Half of Europe is Germanic culturally

You should be happy with the fact that they did not deleted other pagan religions, in favor of improving norse even more.
(hey, west african was broken for like 6-12 months before it got fixed, it can't be THAT bad)

herrmarisa said:

So now we have even the most major areas of Europe as one Germanic culture or another. That's a really great idea! It complies just PERFECTLY with my and Paradox' idea of the Germanic master race. But that really isn't enough! How about we populate the sea with Germanic master race fish and give them the Norse religion that is the only one to be able to swim in the rivers? I mean, that stuff was probably mentioned in sagas so it must be 100% true! And speaking of some minor courtiers in Scandinavia, how come there are a couple of courtiers who don't have their stats above 30? That's outrageous! Clearly Paradox is biased here. Damn, this is just impossible! A Norse person who is not a genius!

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Location: Russia

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Well I'm just surprised you managed to both log in and write a post here without guidance from a wise Germanic Nordic Viking. We all know Russians, and all other un-Germanic peoples cannot achieve anything without the guidance of Thor.

Other than Russian culture needing Germans to form, I fail to see the problem with the Germanic cultures in 769.

A few centuries of successful invasions ought to do that to the places invaded. Rest assured, the Byzantines back then probably felt similar to you.

Welp, there's still over 200 million people in Europe who speak some sort of Germanic language.

herrmarisa said:

I REALLY doubt there were enough barbarians to migrate in hundreds of thousands to be able to replace the entire populations of Italy and Spain. I also really doubt that Anglo-Saxons settled all over England so quick that they managed to convert all Brits to their culture.

The DLC is full of annoying nonsense that makes me too annoyed to play it, even though I really like the new tribal mechanic.

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Some cultural assimilations happened faster, others happened slower. It is impossible to know just what the cultural picture was in those times, so you have to compromise.
The other thing that should be taken into consideration is the fact that the culture was not viewed the same way as it is today, and many people did not care that a foreigner ruled over them, especially if the rule lasted for a long time.
It should really be noted that CK2 is not a history book nor a statistical record, but a game. Cultures are only split in this game if there was some notable cultural tension (like Germans ruling over Italians in High Middle Ages) and if there was no notable cultural tension or conflicts in the realms, then there is no point for the game to specifically represent it. For example, if a non-Saxon man in England came to power, he would embrace much of Anglo-Saxon culture because it was viewed as the culture of the ruling caste rather than the evil invader's culture. Cultures in these times tended to mix a lot, both in low and high classes.
Could it be represented with a more detailed system? Yes... but it would be unnecessarily complicated and give little to nothing in return and people on the forums would just become more critical so again it would not be right. Thus, the cultural map is such that it best fits gameplay and tries to keep the balances level of immersion.

That is not to say that there are no major flaws in the current cultural set-ups (Birth of Russian culture and lack of cultural diversity in Egypt being some of more controversial ones), but it is not this bad IMO.

Sorry, but seriously, what's the point of all this ranting about how P'dox is looking down upon Russians/Slavs/Finns/whatever/etc.? I mean yes, there certainly are some problems with the current setup: Suebi and Lombard in the Germanic culture group (which IMHO could even be left as it is, IF these cultures wouldn't be so widespread), godlike viking characters and the fact that the Russian cultures need a Germanic overlord. But some people act like P'dox slaped them in the face while screaming "F*ck you, Untermensch!". It's a game, after all.

And really, some of the current setup has it's merrits. Creating a Suebi empire in Spain is a nice challenge for people who like alternate history, the requierments for the Russian culture allows Vikings who conquer Russia to "go native" and the godlike mythical characters, even if I agree that they are too powerful, are only a handful. The only thing I would change are the new Russian "tribal cultures" as they seem to be wrongly named (I'm no expert on this, though).

herrmarisa said:

I REALLY doubt there were enough barbarians to migrate in hundreds of thousands to be able to replace the entire populations of Italy, Spain and France. I also really doubt that Anglo-Saxons settled all over England so quick that they managed to convert all Brits to their culture.

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On England, I agree; Italy probably was made Lombard because they had to buff up the Lombards, though.
And for France and Spain, three centuries of unbroken rule are a strong enough argument for cultural (not ethnic) conversion.
I'd also point out that CK2's culture system is quite horrible, in my humble opinion.

Nyrael said:

Other than Russian culture needing Germans to form, I fail to see the problem with the Germanic cultures in 769.

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1.Carinthians are german (having just been conquered)
2. lombard and suebi aren't just german they are central germanic. if they had there own culture to simulate tentions, that is one thing but putting them in the central germanic group implies that they didn't mix/assimilate at all. The migrationperiod armies just used a tribal name but they where to few to change a region so significantly

The angl-saxon provinces I know to little about and they are to few for me to complain.
But I have absolutly no problem with frankish france, they have to be in some group should be unified. latin franconia would be just as weird. You could probably argue over a couple provinces but agin i know to little about that part.

