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Tinto Talks #71 - 9th of July 2025

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

Today, we will talk about the Tonal religions! This is a religious group that covers the Mesoamerican religions:

Tonal Religions.jpg

As usual, please consider all UI, 2D and 3D Art as WIP.



Nahua Ritualism

Let's start with Nahua Ritualism, which is the religion in the group that has more detailed features:
Nahua Ritualism.jpg

This is the panel of the religion:
Nahua Panel1.jpg

Nahua Panel2.jpg

Let’s start with the core mechanic of the Nahua Ritualism, an old EU4 friend, Doom:
Doom.jpg

Doom2.jpg

Doom3.jpg

As you can see, Doom accumulates over time, and the bigger the country is, the more Doom it accumulates. It can be mitigated either by performing some mechanics, such as killing enemies and looting locations, or by some of the Religious Actions. But there’s only one way of completely escaping from it, which is Reforming the religion. This can be achieved by passing by enough Religious Focuses, the former EU4 ‘Reforms’:
Religion Focuses.jpg

These Focuses are a necessary pain, as they give a debuff to your country while they’re active, but you need to accumulate some of them to be able to reform the religion. Here you have some of them.
Elevate God.jpg

Gods1.jpg

Gods2.jpg


Establish Cihuacoatl.jpg


Institute the Flower Wars.jpg


Raise Sacrifice Rate.jpg

Raise Sacrifice Rate2.jpg

These are the available Religious Actions:
Appease Gods.jpg


Host a Ceremony.jpg


War Path.jpg

Flower Wars.jpg

The last action, Reform Society, allows to Reform the religion when enough Religious Aspects have been enforced, but it has a big con: It triggers a disaster, 'Reform Society', which needs to be resolved to become a 'Reformed Nahuatl Society':
Reform Society.jpg

Reform Society Disaster.jpg

Reformed Nahuatl Society.jpg

Reformed Nahua Ritualism.jpg



Maya Ritualism

Let’s talk now about another of the Tonal religions - Maya Ritualism:
Maya Religion Panel.png

Different from Nahua Ritualism, Maya Ritualism doesn’t have any Doom, but centers instead around the concept of the K’atun.
Katun.png

The mechanic revolves around preparing for the K’atun celebrations every 20 years in the game. The player needs to invest resources using the different actions to raise the country’s preparations for the K’atun, measured with the Religious Influence currency.

The country can choose between three degrees of intensity in their preparations, and that will impact the effects they get while preparing for it.
Katun modifier.png

The K’atun will happen on the actual dates according to the historical Maya calendar, so the first one to encounter once the game starts will be in September 1342, with the following ones occurring every 19.7 years (so they will not always be on the same month). Once the K’atun finishes, the country will get an event with different outcomes depending on how much preparation they have been able to accomplish, as well as resetting the value of preparation back to 0.
Katun event.png

Katun bad option.png

Katun celebrated.png

Katun well celebrated.png

Besides the normal preparations, other additional actions can contribute to the gain of Religious Influence:
Maya Sacrifice.png

Maya Pilgrimage.png

The religion also has other ways to spend the Religious Influence before the end of the K’atun comes, although at the risk of not being fully prepared when it does.
Maya Celebration.png

The modifier granted by the celebration will be different depending on the date on which the ceremony is hosted, varying according to the historical Uinal.

Same as Nahua Ritualism, Maya Ritualism also has gods, some of them are actually the same ones with different names (so we have dynamic naming for gods). For example, Quetzalcōātl and Kukulkan are the same god with dynamic naming.
Mayan Gods.png



Tonal
This mechanics for gods is common to all Tonal religions, as well as many of the Folk Religions. We can now show the religion we have decided to call Tonal, namesake of the Tonal group, gathering under its umbrella beliefs related to those of the Nahua and Maya, but still distinct.
Tonal Panel.png

Tonal Gods.png

The gods of a country of these religions are always present for the countries, but the countries can choose a Religious Aspect to worship a specific god as their patron, doubling the effects of such a god.
Tonal Aspects.png

And that’s all for today! We will come back on Friday, as we will talk in Tinto Flavour about the Aztecs!

And also remember, you can wishlist Europa Universalis V now! Cheers!
 

