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Tinto Talks #58 - 9th of April 2025

Hello, and welcome to another Tinto Talk, the happy Wednesdays where we talk about our entirely super-top-secret game with the codename Project Caesar.

Today, I will be your host instead of Johan since we will be talking about the flavour mechanics. These will be basically IOs, Situations, and Religions, and we will be talking about a bunch of them for some weeks, although from time to time Johan will come back to present some other stuff. So, let’s start without further ado with the Holy Roman Empire, the most convoluted organization invented by mankind only Imperial polity that existed in Western Europe for most of the game period.

In 1337, it’s a very different beast compared to previous installments in other PDX GSGs. The Great Interregnum that started in 1254 after the deaths of Frederick II and Conrad IV of the House of Hohenstaufen, and the double election of two contenders (Richard of Cornwall and Alfonso X of Castile) in 1257 led to a period of weak and diminishing Imperial Authority. In the coming decades, the Houses of Habsburg, Luxembourg, and Wittelsbach would fight for the Imperial election, making the Electorates increasingly more important.

HRE Map.jpg

A beautiful beast! The color code for every country:
  • Yellow: Emperor
  • Light Blue: Prince-Elector
  • Middle Blue: Archbishop-Elector
  • Dark Blue: Imperial Prelates
  • Light Green: Free Imperial Cities
  • Middle Green: Republics
  • Pink/Brownish: Imperial Peasant Republics
  • Grey: Imperial Princes
  • Purple Stripes: Imperial Land not owned by an HRE member
  • Other stripes: Land owned by an HRE member not yet incorporated as Imperial land

Here is an overview of the HRE IO panel and all the different member types that you can find by scrolling down on it:

HRE Panel1.png

Prince-Elector.jpg

Archbishop-Elector.jpg

Free Imperial City.png

Imperial Prelate.jpg

Imperial Peasant Republic.jpg

And here is the sub-panel that show all its members:

HRE Members.png

The HRE comes with a bunch of mechanics and features, which you can easily grasp in the IO’s tooltip:

HRE Tooltip.jpg

HRE Tooltip2.jpg

Let’s start with the most important base feature, the Imperial Authority, which is the currency used by the Holy Roman Emperor to enact Imperial Laws. There are a few sources to either add or subtract Imperial Authority:

Imperial Authority.jpg

Note: the missing +0.01 comes from value rounding which is not reflected in the tooltip.

Imperial Laws create different effects that impact the members of the HRE. At the start, there are only two available:

Imperial Laws.jpg

You may notice that there’s a category, ‘Fundamental Laws’, with only one policy possible, the ‘Golden Bull’. This was the single most important law approved in the HRE, becoming its base political constitution up until its dissolution after being enacted in 1356. In Project Caesar, the Emperor has a very high incentive to pass it as soon as possible, as it unlocks additional laws and actions:

Golden Bull.png

When you have 35 Imperial Authority, you can try to enact it, and a Vote in the Imperial Diet will happen:
Golden Bull vote.jpg

That works quite similarly to country parliaments, as you have to secure a positive vote of the different HRE members:

Golden Bull Diet.png

And this would be the situation after the law passes, with 8 new Imperial Laws available:

Imperial Laws2.jpg

Imperial Laws3.jpg

In general terms, most of the laws have 5 policies available, with the starting ones usually being in the middle positions of the 5. This is how it works (these are 'instructions' in the script):

#With the enactment of the Golden Bull, most HRE laws are set to the 3rd policy which has limited or no modifiers active at all
#The HRE Emperor can try to change the policy to the next adjacent one (so from 3rd tier to 4th or 2nd tier)
#The left tier is the 4th and 5th and is more in favor of benefitting the HRE as a whole
#The right tier is the 2nd and 1st and is more in favor of benefitting the HRE Emperor first and foremost

#Some laws have only 3 policies in which cases there are not pro-Emperor vs pro-Member positions

#The only law which does not follow the rule is the power_of_the_emperor_law which starts at improved_imperial_authority_policy (4) policy.
#The reason for this is to delay the unification of the HRE + there is not much design space for an even further decentralized HRE.
#As such, having 2 policies for the decentralized HRE are not really doable.

# LAW
# Pol 5 Pol 4 Pol 3 Pol 2 Pol 1
# |--------------|--------------|--------------|--------------|

Let’s take as example the Imperial Voting Law:

Electorship Law1.jpg

Electorship Law2.jpg

The Imperial Election is then a key feature, since it elects the Holy Roman Emperor, who then sets all the Imperial Laws, Diets, etc. Here you can see an example of how it works:
Imperial Election.jpg

The King of Bohemia got backed by most of the Electors, and thus, became the Holy Roman Emperor after the death of Ludwig IV of Upper Bavaria.

