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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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I was totally fine, but slightly less so now that you've dismissed my concerns and honest inquiry. If you harbor hatred for ethnic, religious and LGBTQ minorities I think that fact should be brought to the attention of the moderators. As a gay man I'm really proud the paradox Interactive forum has been a vibrant, open and inclusive platform for minority voices. I would hate for that to change by allowing racist incels and russian bots to thrive on the platform. So I think you should clarify your stance on the following three broad topics.

1. Adolf Hitler, fascism and the Holocaust

2. BIPOC and immigrant rights

3. LGBTQ+ and feminist empowerment
I'm being discriminated against for being gay
 
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Ayo ayo what's going on here
 
While yea it's really sus for someone to ask about specifically removing jewish pops from an area, you really need to calm down. Moderators should probably step in at this point on both sides, speaking as a queer person myself, because this is either unhealthy obsession or rage baiting specifically to cause drama.

I imagine there will be some way to discriminate against specific pops, as was historically done in many countries, and I hope that there will be the capability to do the opposite, welcoming in other cultures with open arms. We all have to remember that PC is being created to be a historical sandbox that seems to have put a great deal of importance of simulation rather than the "gamification" that other Paradox titles have gone through, I.E. EU4 with the aztecs and incans being able to elevate themselves to the High American tech group.
(added in edit, because i hit post too fast, whoopsie): The simulation will have to include the ugly parts of history as well, one of the most obvious ones that I can point to being slaves being treated as both a good and a pop.
I'm being discriminated against for being gay
 
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Protestant Christians(and eastern Christians too) should also have a way to canonize saints, including sharing some with other branches of Christianity, in the case of rulers it should be that when a country switches branch of Christianity their rulers that were saints still remain as such
 
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While yea it's really sus for someone to ask about specifically removing jewish pops from an area...
There is a lot of places where they were expelled between the start and the end of the game. I am not sure asking if it was an option is sus. I do not recall if it was possible in EU4 (though expelling the Moriscos was possible and generically expulsion for colonization). I do remember it a possibility in CK2.
 
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How will Puritans be represented as a separate religious minority within England?
 
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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.
Are the devs trying to make a Peace of Westphalia situation more likely? I don’t think I ever saw one in all my years of EU4, unless I intentionally decided to go for it rather than victory, whereas I feel that it should be at least a moderately common occurrence, and maybe even be the most common outcome when you have a decently strong Protestant league. At the least, the AI should be much more willing to consider it than they normally would consider a white peace in other wars
 
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You're starting in 1337 - who is Henry VIII?
With this I'll also agree. With time I've come to be annoyed by overly historical events late in the game. Sure, that's the vibe that a part of the community wants to roll with, but it'd be nice if the names were randomized for charachters that are born after the game's start date. So a Luther-esque character instead of just straight up Martin Luther. DVG even rolled with this back in the day by having him be the one to prosecure Zwingili. Just have it be a game option you can turn on or off at game start.
 
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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).

Re: Holy Sites.
Sounds like a good idea for a Church Aspect. Certain protestant faiths could be considered to have established their own holy sites while most have not. When you take the Aspect you can declare a location you own a Holy Site and get some bonuses and the option to build a big cathedral or something.

Also interesting would be a mutually exclusive aspect to declare a foreign holy site. The foreign holy site would need to be declared on a location you do not own and would give you a different set of modifiers focused on conquering that location. Maybe automatically switch back and forth between the two when you gain/lose control of the location.
 
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View attachment 1287941
It's just nitpicking but could you put the catholic leader(the Emperor) on the left and the protesatnt on the right? Right now it's weird considering the painting in the background has the catholic soldiers on the left and the protestant on the right
i think that have to do with who is the guest on that tab , its like in CK. the main one to the left and the guest to the right , the image behind is just a background .
with wars too the one who attack is left and one who defend is right . so its not something static but have to do with perspective of the player
 
Your church aspect "Translated Bibles" among others show an increase in pop literacy being the effect of the policy, this raises some questions. In one way this models the reformation backwards in how it increases literacy when the reformation (locally) was caused by higher literacy pops.

Theres so much data from this era in germany people have a good idea how and where lutheranism spread; from the cities esp. with places of learning and large populations of the burgers "middle class" and much less in rural feudal eras dominated by farming peasantry esp. those under the stewardship of bishops, ie bishoprics.

Sure the reformation spurred a drive to educate the masses more so in that case this is perfectly legit but, you have a chance to model the spawn and spread conditions of the reformation here very realistically which would make for a much more fun & dynamic game where the choices nations make impacts how they will be set up for the reformation good or bad.

I can recommend as reading material for someone on your team, first among these Reformations: The early modern world, 1450-1650 by Carlos Eire (great book) and Heretics & Believers by Peter Marshall along with related works by Peter Wilson. For example does your game have a way to model how the repressive nature of the habsburg monarchy caused the entirety of Austria proper to flip lutheran for over a generation?

Politics and religion always merge, enemies of the king often times became adherants of churches the monarch was explictly opposed too just as how persecuted religious minorites often sided with political malcontents so much so that drawing any clear distinction between a religious minority and a politically motivated dissident became impossible. All catholics were terrorist jacobins in England just as all locals and nobles ready to wring the neck of Emperor Ferdinand confessed the truth of Sola fide.