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Are the religion and god icons placeholders? I hope they will get some unique icons like the Hindu patron gods do
 
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Good DD on the Mesoamerican religions.
Why is there no holy site?
 
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I'd suggest the island of Cozumel (location of Ekab in the northeast Yucatan) as a historical late postclassic pilgrimage site for the Maya religion:

1752071650319.png

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^ from Carmack/Gasco/Gossen's The Legacy of Mesoamerica (chapter The Mesoamerican World at Spanish Contact)

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^ from Smith/Berdan's The Postclassic Mesoamerican World (chapter International Trade Centers)
 
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One thing I thought was sorely lacking from the Meso-American flavor in EU4 was too narrow a focus on retaining the native religions. I get that strategy gamers find bloodthirsty human sacrifice to be meme-y (lets not forget we’ve made Crusader Kings infamous for all sorts of depravity). At the same time:
- human sacrifice is just plain inefficient (no reward, demographic and economic insanity)
- historically, whenever societies had a way “out” of human sacrifice, they took it. Not necessarily willingly, but the number of people sacrificing was always smaller than the number of potential sacrificees.

I’d really like for there to be a way for one of the pre-Columbian societies to embrace the faith(s) of the old world colonial powers, and have some actual flavor for doing so. Think about how much fun you could have with Protestant Maya and Catholic Aztecs.
Great idea, I'd even go a step further and allow these societies, even as they adopt an Old World religion, to keep vestiges of their old faith.

Say a Maya society is converted to Catholicism, they would keep a Maya Ritualism Legacy reform that would give the nation a Religions Action for a minor K’atun celebration every 20-ish years. This would be just a simple event that gives you some small Stability but lowers Clergy satisfaction a tiny bit, for example. The text of the event would be about reframing the K’atun celebration in Christian trappings...

Likewise, for Nahua Ritualism Legacy reform, it gives you the option of doing a Religious Action for food/offerings sacrifice (no humans, obviously) to Jesus, whom the event text would describe as taking a lot of Sun symbolism.

Although Aztec people are long gone, Maya people live to this day. I wonder what parts of their pre-colonization customs survived and could be used as inspiration for a Maya Ritualism Legacy.
 
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Great idea, I'd even go a step further and allow these societies, even as they adopt an Old World religion, to keep vestiges of their old faith.

Say a Maya society is converted to Catholicism, they would keep a Maya Ritualism Legacy reform that would give the nation a Religions Action for a minor K’atun celebration every 20-ish years. This would be just a simple event that gives you some small Stability but lowers Clergy satisfaction a tiny bit, for example. The text of the event would be about reframing the K’atun celebration in Christian trappings...

Likewise, for Nahua Ritualism Legacy reform, it gives you the option of doing a Religious Action for food/offerings sacrifice (no humans, obviously) to Jesus, whom the event text would describe as taking a lot of Sun symbolism.

Although Aztec people are long gone, Maya people live to this day. I wonder what parts of their pre-colonization customs survived and could be used as inspiration for a Maya Ritualism Legacy.
At this point, pdx should need to redo the whole religion mechanic to base it on syncretism, and christiannity/ilsam/judism being the weird ones for not fitting in.
 
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Now, regarding DOOM (yes, this is the proper way to write it), I'm not really happy to see it again in EU5. I understand at this point it's iconic and kind of a meme, but there are much better ways to represent how the Aztec religion worked, like this one.

Also, since you're writing ejectives (as you should), Kukulkan should actually be written K'uk'ulkan. The difference is important: K'uk'ulkan means "feathered serpent" (k'uk' quetzal + -ul adjectival suffix + kan serpent), while Kukulkan would be something more like "beetle-serpent" or "insect-snake" (kukul beetle, insect + kan serpent, although I don't know if that's actually grammatical).
 
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A request: Can you make religious reformations for native-americans work religion wide, instead of per tag?

One of the issues playing in the region is you are heavily encouraged to just annex everything, rather than try to engage in forms of diplomacy. Part of this is because while you the player might reform your religion, you can't rely on the AI doing it, so other tags in the region will be way weaker for when you want to fight the europeans. So if the player manages to remove the doom mechanic, this should send out a wave to other nahautal nations to remove theirs. Same for any other mechanics ported over from EUIV.

