Tinto Talks #8 - 17th of April 2024

[Álvaro Núñez de Lara]

Its which location has the highest market access first... and in those, military has higher priority than civil constructions

Hi Johan,

What do you do if like in the picture, the Riga Market does not have timber? Is there such a thing as inter market trade routes? Like is there a way for brinin lumber from other markets into the Riga market? Or are you stuck until you conquer a province with lumber?

 

[humbleacadie]

In MEIOU, all the wealth which is not taxed by the government stays in the hand of the local « powerbrokers » (estates).

This works independently from « control », equivalent to communication efficiency.
CE only affects the administrative cost of extracting wealth (here in monarch points, but this could also be translated in a higher administrative cost in ducats in Project Ceasar. Somehow similar to autonomy in EU4, which did not increase the administrative cost, but reduced the money gain.
This could be inverted so that economic potential stays 100%, but the administrative cost to extract taxes to the crown in said province is multiplied by the control of lack there of ) from the province (to the crown), not money which disappears into the ether or into house decoration.
The untaxed money would still go to the estate, which they would use to develop the land, as in MEIOU.

 

[darkestkhan]

yes, because stone is not ideal...

if it had been fish, they would have produced more etc.

Les Shadoks? [or whatever the name was]

Why not eat tomatoes with a stone sauce? Right, no tomatoes yet xD

 

[mcmoor]

But. Then it also means that the actual split between the pop types based on estates ceases when, due to lack of control, money goes only into the rebel pool.

Now, the loyal dhimmies are collecting and investing money for their agenda. So do the loyal Cossacks. So do the loyal nobles.
However, disloyal Cossacks AND dhimmies AND clergy AND nobles, no matter their diverging interests / religions / cultures, now all drain money out of the economy to fund a common rebellion, although this rebellion is made out of competing interests as peasants (who want less taxes), nobles (who would more autonomy), clergy and dhimmies (who have different religion and thus should desire different countries)

The disloyal nobles cease to inject their money into building their defenses (precisely to defend against the king’s authority), the disloyal burghers cease to fund their trading ships which would precisely give them more economy to combat the kings authority, etc…

The way EU4 works, once the "rebel fund pool" gets sufficient value, there'll be a lottery to decide which rebel will raise up lmao. Yeah, this is not ideal. If it doesn't actually impact performance I'd like for rebel estates to actually be included in the UI.

 

[GrandFinnyPoobah]

There is just no mechanics or systems for that money.

What about what that money represents? Opportunity and prosperity.

Understandable that the money disappears into the ether in return for a smoother running game. But would it not be possible to bypass the money economy and show some sort of benefit to a high tax base lacking state control, say greater pop migration/ standard of living attributed pop growth? We might not see returns on investment, but maybe the province can become more appealing in time for the owner to wrestle control of the location/province.

I just think the province should have, even small, some modifier for being a local economy unimpeded by the economic strangulation of a centralised tax system.

 

[Fierce Toast]

I saw a comment here about how areas where the control is lower will be easier to take in peace deals? With so many tiny locations, will peace deals get annoying, having to select every location you want to take, and potentially missing one or two accidentally? Will there be a sort of... like a select all function for peace deals where all the locations in an area will be taken, or you can just draw a line on the map and all the locations within the line will be annexed?

 

[H.A.S.E.V.I.R.]

Les Shadoks? [or whatever the name was]

Why not eat tomatoes with a stone sauce? Right, no tomatoes yet xD

Tomatoes grow in snow and ground frozen solid to 3 meters depth most of the year?

 

[SMIMS]

So now when I think I understood how's tax working relative to control I have a question. Is there any way for countries to actually reduce the tax burden temporarily over the pops in certain areas without losing the control, so that those areas would be delevoped faster because of pops migrating there and locals investing in infrastructure?

 

[darkestkhan]

Tomatoes grow in snow and ground frozen solid to 3 meters depth most of the year?

There is an old French animation in which tomatoes with a stone sauce were a joke in one of the episodes.

 

[i_m_hawk]

What I understand from money going into ether is that what necessary is only simulated and rest is not.

