Tinto Talks #71 - 9th of July 2025

[D.Knight]

This is a real potato potato thing to me. The main difference seems to me that one religion did this in Europe, and another did it in North America. We're talking about appeasing supernatural forces in either scenario, the why seems pretty immaterial to the fact that people decided that their religion required them to execute random people. Both don't seem to escape the definition of 'human sacrifice'.

No offense you've essentially just said agree to disagree. Fine I guess but just say that your capitulating advancing an argument as that ends up imo weasel words.

And "people decided that their religion required them to execute random people" isn't even correct for either faith besides. We don't know the exact social and demographics breakdown of who the Aztecs picked to sacrifice but they certainly weren't picking randoms with evidence of internal sacrifices being connected to the nobility and the prestige of (assenting) sacrifices and flower war captives and dead. You needed the best sacrifices to aid the sun god not randoms.

And kill random person is absolutely not what witch "burnings" (sorcery trials as whole) were about. You were getting rid of a threat. Again if you think magic exists and can be used for evil getting rid of an evil person who does magic is no different than executing a serial killer.

 

[vinaxel33]

Nahua Ritualism

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This image states that the Nahua religion has no sacred/holy sites; however, below it states that a pilgrimage to Cholollan is possible.

So, do they have sacred sites or not?
And if so, Cholollan wasn't the only pilgrimage site for the Nahua; they would also make offerings to Teotihuacan, so they could also list it as a holy site.

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

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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’:

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For the Doom dynamics, they just copied and pasted from EUIV; they didn't do anything; it's completely the same.

Furthermore, there's no basis for the Doom dynamics. I'd like to know where they got it from. Also, what's the basis for saying that if Doom gets too high, the world could end, and they'll have to sacrifice their rulers? There isn't a single source that has survived to this day that mentions having to sacrifice their rulers, none. Why do they make this up? It didn't even happen with the vassal peoples of the Triple Alliance. So why do they say they have to sacrifice their rulers? No people did it, although some were conquered.

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.

View attachment 1331507​

Could you say what benefits there are from installing Cihuacoatl? IT'S NOT BAD, I LIKE IT. However, the only thing we see increasing is the cost of the Court.

 

[A Pink Duck]

The sun being eaten (or more accurately killed by his sister and her allies) is eschatological. The world will end if we fail in this task of supporting the gods (and to do so after their own sacrifices for us would be an immense failure for the Aztecs as well). The sacrifice is human sacrifice. Witches were killed because they were a danger or could bring a danger (demons) to you and your community but the world certainly wasn't ending because of them nor were you aiding God in any way aside from the constant guard against evil.

Again words have meanings.

So only sacrifices that stop the end of the world count as human sacrifice? That doesn't seem right. Otherwise things like the Binding of Isaac wouldn't be [almost] human sacrifice. After all, Abraham was only doing it to prove that he loved God more than he loved his son.

In a similar way, murdering "witches" was being done because the people honestly believed that death was the divinely ordained punishment for witchcraft. They were doing it both to protect themselves from the witchcraft but also because they thought it would make God happy. While I probably wouldn't go so far as calling it human sacrifice (Christianity only tolerates the one sacrifice, all others are anathema), I can understand why some people might view it differently.

 

[Superdark33]

I also kind of fail to see how all the religious wars the abrahamic religions waged against each other wouldn't count in some way as human sacrifice.

Regardless, the point is: how would a society in which human sacrifice is central to the religion determine they have to move on from it? The answer is actually not so obvious - how many in the current era are willing to "die for their country", after all? - but that would only make sense if the belief system or realm governance are too unstable because of the sacrifices. What if people hated the idea of sacrifice but recognized its efficacy? What if they saw it as fair as long as it was random? What if they yearned for the honor of being sacrificed? The current system just tells you that the sacrifices are necessary and numerous, but not that people aren't okay with it or that it's unsustainable; it's not like Mesoamerica is devoid of people.

And, of course, this is all before considering what "reforming religion" would look like, even in the current memey setup: maybe I can sacrifice animals instead. Or maybe I should just hope the Sun will beat the moon by himself. Maybe my calcs are incorrect and the cycle takes 520 years instead of 52. Or maybe I should sacrifice human souls to that Jesus guy the whiteys are pestering me about (wait so he sacrificed himself to save humanity? Hmmm).

