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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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That sounds like a good incentive to have a few tiny stacks outside of the battle, waiting to join in if there's a bad roll, so it can be rerolled. Perhaps it should only re-roll if the army joining is a certain percentage size of the force already in combat, at least.
If there needs to be this much protection around it, is it really worth it for a meme?

Just because they believed everything was ordained didn't make everything ordained.
 
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What's the point in fighting in the religious war, from a gameplay perspective?

In EU4 there was really no benefit to join a League, unless you were the leader of said league and thus could benefit from seperate peacing all your enemies.

The bonus you get in EU4 for being part of the victorious side & the fulfilled age objective in the age of absolutism is okayish, but wasn't worth it at all imo.

That seems once again to be the case here, unless I'm missing something. Why would I, as e.g. France, decide to join in on the Protestant side? What do I stand to gain? There seems to be no way to, for example, conquer territory or bring countries into my sphere of influence as a member of a league.

Can someone tell me whether I missed something or not?
 
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Just wanted to say, wish you guys end up creating some late protestant movements like Anabaptists and such. I think they would add flavour and complexity, even though their mechanics are not very deep on launch, neither will be the ones of many minority religions in other parts of the world, but it's best to have them anyway, at least to show historical processes.

The rest looks pretty cool.
 
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If there needs to be this much protection around it, is it really worth it for a meme?

Just because they believed everything was ordained didn't make everything ordained.
You won't hear argument for the mechanic from me. I can't see how it'll possibly end up being balanced properly, and while it's funny, it's strange to have as part of the core game rather than a meme-mod. It's also strange because in some way it means that in the game's world, believing in a predeterminist worldview makes the world a little more predetermined. I wonder if they've added similar mechanics for any other faith. It feels really tonally strange for this game - but it's also not a huge deal to me, because if it's in the game on release, it will be the first thing I mod out.
 
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No, it works if there's any country professing a Protestant religion - and we have defined as 'Protestants' the following: Lollardism, Hussitism, Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Anglicanism.
Firsr, that's a big step forward compared to EU4. EU4's approach to shoehorn in the reformation denominations other than protestantism by force-converting much of the HRE on a short timer while leaving enough protestants alive to trigger the war and not having no more elections afterwards while also hoping that the AI protestants made the right choices to not ruin your run is always a bit of a hassle.
This new approach should be good for the first several playthroughs at least.

However, what about your 10th playthrough when you're trying to get involved in the HRE business as orthodox Byzantium?
Or your 25th as Buddhist China?
Or your 50th as Animist Ryukyu?

Basically, are there any plans with non-reformation related Christian, or even non-Christian denominations? Like, a game rule or at the very least moddability?

Whereas in EU4, the League Wars can happen some 100 years into the game, so in the late early/early midgame where one can assume that the map hasn't been redrawn completely yet - in PC, which starts some 100 years earlier than EU4 and the religious war tends to trigger somewhat later, we should be approaching the lategame at this point, and a lot could have happened already.
So Zoroastrians having taken over a slice of central Europe and interfering in the local affairs doesn't seem entirely out of the question to me.
 
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The primary issue with modelling different Protestant branches using "church aspects" is that it comprehensively fails at one of PC's main objectives: to model historical factors systemically. These kinds of player choices best model state policy, and whilst many of the key decisions made during the reformation were top-down, state-enforced actions (e.g. Henry VIII breaking with the Catholic church, HRE princes choosing whether to embrace Protestantism or attempt to crush it, state attempts to formalise doctrine, religious leagues banding together out of self-interest), I would argue much of the most important history of the reformation wasn't.

Under the current model, the policies of your state church are enforced top down arbitrarily and universally accepted. Your choices cause friction with other states, but there are no internal pressure groups pushing for their own doctrines, or groups so disgruntled they break off to form their own churches. Under this system there's no way to simulate the huge internal disputes within the Church of England, the mass support for Anabaptism throughout Germany, or even the civil war between Utraquists and Taborites without bespoke mechanics and events for each of these very analogous processes. Modelling all these becomes so much simpler if at the very least sects radically opposed to the state church are represented on the pop and estate level.
 
