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Mr. Capiatlist

Mademoiselle Gothique (she/her/hers)
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It failed in the real world and it didn´t turn out Barbarian. Even without their Empire, the Romans still civilized Europe (mainly through the spread of Christianity yes but still, it was Roman in essence).

"Barbarian-Barbarian culture" Example:

Alaric II makes peace with Clovis and goes on and does his own thing in Hispania.

Suddenly, Theodemund, king of the Suebi, burst out Gallaecia completely without warning, conquers Hispania and banishes Alaric to Gaul in ever-lasting shame.

Option 1: Theodemund converts remaining Romans and Visigoths into Suebi-Goths/Suebi-Romans and then fully fledged Suebians.

Option 2: Theodemund thinks "Hey, the Visigoths are cool, lets be like them" and converts himself and his people to Visi-Suebi and then Visigoths, creating two Visigothic Kingdoms (provded of course that Alaric hasn´t been ass-stomped by Clovis). He leaves the Romans alone (maybe even giving independence to... something Roman)

Option 3: Theodemund Barbarianizes the Romans too, into Suebi-Romans, then Suebians

Option 4: Theodemund Romanizes the Suebians, leaves remaining Visigoths alone

Option 5: Theodemund Romanizes all of Hispania

Option 6: Theodemund romanizes the Suebians and barbarize the Romans, making a Romano-suebian culture, and later on romano-suebianizes the Visigoths and become Portuguese culture :)

I liked how Mr. Capitalist sees it. You should think of the melting pot in three stages. When two cultures mix and when these two cultures mix with another culture. Depending on the combination, it can lead to real world cultures. Locality could also influence it (as in Léonese appearing in Léon as a product of Visigothic, Suebian and Roman union, or Castille with Visigothic and Roman after a while). Some cultures, like the castillian example I gave, could evolve naturally over time if maintained in a certain frame (as in visigoths get together with romans and become Romano-Visigoths. Then, after a while, they become Castillian.), kinda like the Norse.
That is not what I suggested AT ALL. Like seriously.

No no no no.

I understand the need for minute detail, and I understand the need for infinite ahistorical outcomes where every flap of a butterfly's wings yield an infinite array of histories and possibilities... but this is a game. A game mind you that represents 600 years of English linguistic and cultural change (some of the most drastic in history) in two stages: Saxon -> English. At some point you need to lump things together.

My actual suggestion was to use the divided sub-roman cultures as bases - e.g. Gaulo-Roman, Ibero-Roman, Italo-Roman, Brito-Roman, Afro-Roman - as "bases." They will represent future Romance-derived languages (French, Catalan, Italian, &c as well as two hypothetical ones: Brithenig and a new one for Africa). In order to shift from "ancient" or "vulgar" Latin to the more "modern" cultures they need to come into contact with some sort of Germanic culture. Any Germanic culture will work: Saxon, Goth, Lombard, Suebi, Norse, Frank or possibly a Celtic culture for Gaulo-Romance and Brito-Romance.

So this is how it would work:

A Germanic (or Celtic in special places) ruler conquers Romance lands.
Is he Pagan? If so he falls under considerable pressure to convert to the Christianity (he might still end up a heretic).
Is he Christian, but not the same as the people? If so he falls under considerable pressure to convert to the proper branch of Christianity.
Is he Christian, the right type of Christian, and still Germanic? If so, he triggers the appropriate melting pot to start.

Now in between spaces he can attempt to fight back depending on the size of his nation. This way Saxons will move more Saxons into Britain and wipe out the Brito-Romans - because their Kingdoms were small and homogeneous. But they should still eventually Christianize because melting-pot is the last step, so by the time he coverts either his people or himself to the "right" form of Christianity he has extinguished the Romance culture.

The last loop is modernization. Starting around 800 or 900, any of the remaining Romance provinces will shift to surrounding cultures as Roman influence is dead. The exception is perhaps if a large, stable Kingdom remains purely sub-Roman, perhaps they should shift into a more pure "modern" Roman culture.


So here is an example. I am playing the Lombards, I am pagan, and I invade and conquer Italy (currently "Roman"). My Christian subjects are unhappy being ruled by a pagan, so I let them be and give concessions to allow freedom of worship. Eventually, though, I figure I can convert to the local form of Christianity and gain not only the loyalty of my people, but also boons from the Pope. It is too good to not take, so I convert.

So now I am a Lombard Christian ruling Roman Christians. As my rule continues, more and more Germanic influence filters from the elites (my court and my family) into the laymen. They aren't speaking Lombardic, they aren't suddenly becoming Germanic - they are becoming less Roman. This triggers the melting-pot. Provinces begin to shift from Roman to Italian. Eventually my Kingdom is Italian, my sons speak Italian, and frankly other than my stubbornness I am Italian too, regardless of my actual first tongue. The pattern is complete.

In 900, any left-over Romance provinces shift to the culture of a neighboring non-Roman culture, or the nearest melting-pot culture. So if there are still Gaulo-Roman provinces in 900 and are not controlled by a Gaulo-Roman ruler with nation size 40+ (or something like that) they convert to French or Goth or whatever. If there are (and it should be unlikely) they shift to a secondary fluff culture that is essentially a copy-paste of Gaulo-Roman, but loses the hyphenated name.

Now the primary difference here (from previous suggestions) is that Brito-Roman ALWAYS becomes Brithenig. Gaulo-Roman ALWAYS becomes French. This is an abstraction because the alternative is a multi-step process that is essentially a giant matrix of possibilities. I know it seems shallow, but since it is straightforward and works the same way for each culture with only a few exceptions, you can essentially copy-paste the events for each individual culture.
 
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Suggestion:

Build a template for a melting pot event, and directions how to implement it and a new culture as a submod.

Reasoning: There's going to be a shitton of possible melting pots that make sense in one game but not another. Allowing users to customize and personalize these easily enough might make the game more enjoyable.

That way, if the Old Frisians conquer a Latin country, Latinize, then move over to Eygpt to become Misrable (The heat there, ugh), we don't have to account for it in the full game but allows a user to build that in.
 
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I did suggest on the main thread, but because there is now a sub-forum and noticed a thread for this on here, I thought it be okay if I can repeat it and give you some suggestion

I think you need to rework the Gothic culture, evidently, it be a better idea for now to make a culture group based solely on the Goths, considering it split into different subgroups of the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, and Crimean Goths, which were derived from the main Goth culture
Another suggestion is adding fictional but feasible dynasty names when new Gothic nobility emerge (I've actually been playing as a Goth, and the only dynasty I've seen is Crimling, so its really confusing when you have 5 Crimling dynasties), which is actually sort of easy if you look up the etymology of them. For example, the Amalings and Baltings came from the founder of the dynasty, respectively Amal and Balt, so in theory, you can just can just use the first or second nymic name of a Goth, which I'll prove some links to help you.

