Questions regarding The Long Century

So i have several questions to ask as of now, with development going pretty smoothly it seems like.

1- Will nations like Germany, Italy, Yugoslavia and Scandinavia still sometimes form without player or AI great power input from rebels?

2- How is combat going to work exactly? are divisions going to attack eachother in the same tile like in Victoria 2 and EU4, or are they going to fight between them like in HOI4?

3- Will there be dynamic province and maybe even state names?

4- Are there going to be secret easter egg tags like Jan Mayen, Byzantium and Babylonia like in the original vicky2 if the player somehow meets the requirements?

5- Is the newspaper mechanic also going to be present? with it being far more varied and dynamic?

6- How is colonizatination going to be reworked? and what replaces the life rating mechanic?

7- Are the cultures going to be very varied? with pops like catalonians, basque, occitanians, arpitans and bretons being represented? alongside their own respective tags (Countries)?

8- Are events going to be less spammy and cause a more signifcant part of the population to get effected?

9- Is there going to be more flavour? and i don't mean insane alt history, but rather more events regarding historical events and people in countries like the USA, Germany, UK, Russia etc.

10- How many start dates there are going to be?

[Pyros]

I can't necessarily answer all the question currently but I can say a few things, and some speculative answers for what may come.

2. Combat is between *divisions* on a *tile*. Two or more opposing divisions on a tile will initiate a battle. The divisions are designed by the player, and there is not brigade micro like how Victoria 2 from Paradox Interactive works.

3. The engine is capable of this feature, but currently not being explored for initial release.

5. No, other flavor is available.

6. Yes! Stay posted for upcoming developer write-ups regarding this.

9. More country specific goals to achieve are targeted to the player via decisions. For instance as Russia, building the Trans-Siberian Railroad may result in some special outcomes . Flavor in general is considered secondary to building a great backbone to build the game off of, so is less of a development focus.

10. Currently only 3 are planned for initial release. An early 1800s start during the first industrial revolution in full swing; a start date for the American Civil War, and a WW1 start.

As for your other questions, they unfortunately cannot be answered without further work by the development team.
Our general philosophy is towards organic mechanics and realism in the game systems, and deviating from history for no special reason isn't typically happening (although definitely still common).
Making the game as moddable as possible so it may be able to last even longer than vic2 has.