A Paradox Christmas Carol

[Londinium]

Not sure I like the idea of Irish being in the same culture group as the UK. Since we can't have separate policies for different ethnicities in countries, it'll mean in game terms the Irish are treated the same as the Scottish, even though during this period the Irish experienced a famine during which a quarter of the population (two million people) either died or emmigrated, all the while the English were making them export massive amounts of grain (Low lie the fields of athenry). The prevailing attitude in England at the time (and up to about the 1950s/60s) was that the Irish were "white niggers"-inferior, basically. The thought of the same thing happening in Scotland would have been unthinkable.
I realise historical issues like this are difficult to handle and I'm sure there's no harm intended but I do find it a bit sickening.

Nothing much to do with the developers diary but this is blatantly untrue. The British government of the time was laissez faire and wasn't totally aware of the situation in Ireland, prevailing economic opinion of the time suggested that they shouldn't intervene because it'd just make the issue worse. When it became apparent to Westminster just how bad things were going they did pretty extreme things (for the time) such as buying up mass amounts of maize from America to distribute amongst the Irish.

Furthermore it was IRISH landowners who refused to stop exporting the surplus production, the government believed that they should help the people dying on their land, as per the era's belief in charity above government handouts. The Irish landlords decided not to and to continue exporting the food instead and continue making their profits. It was internal issues between the Protestant landlords and their tenants that had a lot to play in exacerbating the famine and the British government actually went above and beyond what most governments of the time would have done.

Furthermore the potato famine in Highland Scotland caused 1.7m people to leave Scotland, so no there wasn't any difference in policy between the Irish and Scottish, especially during the famine of the 1840s. It's easy to spew the nationalist Irish spin on things because it's been almost mythicised by supporters of Irish nationalism into the truth but it's simply not.

The British viewed Ireland as an integral part of the Union and after Catholic Emancipation tried their best to reconcile the Catholic and Protestant elements to each other and nearly all the Protestant population of Ireland was loyalist, so I don't see why the Irish shouldn't be tagged in the British culture, hell if it wasn't for WW1, Ireland would probably still be part of the UK but in a devolved form like Scotland now.

 

[JoeGiavani]

Nothing much to do with the developers diary but this is blatantly untrue. The British government of the time was laissez faire and wasn't totally aware of the situation in Ireland, prevailing economic opinion of the time suggested that they shouldn't intervene because it'd just make the issue worse. When it became apparent to Westminster just how bad things were going they did pretty extreme things (for the time) such as buying up mass amounts of maize from America to distribute amongst the Irish.

Furthermore it was IRISH landowners who refused to stop exporting the surplus production, the government believed that they should help the people dying on their land, as per the era's belief in charity above government handouts. The Irish landlords decided not to and to continue exporting the food instead and continue making their profits. It was internal issues between the Protestant landlords and their tenants that had a lot to play in exacerbating the famine and the British government actually went above and beyond what most governments of the time would have done.

Furthermore the potato famine in Highland Scotland caused 1.7m people to leave Scotland, so no there wasn't any difference in policy between the Irish and Scottish, especially during the famine of the 1840s. It's easy to spew the nationalist Irish spin on things because it's been almost mythicised by supporters of Irish nationalism into the truth but it's simply not.

The British viewed Ireland as an integral part of the Union and after Catholic Emancipation tried their best to reconcile the Catholic and Protestant elements to each other and nearly all the Protestant population of Ireland was loyalist, so I don't see why the Irish shouldn't be tagged in the British culture, hell if it wasn't for WW1, Ireland would probably still be part of the UK but in a devolved form like Scotland now.

/d.

 

[blood_lazio]

No no no. Danish is a culture not a culture group so cannot have a union tag. We can't argue for a bigger group for Germanic people then the 1871 Germany will contain all of Scandanavia, how historical is that?

