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Tinto Talks #4 - March 20th, 2024

Welcome to the fourth iteration of Tinto Talks!

Today we’ll give you an overview of the different mechanics of the Government part of the game. There will be development diaries going into much more detail for these later on.

First of all, we have 5 different government types in the game, which determines a fair bit of what type of mechanics you get access to. As an example, a Republic does not have access to royal marriages, and a Steppe Horde has a different view on how war, peace and conquest works compared to other types of countries.

  • Monarchy, which uses Legitimacy
  • Republic, which uses Republican Tradition
  • Theocracy, which uses Devotion
  • Steppe Horde, which Horde Unity
  • Tribe, which uses Tribal Cohesion

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An illustration from our game..

These, together with country rank, government reform, and local flavor gives countries names like “Crown of Aragon,” “Kingdom of Sweden,” “Principality of Wales.” Not all countries are countries that are based on owning locations on a map though; more on that in later development diaries.

Each country also has a ruler, or they may be in a regency, if there are no possible adult heirs.

One of the most defining parts of the government of a country in Project Caesar is the Estates mechanic. This has been one of the core parts of the game, with a full connection between the population and the estates. Keeping the estates satisfied while keeping their powers low is an important part of the gameplay loop. In this game, the Estates are also active entities and will do things on their own if they get enough power.

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Two government reforms, one culture specific and one government specific.

As time passes, different government reforms and reform-slots will be available. They can also be based on tag, culture or religion.

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These are the two available possibilities in the Law 'Language of Pleading' for the country I tested.

Something that is different from a reform is what we call a Law. A Law can have several different policies you can pick from, and several laws have unique policies only available to certain tags, religions, cultures, government types or other factors.

There are some drawbacks to adding new reforms or policies though, as it takes a few years for it to have full effect, depending on your country's administrative efficiency. (Yes, it's a name for something else in another game, but it fits here.)

Regularly, if your government allows it, you can call in a Parliament. If you don’t do it often enough the estates will start to get irritated, but each parliament has issues that need to be resolved, and the estates will have agendas they want done for their support. Of course, you also have options to push through what you want from a parliament, if you are willing to accept the demands of the estate, like changing a particular law.

Another part of the government is the cabinet, which also grows in size as you become more advanced, allowing you to do more things. This is something that can be viewed as a hybrid between EU4 Advisors and the CK2 council actions.

Some of you may remember the domestic policies from EU2 and EU3. In Project Caesar we are bringing the idea back in the form of Societal Values. There are seven that we took from these games, one that was split in two, and we added four new ones, bringing the total to 13 different Societal Values. Societal Values are primarily affected by what other actions you do, like what policies you pick in a law, or what reforms you pick. As with so many other things in our game, this is not an instant action, but a gradual change over time.

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oh look, its eu3!

Next week, we will go into much more detail about estates and how they work.
 
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I think the game will go to 1821 (or 1836) just like previous EUs. I think it's a very hard choice to cut it earlier than that. Another game that would cover the gap in between project Ceasar and VIC3 would have a lot of duplication in terms of mechanics if you're going to cover the period of let's say from 1700 to 1836. It can't be a war game only, spanning 136 years.
In any case, without pointing a specific reason gamers drop EU games before the end of the campaign, I suppose it's because of boredom, total dominance in the map (so again boredom) and general lack of challange. Maybe with project Ceasar, its new mechanics etc, will address some of these problems and offer a challange for you, the player, throughout the years/eras.
But maybe I'm wrong. Will see.
 
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@Johan Caesar is looking better and better. I must say I love the more realistic approach you are taking with this game, keep up the good work!
I cannot but wonder, if a modder wanted to create a better version of Victoria 2 inside Caesar, would it in your opinion be plausible?
 
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Hi @Johan, I have a query for you, I belong to Garhwal, a region which despite its tiny size was not conquered up until 1800's (even then due to back-to-back earthquakes, famines and a civil war) and was a premier military power in North India briefly. The garhwali army was also able to defeat the massive Delhi Sultanate's armies and the Mughal armies, but in EU4 it is conquered almost immediately. Is there anything being done in Project Caesar to make conquest of such mountainous kingdoms difficult?

