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Tinto Talks #62 - 7th of May 2025

Hello everyone and welcome to another Happy Wednesday! Today we will show off some more things related to our very super secret game Project Caesar.

Lets do a quick start as the Teutonic Order, as they currently start at war, and I want to go through a bit how a battle works in detail. Background information about the country can be found in the latest Tinto Flavor about the Orders at https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...5-25th-of-april-2025-military-orders.1737515/


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Our tax base is low, even if we have a decently sized population.


But how is that population then?

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Fairly diverse eh?

While over 70% are Catholics, only 26% belong to our Prussian culture, so we can not raise a large amount of levies. And considering I have nine different provinces, it would take centuries to make them all Prussian.


However, I also have other problems, in that I don’t have great control over most of my country, and Masuria in the southeast is particularly low.

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Roads are too expensive during a war, but soon...

So my early decision is to try to promote the Prussian culture in our capital, and increase control in Masuria.

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It seems all my leaders have a nice platemail uniform!


So let's take a look at this war then, how should we handle it? We have about 100 regulars and about 3.8k levies, and while we have a numerical superiority on our side, Poland and their allies have a rather large army as well.

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This is the war mapmode, and you can see our armies in green, allied in blue, and what is not hidden by fog of war, the enemy armies in red.


Ideally, as we have a nice amount of manpower from all of our Order Commanderies in Europe, I’d like to raise some more regulars. Luckily, we earn some money from the trade in our cities, even though our tax base is so weak.

I give the order recruit two more Crusader Knights, at 100 men each in Marienburg, and while I gather my levies and regulars in Osterode, I notice that the army of one of the Polish vassals, the County of Sieradz, have moved across the border and started sieging our Castle in Thorn.


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The red/green bars under the section numbers of regiments and men indicates how much frontage is filled.

While my morale is a bit low after marching across my lands, I have just appointed a new general with some great stats, and decided to adjust my army to maximise my chances in the battle.

I put my 192 men strong noble levy cavalry on the right flank together with 1,000 feudal levies. The center gets 2,000 feudal levies, but my left flank has my 2 armored horsemen, and the remaining 524 feudal levies. I have high hopes that they will engage quickly and shatter the opposition flank. There are some tribesmen, footmen and clergy levies in the reserves, but I don’t expect much of them. My commander still needs 10 more days to give an effective bonus to the army, which I really want, as his 84 diplomacy is another +16.8% of morale.

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Yes, the 15 tribesmen will be useful…

I finally give the orders to march to my army, and a few days later, we reach Thorn.

They have a slight edge in morale, as their commander has an even higher diplomacy than ours. Their military tactics are 1.18 compared to our 1.09, due to a stronger noble estate and privileges granted in exchange for that. We do have the edge in discipline though, at 13.10% vs 2.37%, for which we thank the Crusader Discipline advance and the Military Orders estate privilege for the Clergy…

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White numbers at the top of the sections are currently engaged men, while the grey at the bottom is men still not fighting.

At the first hour, our plan to use cavalry on the flanks paid off, as they with the slightly higher initiative got lucky and engaged immediately. As there is no enemy engaged, they’ll do morale damage to the entire opposite section.

A few hours later..

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Green numbers on brown at the top there is WiP

Our left flank is not engaging fast enough and our 50 armored horsemen are getting destroyed by the enemy levies, and they are way too outnumbered to rout 1000 levies. In the center the enemy have their mailed knights engaged, so this should now be interesting.


Lets check the tooltip for our Cavalry. 19 men remained, but they killed 42 enemies last hour, while losing 12 of their own. We had hoped that the rest of the cavalry had engaged at the same time.

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Yeah, need to show as multiplicative numbers, not as +percentage.




The mailed knight levies in the center shatter on our feudal levies, while our horsemen are destroyed. Luckily they bought enough time for the rest of that flank to engage.

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You can also tooltip a battle-widget on the map and see morale and how many are fighting..

Quite a few hours later, fighting is still going on, and most regiments have engaged, while some of our reserves have joined our weakened flanks. We also have better dice rolls, so now it looks really good.

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This battle is now won, and it's just a matter of time until the enemy collapses and flees.

Next week, Pavia is back and will be talking about some more religions: Hinduism, Jainism and Sikhism. Tomorrow though, is the big day!


Don't forget to join us for the stream at May 8th, 6PM CEST / 9AM PDT at https://pdxint.at/CaesarAnnouncement !!
 

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I gotta ask, why does control drop from 100 to 44 across a single location boundary? Is it normal for control to drop that quickly? If so, then why does it only drop from 100 to 86 in the other direction?
 
