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Tinto Talks #14 - 29th of May 2024

Welcome everyone to where we talk about our completely secret, not yet announced game. In today's Tinto Talks we will delve into a completely new feature.

A small reminder, this is very much a WiP, and nothing is final.

The core of this system was one of the first things I designed back in the spring of 2020, a feature that could be described as both a narrative and mechanical guide for the game. This is something that has been inspired by the Incident System from EU4, and also by the International Crisis mechanic of Victoria 2, but it is not really like any of those.

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Today is when we introduce our new Situation System.

So what is a “Situation” then? Good question. You could describe it as content that involves multiple countries over a period of time. In Project Caesar, we are using this feature to create a historical narrative that creates different experiences, as our goal is to have an immersive and varied experience for the player.

A Situation can have unique actions, events that trigger, and other types of unique content, and each of them will have its own UI and mapmode.

If a situation may involve or affect you, it will show with an alert, in the new color of purple!

Let's take a look at some of the situations we have in the game right now.

Black Death
This was the first situation we created, and it has been going through many revisions during the last four years.

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Black death can be 1346, random or off, and origin can be historical or random.

Usually, it will happen from 1346, as the Bubonic Plague appears somewhere in Central Asia and starts spreading through the old world, killing 40-60% of the population of the affected areas.

It spreads through adjacencies, moving armies, or through trade. There are ways you can attempt to alleviate this, but the efficiency of it is low, and the cost is high. You can try to isolate your court, expel the sick, blame minorities, and other very efficient ways to deal with the problem.

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Slowly spreading centrally, but some traders have already taken it into Italy...


Italian Wars
In the Age of Discovery, this is probably the most important situation for anyone in Western Europe. It is about control over Italy and will happen as soon as a French or Iberian Major Power or the Emperor declares war on an Italian Power.


There will be up to six different leagues that will fight over control of Italy. There is a French league, an Iberian league, the Emperor's league, and up to 3 Italian leagues. The first two will dynamically select their leaders based on strength calculations.

If one league gets hegemony over Italy, i.e. owning over 60% of the region either through conquest or diplomacy, then they will win. The Italians can also win by making sure the foreign leagues are destroyed through a special peace deal.

Leagues can be abandoned and anyone owning locations in Italy can join one of them.

The situation allows enemies and rivals of foreign league leaders to intervene and assist the defending Italians and it also grants access to unique interactions in order to send aid of any kind, attract cheaper condottieri and even create a new Italian league.

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This is how the situation would look if it fired in 1337 if Austria was to be the Holy Roman Emperor and Aragon was the dominant power in Iberia with vested interests in Italy.

Red Turban Rebellions
This is rather likely to happen as soon as the Yuan Empire ends up at low stability.

It will create an international organization called The Red Turbans, which will get a lot of rebel countries.

The situation can happen to Yuán after 1350 if their stability drops below 25 while also either of their estates is not satisfied. The requirements are harsh, but once you reach the Age of Discovery you have avoided the situation.

With that being said, the situation will most likely fire in a playthrough. During this period, the Red Turban Rebels will spawn as an international organization which is in direct opposition to the Huángdì, the Chinese emperor. While the situation is going on, events will pop up that force Yuán to release historical Chinese tags in their historical order (so the first Sòng is released, then Wú, then Tiānwán, etc.), which join the IO and immediately declare their own, independent war on Yuan.

Each rebel nation is playable when it spawns, and they can wage war with each other too.

The countries spawned during this situation have a custom loyalty value which describes how, well, loyal they are to Yuán which goes from -100 to 100 and grows or shrinks depending on their opinion of Yuán. Most rebel nations will start at -100 as they actively fought against Yuan. However, some nations spawned through the situation represent the Mongolian generals who gained a lot of autonomy, but were still fighting for Yuán’s cause. They would spawn with +50 Loyalty. If any rebel country reaches more than 0 loyalty, they will automatically leave the Red Turban Rebels IO.

In order to end the situation as Yuán, you have to regain internal stability, but also ensure that the Red Turban Rebels have no members left anymore after 20 years of the start of the situation. All states spawned through the situation with over 50 loyalty will then automatically be annexed by Yuán.

On the other hand, the situation also ends once any rebel tag owns the majority of China (around 70%) of all the locations there. If that happens the rebel tag which fulfills this requirement will assume the Imperial Throne and take over the tag of China.

The situation unlocks special diplomatic actions for Yuán and the rebels alike. Yuán can grant titles to any released state that is not at war with it, giving a significant loyalty and opinion boost in exchange for a hefty fee. They can also negotiate with local rebellions which decreases the process for a rebellion to break out and they can call loyalist countries (those with +50 loyalty) to their wars against the Red Turban Rebels. Meanwhile, the rebel states have a special cb against Yuan and other rebel states with a vastly reduced warscore cost for Chinese locations. They also get access to an action that allows them to rein in a conquered area, greatly reducing the local integration speed.

