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Tinto Talks #15 - June 5th 2024

Welcome to the 15th Tinto Talks, where we ask for feedback on our extremely crazily top secret game which has the codename Project Caesar.

One thing that many have asked for has been a more in-depth dynastical gameplay, so here it is.

Characters
Before we delve into the dynamics of dynastic gameplay, we must first talk about their building blocks, the characters.

european (1).jpg


Here is a European King with an early 18th century background.

While not copying the Crusader Kings mechanics, a Character in Project Caesar is a bit more alive than in let's say EU4. A character is born, lives, and eventually dies.

Every character has Administrative, Diplomatic and Military Attributes ranging from 0-100. Of course, these attributes will not add any sort of mana, but they will impact how well the character will perform certain roles. One example is that the diplomatic ability of an admiral impacts the morale of the navy he leads.

Newborn characters start with 0, but that grows until they are adults depending on what childhood trait they have. You can also assign your rulers’ children and grandchildren a specific education during their childhood

gifted.png

This is a trait that when on the heir of the player it increases the chance of hunting accidents by 200%.

Characters ruling a country will gain up to 3 traits, depending on how long they have ruled.
They are gained while ruling a country. Characters that are generals or admirals will also get traits after combat. There are also unique traits for characters that are REDACTED or OTHER_SECRET_THING.

Characters also have a culture they come from, a religion they follow, they keep track of where they were born, and where they currently are living. They belong to an estate, which for most characters tends to be the nobles estate.

Many characters will have a father and/or a mother as well. For some historical characters at the start of the game that will not necessarily be true.

The number of spouse(s) a character can have depends on religions and laws, but the number of children they get depends more on the fertility of the parents.

So what can you do with characters? Well, this is not Crusader Kings, so the characters themselves are not as important, and there are no character specific events like in Imperator either. In this game, characters are tools to be used for the greater good. If that means marrying off your daughter to secure an alliance with France, then that's what you have to do. You can arrange marriages in your country, send less useful characters into convents, ennoble great people, and much more.
ashanti (1).jpg


This is an African ruler, in his throne room, which while beautiful, is just a background image…


Speaking of marriages, royal marriages in Project Caesar are not just sending a diplomat, here it is far more limited, as you have to actually marry real characters, and often this is a vital action. If you can’t arrange a royal marriage with a country of enough prestige, that has a young consort, you may be forced to marry a local noble from your country, or worse, even a lowborn.

A Royal Marriage between two rulers will immediately form a union between those two countries. Every country has its own inheritance laws, which if they differ, may cause a Union to break, as the rulers would be different. This is probably not the audience where I need to explain the difference between Salic Law and Semi-Salic Law right?


bjälbo.png

And who was the founder of this dynasty?

Dynasties are important, as they impact diplomacy in direct and indirect ways. As some inheritance laws prefer their own dynasty, and having the same dynasty can improve opinions between countries.


As in almost all previous GSG, the game will keep track of who has ruled that country before, just so you can go back and admire them. We have tried to get in as much history as possible here, even if my heathen content designers refuse to have Odin as the original King of Sweden!

ruler_history.png

Of course regnal numbering and actual names depend on many different things..


Stay tuned, next week we’ll be back and we will then talk about how the cabinet will work.
 

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Do you guys have plans to implement more succession mechanics, like Albrecht Achilles von Hohenzollern and Ladislaus. I always thought those were cool and was disappointed to find out that they only happened at the start of the game.
 
Welcome to the 15th Tinto Talks, where we ask for feedback on our extremely crazily top secret game which has the codename Project Caesar.

One thing that many have asked for has been a more in-depth dynastical gameplay, so here it is.

Characters
Before we delve into the dynamics of dynastic gameplay, we must first talk about their building blocks, the characters.

View attachment 1144136

Here is a European King with an early 18th century background.

While not copying the Crusader Kings mechanics, a Character in Project Caesar is a bit more alive than in let's say EU4. A character is born, lives, and eventually dies.

Every character has Administrative, Diplomatic and Military Attributes ranging from 0-100. Of course, these attributes will not add any sort of mana, but they will impact how well the character will perform certain roles. One example is that the diplomatic ability of an admiral impacts the morale of the navy he leads.

Newborn characters start with 0, but that grows until they are adults depending on what childhood trait they have. You can also assign your rulers’ children and grandchildren a specific education during their childhood

View attachment 1144137
This is a trait that when on the heir of the player it increases the chance of hunting accidents by 200%.

Characters ruling a country will gain up to 3 traits, depending on how long they have ruled.
They are gained while ruling a country. Characters that are generals or admirals will also get traits after combat. There are also unique traits for characters that are REDACTED or OTHER_SECRET_THING.

Characters also have a culture they come from, a religion they follow, they keep track of where they were born, and where they currently are living. They belong to an estate, which for most characters tends to be the nobles estate.

Many characters will have a father and/or a mother as well. For some historical characters at the start of the game that will not necessarily be true.

The number of spouse(s) a character can have depends on religions and laws, but the number of children they get depends more on the fertility of the parents.

