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Tinto Talks #61 - 30th of April 2025

Hello, and welcome to another Tinto Talks, the happy Wednesdays where we talk about our entirely super-top-secret game with the codename Project Caesar.

This week, we will examine the mechanics of Protestant religions and the final situation involving all Western Christian confessions, the War of Religions.

First is first, we differentiate the 3 main Protestant religions: Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Anglicanism. All the different branches of Protestantism, more or less strictly covered under these wide denominations, are later represented through Church Aspects, a mechanism we’ll describe now. The underlying system here is for every player to be able to customize their own Protestant Church. As an example, the early Anglican Church funded by Henry VIII was very different from the Anglican Church that developed in times of James I, and the further division that then happened with the Puritans; we aim to portray dynamically these theological aspects with Church Aspects, therefore.

Let’s take a look at a Lutheran country first:

Early Reformation.jpg
I’m using the same save as last week’s TT. The Reformation was born in Perugia, and after a couple of years, it has already spread to some countries, of which Denmark is the biggest.

Here is the overview of Lutheranism and its religious panel:
Lutheranism tooltip.jpg

Lutheranism panel.jpg

Similarly to Catholicism, and other religions, it also uses Religious Influence as a currency:
Religious Influence.jpg

This currency is used to add or change Religious Aspects to your Church, and it also allows us to perform Religious Actions (of which we can’t currently perform any, as we don’t fulfill any of their triggers).

Let’s take a look now at the Religious Aspects, which define each Protestant Church:
Religious Aspect.jpg

There are plenty of Aspects, that can be either shared between the different Protestant religions, or be unique to them. This is the list of all the aspects available to Lutheran churches:
Religious Aspect2.jpg

Religious Aspect3.jpg

Religious Aspect4.jpg

Religious Aspect5.jpg

And this is what it looks like when you decide to pick one of them:
Translated Bibles.jpg

The base number of Religious Aspects that define each Church is 3, although this is subject to review, as usual. And it is possible to have entirely different and unique aspects per religion, since it’s a scriptable/moddable feature. Furthermore, Religious Aspects can have an impact on the relations a country has with others who use Religious Aspects. Since the aspects are partially shared between the faiths, this could lead to unlikely friendships… and hostilities.

Let’s now move on to the next religion, Calvinism, which is quite similar in structure to Lutheranism. It also spawns during the Reformation situation, it also has Calvinist Preachers that spread it, and it also uses Religious Aspects and Actions:
Calvinist Preachers.png

Calvinism tooltip.jpg

Calvinist panel.jpg

Calvin.jpg

Fun fact, Calvin has ended up being the Bishop (=ruler) of Basel in our save game!

Finally, we have Anglicanism. This Protestant religion doesn’t trigger through the situation, but as an event for England that may trigger after the Reformation is active:
Act of Supremacy.jpg

Ignore the broken loc, it appears like that because I used a console command to trigger it.

If we decided to Take command of the Church, a new religion will be created:
Take command of the Church.jpg

Anglicanism2.jpg

This is its overview and panel; Anglicanism starts with some more Religious Actions available:
Anglicanism.jpg

Anglican Religious Actions.jpg

Last, but not least, we have a couple of religions that also share the religious aspects, but are not necessarily tied to the Reformation situation. This includes Lollardy and Hussitism, which will be created together with their corresponding reformer, and the earlier catholic heresies of Bogomilism, Catharism, Paulicianism, and Waldensian.

The last feature we’re going to take a look at today is another situation, the War of Religions. This is the ending to all the narratives related to the Catholic and Protestant Churches, a fight for the religious supremacy over Europe, centered over the Holy Roman Empire, with the Thirty Years' War as inspiration:
War of Religion1.jpg

War of Religion2.jpg

War of Religion3.jpg

Two International Organizations will be created, the Protestant Union and the Catholic League:
Protestant Union.jpg

Catholic League.jpg

And this is the panel for the situation, which both sides, their relative strengths, the possibility to join one side or the other, etc.:
War of Religion4.jpg

An inconclusive result may lead to the negotiation of the Peace of Westphalia between the members of both Leagues and will alter the religious laws of the Holy Roman Empire.

… And that’s all for today! Next week, @Johan will come back once again to show more of the most recent changes and tweaks in the game. Cheers!
 
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Can you clarify how does conversion to any of the Protestant faiths actually happen? I was hoping this TT will tell us more about the preachers, but alas, God didn't answer my prayers :p
 
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May I ask, don't you show Greek Catholics and the treaty of Berestia in Belarus and Ukraine because politically you consider Greek Catholics the same as Roman Catholics?

I am just curious, you give so much attention to so many historical details in this game, but this has been totally ignored so far.
 
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Allow me to stamp my 95 complaints about this DD.

1) Not enough blackjack
2) Not enough hookers
3) you know what? Screw this :mad: imma go start my own religion. I mean, DD
Make sure you post it over the door of a church.
 
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Little correction on the descriptor for Lutheranism as basing itself on the authority of the New and Old Testament. Actually it was a fundamental difference between Luther and Calvin that Luther emphasised the differences in coontents and importance between both testaments and saw Christ's work of redemption at the heart of Christianity. In the Lutheran view, the New Testament superseded the Old. For Calvin both scriptures are almost of equal standing, both depicting God's character accurately. In consequence, Lutheranism was more based on the merciful God of the New Testament, while for Calvinists the vengeful and stern God of the Old Testament was more prominent than in either Catholicism or Lutheranism. Precepts from the Old Testament were in fact a much more important frame of reference for Calvinists than elsewhere in Christianity.

So I would suggest rephrasing the description in order to state Lutheranism's focus on the New Testament. Or just name the solus-principles: Sola fide (only belief), sola scriptura (only scripture), sola gratia (only God's clemency), solus Christus (only Christ) can guarantee salvation.

Absolutely amazing work on the aspects, I am utterly in love with this. I think somewhat more than three aspect slots might be a good idea to flesh out individual churches more and allow for a greater number of possible combinations.
 
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Why does it say "Protestant Pops" and "Catholic Pops"? A pop is just an in-game unit that can have any number of people, there aren't actually 48 million different pops. Shouldn't it be "Protestant Population" and "Catholic Population"?
Also, maybe just show the population total of the sides instead of all of Christendom? There could be 100 million Catholics or as many as anybody wants, if only a fraction of them gets involved with the situation, and their actual numbers has no bearing on the outcome whatsoever anyways.
 
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Cool. A couple of questions:
1.) I could be wrong but my understanding of Lutheranism is that many of those church aspects are baked into the religion itself, like Sola Fide and sola scriptura? Am I wrong or could you be a lutheran church that breaks from the others, and at that point are you not your own movement instead of Lutheranism?
2.) What aspects do calvanist get that are unique?
3.) Do other breakway movements from the catholic church get church aspects?
 
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Since in an earlier TT it was said HRE can be dominated by all Christian faiths, how do Nestorians or Hussites win the religious war? Does the leader of the Protestant league need to be Nestorian/Hussite in this case? If so, how does one become a leader?

On another note, do other Catholic heresies get any special mechanics like church aspects?
 
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