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Tinto Flavour #23 - 30th of May 2025

Hello, and welcome one more Friday to Tinto Flavour, the happy days in which we take a look at the flavour content of Europa Universalis V!

Today, a day after an infamous anniversary, we will be taking a look at the Byzantine Empire - or Eastern Roman Empire, as you’re free to pick the custom name you prefer for it, as it’s a game rule that you can set before starting the game:
Game Rule Byzantium.png

Game Rule Eastern Roman Empire.png

Let’s now start with the content itself:

Once a proud Empire that stretched from Egypt and the Levant to Iberia and Italy, Byzantium now faces a decadent period that began almost three centuries ago. During his reign, Emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos saw fit to dissolve several key institutions, such as the Navy, in an attempt to save the dying economy of the country, while the Theme System continued to be a shadow of what it was, as the Empire lost territory across all fronts.

His successor, Emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos, is now faced with the difficult task of safeguarding what remains of our once-glorious Empire. To our east, the Ottomans have started amassing a large army to wipe out our remaining holdings in Anatolia, threatening to set foot across the straits. At the same time, King Stefan Uroš IV Dušan Nemanjić eyes Thessaloníki and Northern Epirus like a vulture. Meanwhile, our treasury runs dry of precious coin, and the country may yet be thrown into a perilous civil war, as the family of our Emperor conspires with the Dynatoí behind closed doors.

Country Selection.png

Country Tooltip.png

As usual, please consider all UI, 2D and 3D art WIP.

Byzantium1.png

Eastern Roman Empire1.png

As I don’t want to spark yet another Byzantine discussion, and its subsequent civil war, here you have a couple of map screenshots, with a different country name option each!

Byzantium (which is the name that I will use from now on, as being the most commonly used by the community) starts with a bunch of reforms and privileges:
Estates.png

Most of the Estate Privileges are generic ones, but there’s a unique one for each estate. We will show them in a later section of the TF, as they’re related to the Byzantine Succession Crisis, a disaster that may happen to Byzantium early on.

Regarding the starting reforms, the first is a generic one, while the other two are unique ones:
Reform Autocracy.png

Reform Theme System.png

Building Thema Headquarters.png

Reform Kritai Katholikon.png

Byzantium starts with a ‘State Patriarchy’ policy, as shown last Wednesday:
Policy State Patriarchy.png

And some other unique policies:
Policy Pronoia System.png

Policy Byzantine Law.png

It also has quite a bunch of starting works of art:
Works of Art1.png

Works of Art2.png

The Theodosian Walls are also represented through a unique building:
Building Theodosian Walls.png

Byzantium also has a bunch of advances; we are going to focus on the early-game, historical ones, as they also unlock some Byzantine unique units:
Advance Heart of Orthodoxy.png

Advance Late Cataphracts.png

Unit Byzantine Cataphracts.png

Advance Akritai.png

Unit Akritai.png

Advance Shield of the West.png

Cabinet Action Extensive Conscription.png

Advance Poikilia.png

Advance Expand Varangian Guard.png

Unit Varangians.png

Advance City Taker.png

Unit Modernized Helepolis.png

Let’s now move on to the narrative content for Byzantium. As I mentioned previously, a Succession Crisis is latent in the country, and that would historically lead to the Byzantine Civil War of 1341-1347, which allowed King Stefan Dusan of Serbia to occupy Macedonia and proclaim himself emperor, the Bulgarians to recover some borderlands, and seriously debilitated the country, making it easier for the Ottomans to gain a foothold across the Sea of Marmara, from Gallipoli.

We’re portraying this latent crisis and the general state of decay of the country by some starting privileges, plus some starting inflation, low funds and stability, etc.:
Privilege Corruption Nobility.png

Privilege Corruption Burghers.png

Privilege Corruption Clergy.png

Privilege Corruption Commoners.png

This situation will also spawn in your neighborhood a couple of months after the game starts, although we will talk more in detail about it next Friday:
The Turkish Threat.png

And it’s very likely that this disaster may end up triggering early after the start of the game, if you are not careful enough:
Succession Crisis.png

Succession Crisis2.png

Succession Crisis3.png

It is something we internally call Semi-Generic Disaster. This means that while it uses the texts, panel, etc. of the generic ‘Succession Crisis’ disaster, some countries have unique triggers, events, and content attached to it, so the player can experience similar, but different crisis. The Byzantine Succession Crisis is one of those, therefore.