Not sure how you would implant this idea, it takes away the Historicity, but Gothic nobility information is pretty scant in my opinion to find. Also I really dont know how you would add this, I honestly dont know jack about modding or adding new dynastic names in a culture, but maybe a suggestion can help you out

Here are some links
http://www.ancientsites.com/aw/post/41078
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/gothic-l/conversations/messages/7305
http://www.reddit.com/r/CrusaderKings/comments/2hwehe/old_gothic_namelist_for_charlemagne_dlc/

I also found this around the forums, maybe it would help the main Gothic subculture, considering its somewhat a bit scant compared to the Visigoths or Ostrogoths
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...w-Cultures&p=15651313&viewfull=1#post15651313
 
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Oh, yes that can be made, but the new culture would still require names and etc, and be incredibly shallow with no flavour.

Probably just copy over the names list from one culture or another.

Might consider a generic 'cultural group' retinue and building, so if you're latin_culture_group but not latin/roman/french/etc... That'd help that out some.
 
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I did suggest on the main thread, but because there is now a sub-forum and noticed a thread for this on here, I thought it be okay if I can repeat it and give you some suggestion

I think you need to rework the Gothic culture, evidently, it be a better idea for now to make a culture group based solely on the Goths, considering it split into different subgroups of the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, and Crimean Goths, which were derived from the main Goth culture
Another suggestion is adding fictional but feasible dynasty names when new Gothic nobility emerge (I've actually been playing as a Goth, and the only dynasty I've seen is Crimling, so its really confusing when you have 5 Crimling dynasties), which is actually sort of easy if you look up the etymology of them. For example, the Amalings and Baltings came from the founder of the dynasty, respectively Amal and Balt, so in theory, you can just can just use the first or second nymic name of a Goth, which I'll prove some links to help you.

Not sure how you would implant this idea, it takes away the Historicity, but Gothic nobility information is pretty scant in my opinion to find. Also I really dont know how you would add this, I honestly dont know jack about modding or adding new dynastic names in a culture, but maybe a suggestion can help you out

Here are some links
http://www.ancientsites.com/aw/post/41078
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/gothic-l/conversations/messages/7305
http://www.reddit.com/r/CrusaderKings/comments/2hwehe/old_gothic_namelist_for_charlemagne_dlc/

I also found this around the forums, maybe it would help the main Gothic subculture, considering its somewhat a bit scant compared to the Visigoths or Ostrogoths
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...w-Cultures&p=15651313&viewfull=1#post15651313
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This probably won't happen... the Visigoths have been romanized too thoroughly by now to merit their inclusion in any group besides Latin and that would leave us two cultures in the Gothic group.
 
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This probably won't happen... the Visigoths have been romanized too thoroughly by now to merit their inclusion in any group besides Latin and that would leave us two cultures in the Gothic group.
Too Romanized by the late 5th century? They'd only just started settling in Roman territory a century prior to the mod's start date, and were having problems keeping the Romanized population in Hispania pacified. The Consularia Caesaraugustana mentions some sort of Roman-headed revolt against the Goths in 496, another one in 506, and there's the Bacaudae of the mid-5th century. At the same time, Alaric II was out happily supporting Theodoric's campaigns in Italy, and Visigothic-Ostrogothic relations led almost to a merger of the two realms under Theodoric himself.

Why should the Visigoths be in the same culture group as the peoples who were still actively revolting against them during this time, and be in an entirely different culture group from their clear cultural kinsmen and with whom they maintained good relations during the period?
 
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Too Romanized by the late 5th century? They'd only just started settling in Roman territory a century prior to the mod's start date, and were having problems keeping the Romanized population in Hispania pacified. The Consularia Caesaraugustana mentions some sort of Roman-headed revolt against the Goths in 496, another one in 506, and there's the Bacaudae of the mid-5th century. At the same time, Alaric II was out happily supporting Theodoric's campaigns in Italy, and Visigothic-Ostrogothic relations led almost to a merger of the two realms under Theodoric himself.

Why should the Visigoths be in the same culture group as the peoples who were still actively revolting against them during this time, and be in an entirely different culture group from their clear cultural kinsmen and with whom they maintained good relations during the period?

We were advised by a PhD student who was giving his doctorate on the Gothic successor states. I'll edit this when I find his post but it was pretty convincing... enough for us to change them from germanic to latin.
 
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We were advised by a PhD student who was giving his doctorate on the Gothic successor states. I'll edit this when I find his post but it was pretty convincing... enough for us to change them from germanic to latin.
I'd very much like to see this! Given that the Visigoths even elected an Ostrogoth as their king in the 6th century, I really want to see the argument for Visigoths being culturally closer to Romans than Ostrogoths.
 
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I'd very much like to see this! Given that the Visigoths even elected an Ostrogoth as their king in the 6th century, I really want to see the argument for Visigoths being culturally closer to Romans than Ostrogoths.

He actually advised us to do that too, and that is the reason for the existence of the Romano-Gothic culture and Theodoric being a part of it. He actually sadly stopped contributing to the mod after Enlil refused to give Theodoric the title of Western Roman Emperor, arguing that he was in every way as much a successor as the Illyro-Roman emperors were before him and almost succeeded as well as they did in restoring Rome, with arguments tat direct rule over Hispania, legitimacy based on the Senate and hegemony over Africa post-Vouille were sure signs of it, which is incredibly sad since he was arguably the most knowledgeable forumite I have ever had the pleasure of reading. (If you are reading this KingdomofWales, pls come back.)

Here are some of his arguments:

On Theodoric and the Pannonian Goths
Although it may be too late to institute this, I just completed a series of studies into Ostrogothic Italy that very effectively and conclusively demonstrated that during his reign Theodoric the Great presented himself as and was accepted as a Roman 'princeps' model of emperor by all of his Romano-Italian subjects, the Gallo-Romans and Romano-Illyrians he brought back into the Western Empire with seperate conquests, AND the Eastern Imperial court, which addressed him as such in official correspondance (prior to the ascension of Justinian) and referred to his empire as an equal partner in the Roman Imperial world - one of two 'republics' in a world surrounded by barbarian-ruled Kingdoms. Theodoric and his Romano-Goths (most of whom had been Romanized well in advance of their movement into the Balkans and later Italy, and many of whom had served as a supplement to Constantinople's local field armies for a generation or more) were not considered 'barbarians' by either Romans of the West or Romans of the East until well after the deaths of Theodoric, his grandson and heir, and his daughter. Theodoric ruled as a Roman princeps in word and deed, and Italo-Roman authors frequently compared him to Trajan, Valentinian, and even Julius Caesar (during his reconquest of Provence.) Although the Emepror Anastasius saw Theodoric as a dangerous rival and worked in tandem with the Franks to try and blunt Western Roman Influence, he never stopped referring to Theodoric as a Roman emperor who ruled over Romans - legitimately. Justin followed suit, and even during the early part of his reign Justinian and Amalsuntha, regent of the Western Empire, worked together to effect the reconquest of Africa, with Amalasuntha eagerly supplying Sicilian bases for Eastern Roman troops.

