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Tinto Talks #35 - 30th of October

Hello everyone and welcome to another Tinto Talks, as it's a Happy Wednesday, the day of the week where we spill information about our super-mega-fantastically-secret game with the code name of Project Caesar.

Today we’ll talk about three relatively related topics, relating to Country Ranks, Great Powers and Hegemonies.

Country Ranks
There are four ranks that countries can have in Project Caesar. It is more similar to EU4 than Imperator in that changing country ranks is something you actively do on your own. Besides having various rules on what a country can do, they also give some benefits, and rather importantly to the player experience, they impact what the countries are called.

The code supports multiple types of ranks at the same level, so modders could in theory add dozens of variants of a duchy rank if they so desire.

The default rank is the County Rank, which all countries default to, unless set up to be something else.

The first rank above that is the Duchy Rank, where you can now guarantee other countries, and a little bit higher diplomatic capacity and power projection. Countries that start on this level include the Duchy of Brittany or the Duchy of Lithuania. To be able to upgrade from a county to a duchy, you can not be in any International Organizations that disallow rank changes, but you also need at least 100,000 pops of your primary culture.

The next rank above that is the Kingdom Rank, which requires 1 million pops of your primary culture and gives a larger diplomatic range and other abilities. This includes countries like the Kingdom of Sweden and the Sultanate of Delhi

The final rank, the Empire Rank, which is the hardest to promote to, allows for a wider variety of diplomatic actions, and other abilities. At the start of the game there is only one Empire in Europe though, the Eastern Roman one. A country must become a Great Power before they are able to attain this rank, and there are special restrictions on Catholic countries from pretending to be emperors without the Pope’s permission.

become_kingdom.png

Yeah, Livonian Order with about 380 Prussians has a bit of a challenge here..

Great Powers
A great power is a country that through advances, population, land area, development, and other factors has risen to be one of the most powerful countries in the world, and as such gains the ability to influence other countries simply by throwing its weight around.

The countries with the highest great power score become great powers. Subjects and countries fighting for their independence may not become Great Powers.

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The countries you’d perhaps expect to be Great Powers in 1337 right?


Currently there are always eight different countries that are the Great Powers, but this is not a design we are 100% satisfied with. We have been talking about making the amount variable per age, or by using a threshold. 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.

gp_benefit.png

There are some advantages to being a Great Power after all…


Hegemony
This is another feature that was introduced in the ‘Emperor’ DLC for EU4, but here will be a part of the base game. In that game this was a late game mechanic that would pit the most dominant countries against each other. This created a mechanic that most people never saw, and if they saw it in single-player, it was merely a tool to make the player even more powerful when he had already won the game.

In this game, however, the Hegemony mechanics unlock through an advance in the Age of Discovery.

We currently have three types of hegemony, Military, Navy and Economic, in the game, similar to EU4, and you can only be one type of Hegemony at the same time. We could be open to adding maybe a Cultural Hegemony as well, as the next few weeks Tinto Talks will show things about Culture-related systems.

To proclaim a Hegemony you need to be a Great Power, and then have a bigger army, navy or economy than all other great powers. After you proclaim it, you get a bonus where most of it scales with how long you have held the hegemony.

In a game where a casus belli is not always easy to get, the fact that you can always create a Casus Belli on any hegemon, if you are not one yourself, can be beneficial.

If you ever lose a war as a hegemon, you will lose your hegemony.

And remember, if you lose your hegemony, your prestige and diplomatic reputation will suffer.

hegemon.png

This one is kind of fun to have..

Stay tuned, as next week, we will do the first development diary about our new cultural mechanics in Project Caesar.
 
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You shouldn't express your malice like this, really. I also think there is too much beautification of Europe, but after all, this is a game produced by a European studio
Thanks for your opinion. I aprreciate that you talk really kind. You're right. But you know i was taking history lessons since years and i'm in touch with my european friends for years i have french german greek friends i am not trying to insult europe in here. I just wanted a historical game that we can play it to the end. In eu4 most of players event doesnt play after 1 or 2 hundred years. When we get so powerful in 100 years you dont want to play it to the end. When i was complaining about the list, i was trying to say that. I want to play delhi or mamluks etc, i want to play and enjoy 200 years and continue with other states after a revouliton or something and play like mughal empire after delhi and make it to the end date of 1800s. When i play france or small cities in europe i wanted it to be hard for first years and after i got powerful so that entire game would be nice. I just didnt want to become a superpower with european states in 1400s or i didnt wanted to play delhi or yuan and make it to the 1800s. Thats what i wanted thank you
 
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A diferencia del tratado de paz TT, parece que este en realidad está construyendo y mejorando sistemas que ya funcionan bien.

