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Tinto Talks #5 - March 27th, 2024

Welcome to the fifth Tinto Talks, where we talk about the design for our upcoming top secret game with the codename ‘Project Caesar.’


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The state is me! Oh, you meant E-state, sorry.. not me ..

Today we will go into detail about one of the core systems in the game, and talk about how estates work.

First of all, there are four estates in Project Caesar, which mostly map 1 to 1 with a social class: Nobility, Clergy, Burghers and the Commoners. There is also the Crown, which represents the state itself.

Each estate gains power based on the amount of population belonging to the estate, which is also modifiable by local attributes of where the population is, where some nobles may have very high power in a certain area, or whether a specific city has entrenched burgher rights there.

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This is the estates part of the government view, where you can see their power, current satisfaction, the equilibrium its trending toward, and what privileges it currently has.

Every 1,000 nobles gives +50 estate power to their estate, while 1,000 peasants merely give +0.05 estate power as default. Then these are modified locally in every location, as mentioned above, and then in the entire country by laws, reforms and most notably the privileges that you have given the estates.

The total power of all the 4 estates and the crown then together all add up to 100%, which is the effective power they have.

Depending on your crown power, you either get a scaling penalty or scaling bonus, on aspects like the cost of revoking estate privileges, the cost of changing policies in laws, the efficiency of the cabinet, the expected costs of the court, and other things. If your crown power is weak, you need to have the estates really satisfied, or you will not get much out of any parliament you try to call.

Each of the four estates has a current satisfaction and an equilibrium it will move towards. Some estates, and some countries, will have the estate satisfaction moving quicker to the equilibrium than others. Each estate has 2 factors per type of estate in which their satisfaction impacts the entire country, where satisfaction above 50% gives a scaling bonus, and below, a scaling penalty.

If the satisfaction is below 25%, this estate will not provide any levies. Most importantly, the estate satisfaction also impacts the satisfaction of the pops that belong to that estate, possibly creating rebel factions or even civil wars.
  • Nobility impacts your prestige gain and your counterespionage.
  • Clergy impacts your research speed and your diplomatic reputation.
  • Burghers impact your merchant power and the production efficiency.
  • Commoner impacts your food production and your stability costs.

So what impacts the satisfaction equilibrium of an estate? The privileges they get, the current stability, some reforms may impact them, some laws may, how you tax them, and much more. Some examples include clergy being happier with higher religious unity or burghers liking having more market centers in your country.

# estate privileges
Estate Privileges then? You may feel forced to grant privileges to estates to be able to tax them more, and you may be forced to grant privileges to get their support in parliament. All privileges impact the power of their estate, and many also increase their satisfaction equilibrium. They all have some impact on gameplay fitting the privilege, and often they also impact a societal value of their country.

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WiP ui, temporary graphics and no icons etc.

There are many different privileges, and many unique ones depending on where and what type of country you play.

We mentioned taxes before, and while this is not the development diary where we go into details about the economic system, it is important to mention that the estates of a country have wealth that is increased by the amount of money that you have not taken from them in taxes. Rich estates will use their wealth on many things, primarily to invest into things that benefit them, but will often also build things that also benefit the country.

Next week we will talk about a few new concepts that are rather new to this game that have not been present in previous games, as we will talk about proximity, control and maritime presence, all concepts that need to be talked about in detail, before we go into the economy system.
 
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The implementation of Estates sounds interesting.

This post suggests an addition to the Estates currently seen in the unannounced game.One thing to consider though is how to portray the unlawful elements of society. A way to do this would be to introduce another estate called e.g. Criminals (or another name like Underworld, Outsiders, Undesirables). This would cover everything from organized crime, thieves, highway robbers, smugglers, beggars and dishonest taxmen to potential population groups that you as the Crown would like to exclude from your society.
Let's call it "Criminals" for now. The Estate should be a straight off downside to your economy and stability. It would reduce all means of income for all other Estates and be a source of ever-increasing discontent for the other Estates if it was allowed to grow in power. They would not provide any source of local development and investment at all. Higher Criminal Estate power would also increase the effectiveness of enemy spies.
The "Criminals" Estate provides multiple opportunities for interaction both in your own country and as a potential way to harass neighboring countries and rivals. You could suppress them through crime-fighting institutions such as city guards or highway patrols (at a cost) or maybe strike a backroom deal with them that allows them to exist while pledging indirect loyalty to the Crown through exposing enemy agents and influence. You could bolster criminal elements in rival countries thereby tanking their economy and stability, increasing spy effectiveness - and who knows, maybe have a small additional way of generating income (though it could hurt your prestige and other countries' opinion of you if found out).

