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Tinto Talks #60 - 23rd of April 2025

Hello, and welcome to another Tinto Talks, the happy Sant Jordi San Jorge Saint George’s Day Castile and León Day Wednesday where we talk about our entirely super-top-secret game with the codename Project Caesar.

This week, we will be talking about a trending topic: What happens if two (or more) Popes are elected in a Papal Conclave? What makes a man go neutral join the Dark Side nail Ninety-five Theses against indulgences on a church in Wittenberg? How does a general council of the Catholic Church react to this?

Or, in other words, we will be talking today about three historical Situations present in our game: the Western Schism, the Reformation, and the Council of Trent.



The Western Schism

When a Pope dies, some processes need to be started, leaning towards the most important one, the Papal Conclave, which will determine the election of a new Pope:

Papal Death.jpg

Papal Conclave.png

The Pope has died! As shown last week, the special Papal Heir Selection determines that a regency will start, with a clergyman becoming the Head of the Papal Conclave.

If it’s the year 1360 or later, a Schism might strike the Catholic Church, making for a divided election:

Western Schism1.jpg

The Western Schism may be managed in this panel:

Western Schism3.jpg

Where you might see a few things:
  • The contenders - the Papal States (the Pope residing either in Avignon or in Rome) on one side, and the country backing the second Pope on the other.
  • The support gathered by each Pope (which will slowly tick up, until one of them reaches 100% support).
  • The Reform Desire (more on this later).
  • The Curial countries that support each candidate.
  • The available actions.

This is the starting point of the Vote Progress hoverable tooltip (in the panel above, you see the numbers after some months/years have passed):
Vote Progress.jpg

The ‘Unity of Faith’ action:
Unity of Faith.jpg

And this is what happens because of the Curia Actions of the Catholic Church IO being blocked:
Blocked Papal Bulls.jpg

Finally, this is the situation map mode, showing the countries supporting each side:

Papal Contenders.jpg

The French candidate has more support than the current candidate, while Castile is sitting on the fence of the split election.

There will be some possible actions to gather support for each candidate, and some events may trigger randomly during the situation. And after a while, one of the candidates will gather enough support to reunite the Catholic Church again:

Catholic Church United Again.jpg

However, there are more perils for the Catholic Church…



The Reformation

After the year 1510, a certain Augustinian monk will protest against the uses of the Church, starting the Reformation:

The Lutheran Reformation.jpg

Reformation.jpg

The birthplace of the Reformation will be semi-dynamic, there are some weights in place, so it will usually trigger in a different place of the Catholic Christendom. In this case, Martin Luther was serving his duty in Perugia, Italy.

Lutheranism.jpg

The doctrine that a proper Catholic should follow!

This is the starting panel of the situation:
Reformation Panel.jpg

The elements that you can see are:
  • The Lutheran and Catholic pops at each moment.
  • The main active reformers (since all of them are characters that may spawn by event).
  • The Lutheran Preachers, which is a building that may spawn and spread throughout Catholic countries:
Lutheran Preachers.jpg

This might be a situation a year or so after the Reformation starts:
Zwingli.jpg

Ignore the weird graphical bug that we just found while writing this TT, each character has its own different portrait.

Reformation map mode.jpg

A second reformer, Zwingli, appeared in Switzerland, making the Free City of Bern a Lutheran bastion, and also 7 Lutheran Preachers buildings appeared. In the map mode, you can see the countries already converted to Lutheranism, the locations that already have Lutheran pops, and also other Protestant confessions present, such as some Hussites in Bohemia. Ignore the red borders, BTW; some countries decided that the start of the Reformation was a good moment to declare war on me, the Papal States, while preparing the screenshots for this Tinto Talks (traitors and heretics, they are!).

The Reformation may last for a while, because these are its ending triggers:

End Requirements.jpg

Which leads us to the third and final Situation for today:



The Council of Trent

If the Reformation is still active, and the Reform Desire (the modifier I mentioned in the Western Schism situation) is over 50%, the Council of Trent will trigger:

Council of Trent1.jpg

Council of Trent2.jpg

Council of Trent3.jpg

The main point of the Council of Trent is to debate, and eventually approve, some new Laws for the Catholic Church IO; When those Laws are voted and passed, it will end the Council:

Council of Trent4.jpg

Council of Trent5.jpg

And these are some examples of the Laws that are available for voting, each one having different policies that can be set:
Indulgences.jpg

Papal Authority.jpg

Veneration of Saints.jpg

Except for the Papal Authority doctrine, all the policies have proper Latin names, as they should be!


