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Tinto Talks #42 - 18th of December 2024

Welcome to another Tinto Talks, the happy Wednesday where we give you information about our upcoming super secret game with the codename Project Caesar.

This week we will be talking about the disaster system, which has been present in different forms in recent GSG games from Paradox.

Disasters
There are two major differences between a disaster and a situation. The first is that a disaster is almost always negative, and secondly a disaster is always for a specific country. While multiple situations can be active and involving a country at the same time, only a single disaster can happen at the same time.

There are also two categories of disasters. The specific historical narratives, and the generic ones that can happen to anyone under the right circumstances.

Disasters in Project Caesar are not just a modifier applied to the country, and some events triggering until you fulfill the winning conditions, but you also get unique actions you can do to affect the disaster.

Let's start looking at some common more generic disasters.

Court and Country
Resistance to the growing centralization in our country has culminated in a period of general crisis and conflict between Court and Country. Depending on how we handle this time of crisis we might come out of it a stronger country than before.

This disaster can happen to any country with strong Absolutism or Crown Power in the Age of Absolutism or Age of Revolution.

court_and_country.png

The Nobility has taken the biggest offence to this plan

As you can see above here the UI for this disaster shows your current crown power, and the power of your estates, while also showing the rebel closest to starting a civil war. It also lists the current actions you have in the disaster. Here we cannot rein in the Nobility, as they are too strong already.

Two of the icons above have special tooltips that are useful for you as well.

end_condition.png

You have to endure it for at least a decade..

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In case you don’t know how to increase crown power..


Religious Turmoil
religious_turmoil.png


Despite the country's efforts to mediate between the different religious groups in our nation, conflicts have been erupting on a regular basis. The situation has worsened and without drastic measures, we will soon be engulfed in a religious civil war.

This disaster can occur during the Age of Reformation for any Catholic country or any country following any Protestant religion, if they have a low enough religious unity and a weak clergy estate.

To get out of this disaster there are multiple ways: get religious unity higher; get the power of the clergy much higher as a spiritualist; or go full humanist, while restoring stability.

While this disaster is happening, there will be a lot of conflict from religious minorities in the country.



If we look into some of the country specific ones, we have a few here, and we don’t want to spoil them all..

The Rise of Savonarola
savonarola.png


An upstart preacher has started to spread his apocalyptic message, advocating for repentance and reform. His message is causing quite a stir among the population, and it's for sure a sign of changing times.

This is a disaster that is likely to happen to Florence in the last decades of the 15th century, if they are a Catholic republic.

To get out of this disaster you either have to become a Theocracy or Savonarola will have to die.


War of the Roses
war_of_the_roses.png


Two junior branches of the House of Plantagenet, the House of Lancaster and the House of York, both claim to be the rightful heir to the throne of England. Sporadic fights between their supporters have already broken out in a number of provinces around the country. Their heraldic symbols, a red rose and a white rose, have already become synonymous with the conflict now commonly known as the War of the Roses.

This is a specific disaster for England which can happen during the 15th century if the ruling dynasty is Plantagenet, and some specific historical events have happened. It will allow you to side with either York or Lancaster as it will build up to a civil war for the throne.



So, which historical events do you think would be best represented by a disaster? Post your suggestions here..

Now, you either get a Christmas present next Wednesday, or you get a lump of coal…
 
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Looking at Court and Country, I’m really skeptical of the requirement to have had the disaster for at least 10 years. A lot of EUIV disasters have a similar restriction and I find it quite dissatisfying. If you can solve it or fall to it in 3 years, why not end it? Feels weird to sit around with the conditions met for half a decade. “Yeah, we resolved that conflict, we’re just rioting cause it’s fun.” I understand the need to prevent cheese; a one year limit, or a requirement to meet the conditions for a year continuously feel more in line with that end.

Also, can we write ‘25 absolutism vs liberalism’ as ‘25 absolutism’ and ‘-80 absolutism vs liberalism’ as ‘80 liberalism’? Not changing the representation of the slider, just a colloquial way to write it shorter and clearer. All the societal values are a pair of opposites, so it makes sense to write out the positive and negative values with one or the other in tooltips and text.
 
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Why do I have a feeling that this game is turning more and more into a frame work that is going to allow to play from 300 BC to 3000 AD seemlessly?
 
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I think the Palaiologan Civil War should be a disaster likely to strike the Byzantines after the death of Emperor Andronikos, to simulate the unique instability of the empire at that time.
Yeah, and it would also be cool if that tied into John V, Adrianikos' son who was terrible and reigned for a long time. That whole period of civil war and John's reign were what took the empire's destiny out of its own hands.
 
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Will we finally have proper representation of the XVI-XVII centuries' Cossack rebellions in Poland-Lithuania? Especially the Khmelnychchyna, since it completely upturned the political situation in Eastern Europe and was of utmost importance in the formation of Ukrainian national identity.
 
