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Vias

Byzantine space monkey
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Jun 22, 2013
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So guys, I saw there is a lot of people who has issue with CK3 cultures, what is in, what isn't in the game and where some cultures are/should be. So, why not make a single thread where we express our opinions clearly so that maybe Devs can see it and have an idea without have to browse a lot of threads whom get inevitably buried after some hours/days? Only, let's make it civil, no fighting, no salty posting. Let's only state what we think should get reviewed, if you can post some evidence, it's ok, but don't fight! I could edit OP post to add the issue.

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CKIII Dev Diary #27 - Cultures & Cultural Innovations

Issues:
  • Cisalpine culture in Northern Italy should be split into Cisalpine and Venetian, it makes no sense to unite them (also see Puking Panda's, .Me's, Karlingid's and mine posts); Lombard shouldn't be in the German culture group.
  • French, Occitan and Ango-Saxon culture blog opposed to more granular cultures elsewhere: could add Arpitan, Guascon culture in France (see also Darkath's thread); split Ango-Saxon split anglo-saxon (angles, saxons and jutes?, with Angosaxon as a melting pot?)
  • Occitan culture better named Lemosin? (see Ezumiyr's post);
  • Catalan and Occitan in the same culture group;
  • Cornish not majoriti in Devon
  • More pictish scotland?
  • Better rename Visigothic to Ibero-Romance in Iberia? Splitting Iberia blob into Galician, Asturian/Leonese, Castillan, Aragonese, Catalan, Mozarabic, Basques? they are already splitted in 1066 culture map. There is not Mozarabic culture (see Rogan de Auria's post)
  • Rus' culture named improperly (Russian); also see kikispoke111's thread);
  • No Slovenian/Carinthian culture in Istria;
  • No Dalmatian culture in Dalmatia; should be in Istria too;
  • No Romanic African culture in Africa (maybe add Christian Berbers too?);
  • Flanders should be Dutch (not French), also Flemish is an anachronism (should be only Dutch), north-eastern of modern Netherlands should be Saxon;
  • Dutch and Franconian/Saxon should be in the same culture group;
  • No Albanian cuture (see treb's and cybrxkhan's posts)
  • No caucasian Albanian/Udi culture;
  • No Assyrian culture;
  • No Circassian culture in Causasus; also see mahidevran's post;
  • No Caucasian Avars;
  • Regarding Caucasus: could use the map in Slime99's post for reference for 1066 start date cultures in the area;
  • The spread of Romanian culture is wrong (should not be in Serbia);
  • Bulgarian culture (should be Bulgar and not Bulgarian);
  • Bosniac culture too early?
  • No Basques in Aquitanie;
  • Arabia should be divided in "North" (Adnanites) and "South" Arabians (South Semetic/South Arabian/Soqotri/Qahtanite) (see also dark-mysterio's thread);
  • Northern Curonian coast was inhabited by Livonians not Balts in both start dates.
  • Latgalian should not be the culture of the whole of Latvia at either start date (could simply rename it "Latvian");
  • There shouldn't be any Lombards culture at start date;
  • No Rhaeto-Romance culture;
  • No Chrimea Goths;
  • A lot of issues with Vepsian, Sami, Finnish, Mari and Chuvash cultures (see Slime99's, Karlingid's, Aquamancer's posts);
  • No Assyrian (they were not Kurds); also see Butterworth's post for Kurds issues;
  • Taijik should be called Khorasani, see also elvain's post or mudcrabmerchant's post about merging Taijik with Persian;
  • There should be Aramean culture in the Levant, particularly in Syria, with a large christian population until the Crusades;
  • Levantine culture as melting pot between Arabic culture and Aramean?
  • There should be some Jewish or Samaritan area in the Levant;
  • Distinsion between Swabian and Bavarian culture in 867 anachronistic (better united as Suebi/Alemannic); (see this and this Karlingid's posts);
  • No Coptic culture;
  • Alan culture;
  • Coastline from South-Western Estonia to Western coasts of Curonia inhabited by Livonians. Latgals did not have access to the sea;
  • Vlach culture issues in this SoKraTes1's thread and Рймлјан's post;
  • Wrong Avar culture distribution in 867 start date, should be less present in the area (see SoKraTes1's post for map and more info)
  • Too much Hungarian in 1066 (displace Rusyns in Zarpatia and Slovaks); also see Graf Radetzky's and Rhipeen's posts;
  • Should add Szekely culture in Hungary (see Рймлја's post);
  • in 867 e 1066 startdates southern Tarim Basin should be Khotanese/Saka (or Thocharian in 867 and Uyghur in 1066?), not Sogdian;
  • Split Greek culture megablob?
  • No Khitan culture in 1066 map;
  • Ostyak outdated exonym, it's better Khanty;
  • South Asia issues (see Yogh's and Slime 99's posts);
  • There should be no Khitan in the map (it was only an outpost), better just Mongols;
  • No Romani culture (see this Graf Radetzky's thread for suggestion and namelist);
  • Issues with Georgia (see Reavici's post);
  • Better to use "Tuva" or "Tuvan" rather than Uriankhai (see also mahidevran's post);
  • Samogitia should be part of Lithuania, and there should be a Baltic culture county in the area inhabited by Eastern Galindians (see also Divirix's thread containing a lot of suggestions about Baltic area and much more);
  • Add event to colonize saxon in Transilvania if there is a Kingdom of Hungry, see SoKraTes1's post; the same event could be done also in Silesia, Brandenburg, Pomerania and Mecklenburg ;
  • There should be no Polabian culture in southern Pomerania, in XII century Pomerania expanted in Lutici loands taking Demmin and Wolast;
  • Assamese should be named Kamrupi? (see AliasRy's post for more info);
  • There should be more tribal counties in India, India's cultures should be more balkanized too (also see Slime99's post)
  • No Iceland culture
  • Split Ethiopian into Tigrayan and Amharic, and add Agew culture in southern Ethiopia (see mudcrabmerchant's post)
Replies from the devs:

