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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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You can pick the Religious Aspects that fit them better, dynamically.
Probaby what they mean is that you can make calvinism as if it was anabaptis, but from what we have seen until now there is no way to make a schism from a protestant religion to make a new one, or to make more schisms from catholicism than the 3 you said. So, in the end, you are limited in number of how many protestant faiths can exist
Again, at least this is what I understand from what we have seen until now
 
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eeeh, first I thought of that as well. Might even work for Hussites wanting the communion of the both kinds for the lay people.....

But! The 'Bread and Wine' is such a well-known phrase, a quote, with whole other meaning and implications behind it.... can't really see how Lutheran wish for the communion of the both kinds implies significant investment into more wine production & the games to entertain the masses....
Ah I see. I was just looking at the Aspect Names, not their effects. It is an odd choice to represent this Eucharistic principle with higher wine and food production.

If they are using "Bread and Wine" in the festal sense rather than the theological sense, I suppose they may be trying to illustrate the "opposite" of the monastic-adjacent, fasting-mandating Roman church? But then again, many Protestants retained fasting as a practice, and the big example against it was Zwingli who ate sausage in Lent--nothing to do with bread or wine. So I'm not sure about those modifiers on this Aspect...
 
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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.
There's an event about the Union of Brest and the Ruthenian Uniate Church. ;)
 
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So why does Calvinism get a lower chance to spawn artists? The Dutch were not exactly short on painters in the immediate aftermath of the reformation.
The reformed tradition tends towards aniconism and a general disdain for "frivolity". In fact, there are even groups that don't allow musical instruments in worship (acapella Psalms only).
 
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The Union/League members will be strictly HRE members, but other Catholic and Protestant countries may be able to sponsor the leagues, and join the war if/when it breaks out.
Do you have to be Catholic or protestant to sponsor the leagues? So no Muscovy and ottomans as sponsors? Also, can catholics sponsor the protestant league (like France did historically) and vice versa?
 
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You can pick the Religious Aspects that fit them better, dynamically.
But they aren't lutherans or Calvanists. you are using lutheranism and Calvanism as the terms here. Anabaptism and Unitarians aren't Lutherans or Calvanists.
 
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Is Anglicanism exclusive to England this time? No chance for the Church of Scotland if England declines like in EUIV?
The event triggers either to England or Great Britain, so if you're able to form GB as Scotland, you may get it that way.

John Knox is one of the historical reformers who may spawn with the Reformation, by the way.
 
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But they aren't lutherans or Calvanists. you are using lutheranism and Calvanism as the terms here. Anabaptism and Unitarians aren't Lutherans or Calvanists.
What I'd pay to have a religious scholar review PC's depiction of their faith before it was ready for the public...
 
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There's an event about the Union of Brest and the Ruthenian Uniate Church. ;)
If you (presumably Poland with Orthodox population) create the Uniate Church, is there an option to expand on it? IRL it was largely seen negatively by Ruthenians as a tool of making them kow-tow to Rome with nothing really for them to gain from it. But if Poland was to embrace it (which should be one of the options when it pops up), it would create an opportunity for it to become something akin to Protestant-like state church with Orthodox elements.
 
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You can do it regularly, clicking in the 'Primary Religion' button in the religious panel:
View attachment 1287649
We can convert to Lutheranism or Waldensian, but not Judaism.

When the Reformation situation pops up, there will be a direct button on it to do this, just pointing to any Protestant confessions available in your country:
View attachment 1287650
View attachment 1287651
Guess I should have clarified, but I meant the pops. How do they convert to any of the new denominations? EU4 had the Centers of Reformation which converted your provinces, based on last week's TT I presumed the Preachers have the same function, but it'd be nice if you could confirm/infirm that, and explain how conversions work in PC. I am sure the player/AI can flip religions and use the cabinet to promote the new official faith, but do pops convert independently? There must be some outside of player control mechanism to create religious divide within your country, or does the Reformation happen solely through countries flipping randomly/with their weights and 'manually' converting their population?
 
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I'm no expert in Protestant theology but I undrerstand why neither the Lutheran nor Calvinist religion have a dedicated IO like the Catholic church, but shouldn't Anglicanism get one? The King of England is the supreme ruler of the church therefore England/GB should get some influnce over other countries that convert to Anglicanism unless it's only available for them, historically no other country converted to Anglicanism but if it were the case then it should be more centralized then other protestant faith otherwise any other country that converts to Anglicanism without recognizing the King of England as the head of the faith would mean that they are making their own protestant religion
Only the Church of England has the English monarch as Supreme Governor, but not all Anglicans. Anglicans also exist in Scotland, Ireland, America, Africa... many of these Anglicans don't use the 1662 English Book of Common Prayer, which requires an Oath of Supremacy, but have their own Books of Common Prayer (ie. USA BCP, 1789)

For example, when the United States became independent from Great Britain, Samuel Seabury had to go to Scotland to be consecrated as the first bishop in the United States because as an American citizen he could not swear allegiance to the British King as his supreme governor. The English bishops would not consecrate him due to this, but the Scottish Episcopal Church rite of consecration did not require submission to the King of England. And hence all American Anglican bishops do not swear any allegiance to any King.

The King of England is not Anglicanism's "Pope" (nor is the Archbishop of Cantebury, for that matter). The Anglican Communion is not top-down, but is more a conciliar association of churches with similar roots and theological patrimony.
 
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