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Tinto Talks #40 - 4th of December 2024

Hello everyone and welcome to another Tinto Talks, the Happy Wednesday when we talk more about our upcoming top secret game with the codename Project Caesar.

This week we will go into details about the government reforms and look into some specific ones that you may use or not.

Representing everything from ancient traditions to progressive amendments, Government Reforms outline the shape of governance in a country. Each one is unique, but they often give powerful trade-offs or open up unique play styles.

At the start of the game, countries are only allowed 2 government reforms, but in every Age there is at least one advance that unlocks another slot for reforms. Some specific reforms also add another slot, so they are essentially “free” for that country. On average in the final Age of the game, a country may have 7 or 8 reforms.

Common Government Reforms that are available to everyone are likely to have an Age requirement, spreading out their availability over the game.

Some reforms are major reforms, and a country may not have more than one major reform at the same time.

There will be a diverse selection of reforms in each age, with about 5 common new ones added each age, and another 2 per government type. The unique ones are far more plentiful, and diverse, with over 150 currently in the game.

In the User Interface, the government reforms exist in the Crown’s part of the Estates Screen, as the Crown does not really have any estate privileges…

french_estates.png
France can have 3 reforms, but are the current ones actually beneficial?



Removing a Government Reform currently costs 20 stability, which is a bit cheap, but that may change. Some reforms can not be removed at will though, and are locked until specific circumstances allow them to be removed.

Adding a new reform does not have a cost, but it takes up to 2 years before the benefits are fully implemented.



Common Reforms
Here are some examples of early government reforms that many nations have access to from the start.

Religious Tolerance
For when your country is populated by people who practice different beliefs and confessions. Therefore, it would be prudent to govern in a tolerant manner with them, ensuring their support for the government.

religious_tolerance.png

It will make your country a bit more communal though..

Diplomatic Traditions
From time immemorial our people have favored the word above the sword, giving us the ability to forge lasting relationships with our allies and friends and a reputation as honest and loyal.

diplomatic_traditions.png

For certain types of countries, this is rather important..


Military Order
This is a major reform that catholic theocracies have access to. It is one of the types of reforms that truly defines a country.

The Military Orders were created in the Middle Ages as a militant body of the Catholic Church. Its members are both warriors and monks who take religious vows and are destined to defend and expand Christianity.

military_order.png

Military Sponsorships are vitally important to a Holy Order!



Unique Government Reforms
So let's take a look at some of the more unique government reforms that we have in the game right now.

Family Sagas
This is a unique reform that anyone with the primary culture of Icelandic can get, which both Iceland and Greenland starts with.

Our ancient sagas passed orally through the generations tell of adventurous expeditions to a distant and wild land over the western sea. Perhaps one day we may follow in the footsteps of our old compatriots.

family_sagas.png

If only they had the population to exploit it..

Three Departments
This is available to any country that has Chinese or Korean as their court language.

The Three Departments System originates from the ancient Chinese empires and is the primary administrative structure of the state. All departments focus on several aspects of the process of drafting, establishing and revisiting state policies.

three_departments.png

If you want laws changed, this is the reform to have..

Magna Carta
This is a unique reform that England starts with, and is also possible for any country with the English primary culture, or if their overlord has this reform.

The 'Great Charter' is a constitutional law that distributes power away from the monarch and towards the barons. First signed in 1215, it is also one of the earliest documents to enshrine the idea of civil liberties, such as the right to a fair trial, and protection against illegal imprisonment.

magna_carta.png

It gives some power to the nobility, and shapes the country towards certain ideals.


Stay tuned, as next week we will look into all the different types of Parliaments, and how you interact with them...
 
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But why even have it when this culture's major exploration exploits were hundreds of years in the past by the time that the game starts?

Its in the Saga's.

Its the same feeling for players that want to reform Rome even if its been dead for over a millenia...
 
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" In many cases they have been moved to the appropriate time as well, so currently many unique and powerful Swedish advances are in the Age of Absolutism. We have also heavily revised those whose names survived, and when we work in making unique content for a country, we aim to add more advances as well."

"Poland currently has 16 unique advances..."
"Some of the ideas from the idea groups ended up directly as advances unique for certain types of countries, like the Horde Government ones were converted to unique advances for Steppe Hordes, and the Divine Ideas as unique advances for Theocracies."


When you say each country will have unique advances, how many are we talking about on average for each country? 5? 6? And are they really unique for EVERYONE?

"I don't have an average, but we aim to have at least 8 or so.. Not all countries will have them, as there are an enormous amount of countries."

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Unique tech and modifiers have been established months ago, this is not something unique to Iceland and honestly I think something based on 1000-1337 history is way more justifiable than modifiers given for historical event 3 centuries after 1337.
 
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Could I convince you to spoil us with some info about unique goverment reforms for the iberian kingdoms?
Hi, I'm Pavía, here to talk to you about one of the most valuable traits a soldier or conquistador can have. Patience.
 
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The Family Sagas thing is fine. People still have EU4 brain on, I understand Iceland is a super hard start.

Also, if you could make sure that the 'free' government reforms say "Does not cost a government reform slot" instead of "+1 Government Slots," I think that will be less confusing to the player when in conjunction with all the other modifiers.
 