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If there needs to be this much protection around it, is it really worth it for a meme?

Just because they believed everything was ordained didn't make everything ordained.
Yeah it's extremely funny, but the narrative implication is odd, and the mechanical problems involved in that are very concerning. Maybe it's less impactful than I fear, in which case it's a cute bit of flavor, but if it causes problems it's definitely not worth it.
 
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Oh, and also, please make sure conversion to these confessions is gradual. During the early modern period, there were a lot of protestants of different denominations in "catholic land", and many catholics in "protestan land". In many places, like Great Britain, there was still religious turmoil until the 17th century (and much later in Ireland, but that's a different story). Maybe the Age of Absolutism could give bonuses to conversion, as the States in that time were able to push it with more efficiency, but before that, it should be pretty slow outside the reformation focuses. Please, no flash conversions of whole countries like in eu4.
 
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I heavily dislike religious aspects that are fundamental parts of the religion. Some of these things would qualify the "national church" to be considered a different religion Ala Anglicanism if they were actually implemented. The worst offender is 'Translated Bible'. A lutheran or calvinist who disagrees with translating bibles is not a lutheran or calvinist. Likewise, it makes no sense for lutherans or calvinists to pick and choose which of the 5 solae they adhere to. It would make more sense if the other branches could 'borrow' those aspects from them, but they shouldn't be selectable aspects of calvinism or lutheranism themselves.
To my knowledge, it only makes sense for 'translated bibles' to be an aspect of Anglicanism, as thats the branch that doesn't have that as a foundational part of the religion. Likewise for the 5 (or 3) Solae.
I think renaming the religions to more broad terms sidesteps this problem somewhat. It may not make sense for a 'Lutheran' to not adhere to the Solae, but it would for a broader religious term.

The way I see it there are two main options, meant to be as consistent as possible:
Maintain Lutheran and Calvinist as the names of the religion, and add a couple more religions to represent Anabaptist and Unitarians. I don't think this is that big of an ask considering groups like the Waldensian are represented despite their small size. Add the Solae aspects to the religions that don't adhere to them at a base level.

Change the names to Evangelical and Reformed, to represent broader groups. Keep most of the aspects and abstract away all the branches. I'd argue a third minority branch would still be warranted, but not sure atm what it should be called. I prefer the other option, but this way at least the distinctions would be internally consistent.

Either way, remove the translated bibles aspect, for everyone except Anglicans. You can keep a different aspect with the same or similar effects, but call it something else. (Like Scripture Recital, or something.)
 
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The primary issue with modelling different Protestant branches using "church aspects" is that it comprehensively fails at one of PC's main objectives: to model historical factors systemically. These kinds of player choices best model state policy, and whilst many of the key decisions made during the reformation were top-down, state-enforced actions (e.g. Henry VIII breaking with the Catholic church, HRE princes choosing whether to embrace Protestantism or attempt to crush it, state attempts to formalise doctrine, religious leagues banding together out of self-interest), I would argue much of the most important history of the reformation wasn't.

Under the current model, the policies of your state church are enforced top down arbitrarily and universally accepted. Your choices cause friction with other states, but there are no internal pressure groups pushing for their own doctrines, or groups so disgruntled they break off to form their own churches. Under this system there's no way to simulate the huge internal disputes within the Church of England, the mass support for Anabaptism throughout Germany, or even the civil war between Utraquists and Taborites without bespoke mechanics and events for each of these very analogous processes. Modelling all these becomes so much simpler if at the very least sects radically opposed to the state church are represented on the pop and estate level.
Also, for that matter, making Anglicanism England-specific is really frustrating: there's no reason apart from historical happenstance and a large, strong state that England should be particularly liable to break with Rome in the way it specifically did. I can only assume it's England-specific because it would be really hard to name otherwise, which in my opinion is not a particularly good reason!
 
