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Tinto Talks #9 - 24th of April 2024

Welcome to another Tinto Talks, this is the 9th of its kind, where we talk about our very secret game using the codename Project Caesar. And today we continue with the 3rd of the 4 talks we have now about the economy systems of the game. So lets start..

Constructions
In the previous development diary, we mentioned constructions and how you needed lumber for expanding the mines. In this game, almost all constructions require different materials to progress, and if that material is not available in the local market, then that construction is stalled until the material is available. This includes things like road building, shipbuilding, recruiting regiments, building buildings, or expanding R.G.O’s.

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Not sure why you want another monastery?

For example, building a light ship in the Age of Renaissance requires Naval Supplies, Lumber, Weaponry, Copper, Tin, and Metalworks, while moving your capital requires Paper, Books, Stone, Lumber, Marble, and gold.


Buildings
Buildings are rather important in Project Caesar. There are hundreds of different types of buildings, some can only be built in rural locations, and some require a town or city. Some can only be built in ports, and some can only be built in other countries. Some you can only build when there is no owner of a location. Lots of buildings are unique to cultures, regions, religions, or even to specific tags.

Some buildings can only have 1 level, some have a fixed cap, and some have a cap that scales with the population or development, and so on.

Buildings can also be categorized into three different categories: buildings that can produce goods, buildings that only give effects, and buildings that can only be built by the estates. Those pure estates usually have a drawback to them as well, and it's not easy to remove them

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Definitely not something we are all that keen on having in here.. it does increase demands for some goods though..

So what about producing buildings then? This is where the truly fun parts of the economy start. Project Caesar has a large amount of different goods. We currently have about 70 different ones that have different needs, some are needed for the military, some are needed solely by pops, some are needed for buildings, and so on.

Producing Buildings in towns and cities go from guilds and workshops to manufactories and mills at the of the game. These include everything from Paper Makers Guilds to Foundries. A producing building outputs one or more types of goods.

Finally, we have buildings that are purely giving an effect. These include Granaries that increase how much food you can store, libraries that increase literacy, different types of forts, buildings that train manpower, port buildings to help with shipbuilding, and much more.

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Some claim you can build Stockades of wood, but we trust only stone!

Almost all buildings though, have a production method, which impacts how they work.

Production methods
All buildings have at least one production method slot with one production method, but many have different methods in each slot, and there are plenty of buildings with multiple production method slots.

What is a production method then?
A production method is a list of goods that are required for a building to function. There are two categories of production methods, those that produce something and those that do not.
As an example, a Castle does not produce any goods, but it still requires Stone, Metalworks, Weaponry, and Tar to function, and if it does not get those goods, then the Castle will not function properly. The effectiveness of a building is based on the lowest available percentage of goods present, and it will only purchase and use required materials in that percentage required. If the market cannot supply enough resources, then it will not work.

The output of the producing building is also scaled by the percentage mentioned above.

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There are a few options here, but only wood pulp would be profitable here, probably because of the great supply of lumber in this market..

And of course, you can automate the production method selection, which will adapt it on a monthly basis based on what resources are available and what would be profitable. The UI also allows for macro decisions regarding production methods

Other important aspects
Every building requires employed pops to function as well, and those that require “upper class” pops like burghers, clergy, and nobles, also increase the potential for them in the location, making pops slowly promoted. This can be slightly awkward as powerful nobles or clergy construct more buildings that make them more numerous and powerful.


Producing buildings that are not profitable will be closed, and pops will work in other buildings, however, you can always subsidize a building if you require the goods or other benefits it gives.

Speaking of profit. The profit of a building is added to the Tax Base of a location, split among the power of the population in the location.

You can always close and open a building, if you want to manipulate prices, or if you want your pops to work with other things, and you don’t want to destroy a building permanently.



We mentioned last week about different ways to get raw materials, and one way to get it, besides trade, is through a set of rural buildings. These include Lumber Mills that you can build in any wood or forest location to produce lumber, sheep farms, stone quarries, and many more.

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Yeah, this requires some input.. Might be worth it..


There are stockpiles of goods, but those are in the market. There are buildings you can build that increase the amount they can store, as if you do not have the goods required for a building, unit, or construction, those will not function.

Speaking of markets, that is something we will talk about more next week when we delve deep into the trade system.
 
