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Tinto Talks #65 - 28th of May 2025

Hello, and welcome to another Tinto Talks, the happy Wednesdays where we talk about Europa Universalis V!

Today, we will discuss the mechanics of Eastern Christianity religions. We have grouped them into three main religions: Orthodoxy, Miaphysitism, and Nestorianism. So, let’s start without further ado.



Orthodoxy

This is the overview of the Orthodox religion:
Orthodoxy Tooltip.jpg

This tooltip needs some more love, as we’re not showing all the mechanics of the religion. That’s because, as usual, please consider all UI, 2D and 3D art WIP.

This is the country panel of the religion:
Orthodoxy Panel.jpg

Countries of Orthodox religion in Autocephalous Patriarchates, which are a type of IO:
Autocephalous Patriarchates5.jpg

Autocephalous Patriarchates2.jpg

Autocephalous Patriarchates1.jpg

Autocephalous Patriarchates3.jpg

I’m taking here the Autocephalous Patriarchate of Constantinople, which has the custom name of ‘Ecumenical Patriarchate’, as an example.

And here you have the existing Orthodox Patriarchates in 1337:
Autocephalous Patriarchates4.jpg

Countries can Join an Autocephalous Patriarchate, if they’ve just converted to Orthodoxy; or, when they already belong to one, they can Change to a different one, or Create a new one:
Autocephalous Patriarchates Join.jpg

Autocephalous Patriarchates Change.jpg

Autocephalous Patriarchates Create.jpg

The Seat of an Autocephalous Patriarchates defines the Leader of this IO, which unlocks additional effects and actions:
Seat1.jpg

Seat2.jpg

Autocephalous Patriarchates Relocate.jpg

There are also some other blocks in the Autocephalous Patriarchate, as its Saints:
Saints.jpg

And Holy Sites:
Holy Sites.jpg

The main currency of the religion is Religious Influence, which already appeared in the Catholic TT:
Religious Influence1.jpg

Religious Influence2.jpg

You can do a few things with your Religious Influence. First, you can canonize a former ruler, making him a Saint:
Saints1.jpg

Saints2.jpg

Saints3.jpg

The benefits you get from the canonization scale with the ruler stats. So better to make sure that you want to canonize a truly memorable former ruler!

You can also call for a Synod in your country:
Synod.jpg

Synod2.jpg

Synod3.jpg

Synod4.jpg

Finally, there’s a unique type of work of art, Icons:
Icons3.jpg

These icons not only give a modifier to the location where they are, but also can be used in a ‘Periphora’ to another location:
Periphora.jpg

Periphora2.jpg



Miaphysitism

Miaphysitism is similar to Orthodoxy, with some differences. Here is the overview of the religion itself:
miaphysitism.png

Same as Orthodoxy, it also has the mechanics of Canonization and Autocephalous Patriarchates, with these ones being the Patriarchates present at start:
miaphysite patriarchates.png

However, most of these are actually empty due to being occupied by Muslim countries, with only Ethiopia remaining as part of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Alexandria and the Armenian patriarchate as the only one containing more than one country.
armenian patriarchate.png

An integral part of each the Eastern Christians and their Patriarchates are their Tenets, defined in a series of laws:
Tenets1.jpg

Tenets2.jpg

The ‘Nature’ tenet is a hard–locked IO Law, that depends on each Religion:
Tenets3.jpg

composite nature.png

These Tenets can be changed, and there are multiple possibilites in each Law:
Tenets4.jpg



Nestorianism

There is no country having Nestorianism as its state religion at game start, but the religion is nonetheless still quite spread in some areas. Here is an overview of it:
nestorianism.png

nestorianism panel.png

Nestorianism also has its own holy sites:
nestorianism holy sites.png

And also its specific definition of the nature of Christ:
separate nature.png

A final remark on a common flavor for all these religions. First, they have their unique flavor monasteries:
orthodox monastery.png

miaphysite monastery.png

The modifiers are WIP, we want to make them somewhat different.

There's a Law in which you can define the policy of the relationship between the state and the religion:
Patriarchate Law.jpg

And that’s all for today! Tomorrow is Thursday, which means that we will publish a new ‘Behind the Scenes’ video, on Friday, we will discuss the Byzantine Empire in Tinto Flavour, and next Wednesday's Tinto Talks will be about Islam.

And also remember, you can wishlist Europa Universalis V now! Cheers!
 
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I totally understand that it is part of WiP overall 3D portrait mechanics, but for example Volodymyr the Great lived in the X century :D

I suggest what if you use some generic orthodox 2d icon images for Orthodox Saints, please?