También podría ser una buena idea tener algunas mecánicas que funcionen activamente contra los hegemónicos, y que se basen en mecánicas en lugar de modificadores.
I think that is a good idea if you receive a notification. Imagine that reduce your rank is automatic. If it's like imperator then you reduce and increase your rank in a civil war a lot of times.
 
Will be ibn-batutta in game @Johan ? Because from 1334 to 1441 he was in Delhi Sultanate and he was a judge under Sultan Tugluk. And Tugluk send him to the china as a envoy. Will he be in the game and will we use him as a envoy or diplomat? Because that would be very nice
 
Is it possible for countries to have more than one primary culture? If not, then in my opinion, the requirement of having a certain amount of pops of primary culture should be tweaked to include all closely related cultures based on language or some other criteria (e.g Lesser Polish, Greater Polish and Mazovian being grouped together, as it doesn't make much sense for them to be grouped as separate cultures in the first place, with regional differences being rather small (still visible though so I partially understand separating them), though it's hard to consider them to be separate cultures/nations at any point besides maybe the early medieval times, as opposed to Silesians or Kashubians who had and still to some extent have their separate dialects/languages). It can be implemented as a some of form of different levels of relation beetween cultures with the most closely related ones counting towards upgrading country rank, (maybe with some possibility of convergence/divergence of cultures.)
 
Have we heard the reasoning yet for why the Dehli Sultanate is considered Kingdom rank rather than Empire rank? Also, shouldn't the HRE be somewhere among the Great Powers?

I'm in favor of regional powers as well. I can't imagine that Chimor or Mayapan would know about Yuan being the greatest global power until they meet them or at least start encounters with the Old World. I'd also like there to be a number of runner-ups that would be listed as close to the Great Powers.
 
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The other thing on my mind is that regional powers can definitely work, but the best “base” for them that I’ve come up with would be markets. Since we haven’t yet seen markets in detail, I’m reluctant to make a concrete proposal without further thinking.
 
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Thanks for your opinion. I aprreciate that you talk really kind. You're right. But you know i was taking history lessons since years and i'm in touch with my european friends for years i have french german greek friends i am not trying to insult europe in here. I just wanted a historical game that we can play it to the end. In eu4 most of players event doesnt play after 1 or 2 hundred years. When we get so powerful in 100 years you dont want to play it to the end. When i was complaining about the list, i was trying to say that. I want to play delhi or mamluks etc, i want to play and enjoy 200 years and continue with other states after a revouliton or something and play like mughal empire after delhi and make it to the end date of 1800s. When i play france or small cities in europe i wanted it to be hard for first years and after i got powerful so that entire game would be nice. I just didnt want to become a superpower with european states in 1400s or i didnt wanted to play delhi or yuan and make it to the 1800s. Thats what i wanted thank you
IMHO,In the entire EU4, almost no country has suffered greater malice than China, with rough provinces, huge disasters (almost every three years after version 1.35), terrible crises (crisis of the Ming Dynasty, loss of destiny, unguarded nomadic borders), almost useless trade (due to one-way trade, China is almost at the forefront of trade, and East Asian countries can hardly get any money from trade), and almost every tag from Tierra del Fuego to Hokkaido has a claim against China (Dragon Dream, return to control, tame giant dragons, suppress dragons, reverse the course, China's wealth, open the door to South China, until the South China Sea, where dragons and tigers struggle to seize destiny,Ending the threat of the Han people, establishing the Qing Dynasty, and realizing the dream of Timur)
QQ图片20241104114834.jpg


This panda head meme showcases a part of the mission to China

On the Chinese Internet,It is jokingly referred to as "How To Train Your Dragon",But even so, I did not express such malice as you did.
You can express your demands like you did to me, instead of angrily criticizing the unfairness of the studio.After all, if we really should scold, Chinese talents should be the first. Perhaps we can also add West African countries and South American countries, which are the roughest places in the entire EU4 except for Antarctica, the Sahara Desert, and Siberia.
 