Moreover, the texts I've studied and the very very new scholarly accounts that are challenging old traditions about the barbarity of Theodoric and his supposed 'Gothic Kingdom' made it clear that Theodoric's Roman administration had a far greater level of control over Hispania (in the wake of the Battle of Voulle and the effective end of Visigothic dominance in Southern Gaul) than is usually credited to them: for example, Theodoric was able to order grain shipments for Italy from Spain, and to defeat a Visigothic rival for hegemony over Hispania. This dominance didn't last too long, but its minimization in the later historical accounts comes from a teleological place that looks at what eventually happenned and deeming it a foregone conclusion from the start, but that's not actually how history works: there was a very real chance for a while - when Eutharic the Hispano-Roman 'Visigoth' was chosen by Theodoric to succeed him as Western Emperor and had his succession recognized by the Eastern Emperor, Justin, who even adopted the young man as his son-at-arms - that Theodoric's reinvigorated Western Roman Empire (which is what it was referred to in its day by both inhabitants, officials, friends, allies, rivals, and enemies) was going to hold on to not just Italy, Provence, Illyria, the Cisalpine provinces, the Western Roman provinces up to the Danube, and Sicily but also Hispania. This was commonly referred to as the theoretical 'Gothic Superstate' by 20th century Late Antique Historians, who credit Anastasius (and Clovis) for trying to head this off at the pass, but those terms - 'Gothic Superstate' - are not reflective of how anyone living in or outside of the Western Empire during the Amal Dynasty viewed reality. The Visigoths were considered to be true 'barbarians,' it is true (however unfairly: the Visigoths had been Romanized a century or more before), but Eutharic, their 'king' and heir to Theodoric's imperial title, claimed to be of a lesser branch of the Amal Dynasty, and was viewed as Roman within Italy during his residence there (because the Amal Dynasty had established its Roman credentials thoroughly), and was accepted as such by the Eastern Emperor. It was supposed that just as Theodoric's Romano-Italian administration had re-Romanised the southern Gallic provinces in the wake of their 'reconquest' by the Western Empire, and as his Gothic troops had come to be seen as Roman soldiery by the people of both Eastern and Western Empires, that in time Theodoric and his heirs would convert the Visigoths into Roman soldiery of the Western Empire's Hispanic provinces.

There's even a suggestion (per Peter Heather, who usually I credit with a bit more credibility than I do on this score) that Theodoric during his hale years exercised a sort of hegemonic administrative control over Vandal-controlled Romano-African territories as well. That Theodoric exercised a sort of elder-statesman's level of influence in Spain in the wake of marrying his sister to the Vandal king is not questioned, but Heather seems to think that the five thousand or so Romano-Gothic troops sent to North Africa constituted something of an occupying garrison, bringing the Vandals in under Roman control again as something of a client kingdom. This is something I would need to pursue with more research before I can weigh in on it, but it may bear considering at least.

When Justin died, Justinian began laying the groundwork for an 'Imperial Reconquest' of the West. To do this, he had to make a case that the West NEEDED reconquering. Vandal Africa was an easy sell - the pro-Constantinopolitan king Hilderic had thrown off Western-Roman dominance by turning to the Eastern Empire, but his own overthrow a few years later by a usurper who was not recognized by either Imperial court made the Vandals vulnerable to accusations of illegitimacy. Italy was a tougher nut to crack, however. Amalasuntha had been married to Eutharic, who was recognized as a legitimate heir to the Western Empire by the Emperor Justin and by Justinian. He was even made consul (!) and his son, in whose name Amalasuntha was originally ruling, was seen as equally legitimate. When, however, Athalaric died and Amalasuntha married, and then was deposed, by an unrecognized relative, the East took the usurpation as a pretext for invasion and 'restoration.' But recreating the Goths and Theodoric's regime as 'barbarian' in nature required a significant of historical white-washing (and in this, Jordanne's rewrite of Cassiodorus' Gothic History may have had a hand), which was done after the fact of the invasion and initial Western Imperial surrender at Ravenna, not before.

Why bother bringing this up? It all worked out the way we know it today, right? The Eastern Romans eventually reconquered Italy (only to Lose most of it again), the Franks proved to be the unstoppable foe in Gaul, and Hispania remembered her Late Antique rulers as 'Visigoths', not 'Romans' or 'Romano-Goths.' True. But for a couple of decades between the 500s and the 530s, it looked to a generation as though Theodoric had firmly reestablished a version of the 'Western Roman Empire' that could deserve the name - and not just the Empire part, but the 'Roman' part. It was also a different, earlier sort of Imperial regime, one modeled self-conciously on the principate model, which allowed the Italo-Roman, Gallo-Roman, Romano-Illyrian, and Hispano-Roman elites to buy into the system, as Theodoric's Roman senate served something more than the purely ceremonial role than it typically did under the dominate. 30 or so years might sound like nothing when you're looking at Roman history in big chunky blocks ("Republican Era," "Early Imperial/Principate," "Crisis of the Third Century," "Late Imperial/Dominate," "Post-Imperial Roman West") but one of the advantages of a game like this is that we have the opportunity to live through those years in which it looked like the Emperor Theodoric had reconstituted a successful, working version of the Western Roman Empire. Certainly it worked while he was alive, and though it didn't really out live his grandson and his daughter, it very well could have: if Eutharic or Athalaric had lived, if the Acacian schism had taken a few decades longer to unravel, if Theodehad had not deposed Amalasuntha, if Belisarius had been a stitch less loyal to Justinian, the sixth century could have wound up being the story of how the Western Roman Empire re-established itself after a couple of decades of near-collapse. And that's the kind of special event series that would be fun to play through.

On "Barbarian" Europe
Alright, I'm late to the party again, but two more cents from the historian:

There seems to be some very vocal concerns that the game should tend towards Barbarian Kingdoms and fragmentation. I disagree. I think that neither Roman-revival or Barbarization and Fragmentation should be favored. Although it's very in vogue among Germanists and popular among wider audiences, the Germano-heroic-'Migration Era' is a concept that was dismantled two or three decades ago by historians of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Only a handful of historians continue to argue that wide-scale migrations took place in the 5th century anymore. Alaric's Goths (The Visigoths), the Vandals, and the Burgundians are now understood as troop brigades commanded by Roman federate officers (Romanized officers of non-Roman or recently-Roman origin). None of the major groups was an ethnically cohesive group - the future-Visigoths were a combination of various federate troops (including Alans) and Roman soldiers. The Vandals who eventually settled in North Africa were a hodge-podge of former Roman federate troops - Vandals, Alans, and others. The Burgundians were the most Romanized of the first wave, and took up positions in modern-day Burgundia as part of the regular Roman army of the Loire in the mid-5th century. Only the Franks seem to have constituted a whole tribal people, and they had been settling in Northern Gaul since Julian's time. But they were also heavily Romanized: Clovis' father was once the Roman commander of the army of Northern Gaul, until Aegidius succeeded him.