The many MANY justifications for sacrifice are only surface level bandages for the real issue which is "i would rather that neither my loved ones or i will be killed". There will never be enough excuses that will make everyone see it as a good possability, and any change to limit the number of people who would rather not die from being sacrificed will be welcome by anyone who isnt detached from that fear.

A reform could look like a limited number of designated voluntary sacrifices being elavated in social value compared to large amounts of captive enemies or some sort of messed up lottery.
Maybe shifting it to become a funeral practice rather than a sacrificial one.

Hell, as mentioned above human sacrifice isnt the only type of sacrifice practiced by the nahua, so shifting to a different form of sacrifice as The Important One makes sense.

 

[DominusNovus]

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.

I won't go so far as to suggest any particular course of action, I'll just say that the conversion of the Meso Americans is an interesting thing to flesh out, and could be so regardless of whether or not a colonial power conquered them. Not only that, it could be interesting to explore what it might look like if the colonial powers conquered in a different fashion. For example, something more similar to the British conquest of India, which was much more indirect.

 

[Spiritoftwinings]

I'm all in for a more accurate representation of the Nahuatl religion. But I don't think it's fair to think a more accurate representation should get rid of human sacrifice (at start), or use the "anti racist" prism of "all religions should be equal under the sun". All religions should be as accurately described as possible, but I think it IS true to history that the Nahuatl DID have a flux of human sacrifices, and as such, weren't "sustainable" on the long term.

So I'd say Lord Thanatos comments are a VERY good feedback (tbh as is most of his religious feedback that I saw) that can (at least partially, or maybe totally) be implemented without resorting to misrepresentations. So the "doom" mechanics could be renamed, and more accurately described in the localization text. And require for proper handling not only human hearts but also food and other materials, but the reformation needed does seem accurate. (maybe however it could be as laws and offer various paths of reform available ? Or maybe it is more fitted for a dlc to give laws and options, no idea)

I think this is the correct approach. The game shouldn't really make any assesments about a culture o religion being more or less "civilized" or "advanced", "morally right" or whatever, just represent them as accurately as possible. So in this case, only if the religion historically had the possibility of "reforming", should that option be added. Unless the devs are saying that there's a more universal mechanic of reformation of religions, in which case every religion should have that option, given that some prerequisites are fulfilled.

If anything, attitudes of that kind (for example the Europeans considering the American natives "uncivilized") should be something included in the cultural interactions of both groups, but not really a part of the game from a more "meta" perspective.

As far as I know, the reservation thing is largely a North American thing. Natives in Southern America, and especially Natives in Mesoamerica and the Andes where large urban societies used to be, continued to make up the majority of the population of the colonies under the Spanish and just slowly turned to speaking Spanish and be Catholics rather than be thrown out of their land.

So, the Aztecs and other Mexica people ethnically speaking went nowhere. They stayed where they were, and just started speaking Spanish and going to church, as far as I know.

Exactly. In most countries here in Latin America mestizos are the majority of the population, after 500 years of intermixing, and there are still millions of people that have kept most of their indigenous roots and are just another group within of the societies of these countries. Still, there are virtually no indigenous groups that have remained unchanged from their interactions with the Europeans and syncretization was the most common outcome of the "encounter of two worlds". So it should be definitely a part of the mechanics regarding colonial empires and the conquest of America.

 

[SAmaster]

No offense you've essentially just said agree to disagree. Fine I guess but just say that your capitulating advancing an argument as that ends up imo weasel words.

And "people decided that their religion required them to execute random people" isn't even correct for either faith besides. We don't know the exact social and demographics breakdown of who the Aztecs picked to sacrifice but they certainly weren't picking randoms with evidence of internal sacrifices being connected to the nobility and the prestige of (assenting) sacrifices and flower war captives and dead. You needed the best sacrifices to aid the sun god not randoms.

And kill random person is absolutely not what witch "burnings" (sorcery trials as whole) were about. You were getting rid of a threat. Again if you think magic exists and can be used for evil getting rid of an evil person who does magic is no different than executing a serial killer.

You realize that witches aren't real and nobody who was burned at the stake had magic right?