This event will trigger if a different country gets its ruler elected as Emperor, as in this example:

Imperial Coronation1.jpg

Imperial Coronation2.jpg

One of the factors behind the election is the Dynastic Power, a new value that is currently only used for the HRE mechanics (although it could potentially be used for other IOs, as it’s a scriptable/moddable feature), which impacts the likelihood of a certain country from a powerful dynasty to be elected or re-elected as Emperor:
Dynastic Power1.jpg

Dynastic Power2.jpg

Dynastic Power3.jpg

Last but not least is the Imperial Contribution. It is an amount of money and manpower that any member of the HRE may contribute to the Emperor, who can later spend it in Imperial Actions, and also defending the Empire (in theory…):
Imperial Payments1.jpg

Imperial Payments2.jpg

… And that’s all for today, since it’s already a very long TT! Next week, we will be taking a look at the Catholic Religion and the Catholic Church IO. Cheers!
 
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is there a reason for having the republics be a different color? doesn't seems to any meaningful information from what we can see about the hre. if i would care about what government a country has i'd look at the government type mapmode.
if it is important for the laws you can pass (eg. the more republics there are the more you can move the hre into a unified republic) it would mke sense but otherwise it only clutters the mapmode and makes it harder to locate the important things about the hre.
 
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Please don't make the map just shades of blue and green, I promise there are other colors.
 
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Will there be internal crises/situations like the withdrawal of Italian states from the HRE, The Peasant War or the Burgundian succession, as it was in EU4? Accordingly, will this somehow affect the entire HRE, as IO, or will it just be a "headache" for the emperor himself?
 
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  • Don't' have wasteland and 'country not part of IO' be the same color to better differentiate.
  • Shift the 'middle green' to be farther from 'light green' as they start to blend if not adjacent. Is there a reason both need to be green based?
  • I can see having the same base color, blue, for the two styles of electors. Is there a reason the Imperial Prelates also share this blue base?
HRE%20Map.jpg


  • Is there a reason the ducats are in a box but Imperial Authority is not?
  • Age/Sex goes better with the stat line rather than the name.
  • With the three icons in the picture should be centered. The sun looks left and the crest right.
  • The Crest could go with the Stat line
  • What is the 'month' icon in the stat line for?
  • Still feels like the guy is standing in front of a picture of his house instead of being part of the picture.
  • Are we centering button text or not? If not because of the icon the Invite button text feels too far left or the text is to close to the icon. (It feels out of balance, maybe the amount of 'white' space on the right to what is there on the left).
  • Thank for adding a bit of space around the flags in the lists
  • Has there been thought of having the different member groupings to be collapsible?
  • I would separate the two elector groups
  • Is there not a group for the Imperial Princes? Are they only visible when lumped into the 'all members' tab?
  • Should we color code the member headers to match the HRE Map coloring to better tie them together?
  • I think having the 'member' and 'special status' icons should referentially point to the HRE (using the HRE icon as a base or modifier) and not the UN icon. Or no base. Such as the following (green is HRE based, blue is no base) where icons are Base, modifier located lower right, secondary modifier located upper left.
    • Prince-Elector : (A) HRE base, Monarchy modifier, Gavel secondary modifier; (B) Monarchy base, gavel modifier
    • Archbishop Elector : (A) HRE base, Theocracy modifier, Gavel secondary modifier; (B) Theocracy base, gavel modifier
    • Free Imperial City : (A) HRE base, City modifier; (B) City base
    • Imperial Prelate : (A) HRE base, Theocracy modifier; (B) Theocracy base
    • Republic : (A) HRE base, Republic modifier; (B) Republic base
    • Imperial Peasant Republic : (A) HRE base, Peasant Republic modifier; (B) Peasant Republic base
    • Imperial Prince: (A) HRE base, Monarchy modifier ; (B) Monarchy base
    • Generic Member: (A) HRE base, Flag modifier ; (B) Flag base
    • Emperor: (A) HRE base, Emperor modifier ; (B) Emperor base
    • Note: With the above you could use the generic government type icons or creature new for, prince, Archbishop/prelate, etc.
  • These are specific to the All Members Tab (didn't want to add basically the same picture)
    • What is the back arrow icon in the 'member title box' for?
    • What is the purpose of the tab if we already list all of the members on the first tab?
    • Why was the member box size changed (and the # per row increased from 10 to 12)?
    • Will there be any icon modifiers added to the flags to indicate those with some of the special statuses? Emperor and electors at least?
HRE%20Panel1.png


  • Why have we stopped left justifying the values in effect lists?
  • If all 'special statuses' are used to differentiate members, would 'member type' be a better class?
Free%20Imperial%20City.png