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It seems more ambitious that is for sure when it comes to economics but lets hope it won't be as messy to deal with like Victoria stuff. Because if this is really a EUV game, having it feel like a Victoria-lite will not be good.
Now, of course the opinions can change when you fully see how things work and to me, the most important parts will be the diplomacy and war stuff. And how those will be handled. Because the MAIN problem I can see is the ease with which you can conquer the world in EU4 and you can practically 'win the game' in barely a 100 years so you practically don't even experience 1600s onward.

This economic system can help to stem that tide I suppose. Depending on how integral it will be to keeping your nation stable and army fed. But the second issue that will pop up, how will the transitions throughout the ages will be handled. Because there were quite drastic changes during this whole period and it gets even more drastic with an earlier start date.

Obviously all we can do right now is to speculate. I do like seeing the effort to add more things to do and be busy with during peace time as it was lacking in EU4 other than just waiting for the mana to tick up. I just hope the lessons are learned from these systems borrowed from the other games would be improved upon in this game and their big flaws fixed so they can actually be fun to engage with. Because the Vicky style economics can work but the way it is handled in the games were...well, let say not what I am too interested in dealing with. Automation option is great obviously for those like me who cannot micro-manage stuff nor want to. ( Economics tend to bore me to death honestly )

Again, I am cautiously optimistic. But the latest PDX releases were lackluster and the DLCs had many issues too so I will still be keeping an eye on things before blindly pre-ordering.
 
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In a post that's sure to be negatively received -- I'm out.

I really detest Victoria 3 and I'm pretty meh on Imperator Rome, though it has some nice features, such as the pseudo-tactical warfare. EU5 appears to be the bastard child of both. I don't like pop management. I don't like Vic 3 economic simulations. Thus, I'm noping out of "Project Caesar," though I do appreciate the warnings from the Tinto team not to buy it.
 
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In regards to production automation, will it work on a case-by-case basis?

For example, supposing you have 10 paper guilds, and you've got 4 lumber, 4.5 'cloth', and 7.5 'hemp' free in the market. Will the automation be smart enough to assign half the guilds to use the Rag Paper PM, and half to Fibre Pulp? (Assuming there's nothing drawing from the market making one of those ingredients way more expensive.)
 
The ages might overlap for some countries in this game as opposed to being hardcoded in EU4.

Late Middle Ages (1337-1450)
Renaissance (1450-1550)
Reformation (1500-1650)
Absolutism (1600-1800)
Enlightenment (1700-1800)
Napoleonic (1780-1836)
pretty sure napoleonic start around his expedition to egypt right after he did a coup against the directorate so its in the year 1799 to 1815
1789-1799 is revolution era
 
First the Vicky player in me is ecstatic a functioning economy to help guide choices in addition to military actions sounds fantastic for EU V Project Caesar. However, that concerns me as well. Are there resources/assets that require earlier manufactured goods or hidden resources to produce? If so, how does the AI handle it?

As fun as Vicky 3 was at the start it became less so as the game progressed. The AI simply didn't handle advancing the economy very well leaving the player to domestically produce late game resources and was woefully unbalanced when combatting the AI who didn't have up to date army or naval technology. Neither of which makes for a fun game.

yeah, i said about 500 years

Somewhat related to my earlier questions does the game feel competitive as time progresses? A common issue with EU4 for me is that after a 200 or so years in the game I lose interest because it isn't a matter of if I can achieve whatever my goals are it's only when. As a result, I almost never play it to the end anymore. The DLC meant to focus on the latter part of the game only sparked short term interest as it really didn't address the problem.
 
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In a post that's sure to be negatively received -- I'm out.

I really detest Victoria 3 and I'm pretty meh on Imperator Rome, though it has some nice features, such as the pseudo-tactical warfare. EU5 appears to be the bastard child of both. I don't like pop management. I don't like Vic 3 economic simulations. Thus, I'm noping out of "Project Caesar," though I do appreciate the warnings from the Tinto team not to buy it.
you should have ended your message at " i am out"
Because based on your badges that doesnt exist we dont even know if you did buy or just pirate the previous games you mentioned anyway so as far things go its not a loss if you just nope this game .
if you are not going to make a constructive comment then you are of no use here because thats what we do , we read , we ask , we propose.
also your justifications to hate it are baseless and impulsive because such mechanics did succeed in other games such as eu3 and vic2 and they certainly weren't the cause of the issues vic 3 and imperator had.
 
