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Tinto Talks #59 - 16th of April 2025

Hello and welcome once again to our super secret Project Caesar Tinto Talks. I will be your host this time, where we will be talking about the mechanics of Catholicism and its associated Catholic Church International Organization.

Here’s an overview of the religion itself:
Catholicism Tooltip.png


One thing to highlight here besides all the other effects, is that Catholic countries are not able to tax their clergy at all by default, although there may be other things modifying this on top of it. However, the clergy won’t necessarily swim in money, as that has to be instead paid to the Papacy directly in the form of a tithe.
Tithe.png


Another key aspect of Catholicism is that all Catholic countries will belong to the Catholic Church IO:
Catholic Church Map.png

Catholic Church IO pannel.png


You can see here that there are quite many countries belonging to it (the total list is expandable and scrollable), with some of them having some special statuses. For Bishopric and Military Order these are self-explanatory, but the Curia and Cardinals need some more information.

The decisions concerning the Catholic Church are taken by the Curia, which is composed of Cardinals. In Project Caesar, Cardinals are represented by a special building, called Cardinal Seat, available to be built by Catholic countries higher than county rank in any location where they already own a large religious building. Each Cardinal Seat will grant its owner country a Cardinal, which the country can use to influence the decisions of the Curia (more on that later). Countries can have more than one Cardinal Seat and thus more than one Cardinal, that’s why in the panel you can see that there’s 7 countries in the Curia but a total of 16 Cardinals among them.
Cardinal Seat.png


Another aspect of the Catholic Church IO is its doctrines, represented by a set of laws. These laws are not something that’s easily changed, as it’s what defines the core values of Catholicism, but some important events will be able to shape them, like for example the Council of Trent (more on that in future Tinto Talks). Here are some of these laws effects:
Papal Authority.png

Purchase of Indulgence.png

Marriage of Priests.png

Persecution of Witchcraft.png


Next to the Doctrines, we have the Papal Bulls. These are actions that any Catholic country can choose to propose, but only those in the Curia can vote on whether to pass them or refuse them. Here are the possible bulls with some examples:
Papal Bulls.png

Illius Qui Se Pro Divini.png

In Coena Domini.png


When voting on a Papal Bull, the interface changes slightly to show how many cardinals support each option. It goes without saying that all the cardinals that a country has will be assigned to vote for the same option, so the amount of cardinals a country has is effectively its amount of votes.
Papal Bulls Vote.png


Besides the Papal Bulls, there’s also the action of Excommunication, available to all countries of the Curia, that if approved, will get the excommunicated country some very nasty modifiers and allow for a special casus belli.

Excommunication Effects.png


The Catholic Church also has some extra aspects in the form of Saints and Holy Sites. Saints are characters of a country that have been elevated to sainthood. A country can choose to canonize any of its previous rulers, and they will get benefits depending on the abilities of such character. Holy Sites are special locations to the Catholic faith, giving some extra income to their owner due to the affluence of faithful in them.
Saints.png

Holy Sites.png


Outside the Catholic Church per se and instead in the main religion panel, there are some extra religious actions available to certain countries, besides the already mentioned option to canonize a character.
Religious Actions.png


  • Demand Apostolic Tax is an action exclusive to the Papacy, in which they will demand extra payment from those countries with the Apostolic Tax privilege enabled.
  • Request Aid is an action exclusive to the military orders, in which they can ask to petition support to the Pope for their infrastructure, military, or coffers.
  • Placitum Regium is an action available to kingdoms or empires that gives them some extra crown power at the expense of relations with the Papacy.

One last thing to mention here is that, as you can see, Catholicism also has Reform Desire. However, in contrast to some other of our titles that also present this value, here it is not a ticking clock for the Reformation, but instead something that will come into play in the Council of Trent. As such, you will have to wait a bit for a further explanation on it.

And that is all for today, next week we will resolve these cliffhangers by taking a further look at what Catholicism has in store after the start of the game, including the situations of the Western Schism, Reformation, and the Council of Trent. On the other hand, in this week’s Tinto Flavor we will go directly to the head of Catholicism by taking a look at the flavor content for the Papal States. Also, remember that this week’s Tinto Flavour will be on Thursday, as this week is Good Friday and the Papal States would be too busy to attend their own Tinto Flavor then (oh, and it’s also a holiday).

See you next time!
 
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What prevent me of just voting every bull bonuses for me and negative for others if I have enough votes?
Do they have a cost or different acceptance modifiers from ai for each bull?
 
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For the saints:wouldn't you also need the papal states' authority to sanctify someone?Or can the country just say the ruler was a saint and he becomes one
There are currently no requirements, as we decided to abstract the process. Countries didn't always follow the papal procedures before they started venerating their past rulers as saints, and saints are not exclusive to Catholicism (and thus tied to the Pope) anyway.
 
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The decisions concerning the Catholic Church are taken by the Curia, which is composed of Cardinals. In Project Caesar, Cardinals are represented by a special building, called Cardinal Seat, available to be built by Catholic countries higher than county rank in any location where they already own a large religious building.
If a large country like France wanted to build a cardinal seat in every location, what stops them from doing so? Is it only possible in towns and cities? Is there something that would stop them from putting a cardinal into every town?
 
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ooh this looks amazing. Some questions:

1.) Is it only rulers that can get canonized as saints or can spouses, councilors, artists, etc get canonized.
2.) Why are the Anglo-Saxon kings of England that are saints ending with de wessex?
3.) Can Holy sites be increased via gameplay? Say for example as the knights I manage to get the ancient patriarch sites under my control, would they become holy sites for catholics.
4.) it mentions that there are 76 bishoprics, I assume that is 76 prince bishoprics and not well every actual bishopric and arch bishopric in the various countries
5.) Mind telling us more what the various latin laws and papal bulls mean as I don't know latin :p
 
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A couple questions:
- Can we bribe cardinals from other countries to influence the vote?
- Have you turned the Military Orders into ABCs so they can both exist as owning land or just buildings? Since the Knights historically switched between the two configurations.
 
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There are currently no requirements, as we decided to abstract the process. Countries didn't always follow the papal procedures before they started venerating their past rulers as saints, and saints are not exclusive to Catholicism (and thus tied to the Pope) anyway.
What’s stopping you from canonizing every one of your rulers? Is there still some other cost associated, even though the Pope isn’t involved? Or are the benefits so small that it doesn’t really matter if your entire dynasty is saints, and it’s more of a flavor/immersion feature?
 
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When the byzantine were about to be conquered, there was a short mending of the schism before the ottomans conquered the city. Will the game depict that?
My understanding is despite the agreement on paper, actually implementing it didn't get very far. John VIII and Constantine XI faced pretty stiff resistance, including their brother Demetrios using anti-Union sentiment as a wedge for his own ambitions, and the Papal diplomatic promises came crashing down at Varna, and then the question became moot in 1453. If the Council of Florence is modelled it might be better used as a Situation focused on Byzantium with several possible outcomes than everyone just converting straight away.
 
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Papal ban on empires means that only the starting Catholic empires will be empire tier? So the HRE and none else.

How, then, will the Latin Emperor in Constantinople be represented if the polity is restored by a crusader state?
 
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Could be an option, but there's still a double negative. "Disallowed X Yes" is not that much different than "Cannot do X Yes". But as I said in another comment, we will see how we can improve the readability of those.
I think he means it as "Declaring war on religious head without causus belli: allowed/disallowed"
 
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