Tinto Talks #8 - 17th of April 2024

[Teng_Ri]

Could we see

not for every tag no

 

[Diamss]

@Johan

Will there be an evolution of the "states" of EU4 which would make each part of the country more unique?

 

[Álvaro Núñez de Lara]

provinces as default for a new one. but can always give them any province or location you want afterwards.

all the cores you own for specific tags.

Oh no, cores are still a thing?

 

[Teng_Ri]

Hopefully subject interactions are as a result more fleshed out in this game. If we are to be incentivized to use subjects a lot more in the early game, I'd definitely like it so that we have much more ways to influence them, and perhaps integrating them over long periods of time as technology and central institutions improve and grow in influence.

i wonder if proximity could play into integration aswell? like if you increase proximity range integration becomes easier/quicker?

 

[Ispil]

And the answer is local economic development.

To put it a little bit more bluntly than I did previously: there is a very big difference between a province having no order: being completely ravaged by mobs, and no central authority: a province being far away from a capital that struggles to exert its own policies on it.

The first case is a disaster for development, the second one isn't necessarily. With the earlier example of Riga I think it is fair that its old local power brokers don't automatically fully join the ranks of their Swedish conquerors, but if order remains in Riga it shouldn't kill it economically for its new conquerors to be disinterested in it: collecting little in the way of taxes and giving little in the way of investment. That should if anything mean the situation remains closer to Riga having remained independent in practice.

I hate to sound negative here, though - I love pretty much everything that has been presented so far and I am massively hyped for this project. There is of course also the caveat of me not knowing how the economy works in practice to the same extent as you.

I think the point is that the second case is represented by you taking the province and releasing it as a subject. There's no "central authority" insomuch that you're deferring to local control.

A location with 0 control isn't ruled by local authority. It's you refusing to let it be ruled by local authority despite not having the power to rule it yourself, leaving it ruled by effectively no authority at all (or at least, no legal authority). To release as a a subject is to defer to local authority, giving them whatever veneer of "we're okay with this and not fighting it" that you need to do so while still being able to claim the territory as your own in some capacity.

 

[Glaros-Niburuz]

And the answer is local economic development.

To put it a little bit more bluntly than I did previously: there is a very big difference between a province having no order: being completely ravaged by mobs, and no central authority: a province being far away from a capital that struggles to exert its own policies on it.

The first case is a disaster for development, the second one isn't necessarily. With the earlier example of Riga I think it is fair that its old local power brokers don't automatically fully join the ranks of their Swedish conquerors, but if order remains in Riga it shouldn't kill it economically for its new conquerors to be disinterested in it: collecting little in the way of taxes and giving little in the way of investment. That should if anything mean the situation remains closer to Riga having remained independent in practice.

I hate to sound negative here, though - I love pretty much everything that has been presented so far and I am massively hyped for this project. There is of course also the caveat of me not knowing how the economy works in practice to the same extent as you.

Though actually maybe the representation is direct control means the previous local administration of Riga is dismantled and whatever Sweden can muster put in its place with a vassalized Riga representing a more direct continuation of the previous elite being left to its own devices.

 

[Teng_Ri]

Are there feudal subjects whose leaders can be changed at will

100% would want that

In the case of Hungary for example, Transylvania or Slavonia comes to mind

in the case of ottomans transylvania, wallachia, moldovia comes to mind

 

[Teng_Ri]

For releasing subjects, how much fidelity do we get at the size of the subject that we release?

Do we always release subjects at the size of provinces, or can we release territories or mere locations instead (if I'm remembering the nomenclature).

i think he said tags can be location sized

 

[Gavyco723]

Hello, and welcome to the eighth iteration of Tinto Talks where we talk about what we are doing in our very secret future game, with the code name Project Caesar.

Btw, on a completely unrelated note, Paradox Tinto has just announced our new expansion ‘Winds of Change’ for EU4. Go check out its cool contents and trailer!

This week we’ll continue talking about the economical part of the game. Last week we talked about the different items in the monthly budget, and now we’ll continue with explaining some of the core concepts of the economy. Please be aware that all images here are tooltips or parts of tooltips, and some are very much Work in Progress!


