Tinto Talks #13 - 22nd of May 2024

[Pavía]

What religions are the light blue in the north east corner of the map and the blue in europe (besides the 'h' at catholic)?

Some Bohemian Jewish minorities, but because of the zoom level, they look like an entire country, lol.

 

[Pavía]

Is there a sort of "Avegnion Catholicism"? since the Western shism could have ended up splitting the Church

We will talk about the Western Schism in a future DD.

 

[Pavía]

I am very, very disappointed if the Islamic faiths remain the homogenous blobs they are in EU4 and on the attached map. There is a wealth of local movements that could be represented, and it's particularly bad for "Shia" as in reality the "Shi'ite sects" can vary radically in theology and doctrine; they are defined primarily by their allegiance to a specific line of Imams; a Nizari and an Imami have significant differences and simply would not see the other as "of the same faith"; they would see each-other as 'other' as how they would see a Sunni.

They won't be as much homogenous in a few weeks.

 

[Pavía]

I wish there would be a bit more meat on the bones of these Tinto talks, e.g. in this one you could have gone into the mechanics for the different religions rather than saving those for later dev diaries.

We think it's a good idea to present a general view of the religions, gather early feedback, work to finish and polish them, and then present the full features of each and discuss them in future DDs.

 

[Pavía]

Shamanist in but no jains or buddhists in India?

There are Jains, Mahayana, and Theravada Buddhists in India.

 

[Pavía]

Eastern religion group? Does that mean that the various Chinese belief systems (because Daoism and Confucianism are not exactly religions) are grouped together with Shinto? I am especially curious how Confucianism will be represented. It was always weird to me that Christianity and Islam where differentiated whereas Confucianism was just one blob.

When I was writing my BA thesis, I learned that there are at least three major schools in Confucianism, and the discussion somewhat revolves around the role of Confucius. There are two schools of Han Confucianism, the New Text and Old Text. Old Text scholarship, which was forged during Wang Mang's reign, would stress that Confucious was just a chronologist or historian. In contast, the more ancient New Text scholarship (yes, confusing terminology) of the Early Han would depict Confucious almost like a messiah and stress supernatural elements in their interpretation of the Spring and Autumn Annals. In Neo-Confucianism (~ mid 9th century), however, Mengzi was somewhat elevated and the importance of the Spring and Autumn Annals (and thus Confucius) reduced.

This debate culminated in Kang Youwei's Hundred Days' Reform of 1898 which, as we all know, failed. Michael Nylan's work on the Five "Confucian" Classics was very informative about this topic.

Is there any chance that these three major schools are somehow represented?

Yes, they're grouped together with Buddhism and Shinto.

 

[Pavía]

Is Confucianism a religion like its in EU4 or is it something else?

Something else.

 

[Pavía]

The problem with declaring China to be Buddhist is that it's exclusive. Because all pops can only have 1 religion, this means every single pop is a Buddhist. That's just silly, what of all the traditional practices, cults etc. That are not Buddhist? What of Chinese clergy. Will every clergyman in china be a monk? Seems very limiting historically speaking.

I really hope this stance is reconsidered because it's just not accurate IMO. There should be a Chinese religion that is merely very friendly to Buddhists.

Representing the Chinese 'systems of beliefs' is difficult and complex, indeed, and I think that it wouldn't be possible to have an entirely accurate depiction of them, because of this complexity. However, we're trying to depict them in the best possible way to make it work with the different game systems.

 

[Pavía]

Only somewhat relevant, but still wanna ask it:
Are we gonna see a return of I:R's amazing holy site and relics system?

There are religious holy sites.

 

[Pavía]

That should probably be reversed. Historically, "Shinto" never really existed in its modern context before the era of Kokugaku scholarship in the Edo Period. Before that, Shinto as a concept was not a thing anyone would have recognized. Kami Worship was varied from place to place. Village to village even, it was highly decentralized outside of the Imperial Cult. Buddhism was dominant in Japan until after World War 2. Shinto Shrines were inside of Buddhist temples most of the time, and as well Buddhist sects and Monasteries were landholding elites with levy armies of their own and contributed heavily to the power politics of Japan. For as many powerful Shugo, Clans, and other various forms of Warlords as there were there were just as many Temples and Sects that held wide swathes of land themselves.

Please reconsider this. I believe the best way to handle it would to have Mahayana be the dominant religion in Japan with "Kami Worship" as a minority faith. That would be the most historically authentic. Shinto is just a fantasy faith in this time period, even as an umbrella term for Kami Worship, Kami Worship was still less influential than Buddhism. Buddhism was hugely connected to politics in Japan, Kami Worship was not after Buddhism took over.

I really want to see a Japan that has the landholding Buddhist sects represented. I'd love to see a map tag that can spawn for Ishiyama Honganji for example or other such regional powerholding Temples. Even an Osaka tag if possible as a spawnable republic vassal.

