Tinto Talks #35 - 30th of October

[Mindel]

We’ve also talked about mechanics for regional powers, but all designs so far have some severe drawbacks, for example how we would define the geographical area to make it feel good.

How about using markets and economics as the basis for deciding geographical measures of power?

Each market could define a subregion, where one can measure who the local great powers are, and then an "economic region" would be a collection of several markets organized in a sensible way according to their economics (i.e. the Mediterranean region, the spice route around Africa, etc.). The point is that the organization should be done according to the economics of trade and resources, which factors which hopefully don't change too much from changing hands in war.

Then a regional great power would be a nation holding great influence within a particular economic region, and a hegemon would be a nation holding great power status in many economic regions.

 

[Ispil]

You can script whatever rules you want at each rank.

This is the logic for allowing to upgrade to a Kingdom rank.

    allow = {

        culture_population_in_country = {
            culture = root.culture
            value > 1000
        }
       
        is_subject = no
        modifier:block_from_change_to_kingdom_rank = no
    }

Oh good, so I can fiddle with it without having to make my own parallel system, then.

 

[bigboiwabbit24]

I don't know if this is the right place, but something I'd love to see in this game is a warning that your AI allies are about to make a separate peace deal with your enemies
e.g. if war isn't made by X date, Y nation will make a separate peace deal

 

[ibvfteh]

The idea is that a Hegemon should be something other countries works against.

Hmmmm. Can’t it be more punishing? Like if you have a strong navy. It’s not you who claim the hegemony, but the other nations start deeming you as a navy hegemon, cutting ties with you and becoming more fearful. Like an endgame limitation. Will also stop the power creep because why you need more buffs when you are literally a hegemon

 

[Myxach]

You can script whatever rules you want at each rank.

This is the logic for allowing to upgrade to a Kingdom rank.

    allow = {

        culture_population_in_country = {
            culture = root.culture
            value > 1000
        }
       
        is_subject = no
        modifier:block_from_change_to_kingdom_rank = no
    }

Is it possible to add a new rank?

 

[Varus90]

Can't wait for the late game event where %GREAT_CONQUEROR grabs the imperial crown from the Pope's hands and thus disables those special rules.

 

[ArVass]

So Empire Rank is limited to 10 nations max?

Not necessarily, as Great Powers can lose their great power status and make space for others. So for example if Japan or Delhi fell hard and were no longer Great Powers, some any other country with a Kingdom rank coud become GPs and ascend to Empire rank, without Japan or Delhi losing their own rank; so essentially, there can be many empires

 

[Tercio Soldier]

Is Ethiopia an empire at game start?

 

[BI0ck]

2 things I hope change for these systems:

In the early-game, before global relations become a thing, the idea of a global "great power" makes no sense to me, especially if there's a limited number of slots. Like, if there's 8 slots, and I'm Hungary in 9th place and Japan is in 8th place, and it's like 1350, I don't even know who Japan is, nor does anyone I am doing diplomacy with, bar maybe the Golden Horde, but somehow I need to compete with them for the final slot. The fact there's global slots means there's global competition in an era where people across the globe had little contact with each other.

I also think Hegemonies should mostly not be a good thing, and should be automatic, you should be forced to be a hegemon when you're powerful enough. Sure, yes you get the CB on you, but you also get all of the buffs along with that, and if you're super powerful, the AI probably won't use the CB on you anyway. I think there should be a certain amount of "intimidation" power, that comes with being a Hegemon, but besides that I think if you rise in power enough to become a Hegemon (like Napoleonic France for example) everyone around you should be trying at all costs to limit and reduce your power. There's a reason 7 different coalitions formed against France, they were a threat to the very order of Europe at the time.

 

[jkchart]

This is great, glad to see county be added to the normal set of ranks since it makes sense to have a bunch of them in 1337.

RE: the regional powers and their geographical areas, you could maybe take a leaf out of the markets mechanics and make them more dynamic, so provinces have a varying degree of “connection” with a certain region, while culture and religion affects how closely it might tie to the “dominant” religion, and several key areas are always considered part of such a geographical area?

For example, say you have Constantinople, which sits normally (lets say base definition) in the Balkans region and has majority Greek/Orthodox culture (and lets say that a Balkans region has that as key traits), but conquest and assimilation into a Sunni Turkish realm (surely this would NEVER happen!) then increases cultural affinity with the Anatolia region over the Balkan region.

If you have enough “affinity” with a specific region you can then be involved in these region grouping mechanics, and thus be up to play with regional power mechanics in multiple regions. Of course…then you have to make sure these region definitions can shift with certain conditions (such as Anatolia shifting to a Sunni/Turkish one instead of how it is defined at start)….so…maybe this is a lot more crazy and complex than I, a non-gamedev, definitely realized but I will leave my ramblings here anyway

 

[Bawhoppen]

Hegemon mechanics I remember being more important in MP than SP. That's I'm sure what it's being designed for here.

Can we have a requirement for empires to have many different nationalities under them? The whole "an emperor is a king above kings" thing.

 

[FleetingRain]

The Diplomatic one is harder to quantify.. How do you become the hegemon in Diplomacy?

Power of alliances, amount of Prestige, Diplomatic Reputation?

And I like the idea that being the Hegemon grants some modifiers while also putting a big target on your back. I just... don't like those military modifiers lmao.

 

[Stami]

I think the country ranks part of the DD is fine, and a welcome change. However, great powers and hegemonies are pretty much just kept the same from EU4, which is a bit disappointing. I would expect some sort of rework, but this is pretty much the same.

