EU4 - Development Diary - 28th January 2016

[Zak Preston]

One NI would be a better sell An even better argument would be to mention Nevsky and try to update Novgorod traditions.

The problem with Novgorod is not a mid-game anyway. When it conquers Muscowy it's an easy road ahead. Thus, adding mid-game NIs wouldn't be of much benefit. When I play it, it's surviving Moscow's onslaught that is the challenge (and, at times, fun killer). Later on, you could always concentrate more on military ideas and neglect some other group (like Religious, since City of Churches).

If you give a military boost to Novgorodian traditions, then Muscovy will fail more often in forming Russia, and it will result in lots of complaints here on forum. IMO Novgorod also needs same colonization national idea as Muscovy.

 

[Grand Historian]

Meanwhile, Albania goes to a corner and cries.

Seriously, why it still is OPM? Make it 2 provinces...

I've suggested three.

 

[YuriiH]

From historical standpoint russian culture is very monolithic

As usually, people who are talking about Russians (or Russians themselves) confuse current state of culture with the state 600 years before now.

From historical standpoint, it started becoming very monolithic since the 18th century after the first language reforms by Lomonosov—followed by the century of nationalism when One Country - One People - One Language was mainstream—indeed it is very monolithic NOW in 2016.
However, even at the beginning of the 20th century, before the second major language reform in the USSR and before the major state literacy campaign (Likbez), regions have spoken rather differently, not to mention their own historical traditions.

Nevertheless back in 1444, traditions and languages were much more diverse in the Russian region.

 

[jebates]

I would put Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Sorbian and Hungarian in one culture group.

Sorbian should be in Upper and Lower Lusatia, which should have a tag.

Silesian has never made sense to me. Breslau and Glogau were germanic and Ratibor was Polish in this time.

Romanian... It should be its own group. But that would really only work if it had more provinces, which it deserves.

Estonian and Uralic should be in the Scandinavian group (or Uralic could be in the Russian group).

Also we could really use an Arpitian French group for Savoy, Wallis, Vaud, and Lyonnais..

I still say it makes more sense to have Armenian and Georgian be in the Greek/Byzantine group.

West Switzerland/East France, Eastern Anatolia and Bulgaria are regions that could really use some border changing attention even after all this.

Poor Slovenian : (

 

[DanubianCossak]

If you give a military boost to Novgorodian traditions, then Muscovy will fail more often in forming Russia, and it will result in lots of complaints here on forum. IMO Novgorod also needs same colonization national idea as Muscovy.

Nope, it does not. Its a trade off.

Either you play as Moscovy, which means Putin-style claiming the entire world.

OR

You play as a Merchant Republic, and be all republican and capitalist.

If you play Putin style you have what you have, so you need to grab more. If you play all republican capitalist style, you get those republican elections + more money from trading, but you dont get colonist and have to pay for one via ideas.

It seems like a pretty good trade off offering 2 completely different play styles.

 

[ViktoriousAUT]

We also made a complete overhaul of how cultures work to remove the ties to language, and tie them more together to similar cultures, to create more historically plausible countries and relations.

So... does this mean American isn't part of the British culture group anymore?

 

[FleetingRain]

Wouldn't it be easier if the Conquer Levant! mission made the arabian cultures be permanently accepted upon completion? I mean... you're going to add add_permanent_accepted_culture sooner or later.

 

[Ternega]

Nevertheless back in 1444, traditions and languages were much more diverse in the Russian region.

Yes they were, however cultural identity was far more unified than most cultures. If we are to, indeed, split it by your standards we would probably need to reduce it all down to principalities. Then we would probably need to revisit most other countries and make one province cultures to represent differences in local traditions and dialects.

Wouldn't it be easier if the Conquer Levant! mission made the arabian cultures be permanently accepted upon completion? I mean... you're going to add add_permanent_accepted_culture sooner or later.

Sorry but this would be a horrble idea - tying anything permanent to the gambling of mission system seems downright awful. You could always do it with an event, but thats just walking in circles.

 

[nalivayko]

Nevertheless back in 1444, traditions and languages were much more diverse in the Russian region.

Dialects - yes. Languages - no. Maybe in Russian region as in 'today's Russia'. Anyway, Ryazanian sub-culture different from Muscowite still makes little sense. Novgorodian has its own literal tradition and is different enough to be recognized by some historians as a forth Russian ethnicity (Slovenian, not to be confused with today's Slovenia).

Back to languages vs. dialects. I am reading the Tale of Igor's Campaign now in Old Russian. As difficult as it is, I am still able to understand most of it.

 

[FieldMedic]

Maybe someone can put my mind at ease here. In another thread a screenshot was shown of a strait crossing between Kent and Calais. Is this actually making it in 1.16 and can you clarify that if so, England can still block the French from crossing if they control Kent?