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We're focusing mostly on Historical content for the base game.
If you ever add non-historical content to the game, will there be an option to turn it off?
Without turning off the whole expansion, I mean, because they may contain something more than non-historical flavors.
EU4 plays out very differently today than 5 years ago and in the lategame there are almost always non-historical major countries, who were buffed with previous dlcs (which is cool), but turning these dlcs off will means losing other crucial game content.
 
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What do the buttons in the court and country do? don't tell me that you just press them,make a estate more loyal,wait for the cooldown and so on.Like the government mechanic buttons from EU4 which were extremely shallow and uninteresting.
 
Not exactly nation specific, but I'd LOVE to see a disaster-based mechanic for Euro colonizers threatened by a much larger neighbor and/or colonial independence in late game.

Basically with a choice to move your capital to the larger colony for a huge prestige and legitimacy hit, but you keep your empire intact. Or risk a colonial rebellion due to unrest in the colony or being freed/taken by an aggressive neighbor.

Would be a fun way to represent late game politics as small Euro states find themselves leading colonies in many cases significantly larger and richer than the metrópole. Also a nod to the Portuguese crown successfully escaping Napoleon in 1808 by moving the court to Brazil. The Spanish monarchy also tried fleeing to Mexico but they were caught.
 
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3. Situations are heavily scripted, as they're more narrative pieces of content, they can't randomly appear. So even if they affect a large number of countries (e.g., the Black Death), they won't trigger randomly to any certain country, such as a generic disaster.

Can we mod situations so they may or may not appear depending on the world's context and situation?
 
So, its this how Unión de Aragón can be better represented (as a flavour disaster for Aragon)? I asked Pavía in the last DD about this specific idea. I think Aragón (or any tag with Catalan pops) also should qualify for a Remensa disaster. One could be a version of court and country and the other a peasant disaster. I'd also think there may be a Ribagorza's war disaster for Aragon (as a crisis for a low noble satisfaction?)

Also, for any Hispanic tag with muslim minorities I'd suggest https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revuelta_mudéjar_de_1264-1266 However, this one may let more for a situation, since there were multicountry impacts (with Aragon choosing to support Castille)

I bet the infantes de Aragón is too a situation, as well as the War of the Two Peters.

I suggest an Alteraciones de Aragón situation if there is a PU between Aragon and Castille and centralization issues.

If Spain is formed, I'd suggest a 1640ish disaster if there is low prestige/legimacy, triggering nationalistic uprisings.
 
Does a general disaster for a really wide play (too much territory conquered) exist? Or for a tall play? Or for being too strong?

Is decadence a disaster?
We have the control and rebellion systems for that.
 
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but why tho? I thought, hoped, that some situations could be procedural to simulate the various succession wars when half of Europe went at war (a la crisis system in Vic2 sorta). Having them scripted feels bad, especially cause it would be cool to yk, not being forced to follow a historical scripted path
There are some more that are more procedural and dynamic, but they will usually appear under more or less similar circumstances (although those may change a bit each time).
 
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And I forgot, medieval Spain also had the Carlos de Viana moment. This gathered:
The last point existed beside the conflict between Carlos de Viana and his father, Juan II. So it may be an internal disaster only for Navarre, but it did extend to Castille with the Guerras de bandos, so I don't know the best approach.

I wonder if Navarra can also have something like the Guerra de la Navarrería to represent the conflicts between cultures in the kingdom.
 
Do you have famines as a disaster? They had large effects on nations besides just starvation and were huge factors for the French revolution and revolutions of 1848. In fact, the little ice age from the 16th-19th century should be it's own situation.

I don't know if it deserves it's own disaster, but the pilgrims not knowing how to survive on their own without the help of the natives could give interesting disaster options like integrating more with their society, only accepting their help, or taking what they have.

Over hunting could be it's own disaster. Thinking of things like bison and beaver in America due to either wasting the food like the bison or hunting beavers to make hats. Which for the beavers was also done a lot by the native population as a great resource of trade with the colonials. On that note, possibly deforestation. Not sure if that ones prevalent to the time period though.
Famines are kind of portrayed organically by our system for Food supply, demand, and capacity. That said, we've already been thinking of a proper system to have famines being 'unexpected shocks' (usually, because of climate conditions impacting negatively food production)... But it's not something that we have in the game, and that I can't promise to have.
 
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Is the "Religious Turmoil" disaster restricted to Christians only? I find that odd. You can probably find something akin to the religious conflicts in Western Europe in other parts of the world. I'm thinking of the fluctuations between Hinduism and Islam on the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia in particular.
Food for thought... :rolleyes:
 
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Can the 3D model be posed and lit differently? I feel like that would make it at least 50% better. Why is his head tilted like that? I fear these 3D portraits, the way they are now, will end up ruining the immersion...
 
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