And that’s all for today! We hope that you enjoyed it and that your favourite cardinal becomes Pope. Next week, we will be taking a look at the final part of the Western Christian religious puzzle: the mechanics for the different Protestant confessions, and another situation, the War of Religion. And don’t forget that this Friday we will post the Tinto Flavour with the content for the Military Orders of the Teutonic & Livonian Orders and the Knights Hospitallers. Cheers!
 
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Incipint for many of them if not all, anyway.

They “require” Historical culture rather than Latin fluency.
(And Historical culture tends to come, somewhat, while playing Paradox games, I believe, so the world is well done).

Cum postquam, “While after that“
Unigenitus Dei filius, “The only son begot by God”
Etsi Dominici gregis, “And if the Lord's herd's”
They are the first words of the Papal Bull, which is one way they are referenced.

Cum postquam - 1518 - Decree on indulgences
Unigenitus (Dei filius) - 1343 - Declared a Jubilee every 50 years and justified papal power to issue indulgences; there is also a 1713 that starts with this - Condemns Jansenism
Etsi Dominici gregis - 1567 - Forbids the sale of Indulgences

While it might help with immersion it will not help with understanding.
 
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They are the first words of the Papal Bull, which is one way they are referenced.

Cum postquam - 1518 - Decree on indulgences
Unigenitus (Dei filius) - 1343 - Declared a Jubilee every 50 years and justified papal power to issue indulgences; there is also a 1713 that starts with this - Condemns Jansenism
Etsi Dominici gregis - 1567 - Forbids the sale of Indulgences
Yes: incipint means “they start”. That's a convenient, hence common way to name a titleless document: to take its first words.


While it might help with immersion it will not help with understanding.

It is their historical name, how they are referenced as you wrote, so it certainly helps a lot with understanding...
... provided one knows these Papal Bulls as they are named in History publications (just like with any other historical reference, thus).


That's why I argue that it is related to Historical knowledge rather than to Latin grammatical knowledge. Knowing Latin allows to understand that cum postquam means “while after that”... It stays quite obscure...
Knowing History allows to understand that, the 9th of November, 1518, Pope Leo X issued the bull Cum postquam, which defined the doctrine of indulgences and addressed the issue of the authority of the church to absolve the faithful from temporal punishment. Luther’s views were declared to be in conflict with the teaching of the church (to quote the Encyclopedia britannica).

For whomever ignores it, such knowledge will anyway come while playing.

I think that most of my knowledge on the Early Modern Era did root from Europa Universalis II and from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (the 1st ed.).
Then, obviously, I had a deeper understanding by reading history books, from actual historians. But each of these two games played a great step in the initial trigger that lead me, at a time when Google just meant "binoculars", to look deeper on this era. I was more interested by Classical Antiquity and Mediæval Era before that.
 
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Awesome seeing Ulrich Zwingli in a game. I heard about him in History Class and this is just too good to be true! Looking forward to some Zwingli Action :)

*Please change the name of the Province Name of "Obwalden" to "Unterwalden"
 
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I love the dev diary! I do have a few questions.
1. Can the council of Trent be so conciliatory that protestants will become catholic again?
2. How harsh can you go and how lenient can you be?
3. What are the benefits for going either way for the pope, influential countries and Catholicism as a whole?
 
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Has anyone seen The Tudors TV series? I am reminded of Thomas More who was executed for failing to renounce his catholic beliefs to the very last.
I love how many television shows they’ve managed to include in the lore for this game! The Tudors, The Borgias, Shogun, The Empress, The Great, and I believe even Marie Antoinette! I wish they had included The Vikings and The Gilded Age as well.
 
Because it's reading a variable called current_age_or_later, which automatically takes any age after the one it is linked to. In some cases, it may be useful; in others, like this, not. Reporting it to our UI team, thanks.
Similar complaint for the end requirements of the reformation: just have two requirements, that the Council of Trent and War of Religions situations have concluded.

It adds nothing (except visual clutter and confusion) for the player to see 4 requirements and not 2, when two of them are just technical variations of "these two things have not happened/ended yet".
 
