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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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Roger Corominas said:
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.
View attachment 1282296
View attachment 1282297
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Is there any mechanism to track which pope would have actually won, if the player were not in control? Is there any downside to not picking the cardinal who 'should' have won, even if it's just a negative opinion modifier from the home countries of those who were not elected?

If a nation like France gets a huge majority of the College of Cardinals under their control, it would feel odd if you were just allowed to pick a candidate who should mathematically never win. Is this accounted for?

It feels like it would be fun to be able to pick a less popular candidate for maluses, or a more popular candidate without, but who might have worse stats or place you in an awkward political position.
 
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Noticed some typos/awkward writing in some of the flavour texts, here are some corrections:

eu5.png


eu5 2.png


eu5 3.png


eu5 6.png

Also "His controversial championing of this" should be changed to "his controversial championing of this thesis".
 

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Mef said:
Looks like others have already made the points that I wanted to make, so I'm just seconding:

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?


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.
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The event says "now Galileo Galilei has promoted it again, in his book Sidereus Nuncius", which was published in 1610. The book with Simplicio, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, was published in 1632, so this event would seem to be set when he got in trouble the first time in 1615, while Paul V was Pope, because of suspicions that he was reinterpreting the Bible to support his idea, not when he got in trouble with Pope Urban VIII because of the Simplicio character appearing to insult Urban and mock the other side of the debate rather than fairly arguing it.
 
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FleetingRain said:
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.



Because then you have to give everyone the "Allowed to Convert = Yes" modifier, I guess.
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I'd be fine with that - there have been times in EU4 where I can't remember if the particular religion I'm playing is able to convert.
 
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Apologies if I missed a comment on this one but I find it a little odd that Diplomatic Subjugation (outside of being enforced by peace treaties) is disabled, especially around game start. There were plenty of Papal Fiefs/Ecclesiastical Vassals around the time of 1337. England, Aragon etc. I would have imagined that the Papal States out of any nation would be the best for subjugation through means other than warfare.

Maybe strict vassalisation isn't the best way to represent this or there's some other mechanic that I'm not aware of though! Figured I'd throw the question out there. Game looks better each week.
 
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ArchangelGabriel said:
The event says "now Galileo Galilei has promoted it again, in his book Sidereus Nuncius", which was published in 1610. The book with Simplicio, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, was published in 1632, so this event would seem to be set when he got in trouble the first time in 1615, while Paul V was Pope, because of suspicions that he was reinterpreting the Bible to support his idea, not when he got in trouble with Pope Urban VIII because of the Simplicio character appearing to insult Urban and mock the other side of the debate rather than fairly arguing it.
Click to expand...
But then the options don't really make sense? He wasn't imprisoned in that first trial, nor was invited to a debate. His theories were declared heretical and he was told not to publish them anymore.
 
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  • Please consider stacking the data on the left without a background and changing the background and model to a portrait shape on the right. The data to stack would be: <country name>, <country icons>, <country flag>, <leader name>, <leader attributes including age sex and crest>. I think this would give a less haphazard look. The picture wouldn't be mostly of a wall. You wouldn't lose chunks to the flag in the corner and the data at the bottom. The leader would be more of the focus of the picture.
  • Can we move away from coloring the attribute icons (gold, silver, bronze) and color the value like every other thing in the game?
Pope.png


  • Should we add Major Reform to the subtitle? or into the title bar some way instead.
  • Change to <Diplomatic Subjugation> <Blocked>
  • Change to <Form Countries> <Blocked>
  • Change to <Ruler Name Language> <Court Language>
    • Is this just the ruler? If not then switch to Character Name?
    • Is this not typical? What is the base?
  • Change to <Reassign Cleric> <Allowed>
    • What is this? First mention of Cleric
  • Change to <Conversion> <Blocked>
  • I understand the location section is probably how it is scripted but it does not flow. Change the two lines to
    • "Capital Location effects:"
Holy%20See.png


  • Looking good.
  • Change to <Move Capital> <Blocked>
  • Swap the position of the footprints (move) and the red X (cannot) on the icon. Drop the Red X if you change it to a positive statement.
French%20Cardinals.png


  • Remove first line and change title bar subtitle to "Policy | Theocratic Leadership". You can add Law to the end of it if you like
  • If the effects of the 'when implemented' section is a null set do not display the section.
  • Is the 'When implemented' effects that occur at the implementation (ie. not on going effects?) Then I think it should change its name to "On Implementation" or "At Implementation". Because right now I feel it is ambiguous as the Modifiers are things that occur when implemented but are separated.
Papacy%20Policy.png


  • Only thing I would change is removing the line about the Age as it is shown on the right side of the title bar
Word%20of%20the%20Lord.png


  • This whole tooltip feels like forcing a round peg into a square hole.
  • Is the first block meant as flavor? Then is should be at the bottom like the other flavor
  • The Eligibility section makes no sense. Is that effect and effect or just a reminder statement?
Papal%20Conclave.png


  • I like the Flavor text style (2nd box) and think it should be used for flavor text in tooltips too. The corner adornments and slightly smaller or less weighted font.
  • What does the picture have to do with the event? I am assuming it is meant to be Rome. I think that a bespoke image that prominently includes the Castel Sant'Angelo would be more fitting. This holds true for most if not all the event images
Castello%20Event.png


  • Move the age icon to the title bar like with Advances
  • Change the classification banner to text and add it to the subtitle "Building Type | Defensive" like is done with unit type | cavalry
  • Put the construction limitations into the empty space created by the above two lines
  • Why so verbose? "Location Benefits" feels better to me than "Gives the following benefits to its Location"
  • Make the goods values appear like they are on the parchment by getting rid their background?
  • Use the same visual for the Production Method as the Requirements for Construction.
Castello.png


Just my two ducat. Sorry for the wall.
 
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