New Paradox Tinto Game? EU5?

[Zanza]

Some promising new anti-blobbing mechanics based on control, proximity and maritime presence in the current dev diary. Let's see how it works.

[Zanza]

Current dev diary sounds like the economy and trade system is similar to Victoria 3.  Not convinced that fits for EU5.

[Syt]

From the latest post. Maybe "a bit" too granular for a game supposed to span 500 years?

[Syt]

For example, building a light ship in the Age of Renaissance requires Naval Supplies, Lumber, Weaponry, Copper, Tin, and Metalworks, while moving your capital requires Paper, Books, Stone, Lumber, Marble, and gold.

Buildings are rather important in Project Caesar. There are hundreds of different types of buildings, some can only be built in rural locations, and some require a town or city. Some can only be built in ports, and some can only be built in other countries. Some you can only build when there is no owner of a location. Lots of buildings are unique to cultures, regions, religions, or even to specific tags.

Some buildings can only have 1 level, some have a fixed cap, and some have a cap that scales with the population or development, and so on.

Buildings can also be categorized into three different categories: buildings that can produce goods, buildings that only give effects, and buildings that can only be built by the estates. Those pure estates usually have a drawback to them as well, and it's not easy to remove them.

So what about producing buildings then? This is where the truly fun parts of the economy start. Project Caesar has a large amount of different goods. We currently have about 70 different ones that have different needs, some are needed for the military, some are needed solely by pops, some are needed for buildings, and so on.

As an example, a Castle does not produce any goods, but it still requires Stone, Metalworks, Weaponry, and Tar to function, and if it does not get those goods, then the Castle will not function properly. The effectiveness of a building is based on the lowest available percentage of goods present, and it will only purchase and use required materials in that percentage required. If the market cannot supply enough resources, then it will not work.

Plus, of course, pops to operate buildings. So basically the Vic3 economy heavily expanded? Call me skeptical re: balance, AI being able to handle it, performance ...

[garbon]

I've mentally written this one off. I'll be pleasantly surprised if all this results in an enjoyable game..

[Syt]

Worryingly, Johan said most players will be fine to just leave all that automated.

[Solmyr]

Now we only need detailed characters and dynasties and we can have a single game spanning 867 to 1936!

[Tamas]

Yeah, what's the point of detailed production chains in an EU game?

In Victoria 3, sure, the time period requires heavy internal focus. But the EU period? I guess Johan is going all-in on this one. If he manages to pull it off he'll be restored as one of the great strategy game creators, but if he creates another dud after Imperator 1.0, well I don't think there's coming back from that.

[Zanza]

Not convinced of the design. Anno and EU do not seem to mix well...

[Josquius]

Some limited goods production does make sense for trade. And making it so you can't build a navy if you've no access to wood is common sense.
But it does seem they've overdone it quite a bit.

[crazy canuck]

I am all for more complex game. I just hope it works.

[The Minsky Moment]

One of the challenges of EU era games is to reasonably model European colonization efforts and early modern trading networks, which involved exploiting and distributing key commodities. Past EU games struggled to get these dynamics rights, including things like the development of the early modern grain trade, the struggle to secure timber for shipbuilding, the development of the Asian spice and luxury trade, the economics of the triangle trade etc. So the general idea of more formally modelling production and trade dynamics is sound.  Why that requires formally modelling four distinct production methods for paper is less clear.

[Zanza]

Thinking about it a bit more, it might make sense. Two big complaints about EU4 is trade and not much to do in peacetime. This might solve both.

[Valmy]

From the latest post. Maybe "a bit" too granular for a game supposed to span 500 years?

Finest rage paper...resistant to the passage of time. None of your modern wood pulp.

Ok that is kind of an obscure reference 

[The Brain]

Don't write angry.