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Very interessing diary.
Are there any mentions of greek catholics? They even fit into reformation age (16 century) but with other mechanics. Or politically they are considered the same as roman catholiks all under the same Pope so not represented at all?
Maybe at least they can be represented by being catholics with church slavonic liturgy language, it was introduced for some reason to the game.
 
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There should be some kind of weighting for the reformation to be more likely to trigger further away from Rome. Historically the reformation took hold more in places removed from power in the papacy (England, Scandinavia, north Germany) and regions with very little central authority (Hungary, Poland, Scotland, HRE free cities). There must be a way to represent this phenomenon in game for a still dynamic yet more sensible reformation.
 
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Luther being the reformer that succeeded in promulgating his doctrine was contingent, and so that should not be set in stone by an event. Rather, the Reformation should be treated as a succession of heresy outbreaks, which are slow to spread at first, and then grow stronger with each one suppressed, until they spread too fast to stop (historically, the Cathars, Lollards, and Hussites leading to Lutherans). This would make it possible for the Reformation to begin with any of those doctrines, or with a procedurally generated heresy (as in CK3).
 
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Yup, a bunch of HRE tags have died in the meantime.
Should HRE tags be dying this quickly, or is this a product of the Golden Bull being unpassed and the emperor being relatively weak as a result? My understanding is that centralizing the HRE wasn't something the larger princes could easily do since even gesturing towards expansion could get you in trouble with the Emperor, with the princes mostly backing him up.
 
That's completely wrong reasoning, confusing correlation with causation and misinterpretation of history by taking the end results after the centuries as a basis where and why reformation happened.
If you are looking for places that should have a higher chance of Protestantism, look for: Urban centers with decent trade connections and a university. Has Franciscan or Augustinian monasteries. Ruler is a rival/threatened by HRE Emperor or has a significant debt toward the Church & Pope. Is not in a dynastic struggle/succession war.
It has nothing to do with distance from Rome, nor the strength or lack of regional central authority...

-1337: game start

The Black Death ravaged Europe from 1346-1353.

-1415: Execution of Jan Hus
-1417: End of Western Schism
-1420: Bull calling for the (first) Crusade against the Hussites
-1439: The V. Crusade against the Hussites ends the war

-1453: The Fall of Constantinople

-1493: Columbus returns from his first voyage to the New World
-1498: Execution of Girolamo Savonarola

Pinnacle of the Italian High Renaissance: Michelangelo's David (1504), da Vinci's Mona Lisa (1506), Raphael's The School of Athens (1511).

-1517: ''95-thesis''
-1521: Zwickau preaching leads to the Great Peasant War (1524-1525) and Anabaptism
-1529: First Ottoman Siege of Vienna
-1545: Counter-Reformation starts with the Council of Trent

-1618: The Thirty Years' War starts
-1648: The Peace of Westphalia is signed

-1683: Second Ottoman Siege of Vienna

The French Revolution (1789)
 
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Luther being the reformer that succeeded in promulgating his doctrine was contingent, and so that should not be set in stone by an event. Rather, the Reformation should be treated as a succession of heresy outbreaks, which are slow to spread at first, and then grow stronger with each one suppressed, until they spread too fast to stop (historically, the Cathars, Lollards, and Hussites leading to Lutherans). This would make it possible for the Reformation to begin with any of those doctrines, or with a procedurally generated heresy (as in CK3).
There were also non-Protestants who wanted reform or promoted new ideas such as Erasmus. Not every reformer wanted a break from the church.
 
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I love how many television shows they’ve managed to include in the lore for this game! The Tudors, The Borgias, Shogun, The Empress, The Great, and I believe even Marie Antoinette! I wish they had included The Vikings and The Gilded Age as well.

I know, it's crazy. I wonder how many martial skill they will give Robert Baratheon.
 
What happens when the church is undergoing a schism and one of the popes dies? Can the schism continue intergenerationally, like it did historically, or will the pope who outlives his competitor automatically mend the schism?
 
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I reread it and I can't actually figure out what the big benefit is for France is in winning the western schism. Just one pope? Or is it something more long term influential?
 
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I'm curious how does Hussitism fits into all of this. Is it just going to be just a local Bohemian thing, or is it possible to grow it into the "mainstream" form of protestantism in hands of the player/particularly lucky AI?
 
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Hello, and welcome to another Tinto Talks, the happy Sant Jordi San Jorge Saint George’s Day Castile and León Day Wednesday where we talk about our entirely super-top-secret game with the codename Project Caesar.

