Pretext
So I've never really liked the culture group system in CK2 (it's not horrible, but it's not great either. It's functional). So while I'm extremely excited for how cultures themselves are being improved in CK3, I was a slight bit disappointed that they were keeping the same culture group system that they had in CK2. I was hoping they'd improve how they represented the relation between different cultures. Now the obvious way to improve it is just to add another layer, so you have groups of groups (similar to the religion group, religion, and faith tiers). And I'll admit that I was of fan of this in the past and would prefer it over the CK2 system. But I can see why the devs don't add it to the game as it doesn't really bring any interesting gameplay and doesn't do a good job of representing cultures that share features with one set of culture, but share other features with a different set of cultures. But I had a realization, based on how technologies in CK3 are restricted to culture belonging to regions, that the solution is practically already in the game.
Basic Proposal
There should be two sets of culture groups: culture families and regional culture groups. And each culture would belong to a culture family and a regional culture group, but two cultures that belong to the same culture family might not belong to the same regional culture group and vice versa. So the opinion of vassals would be based on whether your cultures share a culture family and/or a regional culture group (in addition to religion, traits, etc).
By the way, the regional culture group name should really be shorted, but for the clarity of this post I'm using it as is.
Culture Families
So the culture families would work very similar to the current culture groups. Each culture family would be a static list of cultures. But while the current culture groups are not fully based on language families, I would make the new culture families heavily based on language families (with some leeway) as the goal is to group cultures that have cultural similarities due to having a common origin.
Regional Culture Groups
The regional culture groups would be based on, as the name suggests, regions of the CK3 map. So any culture that is primarily found in a region would belong to that regional culture group. The idea being that cultures that might not be historically related, but inhabiting a common area, will intermingle and have similarities due to their proximity. Additionally, this system would be dynamic. So if a culture migrated into a region and became established, they could become part of the local culture group, representing their adoption of some of the local customs. This means which culture see each others as similar would be able to change as cultures move around or expand (but with culture families still allowing some cultures in the same region to de somewhat distinct). Note, I proposing using the same calculation that CK3 uses for regional tech system that allows widely dispersed cultures to belong to multiple regions (if sufficiently prevalent in multiple regions), but this could also be tweaked if needed.
Example: Iberia
So for example, looking at the CK2 cultures found in Iberia in 1066, you'd have Portuguese, Castilian, Basque, Catalan, and Andalusian. Currently in the game Portuguese, Castilian, Basque, and Catalan are one culture group and Andalusian belongs to a separate culture group. But this does a poor job of recognizing that Andalusian culture is suppose to represent the Arabic culture brought by the Muslims mixing with the local culture (in game Castilian and Andalusian view each other the same way that Castilian and Mongolian do. It also does a poor job of showing that Castilian and Portuguese are much more similar than Castilian and Basque. These same problems still exist in CK3
So let's say Iberia is a culture region (I'm imagining the culture regions would be based on the de jure empires, but this can be easily tweaked). That would mean that all these culture by inhabiting Iberia would be a part of the Iberian regional culture group. This would mean they would all be more accepting of each other than, say, Mongolian (unless the Mongols decided to settle down in Iberia). But they wouldn't be equally accepting of all the culture in Iberia, because there are culture families. So for instance Portuguese, Castilian, and Catalan might all belong to the Latin culture family (a grouping of the cultures descended from Latin). While Andalusian would belong to the Arabic culture family and Basque would be in it's own culture family. This means while Andalusian would be accepting of Castilian, they would also be accepting of other Arabic cultures (as they share a regional culture group with the former and a culture family with the later). Additionally, while Castilian would be accepting of Basque, Castilian would be even more accepting of Portuguese as they share both a culture family and a regional culture group.
Cultural Continuum
This also does a better job of representing continuums. For example, the culture from Portugal to France are on a continuum where each culture is similar to it's neighbour (so Portuguese is similar to Castilian, which is similar to Catalan, which is similar to Occitan, which is similar to French). But by the end enough gradual changes build up that French and Portuguese aren't as related as each step in the chain. This is difficult to represent in a computer game concisely and my proposal isn't perfect at representing this. But it would have French and Occitan as being close and Portuguese, Castilian, and Catalan as being close, which is what CK2 does. But this new cultural system would also recognize that Catalan and Occitan aren't completely foreign cultures like CK2 does, as both would belong to the same culture family. Additionally my this culture system also doesn't make Portuguese and French see each other as very closely related cultures, thus keeping the ends of the continuum somewhat distinct.