Wolkeg:
  • "We currently don't have Coptic in, but that's not to say it's been axed forever"
  • No Anglo-Saxon split for launch;
  • "We don't have anything for splitting Cisalpine at the moment, I'm afraid, but that's not necessarily a hard stance."
  • About minority cultures/religion: "Lovely concept, sadly nothing we'll have for release." and later "Nothing for release, more than that, I can't say!"
  • "No Silesian melting pot culture at the moment, but never say never!"
  • No Romani culture for lauch;
  • "Dutch is in the Central Germanic culture group, I'm afraid. Not that it didn't have close links to the Scandinavian cultures, just not as close as to Franconian (and, to a much lesser extent, sorta-Saxon). Culture is also not always based on language, even if the judgement is a bit arbitrary and that's the usual baseline: see the Vlachs chumming it up with the South Slavs despite speaking Romance languages which would very determinedly not be mutually-intelligible with Bulgarians, Serbians, and so on. "
  • "French will just be Occitan and French at release. :) A little unfair, I know, but polishing the culture map is one of those tasks that we can keep going at on and on and on forever. Aaaaaaaand, to be honest, probably will. So, as with most other culture fractalising suggestions so far, never say never! "
  • "On Brabant & Flanders: I'll have a discussion with some people internally and see if we've got a specific reason for why they are the way they are. ;) Won't promise you anything back, but if it's an oversight, we'll look into it!"
  • Outremer is a melting pot;
  • "Norse does not currently have any new melting pots"
  • Sicilian is a melting pot that take 3,4 or 5 cultures to form;
  • Russian will not change for release, but also "I suspect Russian culture may be an area we re-visit after launch, though I can't promise anything there. For the moment, Russian is just Russian."
  • As for Frisian/Dutch: " I've heard convincing arguments for Frisians, Dutch, and Lower Franconians. YMMV, but personally I feel that Dutch is the best fit (and by that I mean wrong, but least-wrong in most-areas, which seems to be all we can hope for). At the same time, it's not my call and we're still under development, so that may yet change."
SaintDaveUK:
  • About Scotland cultures: "We settled on Gaelic and Scots to model the Irish and English speaking dichotomy that existed, as they are commonly-understood terms in the context of modern Scotland and Scottish history. Other candidates like Alban and Inglis were floated, but felt a bit too uncommon and don't quite carry the same connotations. "

Also see pengoyo's tread about his interesting idea about a new, parallel way of grouping cultures.
 
