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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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I would really like to see some sort of overview for battles where we can see armies fighting and then showing the result of battle afterwards. I want to ask will the battle system be like EU4?Not exactly identical but same in a way where we send one troop on another troop, they fight and its over. Or will the battles be a lot more different. For example when a war starts it would be amazing to go into some sort of war mode where we really have to plan battles, where we encounter enemy armies instead of just seeing them walk around, planning offensive battles and defensive battles according to terrain and location. Maybe I'm going too far with this but I just think it would be amazing to see something like that. And just to say I'm really hyped for the game and I like everything that is shown for now. Take your time!
 
Sadinia mostly fell to Aragon following the Siege of Genoa that happened a couple of years prior to the new starting date, though of course it wasn't smooth sailing.

Not even half the island: the Northwest corner was still independent and Arbórea was an ally, but not really a vassal and would revolt just a few years later. Hence why I asked: a difficult situation to simulate.
 
Don't you think 1337 start date could be a bit too ambitious? Assuming this game will run from 1337 to 1820 as an EU game, there are three distinct periods you will have to cover from late middle ages, to early modernity to enlightenment. More importantly some mechanics which are not that important after 1500 will have to be implemented from the start: antipapacies, descentralization (HRE and Ashikaga Shogunate), dynastic collapse (Yuan), steppe empires (Timurids), plagues (black plague), besides any other challenges that have to rise within the timeframe to make the game compelling after 500 years of gameplay (ie. limiting blobbing or accelerated growth in the early game).
 
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I have an idea for something I would love to see in this game, which I have not seen done well anywhere before. I have 1500+ hours in EU4 and I find it silly that my nation is willing to fight just as hard on the offense as on the defense, for a cleansing of heresy as for a trade conflict, or against the one province minor next to me or the entirety of Europe in a coalition war. I want to introduce the ideas of War Expectations and Existential Threat.

yadayadayada
Tie in legitimacy and the possibility for the king to be deposed.
And maybe the possibility for the country to break up if decentralisation is high enough or other conditions ?
 
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If the satisfaction is below 25%, this estate will not provide any levies.

This should be changed into a scaling number and not total. Even if Lord Buttsecks was unhappy he was still demanded by law/honour/obligations to provide at least some shitty levies. Same with peasant. Bob and Steve may have been unhappy, yet they were given a pike and went off.
A scaling modifier would be better than a flat no-no
 
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You've said the warfare will be units moving on a map like ck3 and eu4 which is great but I do think there is a major way to improve the system rather simply.

The current system doesn't allow for the player to have much control of maneuvering outside of deciding when and where to engage the enemy. The rest falls into stat modifiers, generals, and tech

In order to better simulate many great battles in history, it would be nice to add in the potential for flanking and enveloping maneuvers. Currently a significant portion of the game is sending death stacks into eachother. But what if i send a stack of 15k north one location into battle against a stack of 30k, and then send another stack of 5-10k into battle from behind the enemies line?
Instead of having them just join your main army it would be really cool to see it represented as an envelopment, maybe the enemy stack splits in half facing each of ur stacks and you get a bonus to rolls for flanking or enveloping the enemy.

Something to give the player a little bit more control of battlefield maneuvering would be nice because as it stands it feels more like I just have to min-max stat modifiers and not attack in the mountains which is fine but its not as in depth of a battle simulation.

This may be a lot to ask I'm not a programmer or game ai designer but I think it would really set this game over any strategy game thats come before.
this is actually an amazing idea!
 
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I see that Hisn Kayfa is now called "Ayyubids". Does this mean that family/clan names are more important than area names? (as it is for Muslims and most Asian nations ie for instance Ashikaga, Ming and Ottomans etc, all named after the ruling dynasty/clan) So would that mean that characters are more important? Similar to Vic3 or Imperator Rome?
 

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According to the map and assuming there's one start date and the map is the start date, the game starts in or after 1337. Ottomans clearly have Nicomedia (modern İzmit) which was taken in 1337. And it clearly starts before 1341. Ayyubids ceased to exist in 1341 I see them in the map.
 
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According to the map and assuming there's one start date and the map is the start date, the game starts in or after 1337. Ottomans clearly have Nicomedia (modern İzmit) which was taken in 1337. And it clearly starts before 1341. Ayyubids ceased to exist in 1341 I see them in the map.
yes the start date has already been confirmed to be april 1st of 1337
 
Wonder if we will be able to reproduce the Uno Trium Nationum of the Transilvanians, with the different Estates and Pops. And other similar organizations.

Would be an interesting use of the Pops, that makes the inner politics harder with different groups coalizing for similar purposes (generally depose a ruler or repress the working class). Their politicking and economical base are the fundamentals for an interesting play, that doesn't get stagnant.

And being able to see the Medieval Period ending bit by bit, and the start of the Modern Era., will be very cool. Towns will be growing, plagues will be eating our ass, religions well-stablished will be contested, bureaucracy will be spreading, diplomacy will get more and more complex... Very cool time! And with lots of pretty art, clothes, music and courts.
 
Will the arms/flags be historically accurate? It was one of my big gripes with EU4 how when dynasties would change the arms would stay the same, like if the Habsburgs take Russia I at least want a little shield with the Habsburgs' arms
 
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