Example: Britain
So in 1066 in a British regional culture group you have (at least going by the CK2 culture map) Irish, Scottish and Welsh in the Celtic culture family and Anglo-Saxon in the Germanic culture family. Now interestingly while Norwegian culture is also present in Britain in 1066, it would not be part of the British regional culture group as it either wouldn't have enough provinces of it's culture in the region or the culture isn't mainly found in Britain. So while the Celts would see the Norwegians as truly foreign, the Anglo-Saxons would be somewhat accepting of the Norwegian culture as they would both belong to the Germanic culture family. That said, the Anglo-Saxons wouldn't be fully excepting of the Norwegian culture as they'd still view them as somewhat foreign. But if as the game played out, and the Norwegians settled more and more of Britain, eventually the cultures of Britain would become accustom to the Norwegian and not see them as foreign. As well, the Norwegian, by joining the British culture group, would also become accustom to the British cultures and not see them as foreign.
Additional Benefits
In addition to the more nuanced and dynamic cultural opinions mentioned above, with this new cultural system different regions would play differently. For example, France and Italy would both be regions where most of the cultures belong to the same culture family and so their would not be much cultural strife. Meanwhile, the culture diversity that existed in the Byzantine empire wouldn't all be swept under the Byzantine culture group rug. As the group could be split up into multiple culture families with the Byzantine regional culture group representing the Hellenization of these disparate cultures (also might pave the way for Greek to be divided into multiple cultures).
Also this system would inherently make more cultures unique as cultures are more likely to have a unique combination of region and culture family than they are if only in culture groups as in CK 2 and 3. So if picking a culture for strategic reasons, there is more to weigh.
More Possibilities
So the system could be made even more dynamic and responsive to players by allowing the opinions based on sharing a culture family versus a regional culture group to be affected by different technologies. This means the player could target which kinds of cultural relations they want to improve.
But not everything has to be opinion based. Besides both grouping also effecting technology spread and wiliness to vassalize (though probably to different degrees), this new system could also be tied into events with different regional culture groups having unique events. So if you manage to move Irish culture to India, your Irish culture would gain access to local events making it feel like the culture has actually evolved during all its travels.
Conclusion
Having culture families and regional culture groups would allow for a more nuanced and dynamic presentation of culture in CK3. While this system isn't perfect (and no video game system will be perfect) I believe that it will improve the culture experience of CK3 by allowing cultures to share similarities with different sets of cultures, allowing how cultures view each other to change over time, and giving a base that can be expanded upon through events to allow cultures to be much more dynamic and responsive to the world of CK3. Plus, adding this to the game isn't too much work as a lot of the framework is already there. Creating and modifying existing event would probably be the most work, but much of that can be done as CK3 is developed and more flavour is added over time.
edit: clarity
So I've never really liked the culture group system in CK2 (it's not horrible, but it's not great either. It's functional). So while I'm extremely excited for how cultures themselves are being improved in CK3, I was a slight bit disappointed that they were keeping the same culture group system that they had in CK2. I was hoping they'd improve how they represented the relation between different cultures. Now the obvious way to improve it is just to add another layer, so you have groups of groups (similar to the religion group, religion, and faith tiers). And I'll admit that I was of fan of this in the past and would prefer it over the CK2 system. But I can see why the devs don't add it to the game as it doesn't really bring any interesting gameplay and doesn't do a good job of representing cultures that share features with one set of culture, but share other features with a different set of cultures. But I had a realization, based on how technologies in CK3 are restricted to culture belonging to regions, that the solution is practically already in the game.
Basic Proposal
There should be two sets of culture groups: culture families and regional culture groups. And each culture would belong to a culture family and a regional culture group, but two cultures that belong to the same culture family might not belong to the same regional culture group and vice versa. So the opinion of vassals would be based on whether your cultures share a culture family and/or a regional culture group (in addition to religion, traits, etc).
By the way, the regional culture group name should really be shorted, but for the clarity of this post I'm using it as is.
Culture Families
So the culture families would work very similar to the current culture groups. Each culture family would be a static list of cultures. But while the current culture groups are not fully based on language families, I would make the new culture families heavily based on language families (with some leeway) as the goal is to group cultures that have cultural similarities due to having a common origin.
Regional Culture Groups
The regional culture groups would be based on, as the name suggests, regions of the CK3 map. So any culture that is primarily found in a region would belong to that regional culture group. The idea being that cultures that might not be historically related, but inhabiting a common area, will intermingle and have similarities due to their proximity. Additionally, this system would be dynamic. So if a culture migrated into a region and became established, they could become part of the local culture group, representing their adoption of some of the local customs. This means which culture see each others as similar would be able to change as cultures move around or expand (but with culture families still allowing some cultures in the same region to de somewhat distinct). Note, I proposing using the same calculation that CK3 uses for regional tech system that allows widely dispersed cultures to belong to multiple regions (if sufficiently prevalent in multiple regions), but this could also be tweaked if needed.
Example: Iberia
So for example, looking at the CK2 cultures found in Iberia in 1066, you'd have Portuguese, Castilian, Basque, Catalan, and Andalusian. Currently in the game Portuguese, Castilian, Basque, and Catalan are one culture group and Andalusian belongs to a separate culture group. But this does a poor job of recognizing that Andalusian culture is suppose to represent the Arabic culture brought by the Muslims mixing with the local culture (in game Castilian and Andalusian view each other the same way that Castilian and Mongolian do. It also does a poor job of showing that Castilian and Portuguese are much more similar than Castilian and Basque. These same problems still exist in CK3
So let's say Iberia is a culture region (I'm imagining the culture regions would be based on the de jure empires, but this can be easily tweaked). That would mean that all these culture by inhabiting Iberia would be a part of the Iberian regional culture group. This would mean they would all be more accepting of each other than, say, Mongolian (unless the Mongols decided to settle down in Iberia). But they wouldn't be equally accepting of all the culture in Iberia, because there are culture families. So for instance Portuguese, Castilian, and Catalan might all belong to the Latin culture family (a grouping of the cultures descended from Latin). While Andalusian would belong to the Arabic culture family and Basque would be in it's own culture family. This means while Andalusian would be accepting of Castilian, they would also be accepting of other Arabic cultures (as they share a regional culture group with the former and a culture family with the later). Additionally, while Castilian would be accepting of Basque, Castilian would be even more accepting of Portuguese as they share both a culture family and a regional culture group.
Cultural Continuum
This also does a better job of representing continuums. For example, the culture from Portugal to France are on a continuum where each culture is similar to it's neighbour (so Portuguese is similar to Castilian, which is similar to Catalan, which is similar to Occitan, which is similar to French). But by the end enough gradual changes build up that French and Portuguese aren't as related as each step in the chain. This is difficult to represent in a computer game concisely and my proposal isn't perfect at representing this. But it would have French and Occitan as being close and Portuguese, Castilian, and Catalan as being close, which is what CK2 does. But this new cultural system would also recognize that Catalan and Occitan aren't completely foreign cultures like CK2 does, as both would belong to the same culture family. Additionally my this culture system also doesn't make Portuguese and French see each other as very closely related cultures, thus keeping the ends of the continuum somewhat distinct.
Example: Britain
So in 1066 in a British regional culture group you have (at least going by the CK2 culture map) Irish, Scottish and Welsh in the Celtic culture family and Anglo-Saxon in the Germanic culture family. Now interestingly while Norwegian culture is also present in Britain in 1066, it would not be part of the British regional culture group as it either wouldn't have enough provinces of it's culture in the region or the culture isn't mainly found in Britain. So while the Celts would see the Norwegians as truly foreign, the Anglo-Saxons would be somewhat accepting of the Norwegian culture as they would both belong to the Germanic culture family. That said, the Anglo-Saxons wouldn't be fully excepting of the Norwegian culture as they'd still view them as somewhat foreign. But if as the game played out, and the Norwegians settled more and more of Britain, eventually the cultures of Britain would become accustom to the Norwegian and not see them as foreign. As well, the Norwegian, by joining the British culture group, would also become accustom to the British cultures and not see them as foreign.
Additional Benefits
In addition to the more nuanced and dynamic cultural opinions mentioned above, with this new cultural system different regions would play differently. For example, France and Italy would both be regions where most of the cultures belong to the same culture family and so their would not be much cultural strife. Meanwhile, the culture diversity that existed in the Byzantine empire wouldn't all be swept under the Byzantine culture group rug. As the group could be split up into multiple culture families with the Byzantine regional culture group representing the Hellenization of these disparate cultures (also might pave the way for Greek to be divided into multiple cultures).
Also this system would inherently make more cultures unique as cultures are more likely to have a unique combination of region and culture family than they are if only in culture groups as in CK 2 and 3. So if picking a culture for strategic reasons, there is more to weigh.
More Possibilities
So the system could be made even more dynamic and responsive to players by allowing the opinions based on sharing a culture family versus a regional culture group to be affected by different technologies. This means the player could target which kinds of cultural relations they want to improve.
But not everything has to be opinion based. Besides both grouping also effecting technology spread and wiliness to vassalize (though probably to different degrees), this new system could also be tied into events with different regional culture groups having unique events. So if you manage to move Irish culture to India, your Irish culture would gain access to local events making it feel like the culture has actually evolved during all its travels.
Conclusion
Having culture families and regional culture groups would allow for a more nuanced and dynamic presentation of culture in CK3. While this system isn't perfect (and no video game system will be perfect) I believe that it will improve the culture experience of CK3 by allowing cultures to share similarities with different sets of cultures, allowing how cultures view each other to change over time, and giving a base that can be expanded upon through events to allow cultures to be much more dynamic and responsive to the world of CK3. Plus, adding this to the game isn't too much work as a lot of the framework is already there. Creating and modifying existing event would probably be the most work, but much of that can be done as CK3 is developed and more flavour is added over time.
edit: clarity
Last edited:
- 33
- 23
- 4
- 1