• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

Tinto Talks #65 - 28th of May 2025

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

Today, we will discuss the mechanics of Eastern Christianity religions. We have grouped them into three main religions: Orthodoxy, Miaphysitism, and Nestorianism. So, let’s start without further ado.



Orthodoxy

This is the overview of the Orthodox religion:
Orthodoxy Tooltip.jpg

This tooltip needs some more love, as we’re not showing all the mechanics of the religion. That’s because, as usual, please consider all UI, 2D and 3D art WIP.

This is the country panel of the religion:
Orthodoxy Panel.jpg

Countries of Orthodox religion in Autocephalous Patriarchates, which are a type of IO:
Autocephalous Patriarchates5.jpg

Autocephalous Patriarchates2.jpg

Autocephalous Patriarchates1.jpg

Autocephalous Patriarchates3.jpg

I’m taking here the Autocephalous Patriarchate of Constantinople, which has the custom name of ‘Ecumenical Patriarchate’, as an example.

And here you have the existing Orthodox Patriarchates in 1337:
Autocephalous Patriarchates4.jpg

Countries can Join an Autocephalous Patriarchate, if they’ve just converted to Orthodoxy; or, when they already belong to one, they can Change to a different one, or Create a new one:
Autocephalous Patriarchates Join.jpg

Autocephalous Patriarchates Change.jpg

Autocephalous Patriarchates Create.jpg

The Seat of an Autocephalous Patriarchates defines the Leader of this IO, which unlocks additional effects and actions:
Seat1.jpg

Seat2.jpg

Autocephalous Patriarchates Relocate.jpg

There are also some other blocks in the Autocephalous Patriarchate, as its Saints:
Saints.jpg

And Holy Sites:
Holy Sites.jpg

The main currency of the religion is Religious Influence, which already appeared in the Catholic TT:
Religious Influence1.jpg

Religious Influence2.jpg

You can do a few things with your Religious Influence. First, you can canonize a former ruler, making him a Saint:
Saints1.jpg

Saints2.jpg

Saints3.jpg

The benefits you get from the canonization scale with the ruler stats. So better to make sure that you want to canonize a truly memorable former ruler!

You can also call for a Synod in your country:
Synod.jpg

Synod2.jpg

Synod3.jpg

Synod4.jpg

Finally, there’s a unique type of work of art, Icons:
Icons3.jpg

These icons not only give a modifier to the location where they are, but also can be used in a ‘Periphora’ to another location:
Periphora.jpg

Periphora2.jpg



Miaphysitism

Miaphysitism is similar to Orthodoxy, with some differences. Here is the overview of the religion itself:
miaphysitism.png

Same as Orthodoxy, it also has the mechanics of Canonization and Autocephalous Patriarchates, with these ones being the Patriarchates present at start:
miaphysite patriarchates.png

However, most of these are actually empty due to being occupied by Muslim countries, with only Ethiopia remaining as part of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Alexandria and the Armenian patriarchate as the only one containing more than one country.
armenian patriarchate.png

An integral part of each the Eastern Christians and their Patriarchates are their Tenets, defined in a series of laws:
Tenets1.jpg

Tenets2.jpg

The ‘Nature’ tenet is a hard–locked IO Law, that depends on each Religion:
Tenets3.jpg

composite nature.png

These Tenets can be changed, and there are multiple possibilites in each Law:
Tenets4.jpg



Nestorianism

There is no country having Nestorianism as its state religion at game start, but the religion is nonetheless still quite spread in some areas. Here is an overview of it:
nestorianism.png

nestorianism panel.png

Nestorianism also has its own holy sites:
nestorianism holy sites.png

And also its specific definition of the nature of Christ:
separate nature.png

A final remark on a common flavor for all these religions. First, they have their unique flavor monasteries:
orthodox monastery.png

miaphysite monastery.png

The modifiers are WIP, we want to make them somewhat different.

There's a Law in which you can define the policy of the relationship between the state and the religion:
Patriarchate Law.jpg

And that’s all for today! Tomorrow is Thursday, which means that we will publish a new ‘Behind the Scenes’ video, on Friday, we will discuss the Byzantine Empire in Tinto Flavour, and next Wednesday's Tinto Talks will be about Islam.

And also remember, you can wishlist Europa Universalis V now! Cheers!
 
  • 134Like
  • 59Love
  • 7
  • 3
  • 2
Reactions:
Something that we've already discussed previously: while it would be more correct to have 'Eastern Orthodox', 'Oriental Orthodox', and 'Church of the East', this is a videogame, and we want to have clear, differentiable concepts. That's why prefer to use Orthodoxy, Miaphysitism, and Nestorianism.
Will there be Hesychasm content, it is very relevant to Byzantium and Bulgaria.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions:
I have a conflict with the functioning of Orthodoxy, Orthodox countries have participated in crusades (for example the crusades against the Ottomans) that would be very fun to play and I don't see any mechanics in this religion that would allow it. There are also orthodox individuals who belong to military orders and I don’t see it either… we could implement it in a certain way, also the creation of a sautocephalous patriarchate needs more work, countries like Serbia became independent before the Byzantine Empire fell, the same with Bulgaria only because of its weakness, it would be nice if you had personalized benefits if you created a patriarchate, it would also be nice if a country became independent, it gave a casus belli to Byzantium or to whoever has the ecumenical patriarchate so that he returns to the religion (ignoring that the Ottomans cannot do it when they dominate the patriarchate of Constantinople)… it would be great if like Byzantium we had a causs belli so that Georgia joins the true ecumenical patriarchate!!! some ideas to improve this… great work!!
Crusades were not mentioned either in Catholic TT, so probably there's and independent mechanic, same for holy orders.
Bulgaria has already its own patriarchate
 
