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Tinto Talks #68 - 18th of June 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 Buddhism. In EUV, it is considered another Religious Group, like some that we saw previously, such as Christianity or Islam:
Buddhism.png

Buddhism.jpg

We will focus on the three main branches of pure Buddhism: Theravāda, Eastern Buddhism, and Tibetan Buddhism, which share the same core mechanics.
Theravada.png

Eastern Buddhism.png

Tibetan Buddhism.png

One aspect that all of these share is the presence of Karma as a currency. Karma, same as it was in EU4, can be modified by different factors, and gives different effects depending on its value:
Karma.png

Another very important aspect of Buddhist religions is the presence of various Buddhist Sects. Each religion has a variety of different sects, represented as International Organizations, and countries will belong to the sects of their own religion. Eastern Buddhism countries can belong to a maximum of 3 sects, while the rest of the religions allow for a maximum of a single sect.

Each sect has a value of Favor, representing the influence and support that sect has, as well as locations in which that sect is present. The sects also define themselves through a set of laws establishing their philosophy and teachings.
Mahavihara panel.png

Main Philosophy.png

As long as sects have a high value of favor (over 60%), they will be able to expand their influence by adding more of their neighboring locations to the IO. Conversely, if sects have a low value of favor (less than 40%), they will start losing their locations. Sects will also lose locations if the dominant religion of the location is not the appropriate one. Sects can only gain or lose a single location at a time, though, so they will not completely disappear or extremely increase in size overnight, but it will be a gradual process.

Sects gain or lose favor depending not only on how many countries are part of the IO, but also from countries actively promoting or disfavoring them. A country can choose to favor or disfavor a single sect to affect its favor value, although that will also impact the effects that the country gets from the sect(s) it belongs to.
Religion Panel.png

A country can also choose to leave a sect or to join a new one, but with some caveats. For once, a country will not be able to leave a sect it is part of as long as that sect has over 50% favor. So, if they want to leave that to join a new one, they will have to first make that favor decrease. To join a sect, a country must not already be at its maximum number of sects allowed, and the sect to join needs to be present in their territory or in the territory of an ally or a subject.

Let me now give a brief overview of the available sects.

Theravada Sects:
Theravada Sects.png

Eastern Buddhism Sects:
Eastern Buddhism Sects.png

You might notice here Confucianism and Daoism; we’ll talk more in-depth about them in the last block of the post, devoted to Sānjiào.

Tibetan Buddhism Sects:
Tibetan Buddhism Sects.png

Some of these Sects may be better known by other names, but we used more generic terms for them due to the fact that they are present in multiple countries:
Meditation School.png

Meditation School spread.png

Some of these schools have other special sets of teachings on top of the main ones, like the ones including Vajrayāna Tantric practices, giving some extra actions to the countries that belong to them.
Tantric Practices.png

Tantric Actions.png

There are also two other Buddhist religions I want to talk about, which were pending from previous Tinto Talks. For starters, let’s talk once again about Shintō. As mentioned in its own Tinto Talks, Shintō countries have the ability to Favor Buddhist Schools, and mentioned that that action gives them access to interact with the general Buddhist mechanics. That means that when performing this action, they will gain the same abilities related to the sects, with some costs associated with that:
Favor Buddhist Schools.png

Shinto Buddhist.png

They will thus be able to join the sects of Eastern Buddhism, although they can only join one, with some extra specifically Japanese sects:
Japanese Sects.png

As an extra note related to the Japanese sects, Jōdo Shinshū will also be created as an additional one during the course of the game.

Another religion in the Buddhist group I want to mention (and that some of you have already noticed) is the new religion we have implemented in China, which we have named Sānjiào, something we did after careful consideration, from the feedback received in Tinto Maps. This is to represent the particular blend of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism (together with many other folk beliefs) that has formed and coexisted in China for centuries. As such, a country following Sānjiào will automatically belong to the Confucianism and Daoism Sects, and they will get both the Righteousness and Harmony currencies. On top of that, they will be able to join one extra sect of Eastern Buddhism:
Sanjiao.png

Sanjiao Panel.png


Confucianims.png

Daoism.png

As you can see, these enable two special currencies: Righteousness and Harmony respectively:
Righteousness.png

Harmony.png


Sanjiao Map.png

And that’s all for today! Tomorrow, there will be a post about the process behind the Audio and the OST of the game, while on Friday’s Tinto Flavour, we will take a look at Majapahit!

And also remember, you can wishlist Europa Universalis V now! Cheers!
 
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Is there anything you can do to make a sects spread faster than 1 location at a time? Like a reformation era advance or a cabinet action?