As a player we play from the point of view of the STATE. Let portugal has goa with 50% control. Now many will think rest 50% is going to ether but remember we are the state.
We only care about what is in the accounting books. If we have low control obviously money will not be counted properly since we cannot CONTROL or Admin the place properly. For Goa portugese will not even know that there are 100 more shop in some remote place in goa earning buckets of ducats since we are not able to administer it fully.

This question is coming because of a Gameplay abstraction @Johan is giving us. His is giving us a tooltip to know “at 100% how much that province can provide us” and this is not going to happen in real case thats why people are asking why money is going in the ether.

From the Portugal Crown eyes if we look the potential control of let 60% is what is actually the 100% of the goa province. And Current control is what we have right NOW.
Consider the example.
In reality Governor of Goa is looking at the taxes collected in the Goa. Governor sees that in the books there are 1000 eligible tax payer. Now since portugal recently took over many people of that 1000 people in the records are angry and only 500 people are paying tax. But since porgutal doesnt have proper administration they dont even precisely know how many people are there in Goa who can pay tax since they have only surveyed the lets say harbour area only(from where they got that 1000 number in books).

This 500 people are current control tax
This 1000 people are Potential control tax
And the population of goa(let say 5000) is the total control tax.

But the state Don’t know that there are 5000 people in total so the money generated by the 4000 uncounted people will just not exist in the eye of state.
But but, Johan did gave us the TOOL to know that 5000 total people exist (total control amount). Which is a gameplay abstraction i am fine with. So money is not going to ether, simulate whats matters to the eye of state.

 

[Johan]

Hi Johan,

What do you do if like in the picture, the Riga Market does not have timber? Is there such a thing as inter market trade routes? Like is there a way for brinin lumber from other markets into the Riga market? Or are you stuck until you conquer a province with lumber?

Stay tuned for the next two weeks

 

[poloport]

The game simulates the benefits a country can get out of land. I am pretty sure that Portugal instituted local systems for control in Goa to benefit from it, but considering the distance, there were less efficiencies and many pockets lined before the government in Lisbon saw their share. Many of the overseas territories of european powers were basically feudal subjects for all practical purposes, with local administrators and governors.


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 ?"

Does this mean that for things like the Portuguese empire in Asia, we would primarily see subjects more or less taking over those provinces? Ie: If you take over Goa, you'd essentially have to create a vice-roylaty of India to administrate it?

If so, how could a player support, direct and steer these subjects towards their objectives? ie: I got Goa and now want it to expand into malaca or Macau, how would i get the subject to do that? Would those subjects help support the armies/navies in the region, and be supported in turn?

 

[Korsjan Rīkis]

Just « local minor stuff » such as 40% of the local economy not participating in the estates developing their land.

This will completely unbalance the amount of economy re-injected in the infrastructure build up in high density minor countries versus major countries, since lots of HRE « OPM » will have 100% control in their capital and almost 90% control in nearby locations, hereby giving a lot of money to the estates to pursue their agenda. While in Ming / Ottoman / Mughal, roughly half of the country economy will disappear into rebel funding.

This sounds very much like the issue of EU4, where HRE OPM had 50 dev everywhere by the end game, while Ming ended up a barren undeveloped 12 dev everywhere

It will highly improve Tall play. I'm very happy that EUV won't just be about colouring the map.

I just hope that every country/region will have some flavour and every country won't feel the same and we won't have to wait for 3-4 years to actually feel difference between playing in Western Europe, in India or as Yuan. No, starting situation won't fix that, just look at CK3.

 

[Hadar]

I really, really don't like one good per location. I know that this is the case since EU1 but it seems so historically inaccurate. I don't want to make from Project Ceasar a Victoria clone, but I am not against implementing some mechanics from it. E.g. each location has resources assigned and I can build buildings to extract them. Just because Kraków (Wieliczka and Bochnia to be specific) had, and have, enormous deposits of salt it does not mean that they did not produce anything else. Especially if things like grain, livestock, wood, wax, honey, cloth etc are also classified as "raw materials", because all of that would be produced around Kraków.

 

[i_m_hawk]

I really, really don't like one good per location. I know that this is the case since EU1 but it seems so historically inaccurate. I don't want to make from Project Ceasar a Victoria clone, but I am not against implementing some mechanics from it. E.g. each location has resources assigned and I can build buildings to extract them. Just because Kraków (Wieliczka and Bochnia to be specific) had, and have, enormous deposits of salt it does not mean that they did not produce anything else. Especially if things like grain, livestock, wood, wax, honey, cloth etc are also classified as "raw materials", because all of that would be produced around Kraków.