  • 1
  • 1Like
Reactions:
Which one of the four "Nature" laws is supposed to represent the Hypostatic Union, the teaching which all Chalcedonian christians (orthodox, catholics and protestants) agree on? Namely, that Jesus has two natures, fully divine and fully human, distinct but united in one person. Going by the flavor text, "Composite Nature" is Monophysitism. If "Dual Nature" is supposed to represent Miyaphisitism (going by the screenshot), then "Separate Nature" is Nestorianism. All that remains is "Single Nature" and that does absolutely not sound like what the Hypostatic Union teaches. Is the screenshot showing "Dual Nature" in the Miyaphisite section actually from Orthodoxy?
 
Last edited:
  • 2
Reactions:
Which one of the four "Nature" laws is supposed to represent the Hypostatic Union, the teaching which all Chalcedonian christians (orthodox, catholics and protestants) agree on? Namely, that Jesus has two natures, fully divine and fully human, distinct but united in one person. Going by the flavor text, "Composite Nature" is Monophysitism. If "Dual Nature" is supposed to represent Miyaphisitism (going by the screenshot), then "Separate Nature" is Nestorianism. All that remains is "Single Nature" and that does absolutely not sound like what the Hypostatic Union teaches. Is the screenshot showing "Dual Nature" in the Miyaphisite section actually from Orthodoxy?
I think dual nature should be calcedonianism, composite nature myaphysitism, separate nestorianism
 
  • 1
Reactions:
1) If An Orthodox Country that has an autocephalous Patriarchate (like Bulgaria or Georgia) Conquers Constantinople, what will happen to the Local Autocephalous Churches and the Ecumenical Patriarchate respectively? Will the Conquering country become the leader of both IOs? Or will the local Autocephalous churches be absorbed in the EP? And What will happen if said countries will later expand towards Antioch and Alexandria? Will these Pentarchical sees become enabled with conquering country leading them as well?

2) Are Orthodox saints shared? It wouldnt make sense for Georgians, Greeks and Serbs having different saints, though maybe there could be 'local', less renown saints and 'Global' saints, more prominent around different Orthodox nations.

3) How will mending the Schism function? I hope that it will be a bit more sophisticated than boring "Conquer Rome->Convert Rome->*dling*->Now West is Orthodox". I hope that there will be an option to mend the schism diplomatically (naturally with some military and political threats involved, but still) with sufficient power projection towards Papacy and diplomatic reputation bringing the Roman see under the Orthodox church (maybe while maintining the special Catholic IO?)
 
  • 7Like
  • 1
Reactions:
Is there any benefit with the number of countries or population with the same patriarch?
If so, is there a way to diplomatically invite other countries?
Can i force a country to join my patriarch in a war?
What happens to the IO and its members if the seat of the patriarch gets conquered?
 
Some awesome mechanics, events and possibilities here for religions!

I hope in the future CK3 takes notes from EU5's systems when they make their own. The periphora and synod were particular exciting contents!!
 
  • 1Like
Reactions:
Why does this say "Krstjani, Bogomil, and Paulican", but not Orthodoxy?
It says "Church Slavonic is the liturgical language for all countries with Krstjani, Bogomil and Paulican Primary Religion AND all the following: (...)."
Meaning some orthodox countries use Church Slavonic but not all (like Byzantium I guess).

Correction: It does not say "AND" but that's basically the implication.
 
  • 3Like
  • 1
Reactions:
Lol at the "minor tribe" having a higher population than the Byzantine Empire.
 
  • 3Like
  • 3Haha
Reactions:
Given that e.g. the Ecumenical Patriarchate continued to be a really important institution following the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, surely it makes more sense to represent active patriarchates (or even bishoprics) as building-based countries? The leader of the corresponding BBC would be the head of the autocephalous patriarchate IO, and splitting off a new autocephalous patriarchate could either create a new BBC to represent it, or elevate a pre-existing non-autocephalous patriarchate BBC in your realm.

I think this is such an obvious use for one of EUV's best new mechanics, honestly.
It was bothering me that Patriarchates without a tag controlling them functionally do not exist.

I think showing the patriarchate as a Building Based Country would be a great way to represent this. Good relations with the patriarchate could be important for unrest from Christians within that patriarchate. This would also allow for patriarchates to exist for interaction with Muslim/Catholic overlords, and for for an Orthodox tag spanning multiple patriarchates to interact with those multiple patriarchates.

Ultimately though Paradox already did a lot of good work with this and these issues are niche so I don't see that change happening unless there is an Eastern Europe DLC.
 
  • 10Like
Reactions:
What are the reasons to stay in an Autocephalous Patriarchate (not as leader) when you can create your own?

Is there any way to take control of an Autocephalous Patriarchate that you are already a member of (not the leader), besides conquering the seat location?
 
Last edited:
  • 4Like
Reactions: