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Tinto Talks #61 - 30th of April 2025

Hello, and welcome to another Tinto Talks, the happy Wednesdays where we talk about our entirely super-top-secret game with the codename Project Caesar.

This week, we will examine the mechanics of Protestant religions and the final situation involving all Western Christian confessions, the War of Religions.

First is first, we differentiate the 3 main Protestant religions: Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Anglicanism. All the different branches of Protestantism, more or less strictly covered under these wide denominations, are later represented through Church Aspects, a mechanism we’ll describe now. The underlying system here is for every player to be able to customize their own Protestant Church. As an example, the early Anglican Church funded by Henry VIII was very different from the Anglican Church that developed in times of James I, and the further division that then happened with the Puritans; we aim to portray dynamically these theological aspects with Church Aspects, therefore.

Let’s take a look at a Lutheran country first:

Early Reformation.jpg
I’m using the same save as last week’s TT. The Reformation was born in Perugia, and after a couple of years, it has already spread to some countries, of which Denmark is the biggest.

Here is the overview of Lutheranism and its religious panel:
Lutheranism tooltip.jpg

Lutheranism panel.jpg

Similarly to Catholicism, and other religions, it also uses Religious Influence as a currency:
Religious Influence.jpg

This currency is used to add or change Religious Aspects to your Church, and it also allows us to perform Religious Actions (of which we can’t currently perform any, as we don’t fulfill any of their triggers).

Let’s take a look now at the Religious Aspects, which define each Protestant Church:
Religious Aspect.jpg

There are plenty of Aspects, that can be either shared between the different Protestant religions, or be unique to them. This is the list of all the aspects available to Lutheran churches:
Religious Aspect2.jpg

Religious Aspect3.jpg

Religious Aspect4.jpg

Religious Aspect5.jpg

And this is what it looks like when you decide to pick one of them:
Translated Bibles.jpg

The base number of Religious Aspects that define each Church is 3, although this is subject to review, as usual. And it is possible to have entirely different and unique aspects per religion, since it’s a scriptable/moddable feature. Furthermore, Religious Aspects can have an impact on the relations a country has with others who use Religious Aspects. Since the aspects are partially shared between the faiths, this could lead to unlikely friendships… and hostilities.

Let’s now move on to the next religion, Calvinism, which is quite similar in structure to Lutheranism. It also spawns during the Reformation situation, it also has Calvinist Preachers that spread it, and it also uses Religious Aspects and Actions:
Calvinist Preachers.png

Calvinism tooltip.jpg

Calvinist panel.jpg

Calvin.jpg

Fun fact, Calvin has ended up being the Bishop (=ruler) of Basel in our save game!

Finally, we have Anglicanism. This Protestant religion doesn’t trigger through the situation, but as an event for England that may trigger after the Reformation is active:
Act of Supremacy.jpg

Ignore the broken loc, it appears like that because I used a console command to trigger it.

If we decided to Take command of the Church, a new religion will be created:
Take command of the Church.jpg

Anglicanism2.jpg

This is its overview and panel; Anglicanism starts with some more Religious Actions available:
Anglicanism.jpg

Anglican Religious Actions.jpg

Last, but not least, we have a couple of religions that also share the religious aspects, but are not necessarily tied to the Reformation situation. This includes Lollardy and Hussitism, which will be created together with their corresponding reformer, and the earlier catholic heresies of Bogomilism, Catharism, Paulicianism, and Waldensian.

The last feature we’re going to take a look at today is another situation, the War of Religions. This is the ending to all the narratives related to the Catholic and Protestant Churches, a fight for the religious supremacy over Europe, centered over the Holy Roman Empire, with the Thirty Years' War as inspiration:
War of Religion1.jpg

War of Religion2.jpg

War of Religion3.jpg

Two International Organizations will be created, the Protestant Union and the Catholic League:
Protestant Union.jpg

Catholic League.jpg

And this is the panel for the situation, which both sides, their relative strengths, the possibility to join one side or the other, etc.:
War of Religion4.jpg

An inconclusive result may lead to the negotiation of the Peace of Westphalia between the members of both Leagues and will alter the religious laws of the Holy Roman Empire.

… And that’s all for today! Next week, @Johan will come back once again to show more of the most recent changes and tweaks in the game. Cheers!
 
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Well, if you're going to hold back parts of your army in order to keep re-rolling, then you're going to be weaker than a different faith that will just be sending their full army from the start and naturally keep re-rolling throughout the battle.
True enough + the opposing army could also send more troops afterwards if they thought they were fighting calvinists.
 
Good overview of the Protestant faith.
 
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I know I mentioned this with the last TT but I think Calvinist Pulpits would be a way better name for the building. Not sure if you already are looking into the name changes or anything but it’s never a bad thing to make sure it’s seen. xP
 
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i cant think of any protestant that has holy sites...Unless I guess you can count the State of Israel, the Statue of Liberty and the Constitution as holy sites of modern evangelicalism but during the time period i dont think so
Are religious aspects limited to protestant/reformed denominations? I thought they could be used for any other denomination.

