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Tinto Talks #49 - 5th February 2025

Welcome to another Tinto Talks, the Happy Wednesday where we discuss details from our secret upcoming top secret game with the codename of Project Caesar.

This week we will talk about our disease system.

outbreak.png

This is the tooltip of an outbreak together with the spread...

We have 2 types of diseases, environmental, which does not spread through movement of trade nor movement of people, and those that spread. A disease does not just infect the pops in a location, but can also infect armies.

Each disease has many different attributes, all of which can be complex calculations, and this is a very flexible system entirely modeled through script.

  • A chance for it to spawn each month.
  • How often the disease processes, i.e. how fast it ticks.
  • How quickly it spreads to other pops.
  • How it spreads between location and pops.
  • How quickly it stagnates in a location or unit.
  • How many pops and/or soldiers die or become resistant, each tick.
  • How many pops and/or soldiers die each tick (of the above).
  • The mortality for characters.
  • How quickly resistances decay.
  • How much presence is needed before it spreads to adjacent locations.
  • If you want specific pop types affected…
  • And more…

When diseases are present in a location, the resistance to it builds up, making further outbreaks less effective. Pops, locations and sub units can have resistances. So if pops move around they can bring diseases they have with them that they themselves are immune to. Likewise, a unit carrying disease may spread it to any locations it travels through.

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There is a big Smallpox outbreak here in Saint-Marcellin, but the resistance is already nice.


So let's take a detailed look at the different diseases we have.


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Bubonic Plague

With the default options, this will happen in 1346, start somewhere in Central Asia, and spread throughout the Old World.

It spreads relatively quickly and the mortality rate for pops is between 30% to 60%.

A great pestilence that sweeps through busy trade routes, sparing neither low nor high. Those infected suffer black swellings in the groin and armpits, terrible fever, and death. Some believe it is carried by the vermin that scurry in our streets and fields, spreading foul sickness from one poor soul to another.

great_pestilence.png
Great Pestilence


This will spawn in the New World whenever someone from the Old World colonizes a location, and spreads from there. It represents the collection of diseases that the European colonizers brought to the Americas. It can and will spawn at multiple places. It doesn’t impact pops from the Old World as they are immune to most of these.

This has a gigantic mortality effect, killing between 75% to 90% of all pops.

Terrible news reaches us from abroad. Misery and plague sweep the lands, and death runs with them, apparently brought by mysterious bearded foreigners. This plague is not something our elders have ever heard of, and no answers in our ancestors' memories could help us face the catastrophe if it reaches our settlements. Will our people perish, or will we somehow resist when this walking death reaches us?


malaria.png
Malaria


This is an environmental disease that is pretty much permanent in most Sub-Saharan Africa. Most of the local people have limited resistance to it, but any colonizers from abroad will die.

There will be regular outbreaks that can kill 10% to 20% of the pops that do not have resistance in a location.


The ancient bane of humankind, Malaria, is an infectious disease transmitted from person to person by the bite of an infected mosquito. This illness produces chills, headaches, sweating, and a very intense fever that repeats every three to four days.

typhus.png
Typhus


Outbreaks will appear in the areas of the old world where one of the three types of Typhus are endemic. It will also spawn in forest, woods or jungle locations, spreading from there.

It spreads relatively slowly, but the mortality is between 4% to 40%.

This deathly sickness creates on those stricken by it a great deal of fever, a big red rash that might extend over the entire body, and a confusion of the mind that might get worse, to the point of full-on delirium. Those poor souls that reach that point would develop gangrenous lesions and invariably die

influenza.png
Influenza


This will spawn during winter and spread in a relatively short period of time. It will not appear in the Americas until the Great Pestilence has ravaged the continent fully.

This kills off on average about 1 in 1000 people, so it is not the most lethal of diseases.

Known by the common folk as the Flu, it is a widely spread sickness with usually mild symptoms like a runny nose or a fever in healthy individuals, but that might be extremely dangerous for those that are too young or too old or already weakened by injury or another malady.

measles.png
Measles

This will spawn in most locations around the world, and it's far more likely to spread in towns or cities.It will not appear in the Americas until the Great Pestilence has ravaged the continent fully.

It is a bit more deadly than Influenza, but about 2 in 1000 people will die from it.

