https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/tinto-talks-73-23th-of-july-2025-middle-kingdom.1851155/

Hello and welcome to another happy edition of our Wednesday Tinto Talks. This week we will continue our eastern focus with a look at the core mechanics related to China: The Middle Kingdom and a disaster related to it, the Influence of China.

The Middle Kingdom is represented in game with an International Organization, with the Celestial Emperor (or Huángdì) as its leader.

A usual, please consider all UI, 2D and 3D Art as WIP.

The IO itself has territory assigned to it, what it considers to be its core territory. In the mapmode, that’s represented by solid colors, when owned by a country inside the IO and purple stripes when not currently owned by a member of the IO.

Territory outside the IO but owned by a member of it is colored in stripes of different colors: yellow for the Celestial Emperor, green for the regular members, and bright green for the Celestial Governors - these colors are WIP, and a matter of review, not final.

Speaking about that, what is a Celestial Governor? They are members of the Middle Kingdom to which the emperor has granted special privileges, giving them some nice bonuses:

Countries can join the Middle Kingdom freely as long as they are not a subject, and either have their capital in Asia or have the appropriate cultural or religious groups. Subjects of the Celestial Emperor, however, will automatically join it.

Once a country is inside the Middle Kingdom, they will still be allowed to pursue their own diplomacy and wage their own wars (as long as they are not a subject type that forbids that), but they will also benefit from the protection of the Emperor, who may come to their assistance if they are attacked by an external threat (although that is not a guarantee). Also, they will be participating in the Tribute System.

Historically, the tribute system of China was manifested through tribute missions between the various countries and the current ruling dynasty, conducted at various frequencies. Countries would offer gifts to the Emperor for the Son of Heaven to recognize their rule, and they would get gifts of greater value in return.

In the game, this back and forth is simplified and abstracted to a payment that the Emperor has to perform, and the resulting money is divided among all members, according to their economic power. The emperor gets a slider in their economic panel to determine exactly how much tribute they are willing to pay, at the risk of losing Celestial Authority if the resulting tribute is too low.

Celestial Authority does not have any passive effect, but there is much content tied to it, with some risks involved if let to fall too low. Additionally, many actions require the use of Celestial Authority:

First off, let’s start talking about the Laws, as they define how the Middle Kingdom operates and also affect which actions will be available:

I’m gonna play this game for at least 2,000 hours and I’m never gonna play outside of Europe

For example, ‘Conducting a Kējǔ Examination’ will only be possible as long as the ‘Direct Appointment’ policy is not active, while the appointment of new Celestial Governors can only be made if the ‘Codified Cèfēng Tǐzhì’ policy is active.

Let’s now look at the actions in more detail. For starters, as it was already mentioned, Conducting a Kējǔ Examination will allow the recruitment of a new capable character, with some historical characters being able to appear from it.

‘Strengthen Ministry’ will allow the country to strengthen one of the 6 traditional ministries in Chinese administration, with varying effects. Some ministries will also be available to affect the outcomes of other actions.

Lastly, the Proclaim Decree action will allow the emperor to choose a decree to enable for some temporary benefits, but it will also cost some Celestial Authority. The effects of the decrees last only for a short while, but are scaled by the amount of countries in the Middle Kingdom, the Emperor’s own Cabinet Efficiency, and other factors such as certain Ministries having been expanded.

Additionally, the more decrees proclaimed, the less Celestial Authority that the Middle Kingdom will gain each month, representing the increasing complication of bureaucracy. However, the emperor can choose to ‘Reshape the Bureaucracy’, eliminating the accumulated penalty on Celestial Authority gain due to decrees.

Another thing you may have noticed in the Middle Kingdom panel is something called Eunuch Power. At some point, China will have the option to empower the eunuchs. Doing so will open the gates to some events and effects related to them, but that will be for you to discover, as this Tinto Talks is already getting long enough, and I still have another topic to discuss - a new, unique Societal Value.

Let’s now move to take a look at China from the outside and see what happens when a foreign country interacts with it. If a country not belonging to the Chinese culture group enters the orbit of China, it will unlock the Sinicized vs Unsinicized societal value:

Like other societal values, a country has many tools with which to nudge it towards one extreme or the other. However, what matters to us today is what happens when they reach high levels of Sinicization. Any free country that goes beyond 90 towards Sinicization and is less powerful than China may fall under the ‘Influence of China’ disaster

There will be many possible events firing during it, in which the country will navigate between continuing to be influenced by Chinese culture, or establishing its own cultural independence.

To get out of the disaster, the country has various options. For once, they will get out of it if they are no longer sinicized, there is not a China to which to compare them to, or they are already stronger than it. Alternatively, they can resolve the disaster via taking enough decisions towards the same direction in the events firing during it. When the disaster ends, a final event will fire, with options and results dependent on which exactly has been the way to exit the disaster.

You’ll have to play through the disaster yourselves to see all the options though…

And that is all for today. On Friday we will continue with a Tinto Flavour about China, and in next Wednesday’s Tinto Talks, we’ll have the final puzzle piece for the Chinese content - the Red Turbans Rebellion situation, and the Crisis of the Chinese Dynasty disaster. We hope to see you on both!

And remember: Wishlist Europa Universalis V now!

Still no release date? Fuck it

I'm 99% sure the will announce the release date at Gamescom in germany next month, they did the same for stellaris iirc.