Lombards should be in the same group as Italian, yes.

And Visigoths are not Germanic ingame. They are romance Iberians...

Thiomay said:

1.Carinthians are german (having just been conquered)
2. lombard and suebi aren't just german they are central germanic. if they had there own culture to simulate tentions, that is one thing but putting them in the central germanic group implies that they didn't mix/assimilate at all. The migrationperiod armies just used a tribal name but they where to few to change a region so significantly

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You are right about the Carinthians, I give you that. They should probably be Croation or whatever, I honestly don't know enough about them to contribute there. And about the Central Germanic Lombards and Suebi: that's why I said they could IMHO stay in this culture group IF these cultures wouldn't be that widespread. "Lombard" culture should stay Central Germanic if it would only show up in a select few areas. As it is, it is to widespread and should probably be in the Latin culture group. Same thing can probably be said about the Suebi, although there is no ruler with this culture and therefore it doesn't really matter. Sure, it's ahistorical, but there are much more serious issues than that. Besides, it allows a player to play a challenging game as "Germanic" Spain, even if that's far in the realm of alternate history.

herrmarisa said:

So now we have even the most major areas of Europe as one Germanic culture or another. That's a really great idea! It complies just PERFECTLY with my and Paradox' idea of the Germanic master race. But that really isn't enough! How about we populate the sea with Germanic master race fish and give them the Norse religion that is the only one to be able to swim in the rivers? I mean, that stuff was probably mentioned in sagas so it must be 100% true! And speaking of some minor courtiers in Scandinavia, how come there are a couple of courtiers who don't have their stats above 30? That's outrageous! Clearly Paradox is biased here. Damn, this is just impossible! A Norse person who is not a genius!

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I agree totally with you, but this thing will never be resolved by PI... This forum is full of ignorant people, many of them still think that the term "Visigoth" can be properly adapted to the romance population of Spain during High Middle Ages, even though a lot of people have explained that this is not correct. And the paradox usually bases its historicity on what they find on wikipedia, and on what its users say (and I can not blame them for this, they are not historians, but programmers)... We just have to solve the problem with a mod.

Lombards, in my opinion, should be considered part of the latin group given the period; I'm no historian but at the time of Charlemagne most Lombards didn't speak their original German mother tongue, intermarriage was very frequent and the Roman-Lombard difference was more about laws and status than ethnicity. On the other hand the game begin to assimilate to Italian the Lombard counties already in the first years of the gameplay, so it's still reasonably accurate.

About the Russians, anyway, I feel it will be more logical to switch from tribal Slavic to Russian proper when they became feudal (and/or Russian kingdoms are formed), instead of having the need of a Germanic overlord: if there isn't a scripted invasion the AI won't probably invade Russia in most of the games with Norse armies, and the game will lack something if Russia will be anachronistically stuck with local high medieval cultures.

Straniero said:

Lombards, in my opinion, should be considered part of the latin group given the period; I'm no historian but at the time of Charlemagne most Lombards didn't speak their original German mother tongue, intermarriage was very frequent and the Roman-Lombard difference was more about laws and status than ethnicity. On the other hand the game begin to assimilate to Italian the Lombard counties already in the first years of the gameplay, so it's still reasonably accurate.

About the Russians, anyway, I feel it will be more logical to switch from tribal Slavic to Russian proper when they became feudal (and/or Russian kingdoms are formed), instead of having the need of a Germanic overlord: if there isn't a scripted invasion the AI won't probably invade Russia in most of the games with Norse armies, and the game will lack something if Russia will be anachronistically stuck with local high medieval cultures.

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The difference between Russian and the Russian tribes are that Russians should have Germanic names in there list like Igor, Rurik, Vladimir, Rogvolod... In this case the Germanic influence would make sense.

Thure said:

The difference between Russian and the Russian tribes are that Russians should have Germanic names in there list like Igor, Rurik, Vladimir, Rogvolod... In this case the Germanic influence would make sense.

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Wait, Vladimir is also Germanic? So both wors "vladet'" - "to posses, to rule" and "mir" - "world", are Germanic loans? Things you learn on the internet!

The strange thing is that Germanic cultures seem to be much more important than post-latin cultures. In 769 it was not really the case... In fact the only romance culture in game is a bit of Italians in Italia. The others only appear later. It should be the reverse: first, post-romans then, Germanic people (-> germanic rulers) arrive, mix, and we have French, Castillan, Portuguese, etc...

Now it seems that France was populated with huge frankish populations, and Spain with wisigoths, and then they magically turned into french and castillan. That's a bit strange.