CK3 Dev Diary #78: Taking Language to Court

[Atrithau]

So by that token England would have about 6 counties converted from Anglo Saxon by the end of the game, starting in 867?

Maybe a couple more if some of the dukes could afford to take a full century per county.

And almost the entire south of Iberia would still be Andalusian by the end of the game in a 1066 start?

No. Let's not make it impossible to actually model historical changes in population culture and essentially render one advisor task pointless.

It's "just not right".

No need for that considering there are already special events in the game created for the express purpose of dealing with scenarios that aren't covered by the gameplay (like bringing about Norman culture).

 

[wilcoxchar]

No need for that considering there are already special events in the game created for the express purpose of dealing with scenarios that aren't covered by the gameplay (like bringing about Norman culture).

But it's far better to have such scenarios actually be part of the gameplay than continually needing to make clunky exceptions for dozens of historical occurrences. If you're making that many exceptions, then they weren't really that unique of exceptions and should be an actual part of the game mechanics.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

No need for that considering there are already special events in the game created for the express purpose of dealing with scenarios that aren't covered by the gameplay (like bringing about Norman culture).

I'm not specifically talking about England under the Normans (note the 867 start).

I use England because in 867 it often changes culture in my games, whether to one of the Celtic group, to Norse (and then to whichever splinter might come up), or directly to French, bypassing the Norman formation event.

But it applies to *anywhere* that gets invaded by other groups as well.

Of course, this will change with the hybridisation feature for cultures, but still, converting the rest of the area from one of the parents to the hybrid shouldn't necessarily take centuries, especially with how broad some of the categories are.
I'm not sure that in areas where there was historically a widespread change of culture it should take a century per province either.

 

[Tiax]

I'm not specifically talking about England under the Normans (note the 867 start).

I use England because in 867 it often changes culture in my games, whether to one of the Celtic group, to Norse (and then to whichever splinter might come up), or directly to French, bypassing the Norman formation event.

But it applies to *anywhere* that gets invaded by other groups as well.

Of course, this will change with the hybridisation feature for cultures, but still, converting the rest of the area from one of the parents to the hybrid shouldn't necessarily take centuries, especially with how broad some of the categories are.
I'm not sure that in areas where there was historically a widespread change of culture it should take a century per province either.

I'd say a century per province is too long, but it should probably take centuries to convert an entire region (but perhaps not be done county-by-county). At the start date of EU4, Southern Spain is still Andalusian culture, despite Cordoba having been in Christian hands for over 200 years.

I think you should be able to speed things up by taking aggressive, expensive action, but that should come with heavy risk of revolt.

 

[crowdemon]

Very nice.

 

[SupercanelP085]

Is this DLC going to be released in 2021?

I hope so...
Can't wait to play it^^

 

[Al Davoodi]

Will there be something that helps to resist and preserve languages? I have just looked the screenshots and that arabic pushes iranian (farsi) aside so easily seems somehow odd, because in RL and also based by culture and history even by dynamics of a simulation, there should be some more resistance by the culture and the ppl of "Greater Iran", because mostly they archived that they assimilated the ones who ruled over them instead the other way. Mostly rulers adoped and got iranianized assimilated so it had been easier for them to rule over the properious parts of the iranian plateau and while islam got more iranian then the people start easier adopting islam. - Its even more complex and complicated but just by looking on the screenshots it looks like its way too easy that arab could spread into the Iranian Pleateau.

I think similar situations could be on other areas but i am not so familiar with the complex issues in these regions where it might be also the case. So how would the game simulate such situations?

 

[Tiax]

Will there be something that helps to resist and preserve languages? I have just looked the screenshots and that arabic pushes iranian (farsi) aside so easily seems somehow odd, because in RL and also based by culture and history even by dynamics of a simulation, there should be some more resistance by the culture and the ppl of "Greater Iran", because mostly they archived that they assimilated the ones who ruled over them instead the other way. Mostly rulers adoped and got iranianized assimilated so it had been easier for them to rule over the properious parts of the iranian plateau and while islam got more iranian then the people start easier adopting islam. - Its even more complex and complicated but just by looking on the screenshots it looks like its way too easy that arab could spread into the Iranian Pleateau.

I think similar situations could be on other areas but i am not so familiar with the complex issues in these regions where it might be also the case. So how would the game simulate such situations?

Keep in mind that the maps are showing the *court language* rather than the local language, so if the king decides to speak Arabic at court one day, that changes the entire kingdom on the map even if everyone still speaks Iranian/Farsi.

 

[Al Davoodi]

yeah true. yeah still be curious if something like it happend back then in the 9th/10th/11th century happend in Iran could also happen (dynamic) in the game, so stronger local rulers get assimilated and help to "rebirth" the influence and prestige of languages. I hope that some languages which are not court languages (atm) will have some historical prestige so rulers are tempted to adopt them?

 

[prismaticmarcus]

yeah true. yeah still be curious if something like it happend back then in the 9th/10th/11th century happend in Iran could also happen (dynamic) in the game, so stronger local rulers get assimilated and help to "rebirth" the influence and prestige of languages. I hope that some languages which are not court languages (atm) will have some historical prestige so rulers are tempted to adopt them?

well, AI rulers already prefer to be the same culture as the locals

 

[Takeda Hajime]

Good job Dev

 

[Lord Valdyr]

I'm not sure I understand this mechanic. What is the downside of choosing the language of the most erudite group at the time? Where does the opinion of your court (or even your commoners) come into play?

I feel like there should at least be some risk associated to choosing languages from cultures that are different from yours. So that if you, say, learned Arabic but weren't Muslim, that puts you at a high-risk of your nobles converting or switching to cultural pillars that fall in line the official court of said language.

Again, I just don't know. I like the idea of court languages and I love the cultural pillars/traditions, but I don't understand why it's us doing this as players rather than the world changing organically. You should be a warlike culture if you actually go to war in practice - the pillars should be an active reflection of what you're doing, not skills out of a tree that you pick however you please. Likewise, the desired court language should be a reflection of what your culture is like, and also of the influential people in your realm. If you have a gorgeous queen that's out there getting every noble to worship her, then that should highly increase the likelihood that they want to dabble in her native language just to please her. Similarly, if you are importing a lot of luminaries via marriage to serve on your council, they should be affecting things. If it's the 900s and I'm playing Rurik and kidnapping French nonstop and recruiting them or marrying them, surely that should have some impact on the culture.

Now, it's possible that there could be some god-king out there with such amazing beauty and skills, a genius madman so beloved by his nobles and commoners that he himself can set the tone of the culture and set any language he wants as the official one because everyone's used to his whims. But if your ruler is some lispy hunchback that can barely lift his sword, in what world would he ever have enough authority to set the cultural traditions or keep the nobles from drifting away from them?

I don't think cultures and languages are like religions. It makes sense why a religion has laws that are set in stone, but whether or not a culture has a warlike attitude or great esteem for poets should be an organic reflection of what's actually happening.

And I know I'm going to get stoned for this, but the languages of the court should be shown as a percentile, as really should the cultures in any region, one that you can work to alter or just accept. And here people's education should matter a lot. Your vassals that are trained in stewardship might favor a culture and language that's totally different from those trained in learning. If you want to have some insanely dedicated warrior culture but most of court favors learning, then you should have to do exactly what rulers did historically, which was purge the undesirables and educate their children in the way you see fit. And if you're not strong enough to do that, then it's time to admit defeat and go with the flow.

Rulers are so overpowered in this game that what I would've wanted to see was them getting taken down a peg with stuff like culture and language being in the hands of the court. Instead this just feels like picking passives out of a skill tree that will be fun for a few hundred hours of memeing, but will just be another ossified element afterward.

Surely there can be more for vassals to do in this game than just hate your heir for no reason only to get pacified by a feast? Like maybe just a little bit of autonomy, at least in the cultural realm, so that they're actual human beings and not just props like your family members?

The actions of a culture are defined by it's Pillars, not the other way around. A culture's reactions & actions to things are drawn from it's pillars. A culture that has a more warlike pillar is far more likely to go to war, as their cultural pillars mean that the people are far more accepting toward the idea. The act of going to war does not retroactively re-write a culture's pillars to make them warlike. There are many cultures that have been forced into war time and time again and yet are inherently not a warlike culture, because those warlike pillars are not there. All people act and react to the world through the lens filters of their cultural pillars, not the other way around. (And no one is immune to this.)

Edit: This is basically sociology 101 stuff.

 

[Ithrinhir]

Iranian should be renamed to Persian (or Farsi if you want to avoid redundancy)

That is definitely less appropriate than Iranian. Farsi is just on variant of Persian, which is again just one of many Iranian languages. On the map is not just the Farsi speaking areas being represented under "Iranian", up to the 11th century Central Asia's own Iranian languages (Bactrian, Khorasmian, Sogdian, etc.) were still widely in use, even if we do not care about them, the variant of Persian spoken in Central Asia is called Tajik.