Independent of whether the player succeeds or not in defeating the Succession Crisis, and not weakening much in the process, Byzantium has a bunch of Dynamic Historical Events:
Event Hesychasm.png


Event Decline Palaiologos Renaissance.png


Event Reforming Kritai Katholikon.png

Reform Reformed Kratoi Katholikon.png


Event Acritic Songs.png


Event Song of Armouris.png


Event Kosntantinos Armenopoulos.png


Event Center of Learning.png


Event Gemistos Plethon.png

Event Gemistos Plethon2.png

Byzantium also has some alt-historical events, one of the few exceptions we make in the game, to include some plausible content in case that Byzantium avoid its decadence…

… However you will have to find it by playing the game when we release it, as that’s all for today! As today is Friday, this will be the schedule for next week:
  • Monday -> Tinto Maps Feedback about the Steppes
  • Tuesday -> Tinto Flavour about the Golden Horde
  • Wednesday -> Tinto Talks about Islam
  • Thursday -> Fourth ‘Behind the Scenes’ video!
  • Friday -> Tinto Flavour about the Ottomans and the Rise of the Turks situation!
And also remember, you can wishlist Europa Universalis V now! Cheers!
 
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The randomly selected surname is unintentionally very funny, but also understandable as we don't know his family name (if he had one at all).
BUT, since we don't know his name, what about using one of his monikers/profession name, and make his name something like:

- Ágyúöntő Orbán, "Orbán the cannon-founder"; a profession-based surname
- Magyar Orbán, "Orbán the Hungarian"; this is how the Ottomans referred to him

Honorable mention:
Tüzes Orbán, "Orbán the Fiery"; made up, used only in Bánk Mór's Hunyadi trilogy, but still dope
I think "Orban the Hungarian" (in any language version) is a perfectly reasonable idea, especially that we meet him only outside Hungary.
 
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So disasters can inherit from a base disaster 'class' to put some script in common and expand on it, that's grand! I'd assume the same can be done for situations and IOs, yes? And maybe for other things? Estates, diseases...

Can a child disaster overwrite some things from its parent (like redefine and replace a text or event from the base disaster)?
Yes, our script base is super flexible - on purpose, as that has allowed the Content Design to add a lot of stuff, and also will be great for modding purposes.
 
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Hello, and welcome one more Friday to Tinto Flavour, the happy days in which we take a look at the flavour content of Europa Universalis V!

Today, a day after an infamous anniversary, we will be taking a look at the Byzantine Empire - or Eastern Roman Empire, as you’re free to pick the custom name you prefer for it, as it’s a game rule that you can set before starting the game:

Let’s now start with the content itself:



View attachment 1309402
View attachment 1309403
As usual, please consider all UI, 2D and 3D art WIP.

View attachment 1309404
View attachment 1309405
As I don’t want to spark yet another Byzantine discussion, and its subsequent civil war, here you have a couple of map screenshots, with a different country name option each!

Byzantium (which is the name that I will use from now on, as being the most commonly used by the community) starts with a bunch of reforms and privileges:

Most of the Estate Privileges are generic ones, but there’s a unique one for each estate. We will show them in a later section of the TF, as they’re related to the Byzantine Succession Crisis, a disaster that may happen to Byzantium early on.

Regarding the starting reforms, the first is a generic one, while the other two are unique ones:

Byzantium starts with a ‘State Patriarchy’ policy, as shown last Wednesday:

And some other unique policies:

It also has quite a bunch of starting works of art:

The Theodosian Walls are also represented through a unique building:

Byzantium also has a bunch of advances; we are going to focus on the early-game, historical ones, as they also unlock some Byzantine unique units:

Let’s now move on to the narrative content for Byzantium. As I mentioned previously, a Succession Crisis is latent in the country, and that would historically lead to the Byzantine Civil War of 1341-1347, which allowed King Stefan Dusan of Serbia to occupy Macedonia and proclaim himself emperor, the Bulgarians to recover some borderlands, and seriously debilitated the country, making it easier for the Ottomans to gain a foothold across the Sea of Marmara, from Gallipoli.

We’re portraying this latent crisis and the general state of decay of the country by some starting privileges, plus some starting inflation, low funds and stability, etc.:

This situation will also spawn in your neighborhood a couple of months after the game starts, although we will talk more in detail about it next Friday:

And it’s very likely that this disaster may end up triggering early after the start of the game, if you are not careful enough:

It is something we internally call Semi-Generic Disaster. This means that while it uses the texts, panel, etc. of the generic ‘Succession Crisis’ disaster, some countries have unique triggers, events, and content attached to it, so the player can experience similar, but different crisis. The Byzantine Succession Crisis is one of those, therefore.

