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Tinto Talks #45 - 8th of January 2025

Welcome to another Tinto Talks! Happy Wednesday where we talk about our super-secret game with the codename Project Caesar, asking you for feedback!


Today we’ll go into the details of how terrain works in the game. To iterate from the Map-Tinto-Talks from almost a year ago, each location has three different attributes instead of a single one as previous games had. This creates more variation and allows us more granular control over game play.

Each location has a climate, a topography and a vegetation set. Sea locations do not have vegetation though.


Climate

climate.png


The climate of a location impacts how well pops can live there, including how much food can be produced. It also affects the maximum winter level of a location.

tropical.png
Tropical

Population Capacity +50%
Development Growth -10%
Life Expectancy -5
Free Capacity Attracts Pops
No Winters

Tropical represents areas with high average temperatures and no winter.

subtropical.png
Subtropical

Population Capacity +100%
Free Capacity Attracts Pops
Max Winter is Mild

Subtropical represents areas with high average temperatures and mild winters.

oceanic.png
Oceanic
Population Capacity +50%
Free Capacity Attracts Pops
Max Winter is Mild

Oceanic represents areas with mild winters but high humidity.

arid.png
Arid
Wheat Production -10%
Life Expectancy -5
Free Capacity Attracts Pops
No Precipitation
No Winters

Arid represents an area that has a severe lack of available water.

cold_arid.png
Cold Arid

Wheat Production -10%
No Precipitation
Max Winter is Mild

Cold arid represents an area that has a severe lack of available water but experiences winters.

mediterranean.png
Mediterranean
Population Capacity +150%
Free Capacity Attracts Pops
No Winters

Mediterranean represents areas with a perfect climate!

continental.png
Continental
Population Capacity +50%
Free Capacity Attracts Pops
Max Winter is Normal

Continental represents areas with cold winters.

arctic.png
Arctic
Population Capacity -55%
Development Growth -25%
Life Expectancy -5
Max Winter is Severe

Arctic represents areas with very cold winters.

Vegetation

vegetation.png


Vegetation represents the foliage cover of a location.

desert.png
Desert

Can have Sandstorms
Movement Cost for Armies +10%
RGO Build time +50%
Road Build time +100%
Development Growth -10%
Food Production -33%
Population Capacity +10k

Deserts are barren landscapes with little precipitation and almost no potential for plant or animal life.

sparse.png
Sparse
Road Build time -10%
Population Capacity +25k

Sparse represent large flat areas of land with few or no trees.

grasslands.png
Grasslands
Food Production +10%
Population Capacity 50k

Grasslands represent terrain dominated by grass with little or no trees or shrubs.

farmland.png
Farmland
Movement Cost for Armies +10%
Road Build time +10%
Development Growth +10%
Population Capacity +100k
RGO Maximum Size +10%
Food Production +33%

Farmland represents anthropogenic terrain, devoted to crops and/or extensive pastures.

woods.png
Woods
Movement Cost for Armies +25%
Attacker Diceroll in Battle -1
Maximum Frontage in Battle -2
Road Build time +25%
Population Capacity +50k
Development Growth -20%
Food Production +10%
Blocks Vision from Adjacent Sea

Woods represent terrain with less dense vegetation than forests.


forest.png
Forest
Movement Cost for Armies +50%
Attacker Diceroll in Battle -1
Maximum Frontage in Battle -3
Road Build time +50%
RGO Build time +33%
Population Capacity +25k
Development Growth -25%
Blocks Vision from Adjacent Sea
Blocks Vision from Adjacent Land

Forest represents terrain with dense vegetation.


jungle.png
Jungle
Movement Cost for Armies +100%
Attacker Diceroll in Battle -1
Maximum Frontage in Battle -4
Road Build time +200%
RGO Build time +50%
Population Capacity +50k
Development Growth -50%
Blocks Vision from Adjacent Sea
Blocks Vision from Adjacent Land

A jungle represents terrain with dense forest and tangled vegetation that makes doing anything on the land difficult.




Topography

topography.png


Topography represents the roughness and elevation of the land within a location. Flatter Topography is generally better for growing Towns and Cities while rougher Topography is easier to defend.