So only sacrifices that stop the end of the world count as human sacrifice? That doesn't seem right. Otherwise things like the Binding of Isaac wouldn't be [almost] human sacrifice. After all, Abraham was only doing it to prove that he loved God more than he loved his son.

In a similar way, murdering "witches" was being done because the people honestly believed that death was the divinely ordained punishment for witchcraft. They were doing it both to protect themselves from the witchcraft but also because they thought it would make God happy. While I probably wouldn't go so far as calling it human sacrifice (Christianity only tolerates the one sacrifice, all others are anathema), I can understand why some people might view it differently.

Christians have different rules about what constitutes 'acceptable' human sacrifice, so did the Aztecs. You couldn't murder your wife and say 'it's okay guys it was to keep the sun from going out' they'd still arrest your ass for it.

This is what I mean when I say it's the same behavior. People have just trained themselves to think Christianity is a more 'rational' belief system (I know you are broadly agreeing with me, I just feel the point still needs to be made)

I won't go so far as to suggest any particular course of action, I'll just say that the conversion of the Meso Americans is an interesting thing to flesh out, and could be so regardless of whether or not a colonial power conquered them. Not only that, it could be interesting to explore what it might look like if the colonial powers conquered in a different fashion. For example, something more similar to the British conquest of India, which was much more indirect.

There were several religious transformations in India that occured in the time frame, inspired by contact with monotheistic religions. Deva worship was another. I forget the name, but one belief emerged that you could skip the reincarnation process through absolute fundamental devotion to specific Indian gods with several temples springing up around this. Hopefully the fluidity of hinduism across the era is portrayed as well.

 

[SzalonyNiemiec]

Will patron gods influence diplomacy? i.e. Will tonal countries like each other more if they have the same patron god?

 

[Erbeilas]

I'm 90% sure the clothing of the people in the image are historically inaccurate. This looks more like the pop-culture version of the Aztecs

 

[D.Knight]

So only sacrifices that stop the end of the world count as human sacrifice? That doesn't seem right. Otherwise things like the Binding of Isaac wouldn't be [almost] human sacrifice. After all, Abraham was only doing it to prove that he loved God more than he loved his son.

In a similar way, murdering "witches" was being done because the people honestly believed that death was the divinely ordained punishment for witchcraft. They were doing it both to protect themselves from the witchcraft but also because they thought it would make God happy. While I probably wouldn't go so far as calling it human sacrifice (Christianity only tolerates the one sacrifice, all others are anathema), I can understand why some people might view it differently.

Any actual sacrifice of Isaac would be in the context of bronze age human sacrifice rituals for the same reasons of pleasing/aiding/honouring the gods. That Abraham did it is him showing his loyalty/love for God who gave him his son in the first place but the "reason" would be much the same.

> In a similar way, murdering "witches" was being done because the people honestly believed that death was the divinely ordained punishment for witchcraft.
Yes a punishment. Not a sacrifice (and again the difference between the views and actions of the hierarchy and these "popular" "burnings" matters immensely and can't and shouldn't be dismissed out of hand like before). Again it would be regarded as a crime against law not a thing to offer up in ways similar to the above. It's like saying Muslims and Jews not eating pork is some kind of sacrificial action.

 

[FleetingRain]

The many MANY justifications for sacrifice are only surface level bandages for the real issue which is "i would rather that neither my loved ones or i will be killed". There will never be enough excuses that will make everyone see it as a good possability, and any change to limit the number of people who would rather not die from being sacrificed will be welcome by anyone who isnt detached from that fear.

A reform could look like a limited number of designated voluntary sacrifices being elavated in social value compared to large amounts of captive enemies or some sort of messed up lottery.
Maybe shifting it to become a funeral practice rather than a sacrificial one.

Hell, as mentioned above human sacrifice isnt the only type of sacrifice practiced by the nahua, so shifting to a different form of sacrifice as The Important One makes sense.

I have not much idea on how the general populace saw the sacrifices (in fact I do not even know the rate of sacrifices), I was just giving random examples of why the system could possibly not be falling apart and in dire need of reform.

Tbh the more I think about it, the more I believe this mechanic needs to be wholly reviewed.

 

[LordThanatos]

The discussion of what religions were morally right for killing people has kind of lost the plot.