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I mean they were uniquely prepared by geography, there was so much participation of French and Flemish in early colonial ventures and the conquest of the Canaries too, it was spearheaded by the Iberians because the Iberians were the spearpoint, not because they were the whole spear.

Geography + institutions should be way Iberians would likely be the first to find and settle the islands and Central/South America, but Iceland is on the other side of Europe vertically speaking and they should be able to maybe explore their own corner of the Atlantic.
Sailors of other nationalities might have been engaged in iberian exploratory voyages (Columbus himself being italian), but only Portugal and Castile used the carabel and had sailors that knew how to operate it. This is to say during the XV and early XVI centuries only Portugal and Castile had ships capable of crossing the Atlantic Ocean or going beyond Cape Bojador. I would expect the game to represent that it took over a century for portuguese ship designs to be adopted by other nations (other than neighbouring Castile).
 
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if you wish to spend stab yes
There should be a system where reforms that have been in place a long time (or are somehow marked as important) have a much bigger cost attached to revoking them. For example revoking Magna Carta should trigger a revolt, especially later in the game as its come to be seen as the main document of English liberty.
 
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I think the idea is that as Greenland is declining there is a small oppurtinity between the final death of the Greenland colony and the arrival of smallpox in Iceland to restart exploration, if you only let Icelanders explore in 1400 then that might not work.

I don't really agree that this is significant bonus in the context of what Iceland is, I don't understand why people want to limit a modifier that is limited by the circumstances it's put in.

Because there doesn't seem to be any particularly good reason for this particular modifier to be there. Should we start giving everyone modifiers for all sorts of things, simply because 'it won't make a difference anyway'? That isn't logical at all :confused: . Either things have an effect, or they don't.

If anything, altering the nature of the modifier would make it more pertinent, at least.
Thrudgelmir basically stated exactly what I would have responded with. I don't understand why they get this bonus to begin with. The various arguments you and the developers have made, including that it isn't that significant of a bonus, that Iceland will have difficulty exploiting it due to other limitations, or that the bonuses that Iberian countries get are far more significant, does not answer the original question I asked. What did Iceland do in the game's time period, or even the previous two hundred years before the game starts, to justify receiving bonuses to exploration and colonization? Why do they get those bonuses over other countries?
 
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I'm sure people are not taking everything into account when discussing the Family Sagas reform. It's probably impossible to get vast amounts on people over to the americas or even to greenland in the first 100 years of game time. The reform is great imo, it probably has other gameplay systems which keep it in check. You probably need further advances to make those colonies viable and powerful. I love this as well as the low cost to change them, it makes for a more fun/less tedious experience gameplay wise.
 
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Its in the Saga's.

Its the same feeling for players that want to reform Rome even if its been dead for over a millenia...
And if you gave Italian culture countries a reform called "Legacy of the Romans" at the start of the game that granted bonuses to army discipline and other significant bonuses to help them conquer and rebuild the Roman Empire, I would be in this thread asking why and stating that it didn't make any sense.
 
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What legends?
The pop history book 'The Basque History of the World' by Mark Kurlansky describes them from page 56 to 64. It's a bit long to copy, and its pop history so no quotations or sources. He admits no physical evidence (thus myth) but quotes an Icelandic tale of seeing Basque fishermen sail past Iceland towards Canada, tales by Estaban de Garibay and a French merchant of Basque speaking natives and records of fish catches. But its all very circumstantial and unsupported.
 
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Thrudgelmir basically stated exactly what I would have responded with. I don't understand why they get this bonus to begin with. The various arguments you and the developers have made, including that it isn't that significant of a bonus, that Iceland will have difficulty exploiting it due to other limitations, or that the bonuses that Iberian countries get are far more significant, does not answer the original question I asked. What did Iceland do in the game's time period, or even the previous two hundred years before the game starts, to justify receiving bonuses to exploration and colonization? Why do they get those bonuses over other countries?
An answer was provided to you, you don't like it but it's there. If active exploration was the only metric for who should get such a modifier then I would argue no European state should get any special modifiers at all, not in 1337 and not afterwards, not even the Portuguese as they didn't really explore until 2-3 generations after the game started.

This is a game where apparently Sweden will get modifiers for stuff they did 3 centuries in, discussing the details of a specific modifier is pointless when the game clearly is designed to be looser than how you want it to be.
 
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Three Departments should change to six departments, the 三省 Three Departments only existed a short time in Chinese history. Even Tang dynasty can't hold to run the system before the dynasty fallen. But the 六部 Six Departments still be used by Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing
The 三省 'Three Departments' and the 六部 'Six Ministries' are two separate government reforms. The second one unlocks a unique law, which allows one to follow a specific policy focus. We'll ask for more detailed feedback on the Chinese content in its future 'Tinto Flavor', sometime next year.
 
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I think Family Sagas is fine because it only allows exploration, but doesn't increase any colonization-related modifiers. Limiting it to Arctic provinces wouldn't make sense ("Can Recruit Arctic Explorers", what), and the impact of the modifier in the early game is entirely dependent on how you manage Iceland; it will be an herculean task to reenact Vinland.

I'd still like to see whatever unique trinkets the Iberians get so we can properly compare, however. Any chance, @Johan ?


EDIT--I'm stupid, there could easily be a "Can Settle Arctic locations" modifier lmao.
 
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