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So, I'll start with something I don't get. What should be the Cisalpine culture? I don't think there even was something called "cisalpine culture" or identity in Italy, unlike Occitan and French culture i.e. Also, I'm not so happy about half Italy painted Lombard.
I think they should add Slovenian/Carinthian, Dalmatian and Romanic African too.
 
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I was hoping they would break the French, Occitan and Anglo-saxon blobs, like they did with German. Maybe they former two evolve into regional identities later on - similar to Norse-, but the Anglo-saxons were far from a monolithic identity, and they're supposed to be doomed in1066 (unless William botches the invasion).
I don't know if Visigothic is apt for the Iberian peninsula. My take is that the Goths retained their identity apart from their Hispano-Roman subjects and slowly blended in.
IMHO, the Cisalpine culture is a Northern Italian counterpart for the southern part of the peninsula. Notice there's an Italian culture in Lazio and Tuscany, and a Lombard culture in Benevento. Maybe the Cisalpine culture is the blending of Langobard and Roman, and eventually drifts to Italian, IDK.
 
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I was hoping they would break the French, Occitan and Anglo-saxon blobs, like they did with German. Maybe they former two evolve into regional identities later on - similar to Norse-, but the Anglo-saxons were far from a monolithic identity, and they're supposed to be doomed in1066 (unless William botches the invasion).
I don't know if Visigothic is apt for the Iberian peninsula. My take is that the Goths retained their identity apart from their Hispano-Roman subjects and slowly blended in.
IMHO, the Cisalpine culture is a Northern Italian counterpart for the southern part of the peninsula. Notice there's an Italian culture in Lazio and Tuscany, and a Lombard culture in Benevento. Maybe the Cisalpine culture is the blending of Langobard and Roman, and eventually drifts to Italian, IDK.
Yeah, I feel that having some culture blobs its strange too, expecially if other cultures are broken into more parts. Maybe Occitan culture could be split into Occitan and Arpitan.
Regarding Visigohic I agree with you, there should be an Ibero/Hispano-Roman culture in Iberia imo.
Regarding Cisalpine culture I tought too about a melting pot between Langobard and Roman, like a transition fase to italian, but I feel it's just strange, it feels a little "artificial". I hope devs will say something about it at one point before release.
 
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Personally what bothers me the most is the naming of the Rus culture, as Russian. This obviously creates a connotation to modern day or imperial Russian culture rather than to the ancestor culture to all Eastern Slavs that were the Rus. I feel like it was a very disregardful move by paradox as these inaccuracies play into people's perceptions of a culture, especially as a complicated and political thing as eastern slavic identity
 
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Personally what bothers me the most is the naming of the Rus culture, as Russian. This obviously creates a connotation to modern day or imperial Russian culture rather than to the ancestor culture to all Eastern Slavs that were the Rus. I feel like it was a very disregardful move by paradox as these inaccuracies play into people's perceptions of a culture, especially as a complicated and political thing as eastern slavic identity
Yeah, I felt to that was not really accurate to write "Russian" for the Rus culture. Aside for the political and people's sensivity, it's not really historically accurate. I'll write on the OP post, thank you.
 
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Cisalpine is basically Gallo-Italian, the ethnic and linguistic descendants of the Romanized Gauls of Cisalpine Gaul.

Personally what bothers me the most is the naming of the Rus culture, as Russian. This obviously creates a connotation to modern day or imperial Russian culture rather than to the ancestor culture to all Eastern Slavs that were the Rus. I feel like it was a very disregardful move by paradox as these inaccuracies play into people's perceptions of a culture, especially as a complicated and political thing as eastern slavic identity
I can agree, I mean if they're going to split Italian up in like 3 or 4 parts why not do them same with Russians.
kJS7zdj.png

Many of these tribal groups had strong ethnic identities up until like the 12th century. Would be nice if these cultures would be there and which could later be assimilated into a greater Ruthenian and/or Russian culture in case they get united into a single realm for a long enough time.
 
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Cisalpine is basically Gallo-Italian, the ethnic and linguistic descendants of the Romanized Gauls of Cisalpine Gaul.
I don't think this is too much accurate though. I mean, the dialect/languages are indeed Gallo-Italic, but Romans deported a lot of Gauls (as slaves i.e.) and founded a lot of cities (like the colony of Mediolanum, nowadays Milano). The conquer of Northern Italy started a bit later the conquest of Etruria (middle of the first sec. B.C.) so it doens't really make sense to think of northern Italy as something different of the rest of the peninsula if Toscany or Emilia are considered Italian imho.