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Green are your loyal servants, orange are the rebels, red is the strongest of the rebels.

Other situations include things like the Western Schism, the Hundred Years War & Sengoku Jidai. We will talk more about those in future Tinto Talks.

If you have a suggestion of what you think would be an important historical event that should be a situation, then please post them here!

Next week though, we will talk about something that many people have asked for repeatedly.
 
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Is the holy league ( 1571 ) that was intended to break the Ottoman Empire's control of the eastern Mediterranean Sea a potential situation ?

no, that would be a coalition
 
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Ideas for Situations

Larger
  • England, India - or rather the many Rajas, factions, nations, states, kingdoms, and empires - The First War of Independance
  • England, America and the British Colonies, Spain, France - The American War of Independance
  • England, The Dutch Republic, Spain, Portugal - The Spanish Armada
  • Um... Europe? - The Napoleonic Wars
Smaller
  • England/Scotland - The Jacobite rising
  • England/Scotland - First War of Scottish Independence, Sir William Wallace etc.
Single Country
  • England - The Peasant's Revolt
  • England - The English Civil War

I'm aware that these are England focused - I assume that everyone is similarly focused on their own countrie's history.

I'm also aware some of these may be too small a scale to count as a Situation. I'm suggesting them as inspiration: if they help, then great :D
 
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Northern Wars could make a good situation in game. Especially Second Northern war which had quite few nations involved and also had some change sides (which would also be a cool mechanic to have in game where you can negotiate during the war for people to change sides as well as the usual peace offering to secondary countries)
 
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There should definitely be situations supporting the formation and initial expansion of Gunpowder Empires - for Ottoman conquest of Mamluk Sultanate, for unification of Iranian plateau and for conquest of Ganges plateau by anyone from Iranian culture group
 
Since situations cover not only political situations like the Italian Wars, but also more natural disasters like the Black Death, would situations also be suitable for things like the Little Ice Age or the witch hunts?
 
I suppose, like a dog with a bone, I could suggest the Irish wars, especially now that the High Kingship is an IO. Would probably be a long one though. You could have Norman lords competing to become King's Lieutenant or Lord Deputy as well and maybe a third option where one group wants to unite both into an Ireland combining Gaelic and Norman identities. You could have different phases that are spawned from things like the wars of the Roses, the Protestant Reformation, the Counter Reformation (when foreign powers like Spain and the Papal States get involved).
 
Well, I might be out of the loop, but what about instances where we have a mechanical copy of a situation, but without the flavour.

E.g. some kind of dynamic struggle for Northern Germanic states in case Holy Roman Emperor got weak and lose grips over merchant republics of Baltic sea, while Poland, Sweden and Denmark (if we suppose the later to not to be in PU) run their own Scramble for Germany. Can it use the same mechanic, that is inside the Italian wars situation, but obviously without the historical flavour context?

Yes, this sounds like a dynamic situation, that already was confirmed to be non existent, but the question is "Can existing mechanics simulate situations in all but name and flavour?"
 
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Playerswant THEIR choices to change history.


I've been doing these games for 25+ years now, and many times I've been suckered in by "we can simulate everything, we don't need narrative guidelines" only for game launches to be rocky, and having to readjust and making sure historical narratives are happening often enough.
I largely agree with this and really like the system you and the team are building. However, I do think there should be room for some PLAUSIBLE alt history paths to happen outside of the players control. Maybe instead of 100/0 (with 100% of the changes being made through the player's choices vs. 0% plausible interesting butterflied evolutions of history) it should be 80/20 or 70/30? Again, the important thing for non-player induced deviations from history should be plausible - things that realistically could have happened given some chance / minor changes.

I feel like that's probably what you meant by 'narrative guidelines' but just wanted to clarify that we're not fully on railroads here save for player choices.
 
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Will we be able to see triggers for 1) the start of the situation 2) for one to be considered a participant in the situation before the situation triggers in the game?

One of my worst memories of playing hoi2 and eu3 were needing to look up on the wikia/search through the game's files with the notepad to see the exact triggers for an event or a decision to occur. I'd really love to be able to see the triggers even if I'm playing an all around unrelated country such as England in the case of the Italian Wars thing.

I mean, it'd be ahistorical but not impossible for the England to have acquried territories in the region and eventually participated in the wars right?
 
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A few South Asian situations that would be nice to see in the game, though given their time periods, some may be set too late in the game to fire.