I might be going blind, but does anything in the TT confirm that a reformed Nahua ritual religion no longer performs sacrifices? I assume it includes getting rid of sacrifices because the doom mechanic is no longer active in the reformed faith, and the sacrifice mechanics for the Nahua are tied to that - however I guess it's always possible that reforming instead ties it to something like a stability increase if you perform a sacrifice. I don't actually see anything saying that there are no longer sacrifices.

The real point is that if the reforms are meant to lead to a version of the faith without the need for sacrifice, then how does taking these actions help to do that?

Other than Legal reforms, none of these even touch on the possibility of reducing or eliminating the need for sacrifice.

So far as repealing a need for sacrifice, both Raise Sacrifice Rate and Institute the Flower wars are directly for continuing sacrifices in some form. If the game does entirely get rid of human sacrifice for the reformed belief, then these reform actions are completely nonsensical. If these are the steps to a version of belief where people are no longer sacrificed, there need to be changes to reflect that in the reforms.

Raising the sacrifice rate should reduce how 'reformed' the faith is, not be an integral step to do so, if the definition of reforming the faith in any way includes reducing or eliminating the theological reasons for the sacrifices.

 

[D.Knight]

You realize that witches aren't real and nobody who was burned at the stake had magic right?

Christians have different rules about what constitutes 'acceptable' human sacrifice, so did the Aztecs. You couldn't murder your wife and say 'it's okay guys it was to keep the sun from going out' they'd still arrest your ass for it.

This is what I mean when I say it's the same behavior. People have just trained themselves to think Christianity is a more 'rational' belief system (I know you are broadly agreeing with me, I just feel the point still needs to be made)

There were several religious transformations in India that occured in the time frame, inspired by contact with monotheistic religions. Deva worship was another. I forget the name, but one belief emerged that you could skip the reincarnation process through absolute fundamental devotion to specific Indian gods with several temples springing up around this. Hopefully the fluidity of hinduism across the era is portrayed as well.

The people there absolutely did though. Don't try to weasel this as me believing the actions involved. It be like me saying you believe in said sun god that you sacrifice to.

That's the whole argument lol. You just saying nuh-uh by this point in the second paragraph. The third is also an incredibly snipy one. Diss people directly, not in replies to others.

 

[Kvesir]

This is a real potato potato thing to me. The main difference seems to me that one religion did this in Europe, and another did it in North America. We're talking about appeasing supernatural forces in either scenario, the why seems pretty immaterial to the fact that people decided that their religion required them to execute random people. Both don't seem to escape the definition of 'human sacrifice'.

I absolutely can't believe that people in this thread are equating Aztec human sacrifice with European wars, witch trials, or anything.
Absolutely baffling to me.

The Aztecs went to war with the explicit purpose of taking prisoners of war to sacrifice, by their priests, on top of a pyramid in large religious ceremonies that included public parades, in order to appease their gods and prevent the end of the world. It was a sadistic eschatological necessity baked into the religious establishment and celebrated, not something that was happening in the sidelines or as a side effect of wars. In some ceremonies the priests ripped their victims' hearts out. In others they were flayed alive. Sometimes their blood was drank. Very often they were tortured before death in front of the crowd.

If anyone has any objections to the idea that the Aztec religion was abhorrently cruel and sadistic to a degree unseen in Europe I'd recommend them to read this. Nothing in Europe even comes close. Even if the Pope personally killed witches in the witch trials it wouldn't come close. I considered writing here the gory details but I'm sure that the mods would have deleted this post if I did.

 

[EU3NOOB]

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

 

[vinaxel33]

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.

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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.

It's too much to ask for more gods to be included in the case of Tonalism; they could at least include Curicahueri, the patron god of the Purepecha.

It's insulting that the Tonalist religion uses the Purepecha language as its liturgical language but doesn't have any Purepecha gods to choose from.
That's just one example; there are more.

Please fix that.

 

[Birchinjaro]

The Bible literally says 'suffer not a witch to live'.