When the Imperial government of the West stopped being able to exert military and political influence north of the Alps, the local Roman population turned to the local military forces present for protection, and the officers in charge of those units became the new political elite. Where recognized Roman authorities existed - like Arbogast in Trier and Aegidius in North Gaul and various local Roman city leaders in Hispania and possibly a Romano-British king in Brittany - those leaders became the heads of local polities. Where the most powerful local leader was the commander of federate troops - as in Aquitaine and Provence and North-Western Gaul along the Rhine - those commanders became the new leaders. But there were two aspects of this transition that bear note:

First, the acceptable 'Barbarians' had already been Romanized for some three or four generations. No Romans invited Hunnic mercenaries to be their overlords. They looked at the Visigoths, or the Franks, and saw Roman army officers of the late Empire. In North Africa the situation was different: The Vandals had conquered North Africa outright, but even there, the Vandals quickly Romanized, living like elite Roman military officers. In a generation or two Vandal kings were composing Roman poetry! But why do we call them 'Barbarian?' Because their officers came from recently-non-Roman origins, and because in the first half of the fifth century the Imperial government went to great lengths to propagandize its legitimacy and the 'barbarous' nature of all of its political opponents, even Frankish officers who had been Romanized for a hundred years and whose grandfathers had been considered acceptable candidates for the Imperial throne by other Romans.

Second, none of the new 'Barbarian' overlords changed anything that was 'Roman' about the society they conquered, or added anything 'Germanic' to them. (The major exception here being the Anglo-Saxons in Britain, but Britain had been without Roman influences for a generation or more by the time Anglo-Saxon kingdoms emerged.) They lived as Romans, among Romans. Their armies did not differ extensively from any other late-Roman armies except in professionalism: without reliable supplies of coin (which none of the early kingdoms possessed) the bulk of the soldiers had to be citizen-soldiers who did something else to support themselves most of the time. This is partly why most of the time the Visigoths, Franks, and Burgundians LOST battles against Roman troops - they simply weren't as professional as the Romans, but in other respects they looked and fought just like them. Nothing that was Roman about the local civilizations became non-Roman as a result of the 'Barbarian' kings. Even the offices of 'king' that emerged had precedents in late Roman-writing - 'rex' and 'reges' had been acceptable terms for late Roman emperors, and Visigothic kings were occassionally referred to as 'imperator,' as would be Frankish kings after they forged an alliance with the Eastern Empire against the Western Roman Empire of Theodoric a few decades later.

Collectively, historians of late Antiquity have, for about 30 years or so, based on new archaeological evidence and new forms of historical analysis, concluded that at no point before the late sixth century was the West irretrievably lost to 'Roman' civilization. The problem that faced the Western Empire was one of resources and political infighting, NOT ethnic fragmentation resulting from Barbarian influences. Right up to the end of Anthemius' reign, Late Antique historians are convinced that if Constantius III had lived longer, or if Aetius hadn't been distracted from North Africa by the Huns, or if Majorian hadn't lost his fleet to Vandal sabotage, or if Anthemius's joint-expedition with the Eastern Empire to reconquer North Africa hadn't been commanded by an idiot, the Western Empire would have reasserted control over its provinces (possibly excepting Britain) and that within a century or so the Visigoths, Franks, and Burgundians would have finished the Romanization they were already well-along-the-road-towards, and their elites would have been folded into the local Gallo-Roman aristocracy. Every time an Emperor went north of the Alps, the locals (who clung to their Roman Imperial membership for as long as they could) eagerly jumped on board, and even the usurpers that emerged in Gaul in the 5th century didn't do so in order to break away from the empire but to replace its ineffectual leadership. Even the Visigoths, until Euric, seemed content to be Roman federate soldiers, and Childeric (Clovis' father) was serving as commander of the Rhine legions until his replacement by Aegidius.

In fact, historians of Late Antiquity do not see any significant break with the Roman Imperial past until the seventh century C.E. Although the political disunity of the Western Empire had made some forms of Roman civilization less possible than before due to problems with shipping arriving from political tensions and/or Vandal piracy, the kingdoms of the West remained 'Roman' until at the earliest the early-7th century, when, in the wake of Romano-Gothic-Lombardian devastation in Italy, Persian conquests of most of the near-East, and then Arab conquests a few years later, and the effects of a hundred years of bubonic plague, Mediterranean shipping from East-to-West dropped below the level nessecary for a really 'Roman' way of life to be maintained. The early-8th-century rise of the Carolingians was partly a response to these conditions, as the Merovingians took the blame for the decreasing prosperity of their kingdoms. It's worth noting that some level of trade between North Africa and southern Gaul, and North Africa and sothern and western Hispania, led to those regions surviving the period as 'Roman' somewhat better than Northern and Central Gaul and Northern Hispania, and when the Arabs conquered Hispania they recognized its people not as Visigoths but as 'Romans,' based on their experiences with Romans in the East, and they took hold of the surviving Roman cities to reboot what had been a dying Roman urban culture with some Arab influences.

There's no reason to believe that had a strong, legitimate Roman power emerged in the West between the 5th and the 7th centuries that the inhabitants of the Western provinces wouldn't have eagerly signed up. In fact to some extent, this explains the success of Theodoric's Western Imperial Revival: his ability to hold onto Hispania and even dominate North Africa with little more than a few political marriages and a tiny garrison speaks volumes about how legitimate his 'Roman' administration was seen to be by the Romans of Hispania and North Africa -including the 'Visigothic' and 'Vandal' ruling elite. It was only when Theodoric's legitimate heirs died young and the power of the central authority waned that Hispania and North Africa reasserted their independence again. The only real exception to these events was in Northern France, where the Franks - who had been Romanized residents and soldiers of Northern Gaul for generations - recieved Eastern Imperial support in opposing Theodoric's regime. Even there, however, Frankish kings always deferred to a legitimate Eastern imperial authority until it became obvious that the East was barely able to reconquer Italy, and had no power to reach into Gaul. At that point the Frankish kings began to recieve titles of 'imperator' themselves.

TL;DR:

The game shouldn't weight Barbarian Kingdoms over Western Roman Imperial Revival. For one thing, Theodoric successfully revived the majority of the Western Empire during his lifetime, and various Italo-Roman and Gallo-Roman authors considered it a 'golden age.' Although Kingdoms did eventually replace the Western Empire, they didn't become fracturous, feudal states until after Charlemagne, and the Carolingian dynasty emerged largely as a result of a breakdown in Roman-Mediterranean-cohesiveness at the beginning of the seventh century. This is not fated to happen in our game. A strong, revived Western Empire - as opposed to scatered kingdoms - might well be able to survive the dissolution of the East by trading amongst itself and drawing upon its own unity, as Theodoric's Italian, Gallic, and Hispanic (and even African) territories did during his life. That's a historic scenario that could happen. It's just one of the quirks of history that it didn't: that Theodoric's son-in-law AND grandson both died young. (Only Augustus had such terrible luck, as far as I can remember.)

