Suggestion for "forced culture change"!

Vindahl · Sep 13, 2014

I know that this idea might not be the most ethic, but in a game where you can already execute children, and torture prisoners I don't think I break any rules by suggesting this...

What I would like to see, is the ability to make an "ethnic cleansing" of a province/realm. It could be from the Intrigue tab or just by an event, if your ruler is cruel and arbitrary enough...

When you force a province/realm to change the culture to your own, you are doing it to reduce the chance of revolts and rebellions from other culture groups, and because you don't want to wait for the province to change by itself, which takes many many years...
Of course there is a drawback to this, a modifier to the province/realm, that reduce income and troops and such things for a period of time, and will give your ruler bad opinions from other characters of the suppressed culture groups(s). And if you are unlucky you might actually get a revolt on your hands, especially if the foreign cultures in your realm are more present than your own...

The idea could also be used for religion, to force your people under one religion.
These things happened, (and also today) so it would historically not be far off. And you can already "force/ask" characters to change religion.

If I offend anyone with this idea, I appologuise, it is not my intention...

Teten1 · Sep 13, 2014

It may have historical precedents, but it is still prevalent in places like Africa. I'm not sure the devs would want to touch something like that.

SlackBladder · Sep 13, 2014

That's an interesting idea and would be historical, but Paradox tend to avoid ethnic cleansing and genocide in their games for obvious reasons. I think expelling the jews is the closest we'll get to that type of decision.

Perhaps a colonization event would be a more tasteful alternative? You get the opportunity to import colonists to a foreign culture province and have a string of decisions which determine whether it's successful and your own culture takes over the province.

Asphyxion · Sep 13, 2014

I'd love this. I'd also like the character search to include ethnicity and not only culture.

Ols · Sep 13, 2014

I would like more control over what culture provinces become. In particular I'd like to PREVENT a place from becoming my culture or allow them to flip to a culture that is my vassal's rather than my own.

Fishman786 · Sep 13, 2014

Ethnic cleansing etc will not be in the game. The devs don't like it and the moderators have a habit of squashing these types of threads early.

thevmag · Sep 13, 2014

Culture is a lot harder to change than religion. You can't just force your peasants to wear twirly mustaches and berets and call them French: they'll resent their new lifestyles, and likely practice their old ways in private. To make a culture change, they need to accept your culture over time and begin acting that way even in their most personal moments, or you need to replace their population with your own. It's pretty vague what happens when a culture's province changes, so you can always headcanon it as ethnic cleansing if you assign individuals of your culture to oversee a province and they happen to flip.

Fishman786 said:
Ethnic cleansing etc will not be in the game. The devs don't like it and...

Wait, you're saying that when we spend Administration points to magically change province culture in EU4, it's not active and deliberate cleansing?

Derfel06 · Sep 13, 2014

Vindahl said:
... but in a game where you can already execute children, and torture prisoners I don't think I break any rules by suggesting this...

What's wrong with executing children and torturing prisoners?

Tuerai · Sep 13, 2014

Ols said:
I would like more control over what culture provinces become. In particular I'd like to PREVENT a place from becoming my culture or allow them to flip to a culture that is my vassal's rather than my own.

I'm pretty sure provinces can flip to a vassals culture instead of yours. I'm at least pretty sure that can happen.

ahhheygao · Sep 13, 2014

Tuerai said:
I'm pretty sure provinces can flip to a vassals culture instead of yours. I'm at least pretty sure that can happen.

Nope, that doesn't happen, unfortunately. Culture conversion can only occur when vassal's culture matches top liege's.

YinglongFujun · Sep 13, 2014

While on the one hand I like having a greater influence on the game world and see the legacy of player actions burn onto the game map, the current cultural conversion in vanilla is ... well, a bit quick and chaotic, and I am not sure what adding further options for forced culture change would do. For instance, in my current session, Persian assimilated the Afghan, Baloch and Kurdish cultures completely. Dutch in Pannonian Basin. Bedouins in the middle of France. Steppe full of Greeks. And they happen within one and a half century. Their occurrences are not really strange in game terms, but it illustrates the highly changeable culture scape even out of the hand of players.