Yeah, Shintoism is another complex issue to tackle, as the Japanese population was pretty much syncretic, mixing various beliefs and rites. We think that our current solution, which we'll present in detail in a future DD, is a good one to represent it, and we'll try to make it as flexible as possible. In any case, Shinto will undoubtedly be inside the Buddhist umbrella in one way or another.

 

[Pavía]

So if the catholic church is an international organisation what will its relationship be with the Papapl state? Will the pope always be in control of it?

The Pope is always the leader of the Catholic Church.

 

[Pavía]

Knowing that it is a work in progress can we have a list of the religions currently in the Andean group?

Currently only Inti.

 

[Pavía]

will it affect something like aggressive expansions (or similar restrictive mechanics)? Would it not create a problem of nations not caring about each other because they don't share culture and religion like in eu4?

There will be different mechanics affected by the cultural and religious affinities and differences among countries.

 

[Pavía]

Regarding the religious conversion and/or tolerance, will we have some sort of flavor decisions or decrees that can affect said conversion or tolerance? Like the Alhambra decree or the Statute of Kalisz?

There will be different actions available that will affect either conversion or tolerance, yes.

 

[Pavía]

"one" of our content designers? You mean you have a single unlucky lad who has a summer to dig up obscure sources about the religous makeup of everything from Morocco to Samarkand?

The only person who has reacted with a 'Respectfully Disagree' to my reply, yes.

 

[Pavía]

I thought you would divide Hinduism like the CK3 team did. Not against it, just curious. We see yellow and blue spots in India too. Yellow I imagine is Jain, but what is blue? Tamil religion? Islam (would be weird in those areas)?

Red dots in northern Russia are that weird heretic religion you mentioned, strigolnichestvo, right?

I get that many areas are impossible to truly convey in terms of religion, as we know close to nothing, but I think the Western Africa region is pretty documented, maybe you could add some particular pagan religions there, like in North America.

Anyway, really excited for it.

We are portraying the internal sub-divisions of Hinduism, although in a different way than CK3. The blue dots in south-western India are Sunni pops; there are also other minorities, such as Nestorians, present there.

 

[Pavía]

All of this is really cool. I like to see a much more diverse world (especially considering that the Animist blob is just a massive placeholder). Just a few questions, though:
1. I see 3-4 religions in modern-day Mexico, which is pretty cool, but are they part of the Pagan religious group or, just like the Andean religions, of another group entirely?
2. About the (very much WIP, as I can see) Andean group: considering that it is a whole group, does that mean that we will actually see differences between the faiths of various people of the area (the religion of the chimu, for instance, was somewhat different from that of the Incans)?
3. Will most religions get their unique mechanics and quirks, or will it be like in EU4 where some religions share the same mechanic (like Coptic and Zoroastrian share the holy site mechanic, of Alcheringa, Fetishist, Hindu and Norse all share the same cult/personal deity thing with slight variations between them)
4. You have mentioned "organized religions", does that mean that the whole reform religion to do basically anything other than existing of Native American religions will be back, or is it there just to group many religions from many different religion groups, or something else entirely?
5. About relations between different religions: will they be completely static or will there be events that may change that, just like muslim religious schools in EU4?

Last, as already pointed out in a comment:

Nāhuatl is a name that refers to multiple Uto-Aztecan languages (because there are more than 20 different varieties of Nāhuatl if i remember correctly), with Nāhuatl being the one we usually think about, other than the official language of the Aztec Empire (the word nāhautl itself means "clear-sounding", which has little to do with religion), and Inti is just a god of various Andean religions that in many faiths of the area is important, but not the most important (sometimes even less important than the moon goddess). So it would be better to rename those to something different, and I like the names proposed in the comment (so Nahuatl -> Tēōtl(-ism?) and Inti -> Huaca/Wak'a(-ism?)). The latter might not be a problem if there are more religions with different main gods though.

1. Nahuatl, Mesoamerican, Mayan religions are present in Mesoamerica, apart from Animists.
2. Currently only Inti religion.
3. There will be 'shared religious features' (e.g. holy sites), and there will be 'unique religious features' (e.g. the Catholic Curia).
4. It's an informal concept I used, not a game concept.
5. There will be room to have some relation changes, but others will be fixed.
6. Noted the alternative terms that can be used for Nahuatl and Inti religions.

 

[Pavía]

Looking at the map further with the sea corridors. I so many questions which is not the place dev diary place to ask for. When will there be Tinto Talks for that topic?

Yes.

 

[Pavía]

It will be possible to change state religion as in the CKs or like the previous EUs changes allowed are mostly from Catholic to Protestant/Reformed and from "native religions" to "organized ones"?

It will be possible to change the state religion, yes.

 

[Pavía]

Does that hint at a possible “customize your religion” feature, as in CK3, or is it rather a replay of the aspects of faith of EUIV?

I think religions should be customizable in the long run, but it shouldn’t be a walk in the park as it is in CK3. You should have to garner support for your reforms and if you don’t have enough, it should create dramatic splits difficult to mend.

The system works differently from CK3 and EUIV. And it's not a 'customize your religion' one in general terms, although some religions will have some available actions that will make them more dynamic than others.