Why did we pick 1337 for the start year?

[Brynjar]

Would the amount of work required for another start date be appropriate for DLC? Or is it significantly more work?
EDIT: For example, the added earlier start date for CK2 with "The Old Gods" was one of my favorite decisions for that game and the DLC that added the most to my gameplay. But as you said, it could be a lot less work than Project Caesar....

The problem with doing it as a DLC is that it will be a DLC a lot of player can easily defend not buying. Considering low the popularity of later start dates are in other Paradox games, doing it as a DLC seems like a rather bad investment. Especially considering that there will likely be mods doing it for free.

 

[Sapa Inca]

I don't know how accurate you think data about 14th and 15th century populations is, but if you think that's "half-assing it" you're gonna be shook if you ever find out how they got 1337 numbers

It is funny how you are being downvoted when you are speaking an objective truth here, lol.

There are no good population data for the vast majority of the world in XIV century and XV century and even if you are researching population estimatives these estimatives will almost never have enough granularity to differentiate reliably the population of 1337 vs 1450.

A simple matemathical progression applied in 1337 to estimate population in 1450 is not "halfassing" anything, it is making the best that can be made with the historical data available.

 

[ashbery76]

The main reason is to troll Byzantium.

 

[Onlyherefortheconverter]

Probably because it is not relevant to what he is responding to?

You brought up population numbers first in response to another person's about the practicalities of the work needed for two start dates before @Blindbohemian did mate. Only then did he respond to you about population numbers. As such, saying @Blindbohemian's post 'is not relevant to what he is responding to' does not follow.

 

[Onlyherefortheconverter]

Johan: Extra start date is a ton of extra work
me: Extra start date is a ton of extra work (and I reference pop numbers as a probable reason for that (and I am right))
blind: just increment by 0.2% per year
me: that's half assing it
blind: you're gonna be shook by 1337 numbers!

How do you possibly reconcile that last comment being a relevant element in this conversation? It straight up just is not.

You think that this

is somehow a rational response to my stating that creating a new start date is an immense amount of work (words from Johans mouth, click show dev responses to confirm) and that to just increment by 0.2% per year is completely half assed and not at all reasonable, then we will never agree on anything. It is frankly ludicrous and I do not understand how you can come to believe such a thing, nor do I care to.

To add to what @Blindbohemian says above - His last comment is relevant to the conversation because they're effectively pointing out - in response to you calling their proposed method half-assing it - that no matter the start date, we're not going to have accurate population numbers and that any start date, be it 1337 or 14xx, will include made up estimations and abstractions made by the devs simply because of the paucity of accurate historical population data.

You think that this

is somehow a rational response to my stating that creating a new start date is an immense amount of work (words from Johans mouth, click show dev responses to confirm) and that to just increment by 0.2% per year is completely half assed and not at all reasonable, then we will never agree on anything. It is frankly ludicrous and I do not understand how you can come to believe such a thing, nor do I care to.

Disagreeing with his 0.2% figure is one thing (I myself would lower the figure much, much more), but saying that @Blindbohemian's basic mathematical progression proposal for a new 14xx start date (which would broadly be a good method, with some exceptions) is irrelevant or something egregiously wrong just isn't the case.

Also - unless I've missed a revelation - You're not Johan, nor has he given you writ to speak for him or his stead. The fact is neither you nor me know why Johan believes a second start date would be too much work as he didn't give a reason why in his post. In any case, the entire point of this forum is constructive feedback and discussion, which is what most of us are doing.

 

[Onlyherefortheconverter]

Speaking of constructive feedback and discussion - @Johan I'll add to the call by @Blindbohemian and others for at least considering the possibility of another start date any time in 14xx for what its worth. Neither historical consensus nor Pop history consider 1337 or the Black Death as part of the Early Modern. Even the post-Black Death feudal breakdown to capitalist transition isn't viewed as a 1300s thing. As such, 1337 is simply too early a start date for a game people expect to cover the Early Modern and the Age of Discovery, colonization, or even the feudal to capitalism transition. Running counter to the setting's expectations with a 1337-only start date runs risk of muddling the believable world and immersion goals stated in Tinto Talks 1.

It's the only real criticism I have to be honest. Everything else between Estates and most recently Control seems apposite for the era in my opinion.

 

[Blindbohemian]

blind: you're gonna be shook by 1337 numbers!

By how they got 1337 numbers, which does not question what Johan said, and simply invalidates the argument from ignorance that a 14XX start would be a lot of work because we don't know how hard deriving historical population numbers might be.

There are no good population data for the vast majority of the world in XIV century and XV century and even if you are researching population estimatives these estimatives will almost never have enough granularity to differentiate reliably the population of 1337 vs 1450.

A simple matemathical progression applied in 1337 to estimate population in 1450 is not "halfassing" anything, it is making the best that can be made with the historical data available.

Well put. The point is that while I'm very happy to accept (and have explicitly acknowledged) the proposition that creating a new start date is a lot of work, it's not because they have to hunt down precisely accurate population data for each one of the game's 27,000 locations. They didn't do that for 1337 and there's no reason to believe they would or even could do it for any other start date.

Disagreeing with his 0.2% figure is one thing (I myself would lower the figure much, much more)

Absolutely. I just didn't want to spawn an unproductive debate about how actually 0.003% or whatever is far too low, or whatever; the figure was indicative. Of course it would also make sense to use different figures for different regions and so on and so forth. As you and (nearly) everyone else correctly deduced the point I was making was that population changes between 1337 and 1444 (or whenever) can't possibly be the major source of work involved in making a 14XX start date.

Speaking of constructive feedback and discussion - @Johan I'll add to the call by @Blindbohemian and others for at least considering the possibility of another start date any time in 14xx for what its worth. Neither historical consensus nor Pop history consider 1337 or the Black Death as part of the Early Modern. Even the post-Black Death feudal breakdown to capitalist transition isn't viewed as a 1300s thing. As such, 1337 is simply too early a start date for a game people expect to cover the Early Modern and the Age of Discovery, colonization, or even the feudal to capitalism transition. Running counter to the setting's expectations with a 1337-only start date runs risk of muddling the believable world and immersion goals stated in Tinto Talks 1.

It's the only real criticism I have to be honest. Everything else between Estates and most recently Control seems apposite for the era in my opinion.

Furthermore, while historical data shows that virtually no one used the start-at-any-date feature wonkily ported from EU3 to EUIV (notably I and others I'm aware of did use it in EU3 because the 1399 start date was—as @Johan himself acknowledged—so early the games it produced were dreadful), a two-start-date solution such as CK3 offers is a substantively different proposition and feature and the word from the devs appears to be that something approaching 50% of players use each start date there.

There's no reason to believe that everyone defaulting to the earliest EUIV start date in that game's start date system would continue in an EU5 with two dates, most particularly because the data being used to make that inference is inherently flawed anyway: early in EUIV's lifespan people did use alternate start dates and there were even threads complaining about the poor experience they offered; subsequently they were unsupported and unplayable, so people didn't use them. Breaking a system and then using people not using a broken thing as justification to not even do something similar in future when another game has demonstrated it works is very poor reasoning.

 

[Ispil]

Honestly I'm surprised that not a single person here has brought up one of the best parts of this start date: the Serbian Empire still has a chance to conquer Constantinople and establish itself as a proper successor to the Roman Empire (rather than having Stefan Dušan die along the way and the whole thing crumble to nothing).

The important part of 1337 isn't that you get to play the Byzantines. It's that the Byzantines are ripe for conquest by the Serbs.

 

[Blindbohemian]

basically, it requires maintenance and ensuring people feel they can do interesting things in the provided start dates

Similarly, a successful EU5 starting in 1337 requires ensuring people feel they can do interesting things in 1337.

 

[Meneye]

I believe that 1453 or 1492 start date will be one of the most requisited things after game release when Project Caesar reach outside forum bubble.

A huge part of EU fans dont want to play an unrecognizable XV century world that 1337 start date will create.

But we don't now what 100 ingame years will look like and how it'll compare with historical reality, so I don't think we should make any snap judgements just yet.

I think you're right that more start dates will be highly requested. However, going by history, most people will use them only once or twice and then go back to the earliest start date, which had been a pretty big hit to the dev's desire to make them considering the sheer amount of research and support they take to create and is why they backed off on making multiple start dates in their recent games.

There was also data a few years back on how a large majority of the players in CK2, despite 1066 being really well researched and supported, only played the 769 start date even though it lead to some wild results. I can't find that post, though.

 

[Blindbohemian]

But we don't now what 100 ingame years will look like and how it'll compare with historical reality, so I don't think we should make any snap judgements just yet.

This has been talked to death, so I’m not going to recapitulate lengthy arguments here, but I do not believe this is a reasonable position to take and amounts to an argument from ignorance: we don’t know what it will be like, therefore it will be good.

We don't know what it's going to be like, but given the history of every Paradox game ever made so far and the stated goals of EU5 (and the history of EU4, which started with even stronger design goals about plausible outcomes) I think we can be pretty confident that an EU5 starting in 1337 is not going to produce a recognisable world by 1453, and nor should it. That’s why I and others would appreciate a mid-fifteenth century start date.

 

[Meneye]

This has been talked to death, so I’m not going to recapitulate lengthy arguments here, but I do not believe this is a reasonable position to take and amounts to an argument from ignorance: we don’t know what it will be like, therefore it will be good.

Given the history of every Paradox game ever made so far and the stated goals of EU5 (and the history of EU4, which started with even stronger design goals about plausible outcomes) we can have a high level of confidence that an EU5 starting in 1337 is not going to produce a recognisable world by 1453, and nor should it. That’s why I and others would appreciate a mid-fifteenth century start date.

I'm not saying that it will or won't make a recongizable world, your prediction probably holds water and I don't actually have one to defend.

Addressing the latter argument, I think you're asking for a start date that only a very slim minority of players will actually use regularly. Another start date would be cool, but also given the history of paradox games, barely anyone will use them. It just wouldn't be worth it from a game design standpoint to use all that dev time and resources for a feature that'll go largely untouched.

 

[Blindbohemian]

Addressing the latter argument, I think you're asking for a start date that only a very slim minority of players will actually use regularly. Another start date would be cool, but also given the history of paradox games, barely anyone will use them. It just wouldn't be worth it from a game design standpoint to use all that dev time and resources for a feature that'll go largely untouched.

You are quite possibly right. I'm not as certain as you about it, though, because:

• Based on this forum (which of course isn't terribly representative) it seems like something approaching 50% of players would like a more "early modern" game experience;
• Based on data associated with CK3 it seems like when two start dates are presented more or less equally as a feature offering two quite different experiences, people actually get a lot of use out of both dates; and
• Based on personal experience and being around for conversations during EU3 there were more than a handful of players who didn't use the 1399 start then, precisely because the start was so early that you ended up with an unrecognisable world by 1450.

So I think there's a bigger question mark over "would people use a second start date?" than some posters are acknowledging (and indeed than Johan's single example of EU4, which isn't really comparable, speaks to).

In any case I'll be making a mod (or supporting some better modder than me) on day one so I'm not too terribly fussed either way. But I'm also going to keep poking to remind Tinto that, as was the case with Victoria 3's flag occupation graphics, sometimes devs just make bad calls. Johan himself once said that pushing the start date back as far as 1399 was one of those bad calls...

 

[Blindbohemian]

We will not be agreeing on this, and this is at the root of your agreement with BB.

Please do outline how you would derive, and presumably believe that Paradox Tinto are deriving, population figures for 1337 at the level of granularity of individual polities on the EU5 map, let alone individual locations on the map.

Or, I suppose, we can only assume that you're taking a reason-free position based on nothing and refusing to countenance any alternative simply because you wish to be seen to disagree with anyone who doesn’t agree with Johan on every specific?

You... think you and BB are doing that here? By responding to a post in which Johan states that a second start date is incredibly unlikely and that the amount of work involved in making one is huge by.... shouting Nuh Uh

It could be worse, we could just be a dev echo chamber

The only argument from ignorance here is you pretending to know the amount of work it is to come up with population numbers for the game.

I have never suggested I know how much work it is to come up with population numbers for the game.

What I have suggested I know is approximately the level of accuracy that Tinto will be able to achieve in population numbers. I'm sorry if it upsets you but the simple fact is that anyone with a passing familiarity with the kinds of sources available for Western Europe in the period, let alone the rest of the world in the period, also knows approximately the level of accuracy they are able to achieve in population numbers.

Further, I have suggested that I know once you have population numbers for the game, getting population numbers for some other date within a century or so—to the level of accuracy that EU5 will have—is not a colossal amount of further work. This is because the level of accuracy that Tinto can achieve with the 1337 numbers is, through no fault of their own, really quite low and, say, 1450 numbers would be within the extant margin of error of their current figures for most of the world.

On that basis I have suggested that I think we can be fairly confident it's not in fact finding population data that's the big burden when adding a start date. Not that adding a start date is not a lot of work, but that it's not the population numbers that's the problem.

You have taken colossal, if completely uninformed, issue with this and replied that actually it is a huge amount of work.

Well, okay then—given that Johan has not actually specified what it is about adding start dates that's such a lot of work—I suppose it is your word against mine. So, please, nominate exactly how you would derive 1444 population figures as opposed to 1337 ones, why that is the best and/or only way, and why exactly it is so very difficult to get to, given 1337 data.

