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EU4 - Development Diary - 2nd of June 2016

Hello and welcome to another development diary for Europa Universalis IV. This is probably the last one I’ll write for some months, as I’m taking some paternity leave. I’m leaving you in the capable hands of DDRJake though, who’ll give you weekly diaries in June, August and September.. As you all know, we’re a swedish company, so July is sacred and holy, and must be worshipped in the sun.


Speaking of Swedish, I guess it is time to talk about something related. Culture.

Culture in Europa Universalis, as most of you seem to grasp, have nothing with linguistic relations to do, but more of a semi-arbitrary limits of who gets along better with who, and who could rule others easier through history.

Which cultures were accepted in your nation in EU4 has not really been controllable though before, as you get gaining or losing, depending on the presence of a culture in your country.

In 1.18, which we aim to release in the autumn, we have completely removed the cultural acceptance percentage system, and instead give you control over which cultures are accepted or not in your empire.

First of all, there is now a limit on how many cultures a nation can accept.

There is a base of 2 accepted cultures, The Humanist Idea ‘Cultural Ties’ gives you 2 more slots, Enlighetened Despotism increases it with up to 3 at Empire level & Several Nations have ideas giving them an extra slot. There are also policies that can give you an extra slot each if you so desire and Diplomatic Technology gives you up to 5 more slots, currently from level 8, 14, 20, 26 & 31.

If you have too many cultures, you will lose the last one you accepted.

Any accepted or same culture group can be made into primary culture, if its at least 50% of your cored state development. This costs 100 diplomatic power and obviously this means that the cultural shift decision has been made obsolete and is now removed.


You can promote any culture in your nation that has at least 20 cored development in a state. It costs 100 diplomatic power.

You can also remove an accepted culture if you so wish, which costs 10 diplomatic power, and adds 5 unrest in all the provinces with that culture.


Here is a look of the new government window, which includes the culture lists.

fN0Ylyn.jpg


Stay tuned, next week Jake will all tell you about WHY it is better to be a great power than a minor.
 
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To be honest I'm not a fan of this at all. Seems like a no brainer to always go with the largest culture. It makes the game feel more arcadey and less history inspired. I'm not really saying the old system was great, I just find the trend towards arcade disheartening.

I enjoyed the old system and can't fathom why the new system would be an improvement. Before, you had to choose whether to culture convert, which populations to invade, and the ultimate acceptance of a culture felt satisfying and, I guess, organic to me when I achieved it. This is just soulless.
 
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I guess it's better than what we have now, yet I'm not really hyped. I would prefer a more dynamic, less controllable way of cultural acceptance. I mean, it's a rather big thing for a culture to become accepted into another domain. When it happened in history, it took decades if no hundreds of years.
Instead of all this arbitrary accepted culture by button pressed, i would prefer a cultural happiness system:
A culture has to be above 60% to stay accepted, above 80% to become accepted and becomes rebellious below 30%.
It is lowered by conquests in the same culture (-group), events, uprisings, religious turmoils, getting conquered or sold, culture changed from, interactions (higher taxes, razing, milk manpower...) and low infrastructure, religious conversion from the dominant religion (e.g. by the player, not the CORs)
It is boosted by events, religious unity, culture change to, supported rebels, interactions (lowered taxes, increased dev, gifts ), peacefully integration of vassals, building infrastructure like temples not being looted over time and high percentage of total dev, religious conversions to the dominant religion of said culture (so you have a break even when it pays off after all the trouble).

I mean, just imagine what my accepted Russian culture would think about being mass converted to Sunni or Protestant. I don't think they would stay accepted much longer, no matter how high their total dev. is.

I imagine something like a mix of the subject liberty desire / interactions and the estates system. Pay money, invest time and ducats to min/max your cultures.

With a system like that, you wouldn't really need accepted cultures at all come to think of it. Unrest, tax and manpower could be linked directly to the cultural happiness as another multiplier before LA. Your main culture is always at 100%, same culture group at 80. However, you can't milk them unless you abandon it end go for a multiethnic state with no primary culture (the humanist idea group way) by decision.

This leaves 3 ways to play:
  • Multiethnic realm preferable with humanist ideas and high happiness in all cultures
  • Heavy cultural conversions preferably with religious and influence ideas (so this shitty heir chance and .5 prestige can be removed with something useful and fitting)
  • straightforward without much interaction, few conversion or playing tall.