 

[Ithrinhir]

why is Iranian not called Persian?

Because Persian is just one variant of the Iranian languages. There is also the Caspian languages, Baloch, and many Eastern Iranian languages still spoken in Central Asia (Bactrian, Sogdian, Khorasmian, Saka etc.).

For Chinese, which Chinese is it? as Chinese while being written the same, can be spoken very differently, ie Cantonese and Mandarin being the two big ones.

Both Mandarin and Cantonese as we know it did not exist in the time of ck3. The Chinese here can only refer to the variant of Middle Chinese spoken in courts at the time.
Furthermore, in most situations, there is no point in differentiating between Mandarin and other variants of Chinese. Almost all the variants of Chinese that have served administrative and other official purposes since imperial times are variants of a Northern dialect. There is no confusion here.

 

[m0xxY]

Because Persian is just one variant of the Iranian languages. There is also the Caspian languages, Baloch, and many Eastern Iranian languages still spoken in Central Asia (Bactrian, Sogdian, Khorasmian, Saka etc.).

If these represent language groups then that's fine - the issue is that some people thought they were court languages.

 

[Lord Valdyr]

If these represent language groups then that's fine - the issue is that some people thought they were court languages.

The problem is that its kind of an abstracted merger of both, which it kinda has to be, for gameplay reasons. They could try to accurately model every single possible dialect and language, but there would be hundreds (if not thousands) of them to constantly track & calculate. That might be too much for players to mentally parse the information they need, and it could even cause performance issues if the game has to constantly keep track of more and more things. (And processing & memory space is valuable currency when it comes to adding more and more new systems in future expansions. Would a more in-depth language simulation really be worth it if it means potentially not having the memory for an entire DLC's worth of new systems?)

It's honestly a system that unfortunately might have to be abstracted for the sake of the player & system, because to do it in more intricate detail might have more negative results than positive ones, from a player experience, game design & performance standpoint.

 

[m0xxY]

The problem is that its kind of an abstracted merger of both, which it kinda has to be, for gameplay reasons. They could try to accurately model every single possible dialect and language, but there would be hundreds (if not thousands) of them to constantly track & calculate. That might be too much for players to mentally parse the information they need, and it could even cause performance issues if the game has to constantly keep track of more and more things. (And processing & memory space is valuable currency when it comes to adding more and more new systems in future expansions. Would a more in-depth language simulation really be worth it if it means potentially not having the memory for an entire DLC's worth of new systems?)

It's honestly a system that unfortunately might have to be abstracted for the sake of the player & system, because to do it in more intricate detail might have more negative results than positive ones, from a player experience, game design & performance standpoint.

I agree, and I'm fine with that - so long as the terminology is accurate.

In addition; if culture groups and languages are essentially representing the same thing, I don't really see the point in trying to separate them.

 

[TempestM]

They are not "language groups" in the game, they are "group of languages". Some are grouped up because it was not worth granulating them, some are separated, for the sake of gameplay, that's it. Devs said this multiple time

 

[Voodoo Lilium]

The problem is that its kind of an abstracted merger of both, which it kinda has to be, for gameplay reasons. They could try to accurately model every single possible dialect and language, but there would be hundreds (if not thousands) of them to constantly track & calculate. That might be too much for players to mentally parse the information they need, and it could even cause performance issues if the game has to constantly keep track of more and more things. (And processing & memory space is valuable currency when it comes to adding more and more new systems in future expansions. Would a more in-depth language simulation really be worth it if it means potentially not having the memory for an entire DLC's worth of new systems?)

It's honestly a system that unfortunately might have to be abstracted for the sake of the player & system, because to do it in more intricate detail might have more negative results than positive ones, from a player experience, game design & performance standpoint.

The only way I could see such a complex and nuanced language simulation would be if it were a core component of the game. As much as I'd love it, it's just way beyond the scope of ck3, and needlessly complex and expensive processing-wise, as you said.

 

[valynnit]

Slavic languages shouldn't be splitted in CK3 timeline. The first bookmark is set in Common Slavic period and the second bookmark is still in the time when slavs could easily communicate with each other and read Old Church Slavonic without long process of learning a language.
Separate branches is a bad choice from both historical (not only separate east and south in 9th century but separate czech-slovak and lechitic?) and gameplay perspectives (slavs have to fill most of their slots with other Slavic languages rather with greek/latin/turkic, why a polish duke cant talk with his czech wife if he already learned german?)
Please merge them