This is handled by victoria.
In pdx each game has a theme. No other game simulate character better than CK, no other game simulate economy better than Vicky, No other game simulate fast paced warfare better than HOI, no other game simulate Tactical battle better than Steel division.
PC/EU5 is focused on statecraft, it simulate statecraft better, let Vicky have the economy focus

 

[darkestkhan]

they are not really part of the country or the estate if they are that far away.

Not part of the formal economy, but they are part of the informal economy. Since the money flow is unknown by the state at least some of it is likely to end up in the wrong hands. If seen in this way then control would be the measure of how much of our economy is formalized... with modern-day Germany being ~90%.

 

[bokorthedust]

So now when I think I understood how's tax working relative to control I have a question. Is there any way for countries to actually reduce the tax burden temporarily over the pops in certain areas without losing the control, so that those areas would be delevoped faster because of pops migrating there and locals investing in infrastructure?

You can reduce the tax burden of the estates, but not individual locations. With estates having more money they'll be able to invest more, but we are yet to see where (which location) and how that investment will happen.

 

[SMIMS]

You can reduce the tax burden of the estates, but not individual locations. With estates having more money they'll be able to invest more, but we are yet to see where (which location) and how that investment will happen.

So you suggest there are ways to direct investments?

 

[Watergo24]

Wait, is control equivalent to the crown's control of the area, or is it an indication of how lawless an area is? Because I'm confused. I assumed the first, but looking at the comments it seems to be more of the second.

Why can’t it be both? In this time period there were three options.

1) A noble/steward appointed by the crown who was loyal to the crown held the land for the crown. Nobles didn’t own land, it could be taken at any time. Instead, they managed the land and paid taxes from what the land produced. This land would have control by the crown.

2) A noble/steward not appointed by the crown managed the land. This was soon to be a province in rebellion as they saw no reason to pay taxes. This land technically still has control, just not by you…

3) The land was nominally held by the crown, but depopulated. This land would be full of bandits due to the lack of control by anybody. This is where lawlessness would abound.

To directly answer your question, I would say both can exist at the same time.

No. Actually, this game is advertised as covering the transitional period from feudalism to modern states.

This forgets a completely essential part of the era : decentralization. At the start of the game period, nations were still largely reliant on local estates, including nobles, to collect taxes and implement law. This is precisely why the assumption of a « national » estate based in the capital is wrongfully depicted. This is almost a confusion between the crown and the estates. The estates should be built up in opposition to the crown, the larger their power the lower the crown control of the economy where the state can not reach.

This is in contradiction to the depicted model : a large part of the economy does not exist (apart from funding rebellions). When control increases, the crown gets more out of taxes, but so too do the estates who get a more important share of « potential » tax_base. The higher the control, the more economically powerful the estates.

In the late game, estates had almost disappeared as the hand of the state was now more extended, communication infrastructure more developed, and not to forget, they were actually replaced by a state-sponsored administrative class of bureaucrats / governors. This is gradual shift from feudalism to centralized state, where only now in the late period can the « centralized control » based on capital distance be effectively accurate.
Although, again, why in 1800 should remote British Canada not provide any money to its own development ?

I’m not leaving that out at all. You’re forgetting something though in addition to making a gameplay assumption we don’t know about yet .

What you’re forgetting is that areas far away from the main operating area of a country were likely to rebel or be easily conquered. Unless the crown put a garrison there of course. Johan already stated that having 0 control implies you moved your army away too. Just because you have 0 control doesn’t mean your up and coming rebels don’t have any .

Second, you’re making an assumption about how pops work. We have no idea how we are going to incentivize nobles to go to locations. When we conquer areas, will there be the choice to kill all nobles that fought against us? How long will it take for our own nobles to set up shop and run things?

That actually brings up a terrifying point… is control tied to nobles managing the land? If so… when at war if you lose a large number of nobles in battle, does it impact the stability of your country? That was be realistic and horrifying.

 

[H.A.S.E.V.I.R.]

So you suggest there are ways to direct investments?

I suspect there are, expanding rawmaterials is probarly over 1 probability multiplier for something that uses the rawmaterial