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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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If we are throwing our worth on the table, I conquered the world a few times in recent years (Ottomans, Austria, Prussia). I consider myself "casual" because I am not trying to min-max everything, and it shows in my aforementioned WC.

I would be perfectly happy playing my country and trying to make the best out of it, but at the same time at some point the game offers so little resistance that as I want to finish my campaign, it appears like the only thing to do is to expand senselessely.

I positively hate mission trees because they harm my sense of playing my own story, and don't at all make me feel like I'm playing "real" history. Playing something close to "real history" would be having mechanics which make my senseless expansion more difficult. They would make me weight whether or not I should wage war, feel like I am ruling a country, with realistic dangers and opportunities in front of it. I feel like in recent years, Paradox has turned away from those improvements to give cheap "dopamine clicks" rewards to players.
 
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People want it since it would make PUs remotely interesting and not "backstab your in laws by pressing button"
It's pretty telling 90% of the mission trees people love whining about let you get PU war goals. Actually having a dynastic system would eliminate the need to do this. Because unless it's railroaded to hell, there's no way you could represent something like Philip II marrying Queen Mary, or literally any of those sorts of marriages that were historically important. I don't really know how anyone could say with a straight face something like Maximilian I being married to Mary of Burgundy wouldn't be important enough to actually merit a basic mechanic to allow for something like that to happen.
Yeah, that argument there doesn't make sense at all. Dynastic plays led to some of the most pivotal moments of European history in this time period. Bohemia and Hungary switching hands between Jagiellons, Habsburgs and some occassional wild cards like Matthias Corvinus, with Habsburgs winning out in the end and cementing their power in the region. War of Castillian succession and the subsequent union of Castille and Aragon that led to Spain. Later Iberian Union and its dissolution. The issue of Burgundy. Naples repeatedly switching hands due to rather distant (dynastically, that is) claims. Habsburgs spreading to Spain. All of that sounds rather relevant to me.

The idea that it's "most hated-hated feature of whatever game it was put into" and that "You’re just going to complain when the feature is dead on arrival and get it patched out three weeks after release." is equally bizarre, because it's one of the fundamental aspects of CK and people engage with it all the time, with only complaints popping up when there's some error with succession like there was at release of CK3 (when queen dowagers would inherit over their children to cite one of the bugs).

Even the retort that “Royalty” extends much further than the king’s kids, political marriages extended further than royalty" so "It wouldn’t even be historical." makes no sense when it's precisely a proper family tree that would allow the game to portray the wider pool of candidates accurately.
 
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Estates will be an important part of "Project Caesar".
Good. Very good indeed.
Almost everyone likes them in "Caesar Universalis 4"...

So, how can we improve Estates?
I can think of two ways:

1. Estates influence should be affected by Estates in nearby countries or with similar Societal Values.
This will allow for a more realistic common evolution of Estates in the same region or spheres of influence.
For instance, when the spanish inquisition is adopted in Castille, this event should strengthen the portuguese clergy.

2.Estates competition should be more evident and difficult to balance.
This can be achieved by stronger positive and simultaneously negative effects of the player actions with different estates.
For instance, the player warmongering strategy might satisfy the nobility, but that should come at the great cost of having burghers loyalty decrease and merchants leave to more peacefull and commerce friendly neighbour countries. The player might have a cardinal minister satisfying the clergy, but nobility should not be happy with that and the player should lose some influence on them.
 
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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.
This is great news for both revolutionary republics and flavor for constitutional monarchies such as late game or early Britain.
Perhaps even Poland with its golden liberty and “noble parliament”
 
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Hi, I saw you said that the estates will be based on the pop system, however, the pop system doesn't seem to différenciante between tow dwellers and "burgers" the rich merchants that are represented by the estate in eu4. Will there be a distinction between these two (and i find it sad that the only "elite" pop is nobility, groups how were historialy banned from being nobility still had leaders and "elites")
 
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"Estates being active powers and will do things on their own if they are strong enough"

Does that mean merchants traders will try to gain land/money for the country and for themselves? like say they are much more advanced the indian merchants that they trick them? like what happened with Dutch east indies and British india

or nobles getting land from a different realm

and tribes being there without actually being on the map similar to how the Americas colonised with their treaties etc?
 