Sorry if i'm missing some part of this (been reading the whole forum in 5 hours from just spotting there is a Vicky II coming out), but to me Europa is culturally structured as (just the main ones of the top of my head, i'm probably forgetting some other grouping as well):

- Romans, Slaves and Germanic on the ethnological level (with sub-groups)
- Protestant, Catholics and Orthodox on the religious level (with sub-groups)
- Historical unions and nations (also old alliences)
- Occupation of non-European "hordes"... (in historical order the important ones are Huns, Arabs, Mongolians and Ottomans)

These diffenrence overlap each other and therefore the overall groups create a lot of sub-groups that could lead to many different countries eventually developing. Scandinavia is one. Denmark as a Baltic Empire (or part of such an Empire) is another. Denmark as a part of a Northern Germanic Empire (possibly dominating it). Denmark and Norway being part of a kind of the UK or something similar. Scandinavia could have been overrun by Russia and Denmark could have ended somewhat like the Baltic states developed. Denmark could have been split between Germany and Sweden and disappered (fx Jutland for Germany, the Islands for Sweden).

Ethnologically danes are a lot more like Northern Germany than the rest of Scandinavia. They also share the same religion as Northern Germany. The Danish intervention in the 30-year-war was the first step in Uniting Germany with DK included under the Danish king (thus most likely making Denmark German and not the other way around).

The difference though is Denmark is all know history basicly has been of about the same territory, where as Germany has come and gone, dominating Europe to rising from the succes of the Duchy of Prussia.

Imho the ONLY reason why Germany didn't take all of Denmark in 1864 was the international power quite liked having Denmark and Sweden as small countries on each side of Øresund, so no one power really could dominate this trade route. And since Germany was heading to war with Austria and France, it was not interested in annoying the UK and/or Russia.

German focus has never been in Scandinavia for strategical and political reason (No large navy, Øresund and other problems with major power trying to weaken them. But culturally, ethnologically and in many other ways it would make way more sence to see Denmark, Norway and Sweden as part of Germany than Bavaria.

Denmark never had any problem with anything German untill 1864, before that THE enemy was Sweden. Danish policy towards the unification of Germany for a long time, was to try and be the 3rd player in this union after Prussia and Austria, and maybe use the power struggle between these 2 to gain the upper hand and gain significant territory in Nothern Germany, maybe even uniting Germany under the Danish throne. But Prussia and Austria managed to hold together the Germanic union in a way as to be strong enough to ally to get rid of the Danish problem in 1864... Then after 1864 lots of things changed because Denmark when from a medium power in Europe, to a indirect German puppet, untill the Allies weakened Germany though 2 World Wars.

 

[unmerged(56465)]

You know nothing about the history of Ireland if you regard them as being a happy jolly part of the United Kingdom but for a few malcontents. Maybe you should fuck off and join the BNP, you'd find their policy of "peaceful reintegration" soothing.

Ooh, righteous lefty anger!

 

[JoeGiavani]

Ooh, righteous lefty anger!

Ireland is not part of Britain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_(1972)

 

[unmerged(181731)]

Ireland is not part of Britain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_(1972)

care to elaborate on how an event in 1972 has any bearing whatsoever on the Victoria time-frame?

 

[JoeGiavani]

care to elaborate on how an event in 1972 has any bearing whatsoever on the Victoria time-frame?

I thought I'd try something more topical than the great potato famine that killed a million Irish people clearly wasn't enough.
I can't help but feel you're being a little tasteless about people being killed within living memory. I was bought up to treat the dead with respect.

 

[blood_lazio]

I thought I'd try something more topical than the great potato famine that killed a million Irish people clearly wasn't enough.
I can't help but feel you're being a little tasteless about people being killed within living memory. I was bought up to treat the dead with respect.

I would argue that compared to topic the potato famine is a terrible thing, but not really relevant. The central cultural difference between Ireland and the UK is and was religion.

Ireland share a lot of cultural things (almost everything exept religion) with the UK, but in the end religion is of such a strong cultural importance in Ireland, that when it had the chance it was eventually gonna go for independence. But since the Uk kept winning there wars, then no oppotuinity presented itself for a uprising for a long time untill WWI.

 

[JoeGiavani]

I would argue that compared to topic the potato famine is a terrible thing, but not really relevant. The central cultural difference between Ireland and the UK is and was religion.

Ireland share a lot of cultural things (almost everything exept religion) with the UK, but in the end religion is of such a strong cultural importance in Ireland, that when it had the chance it was eventually gonna go for independence. But since the Uk kept winning there wars, then no oppotuinity presented itself for a uprising for a long time untill WWI.

Religion is a reflection of culture rather than a driving force itself.
If Ireland was identical to England in other respects, why wouldn't the reformation have spread to Ireland as well?
Henry VIII's break from the church in Rome made the Irish more determined than ever in their Catholicism, as it opened the possibilities for alliances with the French and the Spanish.

 

[henryjai]

now more realistic civil wars is more possible under this system!

 

[King]

wouldn't it be possible to make several possible layers of cultural groups, so that a modder could make subgroups, in a manner similar to how linguistics often portray indo-european as consisting of Germanic, Romance, Slavic, Celtic, and Indo-Aryan families, who them consist of further subgroups, such as germanic being divided into North-Germanic (or Scandinavian), West-Germanic, and the now extinct East-Germanic sub-families? You get the picture Possible? It would be much appreciated.

No, for two very good reasons. Firstly I do not feel it is historic, this is an era of nationalism. Serbs were not happier under Austrian Rule rather than Turkish rule because Austrians were Indo-Europeans, your average Serb peasant probably hadn't even heard of the word. If they were happier it would because of the polcies of the government towards them. The second reason we have gone for this approach is the culture, culture group and union tag code works. The foundation on which are building this system works so therefor the end result is more likely to work and work well. I refer you to a much earlier post in the Dev Diary where someone asks I hope this will not be as buggy as HoI3, and we hope not. So if you guys have the time why not go over to the EU3 forum and thank all the In Nomine users for testing out your game concept and making sure it works.

 

[King]

Thanks for the quick reply, I knew a Germanic people as a big union today and also then was taking the step too far. But there were people back then who believed this was the right path. And as others have said for the moddability.

Anyway, if the culture part will not be changed then I would say split the Scandinavian group into Danish, Norwegian and Swedish because the goal for the national-liberals in this era was to make a national state based on this division and not a big Scandinavia. Though some students wanted it, it was not something that stood the test of time nor did the politicians see it as a real alternative. So Danish national-liberals should strife to get Denmark without German lands and not a unified Scandinavia. This will maybe help model the Schleswig wars in 1848 and 1864. (Some info about the subject)

God damn it I honestly am ready to give up here. Denmark is a Danish state, we have no need to create loads of useless culture groups because we already have it.

 

[King]

First of all, great to see another DD, didn't expect one until after New Year's! And I'm feeling you, just got home to Stockholm from christmas with my family in Finland. First flight was 40 minutes late, had to run flat out and just barely got on the second flight to Arlanda. Our luggage didn't make it though.

These union tags seem really cool, and I like the thoughts about liberal and conservative unifications. My question though, is what about socialism? In one way, I guess it makes sence that socialists shouldn't bother about cultures and instead bother about class. But how would that work out; lower militancy and higher production efficiency for all lower classes, similar to accepted cultures? I guess not, I think that'd make socialist states too powerful?

And what about multi-cultural socialist nations, like the USSR which is actually in this timeline; thus other multi-cultural socialist nations ought to be able to form following the sand-box logic. Granted, the USSR later on pursued a very harsh russification policy, that's in the stalinist era. Earlier on, Lenin argued against those kinde of policies. Sure, all this is debatable, but I guess what I'm saying is that you'd might want to come up with something cool for socialists and unifications/cultures. Come to think of it, even though it's outside this timeframe, there were socialist nationalist revolters too, like the yugoslavian partisans for instance. Might not be plausible in this timeframe though.

Socialists aren't interest in nationalism at all and instead are looking for socialism. So socialist POPs are projected to never spawn nationalist (or pan-nationalist) rebels and instead socialists ones. Who have the goal to overthrow the government and make it more socialist.

 

[King]

At least try to make it moddable as such even if you do not use it. Some ethnicities were multipolarized (Most blatant case would be the Alsatian one belonging to both French and German union tags), it would make for better moddability rather than allowing one ethnicity to belong just to one group.

We are going to stick with what we know works.

 

[King]

wouldn't it be possible to make several possible layers of cultural groups, so that a modder could make subgroups, in a manner similar to how linguistics often portray indo-european as consisting of Germanic, Romance, Slavic, Celtic, and Indo-Aryan families, who them consist of further subgroups, such as germanic being divided into North-Germanic (or Scandinavian), West-Germanic, and the now extinct East-Germanic sub-families? You get the picture Possible? It would be much appreciated.

No definately not going to happen.

 

[King]

I thought I'd try something more topical than the great potato famine that killed a million Irish people clearly wasn't enough.
I can't help but feel you're being a little tasteless about people being killed within living memory. I was bought up to treat the dead with respect.