 

[Beanicus]

Re: Ryazanian. This basically a culture that more or less coincides with people that speak southern Russian dialects.
Just as in other parts of the world the biggest (according to geography) dialect has given name to the entire culture. It's also the dialect that most ended up with in the conquered lands to the south and east which makes it more relevant than Smolenskian dialect in this era.

I see gameplay reasons why it might have been named this but it really makes no historical sense given how much land it covers. You should split up Russian more (like Tverian, Smolenskian etc.) if you're going to name cultures after the smaller princedoms (not that I advocate that!).

Perhaps call this Southern culture Yuzhny culture? Not as pretty to look at, but probably a better alternative to Ryazanian. You sidestep the issue of having to call it something more specific and you indicate its geography too.

 

[DmUa]

As usually, people who are talking about Russians (or Russians themselves) confuse current state of culture with the state 600 years before now.

From historical standpoint, it started becoming very monolithic since the 18th century after the first language reforms by Lomonosov—followed by the century of nationalism when One Country - One People - One Language was mainstream—indeed it is very monolithic NOW in 2016.
However, even at the beginning of the 20th century, before the second major language reform in the USSR and before the major state literacy campaign (Likbez), regions have spoken rather differently, not to mention their own historical traditions.

Nevertheless back in 1444, traditions and languages were much more diverse in the Russian region.

- culture != language. By that approach you can justify giving every province in the game its own culture.

 

[YuriiH]

we would probably need to reduce it all down to principalities.

That would be ideal, but an enormous volume of work. However, Paradox decided to group some provinces by tags which is not bad for current state of the game.
However, we may see similar approach implemented in France, Italy, China, Spain, and I do not see many complaints about this feature from people that consider themselves living in currently united culture group
Why Russians should be different in 1444?

 

[ZivDero]

Can anyone make out the writing over Cornwall?

Probably Welsh. Seems like that and. as far as I know, has always been that way. I don't remember a Cornish culture.

 

[Ternega]

Why Russians should be different in 1444?

Because russian history is different from french.

 

[DmUa]

However, we may see similar approach implemented in France, Italy, China, Spain, and I do not see many complaints about this feature from people that consider themselves living in currently united culture group

- none of those who you mentioned are living in "united culture". And here were voices protesting against splitup of chinese culture.

Why Russians should be different in 1444?

- because its how it was?

 

[Finnishviking]

Holy shit wait, am I seeing right? Are the province borders in Finland finally cleaned up and good looking? Wow I thought I would never live to see the day.

Edit: What I'm talking about

Well the cultures are in a fashion that seems to indicate that Finland actually may have cores on the province of Finland.

That in itself is quite major since it actually allows Russia to look like proper Russia more easily with releasing Finland as a vassal and nomming it rather than before when you didnt get the coast.

 

[gabadur]

Even Persian would have fit better. Turks came from that way, didn't they? Then mixed with Eastern Greeks.

Early 16th century, Persian shahs were using Turkish language in literature while Ottoman sultan was using Persian-Arabic. The main divide is relgion (Sunni - Shia) like the Croats and the Serbs. And these two counted as seperate cultures? Their main cultural difference comes from Religion and living centuries on the different sides of Ottoman - Habsburg border, which happens way after the 1444 start.

Cultures is a tricky thing to handle for this game period. Before the EU4 time frame, there was a time when four heirs of Ottoman Throne went war on each other. Muslim Anatolia was in turmoil, but not the Balkans. Bulgarians and Greeks stayed put. Nationalist feelings did not arise until the Dutch, and yet we try to carve up our nation states retrospectively in the game; Hence Turkish going into Arabic culture group. Actually it was the other way. Ottomans went more Sunni (increased piety) and their culture became closer to Arabic (but never closer than Persians which is a seperate culture group); because they grabbed the Arabic lands and Caliphate which they believed provided political power and stability. Before Selim I's conquests to the East, during Mehmet II's era, half of the land of the Empire was in Europe and he was planning conquest to Rome to claim being the 3rd Roman Empire. From Mehmet's view, things would have gone different.

I understand the game tries to balance what have happened and what could have happened, so just trying to put another perspective to think about of here.

Language wise, the turks where mongolic while the persians are indo european and iranian. but good point, most muslim nations and their administation spoke arab so you do have a point. But I dont loke turks being in arabic. Arabs =\= kebab

 

[LikeNothing]

Great Culture changes. Ottoman Turkish is much closer to Arabic than Turkmen in any case.

 

[Kiyant]

Language wise, the turks where mongolic while the persians are indo european and iranian. but good point, most muslim nations and their administation spoke arab so you do have a point. But I dont loke turks being in arabic. Arabs =\= kebab

What you said is factually wrong.
Anatolian Turks or simply Turks are a mix of Anatolians and Turkmen who had a pretty big Persian influence on them.
The Ottoman and all the other Anatolian Beylicks spawned from the Seljuk Empire which in itself was a Turkic Empire whose big influence was the Persian culture.