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Tinto Flavour #14 - 17th of April 2025 - The Papal States

Hello, and welcome to another session of our Tinto Flavour. This week we are continuing with the Christian Easter feel by taking a look at the Papal States.

Since its creation by the hand of Saint Peter himself, the Catholic Church has been guiding all of humanity to salvation through the ages, thanks to the leadership of the bishop of Rome, the Pope.

Starting with the Donation of Pepin, the blessed Papal States were created to both govern and help the faithful. However, the last decades have been a constant struggle as the death of Pope Bonifatius VIII Gaetani Aquila forced the relocation of the court to the exclave of Avignon, as the Papacy fell under the influence of King Philippe IV the Fair Capet, and its holdings in Italy were dominated by quarreling noble families.

What will the vicar of Christ do? Will he fully become a puppet of the Kingdom of France and allow the temporal rule over the spiritual? Or will he break free and rise to the position at the top of Creation that God himself intended for its Church?
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Let’s look at the country directly:
Pope.png

As usual, consider all art as WIP.​

And here are the lands they have, taking into account that their capital is in Avignon, not in Rome.
Country Map.png


They start with a special government reform, unique to the Papacy:
Holy See.png


And they also have some special privileges, representing their division between their French and Italian holdings:
French Cardinals.png

Powerful Italian Families.png


And also a unique policy:
Papacy Policy.png


They also have a work of art:
Palais des Papes.png


And here are some of their unique advances:
Word of the Lord.png

Glory to Rome.png

Donation of Constantine.png

Holy Father.png


One particular characteristic of the Papacy is that their succession is not like the rest of the countries. As such, they have a special succession law:
Papal Conclave.png


That makes it so that when a Pope dies, the country enters into a Papal Conclave Regency, and eventually it will be resolved with an event firing, where the player will be able to choose between some of the cardinals available.
Conclave Regency.png

Conclave Election.png


Here are some more events available to the Papacy:
Castello Event.png


Giving access to this special building:
Castello.png


And events for some special individuals:
Raffael.png

Galileo.png

Borgia.png

I’m sure this last one will have no repercussions whatsoever…​

There’s also some events about some famous "refurbishings":
Sistine Chapel.png

Sistine Chapel Artists.png

Saint Peter.png

Saint Peter Monument.png


… and much more, but that is all we will show for today. Next week we will go to the military branch of Christianity by taking a look at the Military Orders of the Teutonic & Livonian Orders and Knights Hospitallers. See you there.
 
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matfer13 said:
Please disallow it, they still have latin to this day
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Roger Corominas said:
Done.
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Will Catholic countries be able to change their own liturgical language if they want? The debate over being able to conduct mass and print holy texts in a local language instead of Latin was a rather important one in the history of Christianity.
 
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If Rome can rebel and become a republic (with Cola di Rienzo), I imagine its flag would be somewhat akin to this:
1000159266.png


As this was the flag used by the city of Rome in medieval times.
 
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Should only cardinals be electable as Pope? Wasn't there one time they elected a random hermit as Pope on the logic that he wouldn't be corrupt and then he had no idea what he was doing and resigned almost immediately?
 
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Can I make a request that the AI defaults to always picking historic options? Just so we can have the sistine chapel in Rome in every playthrough, and not have like a player conquer Rome and finding it completely absent.
Polesie Admiral said:
Ezio sends his regards ;)
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I'd love some Ass Creed 2 easter-eggs when the Borgia's have the papacy.
 
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ArchangelGabriel said:
The Catholic Church is believed to have been founded by Christ, not St. Peter.

View attachment 1282391
This is a rather simplistic portrayal of events. Galileo had opponents in the Church but he also had supporters, including the Jesuits and the future Pope Urban VIII. The objections to his ideas were largely scientific, though theology did play a part and he was suspected of heresy. It doesn't make sense for the event option to be labelled "Invite him to discuss theology", as he was a scientist, not a theologian. He was also not simply imprisoned, rather the Inquisition investigated him in 1615 because of fears he was attempting to reintepret the Bible to support his ideas, and the Inquisitorial commission condemned heliocentrism in 1616, requiring him to recant and putting his book on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, but Galileo was a free man.
He started writing a book about heliocentrism again encouraged by election of his friend Pope Urban VIII, who asked him to include arguments both for and against heliocentrism, giving both sides a fair hearing. Galileo was imprisoned because the character advocating the geocentric model came across as a fool and was called "Simplicio" which although he intended it as a reference to the philosopher Simplicius looked like he was calling geocentrists simpletons - this made it look like he was just blatantly advocating the condemned position rather than making a fair, scientific case for both arguments. This lost him Pope Urban's support and brought the ire of the Inquisition, and he was sentenced to house arrest.
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Also Galileo was a bit of a know it all, and purposefully antagonized the Church. Now- the Church could have ignored him, and for a period that was their official policy even. So I say there's equal opportunities that the Church might engage with him in good faith, just try to ignore him and hope he goes away, or the historical route of eventually cracking down on him.
 
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QuinnMallory said:
Should only cardinals be electable as Pope? Wasn't there one time they elected a random hermit as Pope on the logic that he wouldn't be corrupt and then he had no idea what he was doing and resigned almost immediately?
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To be fair that happened in 1294, and precisely because he turned out to be such a disaster (resigning a mere 5 months later), the idea of electing someone from outside the College of Cardinals was never attempted again. So I don't think we should change the papal election mechanics in order to accomodate an exceptional case that, by 1337, had no real chance of ever happening again.
 
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SAmaster said:
Can I make a request that the AI defaults to always picking historic options? Just so we can have the sistine chapel in Rome in every playthrough, and not have like a player conquer Rome and finding it completely absent.

I'd love some Ass Creed 2 easter-eggs when the Borgia's have the papacy.
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I thought certain early decisions would be weighted historically.
 
Will there be content for something in the vein of Pope Paul III's opposing slavery (and subsequent u-turn under political pressure) in the 1500s?

If the Papal state were Militarily Powerful enough not to require Spanish support for protection from the Ottomans (or if the Pope in question were someone with a bit more moral backbone than Paul III) we could potentially have had early restrictions or outright abolition of slavery in Europe, for example.
 
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I'm not fond of the conclave system I see here.. seems too abstract and gamey tbh.

Regarding the flavour text in the introduction, the idea that the Papal States were created by the Donation of Pepin is debated by modern historians as there are a dozen different interpretations of that event. Not sure I would write it like that.
 
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