I understand you had issues with regional power mechanics, but if you manage to figure that out it would be leagues better than what you're currently showing us. It feels very weird to compare countries on the great power scale when most of the time, especially during the first 200 years of the game, they wouldn't have knowledge of one another. A glaring example here is Japan, who was only discovered by Europeans in the mid 16th century. It doesn't feel immersive at all.

Perhaps the great powers could be unlocked at a certain age where countries start to discover eachother and interact with one another and actually INFLUENCE things.

Hegemons make more sense than great powers, and I would really like an upgrade compared to EU4. I don't want it to be "have more ships than anyone" and there you go, naval hegemon. It should have more requirements related to how you quite literally control the seas.

 

[Deterock]

I'm wondering: what country rank will have societies of pops, army based countries and banks? Will they be a county/duchy rank countries or will they have unique rank/s?

 

[Kaiserslautern]

I just want say one thing, I totally like the way they are designing flags, buildings, characters and icons It gives me a sense of old style historic games, I just hope sprites on the map will not be too heavy and will be kept as minimal as possible.

 

[JSU]

1. In the Great Power system I understand that there should be some limit to how many there can be and so 8 Great Powers for example is alright. However I think that you being a couple GP points weaker than the 8th most powerful nation shouldn't kick you off the list. Instead it could be calculated easily so that the top 8 are on the list but also all nations that are within 5% or 10% of the 8th GP will be also included as Great Powers. So the list is flexible and more accurately shows which countries are powerful.

2. I don't really understand why hegemony in one field precludes being a hegemon in another. To me it feels unnatural and gamey. As a modern example the US is rather clearly the Military, Naval, Economic (and Cultural) hegemon of the world (if you disagree with this today then at least you can admit that it was in the early 2000s). France in the early 1700s was very dominant and was rather clearly the Military and Cultural hegemon. In the early 1800s Britain was rather clearly the Naval and Economic hegemon. For example it would be very odd to see a Britain that is absolutely economically and navally dominant choose to be the economic hegemon and then some other nation with 1/3 the navy of Britain would be the naval hegemon

I do however kind of understand that its not optimal that one country takes all these hegemonies in terms of balance so perhaps a softer limit could work, for example -20% "hegemon points" for the next hegemony per every hegemon title that you already have.

 

[Goblin Slave]

well i guess that makes sense
but if Japan tried to exert influence of nearby nations(say, Goryeo) like the Golden horde exerted influence on Muscovy, for example, the response would probably be something along the lines of 'lmao piss off'

Goryeo was a very populous and developed kingdom under the protection of an even greater empire, and beyond its immediate neighbors where else would Japan be exerting its influence?

 

[Tavolo87]

ok, hyped about cultures. Well, interested rather than hyped, it can be something that's going to be very interesting and what is going to make this game special or something that's going to be an absolute dealbreaker to me, so I'm going to be very interested in it

anyways about this Tinto. Hmm. "Hurray" I guess. Though I always thought that GPs and hegemons to be very stupid mechanics. I already find iffy GPs in Victoria, where they do at least make historical sense, but in EU4? Really?

anyways, what I would suggest for GPs is to get rid of the "8 GPs", but instead to introduce Major Powers "MPs", 5 slots for each subcontinent, a country is eligible for only the slots in the subcontinent where its capital is. A MP can intervene in a war just as a GP, so they are functionally the same

if 5 MP slots are too much, maybe they can be dependant on ages, or dependant for each subcontinent (for example India gets only 2 / 3 so on so forth)

but uhh yeah. The "top 8 GPs are the only ones that can enforce peace" is a mechanic that has to go out of the window

about hegemony I'd either kill it as a mechanic or be exactly as MPs. And that is. Each subcontinent has 3 local hegemons (this time only a location owned by you or your subject makes you eligible for that status, not necessarily the capital) that give small country wide boosts that can be stacked up.

For example, France is the Army hegemon in Europe but Britain is in North America, Spain is in Mesoamerica and China in well, China. England is the naval hegemon in Europe and India, the Netherlands in South Africa and Indonesia, Spain in the Caribbean and Portugal in the Ivory coast

every hegemon can declare war automatically (free CB if relations < 50) to other hegemons to steal a local hegemony of the same type (for example a country owning naval hegemonies can only steal naval hegemonies) and a MP gets an automatic CB "steal local hegemony" (always if relations < 50) against the country holding a hegemony in their home (capital present) subcontinent

I think this should simulate much better what GPs and the hegemon mechanic try (and in EU 4 utterly fail) to do no? The greatest powers being more prominent and the being dominating in a field granting you an advantage over everyone else

 

[MrMess85]

Hegemony isn't going to be a solution to blobbing.

Please make regional powers a thing.

If France is 10x stronger than every other European country then let the AI countries band together to resist. AE doesn't do this, it's a short term buffer.

European politics was ever shifting alliances to keep everyone equal, to some extent. Power ranking should influence others teaming up.

Scenario.
Spain has Portugal, South America, Mexico, Netherlands, Austria all under their thumb. You better expect France to be teaming up with nations including Ottomans to take them down. At the moment it's a bit of AE and then back to fighting with other powers ignoring the giant threat.

 

[FleetingRain]

Ok wait, why do we need pops of our own culture to be a duchy/kingdom/empire. This is too silly and plays against multicultural empires (Yuan...).

I also only now noticed you want Hegemons to start in the Age of Discovery? This feels like nonsense, global trade hasn't even properly started by then. It would make more sense if you decreased the scope by a tier: Great Powers would play like the planned Hegemons, and then we'd have Regional Powers with current GP mechanics. And then maybe make Regional Powers work by Region/Continent.