These first ones are land related topographies.

flatland.png
Flatland

No special attributes

Flatland represents terrain that does not have any major topographic variation, so there are no impediments for army movement or building development.

mountains.png
Mountains
Movement Cost for Armies +100%
Attacker Diceroll in Battle -2
Movement is Blocked in Winter
Maximum Frontage in Battle -4
Road Build time +200%
RGO Build time +100%
Population Capacity -80%
Development Growth -70%
Food Production -20%
Blocks Vision from Adjacent Sea
Blocks Vision from Adjacent Land

Mountain terrain has high altitude and also steep slopes with relatively few and narrow flat areas, so it is more difficult for armies to cross and fight in it, and also more difficult to develop.

hills.png
Hills

Movement Cost for Armies +50%
Attacker Diceroll in Battle -1
Maximum Frontage in Battle -3
Road Build time +50%
RGO Build time +25%
Development Growth -30%
Food Production -10%
Blocks Vision from Adjacent Sea
Blocks Vision from Adjacent Land

A terrain with hills has variations in the topography, but the slopes are not as steep nor as high as those of mountains, so the penalties are also not as bad.

plateau.png
Plateau
Movement Cost for Armies +25%
Attacker Diceroll in Battle -1
Maximum Frontage in Battle -1
Road Build time +50%
RGO Build time +25%
Development Growth -25%
Blocks Vision from Adjacent Sea

They represent relatively flat areas situated at high altitude, so they have some penalties compared to flatlands due to their elevation.

wetlands.png
Wetlands

Movement Cost for Armies +50%
Attacker Diceroll in Battle -1
Maximum Frontage in Battle -3
Road Build time +75%
RGO Build time +25%
Development Growth -30%
Food Production -10%

Wetlands are terrain that is partially flooded, generally due to being near a river, lake, or coast.


The following are the naval ones.

ocean.png
Ocean
Naval Attrition +1%

This is the open seas between the continents, where only the best of ships can travel.

deep_ocean.png
Deep Ocean
Naval Attrition +2%

This is the open seas between the continents, where only the best of ships can travel, in the furthest areas from any coast.

coastal_ocean.png
Coastal Ocean
No special attributes

This is the open seas between the continents, where only the best of ships can travel, but in the areas closer to the coast.

inland_sea.png
Inland Sea
Can Freeze over during winter

Inland seas represent the land-enclosed seas like the Mediterranean or the Baltic.

narrows.png
Narrows

Can Freeze over during winter
Movement Cost for Navies +20%
Attacker Diceroll in Battle -1
Maximum Frontage in Battle -2
Blocks Vision from Adjacent Sea

Narrows are areas of sea with proximity of coast on many sides, like straits or the sea inside archipelagos, where there is not much space for movement.


Lakes, Salt Pans and Atolls exists, but are just graphical variants of Coastal Oceans, even if lakes could freeze over during winter.

Stay tuned, as next week we’ll delve into the wonderful world of military objectives.
 
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Do you know that 50% of the world's population is concentrated in eastern and southern Asia?However, 50% of the remaining 70% are concentrated in the monsoon climate zone. As early as the Song Dynasty, China's population had reached 120 million, accounting for one-third of the world's population at that time. The population of India is slightly lower, but still over 80 million. How many people were there in Europe during the same period?
And aren't those places loved because of modern technology's irrigation of water for agriculture and foreign imports. Food doesn't grow out of supermarket shelves, my friend.
Undoubtedly, the monsoon climate zone provided the largest amount of food and population in the ancient world, as well as several of the largest cities in human history.
The population of Constantinople was approximately 500000, while the population of Lin'an in the Southern Song Dynasty was over 1.2 million, and the population of Kaifeng in the Northern Song Dynasty was over 2 million. In the Ming Dynasty, there were 2.54 million in Nanjing and 2.32 million in Beijing. During the Tang Dynasty, Chang'an had a population of over 1.3 million.
I'm not quite sure about the population history of India, but Delhi has a population of at least one million.
Have you ever maybe compare the area sizes of Europe, China and India? And only relatively small part of Europe enjoys Med.c. nor is there so much highly fertile land on Europe as in Fertile cresecnt or in great river valley of India and China....
 
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Have you ever maybe compare the area sizes of Europe, China and India?
Currently, Europe has 9 million square kilometers, while the entire South Asian subcontinent has only 4.3 million square kilometers. Although China has 9.6 million square kilometers, excluding deserts, plateaus, permafrost mountains, and other densely populated areas, China only has 4.25 million square kilometers. In ancient times, China or India used half of the European area to support twice the population of Europe.
 
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I just had an idea for fish when I heard the there are no vegetation for sea tiles.
Instead of having it be that some provinces produce it, it could be that sea tiles have various degrees of "richness" when it comes to fish population, and the fish trade good would be collected in land provinces with the good building (=fishing infrastructure), the range at wich sea tiles can be collected depending on some tech regarding fishing vessels. Low tech will only collect from adjacent sea tiles and high tech could collect on deep ocean tiles.

It doesn't have to use the vegetation system, it's just what gave me the idea when I thought about what could be put in there for sea tiles. And there is still the question of inland fishing (lakes and rivers), though I think it would be possible with this system, just with extra steps. Maybe have the fish pop modifier be applied to provinces on or adjacent to rivers, and have lakes work like sea tiles.
But it would be nice to have a map mode if it is implemented, vegetation was just one where sea tiles were unused and thus free to display the fish in all its glory without needing to code a whole new map mode from the ground up.
 
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Currently, Europe has 9 million square kilometers, while the entire South Asian subcontinent has only 4.3 million square kilometers. Although China has 9.6 million square kilometers, excluding deserts, plateaus, permafrost mountains, and other densely populated areas, China only has 4.25 million square kilometers. In ancient times, China or India used half of the European area to support twice the population of Europe.
tbh I would exclude Scandinavian and Russian Tundra too
 
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tbh I would exclude Scandinavian and Russian Tundra too
Because I don't know the specific area of those places, I can't rule them out, but even if I do, consider the six million square kilometers of the Roman Empire plus the area of Poland and Germany. Europe will still have at least five million square kilometers of land (excluding North Africa and West Asia)
 
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Because I don't know the specific area of those places, I can't rule them out, but even if I do, consider the six million square kilometers of the Roman Empire plus the area of Poland and Germany. Europe will still have at least five million square kilometers of land (excluding North Africa and West Asia)
Interestingly, Roman Europe had about 35 million people in 2.2million km2, so pretty much the density China/India had around the time(Indian numbers are a bit up in the air)
 
consider the six million square kilometers of the Roman Empire
More like 5 mil., and out of those five, I would guess 35-40% is outside of Europe. And largest population density in Egipt, Near East, Italy and Greece, which all have Med.c.....
 
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I no understand why it says no winter in Mediterranean.
There are 4 seasons in Mediterranean, not three.

If its above -10c and there is less than 20cm snow, and the sea has not frozen solid in your port, its not winter.
 
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You need to expand your repertoire of climate zones - try out some that actually have regular rainfall and don't get awful heat waves.

I lived in Gothenburg. It has 4 types of weather.

- Temporary semi-clear skies.. (not common)
- Grey clouds and drizzle
- Normal Rain
- Sideways Rain
 
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Egypt doesn't have mediterranean climate... at all
Where majority of the population lived (coasts & Nile delta) very much does have med.c.
 
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changing terrain is an engine issue
Sorry, I am a bit confused.

When you say terrain, do you mean topography or also climate and vegetation?

Do you mind giving a bit more detail...

I think I speak for the whole community when I say we don't really expect to be able to change climate or topography( except draining wetlands... but even that I would argue can be handled with buildings only).

But I'm just trying to understand why vegetation cannot be changed when it's one of those things that humans love to do since agriculture started.
 
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What about Plateau Wasteland that made its way into yesterday's Maghreb Feedback?View attachment 1241114
It was a bug, as that location itself should be a Plateau, and the wasteland beside it, a Plateau Wasteland; just fixed it. By the way, there are some wasteland topographies, which are present in the game mainly for graphical purposes (better 3D map look):
  • flatland_wasteland
  • hills_wasteland
  • plateau_wasteland
  • wetlands_wasteland
  • dune_wasteland
  • mesa_wasteland
  • mountain_wasteland
  • ocean_wasteland
 
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  • flatland_wasteland
  • hills_wasteland
  • plateau_wasteland
  • wetlands_wasteland
  • dune_wasteland
  • mesa_wasteland
  • mountain_wasteland
  • ocean_wasteland
Hype! Especially the mesas!

Could you perhaps add ice_shield_wasteland for internal Greenland? It doesn't fit any of these cathegories and looks distinct enough.

Could for example a fourth modifier/attribute influence how terrain looks?
 
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It was a bug, as that location itself should be a Plateau, and the wasteland beside it, a Plateau Wasteland; just fixed it. By the way, there are some wasteland topographies, which are present in the game mainly for graphical purposes (better 3D map look):
  • flatland_wasteland
  • hills_wasteland
  • plateau_wasteland
  • wetlands_wasteland
  • dune_wasteland
  • mesa_wasteland
  • mountain_wasteland
  • ocean_wasteland
Won't this icon
CoolArid.png

be better for your 'cold arid' climate instead of that one with snow?
ColdArid.png


Because Malaga, Mallorca and Crimea are hardly associated with snow.
Arid sun icon + a cloud without rain to represent that it's a bit cooler than hot arid.
 
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1736424884796.png
1736424850945.png
1736424869018.png

I think this drop of pop capacity between three temperate climates is insane considering that Mediterranean areas generally have the same population density as other two if not lower. Maybe 125 - 100 - 75 or even 100-100-75 would make more sense?
 
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