Measles, also known as morbili, rubeola, and red measles, is a plague that spreads extremely fast from person to person, causing fever, coughs, sneezes, and a great flat rash that eventually covers the entire body. It preys most eagerly on children, who are at great risk of death if they fall on its claws.

smallpox.png
Smallpox


This keeps spawning in most locations around the world, but not in arid or arctic climates. It will spread in a small region and is highly contagious. It's far more likely to spread in locations with a lot of trade.It will not appear in the Americas until the Great Pestilence has ravaged the continent fully.


The mortality is between 5% and 30%, so an outbreak where there is low resistance can be deadly.

Smallpox is a terrible disease that produces on the sad victim fever, vomits, and finally an enormous amount of liquid-filled blisters that cover their entire body. The outbreaks of this plague are very deathly and those that survive are commonly left blind for life.




There are ways to reduce the impact of disease in your country. First of all there are medical advances in most ages, and there are also buildings you can build.


First there is the Hospital that you can build in any town or city with at least 20 development. This is available at the start of the game for more advanced countries.


hospital.png


Then after the Scientific Revolution you can research the advance for Medical Schools and build them in your town and cities.

medical_school.png


Next week we will talk about how forming new countries will work…
 
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Is resistance permanent or does it have a decay model? e.g. measles infection gives permanent resistance, flu infection give a few months resistance, malaria infection gives zero resistance. Are these different disease mechanisms modelled? What about infection rates? Measles is very highly transmissible, flu is moderately transmissible, malaria isn't transmissible (except via mosquitos). Are these differences part of the game model?
A disease like measles is far more dangerous to a new population that one its endemic in, because in the Old World everyone has had it in childhood, and there are resistant adults who can look after the sick children, but when it arrives in the New World, everyone gets it at once and there is no one to provide basic nursing care to them. Is there anything in the game model that changes mortality according to how many of the population are sick?
 
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Say goodbye to all your Aztec/Mayan/Incan empires.
noooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You destroyed my happy. :mad:
 
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The amount of things that can be done with this mechanic is unimaginable and I am not just referring to disease issues but an infinite number of other things. It's another very flexible mechanic added to the game, I can't imagine what more creative modders will be able to do with this game.
Plague Inc
 
ehhhh if am not mistaken Tuberculosis is not an infectious pathogen but more like a result that develop from other lung illnesses or conditions like bad ashtma , bronchitis , cold lungs , flu infection and more . many covid infected also developped to Tuberculosis due to the lung damage they took .
its very rare a person with Tuberculosis infect another . both my dad and uncle had it on different periods of their lives and they infected no one
You are mistaken, unfortunately, as the Tuberculosis you describe would not be the health epidemic it really is. Tuberculosis is bacterial (Mycobacterium tuberculosis) and transmits through aerosols from the lungs. It doesn't show symptoms in many people (Only 5-10% at some point after infection), but is highly contagious in those who do, and in those that are symptomatic, it is often fatal even with modern care.

I can't speak for your family experience of course, though given the nature of the disease I will say it's unlikely anyone would know without tests that they had passed on the infection to those around them due to the 90-95% non-symptomatic rate. Regardless, it's certainly far from rare to infect another - in fact according to the WHO, a quarter of the world population has latent Tuberculosis.

Additionally, as one of the most dangerous diseases of all of human history and often the one that's most consistently the largest killer in any given year, it certainly deserves to be among those represented by the game. (Plus Syphilis and Dysentery, which are both curiously absent, unless this is not a full list.)

More reading: WHO Factsheet: Tuberculosis
 
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noooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Incan Empire should still be quite doable.
Keep your borders far away from the Atlantic Ocean, but make sure to get infected from other natives as quickly as possible once Europeans arrive. Then rebuild as much as you can before Europeans actually make it to your borders.
 
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Where is syphilis?
I agree, syphilis probably deserves to be represented, as syphilis epidemics were a big deal in Europe and led to the downfall of Europe's bathhouse culture, when bathing was blamed for causing epidemics. The disease was also possibly brought from the Americas to Europe.
 
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Muslims must wash their hands , legs and face , 3 times a day before praying and wash all their body after intercourse, surly some cultures and religions are more resistance to diseases in eu5, right?
 
