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Tinto Talks #63 - 14th of May 2025

Hello, and welcome to another Tinto Talks, the happy Wednesdays where we talk about Europa Universalis V!

Today, we will be taking a look at three of the religions born in India: Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism, which in the game are part of the Dharmic religion group:
Dharmic.jpg

As usual, take all UI, 2D and 3D art as WIP.

So let’s start by taking a look at the religious divide of India at the start of the game, in 1337:
Indian Religions.jpg

We now have an interesting feature when in the religious map mode, as by hovering over a certain religion in the religious breakdown, you can check the religious spread and heatmap of that said religion. So let’s check Hinduism and Jainism, as both are present in 1337:
Hinduism spread.jpg

Jainism spread.jpg

You also have these tooltips with the most important characteristics and the flavour of each religion, as we saw in previous Tinto Talks.



Hinduism

Hinduism1.jpg

Hindu Panel.jpg

The first thing to talk about is the Hindu branches, which appear as an icon and action in the panel:
Hindu Branch1.jpg

There are four branches in Hinduism, and each one is represented through an International Organization. Here you can see all:
Hindu Branches.jpg

When you click on a Hindu IO, each has its own panel:
Hindu Branch3.jpg

In ‘Agenda’ (which is a common building block for different religions), you have a religious law set for each branch, that defines its mechanics:
Hindu Laws.jpg

This is the one for Vaishnavism:
Hindu Laws2.jpg

Vaishnavism2.jpg

Don't you love nested tooltips? Because we do!

It allows the country to activate as many as 3 Avatars of the god Vishnu, depending on having access to one of its holy sites:
Activate Avatar.jpg

And each avatar has different modifiers attached to it:
Narasimha.jpg

Captura de pantalla 2025-05-14 125751.jpg

Matsya.jpg

Shaivism:
Shaivism.jpg

Self Control.jpg

You can gain or lose Self Control by performing these actions, and also some random events:
Self Control Actions.jpg

Perform Yoga.jpg

Indulge in Feasts.jpg

Discard Wordly Possesions.jpg

Indulge in Bloodbath.jpg

Shaktism:
Shaktism.jpg

This only allows you to have 1 Avatar active at any time of 10 possible, 5 in peace times and 5 in war times. By declaring war or stopping being at war makes you change from an avatar of one category to an avatar of the other. These avatars are randomly assigned, but you can change/reroll them using the Change Avatar action. The main difference with Vaishnavism is that you don’t need to have access to a holy site:
Avatar.jpg

Change Avatar.jpg

Change Avatar2.jpg

Candi.jpg

And Smartism:
Smartism.jpg

In Smartism, you want to have all 5 gods favored equally, or otherwise they will give you negative modifiers. You can favor one over the others, though, to get more benefits from that one, at the cost of getting these negative modifiers from the others:
Smartism.jpg

Smartism2.jpg

Favor God.jpg

Favor God2.jpg

Ganesa.jpg



Jainism
Jainism.jpg

Santara is the only country that starts with Jainism as its state religion.

Jainism starts with interesting features, as seen in the previous tooltip, of which the disallowance to declare wars without a Casus Belli might be the most striking one, as portraying the peaceful and self-defensive nature of this religion. On top of that, they also have a kind of similar behavior to Shaivism, with the addition of the Karma mechanics on top of it:
Jainism panel.jpg

Karma1.jpg

Karma2.jpg



Sikhism

Sikhism is a religion that is not present at the start of the game, but it will be able to appear after 1509 in a country that is either Hindu or Muslim, with locations of the other religion. If that happens, the following event will trigger:
Sikhism starting event.png

That will not only enable the religion and convert some pops, but will also create a unique building, the Gurgaddi, to serve as the seat of a newly created building-based country led by the Guru himself. The second option of the event allows you to convert to the newly created religion, while the third option allows you to continue playing as the newly created Sikh country.
Sikhism event b.png

Sikhism event c.png

Gurgaddi.png

Sikhism.png

The new country will have a unique government reform, with a unique heir selection making it so that basically only the gurus are able to be the rulers of it.
Guru Leadership.png

When Sikhism appears, it will also create a new IO, and the first guru will cement its bases. There will be further events for each of the historical Sikh gurus, and each subsequent guru that appears will add to that IO, configuring the religion with further teachings.
Guru teachings.png

Teachings policies.png

All Guru Teachings 1.png

All Guru Teachings 2.png


A final common feature for all of them are Holy Sites. There are several different holy sites for all religions and (and branches, in the case of Hinduism):
Vaishnavism Holy Sites.jpg

Holy Sites.jpg

These are examples of holy sites associated with the Vaishnavism branch of Hinduism.

And that’s all for today! We will continue taking a look at the Indian content this Friday, with a Tinto Flavour for the Sultanate of Delhi, and on Monday, with the Tinto Maps Feedback for the region of India. And next Wednesday, @SaintDaveUK will be hosting the Tinto Talks, with the topic being Unit Graphics. Cheers!
 
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One of Hinduism's default modifiers be a slower pop promotion speed, due to it's theological justifications of the Caste System and how closely linked the institutions were to one another. Other faiths in India such as Sihks and Buddhists generally rejected it partially or fully.
 
