being but not affect the strength of ourselves and our influences - the crown. I imagine that investing in main communication routes with the capital would not necessarily directly develop the local economy. It would facilitate trade and stimulate merchants and provide an opportunity to establish new craft centers, but it is local infrastructure and investments in the modernization of local roads that could accelerate local transformations and affect local prosperity.
 
Question: Will Proximity over rivers/coasts/oceans be impacted by technology? It's a lot easier to communicate with and supply a fairly distant oversea possession with the European ships and seafaring of 1650 than of 1350 for example.
 
Dear Johan,

I would like to ask if there is going to be a more in depth fortress or castle costumisation, for instance pay 5 years of yearly income on a fort which would be almost impenetrable. Like in Hungary there were the “vègvàrak” these were the last line fortress defences and they were very expensive but almost unbeatable.
 
I know that the whole mobile game UI aesthetic is par for the course for these types of games nowadays, but I am pleading with you. Please make the UI more than just blue and black boxes with the opacity slider sometimes turned down. Something that I loved about CK2 as well as EU4 was that all the icons and text and UI looked medieval and had creative medieval flavor. It is really hard to get invested in a game when the UI looks like an iTunes reskin. It is honestly so immersion breaking. Please I am begging you. Make the UI unique, not modern looking, and creatively medieval. I promise it will make myself and others way more invested in the game and retain us for longer.
 
  • 9Like
  • 2
Reactions:
I'm very interested in how non-governmental institutions will be implemented.
Like the Hanseatic League (which we've seen in one screenshot), Teutonic Order, future West India Company, etc.

With the systems in place for subjects, estates and control, they would surely spice-up the politics.
Maybe we would even form personal rivalries or partnerships after long years of their leaders maintaining good diplomacy and exchange.
 
How can proximity be made faster? Can roads and canals be built? Techs?

Assuming that the game ends in 1821 as EU traditionally does or ends in 1836, at the beginning of Victoria game timeframe, you might also have a steamboat to play a role in this proximity thing, though it would be very late-game and extremely limited as well expensive given the infancy of steam-driven ship tech. Moreover, their reliability would be questionable as engines would have been more prone to explosions than it would be in later Victoria game timeframe, owing to its infancy and limited experience in handling them. Thus, there could be a relatively higher chance of events popping up that informs you of disasters disrupting the steam-driven transportation that temporarily reduces its proximity impact. Consequently, high expenses and other constraints will mean you will have to consider very carefully where to invest the limited resources into this relatively new form of waterborne transportation in late-game, as your economy can only support a limited number of steamboats at a time. Certainly, the highly urbanized areas would be the best place to make this investment, but not necessarily absolute. Maybe you would prioritize provinces with valuable resources for steamboat service instead.

That being said, Robert Fulton, the American inventor well regarded for his steamboats, had already developed steamboats by 1807 while the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by a *partially* steam-driven ship had taken place in 1819. However, there is no reason to not think that tech may be developed a bit earlier than historically was in the alternate history that plays out in the game, if the conditions are right. For all we know, we could have the first commercially viable steamboat service by the 1780s and the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by 1810 instead of 1819.

It is important to note that sailing ships remains by and large commercially viable by 1810s despite the appearance of this relatively novel form of maritime transportation, since the steam engine back then were relatively less efficient and required lots of fuel against more limited storage capacity allowed by those early steam engines designed for the ships, such that sailing ships remains commercially preferable and competitive form of transportation for crossing the ocean at that time. I suspect that it would remain to be the case even if tech were developed a bit earlier. But, obviously, if the game ends in 1836 instead of 1821, then the constraints will be considerably less but still significant.

As a final note, the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean wholly under the steam power (as opposed to the aforementioned 1819 case above) was historically made in 1838, already in Victoria game timeframe. But maybe it will happen in 1835 instead, if we're lucky. ;P
 
a few questions:

Will cities be able to “sprawl“ over multiple locations? If a city gets populous enough, could we see the locations surrounding it increase in population as well? I think it would look kinda weird if all the population ends up super concentrated.

And will towns/cities be able to arise autonomously? I feel that plenty of towns weren’t exactly planned. E.g. gold or some other mineral is found in an area and people flock to it for opportunity and a town forms around it. Or the growth of towns along trade lines. Etc

I know you mentioned that towns/cities can be depopulates in a previous reply, but can they be demoted in category? E.g. if a town was sacked by a nomadic horde could it return to being rural settlements or a city was devastated by plague and war could it become a town?
 
  • 2Like
  • 2
Reactions: