Grand Strategy Project Caesar - Paradox Tinto's New Game

[None]

A new subforum and weekly developer diaries has appeared over at Paradox's forums, constituting a soft announcement of their newest game: Project Caesar. We'll only get more information as time progresses, so I feel a new thread is warranted.

For the uninitiated:
- Paradox Tinto is a studio operating under Paradox Interactive, not to be confused with Paradox Development Studio. Johan Andersson is at the helm and it is based in Barcelona, with about 30 employees split between working on this game and EU4.
- The project name is part of an arbitrary naming scheme and unlikely to reflect anything about the game. Stellaris was Project Augustus, CK3 was Project Titus, etc.
- Development started in Q2 2020.

What are everyone's thoughts and expectations? Can Johan prove that he can still make good games? Will it suck more than recent releases from PDS? What's the deal with mana?

 

[None]

To recap, here are the recent Tinto Talks:
Tinto Talks #1 - February 28th 2024
Tinto Talks #2 - March 6th, 2024

 

[Axioms]

So this is verified, behind the scenes, as EU5, but also you can just look at it really.

Some of their improvements sound quite interesting but we'll see how they replace mana gathering and spending as the core gameplay loop.

 

[man_at_arms]

EU5 will be coming out? Great, it means that in 10 years from now I will finally be able to buy all 500 EU4 DLCs at 95% off so that I can actually play the game I paid for on release without having locked functionalities.

 

[Space Satan]

It is interesting how Johan openly shits and berates almost every design decision in his comments. Like, that idiotic circle with UI notifications from CK3 and V3 - he said he hates it with passion. Or how warfare will NEVER be like Victoria 3. It is like a nice spit in the face of incompetent fucks who failed the projects they were assigned to. Given recent failuers of victoria 3 it may give us hope that dev team could be fired or mnagement changes may happen to overhaul the game to a playable state.

 

[thesecret1]

Given Johan's track record, I anticipate it to turn into Project Merlin with 10 different kinds of mana

It is interesting how Johan openly shits and berates almost every design decision in his comments. Like, that idiotic circle with UI notifications from CK3 and V3 - he said he hates it with passion. Or how warfare will NEVER be like Victoria 3. It is like a nice spit in the face of incompetent fucks who failed the projects they were assigned to. Given recent failuers of victoria 3 it may give us hope that dev team could be fired or mnagement changes may happen to overhaul the game to a playable state.

He himself is an incompetent fuck that openly championed casualization of their strategy titles. Fucking Imperator was his magnum opus

 

[Space Satan]

Given Johan's track record, I anticipate it to turn into Project Merlin with 10 different kinds of mana

It is interesting how Johan openly shits and berates almost every design decision in his comments. Like, that idiotic circle with UI notifications from CK3 and V3 - he said he hates it with passion. Or how warfare will NEVER be like Victoria 3. It is like a nice spit in the face of incompetent fucks who failed the projects they were assigned to. Given recent failuers of victoria 3 it may give us hope that dev team could be fired or mnagement changes may happen to overhaul the game to a playable state.

He himself is an incompetent fuck that openly championed casualization of their strategy titles. Fucking Imperator was his magnum opus

 

[thesecret1]

Given Johan's track record, I anticipate it to turn into Project Merlin with 10 different kinds of mana

It is interesting how Johan openly shits and berates almost every design decision in his comments. Like, that idiotic circle with UI notifications from CK3 and V3 - he said he hates it with passion. Or how warfare will NEVER be like Victoria 3. It is like a nice spit in the face of incompetent fucks who failed the projects they were assigned to. Given recent failuers of victoria 3 it may give us hope that dev team could be fired or mnagement changes may happen to overhaul the game to a playable state.

He himself is an incompetent fuck that openly championed casualization of their strategy titles. Fucking Imperator was his magnum opus

I'll believe it when I see it. This seems too big a turnaround for a man who literally thought mana was the future and objectively superior design – I expect him to fill it with mana and then claim it's totally not that.

 

[None]

This seems too big a turnaround for a man who literally thought mana was the future and objectively superior design – I expect him to fill it with mana and then claim it's totally not that.