The native religious reforms I think can be widely agreed to be the worst part of EUIV. Not necessarily the mechanics of the religions, or the bonuses you got for reforming, which were alright. The main problem was how they kept you from embracing new institutions. Can you please confirm for us whether that system has made a return? I'm sure you decided to remove it, and let the Aztecs embrace institutions as they please, I'd just like official confirmation.

Also I don't know if it was stated elsewhere, but will the Aztecs and similar nations get access to institutions like feudalism without the arrival of the Spanish? It always seemed an odd choice to not have them be feudal, especially when the Spanish would have Colonialism and Renaissance allowing them to still have a very high tech advantage.
 
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Aztec people are long gone
there are more than 2 million Nahuas in Mexico and some thousands in Central America today, and more than a million speakers of the language. Sure most are not descendants of the Mexica lineage themselves, but that's a super narrow definition considering 'Maya' encompasses a family of ~30 distinct ethnolinguistic groups. There are plenty of other native cultures in Mexico as well

All of them have been fundamentally Christian for centuries but still preserve their culture and traditions too
 
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Oh great one of the worst most ahistorical systems is back, I don't know as much about Mesoamerican history as I'd like to, but I know enough to know that this is... really bad. Like Lord Thanatos said the Doom system absolutely butchers the actual beliefs of the Mexica and other Nahuan peoples.

Also the idea of "reforming" your religion and society as a whole feels a bit racist, it very much plays into the narrative of the Nahua being "primitive" or "savage". Currently it feels like the game exoticises Nahua beliefs instead of accurately representing them, making it seem like it's all just focused around blood and brutality, when it just wasn't. So please make a 180 on the design for the Nahua, It doesn't have to be amazing or in-depth, it just needs to be a representation of the Nahua, not a characterisation of them.
 
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We have any historical examples of mesoamerican rulers and their families being killed in ritual sacrifice because they failed to capture enough war prisoners to ritual sacrifices? If the answer is no, why this mechanic is back? But maybe the answer is yes, I really dont know enough about this matter.

Will the AI know how reduce doom? In some patchs of EU4 they would be at max doom everytime.
 
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One thing I thought was sorely lacking from the Meso-American flavor in EU4 was too narrow a focus on retaining the native religions. I get that strategy gamers find bloodthirsty human sacrifice to be meme-y (lets not forget we’ve made Crusader Kings infamous for all sorts of depravity). At the same time:
- human sacrifice is just plain inefficient (no reward, demographic and economic insanity)
- historically, whenever societies had a way “out” of human sacrifice, they took it. Not necessarily willingly, but the number of people sacrificing was always smaller than the number of potential sacrificees.

I’d really like for there to be a way for one of the pre-Columbian societies to embrace the faith(s) of the old world colonial powers, and have some actual flavor for doing so. Think about how much fun you could have with Protestant Maya and Catholic Aztecs.
In particular you can focus on the level of syncretism that went on. Most of the natives that the Spanish incorporated into their colonies simply shifted from worshipping their native Gods to worshipping Jesus and Mary in the same way they'd always worshipped gods- ritual sacrifice. But like with chickens and goats rather than humans. This led to more religious persecution by the Spanish to ensure that they worshipped Jesus 'right'.

If the Croatians are getting a unique christianity version, I'd argue that the native converts of mesoamerica should get a unique version of christianity that keeps a lot of their native religious mechanics that the Spanish have to convert back into Catholicism.
 
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Great idea, I'd even go a step further and allow these societies, even as they adopt an Old World religion, to keep vestiges of their old faith.

Say a Maya society is converted to Catholicism, they would keep a Maya Ritualism Legacy reform that would give the nation a Religions Action for a minor K’atun celebration every 20-ish years. This would be just a simple event that gives you some small Stability but lowers Clergy satisfaction a tiny bit, for example. The text of the event would be about reframing the K’atun celebration in Christian trappings...

Likewise, for Nahua Ritualism Legacy reform, it gives you the option of doing a Religious Action for food/offerings sacrifice (no humans, obviously) to Jesus, whom the event text would describe as taking a lot of Sun symbolism.

Although Aztec people are long gone, Maya people live to this day. I wonder what parts of their pre-colonization customs survived and could be used as inspiration for a Maya Ritualism Legacy.
I thought Mexico has plenty of Aztec natives on reservations. Just, you know, they don't club people with obsidian axes anymore, so they aren't as sexy.
 
