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Tinto Flavour #24 - 3rd of June 2025

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

Today, we will be taking a look at the Golden Horde! Being the most important Steppe Horde in 1337, it has a good mix of both unique and generic content. Let’s start, without further ado:

The great Činggis Khān managed to forge a great empire for all Mongol peoples, bringing into his fold great swathes of land from Europe to China. All people learned to fear the sound of the Mongol armies galloping and the might and power of the Great Khān.

As heirs of his legacy, the dream of bringing back the glory of the greatest Mongol Horde is still alive. It was Khān Borjigin Jochi, son of Činggis, and his son Khān Borjigin Batu who carried on the legacy of the Great Khān and established the Golden Horde.

Controlling the westernmost expansion of the great empire, they are in control of the vast steppes and many of the European countries are subservient to them, afraid of their great might.

Country Selection.jpg


Golden Horde.png

Diplomacy.png

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

Steppe Hordes are a type of Army-Based Country, and it has some specificities:
Government Horde.jpg

As you see, it starts with some Reforms and Privileges:
Estates1.png

Estates2.png

Legacy of Cinggis.jpg

Privilege Tribal Host.png

Privilege Share of the Spoils.png

Here you have some of the unique advances of the Golden Horde, as usual:
Advance Kipchack Khanate.png

Advance Legacy of Jochi .png

Advance Legacy of the Golden Horde.png

Advance Perso-Mongol.png

Advance Tatar Traditions.png

The Mongol Steppe Hordes have access to two unique units:
Horse Archers.png

A'Urughs.png

These illustrations were recently added to the unit tooltip; the first is the one for the East Asian graphical culture for Age of Traditions Horsemen, while the other is the generic one for supply units.

And also a couple of unique buildings:
Kurultai.png

Caravanserai.png

The Golden Horde has access to a unique mechanic to portray its relationship with the Russian Principalities, the Tatar Yoke, which is an International Organization:
Tatar Yoke1.png

Tatar Yoke.png

Tatar Yoke2.png

As you see, there are three statutes, the Tatar-Overlord (the Golden Horde), the Grand Prince of Vladimir (which in 1337 is Muscovy), and the regular members:
Tatar Yoke3.png

Tatar Yoke4.png

The Grand Prince of Vladimir collects the tribute from the regular members, and sends it to the Tatar-Overlord:
Tatar Yoke Payments.png

Tatar  Yoke Payments2.png

Tatar Yoke Payments3.png

…Or not, because each member has a special section in the country budget to pay more or less tribute, and then, the Grand Prince of Vladimir also chooses how much of that goes to their Tatar-Overlord:
Tatar Yoke Payments4.png

If any member, including the Grand Prince, pays less than 50% of the capacity, it will get a development malus, portraying the small-scale raids conducted by the Horde to put the princes in line. If the budget is over 50%, the members will get a bonus on their diplomats, and the Grand Prince, on its Prestige.

Finally, there are a couple of additional actions in the IO. One allows any member of the Tatar Yoke to declare war to break it, while the other allows any member to request the Tatar-Overlord to become the new Grand Prince of Vladimir:
Tatar Yoke5.png

Tatar Yoke6.png

Tatar Yoke7.png

Let’s now move into the narrative content. The most important piece of content is the Horde Civil War, a disaster that can appear if the horde unity dips too low. Once it starts, a pretender rebellion will be formed.
Horde Civil War Starting Event.png

Horde Civil War Starting Event effect.png

Horde Civil War Tooltip.png

Horde Civil War Panel.png

There are some events that can happen while the disaster is active, usually with not the best of outcomes:
Horde Civil War Rebellion Event.png

Horde Civil War Rebellion Event Option A.png

Horde Civil War Rebellion Event Option B.png


Horde Civil War Murder Event.png


Horde Civil War Border Event.png

Neighboring countries may take this opportunity to attack…

Once the rebel progress of the pretender reaches 100%, an event will fire, giving the option to either accept their demands or make it escalate into a full civil war.
Horde Civil War Rebel Progress Event.png

Horde Civil War War.png

It is treason then…

If victorious in the civil war, the pretender will be put in his place, but as long as the disaster is still active, another one will soon rise again:
Horde Civil War Winning Event.png

Horde Civil War Disaster Continues.png

Only when there are no more rebellions or civil wars active, and both stability and horde unity have been restored, will the disaster finally end:
Horde Civil War End.png

… And much more, but that’s all for today! Tomorrow, in Tinto Talks, we will talk about the mechanics of the Islamic religion!

And also remember, you can wishlist Europa Universalis V now! Cheers!
 
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The Mongol Steppe Hordes have access to two unique units:
Horse Archers.png
Are Horse Archers cultural or restricted only to Horde Government countries? Can the Cumans provide horse archer regiments, as they historically did?

Will Horse Archers eventually get a unique 2D image?

Also, do (late game) Comanche and other North American hordes get their own Horse Archer analog?
 