Loans and Bankruptcy
Let's start with Loans, which will work a fair bit differently than any other previous Paradox GSG. At first glance, it is kind of similar to previous games, where you can take a loan, you get money, and you pay interest on it for a set period of time. However, in Project Caesar, there are some new changes. Take a look at this WiP tooltip for taking a loan:

Yeah, 10% interest is perfectly fair…

In this game, you are not borrowing money from an abstract national bank, but instead, your internal loans are taken from what the estates have made available. The estates invest money they have, not only in immediate gains for their own power, or other ways that benefit the country, or other [REDACTED], but they also invest in having money available for the country, where they will benefit from the interests.

If there is no money to borrow from the estates available and you have no ducats left, you will go bankrupt, which is a little bit more severe than in, let's say EU4...

There is also another way to get gold, you can send a diplomat to one of the banking countries, like Peruzzi and Bardi, if there is one that you know of within diplomatic range, to request a loan. Make sure you don’t forget to pay them on time, or default on the loans, or you may never be able to loan from them again.


Core Concepts
So let’s continue, by taking a look at the tooltip for a location, so we can quickly have a reference to some important aspects in the rest of this development diary.

Enjoy the nice placeholder icons, sadly the forum does not allow for nested tooltips, like the game does…


Food
If you notice the line of food above, you see that Kalmar is not self-sufficient in food, and needs to rely on the rest of Östra Småland for food, unless they buy it from the local market.

Even the small town of Kalmar needs food from nearby locations…

Primarily, there are a lot of burghers here that consume a lot of food. There are also a lot of modifiers that impact how much food the location produces as well.

If the granaries in Östra Småland are close to full, we would sell their surplus to the local market in Riga, but only get about 56% of the profit, as we only have 56% control in Kalmar. If the entire province lacks food, we would have to buy food at 100% of the current price in that market. The price for food is different in each market, and depends entirely on how much food is sold to that market.





Taxes
We mentioned taxes in last week's Tinto Talk, and specifically mentioned Tax Base there. The tax base of an estate is based on the total of all their Tax Base in all the locations they are present in.

Quickly find the error in the text in this tooltip!

We are slowly increasing our control over Kalmar up to 58.2%, so the tax base will be slowly increasing, and if we would get it to the 100 maximum, it would be even bigger.

As you can see here, the nobility and the burghers have a fair bit of power here, and the peasants have basically none. Currently, we are able to tax more from the burghers each month, and could probably go above the 25% tax rate we have currently set on their estate.

To clarify, only the money that is in the “potential” row exists, and anything you don’t tax on that goes to the estates. So you get 0.05 ducats there (perhaps more, but Paradox rounding), and the remaining 0.37 goes to the estates.



Raw Materials
As you noticed in the tooltips above, we talk about Raw Materials and Resource Gathering Operations. Every location has one raw material possible that can be extracted, this includes things like lumber, stone, grain, amber, or copper. Of course, there are other ways to get access to the raw materials than merely owning and controlling a location.

Only peasants and slaves will work on gathering raw materials, and how many will work with it depends on how big of an infrastructure you have built up for that. Pops that are working with this will not be producing food, unless the goods are food related.

The maximum size of an infrastructure that can be built up depends on population, development, technologies, and societal values.

We mentioned buildings in one tooltip earlier, and next week we will talk about how they work in Project Caesar.

Hey Johan, I read a bunch of comments and the idea of requiring resources to build things like buildings or ships requiring lumber is an amazing prospect. Can you confirm whether or not this applies to other military units? While I don't imagine that we'll be producing swords or muskets, will units such as archers or men at arms require lumber or iron respectively. The whole 'resources' game has got me super excited and there's a plethora of opportunity here.

Cannons need copper or maybe even tin too.
Cav needs horses etc.

 

[Teng_Ri]

wars across Europe

not just europe. that is the case for at least the balkans and anatolia aswell

 

[Ispil]

Honestly, assuming I have the right of it when it comes to subjects and control, I think it'll make for a brilliant way of representing Timur's empire. Outside of the Chaghatai Ulus, Timur relied on local Persian bureaucracy to handle any sort of state rule. The goal being, of course, to maximally extract taxes from Persia. If some bureaucrat either collected taxes too harshly (upsetting people too much into perhaps fermenting a rebellion) or not enough, he'd have them executed and replaced with one of their family members.

