Tinto Flavour #23 - 30th of May 2025

[dw70676]

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.

What about Jadwiga?

 

[matfer13]

I think "Orban the Hungarian" (in any language version) is a perfectly reasonable idea, especially that we meet him only outside Hungary.

I bet he agrees too

 

[Goldchruzi]

I doubt that in 1337 there was anything Germanic left in them

A Flemish diplomat by name of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq travelled to Crimea in the 1560s. There he recognized that the language of the Crimean Goths was distinctly Germanic and shared many similarities to his own native, Germanic tongue.

Although many Goths did adopt Tatar or Greek language as a secondary language to communicate with foreign merchants and such, it is thought that Gothic itself did survive (and thrive) until the late 1600s. After this however, it suffered a decline it did not recover from, sadly.

Still though, it was the language of the common people during the game start, and should be represented as such.

Culturally though, yeah you're very right in your assessment

 

[Aquila SPQR]

What people in this thread are doing is more like "ECKTUALLY, it's not "Egypt", they called themselves "Kemet"!"

And they would be technically right, wouldn't they? You may disagree with the need to use that name in the game, but you automatically acknowledged it's the more historically appropriate one, so... yeah.

We're also already past that moment when someone wrongly suggests it's a simple "endonym/exonym" matter.

 

[matfer13]

What people in this thread are doing is more like "ECKTUALLY, it's not "Egypt", they called themselves "Kemet"!"

Actually the real name was the "Ptolemaic Kingdom"

 

[Makkasag]

What about Viktor Orban

Theoritically possible. If his father, or a male ancestor of his was called Viktor.

 

[Tissaia]

What about Jadwiga?

Jadwiga was not considered "man" in any way.

The reason she had a title of a king, not queen, is because in Polish word for "queen" - "królowa" - literally means "wife of the king" (król - king, ending -owa - wife of). And she wasn't married when she was crowned.

 

[afreerangebaby]

As much as I like the inclusion of reviving older pagan religions, I'd hope that there are some roadblocks to doing so. Something like low tolerance of heathens making it significantly hardly by creating unrest in the clergy estate. Organized religions should have large resistances to converting towards less organized religions (not that it should be impossible, just that it should be a major challenge for a player to do so). Are there events or systems in place to make a Hellenic or Norse (or other potential pagan conversions) revival hugely disruptive to your nation? Also, since it's somewhat relevant, could a player playing as a colonial nation in the Americas convert to native religions?

 

[theolaa]

Is this a generic civil war event? It would be more thematically appropriate for a Byzantine emperor to call for the mutilation and exile of his rival (gouging out eyes, castration, or both, and consignment to a monastery) rather than outright execution. Putting defeated dynastic rivals to death was comparatively rare in the Eastern Roman Empire. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_mutilation_in_Byzantine_culture

 

[Pavía]

I wanted to ask:

How does controlling the Dardanelles and Bodphorus work in terms of Trade revenue?

These are major Trade choke points and full control on both sides should mean High Revenues from trade routes passing through.

We have this in the game:

 

[Trepanator]

This might be an interesting read far anyone wanting to apropos the women being considered men https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkan_sworn_virgins

 

[Dieselface]

1. The language for the name selector is strangely biased. I'm not going to be one of those people who suggested that it should be made to be biased in the opposite direction, but it's very weird for the game to lightly shame you for picking the slightly more historically accurate option with:

I won't go into detail with why this is bad, because others have already done so. I would suggest a more neutral alternative such as:

The Greek-speaking Country centered around Constantinople, formerly Byzantion, will be known as the Byzantine Empire.

The Greek-speaking Country centered around Constantinople, also called New Rome, will be known as the Eastern Roman Empire.

2. I have a minor gripe with the country description. It states:

Byzantium now faces a decadent period that began almost three centuries ago.

I'm not really sure what consistent "decadent period" this refers to. I supposed it could be poorly worded and the intended word was "decline" rather than "decadent period," but that's still an inaccurate view of the period of 1000-1300 AD. They had a major hundred-year resurgence in the middle of those three centuries with the Komnenian Restoration. I think it would be better if the description briefly mentioned the Fourth Crusade in the lead up to the troubles that Byzantium faces now, for example:

Once a proud Empire that stretched from Egypt and the Levant to Iberia and Italy, Byzantium now faces a period of almost inexorable decline after the shock of the Fourth Crusade.