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I'm not a huge fan of using "Lutheran" and "Calvinist" when those were labels applied to the reformist movements by the Catholic church, and were even disliked by Martin Luther and John Calvin, themselves. While the terms are more readily accepted by some members of said denominations today, it would be far better to use the terms they preferred, that being Evangelical and Reformed, respectively (Continental Reformed to be specific, as Anglicanism is also a Reformed denomination).

You might get away with it for Lutheran as it describes the denomination only. Calvinism, however, is not a denomination, it's more specifically a particular Soterial view which is a part of some Reformist denominations. It'd also be wrong not to show that the Reformist denomination was already separate under Huldrych Zwingli before Calvin became a prominent Reformed theologian.

As for the content, I was wondering if some of the major events of the reformation are present, like the Marburg Colloquy? Another question, which I'd asked in the Military Order TT is whether the Teutonic Order and Knights Hospitaller have mechanics to represent their historical splits during the reformation, creating protestant (More specifically Evangelical) military orders?

Other than Evangelical and Reformed, are other early protestant divisions present? The Swiss brethren and Anabaptism, in particular? Currently you're portraying two Reformed denominations, one Evangelical, and all of these are from what's called the Magisterial Reformation, meaning you have no representation of any denominations from the Radical Reformation.

Considering this, wouldn't it make more sense to move the Calvinist modifiers (specially the Everything is Preordained one, lmao) to a Church Aspect exclusive to Reformed religion? @Pavía
 
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Can we start the wars of religon early to crushg the protestant league before it can enbolden itself or are we forced to sit down and not be allowed to do anything due to abritary rules?
 
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The Hussites as a movement did not become Lutheran, however. The Moravian Church was formed from most of the remnants of the Hussite movement. The modern church is part of Lutheran federations, but that's not the same thing as being Lutheran.

The Waldensians did not become reformed, either, though some joined the Reformed churches, they are still seen as distinct to this day, and there are still Waldensian communities.
I wasn't super clear, I'm sorry. What I mean is that considering the modern Hussites are in communion with the Lutherans and the modern Waldensians are in communion with the Reformed church, they are considerablly more similar than any part of the Radical Reformation is to everyone else.
These movements are called proto-protestant because they were seen to have espoused some similar views, or more generally because they disagreed with the Catholic Church. They are not called that because they formed some part of other protestant movements. Two out of three of the examples you gave are still extant in some way, and have not folded into other denominations, still holding some beliefs from before the Diet of Worms.
Aren't they called proto Protestants because they themselves later identified as Protestant? Especially the Hussites, while they didn't all just become Lutheran flat out, many of them did. And even the ones that didn't that still exist today are in full communion with Lutherans. (Admittedly, pretty much the entire magisterial reformation is in full communion in the present day)

When playing as a Waldensian Austria or something, I don’t want my tolerance of Calvinists to be the same as my tolerance of Catholic, both at the pop level and at the tag level I would like to be able to treat them as my coreligionists, or close enough to that.
 
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I would like to join the voices here calling for a slight bit more granularity/expansion for the Radical Reformation sects. While I don't think getting to the nitty gritty divisions (like Quakers) is necessary, I think having some basic room for the big radicals in their own religions is a must. At least Anabaptist and Unitarian. These two (especially the latter) had significant core divisions from Calvinism, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, and the proto-Protestants (Waldensian, Lollard, Hussite) that make representing them through church aspects within the others an unfortunate choice.

Overall though I think this system is exciting! Looking forward to it.
 
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When playing as a Waldensian Austria or something, I don’t want my tolerance of Calvinists to be the same as my tolerance of Catholic, both at the pop level and at the tag level I would like to be able to treat them as my coreligionists, or close enough to that.
I think relations with various protestant denominations being flexable, while papists are utterly loathed, is important. A Lutheran living in england is going to be treated a lot better than a catholic.
 
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