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Tinto Talks #41 - 11th of December 2024

Hello Everyone and Welcome to another Tinto Talk! This is the Happy Wednesday where we give you information about our very secret game with the codename Project Caesar.

This week we will talk about Parliaments. We have a simple feature with the same name in EU4, but this is rather different, as you will see. We have also gone heavily into making this flavorful as well, and many countries have their unique names for their Parliament, where it is a “Corts” in Aragon, and a “Riksdag” in Sweden…

parliament_overview.png

How is this parliament going?


Type of Parliaments
First of all, there are five types of parliaments, although technically you could argue that no parliament is a type as well. They are based on the different types of 'gatherings' that different societies had, which means that different countries will start with a different type of parliament and that you will be able to change it during the game.

Assembly
  • Available to all countries.
  • Nobles + Peasants can have agendas, but they have very weak impact.

Council
  • Requires Codified Laws Advance
  • Nobles + Clergy can have agendas, but have a weak impact.

council.png

Can be useful…


Estate Parliament
  • Requires Feudalism Advance
  • Nobles, Clergy and Burghers can all have agendas

Autocratic Parliament
  • Requires an Age of Absolutism Advance.
  • Nobles, Clergy and Burghers can all have agendas
  • Crown Power is 25% stronger.
  • Can force through any issue they want in parliament for a small cost.

Constitutional Parliament
  • Requires an Age of Absolutism Advance.
  • Nobles, Clergy and Burghers can all have agendas, and their impact is much higher.
  • The Nobles Estate has an improved estate satisfaction.


If you wish to let your peasants have a say in your parliament you can grant them a privilege, but don’t say we didn’t warn you.


Calling a Parliament
If you are able to hold any type of parliament, you can call them as long as it's been at least five years since the last parliament was called. If you do not call one for a decade the estates will get less and less satisfied for each passing month.

When you call a parliament you get the choice of where the parliament should be held. You can always hold the parliament in your capital, which will give a small boost to centralization but you also have the option to pick another location. Usually you can pick any town or city, but there are countries that can hold a parliament in a rural location as well. If you pick a place that is not the capital, your country will become slightly more decentralized, but that location gains a nice bonus for the duration of the parliament, which lasts about half a year.

parliament_location.png

A temporary mini-capital that prospers?


You also need to pick an issue that will be the main debate of the parliament as well. You have up to two options per estate to choose from, where the parliament support you gain depends on their current power in the country.

select_DEBATE.png

The needs of the crown do not grant additional support..

Parliament Issues
The issue picked has a modifier that is applied to the country while the debate is ongoing. In many cases this is rather beneficial, but it only lasts for the duration of the parliament. We currently have over 70 different parliament issues, and about a dozen country specific ones.

If you fail to get enough support in parliament there will be a drawback which is usually a hit to stability, but if you get over 50% backing in parliament the country will get some benefits depending on the Issue.

castle_issue.png

This is something that many estates may view as beneficial..

parliament_issue.png

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered.


Parliament Support
So what is Parliament Support then? You will always have a base support from your current crown power, which normally will be rather low (unless you have completely crippled your estates), and then you also have the potential support you get from picking an issue. There are also some government reforms and/or advances that increase the base support.

So how do you increase the support during a parliament then?

Parliament Agendas
Well, you can always see what agendas that the estates want to push during a parliament, and if you grant them what they want, your parliament support will increase. The amount that the Parliament Support increases is based on the estate power that they have, multiplied by their current satisfaction. This makes it beneficial to keep estates happier than the minimum levels, if you wish to rely upon them in parliament.

These agendas include law changes, changes in societal values, privileges granted and more. If you accept the agenda of an estate, then the next agenda they propose in this session will give far less parliament support.

autonomy.png

It’s for the greater good I assume?



Parliament Requests
You can also use the parliament support immediately during a session, and get a request fulfilled, but that will reduce your support by 50%.

Request Additional Taxes
This allows you to collect more taxes from the estates during the next 3 years

Ask for Larger Levies
This will make you able to raise 25% larger levies at any point during the next 3 years.

Ask for Law Changes
This will allow you to change laws at a much reduced cost of stability during the next 3 years.

Prepare for War
This will get you an insulted casus belli on a country of your choice within diplomatic range.

Of course, using any of these requires you to probably have to pick an issue backed by a powerful estate, and probably accept an agenda or two.


I would not recommend hovering closely to 50% if you really want an issue to succeed as there may be events that could reduce it happening.

Parliament Seats
We have two more things influencing parliaments that might be of interest as well. There are two special buildings that can be created that are counted as “Parliament Seats”, which gives extra significance to that location. One is an Urban Parliament Seat that the Burghers can ask for during a Parliament, which grants a significant permanent power to the Burghers in a town or city. The other one is the Rotten Borough, which the Nobles Estate will build in rural locations increasing their power if they are not currently happy.


Before we end though, we would like to hear of any flavor names you would like to see for parliaments, we have about 35 at the moment...

Stay tuned, as next week we will talk about disasters!
 
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What about a second chamber (like the House of Lords)?
 
