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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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1. They will reappear somewhere, as they are key to how Catholicism works
2. We are abstracting it with the buildings rather than with characters
3. It means the only empire accepted by the Pope is the HRE
4. No, cardinals are tied to the buildings
Perhaps instead of just randomly reappearing somewhere the papacy could become a building based country with and option to convince a catholic nation to give them land somewhere else
 
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The 118th largest city in Europe in 1400. And certainly not a "city" by the game's standards.
"118th" sounds sus as hell? Like there is no way we have that good information from 1400. Even today finding the 118th largest city would be difficult, since there are many different definitions.
 
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"118th" sounds sus as hell? Like there is no way we have that good information from 1400. Even today finding the 118th largest city would be difficult, since there are many different definitions.
That's going by the European urban population 700-2000 dataset. Obviously the information is anything but perfect, but we also don't have anything better than that. It doesn't really matter if Trier was actually 110th or 120th, my point was that it wasn't a particularly large city at the time.
 
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That's because we are here applying a modifier to a default positive condition. The default is to be able to declare wars, while having the modifier (the Yes part) disallows those wars
I believe the simplist solution would be to change the first word in the description from "Cannot" to "Can". It should then read:

"Can Declare Wars on Religious Head without Casus Belli: No"
 
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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:
View attachment 1281815

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.
View attachment 1281816

Another key aspect of Catholicism is that all Catholic countries will belong to the Catholic Church IO:
View attachment 1281817
View attachment 1281818

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.
View attachment 1281819

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:
View attachment 1281820
View attachment 1281821
View attachment 1281822
View attachment 1281823

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:
View attachment 1281826
View attachment 1281827
View attachment 1281828

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.View attachment 1281829

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.

View attachment 1281830

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.
View attachment 1281831
View attachment 1281832

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.
View attachment 1281833

  • 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!
The Excommunication system is perfect also for the HRE in terms of Imperial Ban in which the emperor could request a vote for free or just outlaw someone themselves but that would cost imperial authority.
 
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Gameplay Mechanics > Historical Realism

The player should have the ability to interact with the curia and gain as much influence as they want which reflects the systems current implementation. There is already the opportunity cost of the buildings, and the maintenance costs associated with them. If a player wants to devote their entire country to gaining control of the Curia they should be able. Leaving the decision on how cardinals are appointed completely up to the AI remove all player agency and turns it into a frustrating mess like EU4's system.

Maybe there needs to be a relationship modifier, or some kind of influence meter like diplomats, or maybe there's an increasing bribe cost to the pope per cardinal, but the base system should not be changed to something more frustrating that removes player agency just to make it "historical"
 
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How hard-coded is this? If you've done your utmost to restore Rome and are recognised as having "Restored the World" the papacy shouldn't pop up in Scandinavia just because.
An event/situation for the IO to have a say could be nice?
 
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How hard-coded is this? If you've done your utmost to restore Rome and are recognised as having "Restored the World" the papacy shouldn't pop up in Scandinavia just because.
Honestly if there's a Catholic state in the world, they'd probably prop up their "Roman pope" just to spite you.

So long as there's a state out there acknowledging that the supremacy of the Pope of Rome is greater than that of any other Patriarch, then there will always be a Pope.
 
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There were some countries that were allowed to create their own cardinals but that should be something given to them by the Pope. Even if it is given it should give the country a malus. Maybe like a negative opinion to the Papacy and the clergy? Like less clergy satisfaction, -50 Papal States opinion or something, more unrest. I think France had that and it caused a lot of problems and unrest. If they want to get something done they should probably have a positive relationship with the Pope and maybe the Popes country of origin to get a better way of implementing something they want. If you have a rivalry attitude you basically shouldn’t get anything at all really.
 
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The background the pope is in, looks really good.

A question about the bulls, how do they work? Wouldn't I as a player trt to get as many of them out asap or is there some limit to that?
 
Honestly if there's a Catholic state in the world, they'd probably prop up their "Roman pope" just to spite you.
Exactly Roman Pope. Even during the most divided days of the Western Schism both Popes claimed to be Bishop of Rome which is the claim at hand here. Obviously the Pope and Papacy as a whole should be incredibly resistant to Caesaropapism c.f. the Guelphs and Ghibellines but that asks for treaties and negotiations like those of the Lateran Treaty not gamification and teleportation.
just to spite you.
I detest the Game of Thronesification of medieval and early modern politics.
 
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