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Yeah, that argument there doesn't make sense at all. Dynastic plays led to some of the most pivotal moments of European history in this time period. Bohemia and Hungary switching hands between Jagiellons, Habsburgs and some occassional wild cards like Matthias Corvinus, with Habsburgs winning out in the end and cementing their power in the region. War of Castillian succession and the subsequent union of Castille and Aragon that led to Spain. Later Iberian Union and its dissolution. The issue of Burgundy. Naples repeatedly switching hands due to rather distant claims. All of that sounds rather relevant to me.

The idea that it's "most hated-hated feature of whatever game it was put into" and that "You’re just going to complain when the feature is dead on arrival and get it patched out three weeks after release." is equally bizarre, because it's one of the fundamental aspects of CK and people engage with it all the time, with only complaints popping up when there's some error with succession like there was at release of CK3 (when queen dowagers would inherit over their children to cite one of the bugs).

Even the retort that “Royalty” extends much further than the king’s kids, political marriages extended further than royalty" so "It wouldn’t even be historical." makes no sense when it's precisely a proper family tree that would allow the game to portray the wider pool of candidates accurately.
Also, having specific succession laws and heir à la CK3, or even as a simplified mechanic, would allow a much better depiction of natural pu-breaks that historically happened.

Here I’m targeting specifically
- the Kalmar union (some Swedish kings were elected differently than the Dano-Norwegian ones, creating a few natural breaks)
- Poland. unlike what is represented in EU4, was not fully elective in 1444, the Jagiellon dynasty maintaining itself for more than a century.
It truly became only after the union of Lublin. After that they were able to get temporary unions with Sweden and Saxony (something which can not occur in EUIV), but did not maintain them due to different succession laws (also not modeled by EUIV).
- Hungary / Poland / Bohemia, as you mentioned. They regularly elected foreign rulers, creating temporary unions between them and with Austria, some lasting, some for a generation only.
 
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Per PDX metrics, an overwhelming percentage* of the userbase would chose the earliest start date possible which made them of waste of resources for PDX and a burden to maintain.


*IIRC, less than 1% of the games were started in later start dates (even when they only had 2-3 options).
Are the metrics publicly available somewhere?
 
Well... I was holding out hope for the GUI. It's fading.
 
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Hello. As a Bulgarian, I would suggest adding more impassible terrain in Stara Planina. Even today, there are only a handful of passages through it and I think it would give a lot more tactical depth to fighting in this region of the Balkans. There is a reason why this region historically had a lot more autonomy, and why the pivotal battle for the liberation of Bulgaria was fought there. It's because of the difficult to assault terrain.

Also, will there be disasters? I think the decline of the 2nd Bulgarian Tzardom would make for a great disaster, as historically there was a long chain of interesting events that led to the splitting of the realm between the Tzar's sons, and its eventual subjugation by the ottomans. It would be really great if we had the chance to navigate this part of Bulgarian history, as the nation itself was a very important regional power at the time. I really hope it gets flavor, and is not just a speedbump for the restoration of the roman empire, or the rise of the ottoman one.
 
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Are the metrics publicly available somewhere?
Not really, but there has been some comments on the topic from EU4 devs in the now distant past:
More like 99.9%.

We also do frequently do update later start dates for new mechanics (you will for instance find base institution spread in later starts) or map expansions but their balancing is more or less entirely based around the 1444 start date that all but a handful people actually use :)
 
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Thank you! My one pet peeve with EUIV was how your game depended so much on the RNG roll you got for your monarchs.

Any chance you could shed a little more light on how technology etc will be driven forward and what shape it will take?

Personally, I would love to see more in-depth technology than exists in games like e.g. EUIV. It would be great to have several (more than three :) main schools of research, each with sub-branches containing research projects that can be researched once requirements are met. These requirements should be varied in nature, e.g. not being able to research certain weapons, guns or cannons in the military or naval tree until you have necessary pre-requisites in the production tree and access to the relevant resources. Similarly, researching a meritocratic officer corps should require first unlocking appropriate philosophical ideas.