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… And that’s all for today! Next week, @Johan will come back once again to show more of the most recent changes and tweaks in the game. Cheers!
Not that I dislike getting this view of a game start but I thought that we were to be looking at changes and tweaks.

  • List non-urban locations or at least have the urban locations be listed as 3 of <total locations>
  • I think having a marker in the title box to indicate this is me instead of the first line is better
  • I wonder if listing the total # of foreign buildings should be listed here (even more so as the T.O. have many of them).
  • I would move all of the values on the left over as if they all have icons (i.e. have the end of Prussian line up with the end of Catholicism)
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  • "Total Population of the Teutonic Order" - use the country name not the demonym (this wouldn't be 'Total Population of French')
  • I know the donut charts are in the typical order but it feels like it puts the majority of the information away from the table. I wonder what it would be like going anticlockwise (CW smallest to biggest), starting at 6 o'clock, or having the 12 o'clock being the split between the 1st and second categories. Something that will bring the smaller sections to the right side of the chart.
  • Don't like the stylized sun to indicated religion
62_pops.png


  • Are the numbers on this map optional?
  • Can we have the values be of a somewhat consistent size
  • I wonder if subject should be shown in this map mode as it might adjust plans for things like roads (of that might have adjacency benefits)
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  • I wonder shouldn't the character name be at the top
  • I like the character on the left with the stats stacked as a border.
    • Increase the size of the stat 'stack' to not leave the sliver at the top.
    • Have the background image start to the right of stat stack
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  • What are the numbers? 37,906 and the two 41,771? I don't know if I want that info listed in this manner
  • I like that (at least at this zoom level) that we went with chits for armies
  • The dark green indicating my armies was hard to notice at first. (as well as the slight difference in border shade)
  • Does the border shading and 'look' mean anything more than ours (gold) , allies(bronze), enemies(copper).
    • I notices the ships wheel which I am assuming is navy, but there appears to be a starburst on ours and allies that isn't on the enemies.
  • Is there a visual indication of what is in the fog or war and what is visible? (It might just be the zoom level?)
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  • Is frontage filled by 'men' or by 'regiments'? It looks like the 150 (I am assuming cave_) is filling the bar the same as 1.1k in the center and right?
  • I don't like what I am assuming is the levy, regular, and what I assume in mercenary icons. (If you insist on using a gold, silver, bronze motif put them in order at least.)
  • Does the In Osterode change if the unit is moving to show destination and eta? (is that for the next location of the final destination?)
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  • Move the 'change commander' icon to the lower right corner to avoid beards, neck adornments and to mirror the crest
  • The numbers in the 'army' widget are crowded.
    • The infantry numbers appear like they are going to fall out of their box.
    • Are all the things on the second row buttons? if so why? what do they do?
    • What does the 'up', 'filter', 'down' do in this context?
  • Is the image with the model of the leader (for the second time on this panel) important enough to take up ~25% of the space of the panel?
  • I am not liking the weird scroll effect on the tab as an indication of which is active. (Also not a big fan of it at the bottom of the panel either).
  • In the formation section are the 'bars' in the regiment boxes to move them? (Not liking them)
  • Can you drag and drop regiments?
  • With this base regiment naming scheme I would go to two lines and put the parenthetical on the second line. Then I would move the (regular/merc/levy) icon and the unit size together (size over 'type').
  • There does look like there is enough room for a scroll bar on any of this. What happens when I add two more on the left flank? I would have each section have its own scroll bar or the front flanks scroll together if space is an issue; This would keep the reserve section close to the flanks so the eye doesn't have to travel too far between them.
  • You mention needing ten more days for your general, is there any indication of this here?
  • (the up, down, back, arrows feel futuristic)
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  • Not sure I like the left v right orientation. did you try an over/under alignment?
    • If you do this then I would have the engages number always towards the opponent
  • Add space between the <flag><icon><#> on the top line
  • Would this information (flag and size) make more sense closer to the 'formation'. put is stacked on the 'map' in the 'void' above the reserves.
  • Why is the 4 red?
  • Have the commanders in fixed locations and not based on their name. (probably left and right justified respectively) They also look like they are too low covering up their crest and 'affiliation'
  • Will the reserves ever have 'engaged' units or do they just go to a flank? Is the white zero needed?
  • The icons in the discs need to be slightly larger
  • For the morale the numbers are too small. Also not sure what the two values are? Is it total and 'damage'?
    • Make the bar smaller so the numbers can be bigger.
    • Not sure why the values are green?
    • If it is a 'total' and 'damage' maybe put the totals by the icons (on the outsides of the bar) leaving the other number where it is.
      • I just reread the text and realized those numbers are the tactics and discipline. Totally not obvious, they appear to be related to the 'icon and bar'.
  • "Lets check the tooltip for our Cavalry" <-- was the wrong image posted?
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  • The red and green on the unit strengths feel out of place (or at least the green)
  • It is not immediately obvious that the lines in the table are separated into infantry and cavalry.
  • maybe switching to (fighting / reserve / fleeing)
    • Option A
      • Infantry 3,595 / 85 / 0 (6 / 1 / 0)
      • Cavalry 182 / 0 / 4 (2 / 0 / 1)
    • Option B
      • Infantry 3,595 (6) / 85 (1) / 0 (0)
      • Cavalry 182 (2)/ 0 (0) / 4 (1)
  • I would then take it one further and have the left 'army' left of the titles (or icons) with the reversed order (and placing it below the battle icon to it lines up.
    • Code:
                           3.35 < Morale Icon > 2.96
      (0) 0 / (0) 0 / (4) 2,945 <Infantry Icon> 3,595 (6) / 85 (1) / 0 (0)
      (1) 6 / (0) 0 / (0)     0 < Cavalry Icon>   182 (2) /  0 (0) / 4 (1)
    • Maybe have the names in the morale line; wouldn't need the flags as it would be below them.
  • numbers don't add up (2952 = 2945 + 6)
  • How long did the battle take?
62_tooltip.png