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will be possibility to change the primary religion?
I wish it would be a way and of course an easy way to do so! specially in religions which are close to each other, for example Sunni and Shia.
 
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Can the Tatar overlord replace the Grand Prince like it happened historically? Whenever the Khans found out that Moscow did not fully pay them enough tribute they nominated their rival Tver as Grand Prince of Vladimir
 
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And once again, Kyiv, Halych-Volhynia, Severian principalities (maybe also Smolensk) never payed tribute via the prince of Moscow/Vladimir.
They were direct tributaries of the Golden Horde and had their own relations with them.

Kyiv had its own baskak mentioned in 1331 in a chronicle. The prince Fedir of Kyiv together with the Tatar baskak ambushed newly assigned bishop of Novgorod near Chernihiv on his way from Volodymyr to Novgorod.

Is it somehow reflected in the Tatar Yoke IO?

UPDATE: well... obviously, not :confused:
View attachment 1311978
Perhaps they could add another tier, let's call it 'Soveriegn Prince' for now. And those would be paying the tribute directly to the Golden Horde. Grand Prince of Vladimir could then have interaction to ask GH to transfer those Sovereing Princes under them and normal Members could ask to become Sovereign Prince too. Likewise GH could bestow the title of Soverieng Prince at will. Perhaps it could have some drawbacks if there is too many of them like less tribute or just put a hard limit e.g. need to be above certain pop size.
 
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If any member, including the Grand Prince, pays less than 50% of the capacity, it will get a development malus, portraying the small-scale raids conducted by the Horde to put the princes in line. If the budget is over 50%, the members will get a bonus on their diplomats, and the Grand Prince, on its Prestige.
Does it give any reason/CB for the GH or the GP of Vladimir to intervene? It feels like I would just always want to pay 50%, there's no, let's say, incentive to pay more.
 
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Tatar raids (I suppose portrayed here as razing?) had a huge impact on population dynamic in that part of the world, similary to berber pirate raids. Now that you portray populations so meticulously, will there be any mechanics portraying these slave raids? They transferred milions of people from eastern Europe and Mediterranean to the islamic world
Raid Border.png
 
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It's a formable country:
Just to reiterate

Sarrai - wrong spelling Saray will be a wikipedia standard
Also it is located in the wrong place if we look into the recent research and findings. It should be right near the Volga delta, together with Saray al-Jadid.

Everything is posted in the Feedback

For the Volga delta, the Location of the Golden Horde capital city and better names

View attachment 1311376
 
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Agree with others that this 'auto conquer' mechanic seems both arbitrary and unnecessary, and if players aren't forewarned the first time they fight the GH it's going to cause all sorts of frustration.

Plus, during this period, the scary thing about fighting a steppe army wasn't that they would just take over the whole country in a single war, it's that they would raid deep into your territory and burn everything to the ground - a feature admirably represented by the 'can raze' function.

I'd be happier with the 'auto conquer' mechanic if it was restricted to wars between hordes, and maybe between the GH and the states of the Tatar Yoke. As someone else said, it also seems like a great addition to civil wars generically.

That said, fantastic Tinto Flavour as always!!
 
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Is Moldova a vassal of Golden Horde? What is its relation to Golden Horde?
There are several Moldovan principalities that are vassals to the Golden Horde at the start. There's a DHE for Hungary to send the first Moldovan voivode to the region, which unifies those principalities into a Moldova, becoming a March of Hungary.
 
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Can you make it so that the country that becomes the Grand Price of Vladimir momentarily becomes a tier 3 rank like how the Emperor of the HRE becomes a tier 4? Otherwise make the country of Vladimir a tier 3 and however becomes the Grand Prince gets a PU with them
 
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I see that the Tatar Yoke is an international organization and I guess it was already discussed extensively in many other topics (sorry but I am not following all the topics like the others :D ), but have we not come to a better nomenclature for these "agreements" instead of "international organization"? It really hurts reading this applied to some situations that are more applicable to the late 1800.
 
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Cool horse archer art, do you have any other cool unit art you can share? Is unit art always for bigger categories, ie horse archer, or do more specific types also have their own art, ie janissaries?
We will be showing more unit illustrations from now on, as they're now in the unit tooltips. We're aiming for generic cultural illustrations per unit per age (e.g., 'East Asian Armored Horsemen for Age of Traditions'), following the graphical culture system that @SaintDaveUK presented some weeks ago. From there, it might be possible to add more unique illustrations in the future.
 
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A lot of jokes regarding 'no issue with hundreds of modern locations in the Golden Horde', but this just shows the importance of the issue.
Obviously he got a generic name from the Kurkino location.
At least he is not Pavlovskaya Guyuk or Guyuk imeni Voroshilova.

1748960357106.png
 
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This is because of how it works mechanically when an Army-Based country collapses. Forwarded to Johan, we'll take a look and see what can be done to improve it.
I think the fix is simple. Have the generated names be based on the primary culture. So the Crimean culture horde breakaway is called Crimean Horde instead of Bakhmut, etc.
 
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