I would further suggest that the primary driver advancing technology through research should be how much countries invest into the various schools of research, with costs adjusted by but progress not driven by modifiers like literacy rate and the number of locations. That means there will be a natural trade off between e.g. investing into your military and fighting expensive wars, and researching the techs that will give your army or economy a leg up in future. There will also be an advantage to having fewer richer provinces than many poorer ones when it comes to research. This should help mimic the historical tech advantage of richer countries. However, once a research project have been completed by one country, it should become easier for other countries to research it, and, over time, the research will spread automatically. Practically, this could be done by adding a hidden research subsidy for other countries once one country has completed the project, one that scaled with the number of countries that have unlocked it, their proximity, and each country's own modifiers such as literacy etc. (perhaps a bit like how institutions spread in EUIV). That way, even if you never invest anything into developing new cavalry tactics, or a new production method, these new innovations will eventually reach your country as well.

Just my five cents on the topic but I hope you either find it useful or is thinking that you are already way ahead of me:)
 
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Is Project Caesar gonna have modelled characters like Vic3, and plenty of art like CK3? I really liked the throne room illustration in the diary.

It seems like the epoch the game is gonna go through will touch lots of awesome cultures and moments. Seeing them fleshed-out, even if not as detailed as CK3, and the many arts of the time, would be great!

Cuz I find Vic3 way a good compromise between characters having some 'character' and not being the focus of the game. Personally I'm pro-CK3 approach, but professionally I find the game not fitting that formula (it is a different game too after all ).


Either way, I'm eager to see more art and aesthetic of this game. Also, the MUSIC! These are always such a joy and immersion for me in Paradox games.
 
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I'd like to share something I think is important for the future of the game, so even though I know my comment is a bit long, I'd really like you to read it in full.

(I used a translator, I'm sorry if the translation isn't of good quality)

I think we should change the way the war of conquest works, and I'm not talking about the units, I'm talking about the way the war unfolds. I think you should be able to declare war on one or more claims, and that you can, by winning a few key battles, besieging the enemy capital and if the claims are really important, occupy the claimed territories, be able to take what is claimed.

On the other hand, occupying territories should be much more costly and difficult to maintain, but if you occupy territories you haven't claimed, you should naturally annex them at the end of a war, unless you give them back in exchange for something else in the peace treaty.

Speaking of peace treaties, I think they would represent the times much better if we could make offers as well as demands. This has often happened in history, for example, I ask for a territory and in exchange I offer commercial advantages. This would limit the need for long and costly wars.

I also believe that humiliation should not be imposed as part of a peace treaty. Humiliation should be done automatically when we win any war quickly and far less expensively than the opponent, and only if the opponent is our rival or has insulted us recently.

Another system that I think could greatly enhance immersion is a more dynamic claim system. We should be able to claim any border area, but at first the claim is very weak, and nobody takes it seriously, but by investing time and effort we could make it more and more legitimate and we could ask or force other countries to recognize our claim.

I think a similar system would be interesting for legitimizing a territory (by territory I mean a set of locations that have been taken in a recent war). Legitimizing a territory, especially if the claim is weak or non-existent, would be a difficult process, requiringi mportant countries to recognize our right to these territories.

Thanks for reading, I really hope I've given you some good ideas.
Please don't. Wars with claims like in ck3 would be awful and not fitting for the period.
 
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no. there will very likely be another type and style of mission trees.
Hopefully something closer to Imperator, maybe with the possibility to unlock additional slots to have several mission trees at once if you fulfill some conditions like being a great power... And certainly not HoI's focus trees, it really wouldn't work for a game spanning several centuries.
 
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I disagree. Many starting tags in Imperator: Rome are bland and all game play feels the same since they don't have specific goals, mechanics, flavor, etc. The same is true for tags in EU4 that had generic missions. If mission trees are completely trashed what would make the tags different, what would give each nation a different feel or play style, really nothing. The current mission tree system isn't ideal, and completing them makes the player unstoppable, these are issues, but reworking them somehow is better than completely trashing them.
Seems to me these guys who want no mission trees basically just want Sid Meier's Civilization gameplay, Paradox style.
 
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