He used to design plenty of games without it. I don't think it's that far fetched that there could be a potential return to form moment here but we'll just have to wait and see.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

"Tinto Talks" sounds like the name of a podcast about wine featuring a pretty smug and elitist pair of a french and a portuguese guy tasting wine and rating it. But like, in a pretty smug and insufferable way

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

I think its still lame that Pdox insists in cylindrical maps in fucking 2024, rather than going with a proper simulated globe.
Terra fucking Invicta does it, and compared to Paradox, their budget is risible.

Looking like EUV here, EU IV is really long in the tooth by now, and that map doesn't give me HOI vibes.

 

[Axioms]

I think its still lame that Pdox insists in cylindrical maps in fucking 2024, rather than going with a proper simulated globe.
Terra fucking Invicta does it, and compared to Paradox, their budget is risible.

Looking like EUV here, EU IV is really long in the tooth by now, and that map doesn't give me HOI vibes.

Terra Invicta has a simplistic as fuck political environment to be fair. Being global wastes a ton of screenspace, makes it harded to fiddle the map to make places like Venice visible, and so on. Tons of downsides. And there's not much use for going up or down in the time period either. I hate to defend Paradox, as everyone knows, but making a globe has very little gameplay value and lots of downsides.

 

[thesheeep]

Global map or not has nothing to do with budget. It isn't much harder to do from a technical point of view.

Screw global 3D maps, they are a PITA to navigate, PITA to read and add absolutely nothing to the gameplay.

Now... 2D maps that scroll vertically as well as horizontally? Sure, why not.
Doesn't really matter, though.

 

[Axioms]

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/tinto-talks-3-march-13th-2024.1630154/

EU5 confirmed, Population confirmed, 1300s start date maybe confirmed.

 

[None]

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/tinto-talks-3-march-13th-2024.1630154/

EU5 confirmed, Population confirmed, 1300s start date maybe confirmed.

The fact we've got pops is enough to keep me interested just to see how he plans on handling them. They track literacy, I wonder if there will be more statistics tied to population like wealth.

 

[Malakal]

If there are pops modding opportunities alone will be great.

 

[thesecret1]

If there are pops modding opportunities alone will be great.

Vic 3 has pops as well.

 

[Malakal]

If there are pops modding opportunities alone will be great.

Vic 3 has pops as well.

Yes and it already has some interesting mods.

 

[thesheeep]

Shouldn't this and the EU5 thread be merged?

 

[motherfucker]

Paradox Tinto Brass

 

[Sinilevä]

It will be shit. It's a paracucks game after all.

 

[foxyscooter]

guys,this is EU5(or a similar name to be decided)...So far so good,I hope they put more American continent in the game like Victoria2(American Revolution,anyone?)...

 

[Space Satan]

They shifted theirstart date a bit, maybe next game will be, like, REAL Victoria with slightly shifted time period. If design decisions would be welcomed and it would be clear that everyone want obvious things- controllable armies, pops etc. then route of Victoria 3 with taking everything from mobile games would be abandoned.

Johan:

The "this game focuses on this" was not how we originally created the series, and its not something I really agree with.

The process was like this.

1 - We want to make a strategy game in the set time period
2 - We copy another game we had made, and removed some features that did not fit perfectly the time period. Like when we did V1 I took the code of HoI1, and removed the factions system and the airunit system and some more.
3 - Invent some new features that was unique.

The main thing for our games is "this is a deeply replayable strateygame in a set historical time". (Yes, Stellaris is not an historical time, but for us it was "Space")

 

[AN4RCHID]

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/tinto-talks-3-march-13th-2024.1630154/

EU5 confirmed, Population confirmed, 1300s start date maybe confirmed.

To recap, here are the recent Tinto Talks:
Tinto Talks #1 - February 28th 2024
Tinto Talks #2 - March 6th, 2024

idk bros, this all sounds like

 

[Axioms]

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/tinto-talks-3-march-13th-2024.1630154/

EU5 confirmed, Population confirmed, 1300s start date maybe confirmed.

To recap, here are the recent Tinto Talks:
Tinto Talks #1 - February 28th 2024
Tinto Talks #2 - March 6th, 2024

idk bros, this all sounds like

If you aren't a fan of mana and you like more mechanically interesting maps and you love population systems this game is *probably* a big improvement from Eu4.