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Tinto Talks #60 - 23rd of April 2025

Hello, and welcome to another Tinto Talks, the happy Sant Jordi San Jorge Saint George’s Day Castile and León Day Wednesday where we talk about our entirely super-top-secret game with the codename Project Caesar.

This week, we will be talking about a trending topic: What happens if two (or more) Popes are elected in a Papal Conclave? What makes a man go neutral join the Dark Side nail Ninety-five Theses against indulgences on a church in Wittenberg? How does a general council of the Catholic Church react to this?

Or, in other words, we will be talking today about three historical Situations present in our game: the Western Schism, the Reformation, and the Council of Trent.



The Western Schism

When a Pope dies, some processes need to be started, leaning towards the most important one, the Papal Conclave, which will determine the election of a new Pope:

Papal Death.jpg

Papal Conclave.png

The Pope has died! As shown last week, the special Papal Heir Selection determines that a regency will start, with a clergyman becoming the Head of the Papal Conclave.

If it’s the year 1360 or later, a Schism might strike the Catholic Church, making for a divided election:

Western Schism1.jpg

The Western Schism may be managed in this panel:

Western Schism3.jpg

Where you might see a few things:
  • The contenders - the Papal States (the Pope residing either in Avignon or in Rome) on one side, and the country backing the second Pope on the other.
  • The support gathered by each Pope (which will slowly tick up, until one of them reaches 100% support).
  • The Reform Desire (more on this later).
  • The Curial countries that support each candidate.
  • The available actions.

This is the starting point of the Vote Progress hoverable tooltip (in the panel above, you see the numbers after some months/years have passed):
Vote Progress.jpg

The ‘Unity of Faith’ action:
Unity of Faith.jpg

And this is what happens because of the Curia Actions of the Catholic Church IO being blocked:
Blocked Papal Bulls.jpg

Finally, this is the situation map mode, showing the countries supporting each side:

Papal Contenders.jpg

The French candidate has more support than the current candidate, while Castile is sitting on the fence of the split election.

There will be some possible actions to gather support for each candidate, and some events may trigger randomly during the situation. And after a while, one of the candidates will gather enough support to reunite the Catholic Church again:

Catholic Church United Again.jpg

However, there are more perils for the Catholic Church…



The Reformation

After the year 1510, a certain Augustinian monk will protest against the uses of the Church, starting the Reformation:

The Lutheran Reformation.jpg

Reformation.jpg

The birthplace of the Reformation will be semi-dynamic, there are some weights in place, so it will usually trigger in a different place of the Catholic Christendom. In this case, Martin Luther was serving his duty in Perugia, Italy.

Lutheranism.jpg

The doctrine that a proper Catholic should follow!

This is the starting panel of the situation:
Reformation Panel.jpg

The elements that you can see are:
  • The Lutheran and Catholic pops at each moment.
  • The main active reformers (since all of them are characters that may spawn by event).
  • The Lutheran Preachers, which is a building that may spawn and spread throughout Catholic countries:
Lutheran Preachers.jpg

This might be a situation a year or so after the Reformation starts:
Zwingli.jpg

Ignore the weird graphical bug that we just found while writing this TT, each character has its own different portrait.

Reformation map mode.jpg

A second reformer, Zwingli, appeared in Switzerland, making the Free City of Bern a Lutheran bastion, and also 7 Lutheran Preachers buildings appeared. In the map mode, you can see the countries already converted to Lutheranism, the locations that already have Lutheran pops, and also other Protestant confessions present, such as some Hussites in Bohemia. Ignore the red borders, BTW; some countries decided that the start of the Reformation was a good moment to declare war on me, the Papal States, while preparing the screenshots for this Tinto Talks (traitors and heretics, they are!).

The Reformation may last for a while, because these are its ending triggers:

End Requirements.jpg

Which leads us to the third and final Situation for today:



The Council of Trent

If the Reformation is still active, and the Reform Desire (the modifier I mentioned in the Western Schism situation) is over 50%, the Council of Trent will trigger:

Council of Trent1.jpg

Council of Trent2.jpg

Council of Trent3.jpg

The main point of the Council of Trent is to debate, and eventually approve, some new Laws for the Catholic Church IO; When those Laws are voted and passed, it will end the Council:

Council of Trent4.jpg

Council of Trent5.jpg

And these are some examples of the Laws that are available for voting, each one having different policies that can be set:
Indulgences.jpg

Papal Authority.jpg

Veneration of Saints.jpg

Except for the Papal Authority doctrine, all the policies have proper Latin names, as they should be!


And that’s all for today! We hope that you enjoyed it and that your favourite cardinal becomes Pope. Next week, we will be taking a look at the final part of the Western Christian religious puzzle: the mechanics for the different Protestant confessions, and another situation, the War of Religion. And don’t forget that this Friday we will post the Tinto Flavour with the content for the Military Orders of the Teutonic & Livonian Orders and the Knights Hospitallers. Cheers!
 
