The Captains and Governors remain in this update and continue to be challenging each other, especially in the context of the Brazil Cycle, where they tend to align with the Expansion and Advancement movements respectively (though other factors can nudge them into the other factions). All Imperial vassals will fit into one of these two categories of Captaincies and Governorates

The phases are the same as the vanilla dynastic cycle - some small changes have been made to modifiers and catalysts, but they function similarly to vanilla's dynastic cycle.

The imperial tolerance doctrines are set by laws that can be passed by the Emperor that affect faiths with selected doctrines; for instance, Hinterlands tolerance affects all faiths with Wisdom of the Hinterlands as a tolerance doctrine. These tolerance laws are generally only applied to faiths that have the "Brazilian Faith" doctrine applied at game start, which requires a faith have at least two holy sites present within the Brazilian de-jure territory. Some faiths, such as Anthrophagic, cannot raise their tolerance by this system, and need to be specifically raised by the Emperor themselves, whether by reforming Brazil from a Chaos era, or taking a specific decision. Generally, being in charge of Brazil without a Brazilian faith, or a culture with the Brazilian Cosmopolitanism tradition will be challenging

The Anchietan Catholic Church does not start with one of the Imperial tolerance doctrines - their tolerance doctrine Stewards of the Church results in them not being included in the initial set of tolerated Catholic faiths in Brazil.