EDIT: Oh, and thanks for the map and the contribution about the Rus' cultures!
 
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Yeah, I felt to that was not really accurate to write "Russian" for the Rus culture. Aside for the political and people's sensivity, it's not really historically accurate. I'll write on the OP post, thank you.
Thanks a lot, I really do hope it gets changed, as being half Ukrainian playing as a "Russian" tribe in the 800s just feels weird

Many of these tribal groups had strong ethnic identities up until like the 12th century. Would be nice if these cultures would be there and which could later be assimilated into a greater Ruthenian and/or Russian culture in case they get united into a single realm for a long enough time.

Yeah that'd be great but judging from the number of counties that won't split it up too much but even a bit would be nice. And a united Rus culture would be great! Altho again I think it would have to be Rus as Ruthenian traditionally were used for Ukrainians by austrian-hungarians and poles, and Russian wouldn't be great either as that still won't be historically accurate, historically these tribes never properly merged into one and instead merged together in certain regions, separated by the borders of the mongol empire and the Polish-Lithuanian common wealth overtime becoming modern day Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian. Honestly it's a complicated mess to represent this accurately but I think "Rus" is a good neutral way, it's complicated by the fact that people living in Rus, just called themselves "People of Rus"
 
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I just noticed that there's no Basques in Aquitaine.

Sorry to bother you @Vias , but could you add the Culture map of 1066, for comparison? I know I've seen it somewhere
 
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Latgalian should not be the culture of the whole of Latvia at either start date. They were only one eastern tribe that became dominant well after the region was conquered and devastated in the 1200s.
If for the sake of simplicity you want to keep the whole of Latvia one culture then simply rename it "Latvian" otherwise, Curonian and Semigallian should also be introduced for historical accuracy.
Furthermore, the northern Curonian coast was inhabited by Livonians not Balts in both start dates.
 
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Off the top of my head, Circassian culture would be nice in the Caucasus region.

I also think Omani should be in to represent Eastern Arabia. A South Semetic/South Arabian/Soqotri culture would be nice too, though may be too small for the game's scope.

Also, the division between Irish and Gaelic as seen in one screenshot is a little weird.

So, I'll start with something I don't get. What should be the Cisalpine culture? I don't think there even was something called "cisalpine culture" or identity in Italy, unlike Occitan and French culture i.e. Also, I'm not so happy about half Italy painted Lombard.
I think they should add Slovenian/Carinthian, Dalmatian and Romanic African too.

I can understand having Cisalpine but do agree a better name is needed. Lombard I suppose would have connotations of being associated with the Germanic Lombards so it'd be kind of weird.

Maybe it would be better to split Cisalpine into several cultures? For example Ligurian for the eastern side, Lombard in the central, and Venetian in the west? (And then rename the current Italian to Tuscan or something) Though I presume that might not be adequate for some.
 
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The two names I know of for northern Italy during this period are cisalpine (based on Latin) and Lombardy (which was used in a wider sense then it is today).

Lombard would have been my preferred name instead of Cisalpine. But I can understand why Pardox might not have chosen it. The Lombards are still nominally around in southern Italy (though they have by this time been absorbed into the local culture). But it would probably be confusing to have Lombard culture in the north and Italians calling themselves Lombards in the south.

The other option is to call the north Italian and call the south Lombard, Sicilian, or Neapolitan. But these all have the problem of applying a term to a wider group of people than it was never applied to.

But I will defend paradox's idea to split the Italian culture in two. The north and south of Italy had been on divergent paths throughout the middle ages.

Edit: grammar
 
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Lombard would have been my preferred name instead of Cisalpine. But I can understand why Pardox might not have chosen it. The Lombards are still nominally around in southern Italy (though they have by this time been absorbed into the local culture). But it would probably be confusing to have Lombard culture in the north and Italians calling themselves Lombard in the south.
This is exactly what I was thinking, it's scary. I didn't add it to my post because I didn't want to clutter it.
I agree that Cisalpine culture feels artificial, but it's understandable why the devs did it like that.
 