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Is 'Show Unity of Faith' the only action available, or do others unlock/show up when the sides gain more support? What does the modifier do?

Also, I know this is a result of how you coded the event text system, but 'Pope of The Papal States' sounds extremely weird. Any chance you can do anything about it?
 
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Is it possible to stop the reforms at the Council of Trent by passing laws and convincing the reformers to return to Catholicism, or is it completely inevitable?
 
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Honestly the western schism seems to lack much gameplay involvement.

Historically, siding with one or the other pope was a political decision with significant ramifications.

Also, the fact that France didn't get to monopolize the papacy had significant ramifications on the future of the church, whereas here no consequence of either outcome seems to be mentioned.

Can France subjugate the pope is the schism is mended under a French controlled pope? Do countries selecting different pipes have CBs on one another? And why is the selection restricted to countries with cardinals? Does the outcome influence the reformation desire?
 
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Also, if the Hussites win the Hussite Wars and become entrenched, how do they interplay with the Reformation? In EU4 they were treated a bit like Protestants lite, with no direct option to contend the HRE, an event that outright allowed them to flip Lutheran once the Reformation has started, etc. Can they also start spreading with preachers like the Lutherans? Or do they have any impact on the process?
 
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It's not really accurate for the regency in the Papal States to be called "Papal Conclave", since that's just the means of selecting the successor, not the interregnum government. Really, the regent should have the title of Camerarius/Camerlengo, "Chamberlain", since that's the official of the Papal household who was responsible for the governance of the Church during an interregnum (that authority was only transferred to the College of Cardinals in 1996) - as is going on right now, with Camerlengo Cardinal Kevin Farrell acting as the sovereign of Vatican City.
 
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Could the reformation be prevented? If it doesnt it look like this situation goes contrary to the concept of situations as a whole. If even unlikely situations like the prevention of the fall of Yuan could be done, i imagine the reformation would work the same.

If the reformation happens, could both sides reconcile? Like it was possible for some of the "protestant" faiths like the hussites.
 
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Honestly the western schism seems to lack much gameplay involvement.

Historically, siding with one or the other pope was a political decision with significant ramifications.

Also, the fact that France didn't get to monopolize the papacy had significant ramifications on the future of the church, whereas here no consequence of either outcome seems to be mentioned.

Can France subjugate the pope is the schism is mended under a French controlled pope? Do countries selecting different pipes have CBs on one another? And why is the selection restricted to countries with cardinals? Does the outcome influence the reformation desire?
I think allowing other countries to pick a side may make it more interesting.

Then both sides would be trying to sway Countries over like they did historically.
 
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We aren't considering a permanent division of the Catholic Church, because it would be the equivalent of the Great Schism, with two diverging Catholic religions, with several possible ramifications, that would also greatly impact the situations and content for the Age of Reformation. And, as we've already mentioned, we're right now mostly focusing on delivering the best possible historical content, without derailing too much into the alt-historical one.
Is it completely of the table or just out of scope for the main release of the Super Secret Game?
 
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I feel like the Lutheran reformation should alway spawn in Germany or at least not in southern Europe, can you make a bunch of rules for that, including one that makes it spwan in Wittenberg?
I support making Luther very likely to spawn in a bishopric tag, which would also make him very likely to appear in the HRE.
(Or maybe also in a location bordering a powerful bishopric, so it's likely to spawn near the electors)
 
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Since the Lutheran Preachers building just increases the conversion rate of locations, what actually makes pops convert to Lutheranism? Do they function similar to Centers of Reformation did in EU4, if so, are they limited in number, or is there some other system behind conversions?
 
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We aren't considering a permanent division of the Catholic Church, because it would be the equivalent of the Great Schism, with two diverging Catholic religions, with several possible ramifications, that would also greatly impact the situations and content for the Age of Reformation. And, as we've already mentioned, we're right now mostly focusing on delivering the best possible historical content, without derailing too much into the alt-historical one.
Can’t wait for the Schism DLC :p
 
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Can the Western Schism result in a permanent split in the Catholic Chruch?

With a Avignon Chruch IO and a Rome Church IO for example?
"The support gathered by each Pope (which will slowly tick down, until one of them reaches 100% support)."
"There will be some possible actions to gather support for each candidate, and some events may trigger randomly during the situation. And after a while, one of the candidates will gather enough support to reunite the Catholic Church again"

Based on that, I think permanent split isn't a possible outcome.
 
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Regarding the western schism situation, what are the consequences of the french getting control over the papacy ? Is it only a "this pope changes", or does it have more ramification ? Also, is the 3rd antipope candidate possible to unlock through events ? Basically what are the ways for this situation to end, and what would be their consequences ?

(probably the answer will be "some things must still be discovered when game is launched", but any spill of infomation / reassurance that it's not a simple "cardinal votes and pope is ultimately elected" would reassure me)
 
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What if I play as the Pope and decide to move the capital back to Rome sooner than how historically happened, will it affect the schism? What if don't move it back to Rome?
 
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