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Tinto Talks #72 - 16th of July 2025

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

Today, we will talk about the Inti & Folk Religions! Let’s start without further ado.



Inti

Inti is quite a unique religion that stands out in the Peruvian region:
Inti.jpg

Inti Tooltip.jpg

As you see, Inti is part of the Peruvian Folk Religions group. We’ll explain how that works further down.

Here is the panel of the religion, which may be familiar to you at this point:
Inti Panel.jpg

The most important mechanic of the Inti religion is the Yanantin, which is a value that can go from -100 to +100. You’ll mostly get penalties if you’re above or below 0, but it gives the most modifiers when it’s exactly and perfectly balanced at 0:
Yanantin1.jpg

Yanantin.jpg

Depending on the gods that you worship, from seven available, you’ll get positive or negative Yanantin:
Monthly Yanantin.jpg

As you see, the base value is +0.50.

Apart from that, the worship of each of these gods gives passive modifiers to the country:
Inti Gods.jpg

Inti Gods2.jpg

Inti Gods3.jpg

Here we’re using one of those ‘Building Blocks’ that we’ve talked about before, the Religious Aspect, in a way that promotes the worship of a certain god, which has the consequence of increasing their effects - therefore, being one of the ways of balancing the Yanantin of the country:
Worship Gods.jpg

You can only promote the worship of one god at a time, and changing it costs Stability:
Worship Gods2.jpg

As usual, take the numbers as a matter of balance and WIP.

Another way of balancing the Yanantin of your country is by performing any of the available actions:
Actions.jpg

Actions2.jpg

Actions3.jpg

Actions4.jpg

Actions5.jpg

Actions6.jpg

Actions7.jpg

Note: There are 13 different festivities, with different modifiers; which one you get when you Host a Ceremony depends on the time of the year.



Folk Religions

Very large sections of the world are covered by Folk Religions, the new denomination of what formerly in EU4 were Animist, Pagan, or Totemist religions, and that we’ve been able to set up thanks to your feedback in the Tinto Maps series:
Folk Religions.jpg


Due to the huge amount of Folk Religions, we are focusing on the “Gods” and “Religious Aspects” as Building blocks for the Folk religions. We're aiming to have some baseline gods based upon 'spirits', which are based upon natural forces (wind, water, fire, sun, etc.). And then, we have some of the main gods for 'Folk Religious families'; so, as in this example, the country of Benin, which worships the Isese religions, has a number of deities to worship upon:
pane.png

The Isese Religion as an example

gods1.png
gods2.png

The Gods that are available to the people of Benin

And that’s all for today! We will come back on Friday, as we will talk in the Tinto Flavour about the Inca!

And also remember, you can wishlist Europa Universalis V now! Cheers!
 
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I dont like this big sun in the middle of religion tab. I think there should be simbol of state religion or majority religion.
It would look better than just big sun that seems to be important because its there dominating everything but in reality is just it - a picture with no meaning.
It's so funny that this is one of the few times that it actually fits - for Inti, at least. Totally agree I'd rather have that space used for a more relevant icon for other religions, though, or entirely removed and the doughnut graph shrunk to fit more relevant information.
 
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Can we learn why Mecca is Shia?
Why are the regions of Hijaz, Mecca, and Medina Shia? Honestly, I'm not very familiar with the relevant knowledge. Can someone tell me?

I found this feedback to the fist maps of Arabia:
Sharifat Mecca should have been a Shia country in 1337.

The new foreign policy orientation was accompanied by a confessional change among the Sharifs. Abū Numaiy I and most of his direct descendants were still Zaidi Shiites. Accordingly, the call to prayer in the Great Mosque was carried out according to the Shiite rite in his time, and the Zaidis had their own prayer group in the Holy Mosque , which was led by a Zaidi imam. [ 30 ] As early as the beginning of the 14th century, the Mamluk sultans called on the Sharifs to suppress the Shiite call to prayer in Mecca and to withdraw the Zaidi imam from the Holy Mosque. [ 47 ] However, most of the Sharifs held on to the Zaidi-Shiite faith. Humaida's alliance with the Ilkhan Öljaitü also had a Shiite background. Öljaitü had previously converted to Shia Islam, and after the successful conclusion of Humaida's campaign in the Hejaz in 1316, the bones of the two caliphs Abu Bakr and Umar ibn al-Khattab, who were hated by the Shiites, were to be removed from Muhammad's tomb in Medina . [ 33 ]