I relly dont care about non-european shit anymore, just give us a date already.

Did the Chinese emperor really give gifts of greater value in exchange for tribute? That's lame as fuck. How is it tribute if you lose money from it?

>>2101322
It was more about maintaining a good relationship with countries in china's orbit.

>>2101209 (OP)
GLORY TO THE CCP!

>>2101322
That's pretty standard in all big man systems. The explicit point of the gift exchange is to show who is the bigger man by outdoing the other in the gift exchange and obviously the emperor of China was the biggest man so obviously he would give the better gifts. That doesn't mean there was some kind equivalent exchange going with Chinese tributes in general just the ones the emperor wanted to impress. If you came in with your delegation and swore loyalty to the emperor with annual tribute and then brought personal gifts as well then you may be given personal gifts of greater value to reward your loyalty. Tribute is still tribute.
The actual confusion comes from the fact that tribute is a western word that is retroactively applies to the chinese tributes which were many. Some were more classical "pay us and we fuck off" tributes and others were more of a political theater where they did in fact give them more than they received.

>>2101211
It is not acceptable to the Chinese people that Taipei Province and Xizang is not shown as a core part of China kingdom. This is serverly going to hurt the feeling of the worlds biggest and most prosperous nation.

>>2101322
The Chinese never refer them as tribute in the first place, that term was a Western scholar invention.

>>2101249
Means a next year release then as they rarely do Q4 releases. Only really a few times in October and never later.

>>2101000
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tusi

>>2101472
>Taipei Province
Isn't it Taiwan Province?

>>2101873
AIIIIIEEEEOOOOUUUUGGGGHHHHH

As far as I can tell there's zero reason to not want to be a chinese tributary
You get the biggest army on the planet defending you, free money and an extra social value that gives you buffs to some of the most important modifiers in the game
And the bigger you are the more money you get so a united india could become a tributary and milk china dry

>>2102095
Well duh that is why most countries around China paid tribute to them

>>2101220
>Celestial Authority
>Eunuch Power
So crown mana and no dick mana

>>2102095
Historically, paying tribute also meant getting a permit to trade in China besides a bigger gift in return. People have wanted Chink money since ancient times.

>>2102107
What can no dick power be spent on

Chinese complaining as if they know even 1 trillionths of a pain a balkaner feels

>>2101869
Also the Yuan exclaves aren’t real. They’re like the main vassal tribe in the region who govern over the other smaller tusis I think

>>2102121
Pirating GSG

>>2102095
Pretty much the same as in real life, the only reason not to become one is to avoid becoming a buglike chink. There's probably some sort of cap so that great powers and the like can't become tributaries though.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/the-history-of-europa-the-pivotal-situations-that-shaped-1300s-europe-forever.1852223/

Hey EU5 enjoyers!

We've just released a history centered video looking at some of most prevalent starting situations in EU5:

- 100 years war
- Rise of the Turks
- Guelphs and Ghibellines

You can watch now over on our YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds5uLvy-uBM

Let us know if you enjoy and if you'd like to see more content like this! (No it doesn't come "In place" of any gameplay content or news <3)

>>2102107
They meant Enoch Powell

>>2102283
Uh based

This could be Crusader Kings 3 or Victoria 3 but it is EU 5 apparently
All their new games look the fucking same

why they made them look han? they were mongols. even in their paintings looked like that

>>2102712
didnt want another ddos attack

>>2102712
>EU5 will release with 7 main graphical archetypes . As well as impacting unit appearance, archetypes are also the primary way we have divided several other parts of the game, such as character portraits, city buildings, event illustrations, and UI skins. These archetypes are:

Central American
East Asian
European
Middle Eastern
North American
South Asian
Subsaharan African

The map is not official, it's user made

>>2102742
I would argue France should be the coloured-in core section of the western world

They should cut the timeline for this game, have it end around the 1600s then they can have a new game IP centered around 1600 to 1836

>>2102798
While mostly jokingly there was some expectation that was what the plan was. Not 1600 but the mid 1700s and the creation of some kind of March of the Eagles 2.

>>2102865
1648 should be the cut off

>>2101211
>>2101213
>>2101215
>>2101218
>>2101219
>>2101220
>>2101224
>>2101225
>All this fucking bullshit
So... let me get this straight:
50 years after the start date, the game just has nothing going on, because it's not going to railroad historical outcomes nor it can keep going with pre-sets, so it will all just fizzle out and turn generic, isn't it?
This feels like all the worst elements of GoY$ focus trees, except the game lasts ten times longer than it takes to finish the tree

>>2101322
>How is it tribute if you lose money from it?
If you need to ask, trying to explain is futile by default. Starting from the fact they aren't even a tribute in Chinese.

>>2102798
>>2102865
>>2102875
... for what fucking purpose?

>>2101322
Allegedly (according to people on the forum) they were gifts of greater value on paper but not worth that much to the chinese. So china gets tribute of iron ore or something they need and give gifts of porcelain plates or similar that aren't that valuable to them but are worth a ton in the tributary country, it was basically a form of trade. That or china just gave gifts of paper money inflated to worthlessness to fuck with tributaries they don't like.

>>2102878
>If you need to ask, trying to explain is futile by default
Imagine being this much of a pretentious faggot in this gay retarded forum.