I mean, one aspect could be "Holy sites", then Protestant wouldn't have it, but other Faiths would have their own holy sites
 
It hasnt been that long since we got the feedback changes TTs so i would not get too hyped. Sounds like a filler TT. Otherwise they would wait to be done with all the feedback for Christianity to release changes.
I mean I doubt tweaking and changing things is the longest part of it, rather the consideration of what they want to change and what works well as is. So overall I like seeing a TT about changes, we'll see what made it and what didn't make it I guess.
 
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Are religious aspects limited to protestant/reformed denominations? I thought they could be used for any other denomination.

I mean, one aspect could be "Holy sites", then Protestant wouldn't have it, but other Faiths would have their own holy sites

Yes i think thus system is only for protestants. We will have to wait and see the mechanics for others.
 
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1. So aspects are per country, and that's what separates the different branches of protestantism, how does that work for countries that historically had multiple different branches? I think Transylvania is the best example for this, because it (by it, I mean Prince John Sigismund) went from catholic to lutheran to calvinist to unitarian to switching between these constantly (except for unitarianism, that was a one time thing), but not everyone converted to the new branch. Just because John Sigismund becomes Unitarian, doesn't mean Bocskai does as well, he remained Calvinist. Tranylvania at times had catholics, lutherans, calvinists, unitarians, anabaptists and sabbatarians. How would this religious disunity be represented?

2. Why not use the names the protestant churches used (evangelical/reformed), considering Lutheran and Calvinist were used as a derogatory term? Catholics aren't called Papists, so unless the names are dynamic based on the player's country's religion, I think it would be more consistent to use the names they themselves preferred.

3. Why is Anglicanism then represented by a different religion, how is it different from a lutheran or calvinist church with different aspects? Why would the English be the only one to create their seperate church? Now that we know that new cultures can be created, why can't everyone get their own "Anglican" church?

EDIT:
4. Always forget this last question, but is there anything for Greek Catholics or Sabbatarians?
1. Mostly by pops. You can portray these doctrinal changes by selecting different Church Aspects. And by changing religion between Lutheranism and Calvinism, you'd have different religious modifiers, but also access to different church aspects (so, let's say, you may be able to keep 2 common aspects, and then the 3rd could be a unique one, either Lutheran or Calvinist).
2. We're still considering the naming, so it's a good mix between gameplay clarity and historical accuracy.
3. Anglicanism was at first way different from the other confessions (Henry VIII's Anglicanism was way closer doctrinally to Catholicism), while still breaking the Catholic Church. But it can dynamically evolve to be more Lutheran/Calvinist, and thus, also make England/GB more aligned diplomatically with countries of those religions.
4. There's some content for a lot of different Christian denominations, but not at the same level as the main ones, by far, and for obvious reasons.
 
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You can pick the Religious Aspects that fit them better, dynamically.
Not really, sorry; neither Anabaptists nor Unitarians were recognised as "a local variety of Lutheranism/Calvinism that was slightly different". Anabaptists were persecuted even by other Protestants, and Unitarians had a key role in the creation of the Edict of Torda, which was likely the first instance of religious freedom* set in law in Europe after the Reformation.

Also, when you inevitably add Unitarians and Anabaptists (a Predestined event of fate that you can not avoid, which will inevitably happen as the Lord intended), make sure not to confuse Unitarians with Unitarian Universalists, a movement that originated much later and outside the time frame; also avoid using the "flaming chalice" symbol, as that is a 20th century invention associated with modern Universalist movements. Instead use a cross, or if feeling spicy, the "dove + snake" symbol of the Transylvanian Unitarians.

1746024196282.png


Ok, this is epic!
 
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yes, but the meta would then become "real army, then false armies to re roll as needed". A bit less OP than the opposite, but still not so fun imo.
Just have those false armies be a certain strength relative to the fight. If you want to hold back 10k men across multiple stacks to re-roll die you can but at that point such a person will just save scum even without it.
 
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I feel like lutheranism should edge you towards individualism even before you take any tenets.
As it is, no tenets lutheranism basically does nothing, making you more individualist (to represent the emphasis on individualist hermeneutics), would give it some character.
 
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We haven't defined any (yet), so we're open to suggestions about any (if considered a good idea by the community).
To be fair I'm not sure if they should have holy sites, other than, perhaps, Jerusalem. Holy sites don't really sound very protestanty.
 
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Excited to stomp out Calvinism no matter who I'm playing as.


Pavia: We haven't defined any (yet), so we're open to suggestions about any (if considered a good idea by the community).
I would probably include the first reformation site, if holy sites can be dynamic.
 
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