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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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When will Byzantine empire have a proper name , as they never considered themselves Byzantines, shouldn’t we give it a more historical name whether its eastern Roman Empire , Roman Empire or empire of the Romans or something as Byzantium is a modern concept to separate them from the Holy Roman Empire
This has been discussed ad nauseum already. "Byzantium" and "Byzantine Empire" are the most widely recognized names for the Empire at this point in time. That is why Paradox continues to prefer that name.

When most people hear "Roman Empire" they are not thinking about the Empire post-fall of Rome. Certainly not the Empire in the 14th century A.D.
 
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When will Byzantine empire have a proper name , as they never considered themselves Byzantines, shouldn’t we give it a more historical name whether its eastern Roman Empire , Roman Empire or empire of the Romans or something as Byzantium is a modern concept to separate them from the Holy Roman Empire
Eastern Roman Empire is also a modern name, and a worse fit for the game's timeline since there is only one half of the empire...
 
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i know, but the more the better lel. for the real time problem so that a complete game doesnt take like 1 year to complete we could make a higher speed limit than what was available. ofc this would require a decent CPU
Speed 5 in all current PDX games unlocks the game to run as fast as your computer can process it
 
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This has been discussed ad nauseum already. "Byzantium" and "Byzantine Empire" are the most widely recognized names for the Empire at this point in time. That is why Paradox continues to prefer that name.

When most people hear "Roman Empire" they are not thinking about the Empire post-fall of Rome. Certainly not the Empire in the 14th century A.D.
In the context of the game time period, "Roman Empire" without qualifiers (e.g. "Holy") couldn't really refer to anything else other than Greece.
 
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Anyway, seeing Ayubbids and Louis XIV makes me feel stable…

Do Muslims use dynamic country name related to their family name?
 
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In the context of the game time period, "Roman Empire" without qualifiers (e.g. "Holy") couldn't really refer to anything else other than Greece.
Literally no one except history nerds equates the late empire centered on Constantinople with the Roman Empire of the Principate. Calling Byzantium the "Roman Empire", even if historically accurate, would only serve to confuse players. Again, this has been discussed on here ad nauseum.
 
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Now is 'Parliament' here separate from 'Diet'? Or are you using them as bywords? And I ask that from both a historical perspective (France didn't have a Parliament, but the estates did force the King to call a Diet just before the French Revolution to deal with the debt and famine) and gameplay (Parliaments were one gameplay mechanic which were a seperate gameplay mechanic from calling Diets of your Estates)
I'm going to go all "akchtually" here, but France did have a parliament, with "regular" États Généraux, under the Ancien Régime. There are traces of it under Louis IX in 1245, when the papacy was present, and it was considered to be "a large national meeting where matters of public interest were discussed". Most of the states (regions) making up the kingdom also had their own parliaments, sometimes in opposition to the royal power (the Breton parliament is an example of long-term independence, abolished by the revolution). Louis XII was renowned for frequently calling on the Etats Généraux, and the first fronde under Louis XIV was a parliamentary fronde (less known than the second fronde)!

Admittedly, parliaments were rarely legislative and were more a chamber for recording royal court rulings, and most of the members in the 16th century were hereditary. But it was much the same for parliaments across the Channel, although they were more successful over time and with different monarchs. Admittedly, this gives a less epic scope to the French parliament, but it is still very close to what is represented here in the estates.
 
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If its my decision alone, achievements should ALWAYS require ironman.
I remember your comment after the release of Vicky3. I’d support it because I support you and your idea.

Although this might force me open my save folder while playing… Honestly speaking it’s kinda troublesome. Can Ironman mode supports save-and-load as players’ wish.

Another thing is that, EUIV ironmode doesn’t support a full Chinese/japanese localization mod. Absolutely this has been partially solved in official localization like CK3 and Vicky3 (Nah in HOI4), I still hope that players can modified some graphical and of localizatoon things while they enjoy their run in Ironman.
 
Estate Power is based off of their total population eh? Hmm, I wonder if that means I can... purge, a few estates if they start to cause problems. I do imagine there will be massive penalties for "removing" a good chunk of the Nobility or Clergy, but from an RP perspective that would be immensely fun.

