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Tinto Talks #32 - 9th of October 2024

Welcome to another Tinto Talks , the Happy Wednesday, where we talk about our upcoming, unannounced, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious game with the codename Project Caesar.

Today we will talk about what happens when some of the pops in your country are not entirely convinced of its greatness.

Rebel Factions

There are five different categories that a rebel faction can belong to.
  • Nationalist, for all independence movements.
  • Pretender, for when they want another ruler.
  • Slave, for when they want to be free.
  • Religious, if a different religious group they want independence, else they want to convert the country
  • Estate, for when they are really unhappy and want their society to change.

patriots.png

A fair number of pops, and 12 locations, this could be a challenge..

Pops and Rebel Factions
Now let's go back to Tinto Talks #17, where we first mentioned that Pops have satisfaction, and when that is low enough a pop will join a rebel faction. The levels at which a pop joins or leaves a faction have some different factors, but the way to keep a pop from joining a rebel is to make sure they are satisfied with life.

Now, let's take a look at some Sardinian peasants in Cagliari, which has recently been conquered by Aragon, just before the start of the game.

sardinians.png

For some reason people tend to be a bit upset when conquered.

Sadly we can not make the commoners estate more happy in Aragon, as they are already at 100% satisfaction, so the +25% bonus is the maximum we can get. Otherwise to make the estates happy you can always reduce taxes or grant them more privileges.

One obvious solution here is to make them integrated which would reduce the conquered penalty of 50% to 10%, however that will take about 25 years, which may not be quick enough to avoid an uprising. If we build a castle we could add another 10% of satisfaction, and we could also station an army there to keep the peasants in line.

As they lack access to wine and legumes, and currently trade in a muslim market, we could try to deny market access to Al-Jazair, and they would be slightly happier as the wine would be easier to get from an Italian market.

All of this would make the satisfaction positive at least, but we need to get it above 29.74%, which is not feasible right now.

join_reb.png

A stable country has a higher threshold for rebels to join..

Sadly we can not yet use the Pacify Population cabinet action which you can get in the Age of Absolutism which reduces the threshold for joining rebels by 5-10% depending on the competence of your monarch and cabinet.

If we go back to rebel factions again, they have a progress value, where when it reaches 100%, and here the rebels, which will take about 23 years, so the uprising is likely to happen before the integration is done, unless you can weaken their power, or increase control over their territories so they get less money.

rebel_progress.png

Sadly Sardinia is a bit too far away for a road from Barcelona..

So what happens when a rebel faction has progressed to 100% then? Well, one of two things will happen, either there will be a civil war or a revolt. First the rebel faction forms a new country, with a relevant name, and takes ownership of the locations where it has a strong support.

Revolts
If they are a rebel type that wants to be independent, then they will start a revolt, which is almost a war where the defender can re-annex any revolter without further aggressive expansion and can always afford the peace cost.

If the culture of these revolting countries is from a country that exists on the map, they will call in the country they used to be a part of it into the revolt, and if they join, and the war is won, the revolter will become a part of the country that they belonged to in the past.


Civil War
These are started by pretenders, some religious rebels, or estate type rebels. Civil Wars work differently than other wars in that you do not have to negotiate a peace. In Civil War, as soon as you would have taken control of a location from a siege or occupation, the location would immediately flip ownership of that location instead.

This means that Civil Wars are almost always fought to the bitter end, and only one country can survive.


End of a Civil War.
As this system has a few similarities with the Civil War systems of Imperator Rome, we have to alleviate some concerns here. In Project Caesar there is no Game Over if you lose a Civil War, but instead you have the option to continue as the winning side. One thing to consider here is that the winner will have different rulers, maybe a different religion, perhaps a new government type, dramatic changes to societal values, reforms and/or privileges.

After all, if the peasants revolt and win, you will not keep your glorious full serfdom monarchy as it once was.

civil_war_lost.png

You don’t have to continue, you can pick the other option for the game over screen!



Next week we will talk more about Diplomacy, and that will for most of you be something you already are aware of, but it will list quite a few new aspects.
 
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Welcome to another Tinto Talks , the Happy Wednesday, where we talk about our upcoming, unannounced, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious game with the codename Project Caesar.

Today we will talk about what happens when some of the pops in your country are not entirely convinced of its greatness.

Rebel Factions

There are five different categories that a rebel faction can belong to.
  • Nationalist, for all independence movements.
  • Pretender, for when they want another ruler.
  • Slave, for when they want to be free.
  • Religious, if a different religious group they want independence, else they want to convert the country
  • Estate, for when they are really unhappy and want their society to change.