...which is a reference to an ancient law of Israel
Also glad to see that this became a religious debate , i wanted to specify that it's not racist to say that any progress of the Aztec religion all the way into the 19th century would have to include a reformation of the faith but this turned into a "WELL CHRISTIANITY IS BAD" debate, good to know
It's also why i brought up the Germanic, Hunnic and Mongolic tribes, people just get offended and start getting side tracked

 

[SAmaster]

Any actual sacrifice of Isaac would be in the context of bronze age human sacrifice rituals for the same reasons of pleasing/aiding/honouring the gods. That Abraham did it is him showing his loyalty/love for God who gave him his son in the first place but the "reason" would be much the same.

> In a similar way, murdering "witches" was being done because the people honestly believed that death was the divinely ordained punishment for witchcraft.
Yes a punishment. Not a sacrifice (and again the difference between the views and actions of the hierarchy and these "popular" "burnings" matters immensely and can't and shouldn't be dismissed out of hand like before). Again it would be regarded as a crime against law not a thing to offer up in ways similar to the above. It's like saying Muslims and Jews not eating pork is some kind of sacrificial action.

Jews don't burn people at the stake for eating bacon, the analogy falls apart.

The people there absolutely did though. Don't try to weasel this as me believing the actions involved. It be like me saying you believe in said sun god that you sacrifice to.

That's the whole argument lol. You just saying nuh-uh by this point in the second paragraph. The third is also an incredibly snipy one. Diss people directly, not in replies to others.

I don't get why you are acting like 'kill the witch because god wants us to kill them' and 'kill this sacrifice because the Sun god needs the blood to keep going' is some sort of important difference in kind that invalidates witch burnings as a form of human sacrifice. At the end of the day both are religious beliefs causing people to get murdered in the name of God.

I absolutely can't believe that people in this thread are equating Aztec human sacrifice with European wars, witch trials, or anything.
Absolutely baffling to me.

The Aztecs went to war with the explicit purpose of taking prisoners of war to sacrifice, by their priests, on top of a pyramid in large religious ceremonies that included public parades, in order to appease their gods and prevent the end of the world. It was a sadistic eschatological necessity baked into the religious establishment and celebrated, not something that was happening in the sidelines or as a side effect of wars. In some ceremonies the priests ripped their victims' hearts out. In others they were flayed alive. Sometimes their blood was drank. Very often they were tortured before death in front of the crowd.

If anyone has any objections to the idea that the Aztec religion was abhorrently cruel and sadistic to a degree unseen in Europe I'd recommend them to read this. Nothing in Europe even comes close. Even if the Pope personally killed witches in the witch trials it wouldn't come close. I considered writing here the gory details but I'm sure that the mods would have deleted this post if I did.

I'm not saying they happened in the same scale. I'm saying the represent the same behavior. A point you seem eager to divert away from.

What does it matter that you're killing people because you need the Sun not to go out, vs. the neighboring countries church doesn't practice communion?

 

[SAmaster]

...which is a reference to an ancient law of Israel
Also glad to see that this became a religious debate , i wanted to specify that it's not racist to say that any progress of the Aztec religion all the way into the 19th century would have to include a reformation of the faith but this turned into a "WELL CHRISTIANITY IS BAD" debate, good to know
It's also why i brought up the Germanic, Hunnic and Mongolic tribes, people just get offended and start getting side tracked

I thought you'd be happy. Your point was that it's not racist to say the human sacrifice is bad. I agree. And I reinforced your argument by pointing out that it's bad when white people in europe do it too.

My point is that there's no sort of inherent qualities in ethnicities or in religions that make human sacrifice a good thing. It was bad when Christians did it, isn't that part of your argument?

Unless you are trying to make this into a civilizational bean-counting contest.

 

[vinaxel33]

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:

View attachment 1331409
As usual, please consider all UI, 2D and 3D Art as WIP.​

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Nahua Ritualism​

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

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This is the panel of the religion:

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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':

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Maya Ritualism​

Let’s talk now about another of the Tonal religions - Maya Ritualism:

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

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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.

View attachment 1331524​

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.

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View attachment 1331533​

Like the Nahuatl religion, do the Mayans have sacred sites or not?

Because it seems they do, otherwise there's no point in making pilgrimages to Ek Balam and other sites.
List them as sacred sites, so that part isn't ambiguous.

In addition, there are other Mayan religious festivals, such as the Hanal Pixan, which is still celebrated today, the Chak-Chak, and other festivals to pray for rain or other blessings from the gods. They could include these so that not everything revolves around the katun.