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I think the descriptions for the buttons for the self-indulgence mechanic should be improved (although they already very much look like placeholders). Most of the in-game actions in EU5 seem to be written as if they are actions an abstract government would take (e.g. "promote policy X"). It's really not clear what actions like "do yoga" would mean in this context. Is the entire country doing yoga together? Is the monarch doing yoga?
 
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Really not a fan of magic modifiers linked to avatars, I would've prefered a much more historical and immersive kind of bonus like having avatars affect societal values or estate loyalty/influence... not by having them affect things that had nothing to do historically with religion like attrition
 
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I'd prefer if you make sure it pretty much always starts in Punjab tbh. The religion has always been strongly tied to Punjab and the Punjabi people.
This would help players (like me) who want to play a Sikh run. I'd be pretty annoyed if I formed Punjab, ready to await Sikhism, only for the Sikh faith to form far away in Indonesia.
 
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This would help players (like me) who want to play a Sikh run. I'd be pretty annoyed if I formed Punjab, ready to await Sikhism, only for the Sikh faith to form far away in Indonesia.
Could be done through an optional setting at game start: "Spawn Sikhism always in Punjab", "Spawn Lutherism always in Germany" etc.
Althrough I don't know how many of historical rule settings they wanna implement...
 
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Not as of now, but since we still have to add some more, it's a potential addition.
I'd love to see Sikh flavor for an All-of-India tag. Hindustan feels too Muslim and Bharat feels too Hindu. Khalsa Raj would be an awesome name for a Sikh India.

(It's probably my native English language talking, but I also really just like the name "India". It would be nice if that was an option alongside Bharat.)
 
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Question to @Pavía. Not really related to this Tinto EU5 Talk, but I have a question some players would like to hear the answer to, if You can talk about it now, of course.
Since EU5 is finally unveiled, will EU4 receive any update (not necessarily a big one) in the meantime as we wait for the successor, kind of like last hurrah? Are you allowed to confirm or deny that?

EDIT: Since people misunderstand, as I said, by update in question I do not mean expansion, it can even be small changes/bugfixes.
Might as well do an update to CK2's official conversion feature since neither game will likely ever be touched again in any major way.
 
If Hinduism's branches can be divided into IOs without dividing the religion, the same should be done with the western schism, led the papacy or Holy See be the IO instead of Catholicism, then you could end up with two papacies if the Schism never ends, another denomination wouldn't need to be created
 
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Do we really need a nested tooltip explaining what God is? It feels very redundant from the players perspective (and in some cases even insulting). Nested tooltips should be used for game mechanics or historical facts.
 
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1.We all know Buddha is an avatar of Vishnu. If we choose Buddha avatar then will buddhist provinces be accepted as same religion.

2. Buddhism and Jainism were both born against Brahmanism. Why one belongs to the Dharmic faith group and the other doesn't.?

3. Why is it being called Hinduism and not Sanatan Dharma which is the appropriate name

4. Why are some names have weird spellings eg Krishna and not krsna

5. Couldn't find Sanamahe faith on the map

6. From the very get go Hinduism and specially Jainism appears weak in comparison to Christian and Muslim denominations

7. In Bengal the caste system is like
Brahmin
Kayastha
Sudra
 
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So this religious heat-map. Are the red-green colours based on percentage? Or per amount of pops per location?

I would find percentage more usfull, with green around 100% and dark red like 1-5% percentish.
 
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As a few people have mentioned already the hard split between Buddhism and the Dharmic religions creates a problem with how to represent the Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms of southeast Asia, but Hinduism's mechanics actually offer a pretty elegant solution - treat it as a fifth branch. It's by no means a perfect way to represent the phenomenon (Majapahit, for example, were distinctly Shaivite), but it fits neatly with the mechanics we've seen and seems like an effective compromise. What exactly the mechanics of that branch would be I can't say, but I'm hoping someone can think of something appropriate
 
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Just to iterate on this, imo it doesn't make sense to justify it on the population ("pops don't focus on a single branch, that's more the ruler/government"). Indian people aren't more prone to syncretism or to not strictly follow their religion's preachings. This should be dealt with at the religion level: all the four branches could be separate religions with more intra-tolerance (either to outsider religions or to Jainism/Sikhism); the pops would mingle as much as this tolerance (and the country's) would allow, just like it is with other religions.

A case could be made that these branches are the Dharmic equivalent to real-life Christian denominations but ehhh... we're talking about actual Gods with different rituals and morals etc here, it makes them more discrete groupings than the differences between, say, Anabaptists and Methodists imo. Then again, I *do* also think the Lutheran/Calvinist religions could be split up a bit more in-game, so maybe it's just a design disagreement.


I also agree with everyone complaining these bonuses feel cheesy/too ruler-centric. At the very least, change the action descriptions in Shaivism to be about the pops doing them, and then maybe tie everything more to Societal Values.
Well, the modern synthesis of Advaita is based on the fusion of the gods. The dude who promoted Smartism also promoted Advaita.

And every major tradition has an Advaitic viewpoint. This idea that permeates all the sects. They all accept the authority of the Vedas. Wars were never against a branch of Hinduism (except against the Ajivikas).

Like, yes, they are all distinct in their practices, but certain fundamental philosophies transfer between each other.

@Pavía , could you add both Skanda and Brahman to smartism? Skanda is an important deity, and Brahman is the glue (although not worshipped)
 
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