Personally, I think cultural conversion should be a more labourious and harder-to-achieve process to nudge it closer to reality, constrained by factors such as neighbouring culture and terrain. That is not to say there cannot be a choice for forced cultural change, but if there is one, it should at least have fairly restrained conditions.

Ols · Sep 13, 2014

ahhheygao said:
Nope, that doesn't happen, unfortunately. Culture conversion can only occur when vassal's culture matches top liege's.

Immensely frustrating when I want a vassal to be a culture similar but not identical to mine. Such as wanting a vassal to be Egyptian when I am Berber and wanting to flip a Nubian or a Levantine province to their culture.

Chef Boyardee · Sep 13, 2014

Please do not put a fucking ethnic cleansing button in the game.

LACKADAISICAL · Sep 13, 2014

Not very realistic... I don't think medieval people had the same strict notions of culture and ethnicity that we do. Big culture shifts that took place historically were because of mass migrations (Germanics moving into Gaul/Britain/Italy, Turks moving into Asia Minor, etc), not organized ethnic cleansing.

Sgt.Pepper1947 · Sep 13, 2014

Chef Boyardee said:
Please do not put a fucking ethnic cleansing button in the game.

"I would like to ethnically cleanse my realm of pollack and Jews", see, although it would be fun(to moderators: killing children is perfectly acceptable), I think it would be a bit difficult to touch on. I can already see the media say "this game lets you commit genocide!", so it would probably never happen.

LACKADAISICAL · Sep 13, 2014

The game has never shied away from politically incorrect topics, but this is a bad idea simply because it rarely if ever happened (except toward the Jews, and that's already in-game).

Simmy93 · Sep 13, 2014

It is a lot easier to change your religion, changing your culture means learning a new language, a new way of thinking.. There's a reason it is so scarce.

Sgt.Pepper1947 · Sep 13, 2014

LACKADAISICAL said:
Not very realistic... I don't think medieval people had the same strict notions of culture and ethnicity that we do. Big culture shifts that took place historically were because of mass migrations (Germanics moving into Gaul/Britain/Italy, Turks moving into Asia Minor, etc), not organized ethnic cleansing.

this is very true, even the English kings back then wanted to be french(or at least french culture), the place was really diverse back then, unlike closer to the 15th century were modern nations were staring to emerge. Later in the 19th century it was more apparent Hungary for the Hungarians, Romania for the Roma etc. The empires of that time were alos way more inclined to commit intentional "ethnic cleansing".

LACKADAISICAL · Sep 13, 2014

Sgt.Pepper1947 said:
this is very true, even the English kings back then wanted to be french(or at least french culture), the place was really diverse back then, unlike closer to the 15th century were modern nations were staring to emerge. Later in the 19th century it was more apparent Hungary for the Hungarians, Romania for the Roma etc. The empires of that time were alos way more inclined to commit intentional "ethnic cleansing".

Yeah, funny how medieval rulers tended to want to be another culture than promote their own. English tried to be French, Greeks and Germans claimed to be Romans, Turks spoke Persian at court, etc. Forced religious conversions make a lot of sense, since it happened all the time during this time period. Forced cultural conversions do not make sense, as strong notions of culture and nationhood didn't exist until centuries later.

thevmag · Sep 13, 2014

Sgt.Pepper1947 said:
I can already see the media say "this game lets you commit genocide!", so it would probably never happen.

Between hundreds of thousands of levies pulled off the farms and homes to tie for no better goal than keeping borders pretty, or slaughtering 2 or 3 whole generations of children at a time just to secure a title, or instantly sending government troops to slaughter the peasants by the thousands every time they rise up against our tyranny... don't we already?

Suggestion for "forced culture change"!

Colonel

Galactic Frienderation

First Lieutenant

Major

Liberal Nihilist

Maharaja

is like nipples on men

Storyteller

General

Double-Peace Stegosaurus

Corporal

Liberal Nihilist

Dumbass

General

Major

General

Baron of Newtownards

Major

General

is like nipples on men