1. Bengali unification: Beginning around the start of the game's timeline: Involving the 3 sultans of a divided Bengal, minor Bengali kingdoms and the Delhi Sultanate. Ends when one of the 3 emerges victorious, while Delhi can choose to intervene, influence and choose sides in the war and if the outcome is favourable for Delhi's pick, they get to establish a subject relationship with the victorious Bengali sultan entire diplomatically.

2. South Indian Wars: Involving Vijaynagar/Hoysalas and a few minors in the region fighting against Deccan sultans that spring out of Delhi (notably the Madurai Sultanate with the backing of Delhi at the start of the game). Sides established along vaguely religious lines. Ends when one power emerges completely victorious. If Vij wins Delhi gets a stab hit. If Madhurai wins, Vij/Hoysalas get a stab hit. Might set the stage for the rise of the Bahamanis and thus eventually another round of the situation further down the line.

3. Mughal Invasion: Timurid Dynasty Generals from central Asia/Afghanistan/Khorasan region form an IO with rebellious governors of the Delhi Sultanate (in the North) and backed by the major power in Persia/Transoxiana (preferably the Timurid State itself) invade Delhi until it falls unless Delhi successfully wards off the invaders and successfully reins in ALL the disloyal governors. Ends with the Mughal Empire established (Timurid victory) or the Timurid balkanization (Delhi Victory).

These are very vague, not entirely historical (duh) but could set the stage for immersive and interesting playthroughs in the Indian subcontinent and beyond. Loved this dev diary, and looking forward to the next! Cheers.
 
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I hope the Hook and Cod Wars in the Low Countries will be one of these too! Or maybe just factionalism in the Low Countries in general, all of the states there had to deal with factionalism in this era.

Yes!

Hook and Cod Wars situation
Time period: probably limited to the first Age(s) ~1337 - 1450.
Trigger conditions: Monarch of Holland dies with no heir or heir with low legitimacy and with disloyal Burgher (Cods) or Nobles (Hooks).

First event:
Imperial decision for HRE emperor to deal with inheritance
1 Choose local noble
2 Give Holland to [Hainaut/random Walloon minor) as Personal Union
3 Give Holland to [Hainaut/random Walloon minor) as Personal, but put their heir as the heir of this new Personal Union (historical)

Outcomes:
1. Civil war with Burgher uprising in Holland and PU CB for [Hainaut / Walloon minor]. Options dor Holland to ally with Utrecht and Gelre to suppress rebels
2. Civil war with Noble uprising in Holland. Utrecht and Gelre get "Help the Hook League" CB, with special victory condition to (re)impose a local noble ruler.
3. After a few years, noble uprising in Holland to dispose the Walloon monarch and put emperor's son on the throne.

Follow up during the next century:
Event to resurface every time the monarch dies and the losing estate (either nobles or burghers, depending on the scenario) is disloyal (events and modifiers could push this to happen). The breakaway locality in the civil war can call in rivals of the Holland/walloon/(former) emperor PU to support their cause, with the caveat that this will put them under a PU of said rival. This is what historically happened to Burgundy and how they got a major foot in the door in the Low Countries.

Whenever the Cod / Burgher supported candidate is in power, they should obtain a special CB "cut of the support of the Hooks on the Bisphoric of Utrecht and Gelre, speeding up the historical unification of the Netherlands.
 
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I can't imagine how tiring it must be to explain for the 10th time same things. No, situations are not disasters, no situations are not succession wars, yes, there will be generic diseases...
What about the ones asking if the HYW will be a situation....

Like, mate, read the tinto talks first ?
 
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As someone who has been disappointed in general with Paradox as of the last 5 or so years, it's hard not to be so hyped for this. So far this looks sick. This here is what I love in Paradox games, ways for a bunch of nations to interact both with diplomacy and conquest, alliances and polarity, etc. With things like this, as long as there is enough 'normal' content, IE, that every nation has, this could be a good release. I only hope the UI is changed to be less mobile UI design.
 
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Rise of nationalism (if it is in the span of the game) could be a situation. There were a lot of Germans who tried to unite under their "tag" and take German culture/speaking parts from other countries. Similarly, in panslavism, Russia advocated for the liberation of Slavic people so they could include them in their sphere of influence.
 
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90% of this thread rn:

I think that [random generic historical war] should be a situation because it involved [war participant 1], [war participant 2], and finally [war participant 3] and they were fighting over [war goal already in EU as a CB].
 
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90% of this thread rn:

I think that [random generic historical war] should be a situation because it involved [war participant 1], [war participant 2], and finally [war participant 3] and they were fighting over [war goal already in EU as a CB].
Just like 90% of the thread two weeks ago when suddenly everything had to be represented as an IO. Shiny new tools will have that effect.
 
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