This week, we will be talking about a trending topic: What happens if two (or more) Popes are elected in a Papal Conclave? What makes a man go neutral join the Dark Side nail Ninety-five Theses against indulgences on a church in Wittenberg? How does a general council of the Catholic Church react to this?

Or, in other words, we will be talking today about three historical Situations present in our game: the Western Schism, the Reformation, and the Council of Trent.



The Western Schism

When a Pope dies, some processes need to be started, leaning towards the most important one, the Papal Conclave, which will determine the election of a new Pope:

View attachment 1284610
View attachment 1284611
The Pope has died! As shown last week, the special Papal Heir Selection determines that a regency will start, with a clergyman becoming the Head of the Papal Conclave.

If it’s the year 1360 or later, a Schism might strike the Catholic Church, making for a divided election:


The Western Schism may be managed in this panel:


Where you might see a few things:
  • The contenders - the Papal States (the Pope residing either in Avignon or in Rome) on one side, and the country backing the second Pope on the other.
  • The support gathered by each Pope (which will slowly tick up, until one of them reaches 100% support).
  • The Reform Desire (more on this later).
  • The Curial countries that support each candidate.
  • The available actions.

This is the starting point of the Vote Progress hoverable tooltip (in the panel above, you see the numbers after some months/years have passed):

The ‘Unity of Faith’ action:

And this is what happens because of the Curia Actions of the Catholic Church IO being blocked:

Finally, this is the situation map mode, showing the countries supporting each side:

View attachment 1284617
The French candidate has more support than the current candidate, while Castile is sitting on the fence of the split election.

There will be some possible actions to gather support for each candidate, and some events may trigger randomly during the situation. And after a while, one of the candidates will gather enough support to reunite the Catholic Church again:


However, there are more perils for the Catholic Church…



The Reformation

After the year 1510, a certain Augustinian monk will protest against the uses of the Church, starting the Reformation:

View attachment 1284619
View attachment 1284620
The birthplace of the Reformation will be semi-dynamic, there are some weights in place, so it will usually trigger in a different place of the Catholic Christendom. In this case, Martin Luther was serving his duty in Perugia, Italy.

View attachment 1284621
The doctrine that a proper Catholic should follow!

This is the starting panel of the situation:

The elements that you can see are:
  • The Lutheran and Catholic pops at each moment.
  • The main active reformers (since all of them are characters that may spawn by event).
  • The Lutheran Preachers, which is a building that may spawn and spread throughout Catholic countries:

This might be a situation a year or so after the Reformation starts:
View attachment 1284625
Ignore the weird graphical bug that we just found while writing this TT, each character has its own different portrait.

View attachment 1284627
A second reformer, Zwingli, appeared in Switzerland, making the Free City of Bern a Lutheran bastion, and also 7 Lutheran Preachers buildings appeared. In the map mode, you can see the countries already converted to Lutheranism, the locations that already have Lutheran pops, and also other Protestant confessions present, such as some Hussites in Bohemia. Ignore the red borders, BTW; some countries decided that the start of the Reformation was a good moment to declare war on me, the Papal States, while preparing the screenshots for this Tinto Talks (traitors and heretics, they are!).

The Reformation may last for a while, because these are its ending triggers:


Which leads us to the third and final Situation for today:



The Council of Trent

If the Reformation is still active, and the Reform Desire (the modifier I mentioned in the Western Schism situation) is over 50%, the Council of Trent will trigger:


The main point of the Council of Trent is to debate, and eventually approve, some new Laws for the Catholic Church IO; When those Laws are voted and passed, it will end the Council:


And these are some examples of the Laws that are available for voting, each one having different policies that can be set:
View attachment 1284637
View attachment 1284638
View attachment 1284639
Except for the Papal Authority doctrine, all the policies have proper Latin names, as they should be!


And that’s all for today! We hope that you enjoyed it and that your favourite cardinal becomes Pope. Next week, we will be taking a look at the final part of the Western Christian religious puzzle: the mechanics for the different Protestant confessions, and another situation, the War of Religion. And don’t forget that this Friday we will post the Tinto Flavour with the content for the Military Orders of the Teutonic & Livonian Orders and the Knights Hospitallers. Cheers!
its been 5 minutes where's the tinto flavor
 
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