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Tinto Talks #59 - 16th of April 2025

Hello and welcome once again to our super secret Project Caesar Tinto Talks. I will be your host this time, where we will be talking about the mechanics of Catholicism and its associated Catholic Church International Organization.

Here’s an overview of the religion itself:
Catholicism Tooltip.png


One thing to highlight here besides all the other effects, is that Catholic countries are not able to tax their clergy at all by default, although there may be other things modifying this on top of it. However, the clergy won’t necessarily swim in money, as that has to be instead paid to the Papacy directly in the form of a tithe.
Tithe.png


Another key aspect of Catholicism is that all Catholic countries will belong to the Catholic Church IO:
Catholic Church Map.png

Catholic Church IO pannel.png


You can see here that there are quite many countries belonging to it (the total list is expandable and scrollable), with some of them having some special statuses. For Bishopric and Military Order these are self-explanatory, but the Curia and Cardinals need some more information.

The decisions concerning the Catholic Church are taken by the Curia, which is composed of Cardinals. In Project Caesar, Cardinals are represented by a special building, called Cardinal Seat, available to be built by Catholic countries higher than county rank in any location where they already own a large religious building. Each Cardinal Seat will grant its owner country a Cardinal, which the country can use to influence the decisions of the Curia (more on that later). Countries can have more than one Cardinal Seat and thus more than one Cardinal, that’s why in the panel you can see that there’s 7 countries in the Curia but a total of 16 Cardinals among them.
Cardinal Seat.png


Another aspect of the Catholic Church IO is its doctrines, represented by a set of laws. These laws are not something that’s easily changed, as it’s what defines the core values of Catholicism, but some important events will be able to shape them, like for example the Council of Trent (more on that in future Tinto Talks). Here are some of these laws effects:
Papal Authority.png

Purchase of Indulgence.png

Marriage of Priests.png

Persecution of Witchcraft.png


Next to the Doctrines, we have the Papal Bulls. These are actions that any Catholic country can choose to propose, but only those in the Curia can vote on whether to pass them or refuse them. Here are the possible bulls with some examples:
Papal Bulls.png

Illius Qui Se Pro Divini.png

In Coena Domini.png


When voting on a Papal Bull, the interface changes slightly to show how many cardinals support each option. It goes without saying that all the cardinals that a country has will be assigned to vote for the same option, so the amount of cardinals a country has is effectively its amount of votes.
Papal Bulls Vote.png


Besides the Papal Bulls, there’s also the action of Excommunication, available to all countries of the Curia, that if approved, will get the excommunicated country some very nasty modifiers and allow for a special casus belli.

Excommunication Effects.png


The Catholic Church also has some extra aspects in the form of Saints and Holy Sites. Saints are characters of a country that have been elevated to sainthood. A country can choose to canonize any of its previous rulers, and they will get benefits depending on the abilities of such character. Holy Sites are special locations to the Catholic faith, giving some extra income to their owner due to the affluence of faithful in them.
Saints.png

Holy Sites.png


Outside the Catholic Church per se and instead in the main religion panel, there are some extra religious actions available to certain countries, besides the already mentioned option to canonize a character.
Religious Actions.png


  • Demand Apostolic Tax is an action exclusive to the Papacy, in which they will demand extra payment from those countries with the Apostolic Tax privilege enabled.
  • Request Aid is an action exclusive to the military orders, in which they can ask to petition support to the Pope for their infrastructure, military, or coffers.
  • Placitum Regium is an action available to kingdoms or empires that gives them some extra crown power at the expense of relations with the Papacy.

One last thing to mention here is that, as you can see, Catholicism also has Reform Desire. However, in contrast to some other of our titles that also present this value, here it is not a ticking clock for the Reformation, but instead something that will come into play in the Council of Trent. As such, you will have to wait a bit for a further explanation on it.

And that is all for today, next week we will resolve these cliffhangers by taking a further look at what Catholicism has in store after the start of the game, including the situations of the Western Schism, Reformation, and the Council of Trent. On the other hand, in this week’s Tinto Flavor we will go directly to the head of Catholicism by taking a look at the flavor content for the Papal States. Also, remember that this week’s Tinto Flavour will be on Thursday, as this week is Good Friday and the Papal States would be too busy to attend their own Tinto Flavor then (oh, and it’s also a holiday).

See you next time!
 
