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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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What will be the balance of power between European and Asian states? The thing I didn't like most about Eu4 was the pip issue and the European states gaining superiority over the Asian states as time went by even Asians reach highest technology level. If the Caesar project will be realistic and we consider that it will start in 1337(dark age of europe), I think it should be quite easy to conquer European states with such as the Golden Horde, Timurids etc.
Common misunderstanding, europe was very developed and full of population in 1337, dark ages in modern history don't exist and, if anything, that definition is applied from the 6th to the 8th century
 
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How are goods moved between provinces?
Can we gain goods through war:
- pillaging of provincial stockpiles (this would be add a strategic component on where you put your stockpiles and which provinces to prioritize in a war)
- flat ressource amounts in peace deals
- monthly/yearly amounts in peace deals

Now that i think about it why not in diplomacy in general, for example X tons/month of y good in exchange for a guarantee from a stronger nation?
 
If Caesar includes a macro builder, will there be a button with the effect "build as many of these buildings as I can afford" or similar? I have this problem in late game eu4 and imperator where I have tons of provinces and tons of money, and as such want to build tons of buildings, but clicking for every single one is tedious, and in imperator I can't even automate it with an autoclicker
 
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Will buildings be relevant for army, at least for levy armies? One of my favorite aspects of the CK (2 and 3) building system was setting up a high quality army with buildings, especially with the cultural flavor buildings. I think it could be cool flavor if the English had tons of practice ranges, the French lots of stables, etc.
 
Is EU transitioning from a conquest/control/warfare game with a economic system to a economic game with a conquest/control/warfare system? This DD worrys me a bit. The EU identity to me is that you expand/control using money. Resources are flavour content. This DD shows a massive necessity in resources, in chains of control, without it you cant run your country. I'd had hoped that resources in EUV would be a bit more similar to Stellaris. This is more Vicky style, that I never played because as a player I never felt atractive to it. My final hope is that chains of control of resources will be easy to maintain. Otherwise this game will be a massive economic game, which i dont appreciate. What bugs me the most is the maintenace cost using resources. Somehow, although realistic, doesnt feel like EU to me. Maybe this isnt EUV afterall
 
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Will most tags start in a situation where you don't have to set up a bunch of trade routes and so on before you can unpause?

I never really liked doing that in IR.
 
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Starting to hope this is not EU5 as having to manage 70 different resources before any DLC comes out feel way to like Vicky to me, or im hoping there is way to automate it or go full in depth with it, eu4 gives you that option so it was nit too hard to pick up and get into before you learn the game inside and out.
 
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I have a question. Will terrain vegetation change over time? I mean if I build lots of lumber mills in a forested location, will that terrain turn into farmland or plains in let's say 150 years? You know, one of the reasons for the english colonization of North America was to get some timber because woodlands on the british isles were depleted. Also both iberian and anatolian plateaus were wooded but these woodlands were cut to make land for grazing grounds for sheep. So they would produce more merino wool and angora wool respectively. Not-EUV simulates a very long time period and "resource depletion" mechanics would make sense and create some hardship for the player. I also want to turn plains terrain into farmland terrain if I improve the location enough :D

Atleast think this as a DLC idea Johan lol
 
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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.

You're just making conjecture here. Even then, why are the Dutch simply better at making polders? For all we know most of the Dutchmen are wiped out in a war and migrate inland or don't need to do land reclamation by the time they historically built most modern polders. That's why stuff like this is bad for the game -- it's about as fantasy as picking Elves as your starting race because they have an innate bonus to spellcasting.
 
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I feel that Victoria 3 will lead them/You to the wrong place. Victoria is a dead end, throw her away. Otherwise, there will be another Excel table, without absolutely any immersion. These are the even numbers 1000.500, this is not the reality of the Middle Ages, they/You need to get away from neatly trimmed numbers and figures. I am only with the kindest wishes and suggestions, without any gloating.
 
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You're just making conjecture here. Even then, why are the Dutch simply better at making polders? For all we know most of the Dutchmen are wiped out in a war and migrate inland or don't need to do land reclamation by the time they historically built most modern polders. That's why stuff like this is bad for the game -- it's about as fantasy as picking Elves as your starting race because they have an innate bonus to spellcasting.
You are, in my humble opinion, right in theory and wrong in practice. Yes, culture-specific and tag-specific features might not always be logical or realistic and it would be cool for everything to exist "organically". However, a game where there are no differences between the cultures and tags and where everyone can use all features is, in practice, a less replayable game.
(For the same reason, I get all the hate against mission trees in EU4 on a philosophical level and still think that they have made the game a lot more fun to play).
 
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I came here after watching the latest Ludi video summary, specifically to say this to you: Stay your course, don't try too much to appeal to people, they usually don't really know what's good in a game and whenever game devs listen to the community too much the game ends up shit in my experience. You have an awesome set of passionate developers who really know what's good and I think you guys should make the best possible game to your own standards. AND THE GAME LOOKS AWESOME SO FAR
 
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Hmm libraries. Bookprinters never mind monks copying the necronomicons by hand, implied as paper and books are separate things.
A library in every location? Maybe even make the peasants so wealthy every free man and even women can under their lives amass 1000 book personal libraries!! With every free commoner an enlightened philosopher-king well versed in not merely trivium and quadrivium but far beyond fluent in a dozen languages from classical to modern! Tyrannies will be gone forever amd can never creep back in.

Could this dream ever come true in a poor places like sweden plagued by arctic storms 9 months a year?

Timetraveller; Something went wrong. Badly wrong.
 
I love these Tinto Talks, and I'm very excited for what's coming, but the mentioned sheer amounts of buildings and goods are starting to make me worry that the economy system might be a bit bloated and be overcomplicated and unwieldy to manage by players. That said, I'm very hopeful that the system will be thoroughly worked out and a good UI will allow us to engage the system without needing to understand its every quirk. Keep up the good work!
 
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Are monastries a Building you can build in other countries? For example for the chrisianisation of Japan :)
Imagine something more like compradors (portuguese word, come to mean over time a foreigner placed to lord over a defacto colony that imagine themselves sovereign), entrepots (french word for warehouse, defacto buying up rawmaterials during cheap times, accused oft of price manipulations in colonies) and outright trading posts: encouraging natives to gather and sell to the trading post (storing in entrepot) cotton, furs, coltan and whatnot with high interest loans, pretty glass beads and metal tools.