Parts of the suggestion could possibly be introduced through Events instead of having an Estate representing Criminals. However, the introduction of it as an Estate makes for a long-term engagement that you have to continuously balance instead of making decisions when an event prompts you to do so.
 
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With the confirmed start date of 1337, will there be events or scripted ways for nations such as Moldavia (historically founded ~10 years after the start date) to come into existence? There are certain nations that have existed throughout Europ...ehrm, other Paradox Interactive games that are set in the same era, that I'm worried we won't be able to play anymore with the new start date.
 
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question about the crown power. Does it work like some sort of filler as in it takes whatever is left from the 100% or you can grow the crown power in other ways than just taking away privilages from other estates and stuff like that
 
will different forms of government affect the power of the estates? like for example the cities of the hansa league, or the maritime republic of Italy having more burghers power, monarchies such as england and the hre having an insanely high amount of noble power, a "peasant republic" such as dithmarschen having the peasant very influential in the power structure of the state?
 

Amazing write up. Awesome idea. I just finished the History of the Russian revolution podcast (Mike Duncan) and the access and blockading stuff of a navy was such a big part of the Russian - Japanese war.

But even before, like with the destruction of the Spanish Armada by the british in 1588. These were such integral parts of the whole war. It would be very cool to have navies and wresting control of the seas be an actual part of the game without making it tedious like Empire Total War did.
I'm glad you liked it, and certainly many offensive Russian wars were either directly or indirectly to secure viable water access. It would be cool to have a way to model in-game the reasons behind the Russo-Japanese war as you mentioned, but also the Crimean War, The Great Northern War, Ivan the Terrible's wars, the modern Ukraine war, and many others. I hope there's a way to utilize waterways more effectively, and specifically like my British in the Black Sea example because it would be really funny to trap the British navy in the Black Sea, take all of the coastline, and watch them starve
 
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In EU4 we saw absolutism represented with a separate modifier, to show how much power the head of state holds. Since "Project Caesar" is likely to be set in the same time period, what will happen to absolutism now when we have crown power as a modifier?
 
Hi, I have a couple of questions about ‘Project Caesar’ I would like to ask (hope this isn't too much overwhelming)
-how does the migration mechanic work? can you control it in any way? is it possible for pops to migrate to other states?
-will there be ways to automate parts of the game, like the control of an army for fighting on multiple fronts or the administration of a couple of locations? (basically doing "vassal swarms" without having vassals, as I found out it is difficult to manage things when you are playing bigger nations)
-will the siegeing mechanics be similar to the ones of other paradox games?
-will there be pirate republics government forms?
-will the raiding mechanics be present?

I any case, thanks for the effort you all are doing for making this new game ;)
 
Hey Lads and Ladies, writing to you about some ideas going on and around my head after reading those Talks. Feel free to read it.

1. Since we now have the first info about there being a levy system, how does it impact the population of provinces. Like when people die in war (peasants, nobility alike / same for sailors in naval warfare), does it reflect in lost population in provinces? Does it get a debuff for missing people since they would normally provide for family and country? As in Imperator the levies are not endless and should be tied to the population of your country (otherwise there are mercenaries?)

2. On a second note, how is the population developement working? Over the presumably centuries of gameplay, cities rise and fall. Are there modifiers to population growth like land (i.e. rich farmlands in northern India, or mountainous terrain in the caucasus), risk of natural disasters (earth quakes, floodings, volcanos), humanities scourges (famine (probably tied to food production), Sickness (black death?), war (destruction of major cities/knowledge), natural changes (depletion of water, erodation, destruction of wild life i.e. woods, fish, later bison in america)?

3. Do levies have a inaugaration time? New levies are normally inexperienced peasents and never wielded weaponry before. Will they have a modifier for equipment, tied for example to tech?

