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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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Having multiple armies go around conquering and sacking Germany for thirty years wouldn't be good for population growth in an organic way.
So the War of Religion actually lasts 30 years? How? Are they multiple wars? Is it one war that doesn't end for 30 years due to a special modifier?
And it's not just population growth, it's an actual 30-40% decline in population...
 
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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:

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:

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

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:

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:

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

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:
View attachment 1287570
View attachment 1287571
View attachment 1287572
View attachment 1287573
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:
View attachment 1287574
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:

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

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

And this is the panel for the situation, which both sides, their relative strengths, the possibility to join one side or the other, etc.:
View attachment 1287584
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!
Will there be more content concerning the reformation and the Holy Roman Empire? In EU4 it was essentially only about the 30 years war, while in real life there were multiple imperial diets concerning the reformation and attempts by emperors to halt its progression, it currently seems there is no way, how hard it may be, to attempt to resolve it diplomatically.

Furthermore will other religious conflicts like the Schmalkaldic War be represented? The situation was very flued and currently it feels pretty railroaded. In real life we basically had 2 primary religious wars in the HRE, while it could have been more or less depending on the resolve of the princes. I dont see any possibilities for that in this tinto talks.
 
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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:

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:

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

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:

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:

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

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:
View attachment 1287570
View attachment 1287571
View attachment 1287572
View attachment 1287573
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:
View attachment 1287574
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:

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

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

And this is the panel for the situation, which both sides, their relative strengths, the possibility to join one side or the other, etc.:
View attachment 1287584
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!
Ive been battling an aggressive stomach cancer since august of last year that has since then spread to my lymph nodes doctors say i have 3-6 months left PLEASE TELL ME I CAN PLAY THE 30 YEARS WAR BEFORE I LEAVE
 
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This is the point when things get tricky, because of having so many different Protestant denominations, so we'd need to add dozens of confessions (take also into account the different sovereign Lutheran churches...) to be completely accurate, and why we decided for functionality over complete accuracy. It would eventually be cool to add more flavour, including unique naming, to the different branches and churches... But gameplay and functionality always come first (and I'm telling you as the Content Design Lead of the project, meaning that I'm always pushing to get more historically accurate flavour content in the game). ;)
on that note, is there some system to ensure two different states keep the same aspects for their Lutheran/ Calvinist/ Anglican faiths?

some sort of diplomatic deal?

would be especially usefull for Personal Unions IO.
 
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This is the point when things get tricky, because of having so many different Protestant denominations, so we'd need to add dozens of confessions (take also into account the different sovereign Lutheran churches...) to be completely accurate, and why we decided for functionality over complete accuracy. It would eventually be cool to add more flavour, including unique naming, to the different branches and churches... But gameplay and functionality always come first (and I'm telling you as the Content Design Lead of the project, meaning that I'm always pushing to get more historically accurate flavour content in the game). ;)
but why did you decide to have cathars, bogomils, waldensians yet not say Anabaptists and Unitarians? I think having two more broad catholic faiths, the Unitarians and Anabaptists would at least be necessary as they were persecuted and regarded differently by both other protestants and catholics.
 
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Economic sociologists, Social anthropologists with statistical analysis of historic records have proven that any terrible catastrophe (regardless if natural or human-made) when a significant portion of the population in a society suddenly dies, leads to a major redistribution of wealth that always translates into a golden age..... so my question is:
Are there any mechanics of such redistribution of wealth and power within your society after such major events as the Black Plague or the Thirty Years War?
"Always translates into a golden age"? France and Belgium's recovery from the Black Death/Hundred Years War took 400 years, England's 200 years. Germany didn't have a golden age after the Thirty Years War either.
Agricultural productivity per worker certainly goes up a lot when more than a third of the population dies, but that alone can't be responsible for a "golden age".
 
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Game effects: In-game this should be reflected with the clergy and papal state earning money from indulgence letters. And it's abolishment should enrich the peasants (lower clergy tax base/income, higher peasant tax base/income).
And the translation and usage of the common language should increase literacy.
Most peasants couldn't afford indulgences, it was mainly a thing purchased by the nobility and wealthy merchants. If anything peasant resentment was that if the indulgences could truly forgive your sins then the system was unfair as their souls would be seen as lesser than those of the wealthy.
 