In game terms, it'd mean taking low-control locations in Persia proper and turning them all into subjects that are maximally taxed, with a lot of deposing the rulers of those subjects if they happen to be a bit too incompetent/rebellious. The subjects themselves, due to being harshly taxed, wouldn't have any money for themselves to be able to invest locally (there was very little in the way of local construction during Timur's reign; we see this in building records in Yazd effectively stopping for the duration of his reign but resuming afterwards and pretty much not a damn building record of any other town in all of Persia for Timur's reign) and would have to tax their own estates a good deal in order to simply stay afloat.

Then Timur dies, the whole thing fragments, the various successors drain their coffers fighting each other while also not being able to properly manage those Persian bureaucrats in the same way (due to being too busy fighting each other), resulting in them instead spending that money locally instead.

Then the Qara Qoyunlu show up and conquer large swathes of it.

Then the Aq Qoyunlu show up and conquer large swathes of it.

Then the Safavids show up and conquer large swathes of it.

 

[Teng_Ri]

I have a entire Tinto Talks scheduled that is called "Winter"

i know what you thinking. think of the children johan dont do it

 

[trajianus]

"you will go bankrupt, which is a little bit more severe than in, let's say EU4..." haha nice, they're slowly admitting this is EU5, they must be waiting until after this EU4 DLC comes out. it wouldnt make sense to announce EU5 at the same time as a EU4 DLC.

 

[Teng_Ri]

There is a lot of unique and different types of subjects with different rules

oh man i cant wait to release all sorts of beyliks and voyvodalıks and uçbeyliks on ottoman serhats. mihaloğulları, turahanoğulları, evrenosoğulları, turalioğulları, malkoçoğulları here i come

 

[Zaragoza]

So, going back to my Riga example.
- while under Riga state with 100% control (as the capital), 0% of the local wealth went on house decoration and 100% was split between the crown and the estates. The estates used it to fund buildings, commercial navies, expand trade, commercial ventures…
- the day after the Swedish / Russian conquest of Riga, because of distance from capital, controls drops to 42%. Local pops suddenly decide to spend 58% of their wealth into house decoration ?
- this « lost » money doesn’t enter the estate coffers anymore, and thus stops participating in the economic development of the province. Suddenly the estate lose 58% of their wealth ? In a previous TT, you said the estates would pursue their own agenda and use their money to increase their economy, but now they lost 58% of their ability to do so ? Which means less local castles for the nobles, less trade ships for the burghers, less farming infrastructure for the peasants…

I'd like to understand it as 42% of the local population accepting the new regime, and spending its money on the "official" economy. That money pays taxes but also trades in official markets, uses the banking system etc Nobles still create new endowments, the clergy still uses it to pay for its activities, burguers spent it in the city market...

In my mind, the other 58% refuse to recognize the new government and starts using informal economy (using things like hawala rather than official banks, building things not in the catastre, bartering with their neighbour rather than going to the designated and tax-regulated market, practicing self-subsistence outside of the urban centers...) Thus that money is not taxed but also no counted in any official metric (like modern GDP needs to be adjusted if drugs / prostitution etc are illegal but significant in the country).

The money in the second circuit not only it is not taxed, but it is way more complex to use than the official money. You need to "launder" it if you start using large amounts, you can't ask loans against a property whose records doesn't show it its built, you don't have guild recognition if you practiced a trade outside the official circuits, you don't get official permits for exports since you are not recognized as a producer of X, you are less likely to get a breach of contract lawsuit if you only have a non-written customary agreement so you have higher risks... Sometimes the money doesn't even flow as legal tender: people may work in a informal business with a significant part of the retribution in "accommodation" or similar compared with cashs payments. Sometimes money does flow but is a lot harder to use it for long term purposes. Peasant were historically often not prone in investing a good year excess since hoards are easy to get over taxed, looted etc Supluses were rather typically used in communal activities that generated informal bonds rather than physical capital.

The money in the second circuit is however easily available for illegal uses. It someone needs "black money" to hoard weapons for a rebellion, bartering with some excess you are unlikely to sell at regular prices in the market because of "lack of provenance" sounds attractive.