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I don't think this is too much accurate though. I mean, the dialect/languages are indeed Gallo-Italic, but Romans deported a lot of Gauls (as slaves i.e.) and founded a lot of cities (like the colony of Mediolanum, nowadays Milano). The conquer of Northern Italy started a bit later the conquest of Etruria (middle of the first sec. B.C.) so it doens't really make sense to think of northern Italy as something different of the rest of the peninsula if Toscany or Emilia are considered Italian imho.

EDIT: Oh, and thanks for the map and the contribution about the Rus' cultures!
The Romans did not found Mediolanum, there was already a city build by the Cisalpine Gauls on that location, the Romans just took control of it and renamed it.

There were significant linguistic differences between Gallo-Italian and the Italian spoken further south around Rome and Tuscany.


I think Central Italian and Tuscan Italian are close enough to both be called Italian. Should also be noted that there have always been, and still are to this day, strong local identities in Italy, particularly North vs South Italians. Really there should be either 3 or 5 culture in Italy. Cisalpine(or Lombard), Italian and Sicilian(as a melting pot culture) with Venetian and Neapolitian as optional extra's.

This is exactly what I was thinking, it's scary. I didn't add it to my post because I didn't want to clutter it.
I agree that Cisalpine culture feels artificial, but it's understandable why the devs did it like that.
I agree with this. I think they should go with either Cisalpine or Lombard instead of having both.
 
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Other issues:
No albanian
No assyrian
No circassian
The spread of Romanian culture is wrong ( at that time they should be around the mountains not in the middle of Serbia) along with the North-eastern part of Bulgaria( should be Bulgar instead of Bulgarian)
Also dont know much about this one but shouldn't bosniak culture appear much later?

Personally I would recommend looking at how the HIP mod handles it, they honestly did such an excellent job with how they handled cultures.

Edit: How the Hip map looks
Capture.PNG
 
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I agree with most of the corrections proposed in this topic.

But I want to give my uber-autistic contribute to this.

First point, Italy, to me, need a lot of corrections, now looks like a mess.
In the first place the name "Lombard" generates too much confusion, the germanic tribe should imho be called Langobard (and should not be into the game at the time), while the Lombards are the actual inhabitant of the western Padan plain, it's important to differentiate the two.
True that "Langobard" was used as synonymous for all the inhabitants of the Langobard kingdom into the middle ages but it was not an ethnic name rather a political one, the ethnic name of the Italian population was just Italic at the time.
So seeing that "Lombard" in Italy is, from my point of view, like having "Papal" as a culture because there's not enough imagination for a better name. (just an example, I'm not blaming paradox)
The Langobards settled in most of the peninsula, true, but they were just an aristocracy, who intermixed with the locals and adopted the local Latin dialects, customs, religion and so on, it's really wrong in my opinion to have them as a separate culture still in the IX century, and even more wrong having them as the main culture in all those regions. Just to make you understand the definition was only juridical, in many regions of Italy people were able to choose between Roman law or Langobard law freely in the case of a trial.
While I like a lot the decision to put into the game the Cisalpine culture because it breaks the blob, the name is kinda nonsensical, actually, it would be way more simple to divide Italy into three main cultural areas from the start of the game, for simplicity and gameplay reasons I would just add a "Lombard" culture into all the northwest of the peninsula, a "Venetian" culture into the north-east (Veneto, Trentino, Istria later into the game), leaving the rest of the south and central Italy just as "Italic".
It would be awesome a melting pot even for the creation of Sicilian and Neapolitan cultures, but... better to avoid, we would need to split also into Tuscan, Romanesque, Umbrian... It would become a mess again.
This way
Senza nome.jpg


Another point: Dalmatian should be present, in Istria and coastal Dalmatia. It's kinda important, I mean, the central-southern Italian language group is called "Italo-Dalmatian" because this language/culture existed too.

Another thing I would like to add, but it's less important, just a curiosity:
No one ever took into consideration the presence of Rhaeto-Romance culture, the entirety of the alpine arch was populated by them, and they were later Germanized or Italianized but they're still alive into modern Friulian, Romansch and Ladin. I don't know, maybe there are few sources or are not interesting enough for a game but I kinda love those small almost forgotten details.

Also agree into the splitting of the Big Blue Blob, cutting off Arpitan from French into what's more of less the kingdom of Burgundy.
 
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