Independent of whether the player succeeds or not in defeating the Succession Crisis, and not weakening much in the process, Byzantium has a bunch of Dynamic Historical Events:

Byzantium also has some alt-historical events, one of the few exceptions we make in the game, to include some plausible content in case that Byzantium avoid its decadence…

… However you will have to find it by playing the game when we release it, as that’s all for today! As today is Friday, this will be the schedule for next week:
  • Monday -> Tinto Maps Feedback about the Steppes
  • Tuesday -> Tinto Flavour about the Golden Horde
  • Wednesday -> Tinto Talks about Islam
  • Thursday -> Fourth ‘Behind the Scenes’ video!
  • Friday -> Tinto Flavour about the Ottomans and the Rise of the Turks situation!
And also remember, you can wishlist Europa Universalis V now! Cheers!
Why with theodosian walls capital can still fall so early?
IMG_6871.jpeg
 
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idk, it's just fun I guess watching people loose their freaking minds over such silly things
If the game used a historically accurate name for the Empire and not "Byzantium", and there were a bunch of people whining about how the game is wrong and ackchually byzantium is a better name blah blah then I wouldnt give a damn and wouldnt respond.

It is simply the fact that the devs have chosen an objectively inferior exonym that I am responding so much in an attempt to change the game for the better. Also, no one is losing their freaking mind.. hyperbole helps no one.
 
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According to this the albanian population (named Arvanite for no real reasaon) is only 5900 people. How do you go from primary sources mentioning a population of 12000 to less then half. What research leads to cutting the population in half.
I wonder if they rename in Arvanut once the Ottomans take the land? I don?t get it either. Maybe a similar thing they did with Finns? Like Hellenized Albanians?
 
idk, it's just fun I guess watching people loose their freaking minds over such silly things, defending the honour of a people that don't even exist anymore.

I guess you are not trying to lay low anymore. Didn't even last a month. Romans would be ashamed of your lack of contrition ;)
Sigh...

Since when "historical accuracy" is "defending honor"?

When someone say "no, Egyptian pyramids were build by Egyptians, not aliens, you idiot" - does that count as "defending honor"? Or just stating the obvious truth?

Are all those people posting feedback and suggesting changes to location names and characters and flags "defending honor" and "losing their minds over something so silly" as well?
 
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as you’re free to pick the custom name you prefer for it, as it’s a game rule that you can set before starting the game:

Are those the only options? The Byzantium's name thread has had plenty of other suggestions, including some like Basileia ton Rhomaion that perhaps have some historical idea behind them, and some nice descriptive ones like Iconic Rome and Blinding Rome.

Byzantium also has some alt-historical events

Is there any content for Byz reuniting the Roman empire, or for someone else forming (West) Rome?
 
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Why? Why bother? What is the point? Isn't historical accuracy supposed to be one of the pillars of this game? Why go with an objectively (in the most literal sense of the word) ahistoric name when there are several perfectly good, historically accurate names you could have gone with, that don't require any amount of taking the piss out of your historically literate fanbase?
The devs are huge fans of Hieronymus Wolf maybe?
 
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So what she was a woman? Why Romans should care about what Germans think about their empress? How is that a reason to say "I'm the Roman emperor now and they are not Romans anymore" and why we should take it seriously and not as some poor joke it really was? What Germans did and thought at their court ceremonies had no impact on the legitimacy of the real Roman empire. None.
Oh they did care, if they didn't then we wouldn't be having this conversation right now, jokes aside it's difficult to answer, Rome as a concept is deeply rooted in Christian theology, calling yourself Roman Emperor wasn't just a joke back then it was like proclaiming yourself to be the head of the Christian world and the sole Empire on the planet, for the Catholics that position was basically vacant at the time that's why when a powerful male ruler came around creating the biggest Empire in Europe since the fall of the Western Roman Empire many people were ok with that, it's also important to keep in mind that even though the great schism didn't happened yet the Latin and Greek churches were already pretty separated with one another and the Pope saw himself as the head of Latin Christianity already which definitely played a part in the matter
 
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Only +10%? Sad!
The Byzantium Fanboys estate has the following permanent modifiers:

- Forum Denizens: +50% estate power
- Historical Losers: Estate cannot be "Happy", and Satisfaction continually ticks down to 0.
- Balkan Nationalism: Any mention of the Ottomans gives -20% Satisfaction
 
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Sigh...

Since when "historical accuracy" is "defending honor"?

When someone say "no, Egyptian pyramids were build by Egyptians, not aliens, you idiot" - does that count as "defending honor"? Or just stating the obvious truth?
What people in this thread are doing is more like "ECKTUALLY, it's not "Egypt", they called themselves "Kemet"!"
 
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What does "Legally Male" mean?
We have an instance in which a woman character can be considered legally a male character, and thus, it can be applied to it the same rules. It's currently only used in the Hungarian content, but it's something that we can potentially expand to any other cases if needed.
 
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