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I think the art for the diseases are great, though I'd be tempted to use a skull for the Black Death. I think the big one you are missing though is Syphillis which ravaged all the ports of europe after having been brought back from the America's, and took the longest time to figure out how to treat. It also would help balance Europe a bit better where discovery of the new world comes with a bit of a downside for them, Syphillis of course didn't kill as many europeans as smallpox killed native-americans but still.

I also hope there are strats for Natives to try to prep for the diseases incoming- could the Azetcs or Incans invest in hospitals given their start-up? Guess we can't ask much about tribes given they are SOP's who currently have no playable content. I'm also wondering if the 'mendicaments' trade good offers bonuses to disease resistance.

Oh- also any scurvy mechanics? Scurvy of course isn't transmittable because it's a case of malnutrition, but it did plague the sailing industry for centuries, and it took a long time for navies to officially adopt citrus rations as a means to quell it.
 
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It knows where the culture is from.
On the note of alt-history scenarios, might something unique occur if say China or Mali are the first to conquer the new world? I think keeping Europe's grimy mitts off the New World entirely would require a massive rejiggering, and probably be best suited to some mod scenario anyway, but I should think that initial contact coming from Africa, or Asia (or hell Australia) should at least in the short term bring some minor differences with them.
 
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Will there be any events/actions that allow the Polish and Czech regions to avoid major outbreaks of the Black Death, keeping historical accuracy?View attachment 1251066
Most people attribute this to a combination of Polands smaller more rural population (probably simulated already) and Poland's backwater nature at the time meaning they had poor record-keeping. IE, Poland probably wasn't a giant safe-haven from the Black Plague, but they just didn't keep as good death-tally's for modern historians giving the appearance that they were relatively spared.
 
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Is the Tsetse fly not present in the game, or is this dev diary just listing a couple of the diseases present in game? (Reposting my old comment from the Tinto map thread for West Africa.)

Post in thread 'Tinto Maps #14 - 9th of August 2024 - Western Africa'
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ust-2024-western-africa.1698675/post-29819084

Another facet of the disease discussion is that the tsetse fly made it impossible for the southern African states situated in the jungles to field much cavalry, unlike the the Islamic states of the Sahel like Mali or Songhai. The Oyo Empire was one of the few southern states to use cavalry to may meaningful degree, and that was largely because it held lands in the north and trading with other northern powers.

“Even such things as cattle and horses then, and still in many areas, will die in West Africa thanks to the Tsetse fly. None of this even touches things like Sleeping Sickness, Malaria, and a whole host of other diseases we never contemplate in the West today. All of these were much more common in West Africa than in Europe. Approximately, from the first establishments of Europeans as trading agents (1500s) until imperialism and the full conquest of Africa (late-1800s), at least 33% of all Europeans who went to Africa died there within 2 years -- depending on how you frame the parameters and if you narrow to just West Africa, that number becomes 50%. With the diseases and a climate so different from what they knew and loved in Europe, West Africa was hardly a place any European wanted to settle in, let alone en masse.“


“The Oyo Empire was one of the only Yoruba states to adopt cavalry; it did so because most of its territory was in the northern savannah.[15]The origin of the cavalry is unclear; however, the Nupe, Borgu and Hausa in neighbouring territories also used cavalry and may have had the same historical source.[35] Oyo was able to purchase horses from the north and maintain them in metropolitan Oyo because of partial freedom from the tsetse fly.[36] Cavalry was the long arm of the Oyo Empire. Late 16th and 17th century expeditions were composed entirely of cavalry.[15] There were drawbacks to this. Oyo could not maintain its cavalry army in the south but could raid at will.[13][37] Despite its drawbacks, Oyo managed to amass one hundred thousand cavalry horsemen, earning the fear of many kingdoms and empires across West Africa.[38]

You might have noticed that we only have one endemic disease so far (malaria), compared to several epidemic diseases. This needs a bit more work to make it fully functional, but we'd like to add a few more endemic diseases if possible, yes.
 
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Is there any link between epidemics and sanitation buildings in game? The first cholera pandemic took place before the game end.

Also, no yellow fever in game? Its main moment may be historically outside the period but it would help moderate late game snowballing into Africa by colonizers.
 
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