Also, I humbly request you to please please put details in the Himalayan region as paradox's games are the only popular media to feature my homeland and culture. And yes I was sad at the region being included in Delhi in Vic3 >:)

Anyways good luck to you and team and definitely hoping for a massive release soon.
 
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I think the fact that they are moving the EU start date to the 1330s is to make room for a later MOTE2. PDX has clearly decided to move from its traditional free choice of start date to fixed dates. 304 BC, AD 867, 1066, 1330s, 1836, 1936 leaves a huge gap in the middle of the second millennium AD. So I think we'll get MOTE2 (not necessarily under that name) starting perhaps as early as 1648, or perhaps later (1756? 1783?) as something that's more explicitly a wargame in the style of HoI4, focused on the Great War of 1789-1815. This might be the unannounced game that Podcat is working on, given his experience with wargames, and that it's coming from the same sub-studio as HoI.
don’t know about that, but there was no significant change in warfare between 1640s and 1836 that could not be covered by the mechanics of EUIV or it’s successor.
The main revolution of the 1350 was the « trace italienne » and gunpowder.
The main revolution of the 1800s was the increased gunpowder firepower and the gradual disappearance of traditional fortified cities.

Even if they chose to cut the end of the game, mods would still be able to compensate.

The only important change, in Europe, of 1648 was the so called « Westphalian order » of diplomacy or balance of great powers in Europe.
 
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1337 + 250 = 1587, 30 years war wouldn't appear until more than halfway through the game! (Assuming we end in 1836)

A c. 1600 start date might be needed, even just to test out mid-late game content.
CK3 goes from 867 until 1453. I assume they will add a second start date in the mid/late 1500s.
 
The real issue with dropping mission trees is how the AI will make strategic decisions. That's really the core purpose of HoI4, NFs, EU4 missions, etc.

IMHO I would still like to have a historical mode where (to give some examples) France mainly colonizes North America rather than South America and where the Dutch VOC focuses on the Malay archipelago rather than the Persian Gulf. That gives us a chance of playing in a vaguely historical 16th century world even if we don't have a 16th century start date.
 
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Now that we’ve seen the rough sizes of the smallest subdivision, I feel like San Marino could easily be included considering it would only need to be slightly scaled up. Besides, the entire city of Venice which is smaller then San Marino had its own province in Eu4, being very largely scaled up, surely a 200% scaled up San Marino could work. Will there be a San Marino in “Project Caesar”, Johan?
 
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There's lots of speculation about the timeline of the game. Given that "administrative efficiency" has been repurposed from its original use in EU4, I think its looking increasingly likely that Project Caesar will end earlier than EU4, probably at the start of the age of absolutism (1700 or so).
 
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I always thought mission trees could be reworked to become "not-mission trees", but still present as sandbox content and better integrated with the rest of the gameplay. And that would fix all the issues I have with them.

For example, letting your advisors, or even generals or estates or some citizens, dynamically *suggest* some paths of action at times, and us being able to turn them down, or attempt to follow it, or leaving that advisor as the head of that project, etc.

I think the problem with mission trees is that they feel forced, that they script specific paths for you, and that they are rewarded after completion for no reason. The reward itself makes no sense, and fixed trees force you out of the sandbox, so I'd get rid of those. But the missions themselves are still great for immersion, flavor and historicity. They just need to be integrated more naturally, either as unlockable suggestions or some other ways like that.
 
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CK3 goes from 867 until 1453. I assume they will add a second start date in the mid/late 1500s.
CK3 should start in 769 at the latest, just like CK2 - of course, an earlier date would be welcome.
 
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Due to the amount of locations within provinces and sea tiles, perhaps armies and navies will work like navies in HoI4 so that you don't have to micromanage so much. You select the provinces for you armies/navies and assign them a task. Of course you could always move them manually to a key location to block enemy movement/blockade a specific port.
 
Could we be seeing a Banking mechanic insted of plain loans? I feel that is something lacking in Vic3 and something that came out of the middle ages and really flourish during the modern age.
 
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There's lots of speculation about the timeline of the game. Given that "administrative efficiency" has been repurposed from its original use in EU4, I think its looking increasingly likely that Project Caesar will end earlier than EU4, probably at the start of the age of absolutism (1700 or so).
This is my assumption, but not popular with the napoleaonboos. they want to shoot the sphinx in the face.
 
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