3. Once again, and it's something I pointed out in a thread so I won't go into great detail here, but the transliterations of Greek words that are used in-game right now are totally inconsistent with each other. "Kléros," "Kōnstantinoúpolis," and "Apoheteftiko Systima" for example are all inconsistent with each other, and the Greek words used in the interface should really be given a consistent standard of writing, the same as any other language written in a non-Latin alphabet represented in-game. Also, if you're going to accent marks (and I think you should) for words in the UI and location names, you should use them in Greek character names as well.


4. The Akritai were functionally non-existent by 1337, as they had been rolled into the regular army following a revolt against Michael VIII Palaiologos. To the extent that they might have still been a force, they surely would have become completely defunct by this point due to the loss of any real territory in Asia Minor. So I don't think that Akritai should be represented as a unit/advance available to Byzantium, at least not right away.

In regards to Byzantine Cataphracts, they are a more complicated issue. What we typically think of as a Byzantine Cataphract went out of use by the 11th century, and they were largely replaced by less heavily armoured cavalry by the Komnenian period. However, the Byzantines did continue to refer to their heavy cavalry under the term "cataphract" as a blanket term. It's worth noting, however, that the remaining Byzantine heavy cavalry by the Palaiologian period were armed and outfitted in pretty much the same way as a western knight, especially influenced by late Medieval Italian armies.

Varangians, at least as a culturally distinct entity, were present in Byzantium up through its final centuries. It must be noted however that what Byzantines called a "Varangian" had broadened to include the English, and most members of the later Varangian Guard actually came from England, which might be worth pointing out in the description. In any event, it's unclear whether the famous Varangian Guard itself still existed at this point. We have one account that they still existed in the 13th century, and we don't have accounts of them after then, so it's not impossible that they could still be a military unit at this point, but its inclusion rests on shaky foundations.

 

[matfer13]

We have this in the game:

View attachment 1309678

Is it possible to create new ones in slexific palces? Like Gibraltar, Aden, Hormuz...
Also is there an event for the creation of the Sound toll, since it was created in 1429?

 

[ArVass]

I think "Orban the Hungarian" (in any language version) is a perfectly reasonable idea, especially that we meet him only outside Hungary.

I think he should also appear in Hungary at a certain chance; nevertheless, Magyar is a perfectly normal surname for someone in Hungary aswell

Still, I personally would vote for Ágyúöntő Orbán

 

[Trepanator]

1. The language for the name selector is strangely biased. I'm not going to be one of those people who suggested that it should be made to be biased in the opposite direction, but it's very weird for the game to lightly shame you for picking the slightly more historically accurate option with:

View attachment 1309679
I won't go into detail with why this is bad, because others have already done so. I would suggest a more neutral alternative such as:

No need for details, they meant it as a joke but it just came off completely dickish.

 

[Witcher587]

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.

Jadwiga king of Poland my beloved

 

[Pavía]

Is this just for the ERE or is this universal across countries?

We've tried to be as systematic as possible, with the available data.

 

[Palfouri]

And they would be technically right, wouldn't they? You may disagree with the need to use that name in the game, but you automatically acknowledged it's the more historically appropriate one, so... yeah.

We're also already past that moment when someone wrongly suggests it's a simple "endonym/exonym" matter.

I'm pretty sure people are arguing about "the need to use that name in game" and not about which name is more historically appropriate. But if your justification for changing it is "that's what they called themselves", then 3/4s of the tags in the game are going to be unrecognizable to the average player.

 

[Trepanator]

Is there a way to restore the Hippodrome, making it a work of art?

 

[Atromb]

Pope had no authority to grant anyone the title of Roman Emperor when there was still a legitimate Roman Emperor in Constantinople.

If pope suddenly said I'm the British king now would anyone give a damn about it?

Exactly.

Are you serious? Do you know how many Roman emperors came to power through acclamation? Roman emperorship was not determined by blood but by being accepted by the roman senate (aka papal curia). One could question the entire legitimacy of the byzantine autocracy that stablished itself already in the late empire. This is not even mentioning the obvious issue that two romans states existed at the moment of Rome's fall, the heirs of Western Rome simply tried to claim themselves to be the only true heirs, much as the eastern heirs did.