Looking forward to more of these talks!
 
I am really glad to see the progress being made on the game but I can't help but make one point - although the political map is much improved from EU4, it is missing some key things such as the kurdish Emirates that did indeed exist this early on throughout Kurdistan. Even those depicted in EU4 seemingly are not depicted fully well and I can make some examples as someone who has researched Kurdistan rather thoroughly for myself.

- I am unsure if it was so at this point but Ardalan controlled the whole of Shahrazur before the Safavids and Ottomans and was entirely independent until the reign of Tahmasp I, it itself also had several autonomous regions ruled by local chiefs in places such as Bijar, Baneh, Javanrud, etc.
- I believe Bitlis should indeed exist at this point, but Thomas Sinclair's books on the regions around Bitlis and Van during the Qara Qoyunlu period (and including contextual information about the history of Bitlis and the administration of the area) should clear up some things
-It isn't visible on the map yet but I hope that Gilan is depicted correctly, I myself have researched it around this period and many small independent rulers were in Western Gilan (Biapas) at the time, H. L. Rabino's work can be referred to as well as some books in Persian. Many of these would be significant enough to at least occupy one location on the map I believe.

For Kurdistan in general I recommend checking the Sharafnama, because it is the best pre-ottoman chronicle of various kurdish dynasties' histories. Now, I am not as well versed with all of Iran and Anatolia as certain parts of it because I have focused research on some regions more than others, but I hope that my comment will be taken into consideration when coming up to the final stages of the first edition of EU5.

I don't check this account very often, but I would personally go over Persia to make sure that it is good, as I see it overlooked in so many projects.
I wrote a lot more than I thought I would, but I hope it is helpful, thanks for developing this new game. :)

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, some of the spellings of the beyliks seem inconsistent, some use the turkish spelling and others don't i believe.
I'd recommend you create your own thread detailing everything you'd like to see changed with the current depiction of that region, with pictures and sources included.
 
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God, I'm so happy money not taxed by the government will no longer disappear into the Abyss, and your subjects will no longer exist in a state of perpetual stillness, but rather do things on their own, try to earn money, build up stuff which benefits them, try to grab some more power!

Truly one of the greatest changes from EU4. I hope it will be a nice break from just routinely minimizing autonomy and milking estates as the only efficient way to play.
 
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Unsure how to feel about estates apparently being the same across countries just with name changes(and I assume tag and culture specific priveleges). Like, China and France having the same estates just Clergy have had their name erased and are instead "Scholar-gentry" or something seems like it could feel a bit awkward. Maybe unique priveleges will do a lot of heavy lifting but I feel it could be odd.
 
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This is awesome! Can't wait to play it. :))

Any chance for a pic from Estonia? The 1343 uprising is just around the corner I'm just wondering if it's in the game. I imagine the peasant pops start near rebellion when playing as Livonian order
 
Looks good, except:

  • 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.

This reminds me of I:R in a bad way. It feels arbritrary, like you had to find a place for those things and just divided them up as best you could between estates.
But nobility can research, burghers can research. Why only clergy?
And clergy can counter-espionage, ans so can burghers and commoners.
Plus, nobility, clergy and burghers should also affect stability. Why only commoners?

I dont know how these things work but i have an annoyed gut reaction to it. It's not elogant or intuitive.

If I can throw back to the first dev diary; it breaks one of the pillars of the game. It feels gamey, and hurts the feeling of realism.
 
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Looks good, except:

  • 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.

This reminds me of I:R in a bad way. It feels arbritrary, like you had to find a place for those things and just divided them up as best you could between estates.
But nobility can research, burghers can research. Why only clergy?
And clergy can counter-espionage, ans so can burghers and commoners.
Plus, nobility, clergy and burghers should also affect stability. Why only commoners?

I dont know how these things work but i have an annoyed gut reaction to it. It's not elogant.
Is this moddable ?
I too am worried about the “strict” division of effects, which reminds be a bit of the strict structure of 3 MANA points = 3 types of revenues = 3 tech types = 3 estates in EU4.

I hope, if not in vanilla, we will at least be able to mod the effects of each estate (and create new ones if needed) as in 00_static_modifiers where each effect could be moved, removed, or added
 
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