  • I personally do not feel that this tooltip needs a subtitle
  • I think trying to explain the complete HRE in a tooltip is a fools errand
  • Should the variables expose their values?
  • Why aren't the items from 'can accumulate Manpower' to 'Can invite new Members' listed with the other things the IO gets?
    • Also why in the 'can accumulate Manpower' shown as a list title?
  • 'Holy Roman Empire Benefits' or 'Holy Roman Empire Effects' instead of 'The IO gets:'
  • 'Emperor Benefits' instead of 'the leader gets:'
    • What does the Can effects mean? First glance I would wonder if members in the HRE cannot have alliances or threaten war. Also are the 'pacts' the HRE pact or the emperor. Are things like intervene and enforce limited to actions involving members?
  • 'Member Benefits' (or effects) instead of 'Being a Member will provide:'
    • Is Rejects Subjugations Reasons added to what the Free Imperial City gets?
  • Put flags before the country names in the member list.
  • I fear how many levels of nesting I would have to go to see all of the '...and 325 more.'. Could this be a fixed height list with an internal scroll bar instead of the ...and ?
HRE%20Tooltip.jpg


  • Internal Organization Variable as a subtitle? really? This hurts my brain.
  • Show the things that go into a value with one more decimal place that the main value. So in this case it is X.XX for monthly change the others should be shown as X.XXX. Then you wouldn't need to explain when the main value is up to n/2 off
  • As it appears that 'Germany' is relevant I think the outline should be indicated in the HRE map. Possibly having two different stripe colors for inside and outside.
Imperial%20Authority.jpg


time for a break. I'll try to be back for the rest later.
 
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I gotta really say that the way that the framed countries' flags look in this IO is perfect! I really prefer this over the waving flags, I hope that this is the way that they look on the corner of the screen or when selecting a country
Screenshot_20250409_170653_Chrome.jpg

Screenshot_20250409_170715_Chrome.jpg
 
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Screenshot_20250409_171410_Chrome.jpg

This flag is too recent to be used for Lubeck in this time period, it could(and should) be used as a revolutionary flag, while using the historical Coa of the city on a yellow background on a rectangular format is more appropriate
Screenshot_20250409_171225_Chrome.jpgScreenshot_20250419_120008_Chrome.jpg
 
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Excellent Dev Diary. Really excited to see how the HRE plays out in-game.

That said...

What is up with the IO screens being so slim? Besides limiting space for more intricate UI and longer text, it is also severely lackluster in terms of flavour.

The HRE, Muscovite Union, and the Ilkhanate have the same exact slim, boring, grey-brown design. It may be the case that this is necessary due to how IO's have been transformed into a universal system for many mechanics, but surely something can be added on top of it? Some color and images do a lot to immerse the player in the game. And some girth would not be unwelcome.

It is alright to have other IO's formed over the course of the game be bland and boring. But even if it is only for the most important starting IO's, could they be a bit more elaborate and flamboyant?

In EU4 the Holy Roman Empire and the Empire of China screens are both very different and very flavourful. It is a shame to see everything being trimmed down into homogenity. If the Catholic Screen shown next week is also like these, then it is really a pity. Although this new IO system is good for gameplay and modding, I can't help but to feel as though it's somewhat of a downgrade in terms of immersion.

europechina.png
 
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View attachment 1279046
COUNTY of Milan???
Can you add "most" in front of Superb for Genoa in the same way that Venice was the "most serene" republic? It's not accurate yes but Superb(given by Petrarch) was one of the many nicknames for Genoa at the time and adding "most" in front of it gives more flavour to their rivalry with Venice imo
Lordship, if we're being pedantic, but it wouldn't be a duchy 'til 1395.

I don't think stapling a 'most' to Genoa's name for rivalry's sake makes much sense at all if it wasn't done historically, now.
 
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If think that the electors should change depending on which emperor enacts the golden bull.

Historically Austria and Bavaria were specifically not chosen as electors because of their rivalry with Charles and Bohemia. If a strong Habsburg emperor had token charge instead of Charles I definitely believe that Austria would have been an elector and not Bohemia, also if a more secular emperor with a worse opinion with the pope enacted the law he likely might reduce the power of the archbishops possible not having any archbishop-electors while vice-versa for a more church leaning emperor.
 
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Question regarding IOs in general, is it possible to create IO that works more like modern EU or BRICS. If not dynamically, then by modded script that utilizes only vanilla things?
 
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Will we get an option to refuse becoming the Emperor, when elected? Very often when playing in HRE in EU3 and 4 I did not ever want to become the Emperor and if it happened it screwed up my plans and RP and every time made me lose the will to continue playing.

I really hope we won't have to once again make crappy workaround mods to prevent being elected.
 
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Till 1346 treaty of Namysłów Silesia was disputed between crowns of Bohemia and Poland. Silesia should be vassals of Bohemia and not hre also I don't see the reason why only part of New March of brandenburg isn't in hre. New March was just the western part of Greater Poland conquered by Brandenburg like 50~ years before start date.
 
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I hope that the game reflects that being a "member" of the HRE is actually vassalage, not some kind of medieval EU. It's not "joining", it's swearing featly. There shouldn't be anything about kicking a member out like that weird anachronistic Teutonic Order event in EU4. Realistically, reforming the HRE means abolishing feudalism in it. It should be a long and gradual process instead of a button press to devour every single member. Also, it should only annex lands owned by the HRE IO, nothing else, as those are the lands of the Empire.
 
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