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Will dioceses be featured in any way to represent the physical realm of church influence?
They already exist somewhat though land-based Bishopric countries, so I wonder if dioceses could be building-based countries?
If yes, the Land-based Bishoprics might also own churches in other nations, representing their jurisdiction?

An example would be the diocese of Tournai, which had the entirety of Flanders under its jurisdiction, even though it would classify as an independent nation.

Interactive map of all European Dioceses here:
https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/pt668dz7698
 
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Regarding Saints, are they only limited to canonizing previous rulers or can catholic countries canonize non-ruler characters?
Are there universal saints? For example, Saint Paul, Mary etc. And do they give bonuses?
Would be interesting if certain countries had scripted, country-specific saints. For example, papal states could have St. Peter, castile could have St. James, Venice could have St. Mark etc, each one giving unique bonuses.
 
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I'm tired of all this microdosing Project Caesar week by week, I need an entire gallons-worth of Project Caesar in my veins right now.
 
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A country can choose to canonize any of its previous rulers, and they will get benefits depending on the abilities of such character.

What is the process/cost for canonizing a previous ruler? From a "meta" standpoint it seems like if you aren't canonizing every single ruler that dies while you're catholic you are actively putting yourself at a disadvantage. I'm hoping that this keeps in line with the previously stated opinion of wanting to avoid stacking modifiers.
 
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Also, will the Papal States able to nominate more cardinals in addition to those "created" by countries? So to simulate curia cardinals, while nose in countries are the residential cardinals
 
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Could be an option, but there's still a double negative. "Disallowed X Yes" is not that much different than "Cannot do X Yes". But as I said in another comment, we will see how we can improve the readability of those.
I think they meant changing it to "Doing X: Disallowed"

By the way, what's the guidleine on whether an IO will be in Tinto Talks or Tinto Flavor? The HRE and Catholic Church have been in the former while the Ilkhanate was in the latter.
 
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The decisions concerning the Catholic Church are taken by the Curia, which is composed of Cardinals. In Project Caesar, Cardinals are represented by a special building, called Cardinal Seat, available to be built by Catholic countries higher than county rank in any location where they already own a large religious building. Each Cardinal Seat will grant its owner country a Cardinal, which the country can use to influence the decisions of the Curia (more on that later). Countries can have more than one Cardinal Seat and thus more than one Cardinal, that’s why in the panel you can see that there’s 7 countries in the Curia but a total of 16 Cardinals among them.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding the wording here, but surely only the pope should be able to appoint cardinals, not just any country with enough resources to build a seat? Powerful countries should be able to influence the appointment of cardinals, but not just appoint them, themselves.

This allows for more interesting gameplay, too, as the opening of a space for a cardinal could mean a 'bidding war' between the large Catholic powers as they try to get a foot in the door.

The Catholic Church also has some extra aspects in the form of Saints and Holy Sites. Saints are characters of a country that have been elevated to sainthood. A country can choose to canonize any of its previous rulers, and they will get benefits depending on the abilities of such character. Holy Sites are special locations to the Catholic faith, giving some extra income to their owner due to the affluence of faithful in them.
A similar issue to the one above, by this point in history canonization was exclusively a right afforded to the Vatican. Countries might be able to promote the canonization of a past ruler to the pope, but shouldn't be able to canonize on their own authority.

1744809996470.png


One thing to highlight here besides all the other effects, is that Catholic countries are not able to tax their clergy at all by default, although there may be other things modifying this on top of it. However, the clergy won’t necessarily swim in money, as that has to be instead paid to the Papacy directly in the form of a tithe.
Perhaps this is just the way I read this modifier, but the "Maximum tax for Clergy Estate -100.00%" modifier sounds as though it means the clergy will not receive tax, when I believe it should be "Maximum tax from/on Clergy Estate -100.00%". At least if I'm understanding this correctly.
 
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What prevent me of just voting every bull bonuses for me and negative for others if I have enough votes?
Do they have a cost or different acceptance modifiers from ai for each bull?
There's a cost for proposing them, and also a cost if they are rejected. And the effects apply to the religion as a whole.
 
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Is there any benefit to *starting* an election disagreeing with a particular Bull? The two shown have seemingly no drawback. If there’s an opportunity cost such as in EU4 with only one Bull active at a time, why would you start a disagreement on one you don’t want instead of starting an agreement on the one you do?
 
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What about countries with large Roman Catholic population but who are ruled by a heathen/heretic... do their tithes not end up reaching the Papal treasury? I'm thinking Hungary under the Ottomans, for example.
 
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