Trent council doesn't work

[Blust]

See for just a simple example :

Burgundy want to tolerate heretics. Burgundy has majority support for tolerant position. Burgundy is curia controler.

So why the fuck would Burgundy vote for untolerance of heretics ??

 

[EarlKonrad]

God only knows!

One would think that the weights would add up as to have them support the tolerant side, yes. It may just be a case of randomness with the system.

 

[deathbypie]

Council of Trent seems pretty badly designed as well as buggy. Does the negative opinion of heretics still apply to all heathens across the world?

 

[Zhetone]

council of trent was implemented stupidly from the outset, the named choices make absolutely no sense and are impossibilities (Really, sola fide is just something they vote on and decide to support?)

paradox doesn't understand Catholicism and they also can't code properly

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Council of Trent seems pretty badly designed as well as buggy. Does the negative opinion of heretics still apply to all heathens across the world?

Yep, still randomly -80 with Hindus and such too. Even though the game clearly makes a delineation between heretic vs heathen and the modifier says "heretics".

 

[deathbypie]

Yep, still randomly -80 with Hindus and such too. Even though the game clearly makes a delineation between heretic vs heathen and the modifier says "heretics".

I can't even believe that's not an easy fix. Tons of things in the game affect only heretics or heathens. Even other opinion modifiers.

 

[Shogun96]

The whole council of Trento, and the way Catholicism is represented, is a mockery of Catholicism itself.

But hey, we are getting mission trees for oceanian OPMs!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I can't even believe that's not an easy fix. Tons of things in the game affect only heretics or heathens. Even other opinion modifiers.

They also can consider "not true faith". So this must be bugged. Either this weird heathen hatred is intended (and thus the UI is bugged when it says only heretics), or the text in UI is intended and it's the mechanic not working properly.

Sadly, this is far from the only time we have scenarios of "either UI or mechanic must be bugged". Consider cases like

• Not being able to take provinces "because you can't core them" (even though you could), or "loyal" subjects still accepting support for independence
• Coalitions supposedly being cobelligerent except when you declare they aren't
• "Rebels need to control at least one fort to break the country" (they can break it w/o any forts)

etc. If Pdox cared about these enough for even modest priority they'd have been long fixed. Especially the ones that are literally just UI bugs that can be fixed via text edit.

 

[Martynios]

Think you hate the design of the council of Trent? Wait until you play multiplayer and can’t ally a catholic player because of a permanent, immutable, RNG-determined opinion malus even though both of you want it.

 

[Zhetone]

the mechanic makes no sense anyway because irl Trent was all "harsh" and yet Catholics and Protestants still allied with each other when it was convenient.

 

[BoomKidneyShot]

Both of my recent Austria runs had weird Councils. I was very aggressive in keeping Protestants from staying around for long. I destroyed the CoRs really quickly, but kept a single Protestant nation so that the council could trigger. After that, I removed them. Protestantism was crushed in its bed. Yet, the AI Papal States as the Curia Controller decided to go all conciliatory, even though most of the cardinals support Harsh stances, with all but a couple provinces in Europe staying Catholic.

 

[Methuen of Melnibone]

Does anyone actually notice the effects of the Council of Trent ? I'll be honest & say that I never have, even when playing in / adjacent to the HRE. It just seems like a one-time pop up that you then forget. It'd be a golden opportunity to add more events / temporary modifiers / pop ups and so on, but it just seems to be 'pick a position, forget'.

Is it any different for a Papal States player ? (not played them properly yet, I'd be disappointed if it was the same)

 

[KalypsoKirin]

At this point, I just tag switch to the pope to pump up the curia treasury then to controller to force the council to pick concilatory, because otherwise it's always full harsh, and steadfast allies I have worked hard to build a high trust with suddenly decide they would rather be eaten by France, Spain, or Ottomans than be seen buddying up to a heretic. Even worse when more than half their provinces are already protestant with more flipping every year, yet they refuse to convert to appease their people and maintain strong alliances.