4. in the 14. hundreds armies are still lead by head of states, presumed heirs and high ranking nobility. What i would like to have is the possibility to have second and third sons (maybe even..... daughters) die on the battlefield, but maybe thats too close to ck3 (but a man can dream). This would heavily connect to kingdoms not only consisting of ruler, betrothed and heir like in eu4 and would be a nice stick of flavor. In addition and i know its probably far fetched... how does my wive get pregnant when my ruler is leading my armies in 100s of kilometers far of lands. (one of the things i hate in ck)

5. Will sea tiles have a food production modifier? Does seasonal fishing matter?

6. Do Seasons matter at all? For production and war alike?

7. Are rebel states a thing? When do rebels win and form a country than?

8. If you kill rebels does that change pop? Can one haggle with rebels? Can one wait for a rebellion to fizzle out (maybe Peasant revolts?) Can they enforce Law changes?

9. Does Technologie improve food production ( maritime and on land )?

10. Does produce change with tech? (coal for example) Maybe provinces produce more than one ware?

11. Do roads change over the course of the game (tech) and modify move speed?

12. Does a change of ruling family change the country name (china)

13. Does pop matter in colonisation, or do colonists just appear out of thin air?

14. Do luxury goods have a effect on the pop? (tea, cocoa, porcellain, gloves, spices)

15. Will there be a trading window (exporting produce, importing luxury goods for example) -> only with countries with good opinion ie. not at war or hostile

In conclusion im hyped for the game cause the possibilities are rather endless(?) and im patiently waiting for next week. If you have ideas on my questions feel free to tag me <3

Wishing everyone a great easter!

Greetings Michael
 
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@Johan i have a question. the 100 years war,was a "looting wars"for pay off with plunder the nobles without enougth feudal gains (and seizing lands from french nobles) plus, a lot of french start to switchside and joint to the english king...i am not asking "there some events for this"? but: this can be a nice war meccanic (feudal war for compensate your "poor" nobles) and some "enemy" nobles joint you during the personal union wars if you are winning.
 
Will the estates be able to get their own navies / armies ?
- Let’s give the burghers some Letters of Marque, so they arm fleets of Corsairs for their own interest (but also increase your naval presence at the same time)
- or grant a trade monopoly to William Penn, the EIC / HBC or VOC, so they hire Indian mercenaries to establish a trade presence
- or let the new world colonies hire militiamen to defend from indigenous tribes and their French or British rivals
 
I hope we will really strugle to keep our contry all togther in early game, deal with estates and hopfully a really slow centralisation AT LEAST the first 100 years

I really don't want to be able to posess half of europe after 100 years after the starting date like in EUIV. Some exeptions like ottomans/nomads should but not european feodal contries

Can't wait to read the next Tinto Talk and play the new version on my favorite game ever !!
I don’t want to be able to possess half of Europe even by 1800 unless by an extremely unlikely succession of events.
Even Britain, Spain France of Russia did not achieve that level of power by 1800. They had soft power and were able to maintain a certain equilibrium, but they did not have the means to own and administer half the continent for decades against national aspirations, competing interests of the estates, etc.

I believe making hegemony harder so there are still 5-10 powers in 1800 will maintain a certain interest in late game expansion, much more than just « painting the map » with no remaining challenge

Like in CK, the bigger you become and the more internal instability you should have, so your expansion is focused on either national consolidation or a trade empire, but not on universal hegemony
 
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I'm guessing that the Kingdom of Sicily (and its vassals in Greece, as the Duke of Athens and Neopatras -it was a combined title at the time - and the Count of Salona at the start of the game were the sons of the King of Sicily) is considered to be separate from (although presumably allied with) the Crown of Aragon as it's under a different ruler. Frederick of Sicily had been king there for over 40 years at game start (although he died only a couple of months later), so it would be hard to consider him a vassal of Aragon at that point. But it is a borderline case.
As far as I can understand from reading historical sources, I do think they were vassals, as per my other reply:

In 1337 they were ruled by N'Anfós Frederic d'Aragó, a commander of the Great Catalan Company which conquered the area in favour of the Crown of Aragon (and a bastard of the King of Sicily, another Aragonese vassal). The duchies were administered by a system of vicars rather than through the dukes themselves, and these vicars were also either Sicilians or Catalans. Further evidence of direct vassalage can also be seen in how 1319 Alfons brokered a deal with Venice to divide the area between the former and Aragon.

But honestly it's medieval politics, so who knows.
 
Will we have the option to change our countries color, our vassals color, and perhaps our country's name and our vassals names? I've been dieing for in game support that ck3 has for changing such things, even a flag creator would be INSANE. I love painting the map!
 
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