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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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Cardinals being represented by buildings is just a completely baffling design choice. It's not good design, it's not good flavor, it's not good anything. I do not for the life of me understand why paradox is apparently allergic to doing a good job at representing Catholicism in their games.
 
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Hello, so I loved the Dev diary but I would like to suggest some corrections on two issues.

The issues are that Cardinals are picked by the Pope and not the secular rulers and so having them build cardinal seats isn't really accurate, if there is a system in place to account for that which I have missed or hasn't been shared then fair enough just a thought. I currently haven't thought of a solution to the current system you have in place other then maybe bribing Popes which I will get into in the next issue.

The main issue though is that the Catholic Church doesn't allow the buying and selling of Indulgences as its the sin of simony, I would recommend that you make a system of spiritual and liturgical abuses that can cause the Reformation or other heresies depending on the abuse, ideally add in the other rites and a schism possibility from the same issues, maybe have countries bribing Popes and creating anti Popes as a abuse that can lead to heresy and schism.

Just a thought and a hopefully feasible solution, but all I hope for is changing the buying and selling indulgences to be changed to reflect church teaching and history. Thank you for reading this any and everyone.

I attempted to post some sources but they were reported as spam but I would recommend going to Wikipedia as it gives pretty accurate information in regards to the two issues.
 
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Bit late here. But feel like the empire restriction should be loosened a bit. Lets say you could petition the pope or curia in some way to get your nation recognized as an empire if you meet certain requirements. I feel like this fits a bit better than the hard limit I am seeing so far.
 
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Honestly it should be possible to become an Empire, but with a lot of pain. For example there could be a system to "claim the Imperial heritage" with a HUGE cost, a lot of conditions, and which would require to be the first Catholic power BY FAR ( maybe being 25% or even 50% more powerful than any other Catholic country, a bit like a hegemon ), including all the HRE countries combined. And after that you would still need to have good relations and influence with the Pope to be crowned Emperor ( or you could have a casus belli against the Pope to oblige him to crown yourself, a bit like Napoleon did ), and once Emperor you should also have a casus belli that allows you to dismantle the HRE and become the only real Empire accepted, it could be a really interesting endgame goal in Europe.
 
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There are currently no requirements, as we decided to abstract the process. Countries didn't always follow the papal procedures before they started venerating their past rulers as saints, and saints are not exclusive to Catholicism (and thus tied to the Pope) anyway.
Maybe have two types of canonizations called beatification and canonization.
 
I know I'm late to this party, but I wanted to ask

Will there be events regarding France's relationship with the pope?

From the idea of "Gallicanism" (basically a French movement similar to Anglicanism that sought to modify the Catholic religion to suit French needs in the 1600s) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallicanism

To the Cult of Reason and the Cult of the Supreme Being before Napoleon scrapped it all. Also brings to question, are we capable of changing our state religion?

I look forward to all these awesome mechanics you guys have shown thus far either way!
I think one of the Catholic doctrines ends up being Gallicanism or something?
 
Do cardinal seats really improve the literacy of everyone in the province (including Jews, Muslims and Protestants)? Can we limit the bonus to Catholics or Christians only?

All cardinals will depend on the Cardinal Seat building, but he Papacy has some extra too.
Is there a way to simulate the large number of Italian Cardinals? More than their population or wealth would indicate? Special Italian versions of that building that are cheaper? Italian culture discounts on that type of building?

honestly the restriction should be that no catholic country get to become an empire as long as the HRE stands
Certainly the HRE was widely acknowledged as superior to the other kings of Europe. However it's not clear to me why the European nomenclature around empires would give the Incan Empire or Ethiopian Empire some bonus that Kingdom of Portugal didn't get.
 
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I could not find in search maybe missed it, but are cardinal seats permanent till the end of game? If yes this is probably the worst thing about cardinals.
 
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I noticed that under current rules, Catholic countries will be deprived of the opportunity to unify cultures.

In order to unify a culture, you need to have an “empire” tier country:

If you are an Empire, and the Dominant Country of your primary culture, the Unify Culture Group cabinet action can be used on a culture group belonging to your primary culture that has no other countries with that culture group. Upon completion, your primary culture will change to a brand new culture. Pops in your country of the same culture group and language will also change to this culture. This can only be done once.

Sadly Catholic religion, as a rule, blocks the possibility of non-HRE empires (papal ban on empires).

Which means that prime examples of cultures that have been unified in the game`s timeframe in Europe (Polish, French maybe if we don`t include occitan culture) will have no place in the game itself, unless Poland or France ahistorically change their religion and become empires.

I propose in this case to omit the condition that only “empires” can unify cultures or make special case for catholic countries, because they will be discriminated against in terms of these mechanics (while Catholic religion was rather a unifying factor for culture).
 
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I noticed that under current rules, Catholic countries will be deprived of the opportunity to unify cultures.

In order to unify a culture, you need to have an “empire” tier country:



Sadly Catholic religion, as a rule, blocks the possibility of non-HRE empires (papal ban on empires).

Which means that prime examples of cultures that have been unified in the game`s timeframe in Europe (Polish, French maybe if we don`t include occitan culture) will have no place in the game itself, unless Poland or France ahistorically change their religion and become empires.

I propose in this case to omit the condition that only “empires” can unify cultures or make special case for catholic countries, because they will be discriminated against in terms of these mechanics (while Catholic religion was rather a unifying factor for culture).
I'm really unsure about that, I would rather say, the ban should be temporary meaning: there should be the possibility to get ride of the ban with enough time, or otherwise bring the pope to let you become an empire, maybe if you bribe him enough offer a long time
 
I'm really unsure about that, I would rather say, the ban should be temporary meaning: there should be the possibility to get ride of the ban with enough time, or otherwise bring the pope to let you become an empire, maybe if you bribe him enough offer a long time
Maybe the condition on cultural unification to "be an empire" should be changed to "be an empire or fulfill the (generic) conditions to become one".
 
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It says that the catholic church has to go through a major reform. Is it possible to reform the church itself in such a way that the protestant reformation does not happen? It would be great if it could scale in some way - from no protestant reformation to minor trials to the historic outcome to even a continental overhaul.

My logic is that the catholic church was undergoing some changes throughout history and perhaps it could have avoided the biggest criticism of the protestant reformation if it worked on some of its flaws more. The council of Trent was mentioned and the Great Western Schism as well. In the 13th century, there were new religious orders - Dominican Order and Franciscans. Later within the timeframe of this game, we should get Jesuits (Society of Jesus).

I just find it a bit of shame that usually catholics are portraied as conservative force against any reform and that the protestant reformation is inevitable just because it happened historically. I would like to be able to influence the church in some way - be it as Papal states or one of the other catholic lands (especially if it is a bigger player - France, Castille, England...) in such a way that reforms would happen earlier so that the protestant reformation might not. Because while I understand that the catholics would most likely not reform as much as all the different branches of protestantism, I think that the sparks which lighted the fires of the reformation could have been snuffed out in time.
 
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Can one "copy" the Avignon papacy if they control most Cardinals and have a firm grip on the church? Like, can you "force" the papacy to move from Rome to your own lands, just by the sheer power of religious influence?
 
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