hope any of this is helpful.
 
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Was the war still hot at this point? I know the Siege of Nicomedia ends in 1337 but I don’t know exactly when, nor if it resulted in a truce confirming Ottoman gains.
After taking Nicomedia, Ottomans overrun Bithynia, which right now at the start date Byzantines still control

Siege of Nicomedia likely ended like less than a month before the start date
 
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I gotta ask, why does control drop from 100 to 44 across a single location boundary? Is it normal for control to drop that quickly? If so, then why does it only drop from 100 to 86 in the other direction?
My guess is that it relates to the fact those are not cores of the TO, in fact they might not even be integrated, causing a massive penalty to control.
 
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After taking Nicomedia, Ottomans overrun Bithynia, which right now at the start date Byzantines still control

Siege of Nicomedia likely ended like less than a month before the start date
So the Ottomans should have Nicomedia either occupied or in the final stages of a siege (probably the former for gameplay reasons) and about to move their armies north to kick the Byzantines out of Asia?
 
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So the Ottomans should have Nicomedia either occupied or in the final stages of a siege (probably the former for gameplay reasons) and about to move their armies north to kick the Byzantines out of Asia?
Yep, they will still have some land left in Asia like Philedelphia etc but they wont have any considerable presence in Bithynia anymore
 
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Can I ask, how does reserves work? Could I not just put these 3 reserve regiments in each of their respective flank? If I can what is the downside to that?

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Can you flip the soldier icons so they are facing the enemy? I was really confused and had to check who was on which side cuz it looks like the left army was attacking the right with their cavalry.
 
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Honestly much prefer the MoE and CK2 battle UIs over this.

Especially the colour-coding of units in CK2, instead of squinting to see what is fighting the screen on the current battle-screen.



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Will there be a limit on how many generals a nation can have, like in EU4, or not? Also, does this mean that a nation can only raise levies from its primary culture, and not from non-primary cultures that exist within the nation?
 
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To get a better feel of the country. 3 of 10 will feel a lot different than 3 of 100.

View attachment 1291801

Also please consider making the darker boxes* more visible, that way the positions and tactics can be easily noticeable with a glance, not by having to stare at it for 5 seconds to realise. At least a bright frame with dark filling can do the job so easily and will be easily visible for the players imo.
As the boxes are in the shape, is the internal indication needed?
 
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Bland is better than actively wrong, but it's far from the only option to name the belief 'Baltic Pagan'. I'm sure CK2 Zoroastrians would have been less flavourful without the simplistic and anachronistic way their beliefs were portrayed in that game, but by doing so the game worsened misunderstandings about that faith. Now this game is continuing EU4's tradition of conflating 1800s beliefs with 1300s beliefs.

The options are not just to either use a 19th century term or a bland one, though. You can easily use a term which is more flavourful and which isn't tied to later movements. I'd recommend looking at names for various gods, such as Saule, the principle solar deity (Sauleist might be an example), Perkūnas was another popular god and his name might be used instead. You could even use something like a Baltic word for the gods themselves, Dievs or dievas, though the Indo-Aryan similarity of the name to others would not be as clear.

Flavour does not mean you have to tie movements 500 years apart by the same name.
better call Saule