Establishing control for me means getting everybody in the census, all the land in a land register, all the market post having a permit and their scales getting overseen by the local civil servant... It not only increase the tax revenue, but also means people are going back to use the official buildings and infrastructures

 

[Headbomb]

Johan, my beloved, please tell me that modders will be able to change everything about a location, including raw materials, population and most importantly - terrain type or even climate. You told us that Netherlands will engage in something like that, but I doubt you will just spawn provinces out of thin air, most likely you will just change swamps/marshes to farmlands and coastal regions. It's something that I've never seen in EU4 and I really miss it. I know that terraforming is not a big thing for the time period, but mods could really, really use it

Edit: among other requests - an ability to make a province hidden (and uninteractable for other nations). A way to spawn new premade provinces would also be very helpful, but I assume it would be a nightmare to code. So, hiding it is. Same goes for impassable terrain, rivers and water tiles. Something something China floods. I know it's unrealistic to spawn, say, a lake in the middle of a desert, but some more "unrealistic" mods could do a lot with that (looking at you, Anbennar)

 

[fraughtGYRE]

My question here though is "what is the economic output, that the government and the estates is not taking, used for, in a gameplay aspect ?"

For me, that goes back to the "Believable World" goal stated in TT#1. It is important and meaningful to have a live world and that means independent economic actors with their own goals, priorities, and actions. These then respond to the conditions the player creates and leads to immersive and emergent gameplay.

If the wealth of a location was tangible, it would lead to interesting questions around letting it develop on its own rather than intervening, reducing the extractive power of the elites, protecting it from being raided, etc.

Thanks for answering, it really is nice. I'm very much excited to see more.

 

[MathyM]

Why do Christain nations have to pay interest on loans when the Church's dogma forbade ursury?

Didn't the Church at some point ban crossbows in warfare?

They continued to be used by Christian nations until they became obsolete.

 

[humbleacadie]

It means oversea territories will need to be handled via a subject

From what i understood, the money won't go the the rebels if people are happy

Johan said in previous TT that the two forms of colonial management would be possible, either directly under the crown or indirect under some sort of charters/subjects. I totally agree that not all forms of colonial management are as efficient. It could make sense (although it is also not certain), that a Pennsylvania colony with a local capital and governor could have a more integrated economy than a remote rural settlement across the ocean, in regard to the crown, .

BUT

that's only in regard to the crown. If you compare local to local, there is no reason why the same location on the edge of Pennsylvania, with 70% control from the local Pennsylvania capital, should contribute more in terms of national economy than the neighboring or even the same state if managed as a Crown Colony.

After all, the population in each province is the same, there are as many millers who want to build mills, as many farmers who want to enroch on the Frontier, as many nobles who want to establish new lands, as many burghers who want to develop trade... The estates would individually still have the same agenda, so they should still benefit from the same amount of un-taxed money (by the state) to reinvest into the land.

If you apply strictly what is mentioned above, then that would mean in the case of the Crown colony, which has very remote control due to distance, that 90% of the economy goes to rebellions or disappears, and only 10% to the estates. After 100 years, the farmers would still be poor, the traders poor, the noble have wooden forts.
The Proprietary colony in the same place, on the contrary, with a much closer capital and governor, would have about 90% control and thus would contibute more to the development of its land, after 100 years it would have a thriving economy, trade and developed farming lands.
Yet fundamentally, they are both inhabited by the same people, the only thing which differ is the state distance and crown control.

 

[Ispil]

For me, that goes back to the "Believable World" goal stated in TT#1. It is important and meaningful to have a live world and that means independent economic actors with their own goals, priorities, and actions. These then respond to the conditions the player creates and leads to immersive and emergent gameplay.

If the wealth of a location was tangible, it would lead to interesting questions around letting it develop on its own rather than intervening, reducing the extractive power of the elites, protecting it from being raided, etc.

Thanks for answering, it really is nice. I'm very much excited to see more.

I think imagining that sort of thing as handled via releasing a subject does really square away the problem. A low-control province is effectively trying to have your cake and eat it too: you want to have direct administrative control despite not having the means to, and refuse to relent and cede administrative control to any other sort of local administration. You're effectively leaving it lawless in that you both lack the capacity to enforce such things yourself and refuse to let anyone else do so for you. Hence why whatever fills the vacuum is going to exist outside any sort of "legal" system.

To let it develop on its own would be to defer to local administration (i.e. release as a subject) rather than trying to manage it yourself.