So what can you do with characters? Well, this is not Crusader Kings, so the characters themselves are not as important, and there are no character specific events like in Imperator either. In this game, characters are tools to be used for the greater good. If that means marrying off your daughter to secure an alliance with France, then that's what you have to do. You can arrange marriages in your country, send less useful characters into convents, ennoble great people, and much more.
View attachment 1144138

This is an African ruler, in his throne room, which while beautiful, is just a background image…


Speaking of marriages, royal marriages in Project Caesar are not just sending a diplomat, here it is far more limited, as you have to actually marry real characters, and often this is a vital action. If you can’t arrange a royal marriage with a country of enough prestige, that has a young consort, you may be forced to marry a local noble from your country, or worse, even a lowborn.

A Royal Marriage between two rulers will immediately form a union between those two countries. Every country has its own inheritance laws, which if they differ, may cause a Union to break, as the rulers would be different. This is probably not the audience where I need to explain the difference between Salic Law and Semi-Salic Law right?


View attachment 1144139
And who was the founder of this dynasty?

Dynasties are important, as they impact diplomacy in direct and indirect ways. As some inheritance laws prefer their own dynasty, and having the same dynasty can improve opinions between countries.


As in almost all previous GSG, the game will keep track of who has ruled that country before, just so you can go back and admire them. We have tried to get in as much history as possible here, even if my heathen content designers refuse to have Odin as the original King of Sweden!

View attachment 1144142
Of course regnal numbering and actual names depend on many different things..


Stay tuned, next week we’ll be back and we will then talk about how the cabinet will work.
Please please please make 3d characters an optional feature. I would rather have nothing than these 3d character that are in every new paradox game. They offer no value to me. In eu5 and vic3 and they only takes up space in the ui.
 
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The dynasty in Bulgaria is not called Sratsinir. Sratsimir is the third son of Ivan Alexander, the ruler of Bulgaria. The dynasty is called Shishmanovtsi (or just Shishman). It's a branch of Asenevtsi (Asen).

The heir in 1337 is Mihail, Alexander's oldest son. He died in 1355 in a battle with the Turks. Second son is Asen, who died in 1349, probably from plague.
Not really, there is no evidence that the Sratsimir or Shishman dynasties were patrilineal descendants of the Asen dynasty. Members of those two dynasties sometimes adopted the name "Asen" to signify their matrilineal descent from the Asens and thereby emphasize their claim to the Bulgarian throne. Also, the Sratsimir and Shishman dynasties are completely separate, the older Shishman dynasty descended from Cumans who settled in Bulgaria around the 1240's while the Sratsimir dynasty has obscure origins likely from the Kran area.
 
Does this mean there won't be bastards popping out creating new dynasties? Because that's like half the noble families of Europe, like the Trastamaras discussed

there will
 
How will the game handle the unusual dynastic system in Japan, where there is a clear imperial family and emperor, but in practice it is almost never the actual ruling power? At the same time, however, the imperial family remains the source of all legitimacy in government, and every shogun officially acts in the name of the emperor and the imperial court.

Even within the imperial dynasty itself, the system isn't as simple as having just one emperor. There were periods of time in which the imperial court had two emperors, so to speak: a current emperor and an abdicated ex-emperor, where the former was often a powerless child (who then abdicates upon reaching adulthood) and the latter was the real head of the imperial court, cloistered in a monastery.

It seems that the game here should separate the roles of "emperor", "head of imperial household", and "ruler", with the possibility that any combination of the three roles could coincide, but not requiring it in cases where a shogun or regent rules and not the emperor. There should always be an imperial dynasty, and it shouldn't be as easily changeable as the ruling dynasty. The legitimacy of the government should be somehow tied to having the support/control of the imperial dynasty.

It feels like the imperial court should serve as an additional non-state actor in the Japanese system, perhaps as an something like an extra estate, although I personally think it should have mechanics more character-focused than a faceless estate. This Japanese system may have been too complicated for EU4 to replicate, but I think the new character system in Project Caesar should be complex enough that the game should be able to faithfully model all of this.
 
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View attachment 1144142
Of course regnal numbering and actual names depend on many different things..


It seems odd to see King Etienne rather than King Stephen. Should we use the culture of the kingdom rather than the culture of the ruler for naming lists like this? Rulers might be renamed upon becoming ruler of somewhere more important (or say on becoming Pope). Of course countries primary culture can also change and earlier rulers would use the countries culture of the time.

Otherwise it means Carlos I of Spain will be Karol I or Karl I (as either an Austrian or Dutch culture version)? What would that mean for historical Roman emperors hailing from all over the empire (not using the common latin names?) What about Polish rulers names?
 
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directing someone to murder or spy can be a tool to use in the game, and how can there be bastards if there are no affairs?
I get your point, affairs exist in eu4 already ( desires of the flesh event, if im not mistaken). But i doubt player woild ever be an active actor in these affairs. Its more a ck3 thingy, less eu.

As for spying/murdering:
Sending your cabinet member as a 'diplomat' to solve some 'issues' in nearby kingdom, might add small flavour, and such action could probably result in either of 4 things:
- foreign cabinet member/ hier dieing in 'hunting accident'
- your cabinet member sent on mission being captured and put in prison/executed (whichever you pick, he's lost for you) with heavy loss in opinion in neighbouring country+ giving them casus belli against you (countries in that period of time were very successful in getting confesions from captured criminals)
- both of things happening (target was killed, but your agent was captured and tortured until he gave names of his superiors)
- neither of them happening ( attempt failed, but agent managed to flee)

But will devs care to implement such cabinet action? Maybe...
 
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