They were not supported because no one used them. You would have a point (lol) if it was the other way around.

I adore the irony of you informing me that I'm wrong because "pretending to know" things, while pretending to know exactly what makes adding start dates difficult, then pretending to know the particular order of decisions being made—which were only publicised in retrospect—some ten years ago...

I have posted historical threads where people complain about the poor state of EU4's alternative start dates. They were manifestly using said start dates, or the threads would not exist. They are not particularly common, but are not the only ones of their type.

There are also reports of a notorious bug affecting start dates which existed at EU4's release and just never really got fixed. Some people were manifestly using start dates, their level of support and quality was extremely low.

Nevertheless, they were deemed worth half-heartedly supporting as late as the release of Art of War, for which one of the headline features was the addition of a "new, much more detailed bookmark for the 30 Years War" which interacted poorly with the League War mechanic and was accompanied by a patch which still didn't fix the start dates bug. Following that, support for the feature was—by then, justifiably—expressly pulled.

If that is not enough evidence for you, because of course nothing could ever be, CK3 devs have apparently said that the split is much less deformed between their start dates. Give a bookmark support so it's worth playing, and people play it. I will pause here so you can clutch your pearls.

I'm sorry to be blunt, but you are mistaken: "it" was in fact the other way around, and, as usual, I do have a point.

 

[Lord Lambert]

I wrote a whole response but this is simply not worth it.

I am so not interested in a pages long argument where I am insulted by someone who clearly has the wrong idea about so many things. The irony of so many of your insults is not lost on anyone.

 

[Twoflower]

You are quite possibly right. I'm not as certain as you about it, though, because:

• Based on this forum (which of course isn't terribly representative) it seems like something approaching 50% of players would like a more "early modern" game experience;
• Based on data associated with CK3 it seems like when two start dates are presented more or less equally as a feature offering two quite different experiences, people actually get a lot of use out of both dates; and
• Based on personal experience and being around for conversations during EU3 there were more than a handful of players who didn't use the 1399 start then, precisely because the start was so early that you ended up with an unrecognisable world by 1450.

So I think there's a bigger question mark over "would people use a second start date?" than some posters are acknowledging (and indeed than Johan's single example of EU4, which isn't really comparable, speaks to).

In any case I'll be making a mod (or supporting some better modder than me) on day one so I'm not too terribly fussed either way. But I'm also going to keep poking to remind Tinto that, as was the case with Victoria 3's flag occupation graphics, sometimes devs just make bad calls. Johan himself once said that pushing the start date back as far as 1399 was one of those bad calls

I am not entirely sure about the choice of 1337 as a startdate, either. Europa Universalis (the first one released back in 2000) started in 1492, the colonization race was on from the start, and the reformation fired a few years into the game; and of course the game started with huge Ottomans and a somewhat consolidated Russia. It ended in 1801.

1337 is 155 years ahead of that, i.e. it starts half of the original game's timespan earlier. It basically covers a different era and will have a completely different dynamic. Whether that new dynamic will be more fun and makes for a good experience remains to be seen.

That said, already EU2 took the startdate back to 1419, and as you said, EU3 ended up with a 1399 startdate.

My point being: the Europa Universalis games aren't at all consistent about their point of departure, and therefore I am not sure what would constitute a "recognizable" world to an EU player. Yes, in 1444 you have a somewhat consolidated Muscovy and Austria, already strong Ottomans, the HYW is basically decided (although a player England can very much still win it), Castile is about to finish the Reconquista and Portugal ready to colonize; however, you are far from guaranteed to see the Netherlands, Brandenburg-Prussia, Persia or Mughals (in fact, all of these are pretty rare in EU4 games).

Personally, I tend to think that a 1492 startdate makes for a more balanced game in multiplayer, but then, my multiplayer experience is mostly from the days of EU2 As far as I recall, competitive EU2 multiplayer games did indeed start in 1492 a lot, so take that for your argument, if you want I still do prefer one well-maintained general startdate to several poorly-maintained and buggy ones, though.

 

[Blindbohemian]

My point being: the Europa Universalis games aren't at all consistent about their point of departure, and therefore I am not sure what would constitute a "recognizable" world to an EU player. Yes, in 1444 you have a somewhat consolidated Muscovy and Austria, already strong Ottomans, the HYW is basically decided (although a player England can very much still win it), Castile is about to finish the Reconquista and Portugal ready to colonize; however, you are far from guaranteed to see the Netherlands, Brandenburg-Prussia, Persia or Mughals (in fact, all of these are pretty rare in EU4 games).

I think you're you're completely right, although I think you've hit most of the big ones right there: Russia, Austria, Ottomans, England off the continent, Spain.

My preference only defaults to 1453 because it's what I was used to in EU3. I played EU2, but very briefly before EU3 came along and I was quite young at the time, so 1492 didn't leave much of an impression on me. I can see how it would be a more balanced start, though. On the other hand I quite like that mid-fifteenth century starts mean that with some targeted effort a player Sweden or Novgorod can get in for the start of the Age of Discovery, or a ROTW start can do some frantic consolidating. I imagine everyone has their preferences, and I've seen compelling arguments for dates as early as (ehhhh) 1419. I don't really mind, but certainly "the Hundred Years War still might go either way!" is the opposite of a selling point, for me. The prospect of seeing England implausibly conquer France (and, no doubt, form "the Angevin Empire") every other game is deeply off-putting.

 

[Twoflower]

I think you're you're completely right, although I think you've hit most of the big ones right there: Russia, Austria, Ottomans, England off the continent, Spain.

My preference only defaults to 1453 because it's what I was used to in EU3. I played EU2, but very briefly before EU3 came along and I was quite young at the time, so 1492 didn't leave much of an impression on me. I can see how it would be a more balanced start, though. On the other hand I quite like that mid-fifteenth century starts mean that with some targeted effort a player Sweden or Novgorod can get in for the start of the Age of Discovery, or a ROTW start can do some frantic consolidating. I imagine everyone has their preferences, and I've seen compelling arguments for dates as early as (ehhhh) 1419. I don't really mind, but certainly "the Hundred Years War still might go either way!" is the opposite of a selling point, for me. The prospect of seeing England implausibly conquer France (and, no doubt, form "the Angevin Empire") every other game is deeply off-putting.

If the game is as bad at diminishing benefits for expansion as EU4 (and, to be honest, all Paradox games except perhaps Vicky so far), I agree with your final point. In other words: if an England that wins the Hundred Years War just becomes an unstoppable memey Angevin Empire behemoth, the possibility for a different outcome to the HYW would be a disadvantage of the early startdate. It would also, incidentally, make playing England quite unappealing if you basically win the game within the first decades (this is already the case in EU4, where a player England will usually still turn the HYW around). In an ideal world and an ideal game, "winning" the HYW should just lead to different challenges for England. Keeping those two realms together should require effort, investment and opportunity costs.
For now, I'd like to be optimistic enough about the game's general direction and design philosophy to hope that this could be the case. And if a different outcome to the HYW just leads to a different and not a broken balance of power, I personally don't mind it.

 

[Brynjar]

Please do outline how you would derive, and presumably believe that Paradox Tinto are deriving, population figures for 1337 at the level of granularity of individual polities on the EU5 map, let alone individual locations on the map.

Just because somewhat well reasoned estimates aren't available for every location doesn't mean it isn't used for a large amount of locations.

Since you should be well aware that Aldaron, which you have tried asking for population numbers for 1500 have been working at Tinto since 2020, spending a lot of his time on the setup, it seems rather dishonest to brush off the work done for the 1337 start date as something they haven't spent a lot of effort getting right.

Your request:

Yeah. I seem to remember someone (@Aldaron?) pulling together a spreadsheet of population data for M&T and saying they had decent numbers for 1500. Wonder what became of that…

Johan's response:

Aldaron has been an employee of Paradox Tinto since early autumn 2020, spending much of his time on working the maps and population setup for Caesar, together with the other parts of our Content Design team.

 

[grommile]

Sure, but when you take decisions aren't so important as having those decisions in the first place.

The first thing I would have to decide in every European playthrough of a 1337 start is "how do I deal with the Black Death?" (Because the prep almost certainly needs to be started ASAP.)

The ubiquity combined with the short time horizon (I'm making the decision in a basically unevolved position every time) is going to get very boring, and I'm dealing with that prospect by not buying the game until either a start date DLC has been out long enough to be discounted*, or the modders have produced a high quality, conservatively designed** start date mod.

Conversely, unless I have a Big Plan or I'm playing Germans, I don't have to think about the Reformation (let alone the League War) until it happens, and when it happens it's in an evolved position.

* I haven't bought Paradox DLC at full price for a long time, and I don't foresee that changing.

** i.e. one that does no more than necessary to provide a good mid-C15 starting experience, rather than dragging in the Strong Opinions of the modding team about 742 things that didn't actually need changing.