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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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shouldnt Teutons vassals be bishoprics? what are the special mechanics with bishoprics?

what peace deal does this cb gives us?suggestion: perhaps install ruler ;) other than that Halleluja
1. Bishoprics are for theocracies
2. It allows easier conquest. Perhaps an option to replace ruler could be interesting to consider too...
 
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You can tell they are running out of topics between now and release and they are just stretching them for the sake of stretching...
But the TTs about IOs and religion mechanics were already announced a long time ago, and they barely just started them, so it's not like they've run out of topics they planned on discussing.
 
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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.

I am sorry that is terrible design and just absurd.
I dont want as Spain by 1600-1700 to be able to have 10-1 cardinals vs the AI.

Its completely ahistorical. Countries didn't appoint whatever cardinals they wanted either.
 
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Please put some limitations on the nomination of cardinals and saints.

Both processes are actually regulated by the church so it wouldn't make sense to let countries arbitrarily name their own. Papal approval should be required.

Also, the likelihood of such approval should be influenced by stuff such as, for cardinals, the size of the city, the presence of other cardinals in the same state, and for saints events in the life of a character, such as having waged holy wars.

Maybe it could be a soft block, whereby if the pope doesn't like your appointment you can either pay a bribe to the pope or lose stability/religious influence etc.
 
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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?
There is a cost, and the feature is more as something extra rather than a crucial thing that needs to be metagamed.
 
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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)
Ah cool. Thanks. :)

In regards to Anglo-Saxon could they be a dead culture that is only there for historical characters to get the right spelling?
 
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Can colouring be changed?
1744811365071.png


There are red, yellow, pink, brown, white, and purple. It is hard to look at only shades of green and blue.

I think I like only two colours: the base colour and the one Castile and France use. Blue and green of Teutons and teocracies are too strong

Here is the proposal for HRE by @Wolfgang Schmidt , and it applies here also
1744811522457.png

However I would love more watery colours like Castile's on the current
 
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1. Any dead character of the country
This should be reworked too. It'd be better if you could only canonize characters which during their life had a certain character trait (say "pious"). It'd be more historical that way, since in real life canonization is of course a pretty exclusive status granted only to a very select group of people after a thorough process; plus, this way your country's saints would actually feel unique.
 
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UI Suggestion:
  • Make the background portaits transparent since it makes the portrait clearer and less busy
  • Zoom the character out
  • Make the color of the portait border fit more with the other UI elements so it doesn't stand out too much

Example:
1744811671302.png

(Top is my suggestion, bottom is the original)
 
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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)

1. They have to be Catholics, right? Without "piety" system like in CK3 or some restrictions the decision to canonize feel pretty arbitrary.
Btw is this moddable? I can imagine this could be helpful for various scenarios and especially if it can be used on living person too.
3. Please allow this to be moddable at least.
 
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