• 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 #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!
 
  • 161Like
  • 106Love
  • 7
  • 5
  • 5
Reactions:
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?
There's no hard blocks for that if they want to do it. They would only need to be able to afford all their construction and maintenance.
 
  • 165
  • 36Like
  • 12
  • 3
Reactions:
Can countries request funds from the Papacy in case there is a plague outbreak or a disaster?

Are Jesuits and similar non military orders in the game? Will they help with location development and literacy growth?
 
  • 4Like
Reactions:
What limits or dictates how many caridnals a country can have?

It seems a bit broken the country gets their own cardinals. It should be the Pope who appoints them
That by spending money you can get a cardinal is certainly a way to illustrate the bribery/simony that was going on in the medieval church. Since most cardinals are bishops, maybe limiting the Cardinal's Seat building to one per province instead of allowing every single location to have one? Also maybe it can be balanced just by being cost-prohibitive? (like if it costs more and more for each one in your country)
 
  • 5Like
  • 4
  • 2
Reactions:
IMO there should be some diplomatic requirements for things like granting new cardinals and canonizing new saints: the host country of said potential new cardinal/saint should have high relations with the pope and spend some favors and/or money in order for the Pope to approve the move (and if a player-led Papal States declines, then that should in turn sour its relationship with that country). Cardinals in particular feel significant enough, gameplay-wise, to require such further requirements, and I think it'd enrich the overall diplomatic side of the game.
 
  • 15Like
  • 7
Reactions:
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.

Still makes no sense.

Please reconsider. For a Saint to be recognised as such the Pope has to declare it.

Also it does not matter what other religions do, this is for the Catholic one. Protestanta can declare whoever they want as a Saint, its a separate mechanic.

At the minimum please consider a +100 relationship with the Pope minimum and having a cardinal or something.

Otherwise it sounds too OP too.

Saints in the Catholic Church are recognized internationally. One Country venerating a person does not make it bind it for all the faithful
 
  • 38Like
  • 8
  • 1
Reactions:
Will say I'm not the biggest fan of the current flow for getting cardinals to be purely have a building and get one.

I feel a more interesting, flavourful, and accurate way to represent it, would be to swap from it being guaranteed to get a cardinal; to instead having it be that you can have one assigned there.

The Pope would then assign the cardinals as he sees fit; or is bribed/coerced into. Balance it out by requiring expending some of the curia's funds for an enthronement and having the more powerful countries expecting to have atleast a cardinal[and having consequences for snubbing them of course]. It would also innately dilute the curia's voting power, so discourages one from just going all out and giving everyone a cardinal.

Overall though looks good and I hope that holy sites aren't just a catholic thing!
 
  • 15
  • 7Like
Reactions:
Do the cardinals of your subjects also vote with you in Curia issues or do they vote separately? Does it depend on subject type like colonial country vs vassal vs fiefdom?
 
  • 4Like
  • 1
Reactions:
1. What happens if the Papal States disappear ? Do they appear somewhere else or does the church functions without them ?
2. Will cardinals be a character or only a building ? Having a cardinal in your cabinet could, for example, bring some good bonuses as many cardinals participated in the affairs of state.
3. Does Papal Ban on Empires mean that you can only become an empire if the pope allows it ?
4. Can the Papal States also name cardinals (as this was the way to have new cardinals) ?
 
  • 11Like
  • 2
Reactions:
Hope that other religions also have Holy Sites (it's just cool flavor!) and that Orthodoxy has saints as well - beatification of rulers is an even bigger thing in Orthodoxy

Also hope that we get more minor holy sites (assuming the last number in the UI for it refers to its "holyness" or importance) that were sites of local pilgrimages, and more cardinals (especially Italian states should have more to reflect their dominance of the Curia - I would even remove the country rank requirement for countries in the Italy region/with Italian primary culture)

A final minor question - why are the small bishopric vassals of the Teutons colored the same as them, while the Livonian bishoprics get the regular theocracy blue? And will we learn more about the unlanded Holy Orders, as well as the building ownership capabilities of the landed ones?
 
  • 10Like
Reactions:
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
1. Any dead character of the country
2. We don't have Anglo-Saxon in the game and thus they are English, which is using the "de" because it's already been influenced by French
3. No, holy sites are defined at setup
4. It's for all theocracies (but they have to be countries, ofc)
5. There's too many of them to list here (but I can assure you they are using the correct terms)
 
  • 30Like
  • 15
  • 14
Reactions: