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Does anyone have a good screenshot of the 867 culture map in Asia?

I just noticed this, and I am absolutely ashamed I did not notice this beforehand given my interest in the Silk Road and that my history degree partly focused on it, but in the 867 and 1066 start dates the southern Tarim Basin should be Khotanese/Saka, not Sogdian. The Kingdom of Khotan had just been defeated a mere few decades before, and the main language there was Khotanese/Saka, not Sogdian. I ask about the 867 map because I want to see if Khotanese/Saka exists in that start date.

Anyways, if it does not, then I propose that Khotanese/Saka be added as a culture to the southern and Western parts of the Tarim Basin. Linguistically, culturally, and politically, they were distinct from the nearby Sogdians, who spoke a different East Iranian language. The Kingdom of Khotan was one of the more powerful Tarim Basin states along the Silk Road, and played an important role in the spread and development of Buddhist religion and culture.

Crusader Kings 2 actually had this issue too when Central Asia was first added into the game, and it was only rectified with the addition of the Saka culture later on. Though I prefer the culture to be called Khotanese, to emphasize the importance of the Kingdom of Khotan, I understand why the devs of CK2 chose Saka, as it encompasses both the Khotanese and Tumshuqese dialects of Saka.
 
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What do you guys think about splitting the Greek culture into a western (European) "Greek" or "Hellene" culture, and an eastern (Anatolian) call it "Romaic" culture? Anatolia was for long the heartland of the Byzantine Empire and, while Medieval Greek was the lingua franca and the native language along the coasts, the hinterland really was a patchwork of many sub-cultures (Isaurian, Pisidian, etc.).
 
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Aquamancer said:
The Vepsian culture as shown in your picture is way more widespread than it was historically. Vepsians had three major population centers: the valley of River Sheksna south of Lake Beloozero, the valley of River Suda southwest of Lake Beloozero, and the valleys of rivers flowing to Ladoga from southeast (Rivers Oyat, Syas and Pasha). This means that Vepsians would be limited to, at the largest, the surrounding provinces of Beloozero and River Svir.

Most of the lands that in-game is marked as being inhabited by Vepsians were actually inhabited by the Northfinns, a group of Baltic Finnic peoples who inhabited the lands of modern Arkhangelsk Oblast, at the time known to Russians as Zavolochye. The tribes who inhabited Zavolochye are not very well attested, but Finnish and Russian sources provide some examples of the various Balto-Finnic tribes thet lived in the regions, most notably Zavolochian Chudes/Dvinans, Toimans, Bjarmians, Vagans, Surans, Pinegans, Belozertsii and the Em. As such, it might be more accurate to represent most of the Vepsian culture's lands as Bjarmian, instead.

On the other hand, the provinces of Tikhvin, Bezichi and Valdai are represented as Vepsian, which is also inaccurate, seeing that Vepsian let alone Baltic Finnic settlements did not extend that far south. If these lands hadn't been Russified by 867, they would've been inhabited by the Volkhov Chudes, a poorly-attested Uralic ethnic group who based on lingustic evidence on toponyms appear to have been most closely related to the Meryans than the Baltic Finns to the north of them. As such, those provinces should probably be covered by Meryan culture instead. For further reading on the Volkhov Chudes (considering how obscure they are), I recommend this paper.
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Interesting, maybe the devs themselves should delve in to this? @Vias could put it in the OP.
 
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Ciccillo Rre said:
What do you guys think about splitting the Greek culture into a western (European) "Greek" or "Hellene" culture, and an eastern (Anatolian) call it "Romaic" culture? Anatolia was for long the heartland of the Byzantine Empire and, while Medieval Greek was the lingua franca and the native language along the coasts, the hinterland really was a patchwork of many sub-cultures (Isaurian, Pisidian, etc.).
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I'm not sure what boundaries the Anatolian culture should have, or if the ancient cultures should be used as a base for a different culture. There probably was some difference.
Graf Radetzky said:
Would that not necessitate Pontic as well? As a culture of Trebizond and the Black sea outposts.
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Pontic Greek should be a drift culture in Trebizond if it gets cut off from Byzantium. What about different Kartvelian groups in Pontos, like the Laz? If I remember correctly, Trebizond was largely a Lazic port.
 
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Asturleonese is term Paradox is goin to uses to represent the culture of the kingdom of leon in 1066
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Honestly if they are willing to use that term then they ought to rename the Galician to "Galicoportuguese" since the way it's used clearly refers to what in English is themed "old Portuguese" and both galican and portuguese proper are equidistant in terms of language from it, heck the proper split didn't happen until well into the 1800's
 
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Vias said:
Better rename Visigothic to Ibero-Romance in Iberia? Splitting Iberia blob into Galician, Asturian/Leonese, Castillan, Aragonese, Catalan, Mozarabic, Basques?
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I'm almost sure that I've seen a character with Astur-Leonese culture in a screenshot, that reflects way better Northren Ibera than Visigothic. Also Galician, Aragonese, Catalan and Portugese should appear later.
 
Vias said:
Bizantines called themselves Romans, but here are called Greeks for clarity reason. So, I think it should be Ibero-Romance because, as you can see, in this very thread a lot of people get the impression Visigothic is confusionary. The aim of this thread is to show CK3 devs that there are issues with their cultural portrait of the world, and this is one of them: Visigothic get mixed up by a majority of the people. It's ok that you are ok with devs decision but let's not derail this thread to a dispute between who is right and who is wrong, the point here is there is a problem with that name.
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not quite they are called Greeks because they *where* called greek by the western states, the byzantine empire was referred to as the Greek empire/empire of the Greeks with the express purpose of downplaying their claim to Rome, heck some Byzantine individuals straight up identified with the term Greek (though the exact case that comes to mind is actually outside of the games time frame and had "revivalistic" undertones), in short my point stands much like how it's legitimate to refer to the byzantine has greek because that was a valid exonym at the time (despargin undertones aside) much the same way (Visi)gothic was

but fair is fair,I will make my own thread on the topic, separate from here
 
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Seskarl said:
I'm almost sure that I've seen a character with Astur-Leonese culture in a screenshot, that reflects way better Northren Ibera than Visigothic. Also Galician, Aragonese, Catalan and Portugese should appear later.
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that would incorrect since lenose spilt from the dialectic continuum at around the same-time as castillan, not to mention the fact that the way asuturlenoese is used, underplays the distinctiveness of the Asturians wich allthough linguisticly nigh on identical to the leonese were culturally distinct
 
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Ciccillo Rre said:
What do you guys think about splitting the Greek culture into a western (European) "Greek" or "Hellene" culture, and an eastern (Anatolian) call it "Romaic" culture? Anatolia was for long the heartland of the Byzantine Empire and, while Medieval Greek was the lingua franca and the native language along the coasts, the hinterland really was a patchwork of many sub-cultures (Isaurian, Pisidian, etc.).
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I think the developers should be really careful about fragmenting culture groups too much, it's taking a fundamentally modern conception of the world and applying it to a scenario in which it is a very rough fit at best. We simply don't know how most people in the periods would have described themselves if asked because we only have the records of the literary class. Very likely, people would have ascribed to hyper-regional identities as much as anything else, and then you end up with every single province having its own culture, and then the whole system breaks apart. Equally, these identities would have been highly fluid in response to new circumstances or contact with other cultures - someone from the inland Greek highlands would have adopted the mannerisms and speech patterns of the court relatively swiftly (see: Basil I).

The fluidity of cultural affiliation in the period, the particularisation of identity on a regional scale, and the consequences for gameplay all push towards the developers having "big/broad" culture groups, not small ones. Perhaps these bigger/broader culture groups can split into smaller ones towards the middle of the game, as we get more historical attestation and also stronger political cultures with specific chancery languages and identification with the overall structure of the polity, but particularly in the 867 start, cultures probably shouldn't be any more specific than "French, Occitan, Greek, Lombard" etc.
 
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In an unrelated note: where the hell is is Khitan culture in the 1066 map? they where still around if memory serves, even if no longer in mongolia proper?
 
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Ksiendzu said:
No Suebi culture in northern Hispania :/
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The Suebian Kingdom was annexed in 585 when it was annexed by the Visigoths, and was a strongly vertically structured society where the ruling class kept themselves distinct from the governed and left little trace of their reign in terms of cultural impact. The start date is over 200 years on from this. There shouldn't be a Suebi culture in the area; Paradox are quite right not to include it.
 
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Ciccillo Rre said:
What do you guys think about splitting the Greek culture into a western (European) "Greek" or "Hellene" culture, and an eastern (Anatolian) call it "Romaic" culture? Anatolia was for long the heartland of the Byzantine Empire and, while Medieval Greek was the lingua franca and the native language along the coasts, the hinterland really was a patchwork of many sub-cultures (Isaurian, Pisidian, etc.).
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I think Greek should be split into Pontic (in historical Pontus), Cappadocian (inland Anatolia), and Demotic (Peninsular Greece, the Islands, Ionia, around Constantinople, and Cyprus, basically Classical Greece except Pontus).

Additionally, I also think they should rename the Byzantine culture group to "Romaioi".

EDIT: No clue why this is still being downvoted. There were glaring cultural differences between speakers of Hellenic languages since the time of Ancient Greece.
 
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CrabHelmet said:
I think the developers should be really careful about fragmenting culture groups too much, it's taking a fundamentally modern conception of the world and applying it to a scenario in which it is a very rough fit at best. We simply don't know how most people in the periods would have described themselves if asked because we only have the records of the literary class. Very likely, people would have ascribed to hyper-regional identities as much as anything else, and then you end up with every single province having its own culture, and then the whole system breaks apart. Equally, these identities would have been highly fluid in response to new circumstances or contact with other cultures - someone from the inland Greek highlands would have adopted the mannerisms and speech patterns of the court relatively swiftly (see: Basil I).

The fluidity of cultural affiliation in the period, the particularisation of identity on a regional scale, and the consequences for gameplay all push towards the developers having "big/broad" culture groups, not small ones. Perhaps these bigger/broader culture groups can split into smaller ones towards the middle of the game, as we get more historical attestation and also stronger political cultures with specific chancery languages and identification with the overall structure of the polity, but particularly in the 867 start, cultures probably shouldn't be any more specific than "French, Occitan, Greek, Lombard" etc.
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A monk from western Anatolia joined a monastery in Pontus and is said to have been mistreated by everyone as exōtikós (denoting those foreign to local populations regardless of them originating from abroad or within the Empire).
 
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Duarte said:
Asturleonese is term Paradox is goin to uses to represent the culture of the kingdom of leon in 1066 View attachment 579452

Honestly if they are willing to use that term then they ought to rename the Galician to "Galicoportuguese" since the way it's used clearly refers to what in English is themed "old Portuguese" and both galican and portuguese proper are equidistant in terms of language from it, heck the proper split didn't happen until well into the 1800's
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"Old Portuguese" or Medieval Galician is Galician-Portuguese before Portuguese branched off from it.

Asturleonese is a language and/or language family of very closely-related Asturian and Leonese dialects and/or languages, and has been around since the transition away from Vulgar Latin.
 
Farfour said:
A monk from western Anatolia joined a monastery in Pontus and is said to have been mistreated by everyone as exōtikós (denoting those foreign to local populations regardless of them originating from abroad or within the Empire).
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I mean, you need to provide a source for individual examples like that or they're quite hard to discuss. We also don't know the comparative. Maybe it was a monastery in Trapezus and would have treated people from Amisus as equally weird. Maybe it was a monastery predominantly composed of Armenians, who wrote in Greek as the liturgical language but spoke Armenian on a day-to-day basis, unlike their viistor from western Anatolia. What is the extent of the regionality? How would we know where to demark borders?

I think for cultures to be split up in CK2, you want good evidence of a) some of kind of significant political or legal divide, and b) some evidence that this political or legal divide was relatively 'durable' and persisted over long time periods. That isn't true of most of the Byzantine empire at the start date. Internal borders and political affiliations are extremely fluid. Diocletian's divisions didn't survive the period after Justinian. The themes that Heraclius set up were constantly redrawn and redivided. The Armeniacs theme was split into Chaldia and Koloneia and Mesopotomia themes, and the Mesopotomia theme was itself just a reused title of an older theme which didn't even share any of the same territory that had once existed to the south. The key political families in the area were in constant flux.

In our history, of course, the Pontic area was cut-off from much of the rest of the Greek-speaking community by the Turks. Small differences, instead of smoothing out or getting lost in the cultural mishmash that was any medieval polity, ossified, became fixed, became more permanent. Eventually it becomes a conceptually different thing. But that's backwards projecting history.
 
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