I like the idea that you are giving up things to make the estates happy in order for you to get something you want. Sometimes this is short term bonus for long term pain, sometimes it is the reverse.
Calling a Parliament
If you are able to hold any type of parliament, you can call them as long as it's been at least five years since the last parliament was called. If you do not call one for a decade the estates will get less and less satisfied for each passing month.
I think having a minimum time (and potentially maximum time through a soft limit) feels very gamey.

Wikipedia for example lists 47 parliaments for Edward III - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parliaments_of_England#Parliaments_of_Edward_III (and he wasn't unique in having a lot more than 1 every 5 yeas). Meanwhile the estates general wasn't called in France between 1614 and 1789. Although waiting that long certainly made the French parliament more demanding (rather than the estates less satisfied in general).

If the mechanic isn't fun to interact with (or is disruptive to the flow of the game) then I'd recommend looking at that again as the root cause to be fixed. Making them less common but still painful doesn't sound great.

hmm.. parliament ends.
I think there should be potential here for other effects if rebels take control of the parliament building. Particularly for some types of rebels. Both Noble and Peasant rebels taking control of parliament should have serious consequences.
 
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I'd change two things for the French parliament names:

1) Change Estates General to Etats-Généraux (most other localisations are in their local names, why not this one?)

2) Have Etats-Généraux only work for a monarchy ; if France becomes a Republic it should be Assemblée Législative, as it was during most of the Revolution.
 
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Code:
Cortes
Corts
Veche
Althing
Tynwald
Riksdag
Sejm
Uijeongbu
Senate
Congress
Meclis
Estates General
Rogati
Reichstag
Duma
Staten-Generaal
Tagsatzung
Hluttaw
Parlamento
Jatiya Sangsad
Tshogdu
Sansad
Majlis
Oireachtas
Council
Landtag
Folketing
Storting
Althing
Seimas
Mejlis
Sabor
Országgyülés
Kurultai
Upstalboom

This is maybe a nitpick, but I think "Landsting" (our historical upper house of parliament) would be better for Denmark than "Folketing" since most of these parliaments are more for aristocrats than for the people. Or maybe it's possible to have Landsting as the default and dynamically rename to Folketing if the peasants are in parliament?
 
In the list there is no "Etat généraux", it's the gathering of estates in France before Revolution, and after that it's "Assemblée Nationale".
Parlement in French, in the Old Regime means, court of Justice.
 
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Yes. Other than the US, I don't think any country in the game had representation for non-property owning citizens during the time period.
even in the US it was only a very small number of states in the US that had representation for non-property owning citizens. in 1800 there were three states. And they only white males.
 
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I don't understand, in assemblies the clergy can't have agendas? They were important when the first parliaments appeared
I think assemblies represent traditional gatherings of free warrior males that were important in the early middle ages but had mostly been replaced in Europe by 1337. They predate christianization and organized religion, and none of the surviving examples I know of (in Scandinavia, Frisia and Switzerland) gave special representation to clergy, in contrast to the more modern parliaments of the late medieval period.
 
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How does a Parliament work in a Republican country?
Are republics locked into always having some form of Parliament?
Does a Constitutional Parliament still give an improved Estate satifaction to nobles, even if Nobility is basically completely depowered (or basically banned) by the system? Like for example in Revolutionary France, it wouldn't make sense for the Nobility to be happy with the Constitution or the Parliament.
 
If you are able to hold any type of parliament, you can call them as long as it's been at least five years since the last parliament was called. If you do not call one for a decade the estates will get less and less satisfied for each passing month.

Eat your heart out CK3 "Hold Court".
 
I'd change two things for the French parliament names:

1) Change Estates General to Etats-Généraux (most other localisations are in their local names, why not this one?)

2) Have Etats-Généraux only work for a monarchy ; if France becomes a Republic it should be Assemblée Législative, as it was during most of the Revolution.
Wouldn't Assemblée Législative be more like the Constitutional Parliament of the French monarchy? Wouldn't Convention Nationale or Conseil des Cinq Cents be more fitting for the Republic?
 
Looks great. Just a few minor comments on the UX side of things:
1. It's awesome to see the search option on the debate selection screen, it's a huge QoL improvements. Hopefully we will see it on other useful areas.
2. The +0.15 progress towards Decentralization is coloured green, which implies that it's good and that the opposite- centralization- is undesirable. Assuming that it's not the case and it depends, the colour should be more neutral to avoid bias.
 
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I'd change two things for the French parliament names:

1) Change Estates General to Etats-Généraux (most other localisations are in their local names, why not this one?)

2) Have Etats-Généraux only work for a monarchy ; if France becomes a Republic it should be Assemblée Législative, as it was during most of the Revolution.
Honestly, should something that only met 34 times in 500 years be considered the parliament of France? I would be more inclined to think of the Conseil du Roi as the French parliament during the Ancien Régime.
 
I am kind of surprised that National Assembly isn’t on the list of names yet.
 
Does this mean parliaments will be easier to get than in EU4 (monarchies only have one way to get a parliament if they don't have a special reform, and it is really bad because it essentially costs three mana a month/costs two diplo relations slots and disables call diet)