Let them chips fall where they may. It's true that more people seem to want to play out a scenario of Western Imperial recovery. I certainly do. But I'm just as eager to have the Franks re-establish a Western Imperial dynasty as I am for Theodoric to do it. I've even considered playing the Visigoths as they refound the Western Empire. The Vandals might have one of the better claims. My preference is for there to be a 'Western Roman Empire' title that anyone can create if they hold Italy AND something else, like Italy and Southern Gaul (Aquitaine), or Italy and North Africa, or Italy and Illyricum (Dalmatia). Italy and Spain seems like more of a stretch to me, I wouldn't suggest that.

Can we do that? Can we have that as a title you can make? You can make a condition that whomever wants to do it has to convert to Orthodox Christianity AND to 'Roman' culture (not Romano-Goth or Gallo-Roman.)

I agree with him on practically every point, and if melting pots were working we would have had an already latinized Ostrogoths and Visigoths, with the Romano-Vandals following suit so by the 500's they're writing in Latin and are practically "Roman" anyway. The Burgundians for whatever reason aren't represented as latinized either despite leaders like Gundobad basically being foederati and their people being settled in Roman lands and Romanized for generations, but I'm not in charge of those things and am a newcomer to the mod and modding anyway.

Theodoric is latinized in-game and has Romano-gothic culture; arguably the rest of the Ostrogoths should be as well.

Edit: You also seem to be one of the few people offering historical criticism and we thank you for that. I am no historian by trade, and I doubt anybody in the team is pursuing their masters or PhD in history either, so the mod is the result of the collective research and knowledge of us and the forumites, and learning new things about late antiquity is what got me following the mod in the first place. Thanks for that and to all the others contributing!
 
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Speaking of the crimean goths, is there a chance in giving the 50 year old ruler a son as he usually dies pretty quick and that's end game.
Well, if he is already ahistorical, it seems like a good idea, but if there is a reason for him not having a son we will keep it like now.

Probably just copy over the names list from one culture or another.

Might consider a generic 'cultural group' retinue and building, so if you're latin_culture_group but not latin/roman/french/etc... That'd help that out some.
Oh, yes that could be done. If it is a demand, we can always make a txt file+ the corresponding that you could alter in order to get your melting-pot, but it won't be our biggest priority.

Even though Im a developer myself, I would like to raise a suggestion:

A generic Invasion CB.

Everyone should have the ability to invade another country without a reason! Especially for the Romans (or Christians in general), so that they do not have to expand only on Holy Wars, even though that never happens (if Syagrius declares war on Clovis, then within 3 months we have the Thuringians, Alemanni, the Frisians and Saxons all crashing in). Useful also for Hellenics too.
Well, not sure on this, it would mostly destroy the balance with huge empires forming. Hellenics should not be able to invade people.

It might be worthwhile to give independent roman-cultured rulers the "subjugate" CB over any other independent-roman culture rulers, with the exception of the ERE, this would make it easier for any players trying to unite the rump state remnants of the old western empire to do so, and it could be given a significant cool-down meaning it can't be easily abused. (Imagine using it to get a "foothold" in Britannia by taking a single duchy, and having to wade through various contrived casus beli trying to unite it under roman rule again, the behemoth task that it should remain.)

This CB should be turned off when there exists an emperor in the west, and given exclusively to him, and distributed to all Romans when there isn't.
Not sure on this either, because historically it never really happened. We are especially wanting you to restore/unite the remnants of the roman empire, that should be a challenge.

The Tuareg portraits should prob be applied to the East African cultures as well. They use the standard West African gfx right now.

The Solomonids rule the Cushites with Somali culture, even though they were Ethiopian. They should be in Aksum if anywhere.
Noted. So you want the Solomnonids ruling Aksium instead of the Cushites?

I did suggest on the main thread, but because there is now a sub-forum and noticed a thread for this on here, I thought it be okay if I can repeat it and give you some suggestion

I think you need to rework the Gothic culture, evidently, it be a better idea for now to make a culture group based solely on the Goths, considering it split into different subgroups of the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, and Crimean Goths, which were derived from the main Goth culture
Another suggestion is adding fictional but feasible dynasty names when new Gothic nobility emerge (I've actually been playing as a Goth, and the only dynasty I've seen is Crimling, so its really confusing when you have 5 Crimling dynasties), which is actually sort of easy if you look up the etymology of them. For example, the Amalings and Baltings came from the founder of the dynasty, respectively Amal and Balt, so in theory, you can just can just use the first or second nymic name of a Goth, which I'll prove some links to help you.

Not sure how you would implant this idea, it takes away the Historicity, but Gothic nobility information is pretty scant in my opinion to find. Also I really dont know how you would add this, I honestly dont know jack about modding or adding new dynastic names in a culture, but maybe a suggestion can help you out

Here are some links
http://www.ancientsites.com/aw/post/41078
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/gothic-l/conversations/messages/7305
http://www.reddit.com/r/CrusaderKings/comments/2hwehe/old_gothic_namelist_for_charlemagne_dlc/

I also found this around the forums, maybe it would help the main Gothic subculture, considering its somewhat a bit scant compared to the Visigoths or Ostrogoths
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...w-Cultures&p=15651313&viewfull=1#post15651313

.This probably won't happen... the Visigoths have been romanized too thoroughly by now to merit their inclusion in any group besides Latin and that would leave us two cultures in the Gothic group.

Actually three because theres Goths, Crimean Goths, and Ostrogoths

Too Romanized by the late 5th century? They'd only just started settling in Roman territory a century prior to the mod's start date, and were having problems keeping the Romanized population in Hispania pacified. The Consularia Caesaraugustana mentions some sort of Roman-headed revolt against the Goths in 496, another one in 506, and there's the Bacaudae of the mid-5th century. At the same time, Alaric II was out happily supporting Theodoric's campaigns in Italy, and Visigothic-Ostrogothic relations led almost to a merger of the two realms under Theodoric himself.

Why should the Visigoths be in the same culture group as the peoples who were still actively revolting against them during this time, and be in an entirely different culture group from their clear cultural kinsmen and with whom they maintained good relations during the period?

We were advised by a PhD student who was giving his doctorate on the Gothic successor states. I'll edit this when I find his post but it was pretty convincing... enough for us to change them from germanic to latin.

Even though Im a developer myself, I would like to raise a suggestion:

A generic Invasion CB.

Everyone should have the ability to invade another country without a reason! Especially for the Romans (or Christians in general), so that they do not have to expand only on Holy Wars, even though that never happens (if Syagrius declares war on Clovis, then within 3 months we have the Thuringians, Alemanni, the Frisians and Saxons all crashing in). Useful also for Hellenics too.

I'd very much like to see this! Given that the Visigoths even elected an Ostrogoth as their king in the 6th century, I really want to see the argument for Visigoths being culturally closer to Romans than Ostrogoths.