Hungary went entirely protestant for a short while kicking out the last catholic priest circa 1580 before Viannese counter-reformational crackdowns came down in a way to assert their independence from Austria as hungarians and from the Emperor as nobles. Deciding to become calvinist purely because "Lutheranism is a german religion" and the point was to separate themselves religiously from being absorbed and minimized in this universalist blob that the catholic church and habsburg empire had merged into. Same goes from the bohemians, part national freedom struggle for the czech people, part religious conviction of the truth of protestantism, part legal demand for their priviliges from a tyrannical and overreaching emperor who breaks the law he swore to uphold just to spite the bohemians. The fact they could never agree on which of these 3 was their main issue lead to their disorganized resistance in 1620.

The spread of the reformation follows a very basic pattern seen throughout most of europe: the cities and their burghers go lutheran, germans tended to go lutheran wherever they were from transylvania to scotland because the church became a proxy for their national identity, the peasants stay the old faith be it catholic or orthodox unless forced to change by the local authorities which they obey sheepishly as long as times are good, the clergy is split, the nobles prefer calvinism and the rulers can consult their conscious or political realities depending on personalities. In Hungary the nobility was calvinist, the cities lutheran, the peasants largely orthodox and all their enemies catholic and muslim. Bad place to be in.

As a sidenote the snide remarks about the refomation being a robberbarons game of calculated greed & powergrab does not hold up to historical scrutiny. If anything Nobles had nothing to gain (except the salvation of their souls) and everything to lose by angering their emperor and making themselves political phiranas which quick landgrabs could not offset. Peoples politics and earnest heartfelt convictions are oftentimes intertwined and inseparable and in this age of iron and faith men stood and died by their faith alone on both sides of the struggle.
 
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Do countries have Situations or similar in order to show internal upheaval during the Reformation? Like a ticking slider that builds up to religious civil war? Like do seats that have Lutheran or Calvinist Preachers build up discontent and generate disorder? Can they be clamped down on for a % chance of revolt uprising? And not just for Catholics but I'm imagining Anglican that have "conservative" aspects may discontent the locations with Calvinist preachers or Calvinist with "radical" aspects may trigger discontent in Lutheran preacher locations.

There was much talk about international religious war, but what about internally how the Reformation affects your internal stability and how to navigate it... wondering on that.
 
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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). ;)
I understand that adding too many Protestant denominations would be problematic, but the radicals need that distinction, moreso than Lutheran vs Calvinist if you ask me, though ideally we’d get both. The consensus seems to be that Anabaptist and Unitarian should be added to represent the radical reformation and I agree with that.

Secondarily, unless this is part of confessions church aspects should be replaced with or complimented by laws, similar to what we saw for Catholicism. This would obviously be per-state not universal, but you should always have a policy on a lot of stuff which is either currently covered in aspects, or presumed to be ubiquitous when it wasn’t. Also, “default” Lutheranism or Calvinism don’t really make sense as is. Critically if you don’t have Translated Bibles, you flat out aren’t a Lutheran or Calvinist, it’s kinda a non-negotiable part of the faith.
 
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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!
 
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!
Just suqesting I know this will be hard and this is not connected with this can you add when army enters in teretory (whit who are war with) then there is posibilyty to make same cultur group pesents rise up.For exsmple Serbians where under ottomans and then when Russians army entered in ottomans teretory there revolted which was Frst serbian revolt.
And if its posibil try to remake big migratons (Like First serbian in Austria-Hungary and Second serbian in Russian Empire).Sorry for bad made sentces.
 
How will Puritans be represented as a separate religious minority within England?
I imagine they'd be a spinoff of dutch reformed who migrate out of the Netherlands and into England after England signs in laws of religious tolerance.

The Puritans are full of sh*t when they tell you they left England because of Religious Oppression. That's why they left the Netherlands, England however was one of the most religiously tolerant countries in Europe- after the religious oppression of Catholics under Henry IV, and then Bloody Mary's Catholic Rule, so called because she executed scores of Anglicans and other Protestants to the point that parliament in essence did a coup to put Elizabeth the Great in charge to end the bloodshed. And she signed laws basically saying 'the official church of England is the Church of England, but so long as you pay taxes and don't overthrow the government you can be whatever denomination you want with your own churches.

The problem for the Puritans is they didn't want to live in a country where the different branches were treated equally. They went to the Queen asking to be installed as the official Church of England (as opposed to the actual Church of England). She naturally turned them down after so many decades of religious infighting. Hence they left to find the Promised Land in Massachusetts instead where they would have the power to mandate that the Puritans were the only legal religion. Which is why New England has so many states- other religious denominations (including the Puritans who just wanted to not be so strict- hence Rhode Island exists) had to found seperate colonies instead of live in Massachusetts.
 
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Listen to doesn't mean blindly follow, but I guess you will just ignore this.
If people many many times said we should have anabaptism or other denominations durign reformation, and devs constantly said nah just copy-paste EU IV and it'll be good, this is not "listening to" it is "ignoring". There is really no discussion about this, and we don't have reason behind decision.
 
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