View attachment 1199240
A fair number of pops, and 12 locations, this could be a challenge..

Pops and Rebel Factions
Now let's go back to Tinto Talks #17, where we first mentioned that Pops have satisfaction, and when that is low enough a pop will join a rebel faction. The levels at which a pop joins or leaves a faction have some different factors, but the way to keep a pop from joining a rebel is to make sure they are satisfied with life.

Now, let's take a look at some Sardinian peasants in Cagliari, which has recently been conquered by Aragon, just before the start of the game.

View attachment 1199241
For some reason people tend to be a bit upset when conquered.

Sadly we can not make the commoners estate more happy in Aragon, as they are already at 100% satisfaction, so the +25% bonus is the maximum we can get. Otherwise to make the estates happy you can always reduce taxes or grant them more privileges.

One obvious solution here is to make them integrated which would reduce the conquered penalty of 50% to 10%, however that will take about 25 years, which may not be quick enough to avoid an uprising. If we build a castle we could add another 10% of satisfaction, and we could also station an army there to keep the peasants in line.

As they lack access to wine and legumes, and currently trade in a muslim market, we could try to deny market access to Al-Jazair, and they would be slightly happier as the wine would be easier to get from an Italian market.

All of this would make the satisfaction positive at least, but we need to get it above 29.74%, which is not feasible right now.

View attachment 1199242
A stable country has a higher threshold for rebels to join..

Sadly we can not yet use the Pacify Population cabinet action which you can get in the Age of Absolutism which reduces the threshold for joining rebels by 5-10% depending on the competence of your monarch and cabinet.

If we go back to rebel factions again, they have a progress value, where when it reaches 100%, and here the rebels, which will take about 23 years, so the uprising is likely to happen before the integration is done, unless you can weaken their power, or increase control over their territories so they get less money.

View attachment 1199243
Sadly Sardinia is a bit too far away for a road from Barcelona..

So what happens when a rebel faction has progressed to 100% then? Well, one of two things will happen, either there will be a civil war or a revolt. First the rebel faction forms a new country, with a relevant name, and takes ownership of the locations where it has a strong support.

Revolts
If they are a rebel type that wants to be independent, then they will start a revolt, which is almost a war where the defender can re-annex any revolter without further aggressive expansion and can always afford the peace cost.

If the culture of these revolting countries is from a country that exists on the map, they will call in the country they used to be a part of it into the revolt, and if they join, and the war is won, the revolter will become a part of the country that they belonged to in the past.


Civil War
These are started by pretenders, some religious rebels, or estate type rebels. Civil Wars work differently than other wars in that you do not have to negotiate a peace. In Civil War, as soon as you would have taken control of a location from a siege or occupation, the location would immediately flip ownership of that location instead.

This means that Civil Wars are almost always fought to the bitter end, and only one country can survive.


End of a Civil War.
As this system has a few similarities with the Civil War systems of Imperator Rome, we have to alleviate some concerns here. In Project Caesar there is no Game Over if you lose a Civil War, but instead you have the option to continue as the winning side. One thing to consider here is that the winner will have different rulers, maybe a different religion, perhaps a new government type, dramatic changes to societal values, reforms and/or privileges.

After all, if the peasants revolt and win, you will not keep your glorious full serfdom monarchy as it once was.

View attachment 1199244
You don’t have to continue, you can pick the other option for the game over screen!



Next week we will talk more about Diplomacy, and that will for most of you be something you already are aware of, but it will list quite a few new aspects.
Civil wars in imperator were very tedious if you were big and often lasted decades having to carpet siege everything. Is it going to feel the same in PC?
 
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I mean, you're at war with them so you can demand locations from them in the peace deal.

Same risk as joining any other war.
I get that, but doesn't that seem exploitable to you to some degree? I get a piece of land somewhere, say the HRE, which (this is based on EU4, since we don't yet know how IOs and specifically the HRE works in this game) usually has a big bad guard dog like Bohemia or Austria to defend the princes. My rebels do their thing, and some obscure tag based on the closest culture (so most of the time never Bohemia, since they are Czech, and not even Austria, since they are South Bavarian) joins them against me. I annex them (plus get back the territory I already had), they rebel, the next obscure tag joins up, I annex them too, and we do this until we run out of small HRE tags to protect them or until a coalition declares a war on me.

If it works like that, a country like France can probably eat the whole Rhineland without the Emperor or anyone else with a chance of ever stopping them intervening. Hence in my opinion it's a higher risk for game balance than simply joining any other war.
 