In particular, Rumaitha ibn Abī Numaiy, who was co-regent from 1321, showed sympathy for the Zaidīya. He even had the prayers said for Muhammad ibn al-Mutahhar (r. 1301–1327), the Zaidi Imam of Yemen. [ 48 ] His brother ʿUtaifa, who exercised sole power from 1326, forcibly expelled the Zaidi Imam from the Holy Mosque, although this was not done out of inner conviction, but only in fulfillment of an order from the Mamluk Sultan. As the Mamluk author Ibn Fadlallāh al-ʿUmarī (d. 1348) reports, ʿUtaifa's son confided to him that the emirs of Mecca felt obliged to obey only the Zaidi Imam of Sanaa and considered themselves his representatives. They cooperated with the rulers of Egypt, he explained, only because they feared them and received enfeoffment from them; they flattered the Rasulid rulers of Yemen in order to receive further gifts and charities from them. [ 49 ]

In the second half of the 14th century, the Meccan Sharifs began to convert to Sunni Islam. Ibn Taghribirdi reports of ʿAjlan ibn Rumaitha, who ruled Mecca from 1346 to 1361 with interruptions and then continuously until 1375 : "Unlike his forefathers and relatives, he loved the Sunnis and supported them against the Shiites. It has also been said that he followed the Shafi'i madhhab ." [ 50 ] ʿAjlan was also the first Sharif to establish a madrasa in Mecca . [ 51 ] His son al-Hasan, who ruled in Mecca from 1396 to 1426 with two brief interruptions, was also firmly committed to the Sunni tradition. Like his father, he established a madrasa in Mecca. Shams ad-Dīn as-Sachāwī (d. 1497) reports that he studied hadith with a number of Egyptian and Syrian scholars and received an ijazah from them . All subsequent Sharif rulers of the 15th century also received training in Sunni hadith. [ 52 ]

Even though the later Sharifs officially professed the Shafi'i school of thought, to which most Meccans also belonged, they were not long able to shake off the reputation of secretly following Zaidi teachings. As late as the early 19th century, when Jean Louis Burckhardt visited Mecca, he was told that the Sharifs living in Mecca avoided legal discussions in which Zaidi teachings were disapproved of, and that the Sharifs outside the city also openly admitted their affiliation with the Zaidis.
Maybe there are other feedback posts.
 
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Don't waste resources on making content that few players will actually play. This can prevent your game from focusing on what really needs improvement, ultimately leading to failure. Haven't we learned from the lessons of Victoria 3
 
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I am interested in the characteristics of indigenous European folk religions such as Norse (Germanic) and Slavic.
 
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This is in a lot of ways a great step foward from EU4 that I hope gets built by the base game and also modders as honestly I would love a CK3 esque thing where a lot of folk religions do feel diffrent from each other and have special rituals of their own
 
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Were there any Jewish or Zoroastrian states during the timeline of the game.

If not I think they are fair to be left to future dlc.
Given that the game is about pops as much as states, it would make sense to include Judaism and Zoroastrianism (as well as the Romani speaking people of southeastern Europe), but it’s reasonable that they might all be added later.
 
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I find it incredibly disappointing that no new provinces have been added to Greenland but especially Australia, its inner core was populated by the natives and are very much habitable, and why shouldn't it get the Sahara treatment?
They’ve taken this approach in several places, including the Amazon, where places that indigenous people used but weren’t used by colonizers until well outside the time frame (if ever) are just erased (along with their populations).
 
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One of the most exciting opportunities for EU5 is how it could reshape our perception of China, not just as a uniform monolithic empire, but as a massive and diverse civilization where each region had its own systems of power, culture, and belief.
So instead of portraying China as just a centralized Celestial Empire with a single religion and a basic reform tree, EU5 could really shine by offering a deeper simulation, such as:
Provincial Autonomy: Historically, governors and local elites held significant power under many dynasties. It would be great to have a mechanic where distant provinces gradually gain autonomy or even rebel if neglected. This would reflect decentralization far more realistically than simply increasing revolt risk.

Cultural Zones Within China: The empire wasn’t culturally uniform. There were Hakka regions, Tibetan areas, the highlands of Yunnan, coastal trade centers, and more. Each had its own religious and economic dynamics. If these areas had semi-unique mechanics or events, it would encourage players to be more strategic in how they integrate and govern them.

Flexible Religious System: Don’t lock China into just Confucianism or a static Harmony value. Let regions have blended practices like folk-Buddhist or Daoist-Confucian, each with its own strengths and drawbacks. Syncretism should be a powerful tool, but one that requires careful balancing.

Imperial Legitimacy Through Concrete Actions: The emperor’s authority should come from real achievements like passing edicts, putting down rebellions, or completing temple and infrastructure projects, not just from maintaining a full legitimacy bar.

By tying together religion, bureaucracy, and regional culture into a dynamic system, China would feel much more alive and complex, just like the historical empire was, and a much more satisfying challenge to rule.
I really hope you’ll consider adding a system like this for China in one of the upcoming Tinto Talks.
 
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Will we be able to revive extinct religions? I think it would be cool to be able to play with Hellenistic, Germanic, Celtic, and Basque religions in Europe or Mesopotamian and Arabian paganism in the Middle East.

Edit: Also the religion of the Ancient Egyptians I would like to see in the game.
 
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