He actually advised us to do that too, and that is the reason for the existence of the Romano-Gothic culture and Theodoric being a part of it. He actually sadly stopped contributing to the mod after Enlil refused to give Theodoric the title of Western Roman Emperor, arguing that he was in every way as much a successor as the Illyro-Roman emperors were before him and almost succeeded as well as they did in restoring Rome, with arguments tat direct rule over Hispania, legitimacy based on the Senate and hegemony over Africa post-Vouille were sure signs of it, which is incredibly sad since he was arguably the most knowledgeable forumite I have ever had the pleasure of reading. (If you are reading this KingdomofWales, pls come back.)

Here are some of his arguments:

On Theodoric and the Pannonian Goths


On "Barbarian" Europe


I agree with him on practically every point, and if melting pots were working we would have had an already latinized Ostrogoths and Visigoths, with the Romano-Vandals following suit so by the 500's they're writing in Latin and are practically "Roman" anyway. The Burgundians for whatever reason aren't represented as latinized either despite leaders like Gundobad basically being foederati and their people being settled in Roman lands and Romanized for generations, but I'm not in charge of those things and am a newcomer to the mod and modding anyway.

Theodoric is latinized in-game and has Romano-gothic culture; arguably the rest of the Ostrogoths should be as well.

Edit: You also seem to be one of the few people offering historical criticism and we thank you for that. I am no historian by trade, and I doubt anybody in the team is pursuing their masters or PhD in history either, so the mod is the result of the collective research and knowledge of us and the forumites, and learning new things about late antiquity is what got me following the mod in the first place. Thanks for that and to all the others contributing!
I will let this discussion go on and if you decide for something, add it in the OP. Also, a lot of the historical contributions/suggestions has been done in PM. PseudoCatFish, on the French forum, I have atleast two-three people that have a lot of knowledge about history and etc, has done studies about this peroid. Whenever I announce that we are ready to start doing the "Rise of Islam"-startdate, they will jump at it.
 
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He actually advised us to do that too, and that is the reason for the existence of the Romano-Gothic culture and Theodoric being a part of it. He actually sadly stopped contributing to the mod after Enlil refused to give Theodoric the title of Western Roman Emperor, arguing that he was in every way as much a successor as the Illyro-Roman emperors were before him and almost succeeded as well as they did in restoring Rome, with arguments tat direct rule over Hispania, legitimacy based on the Senate and hegemony over Africa post-Vouille were sure signs of it, which is incredibly sad since he was arguably the most knowledgeable forumite I have ever had the pleasure of reading. (If you are reading this KingdomofWales, pls come back.)
Oh my god I remember that discussion. Theodoric wrangled control of the Western Mediterranean for a few decades by setting up a bunch of blood ties, and then that all fell to pieces practically the moment he breathed his last. A reformed WRE his realm was not.

Here are some of his arguments:

On Theodoric and the Pannonian Goths

On "Barbarian" Europe

  • I can believe he was working on a PhD, because my god that's incredibly wordy for an internet forum format. Volume doesn't make all of that right, though.
  • I recall looking into the "Emepror Anastasius [...] never stopped referring to Theodoric as a Roman emperor who ruled over Romans - legitimately" claim and finding two letters written by Anastasius' secretary which referred with one of those Latin terms which emperors tended to use in their stew of titles but also were applied to other leaders, and that was the best I found out of that. For such bold claims and for such great wordage, there aren't really that many citations anywhere for all of this.
  • Both posts read like they're conflating models of governance and culture. Yeah, a lot of the "barbarian" kingdoms of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages continued to use Roman administrators and Roman systems of administration, but they still tended to speak their own languages alongside Latin for administrative stuff (Arian Goths were even able to use Gothic as a Church language, thanks to Ulfilas' work).

That these particular Germanic peoples, the Goths, the Franks, the Burgundians, (etc.) had adapted enough to the Roman world to interact with it, use it, and communicate with it doesn't mean that they were Roman, or Romanized like they were Latins by the time they had crossed the Rhine/Danube. The Codex Argenteus, linked above, is a copy of Ulfilas' Gothic translation work done in the 4th century, but it's an edition made in the 6th century. Given that it's written with gold and silver, that means that there was at least someone higher up who wasn't just a Goth-in-name-only who was basically just a Roman with a funny name, but someone who spoke Gothic, read Gothic, gave patronage to those who were willing to write in Gothic, and was quite happy to flaunt that, too.


Late edit: Shoot, I made the name set you guys are using for 'Romano-Gothic', and I know those names aren't attested for Ostrogoths in the 5th/6th centuries. I'd actually taken the name from a list of names attested in Galicia in the 9th to 12 centuries, because the intent had been for Goths to eventually slip into that culture much later, around the same time that Lombards ended up flipping to Italian in CM. Those names aren't historical at all for the period you're using them.
 
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Oh my god I remember that discussion. Theodoric wrangled control of the Western Mediterranean for a few decades by setting up a bunch of blood ties, and then that all fell to pieces practically the moment he breathed his last. A reformed WRE his realm was not.



  • I can believe he was working on a PhD, because my god that's incredibly wordy for an internet forum format. Volume doesn't make all of that right, though.
  • I recall looking into the "Emepror Anastasius [...] never stopped referring to Theodoric as a Roman emperor who ruled over Romans - legitimately" claim and finding two letters written by Anastasius' secretary which referred with one of those Latin terms which emperors tended to use in their stew of titles but also were applied to other leaders, and that was the best I found out of that. For such bold claims and for such great wordage, there aren't really that many citations anywhere for all of this.
  • Both posts read like they're conflating models of governance and culture. Yeah, a lot of the "barbarian" kingdoms of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages continued to use Roman administrators and Roman systems of administration, but they still tended to speak their own languages alongside Latin for administrative stuff (Arian Goths were even able to use Gothic as a Church language, thanks to Ulfilas' work).

That these particular Germanic peoples, the Goths, the Franks, the Burgundians, (etc.) had adapted enough to the Roman world to interact with it, use it, and communicate with it doesn't mean that they were Roman, or Romanized like they were Latins by the time they had crossed the Rhine/Danube. The Codex Argenteus, linked above, is a copy of Ulfilas' Gothic translation work done in the 4th century, but it's an edition made in the 6th century. Given that it's written with gold and silver, that means that there was at least someone higher up who wasn't just a Goth-in-name-only who was basically just a Roman with a funny name, but someone who spoke Gothic, read Gothic, gave patronage to those who were willing to write in Gothic, and was quite happy to flaunt that, too.


Late edit: Shoot, I made the name set you guys are using for 'Romano-Gothic', and I know those names aren't attested for Ostrogoths in the 5th/6th centuries. I'd actually taken the name from a list of names attested in Galicia in the 9th to 12 centuries, because the intent had been for Goths to eventually slip into that culture much later, around the same time that Lombards ended up flipping to Italian in CM. Those names aren't historical at all for the period you're using them.