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Will nationalism become more of an issue later on in the game? Could it be tied to literacy for example, with literate burghers caring more about nationalism than illiterate peasants?
 
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Will some of your troops ever join a revolt and if so, is it based on where they are stationed? E.g. in your example above could Aragon safely place a large force on Sardinia in anticipation of a revolt or would those troops potentially switch side?
 
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I get that, but doesn't that seem exploitable to you to some degree? I get a piece of land somewhere, say the HRE, which (this is based on EU4, since we don't yet know how IOs and specifically the HRE works in this game) usually has a big bad guard dog like Bohemia or Austria to defend the princes. My rebels do their thing, and some obscure tag based on the closest culture (so most of the time never Bohemia, since they are Czech, and not even Austria, since they are South Bavarian) joins them against me. I annex them (plus get back the territory I already had), they rebel, the next obscure tag joins up, I annex them too, and we do this until we run out of small HRE tags to protect them or until a coalition declares a war on me.

If it works like that, a country like France can probably eat the whole Rhineland without the Emperor or anyone else with a chance of ever stopping them intervening. Hence in my opinion it's a higher risk for game balance than simply joining any other war.
I'd assume the AI is reluctant to join wars alongside rebels if it can clearly tell it doesn't have a hope in hell of winning. Calls to arms can be declined.
 
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Are there different type of rebels, joining the same faction that want different degree of a goal.... (aristocrat) patriots wanting more freedoms, but remain as part of the same realm and (burger) nationalists that want full seccession?
How do characters (royal family, generals, cabinet ministers,...) play into all of it?
 
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A few questions:
1. Can rebels form alliances with other nations before or after their revolt and ask them to join in for help? Like Scottish Rebels asking Help from France in their fight against Great Britain?

2. Can different Nationalist Rebels ally together to form a larger united force against their ruler?
Like Scottish and Irish Rebels joining forces and rebelling together in a hypothetical scenario?

3. Regarding Nationalist Rebels asking their previous owners into the war.
Can the previous owner ask their allies into the war too or is it simply the rebels and their previous owner?

4. Can Civil wars be ended with negotiation to avoid outside threats during it?
Like for example a rival declaring war on us during a Civil war so we give the rebels what they want so that we can focus on the rival war instead of continuing the civil war.

1 - yes after they have spawned

2 - yes, thats how it works..

3 - hmm.. think they can.

4 - with the surrender yes.
 
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That looks nice.
I have one basic question: Byzantium conquers a location in Anatolia with Greek, Turkic and Armenian pops. Will all of them have the same -50 satisfaction penalty because they were conquered? Or Greeks/Armenians will be actually happy?
 
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That looks nice.
I have one basic question: Byzantium conquers a location in Anatolia with Greek, Turkic and Armenian pops. Will all of them have the same -50 satisfaction penalty because they were conquered? Or Greeks/Armenians will be actually happy?
Accepted cultures don't have separatism malus, I believe.
 
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I don't quite agree with the notion a civil war will only end when one side is victorious. The Armagnac-Burgundian civil war, which is happening shortly after the game start date, most certainly didn't. More recently North/South Korea and China/Taiwan come to mind.
Not quite sure if Taiwan/China really count since they aren't both countries. They both claim to be the only China and only a handful of countries recognize Taiwan as a country (with basically none of them being western countries barring like the pope and Caribbean islands).
Also North/South Korea are still just in a ceasefire state. Even as recently as the 20teens, peace talks have failed.
 
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Hello, I have three (technically four) questions:

What happen if the unsatisfied pops are a minority (less than 50% of the population of the location)? Will they start a revolt?
If someone wins a war against nationalist rebels, would that prevent the pops for trying a new rebelion?
And wining agains nationalist rebels have any influence the integration progress of the location/area where they were?
 
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Is there a grace period between rebellions? Or can your crushing the nationalist immediately enrage more to become nationalist?
 
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maybe once? Usually none if you play decently, and nothing else happens.
Does it depend on the number of populations conquered? Or the relative number of pops to accepted pops? Because it would be strange to conquered half of Poland as Brandenburg and just deal with only one rebellion
 
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Will the Dutch Revolt be expressed through this mechanic or is there a separate content/disaster for them like in EU4?

Related question: Will a minority revolting in a country stimulate and give impetus for a revolt by that same minority in another country? For example, say the Basque in Spain revolt, will this stimulate the Basque in France to also revolt?
 
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