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This all is looking very promising.

Now that we are getting into the details of different faiths and their evolutions in game, it makes me wonder something.

How will royal marriages work in this scenario. By that I mean that, as we now have characters with defined faiths, will different Christian faiths be allowed to intermarry, or will there be blockers there?

Will spouses have events to tie them closer to their married, ruling, partners faith or the opposite, and they hold onto their faith. Will characters that marry e.g. from Catholicism to Orthodoxy take on a new name on conversion of religion (if it happens).

Also of heirs, will it be considered of being able to bar/block individuals from the throne due to their faith (a la the Act of Settlement?)

All sounding promising for now, and looking forward to what is next.
 
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This is the point when things get tricky, because of having so many different Protestant denominations, so we'd need to add dozens of confessions (take also into account the different sovereign Lutheran churches...) to be completely accurate, and why we decided for functionality over complete accuracy. It would eventually be cool to add more flavour, including unique naming, to the different branches and churches... But gameplay and functionality always come first (and I'm telling you as the Content Design Lead of the project, meaning that I'm always pushing to get more historically accurate flavour content in the game). ;)
An interesting point or two to consider when deciding how many and which Protestant denomination to implement:

Peace of Augsburg was considered, which allowed the Lutheran denomination, but not Calvinist nor other Reformist, at least not till Peace of Westphalia, which might not happen ingame....

So, I would suggest adding another denomination alongside the three major ones of Lutheran, Calvinist and Anglican with a simple name Reformist, which would cover the other smaller fractions of Protestantism.....
 
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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.
Then would it make sense to depict early Anglicanism as a Catholic church outside the Catholic IO?
 
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Do you have to be Catholic or protestant to sponsor the leagues? So no Muscovy and ottomans as sponsors? Also, can catholics sponsor the protestant league (like France did historically) and vice versa?
We have only designed for Catholic and Protestant countries to be sponsors of the Union/Leagues.
 
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You havent explained anything about the wars of religion? How does the war trigger? Who can initiate it? Who can negotiate and end it? Will it have stages? Can there be multiple wars waged at different stages? What does it mean that a member desires peace how is that manifested in the game???
1. War is initiated by the leaders of the league, at the earliest, some years after creation.
2. They can fabricate a CB and declare war with it, which enables the peace treaty options to forcefully resolve it.
3. Normal wars can still happen on the side.
4. No stages.
5. The desire for peace is calculated based on war length and exhaustion; it is essentially the country no longer willing to fight.
 
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This is the point when things get tricky, because of having so many different Protestant denominations, so we'd need to add dozens of confessions (take also into account the different sovereign Lutheran churches...) to be completely accurate, and why we decided for functionality over complete accuracy. It would eventually be cool to add more flavour, including unique naming, to the different branches and churches... But gameplay and functionality always come first (and I'm telling you as the Content Design Lead of the project, meaning that I'm always pushing to get more historically accurate flavour content in the game). ;)
Having an Evangelical, Reformist and Radical Reformist faith (To portray Anabaptists) would be a minimum to portray the different branches of Protestantism.

It would be nice to have more, but that should about cover most situations. Quite honestly cutting out Anglicanism as a unique faith and portraying it as Reformist, with unique aspects to show its unique doctrines would be a better solution, anyway. It's strange that the church of England is getting special treatment on the matter when the evolution of the Anglican church could just be portrayed with the mechanics shown in this post, and no other nation's church is getting a unique faith.
 
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"Always translates into a golden age"? France and Belgium's recovery from the Black Death/Hundred Years War took 400 years, England's 200 years. Germany didn't have a golden age after the Thirty Years War either.
Agricultural productivity per worker certainly goes up a lot when more than a third of the population dies, but that alone can't be responsible for a "golden age".
golden age does not mean recovery of pre-event population count..... that 400 figure is way too much.
The Golden Age means the prosperity for people and businesses that, for whatever reason didnt or couldn't thrive before. Creating a period of modernisation and innovation
 
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