Well I decided to look at Regna et Gentes, which was recommended to me by an enthusiast and see what the ESF contributors had to say on the Visigoths. From Pro Patriae Gentisque Gothorum Statu:

It is clear that, for some time, differences in customs, fashion and social organisation, must have existed, as is shown by the remains of material culture that have been preserved. They also prove, however, that those differences began progressively to fade, because of the intense process of acculturation and Romanisation, already long-establsihed, of the Goths, which started before tehir arrival in Spain and during the period of the regnum Tolosanum. Moreover, there are no data suggesting that, from the settlement of Hispania and, most likely before, a "Gothic" language was used...

[Although] the Romanization of the Visigoths was pronounced--even before their arrival in Hispania--, this does not imply the existence of a total identification, which if it occurred at all, did not do so until a later date. It seems, for instance, that judges were of Gothic extraction, was most of the army; the Visigoths possibly retained certain privileges, especially those related to paying taxes, and real power was always in visigothic hands...

So while there was a clear distinction between Goth and Roman, it was not based on language or noticeable differences in culture, but rather on the former's position as the dominant class of that society in both military and political positions as well as the Arian faith of the Visigothic class. After the 3rd Council of Toledo, being a Visigoth became entirely associated with being in a position of power in the society--a power that was now legitimized by a national Catholic faith. I'm not sure if this is an apt comparison, but Manchus in the late Qing that had, for the most part, been completely Sinicized still identified as being a part of the upper Manchu class in that society.

The identification of Visigoth with Arian and Hispano-Roman with Catholic would have been transformed into a new formula: for the Visigoths, power(exclusively royal; with an absolute majority in the case of the high administration and with effective groups among bishops and the clergy) and, from a religious point of view, Catholicism as the national faith.

The differences b/w the Gothi and Hispani were not large enough to justify them being in different cultural groups, though the clear status-divide between the two definitely could be represented as different cultures. Their practice of Arianism should provide enough of a malus for the Hispani to revolt.

As for Syagrius, I too was a fan of pirro's idea to spit them up based on passages from Gaul in the Fifth Century: A crisis of Identity. Easier invasions for the Franks, however, took precedence on that for gameplay reasons I believe?
 
Well I decided to look at Regna et Gentes, which was recommended to me by an enthusiast and see what the ESF contributors had to say on the Visigoths. From Pro Patriae Gentisque Gothorum Statu:

So while there was a clear distinction between Goth and Roman, it was not based on language or noticeable differences in culture, but rather on the former's position as the dominant class of that society in both military and political positions as well as the Arian faith of the Visigothic class. After the 3rd Council of Toledo, being a Visigoth became entirely associated with being in a position of power in the society--a power that was now legitimized by a national Catholic faith. I'm not sure if this is an apt comparison, but Manchus in the late Qing that had, for the most part, been completely Sinicized still identified as being a part of the upper Manchu class in that society.
That's very specifically an article about Visigothic rule in the 6th and 7th centuries; Gothi in Hispanias ingressi sunt is noted in 494 in the Consularia [/Chronica] Caesaraugustana, although there were of course inroads made before then. Javier Acre's article, The Fifth Century in Hispania, which precedes the one you quote and is more directly pertinent to the situation in Hispania in the Fifth Century, notes on p. 155 in Regna and Gentes that
The Visigothic presence in Tarraconensis—this was the first area occupied by the incoming Visigoths in 494—was not welcomed and met resistance on the part of some individuals faithful to Rome, to which the province still belonged.The successive rebellions of Burdunelus (in 497) and of Petrus (in 506) recorded in the Chronica Caesaraugustana can only be understood in terms of resistance against the Visigoths.
I don't disagree that a melting pot should occur between the Visigoths and Hispano-Romans; all evidence clearly points to this happening preceding the Islamic invasion of Spain. I do think it's jumping the gun to have that process already well apace by 476/480. If the Ostrogoths were actually Ostrogothic, which isn't even currently the case in the mod*, then the Visigoths would have better relations with Garamus of Mauretania than Theodoric of the Ostrogoths.

Oh man, and now I just want to start talking about the cultural and religious layout overall.


*You've given Theodoric a proper Gothic form of his name, and his realm at scenario start is properly Ostrogothic, but you've set him up as 'Romano-Gothic', so his own provinces hate him and he likewise has an easier time controlling Romans than Goths.
 
That's very specifically an article about Visigothic rule in the 6th and 7th centuries; Gothi in Hispanias ingressi sunt is noted in 494 in the Consularia [/Chronica] Caesaraugustana, although there were of course inroads made before then. Javier Acre's article, The Fifth Century in Hispania, which precedes the one you quote and is more directly pertinent to the situation in Hispania in the Fifth Century, notes on p. 155 in Regna and Gentes that

I don't disagree that a melting pot should occur between the Visigoths and Hispano-Romans; all evidence clearly points to this happening preceding the Islamic invasion of Spain. I do think it's jumping the gun to have that process already well apace by 476/480. If the Ostrogoths were actually Ostrogothic, which isn't even currently the case in the mod*, then the Visigoths would have better relations with Garamus of Mauretania than Theodoric of the Ostrogoths.

Oh man, and now I just want to start talking about the cultural and religious layout overall.


*You've given Theodoric a proper Gothic form of his name, and his realm at scenario start is properly Ostrogothic, but you've set him up as 'Romano-Gothic', so his own provinces hate him and he likewise has an easier time controlling Romans than Goths.

You are right about the revolts in 497 and 506, but wouldn't the malus between Arians and Nicenes be enough to elicit peasant and noble revolts? Also, by putting the visigoths into a different group than the Romano-Hispanics, you're implying by CK2 standards that they are just as distant culturally as Romans and Persians or Romans and Lombards, which is a problem with the cultural gameplay construct itself. Ideally the Ostrogoths would be in the Latin group as well, though the decision isn't mine to make and don't quote me on that either. Theodoric's name and starting vassals/cultures were not changed from before when he was Germanic, but I can definitely see the problem with that too.

As for North Africa, I'm not even sure if there should be a united post Roman Kingdom there but my knowledge of that region is basically 0 anyway post-Vandal invasion. Please feel free to give cultural and religious suggestions.
 
Ideally the Ostrogoths would be in the Latin group as well, though the decision isn't mine to make and don't quote me on that either.
Okay, no, this is exactly the cultural thing I wanted to bring up next. There are currently thirty-four Latin cultures already in the mod (including 2! Sicilian entries), several of which I'm pretty sure have absolutely no-one playable, die out within a century and do nothing except cause a few courtiers (who dislike you because you're not their culture) to show up in a few courts and cause a few provinces to be a percentage more restless until cultural conversion events fire. There's others which are presumably anticipating melting pot events, except none of those events exist, (I'm pretty sure) none of those cultures have any defined dynasties, and some of them don't even have localisation entries yet.

