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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.

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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.


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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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Id think malaria should be more prevalent outside of just Africa it was present in parts of Europe and much of india and asia until the 1800s when they strated to drain swamps and dyke up rivers to help control low lying water. maybe at a reduced rate or part of the outbreaks but keep it spawning from specific provinces that are near or part of marshes.
 
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Is there any plan to add soap as a manufactured good? I commented about the soap production method in the trade goods TT (comment #446). Now with beeswax, there are a lot of viable pathways to produce soap, including olive oil, livestock, or wild game - mixed with potash.

If added, soap could be a good input for hospitals to increase effectiveness, or it could be a consumer good demanded among the literate population.

Only some diseases would be made less infectious by soap, and there may only be an effect in certain environments e.g. rural, but it would add an extra dimension to allow the player to limit the spread of diseases. Perhaps a certain advance will allow for hygiene practices to become known among literate pops, which would create demand for soap.
 
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Should rice wine be split from grape-based wine for Asian countries? Not sure if wine demands in the west would see eastern rice wine, especially in the game timeframe as the perfect substitute and vice versa, especially in places like France, Italy, China, and Japan.
I feel like Rice wine should be liquor if anything, not wine.
 
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  • If you want specific pop types affected…
This got me thinking since you mentioned that Central African pops will be fairly resistant to malaria, unlike foreign pops venturing into the region, does that mean each culture has varying levels of survivability against diseases? For example, would Middle Eastern and Jewish pops have higher resistance to most diseases compared to their European counterparts due to their awareness of germ theory? Essentially, would their practice of handwashing and ablution contribute to better disease resistance?

It would be cool if that were the case since Jews were often blamed for disease outbreaks because they were mysteriously less susceptible to infection.

P.S I'm a big fan of yours Monsieur Johan, I wish you and your team all the best in your endeavours.
 
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Does the Plague Resistance from the Hospital and Medical School only affect the Bubonic Plague? Or other diseases as well?

all diseases
 
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What determines if an army becomes infested by disease and what are the immediate consequences if they are? Are the chances increased by certain actions, like moving through infected areas, prolonged sieges, moving through marshy terrain, etc. ? Can you weaponise a plague by taking your infected army and march it through enemy territory?

yes and yes.

the drawback is that your soldiders will die.
 
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What about the revenge of the New World - Syphilis?
It appeared in Europe after 1492 so it's thought to be arrived from the New World.

Although it is basically a sexually transmitted and "slow" disease, in the decades following its appearance, a much more intense form of it devastated the Old World. Once it appeared somewhere, it remained there permanently, only to be reduced by the growth of Resistance, the development of medicine and, well... improved sexual morality.
 
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