1748440806405.png


Otherwise looks nice!
 
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Which branch of christianity do the Melkites and the Maronites fall under?
The Maronites should be Catholic - when the Crusaders encountered the Maronites during the First Crusade, they had been so isolated that they were not really aware the Schism had even happened, but immediately affirmed their loyalty to Rome and quickly moved to resolve any doctrinal errancies that had developed over the centuries. Indeed, modern Maronites very strongly insist they were never out of communion with Rome despite their isolation from the rest of the Christian world.

"Melkite" basically just refers to the Eastern Christians who accepted the Council of Chalcedon, that is to say, they're literally the Eastern Orthodox. The Greek Melkite Catholic Church in communion with Rome didn't emerge as a separate group until 1724 (the newly elected Patriarch, Cyril VI Tamas, was a bit too friendly towards Rome so the Ecumenical Patriarch felt his authority was being challenged, and unilaterally deposed him and appointed his own loyalist).
 
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Can you show us all the Nestorian patriarchates that exist at game start like you did for orthodoxy and Miyaphitism please?
There are a couple in Mosul and Kollam, although no country belongs to them, so if you convert to Nestorianism, you can join either.
 
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Why have you butchered the names of old Russian Grand Princes, line Saint Vladimir?
 
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On the topic of holy sites, but you could consider adding one for catholics, orthodox and myaphasites in Bethlehem, to represent the church of the nativity and the religious importance of the town independently of Jerusalem.
I wholeheartedly agree, but I think it's far too close to Jerusalem for it to pass the 100-pixel-mark in an already quite location-dense area.
 
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There are a couple in Mosul and Kollam, although no country belongs to them, so if you convert to Nestorianism, you can join either.
Do I need to own one of the two cities to join one of the Patriarchates or it can be done even without? What's the difference between joining a Patriarchate without any country in it and creating a brand new one in my capital?
 
I think the terms Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox are pretty clearly differentiated and you're not giving your audience enough credit to read the words on their screen, but alright, you're the game designers.

Please at least add something to the description of Miaphysitism to say "The followers of Miaphysitism - officially known as the Oriental Orthodox churches - teach that..." and similar full, official names to the descriptions of the other churches discussed here. You make it seem like Eastern Orthodoxy is the only or most important branch of Christianity called Orthodox, when you refer to it alone as Orthodox.
You also have to take into account that we are localizing the game to several languages, and not all have differential wording for 'Eastern' and 'Oriental'.

We are trying to make this game as historically accurate as possible, but sometimes we need to follow a more functional approach.
 
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You also have to take into account that we are localizing the game to several languages, and not all have differential wording for 'Eastern' and 'Oriental'.

We are trying to make this game as historically accurate as possible, but sometimes we need to follow a more functional approach.
It would also not be historically accurate, the term "Oriental Orthodox" comes from the 1965 Addis Ababa conference. Although the communion did recognise their common Christological views prior
 
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Take into account that APs are IOs, and thus, operate with Countries; so it's not possible to have a 1:1 copy of the historical eclesiastical organization, in our game, it is just an (accurate) approximation.

View attachment 1308317
How can there be 8 members in this one, 70 in the Byzantine one, but only 74 Orthodox nations total? Can you be in multiple autocephalous patriarchates at once?
 
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You also have to take into account that we are localizing the game to several languages, and not all have differential wording for 'Eastern' and 'Oriental'.

We are trying to make this game as historically accurate as possible, but sometimes we need to follow a more functional approach.
That's fair, but I'd still appreciate seeing the actual church name somewhere, even if it's in the description.

Honestly, though, I'm more interested in my original question. The Hesychast controversy is what I am most excited about with Eastern Orthodoxy and I'd love to see how it's portrayed and how it might influence the politics within the Byzantine Empire. It's one of the biggest events for the Eastern Orthodox rites and it's happening right of of the gate at the game's start.
 
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Why only rulers?
Because the characters that we have in this game are centered around the country court - the rulers and their family; some courtiers employable as cabinet members, generals, admirals, and explorers; and artists. The people who would usually be considered for canonization are scarcely present in our game, usually as courtiers or iconographers; thus, we're focusing the gameplay of the mechanic around ruler canonization.
 
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So do the Autocephalous Patriachates Interact with each other ?

Can we be members of Multiple Patriarchates?
1. No, because APS are IOs, and thus, cointainers; the 'actors' that can interact with each other are the countries inside them.
2. No.
 
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