Home Trending Latest threads New posts Developer diaries
Jump to latest Follow Reply
  • We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Previous dev diary
Show only dev responses

Tinto Flavour #14 - 17th of April 2025 - The Papal States

Hello, and welcome to another session of our Tinto Flavour. This week we are continuing with the Christian Easter feel by taking a look at the Papal States.

Since its creation by the hand of Saint Peter himself, the Catholic Church has been guiding all of humanity to salvation through the ages, thanks to the leadership of the bishop of Rome, the Pope.

Starting with the Donation of Pepin, the blessed Papal States were created to both govern and help the faithful. However, the last decades have been a constant struggle as the death of Pope Bonifatius VIII Gaetani Aquila forced the relocation of the court to the exclave of Avignon, as the Papacy fell under the influence of King Philippe IV the Fair Capet, and its holdings in Italy were dominated by quarreling noble families.

What will the vicar of Christ do? Will he fully become a puppet of the Kingdom of France and allow the temporal rule over the spiritual? Or will he break free and rise to the position at the top of Creation that God himself intended for its Church?
Click to expand...

Let’s look at the country directly:
Pope.png

As usual, consider all art as WIP.​

And here are the lands they have, taking into account that their capital is in Avignon, not in Rome.
Country Map.png


They start with a special government reform, unique to the Papacy:
Holy See.png


And they also have some special privileges, representing their division between their French and Italian holdings:
French Cardinals.png

Powerful Italian Families.png


And also a unique policy:
Papacy Policy.png


They also have a work of art:
Palais des Papes.png


And here are some of their unique advances:
Word of the Lord.png

Glory to Rome.png

Donation of Constantine.png

Holy Father.png


One particular characteristic of the Papacy is that their succession is not like the rest of the countries. As such, they have a special succession law:
Papal Conclave.png


That makes it so that when a Pope dies, the country enters into a Papal Conclave Regency, and eventually it will be resolved with an event firing, where the player will be able to choose between some of the cardinals available.
Conclave Regency.png

Conclave Election.png


Here are some more events available to the Papacy:
Castello Event.png


Giving access to this special building:
Castello.png


And events for some special individuals:
Raffael.png

Galileo.png

Borgia.png

I’m sure this last one will have no repercussions whatsoever…​

There’s also some events about some famous "refurbishings":
Sistine Chapel.png

Sistine Chapel Artists.png

Saint Peter.png

Saint Peter Monument.png


… and much more, but that is all we will show for today. Next week we will go to the military branch of Christianity by taking a look at the Military Orders of the Teutonic & Livonian Orders and Knights Hospitallers. See you there.
 
  • 124Like
  • 63Love
  • 6
  • 5
  • 4
Reactions:
Sort by date Sort by reaction score
Looks like others have already made the points that I wanted to make, so I'm just seconding:
Goblin Slave said:
How does the papacy usually spend all the money it collects from all of Europe's clergy? Does it give them a significant edge over the other Italian states?

View attachment 1282383
Click to expand...
I have been asking this since it was first revealed in a TT last year.
Why do the Papal States as a country on the map get all this money?? What do they spend it on?
Shouldn't this money go to the "church" and be mostly spent on advancing the church - while only some of it is siphoned to the Papal States?

Birchinjaro said:
Galileo Galilei wasn't imprisoned because his ideas could reach the public,many clergymen including initially the Pope supported his research,he ended up being imprisoned because he insulted the Pope in his books portraying him as an idiot
The Pope got offended and used heresy as an excuse,his ideas were never hated or considered problematic by the majority of the holy see
Click to expand...
Agreed, this event description is very strange - debating science is exactly what the church did (Copernicus was a clergyman too) and Galileo was encouraged to publish his theory as a debate, but he offended the Pope by putting the Pope's arguments into the mouth of a character named Simplicio.

So the event shouldn't be talking about preventing his ideas from reaching the public, it should be about how to deal with Galileo's insult to the Pope.
 
  • 10Like
  • 5
Reactions:
matfer13 said:
Do other countries have any say in the conclave? Like if France has the majority of cardinals can they force the college to elect one of the French cardinals, also does having one of your cardinals becoming Pope give you any benefit?
Click to expand...
If a country has the majority of cardinals, they have a higher chance of being elected.
 
  • 25
  • 11Like
  • 1
Reactions:
What exactly are we calling "The Catholic Church" in the game?

Is it an religious organization consisting of clergy (and buildings) which transcends national boundaries with the Pope at its head?

Or is it just a name for a club of nations which all share the same religion, but who each largely conduct their own religious affairs with some degree of sovereignty and independence? Like a UN of sorts, except for Catholicism.

The way we are currently implementing "The Catholic Church" as an IO suggests that Tinto intends to do the second. Maybe a better name would be the "Catholic world".

But then it seems that there is nothing modeling the actual ecclesiastical organization of clergy which we usually call the Catholic Church. The Papacy may be the closest thing, but being land-based, it seems the the Papacy is more like the territories directly ruled by the Pope.

So shouldn't the game have a building-based organization which represents the actual body of clergy across Europe who comprising the Catholic Church? Some third Catholic organization which embodies the unity of the Catholic clergy across all European nations. This would be the appropriate thing to call "The Catholic Church".
 
  • 9Like
  • 2
  • 2
  • 1
Reactions:
The Galileo event distorts the history to conform to the simple but inaccurate popular narrative of the heterodox champion of science speaking truth to power. The Church was interested in heliocentric theory as a hypothesis to be explored, and while even in Galileo’s time there were new observations which indicated the heliocentric model had merit, conclusive evidence supporting the radical shift from the geocentric model which had been developed since antiquity was not observed until well after the trial (roughly a century in the case of the smoking gun that is stellar parallax). This reduces the fascinating history of astronomy’s emergence over the course of the 16th and 17th centuries as the rigorous science we know it today to an oversimplified battle between overbearing religious orthodoxy and objectively correct soldiers of science. Titans of 16th century astronomy such as Tycho Brahe weren’t sold on geocentric theory because the Church said so, in other words.
 
  • 14
  • 3Like
Reactions:
Samgee Gamwise said:
I'm as Protestant as they come, but In the opening flavor text I doubt many Catholics would say that Peter "created" their church.

Also, in the final line I recommend a pronoun edit: "God himself intended for its his Church" (unless I'm completely misreading the sentence)
Click to expand...
Saint Peter is considered the first Pope, that's what is referring to. Changed the pronoun in the last sentence, thank you.
 
  • 37Like
  • 6
  • 1
Reactions:
Not sure what's shown in the tooltips here, but is there any calculation of who the winner 'should' be for the conclaves?
It would be nice to RP a bit and see who might be a 'realistic' winner might be and follow their objectives.


1744896681755.png
 
  • 5
  • 2Like
Reactions:
Can the Pope achieve Pope Gregory VII's ambition of finally making all of the princes and kings his vassals, where as head of the church all the catholic rulers are his vassals?

And speaking of a pope Gregory but this time Pope Gregory XIII, will there be something for the Gregorian Calendar?
 
  • 2Like
Reactions:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back