I see harmony is back, but nothing about harmonizing other religions. Is that gone? I really enjoyed doing that
 
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I am probably just blind/dumb but

A: Is Shinto considered Eastern with Confucian/Shaijo? Is Buddhism entirely seperate from eastern? Can you blend them like how Tengri (and Inrhink others?) can accept a different religion?

B: Can Confucianism be its own thing? Or do you have to be Shaijo?


C: Probavly best to ask with Japan but isolationism mechanic isn’t in eu5?
A: Shinto is in the Buddhist religious group, as Sanjiao.
B: Confucianism is always a sect of Sanjiao, and can also be favored by Eastern Buddhism, and a Buddhism-favoring Shinto.
 
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@Pavía
Buddhism was in severe decline in the Indus Plain long before the arrival of Muslims in 712, due to both the targeted persecutions of Buddhists and violent acts against monasteries and temples by the invading Alchon Huns, and the loss of official patronage to clerics and religious buildings after the rise of the Hindu Brahmin dynasty. Buddhism in 712 itself was in no way the majority religion of the entire region. It was a significant minority, although mostly followed by townspeople (artisans and merchants) concentrated in urban centres.

During the Umayyad Invasion despite being either supportive to the invasion or ambivalent, thousands of Buddhists were slaughtered particularly in the sacks of the cities of Rohri and Debal. Even after the eventual conquest of Sindh, the situation for them scarcely improved. It is unclear if whether the process was directly forced or out of duress, but there were mass conversions of Buddhists to Islam or Hinduism.

By 1337, Buddhism should be practically non-existent in the region. The religious demographics should be distributed primarily between the larger Hindus (60-65%) and slightly-smaller but quickly growing Sunni Muslims (35-40%). Muslims should be more dominant in urban areas (Manora, Mansura, Sukkur) while Hindus should be widespread across the countryside especially in Nagarparkar. Some few thousand Buddhist pops should be present at best.

Buddhism vanished very quickly across the Subcontinent. This is a very known fact. Even without specific information, it makes zero logical sense for anyone acquainted with the history of Buddhism in the Indian Subcontinent to assume that it somehow managed to survive as the predominant religion in a region that was the first to be affected by Muslim invasions and Islamisation efforts.

As for sources, there is an unfortunate dearth of primary ones. The decline of Buddhism post-Huns is well-recorded and commented on by both Xuanzang in the 7th century (in the direct aftermath of the Hun invasion) and by Al-Beruni in the 11th (Although his description was more general to Western India). The details of the conquest of Sindh and mentions of mass conversions are recorded in the Chachnama (the closest thing to a proper chronicle of Sindh from that time period) and Fath-ul-Buldan. We have Darryl MacLean in the modern era who backs up the collapse of Buddhism in Sindh over time and attributes it to various factors (encouragement by authorities, socioeconomic convenience for urbanites, entrenchment of Hindu vassals and administrators in the rural areas by the Arabs who further weakened Buddhist influence)
 
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Is there anything you can do to make a sects spread faster than 1 location at a time? Like a reformation era advance or a cabinet action?

I see harmony is back, but nothing about harmonizing other religions. Is that gone? I really enjoyed doing that
No, and no.
 
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Personally I think that rather than using Eastern and Tibetan Buddhism we should go back to call the two religions Mahayana and Vajrayana, they are more catchy and most of the palyerbase is alredy used to them even if the latter is technically part of the former it shouldn't be an issue since Shinto-Buddhism is also a branch of Mahayana
 
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Is there any events regarding the Gelug School for Tibetian Buddhism?

(I'll reserve related Tibetian Buddhism questions that correlates with Mongolian history later when appropriate.)
 
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How are laws of sect changed ? By a vote of all countries in the IO ? Anyone can start a debate on them ? Can the "main philosphy" of a sect change as well ?
You can't change the law of a sect, but favor or disfavor or adopt it.
 
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Bön is not a branch/sect of Buddhism, it should be part of a "Tibeto-Burmese folk religion group" or just be its own thing
 
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1750252471031.png

Kind of weird we have both ”Theravada” and ”Eastern Buddhism”. Shouldn’t the latter religion be called Mahayana? Even the description of the religion calls it such, and it would be a more immersive name.
1750252592042.png


As a side note, I hope there wont be ”Counties” in Asia in the release version as that’s rather European-sounding.
 
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While categorising Sanjiao as a religion of Buddhism religion group and treating Confucianism and Daoism as philosophies of Buddhism feels somewhat delicate to me, I do think it's a considerable improvement over the Mahayana version. Thank you very much for making the adjustment.
 
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