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Have we heard the reasoning yet for why the Dehli Sultanate is considered Kingdom rank rather than Empire rank? Also, shouldn't the HRE be somewhere among the Great Powers?

I'm in favor of regional powers as well. I can't imagine that Chimor or Mayapan would know about Yuan being the greatest global power until they meet them or at least start encounters with the Old World. I'd also like there to be a number of runner-ups that would be listed as close to the Great Powers.
The usual Paradox interpretation of "Sultan" is as "King", just as they tend to interpret "Emir" as "Duke". Despite the fact that these titles are often used, alongside Malik, to represent a sovereign state and the only meaningful difference between the three is the origin (religious, military, or simple temporal) of their power.
 
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Have we heard the reasoning yet for why the Dehli Sultanate is considered Kingdom rank rather than Empire rank? Also, shouldn't the HRE be somewhere among the Great Powers?

I'm in favor of regional powers as well. I can't imagine that Chimor or Mayapan would know about Yuan being the greatest global power until they meet them or at least start encounters with the Old World. I'd also like there to be a number of runner-ups that would be listed as close to the Great Powers.
That's why I want to propose a dynamic power system based on discovery, distance and power projection. If you know China is a great power but they are too far away to reach you, it does not make sense to take it into diplomatic consideration.

In my view, qualification of powers rank is based on two citeria, discovery and distance.

Rule 1 - A country only knows POWERS within their DISCOVERED WORLD. If a country is yet discovered, you should not see some an unknown country as a power even they are No.1 in the global rank. Though human player may have priviledges in map knowledge, AI shall learn nothing about the global ranking until they know the whole world. Another example works in Americas: when Americas were not found by Europeans, Inca and Maya should be a superpower in their world; but when they are discovered, they will compare their power with Europeans and re-calculate the new powers in their knowledge.

Rule 2 - DISTANT powers are NOT considered POWERS in realpolitik. When you are immersed with the game, especially in early gameplay, the Asian powers are not important at all until you have interest with them, even though you may discover them very early. Of course we can have a Global Rank for fun but for an immersed game, please do not add it to the realpolitik gameplay. A random HRE state will think nothing about remote powers but actively perform diplomacy around the Imperial Court and greater countries closer to them - they view them as real powers in their own world. For example, Dehli can be a super power, or a great empire, in India for most Indian countries during some period but it does not make sense for European countries to consider them as an Empire even though Europeans know something about them. With technology envolving overtime, distance could be reduced and some countries may have better projections to dispatch fleets and troops to conquer a remote land.
 
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I wanted to write something about the great power mechanics, sorry if someone has already written about this. How would it be if you didn't have great powers at the beginning of the game but instead regional powers and only after a certain institution, for example colonialism, great powers are activated?
 
Wouldn't it be an interesting idea to add an incremental relationship penalty with the whole world per level of great power you are? As in the number 8 great power will have a -10 relationship penalty while the number one would have a -80?

I think this would help bring an increasing difficulty to being a great power. And also i feel like its realistic. Since project Caesar will take place as an era sometimes described as the 'age of vanity' it would only make sense that the greater you are the more will distance themselves from you and conspire to bring you down.
 
Instead of global great powers you could do only "local"great powers. You could define what local means by borrowing the "area of interest"from Victoria 3. So france would be considered a great power in europe but not middle east or africa at game start but with progression of time and technology like sailing and colonialism they could get higher cap for zones to declare therefore turning them into global great power. Ottomans could be considered a great power both in europe and middle east once they get set up and gain power.

That way you can avoid the arbitrary great power slots for the whole world and make it more regionalized all powers that have an intrest in a region (continent/sub continent with or without adjacent regions) be rated for being great power there. So you could be a great power in europe but still pale in comparison to for example Yuan in their own back yard.
 
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Instead of global great powers you could do only "local"great powers. You could define what local means by borrowing the "area of interest"from Victoria 3. So france would be considered a great power in europe but not middle east or africa at game start but with progression of time and technology like sailing and colonialism they could get higher cap for zones to declare therefore turning them into global great power. Ottomans could be considered a great power both in europe and middle east once they get set up and gain power.

That way you can avoid the arbitrary great power slots for the whole world and make it more regionalized all powers that have an intrest in a region (continent/sub continent with or without adjacent regions) be rated for being great power there. So you could be a great power in europe but still pale in comparison to for example Yuan in their own back yard.
That's what I want to do.
 
Thanks for your opinion. I aprreciate that you talk really kind. You're right. But you know i was taking history lessons since years and i'm in touch with my european friends for years i have french german greek friends i am not trying to insult europe in here. I just wanted a historical game that we can play it to the end. In eu4 most of players event doesnt play after 1 or 2 hundred years. When we get so powerful in 100 years you dont want to play it to the end. When i was complaining about the list, i was trying to say that. I want to play delhi or mamluks etc, i want to play and enjoy 200 years and continue with other states after a revouliton or something and play like mughal empire after delhi and make it to the end date of 1800s. When i play france or small cities in europe i wanted it to be hard for first years and after i got powerful so that entire game would be nice. I just didnt want to become a superpower with european states in 1400s or i didnt wanted to play delhi or yuan and make it to the 1800s. Thats what i wanted thank you
You are saying they definitely not as strong as but why dont you say France is overpower they should 150 or something
As you say, however, you are downplaying France in this comment. Yeah they are over ranked maybe that's just due to vassals however, France (England's rank is the more confusing one frankly) during the period of the Hundred Years War, was a increasingly bureaucratic state, that could muster a lot of troops close to home. France was a European super power. I mean you can flip that on its head too, if one of the greatest European super powers ranks so low in your mind, why didn't the Ottomans barrel over Europe then? France was a very strong Kingdom in 1337, that is why it's was so shocking England repeatedly defeated them in the Hundred Years War.

The Ottomans beat the European crusaders at Varna, where they had 40,000-60,000 troops, around the same or less than the coalition. France at Crecy had around 20-30,000 troops (and a coalition of towns in Flanders were able to raise forces of that number during the Ghent Rebellion), and we are talking 15th century Ottomans, not where they were in the 14th century. France is a very strong state in the 14th century (they had a population similar to the Ottomans of the 16th century before the Black Death, around 16 million people), and they should be at the start. Just yeah, probably not stronger than a few others on that list like the Golden Horde, Delhi Sultanate etc. Still if you are able to centralize them and play smart, yeah you should be able to make them a strong super power early on.

No no no. We know that is glorifying europe. We saw that in eu4. I couldnt beat France with Ottoman Empire in later 1500s????? Europe pips making dice work for them. Then what is for technology? They say they fixed Technology system( that) in project ceasar, But renaisannce start at 1337 what is this :D how can renaisannce start in 1337 :D

No idea what you are talking about? In EUIV, the Ottomans are always the strongest in Europe/ME, unless you actively hamper them early on. I have routinely seen Ai France get beat by the Ottomans in the 1500s (during religious wars), including in some games where they expanded into Italy by themselves. Of course there are other games where that doesn't happen, though regardless the Ottomans are always the strongest, in any game where I don't actively hurt them early on.

Boiling it down to EUIV is just Eurocentric, which I won't deny, though it isn't entirely on the devs either, there is a reason why Western countries are Eurocentric that aren't always negative such as familiarity and sources. Plus partially these issues, are just a result of game mechanics that are common in strategy games. You have typical strategy game dopamine (allow people to blob quickly) plus the fact some European successes, were pretty much Europe punching above it's weight, and are hard to simulate mechanically, such as the Conquest of the New World by Spain. In most cases, Spain shouldn't succeed however, people want them too, so it "represents history".

EUIV, also empowers societies way more than they should be historically as well outside of Europe. North American First Nations, did matter a lot in the politics of the region (the Beaver wars had relatively a lot of troops), every single, tribe/confederation still should't have armies comparable to European Corps of the 19th century.
 
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Didn't expect JAPAN of all countries to be a great power at this time. Sure they defeated the Mongols but not the first country(or.. any number of consequent countries) to come to my mind when I think of '1330s Superpowers'
I would suggest setting a « floor » value to great powers. The very basic notion of great powers was something purely out-of-date in 1337, except perhaps for continental hegemonies such as China, Delhi…

Having countries entering the Great Powers circle as they stand out of the others through centuries of growth would probably make more sense (France, England or Spain reaching that status once they grow a colonial empire rather than just being the top 8 largest nation when they did not even have regional hegemony in 1337, and barely had a few % more pops than their neighbors or other top 20 nations).

Likewise, I would prefer removing this hard cap limit of 8 GP like in EU4, in favor of a more dynamic system. Any nation representing more than (5%,10%…) of the world pop or combining a mix of pop and tech and diplomatic influence points (like in Vic3). Sometimes would be only 3, sometimes 12…

That would ensure there is no GP « world rivalry » of some kind in an era where this concept was out of date / they did not compete in any strategic interest. (France / England were nowhere near capable of challenging Japan / Yuan in 1337). This would only arise once world competition would emerge in the colonial era.
 
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As you say, however, you are downplaying France in this comment. Yeah they are over ranked maybe that's just due to vassals however, France (England's rank is the more confusing one frankly) during the period of the Hundred Years War, was a increasingly bureaucratic state, that could muster a lot of troops close to home. France was a European super power. I mean you can flip that on its head too, if one of the greatest European super powers ranks so low in your mind, why didn't the Ottomans barrel over Europe then? France was a very strong Kingdom in 1337, that is why it's was so shocking England repeatedly defeated them in the Hundred Years War.

The Ottomans beat the European crusaders at Varna, where they had 40,000-60,000 troops, around the same or less than the coalition. France at Crecy had around 20-30,000 troops (and a coalition of towns in Flanders were able to raise forces of that number during the Ghent Rebellion), and we are talking 15th century Ottomans, not where they were in the 14th century. France is a very strong state in the 14th century (they had a population similar to the Ottomans of the 16th century before the Black Death, around 16 million people), and they should be at the start. Just yeah, probably not stronger than a few others on that list like the Golden Horde, Delhi Sultanate etc. Still if you are able to centralize them and play smart, yeah you should be able to make them a strong super power early on.



No idea what you are talking about? In EUIV, the Ottomans are always the strongest in Europe/ME, unless you actively hamper them early on. I have routinely seen Ai France get beat by the Ottomans in the 1500s (during religious wars), including in some games where they expanded into Italy by themselves. Of course there are other games where that doesn't happen, though regardless the Ottomans are always the strongest, in any game where I don't actively hurt them early on.

Boiling it down to EUIV is just Eurocentric, which I won't deny, though it isn't entirely on the devs either, there is a reason why Western countries are Eurocentric that aren't always negative such as familiarity and sources. Plus partially these issues, are just a result of game mechanics that are common in strategy games. You have typical strategy game dopamine (allow people to blob quickly) plus the fact some European successes, were pretty much Europe punching above it's weight, and are hard to simulate mechanically, such as the Conquest of the New World by Spain. In most cases, Spain shouldn't succeed however, people want them too, so it "represents history".

EUIV, also empowers societies way more than they should be historically as well outside of Europe. North American First Nations, did matter a lot in the politics of the region (the Beaver wars had relatively a lot of troops), every single, tribe/confederation still should't have armies comparable to European Corps of the 19th century.
I didnt even say Ottoman should be on the list. Yes France May was most powerful country in europe, but that doenst make France as a global superpower. Come on guys, we are talking about history. How can mamluks has 500 point on the list while japan is 5th. Mamluks almost were as powerful as golden horde. They should be 3 on the list by sure.
 
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I didnt even say Ottoman should be on the list. Yes France May was most powerful country in europe, but that doenst make France as a global superpower. Come on guys, we are talking about history. How can mamluks has 500 point on the list while japan is 5th. Mamluks almost were as powerful as golden horde. They should be 3 on the list by sure.
The answer may be population. Egypt under the rule of the Mamluks had a population of only about four million, which is similar to the total population of Britain. And PDX forcibly increased the population of Britain from three million to eight million in order to give Britain a chance to win the Hundred Years' War, so the Mamluks came at the bottom
 
The answer may be population. Egypt under the rule of the Mamluks had a population of only about four million, which is similar to the total population of Britain. And PDX forcibly increased the population of Britain from three million to eight million in order to give Britain a chance to win the Hundred Years' War, so the Mamluks came at the bottom
Mamluks were not only ruled egypt. And population shouldnt have that effect of rating. India doesnt have a powerful state like Delhi in eu4. And after some years we dont see them in the list. But they have so much population.
 
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