Edit:
Sorry for the WOT. It wasn't planned, I posted it to the suggestion forum right away.
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...appiness-instead-of-accepted-cultures.940540/
 
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And it's focused on tech and cultural diplomacy....Art of Peace?

The book about diplomacy is called "The Prince" or in its original title "De Principatibus"

But maybe its a bit machiavellian to propose that title. :)
 
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This is a good change. If you actively want to accept a culture in the game as it is, the game makes you jump through weird hoops - like completely inflating development to reach the magic threshold, and in certain cases where it would make historical sense to be able to accept a culture it is all but impossible. The best example here IMO is the Ottomans trying to accept Albanian.
The new system adds actual player agency. And I'm inclined to disagree with the statement that the possible number of accepted cultures is so high that it isn't really relevant.
For example, England at gamestart is only able to accept English and Welsh. It will have to wait until diplo 8 to add Irish, 14 for Scottish and 20 for Highlander. In order to add, say Gascon, Norman or Francien, it would have to either forego accepting one of its home cultures for most of the game or take the Humanist idea group.

I think this change should go along with two things:
1. Add more drastic penalties to wrong cultured provinces in order to make it matter more. Possibly, it would make sense for the penalties to increase in the latter stages of the game.
2. Do away with the gameplay-based cultural groups and base them on national identity/linguistic similarity again. With the possibility to accept any culture you want to accept, there is no need for Basque to be Iberian or for Breton to be French.
 
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Yes.

We live in a civilized country, where most people dont work in July.

Except for all of the people that keep the shops, restaurants, tourist attractions, banks, government institutions, and transportation running. Or are those people not civilized?
 
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Eh it would probably be better if accepting cultures was more like westernization.
E.g. you can make any culture accepted over time assuming the government wants it to.
It costs so many points in each category (as integration requires assimilation in all aspects of society) and during this period nationalist revolts might take place that you have to be put down in order to achieve assimilation.
The smaller the culture the cheaper it is to assimilate as that culture effects less of your society generating less effort on the governments part to force acceptance.
If there are no independent nations with that culture and you are the first to accept it, then it might become part of you're culture 'tree' and if a rebellion takes place provinces may defect to your country on victory. (Although you may have to create a state of that culture within you're borders to give the illusion of relative independence.)
 
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Interesting but the real question is how will AI select cultures to accept?
 
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Culture change is awesome,
And to all the people saying it is arbitrary, If you have a certain amount of possible accepted cultures based on a number of different factors, and then you pick which cultures to accept (basically your country focusing on giving them more right or etc. ) That is literally the exact opposite of arbitrary.

Im excited for this and the tech changes, I think the game is slowly drifting towards more economical / efficiency focused empires and i love it.
 
I like the changes.

And also I totally agree with this:

2. Do away with the gameplay-based cultural groups and base them on national identity/linguistic similarity again. With the possibility to accept any culture you want to accept, there is no need for Basque to be Iberian or for Breton to be French.
 
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I liked these changes!

Also, an expansion as big as Art of War, oh my God! You guys will kill me of Excessive Hypeness! I think I'll never leave my state of 'Paradox Hype'. XD
I have it since HoI4 and Stellaris was announced, and everytime a expansion for EUIV and CK2 appears, I have it too.

By the way, have fun with your family!
 
Seems a little weird to me. As others have said, you'll always just go with the bigger culture, so there doesn't seem to be any cost benefit at play. Also, just sort of spending diplomatic power and declaring: Hey, you guys here, accept that other group of people over there" is a bit magical. Seems like just another bell or whistle without all that much strategic thinking involved. It only really produces the illusion of choice, even though there will likely always be a "best choice."
 
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Seems a little weird to me. As others have said, you'll always just go with the bigger culture, so there doesn't seem to be any cost benefit at play. Also, just sort of spending diplomatic power and declaring: Hey, you guys here, accept that other group of people over there" is a bit magical. Seems like just another bell or whistle without all that much strategic thinking involved. It only really produces the illusion of choice, even though there will likely always be a "best choice."

But there is a switch cost, and the largest culture *now* may not be the largest in the future. So you can choose to accept Bulgarian now to get more use out of a few provinces you currently own, but there is a cost to switch to Turkish which is more valuable later when you eat more of Anatolia. It's kind of the same now-vs-later choice in picking between idea groups.
 
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