 

[Pandrea]

Trent council should be much much longer. In my games it takes just one month from start to end and basically the Curia controller decides everything. Real Trent Council lasted almost 20 years...

 

[Braan]

I think the Council of Trent is a nice idea overall, but the current implementation makes it one of my least favourite features.

1) It seems way too random.

Like in the example of the original post, most cardinals wanted Conciliatory, as did the Curia controller. Yet Harsh was selected for some reason.

I did a test in game once, reloading a save from before the council. Original result was All out Harsh. New Result was All out Conciliatory. No major changes in political environment either, but it is ofc possible that I missed a Curia controller change for example.

2) It has too big an impact

There's a -120 opinion difference between max Harsh (-80) and Max Conciliatory (+40), which is insane, considering you only get -100 for being someone's rival.

With Conciliatory, inter-faith diplomacy is easy mode. With Harsh, alliances break to one bad event and PUs can be tricky to keep, let alone integrate if you're a Protestant with Catholic subjects, since you get -120 total from different faiths if adjacent, -100 if not.

3) The opinion modifiers last too long.

The modifier really should end when the faith of the HRE is decided, instead of lasting till the end of the game.


In my opinion it could use at least some of the following changes:

1) Having it depend more on the number of Cardinals for each stance, and the Curia controller. There could be a longer cooldown between the choices, so it would be more likely to have more than one Pope selecting options.
2) Reducing the opinion modifier by 50% would make sense
3) The opinion modifiers should have an end date. For example when the HRE faith is locked, or just a fixed year like 1650 for example

 

[Pandrea]

3) The opinion modifiers last too long.

The modifier really should end when the faith of the HRE is decided, instead of lasting till the end of the game.

Until age of assolutism. After 1700 religious differences were a non-factor for diplomacy between powers. -120 malus would be realistic during religion wars (XVI-XVII sec.), but it have to disappear after that age

 

[Blust]

Does anyone actually notice the effects of the Council of Trent ? I'll be honest & say that I never have, even when playing in / adjacent to the HRE. It just seems like a one-time pop up that you then forget. It'd be a golden opportunity to add more events / temporary modifiers / pop ups and so on, but it just seems to be 'pick a position, forget'.

Is it any different for a Papal States player ? (not played them properly yet, I'd be disappointed if it was the same)

You notice it when you try to ally someone in 1750 and they have -80 of opinion.

It's like "oh yeah, they hate my shintoist ass because catholics and protestants were disagreeing 200 years ago, makes sense."

 

[Meneye]

I remember at the time it was released people were complaining they couldn't even participate because the AI immediately bought all the reforms. So, they "fixed it" by making it so that the AI now takes some time implementing reforms.

So, now instead of the council lasting less than a second, it now lasts 3 seconds as the AI takes slightly longer to buy all the reforms. Still without the player ever participating, because the curia treasury is usually so large that it doesn't even matter what the cardinals think. We basically affect nothing and whoever just happens to be the curia controller at the time determines every council concession in less than 6 months.

It would make more sense if every pope could only buy one reform, and then the next curia controllers gets to make a concession. Other countries can actually participate, and there would be a competition to invest papal influence to become controller every time the pope dies in order to steer the council in one direction or the other. It would also have a nice benefit of potentially mixing reforms, making the benefits and opinion malus/bonus more varied throughout every game.

 

[Methuen of Melnibone]

You notice it when you try to ally someone in 1750 and they have -80 of opinion.

It's like "oh yeah, they hate my shintoist ass because catholics and protestants were disagreeing 200 years ago, makes sense."

Ah ok - so does it only really matter if I'm non-Christian ? I've played a couple of India-based games, but becasue the AI never comes to India, I hadn't had those kind of problems.

 

[love sweden]

But don´t you realise that they added a event to Catholicism? This instantly makes it a deeper and better religion and fixes all the problems we previously had of it being 100% RNG reliant if you win or not. - Steam rewiever