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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.
 
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Is there a way to change the capital back to Rome (during gameplay)?
 
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Why can't the pope be the one to build cardinal seats using his wealth?

It seems like there's a slight missed opportunity here with the Catholic church being an IO of characters and tithes, or a BBC, which rules over the papal states as its vassal.
 
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ESPAÑITA!! said:
Isn't the first Borgia Pope Calixto III (1455-1458), being Alejandro VI (1492-1503) the father of Cesar?
All the data is taken from wikipedia so maybe not a "serius" source of information btw.
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Yes, the popes are currently taking a random "Papal" name when they become Popes, but that is Rodrigo. We are still pending to implement the definition of his historical papal name for him.
 
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vyshan said:
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?
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There is something for the Gregorian Calendar, yes. For the other question, it will depend on how good the player is.
 
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A bit off topic but can you change/re-arrange the colours of some of the tags in Central Italy? There are too many of them that are red and blue like Prato that look like vassals of Florence
 
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I gotta say I'm not liking what I'm seeing here. The Cardinal Seats seem completely disconnected from the Conclave, the Succession Law doesn't seem to tell us how they are ranked so I'm guessing the event just chooses three random Seats to offer as options (Cardinals aren't characters, after all). This all makes the Curia/Conclave seem very abstracted.

slupie said:
Why Blocked from Conversion instead of Allowed to Convert?

Or Allow Diplomatic Subjugation instead of Disallow Diplomatic Subjugation?
Click to expand...

Because then you have to give everyone the "Allowed to Convert = Yes" modifier, I guess.
 
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Roger Corominas said:
Yes, the popes are currently taking a random "Papal" name when they become Popes, but that is Rodrigo. We are still pending to implement the definition of his historical papal name for him.
Click to expand...
Personally I would prefer if 'historical' popes took their historical name. If you are forcing in the Borgia pope I feel like you should call him Alessandro, same with any other popes you might get via event.
 
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You have an event for Pope Alexander VI (apparently the event doesn't give him the historical name), probably the most infamous of the renaissance Popes, but this was also the era of humanism, which advanced scientific thought significantly - is there any content for humanist Popes, such as Pius II, and their sponsorship of the arts and sciences?

It would be unfortunate if such a negative figure like Rodrigo Borgia gets a special event, but an illustrious figure like Pius II does not.
 
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Does becoming a Kingdom(tier 3) as a catholic country require you to ask permission to the Pope(sorta like becoming a duke in the HRE)? It should be since he's the only one with the authority to do so
 
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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.
Click to expand...
The Catholic Church is believed to have been founded by Christ, not St. Peter.

Galileo.png

This is a rather simplistic portrayal of events. Galileo had opponents in the Church but he also had supporters, including the Jesuits and the future Pope Urban VIII. The objections to his ideas were largely scientific, though theology did play a part and he was suspected of heresy. It doesn't make sense for the event option to be labelled "Invite him to discuss theology", as he was a scientist, not a theologian. He was also not simply imprisoned, rather the Inquisition investigated him in 1615 because of fears he was attempting to reintepret the Bible to support his ideas, and the Inquisitorial commission condemned heliocentrism in 1616, requiring him to recant and putting his book on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, but Galileo was a free man.
He started writing a book about heliocentrism again encouraged by election of his friend Pope Urban VIII, who asked him to include arguments both for and against heliocentrism, giving both sides a fair hearing. Galileo was imprisoned because the character advocating the geocentric model came across as a fool and was called "Simplicio" which although he intended it as a reference to the philosopher Simplicius looked like he was calling geocentrists simpletons - this made it look like he was just blatantly advocating the condemned position rather than making a fair, scientific case for both arguments. This lost him Pope Urban's support and brought the ire of the Inquisition, and he was sentenced to house arrest.
 
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Question: what if an empire (let’s say Byzantium) decides to go catholic? Will they demote to a kingdom?
 
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