Of those cultures, there are some which differ in absolutely no way except for name- "Romano-Vandalic" is just a copy/paste of the Roman culture entry. Savoyard, Picard and Walloon are exactly the same as French, don't even exist on the map and I'm not sure where or how cultural conversion events fire for them, so that's useless data sitting there for no reason. Romano-Frank also exists, and that also uses the French nameset-- although to be fair, I'm pretty sure Romano-Frank existed, and it's called French already.

Then there's stuff like German-Berber and Romano-Persian-- who made that? They're both just their two parent cultures' namesets smashed together, so there isn't even a synthesis of names. Roman-Persian is literally just the Persian and Roman names pasted together into the same set, like
Code:
		male_names = {
			Abbas Abolhassan Afshar_Afshar Ahmad_Ahmad Akbar_Akbar Ali Allahyar Amin Anushirvan_Anushirvan Aram Ardahan_Ardahan Ardavan_Ardavan Ardeshir_Ardeshir Assad Aurang Ayeshah Babak_Babak Bahman
			Bahram_Bahram Bakhtiar_Bakhtiar Behrad Behrouz Bozorg Danush_Danush Darab Dariush_Darius Davud_David Djamasp Ebrahim_Abraham Ehsan Esfandiar_Esfandiar Eskander_Alexander Esma'il_Ismail Faramarz_Faramarz Faraz_Faraz Fareed_Farid Farhad_Farhad Fariborz_Fariborz
			Farroukh_Farroukh Farrukhzad_Farrukhzad Farzad_Farzad Fath Ferdows_Ferdows Fereedun_Feridun Ghobad Gholam Godarz Goshtasb_Goshtasb Hafez Hassan_Hasan Hazarasp_Hazarasp Hedayat Hooshyar_Hooshyar Hormazd_Hormazd Hormoz Hossein_Hossein
			Humayun Jahandar_Jahandar Jahangir_Jahangir Jahanshah_Jahanshah Jamshid_Jamshid Javeed_Javeed Kambiz Kamran Kavoos_Kavoos Keyghobad Keykhosrau_Keykhosrau Kharmandar_Kharmandar Khashayar_Khashayar Kavadh Khodadad_Khodadad Khosrau_Khosrau
			Khudayar_Khudayar Khurshid_Khurshid Kurush_Cyrus Mahmud Manuchihr_Manuchihr Manushihr_Manushihr Marzuban_Marzuban Mashad_Mashad Maziar Mehrab Mehrzad Mohammed_Muhammad Morad_Morad Morteza Mozaffar Nard Naveed Nawid Nezam Parviz Pashang_Pashang Peroz_Peroz
			Pujman Reza Rostam_Rostam Ruhollah Sadri Salman Shahab_Shahab Shahbaz_Shahbaz Shahin_Shahin Shahram_Shahram Shahrokh_Sharokh Shahruz_Shahruz Shahryar_Shahryar Shapur_Shapur Shayan_Shayan Sina Tahmasb_Tahmasb Vahhab_Vahhab Vahid
			Vali Vandad Varshasb_Varshasb Vishtasb_Vishtasb Yazdegerd Yousef_Joseph Zahak Zakaria Zand Zartosht_Zartosht Zia 
			Aemilian Aemilius Aetius Albinus Alexander_Alexander Anastasius_Anastasius Anicius Annius Antoninus Antonius_Antonius Arcadius Aurelian Aurelius
			Avitus Belisarius_Belisarius Britannicus Caecilius Caesar_Caesar Carinus Carus Cassius Claudius Clementius Constans_Constans Constantine_Constantine
			Constantius_Constantius Cornelius Crassus Decimus Decius Diocletian Domitian Domitius Drusus Ennodius Fabianus Fabius Faustus Felix Flavianus Florian
			Gaius Galerius Gallienus Gallus Germanus_Germanus Gordian Gracchus Gratian Hadrian_Adrian Herculius_Heracles Honorius Joannes_John Jovian
			Julian_Julian Julius Julius-Caesar Junius Justin_Justin Justinian_Justinian Leo_Leo Leontius_Leontius Liberius Licinius Lucius Magnus_Magnus Marcellinus
			Marcellus Marcian Marcus_Marcus Marinus Marius Martinus Maximian Maximinus Maximus_Maximus Nepotian Nerva Numerian Octavianus Octavius Otho
			Paulinus Paulus_Paul Petronius Philip_Philip Pompeius Pontianus Priscus Probus Publius Quintus Romanus_Roman Romulus Rufinus Rutilius Sabinianus
			Saturninus Sempronius Septimius Sergius_Sergius Severinus Severus Sextus Symmachus_Symmachus Tacitus Theodosius_Theodosios Tiberius_Tiberius
			Titius Titus Trajan_Trajan Urbanus Valens Valentinian Valerian Valerius_Valerius Venantius Vespasian Victor Victorinus Vigilius Vitalianus Volusianus
		}
which is just sloppy. It doesn't make a cohesive single culture, it's erratic, and if nobody cares enough to actually shape a decently unique culture, why even bother with all that in the first place?


TL;DR: Trim the cultures, don't add even more, stop making everything Latin.
 
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Aren't those cultures you mention supposed to be for the Melting Pots?
Yeah, except those melting pots don't exist, some of them would probably overlap (Where's Picard supposed to go?), some of them are redundant (Why on earth are there separate 'Romano-Frank' and 'French' entries?), some are sloppy combos with no thought put into them (Germano-Berber is just the German and Berber cultures together in one set, Romano-Persian, as above, is likewise literally just the Roman and Persian sets together, Romano-Aramean is (presumably) Aramean plus Greek and Roman namesets). Romano-Vandalic is exactly the same as Roman. Latin is almost exactly the same as Roman, except 'Aemilian' in the Roman nameset was changed to 'Emilian'.

They're incredibly specific, repetitive and in some places redundant. And that's just concerning the not-even-really-implemented melting pot cultures.
 
Yeah, except those melting pots don't exist, some of them would probably overlap (Where's Picard supposed to go?), some of them are redundant (Why on earth are there separate 'Romano-Frank' and 'French' entries?), some are sloppy combos with no thought put into them (Germano-Berber is just the German and Berber cultures together in one set, Romano-Persian, as above, is likewise literally just the Roman and Persian sets together, Romano-Aramean is (presumably) Aramean plus Greek and Roman namesets). Romano-Vandalic is exactly the same as Roman. Latin is almost exactly the same as Roman, except 'Aemilian' in the Roman nameset was changed to 'Emilian'.

They're incredibly specific, repetitive and in some places redundant. And that's just concerning the not-even-really-implemented melting pot cultures.

Romano-Frank is intended to be a melting pot between Old Frank and Roman, while French comes from Frank and Roman.

You have to understand, we are not linguists and in the hurry to make the beta presentable, we don't have time to perfect cultures we have no idea of how their names would be
 
Romano-Frank is intended to be a melting pot between Old Frank and Roman, while French comes from Frank and Roman.
'French' ('frankish' in the culture file) already comes from Frankish ('old_frankish') in vanilla, with the intermingling with Romance-speakers being implicit, since there's no Gallo-Roman culture in French provinces in CM.