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Any chance there could be a diversification between different types of horses? For example, large warhorses were prized possessions of nobility and soldiery and peasants wouldn’t be allowed to possess them in some places in Western Europe due to the rarity and potential they had to aid in uprisings. Meanwhile smaller horses were much easier to breed and would be used as stock animals more commonly. Potentially you could even have an east/west divide on Eurasia as the Asian breeds especially on the steppes were smaller than their European counterparts which was of strategic advantage to the mobility focused warfare of the steppe nomads. Anyways, I think that could be an interesting application of the goods. I don’t know exactly how the PMs work obviously, but if they work similar to vic3 then perhaps a way to reflect this would be similar to how you can produce luxury/advanced goods but at the cost of cheaper/less advanced goods like with the motor workshops/glass mills/textile factories/furniture factories all work. ie. A horse breeder/guild focusing on trying to breed larger and larger horses could produce few larger horses, by only breeding the largest of their current generation. But, the state would purchase them for a higher price per animal as they can be used for stronger/faster cavalry units. Anyway just a spitball/suggestion if it’s not too late to implement something like that, I think it could be an addition that would help integrate the peacetime experience with the buildup/planning of war.
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Why do you think that only that single culture could make polders? Perhaps many cultures could.

By many do you mean all?

Tell me, is there something stopping a Russian from making floodplains? A South African? Is there something inherent in anyone's culture that prevents them from building dams and digging up the ground?

It's not like the Dutch are special ant people that live underground and are able to build advanced aquifers using their mandibles in the 14th century. We're talking something strictly technological here that is today (and was even then) used by many cultures/nations/kingdoms/TAGs in various forms.
 
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Please tell me ðere is goiŋ to be some sort of Exchange Lines peace deal option in Project Ceaser, where it exchanges front lines, I've been wantiŋ a version of ðis in games for so loŋ.
 
By many do you mean all?

Tell me, is there something stopping a Russian from making floodplains? A South African? Is there something inherent in anyone's culture that prevents them from building dams and digging up the ground?

It's not like the Dutch are special ant people that live underground and are able to build advanced aquifers using their mandibles in the 14th century. We're talking something strictly technological here that is today (and was even then) used by many cultures/nations/kingdoms/TAGs in various forms.
i actually think you are both saying same thing
you said that nothing stop others from doing it since its a universal thing like building a dam and the dev told you that there is no reason to assume that only the dutch can do it perhaps many cultures do .
so unless i am confused i dont think there is an argument here .
 
Can you call the game Ottoman Universalis instead ?

Game timeline pretty well captures rise and fall of Ottomans.
if they ever rename it, it should be "Terra universalis" or "Historia Universalis"
the centrist names were described by a dev few years ago if i recall properly as an "unfortunate relic of the past" so any new rename should be more global and since this game look like a crazy magnum opus i am all with a magnus name such Terra Universalis to reflect its scale and ambition instead of just being yet an another 5th game sequel
 
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i actually think you are both saying same thing
you said that nothing stop others from doing it since its a universal thing like building a dam and the dev told you that there is no reason to assume that only the dutch can do it perhaps many cultures do .
so unless i am confused i dont think there is an argument here .

Johan said that polders are a Dutch-specific building
 
Johan said that polders are a Dutch-specific building

They said nothing of the sort, what Johan did say is that an example of a unique building could be something we associate with the Dutch. I.E the Dutch Polders.

These may be unique to locations/cultures which are allowed either for historical reasons or whatever. Hypothetically, all nations *could* perhaps build an equivalent to polders, but the hypothetical Dutch Polders might be much more efficient at their job. Hence the 'uniqueness' of said building. Say 50% more food increase than the other.
 
I wonder if there'll be looting in the game:
Lets say I am playing france and the aristocrats have bought too many baguettes and now the treasury is dry, however just to my east there is a small prospering italian banking city. Could I say “liberate” some gold in their vault? Even though it may wreck my relations with my neighbors and make my own burghers despise me for ruining their trade routes. I would now have enough money for palace number 5.
 
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