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People are complaining about doom but, this is a general problem with religions in eu5 where a lot of them have mechanics copypasted from eu4 that were then modified/expanded, rather than having entirely new mechanics. The problem with this of course being that a lot of the Eu4 religion mechanics were very gamey/pop history/fantastical, which doesn’t really fit the rest of the more realistic content of Eu5.

At this point it’s probably a bit late to rework religions, but for now I suppose using Eu4 as a foundation works somewhat fine. As long as most of the more questionable religion mechanics do get a second look later on…
 
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Definitely an improvement on EU IV, but not sure why you're sticking with Doom. But assuming that's past the point of discussion, some other thoughts:

-Do all the focuses need to be taken in order to reform? Would be interesting if you could pick and choose, and this would affect the reformed religion's bonuses. As well as something from the patron god you promote!

-Are the Nahua sacrifices always slaves? They sacrificed plenty of nobles as well

-If we are going with Doom... Could it have an end result that isn't "sacrifice ruler and dynasty"? I get what you're going for, but that just never happened as far as I'm aware. What about a more general rebellion/end of an era disaster, similar to what we've seen in the flavor for India for instance?

I do like the amount of attention the region has gotten, but please just a bit more love for the Nahua! Praise Tezcatlipoca!

Edit: Almost forgot! Any way we could get a catchier name than Reformed Nahua Ritualism? Does not quite roll off the tongue.
 
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I thought Mexico has plenty of Aztec natives on reservations. Just, you know, they don't club people with obsidian axes anymore, so they aren't as sexy.

Theres several million Nahua spread across Mexico and over a million of them still speak Nahuatl
 
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All pleas for a release date have proved fruitless! It is time for action! TINTO DEMANDS BLOOD! I will be sacrificing one forumite (unbelievers first) everyday until the release date is announced! First off, the heresiarch! May the guardians of Sitges favor me in my endeavors...

View attachment 1331539
Tinted blood for the Tinto gods.
 
A request: Can you make religious reformations for native-americans work religion wide, instead of per tag?

One of the issues playing in the region is you are heavily encouraged to just annex everything, rather than try to engage in forms of diplomacy. Part of this is because while you the player might reform your religion, you can't rely on the AI doing it, so other tags in the region will be way weaker for when you want to fight the europeans. So if the player manages to remove the doom mechanic, this should send out a wave to other nahautal nations to remove theirs. Same for any other mechanics ported over from EUIV.

The native religious reforms I think can be widely agreed to be the worst part of EUIV. Not necessarily the mechanics of the religions, or the bonuses you got for reforming, which were alright. The main problem was how they kept you from embracing new institutions. Can you please confirm for us whether that system has made a return? I'm sure you decided to remove it, and let the Aztecs embrace institutions as they please, I'd just like official confirmation.

Also I don't know if it was stated elsewhere, but will the Aztecs and similar nations get access to institutions like feudalism without the arrival of the Spanish? It always seemed an odd choice to not have them be feudal, especially when the Spanish would have Colonialism and Renaissance allowing them to still have a very high tech advantage.

Oh great one of the worst most ahistorical systems is back, I don't know as much about Mesoamerican history as I'd like to, but I know enough to know that this is... really bad. Like Lord Thanatos said the Doom system absolutely butchers the actual beliefs of the Mexica and other Nahuan peoples.

Also the idea of "reforming" your religion and society as a whole feels a bit racist, it very much plays into the narrative of the Nahua being "primitive" or "savage". Currently it feels like the game exoticises Nahua beliefs instead of accurately representing them, making it seem like it's all just focused around blood and brutality, when it just wasn't. So please make a 180 on the design for the Nahua, It doesn't have to be amazing or in-depth, it just needs to be a representation of the Nahua, not a characterisation of them.
I agree, although I guess in this case "reforming" is more in the sense of "let's get rid of human sacrifices", in which case I would accept it. In fact, only the Aztecs have it apparently, and they were the ones who sacrificed people the most.

Also, it was implied I think in a reply to my comment in the religion TT that "primitive" won't be a thing in this game.

I also agree on the institution part, the Aztecs should, in fact, have at least feudalism. Heck the Inca too could maybe have (or get through an event) meritocracy, since for a time the heir was chosen not based on primogeniture but based on how capable he was.
 
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