EU4 - Development Diary - 28th January 2016

[Dzej]

Why is slovak culture in different culture group to polish and czech?

 

[Derdiedas]

Total nonsence. Czech and Slovak are both west slavic ,though there was an unsuccessful atempt to germanize bohemian kingdom and hungarize slovak minority ,nowadays people of both czech and slovak republic can communicate by using their own language with each other . There is even a theory that czech and slovak are 2 branches of the same language. If you would tell me face to face that czech is german language or slovaks are hungarian , in czech republic I would take that as an insult.

Yeah, but the cultures are not languages in the EU4 - and they should be. And while Bohemia shared many customs and mutually understandable language with poles, you could see a divides - like using geman city law in Bohemia - since the 10th or the 11th century that would put the countries on different paths of development - and Bohemia firmly into the orbit of HRE states, similarly as inthe case of Slovakia and Hungary.

What bugs me way, way more is the turkish group mashed together with the arabic.

And still no Sorbs in Lausitz, If Paradox doesn't want to create a new culture just for two provinces, they should just spill the Czech culture there however ahistorical this could be - still better than pretending that there were Saxons in Lausitz.

 

[Trin Tragula]

A separated Syrmia province would simply be too small. Thats why its not in.
Fun fact: with the exception of when the Swahili states were added the Balkans/south East europe is actually the only region that has gotten new provinces every time the map has been updated.

 

[omega20056]

Nice changes to Ireland, though calling 60% of Munster Limerick seems a bit dubious.

 

[riadach]

Has no one noticed the addition of Highland culture yet?

 

[DoomDummy]

Half of Finland is not Swedish culture any more! And looks like the provinces have been changed as well. Looks good!

 

[TheChalk]

Welsh is in the same group as English? Glyndwr would be turning in his grave...

 

[Artess]

Russian cultural breakdown seems... wrong. The division at the time was political rather than cultural, I don't think there was a "Ryazan culture", for instance.

Is it done to ensure that those countries can be released at any time? IMO, would be better to, say, grant permanent cores on capitals that last forever (unless converted to a different culture group altogether).

 

[petertel123]

Not liking the return of Turkish to the Arabic group, it makes absolutely no sense historically, culturally or linguistically, and the Turks were already strong enough
also, what the hell is "Ryazanian"? What's next, 3 Danish cultures? England split up in 4 cultures?
Really hope that culture and cultural acceptance gets changed soon, because with all these increasingly small cultures it's getting impossible to keep anything accepted past mid-game

 

[Krebsig]

1.15 is barely out, we haven't even gotten 1.15.1. It's safe to say that 1.16 is at least 1 month away. So you can probably start playing, if you don't mind reading new dev diaries with cool, new features.

More like 3 months.

 

[Druplesnubb]

Those guys look like regular soldiers except they're all grey and white. They look like ghosts to me. Will we be able to summon ghost armies now?

 

[ZivDero]

>novgorodian culture
>ryazanian culture

I seriously think russian community should boycott this nonsense.

Yeah. Novgorodian might make sense (very little), but what the heck is Ryazanian?

 

[uncldead]

Differences between Ryazan and Muscowy were so small, that in case of making them different cultures, EVERY SINGLE PROVINCE IN A GAME should have its own culture. Especially caucasus region.

 

[Ternega]

Whilst we are at it can we discuss nonsense that is making Ryazan, Moskovy and Novgorod different cultures? I can buy Moskovy and Novgorod for gameplay reasons but seriously, Ryazan? You are just making things up at that point. Again this isn't a big deal since player in that region will form empire in no time, but what is rationale behind this?

 

[Kiyant]

So finally there is the kurdish culture! We now just need the decision to form kurdistan! For the Glory!

Kurdish culture was already in the game...

 

[spyroware1]

What you're asking is a huge change in EU mechanics. The current culture system affects tons of things. If they rework it then it's probably going to be the main selling point of a DLC, not a minor feature.

I, for one, am glad that they're at least improving the game within its current bounds. Of course, I'd love it if they reworked the culture system, but that's a huge undertaking.

I edited my post for clarification just while you were quoting me. I feel something like the regions-areas-continents system of province is not that difficult to create, especially compared to the feats we've seen put in the game since release. LA? Rebel rework? Those would be considered wild suggestions back then.

I feel it's quite a simple architecture. Assume we add a couple more levels of acceptance (say, primary culture = 100%, shares two culture groups/accepted culture = 90%, shares one culture group = 70%, everything else = 50%). Examples:

Slovak belongs to Carpathian and North Slavic so they accept Hungarian at 70% (Carpathian) but also Polish and Czech at 70% (North Slavic).
Hungarian is Carpathian and Balkan, so it accepts Slovak at 70%, but potentially Carpathian Polish/Ruthenian offshoots as well (Lesser Polish, Volhynian-Rusyn). As Balkan it it also accepts South Slavic/Romanian groups at 70% too.

You can see how intuitive such a system can be for historical expansion. Poland did control Slovakia in the Middle Ages for some time. Hungary did control Galicia-Lodomeria and the Northern Balkans.

This can be a soft cap in wild snaking and ugly borders too. EU4 Poland will want Slovakia, but not all of Hungary, at least not before it has consolidated some Baltic/East Elbian/Slavic/whatnot culture provinces etc.

The system can be easily made more complex by adding another layer, say three basic culture groups. (the suggestion I've been writing for a couple years involves three groups, which looks like I have to finish and post at some point)
So Slovak in the example above belongs to a "Danubian" group as well. Czech acceptance jumps at 90% (Danubian+North Slavic), but also a hitherto distant Germanic culture that is also Danubian - Austrian - is somewhat accepted at 70%, and not considered the same with say Dutch.

 

[WanderV]

Ah i understand what is the blue spot. Looks like Oka province and the new principality is representation of Verkhovskie principalities (or Upper Oka principalities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Oka_Principalities) which is conglomerate of tiny city-states. Well then again, PAradox, please add Rostov!! It's one of the most ancient principalities with great history. It has to be in the game if you have even Upper Oka!

 

[Taishu]

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.

I would prefer the Hungarian (=Magyar) and Slovak cultures rather to be in the Western Slavic culture group, instead of its own Carpathian culturegroup together with Romanian. Historically Poland and Bohemia have shared multiple kings with Hungary and their culture had greater influence on Hungarian than with Romanian.

I know the principle playability before historical accuracy, but i feel this change is in order to try to effect how AI and players expand within same culturegroup, instead of fun.

I'm not expert on the topic, but i guess it is similar with Turkish culture. If you would like to include it into another nearby culturegroup, it would be more historically accurate to include into the Greek group, than with the Arab. I'm more or less sure that the Greek/Byzantine culture had greater influence on Turkish than the Arab culture. (I'm not sure in this though.)

+1 on the map changes. And please make CK2 map and EU4 maps look more similar. When I'm importing a game I definetly would like to see the same division of provinces in both games.

 

[DmUa]

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.

- hm... so when it comes to russian culture you play linguistic card even thou previously you claimed that culture != language... i see...

From a role-playing perspective, yes, and one more time yes. I like Russian much better than Muscowite. Keep Novgorodian, add what have you instead of Ryazan', but let the main Russian culture be just that - Russian.

- they could go with american culture approach i.e. make russian culture automatically appear after creation of Russia.

 

[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.