Good God, since you seem to be an expert on all things Irish. Why not look up the Irish version of the surname King? It should not be too difficult to then deduce where my family fled to avoid the famine. From there let's hopefully be able to put this discussion to bed.

 

[King]

Sorry if i'm missing some part of this (been reading the whole forum in 5 hours from just spotting there is a Vicky II coming out), but to me Europa is culturally structured as (just the main ones of the top of my head, i'm probably forgetting some other grouping as well):

- Romans, Slaves and Germanic on the ethnological level (with sub-groups)
- Protestant, Catholics and Orthodox on the religious level (with sub-groups)
- Historical unions and nations (also old alliences)
- Occupation of non-European "hordes"... (in historical order the important ones are Huns, Arabs, Mongolians and Ottomans)

These diffenrence overlap each other and therefore the overall groups create a lot of sub-groups that could lead to many different countries eventually developing. Scandinavia is one. Denmark as a Baltic Empire (or part of such an Empire) is another. Denmark as a part of a Northern Germanic Empire (possibly dominating it). Denmark and Norway being part of a kind of the UK or something similar. Scandinavia could have been overrun by Russia and Denmark could have ended somewhat like the Baltic states developed. Denmark could have been split between Germany and Sweden and disappered (fx Jutland for Germany, the Islands for Sweden).

Ethnologically danes are a lot more like Northern Germany than the rest of Scandinavia. They also share the same religion as Northern Germany. The Danish intervention in the 30-year-war was the first step in Uniting Germany with DK included under the Danish king (thus most likely making Denmark German and not the other way around).

The difference though is Denmark is all know history basicly has been of about the same territory, where as Germany has come and gone, dominating Europe to rising from the succes of the Duchy of Prussia.

Imho the ONLY reason why Germany didn't take all of Denmark in 1864 was the international power quite liked having Denmark and Sweden as small countries on each side of Øresund, so no one power really could dominate this trade route. And since Germany was heading to war with Austria and France, it was not interested in annoying the UK and/or Russia.

German focus has never been in Scandinavia for strategical and political reason (No large navy, Øresund and other problems with major power trying to weaken them. But culturally, ethnologically and in many other ways it would make way more sence to see Denmark, Norway and Sweden as part of Germany than Bavaria.

Denmark never had any problem with anything German untill 1864, before that THE enemy was Sweden. Danish policy towards the unification of Germany for a long time, was to try and be the 3rd player in this union after Prussia and Austria, and maybe use the power struggle between these 2 to gain the upper hand and gain significant territory in Nothern Germany, maybe even uniting Germany under the Danish throne. But Prussia and Austria managed to hold together the Germanic union in a way as to be strong enough to ally to get rid of the Danish problem in 1864... Then after 1864 lots of things changed because Denmark when from a medium power in Europe, to a indirect German puppet, untill the Allies weakened Germany though 2 World Wars.

These cultures have little or nothing to do with language. Instead we are structuring cultures around countries that did one of three things:

1) Did exist during the period
2) We feel could form
3) Would totally cool if they did form

Thus a long argument over greater cultural spheres means nothing in this context. The German culture group is those cultures that did form Germany histroically. The Italian culture group is Italy. The South slavs form Yugoslavia. Etc.

 

[unmerged(63310)]

These cultures have little or nothing to do with language. Instead we are structuring cultures around countries that did one of three things:

1) Did exist during the period
2) We feel could form
3) Would totally cool if they did form

Thus a long argument over greater cultural spheres means nothing in this context. The German culture group is those cultures that did form Germany histroically. The Italian culture group is Italy. The South slavs form Yugoslavia. Etc.

Have you any ideas about Egypt? Would make it a more interesting region if it could retain its claims past the first 4 years or whenever did that war trigger in Vicky 1 where Egypt was forced to renounce claims to greater Syria to Ottomans?

Since in this instance Egypt is starting at war if I remember right and the cultures are surely different would there possibly be 3 groups with claims to Syria? Ottomans, Egypt, and revolter POPs of Syrian culture?

 

[King]

Have you any ideas about Egypt? Would make it a more interesting region if it could retain its claims past the first 4 years or whenever did that war trigger in Vicky 1 where Egypt was forced to renounce claims to greater Syria to Ottomans?

Since in this instance Egypt is starting at war if I remember right and the cultures are surely different would there possibly be 3 groups with claims to Syria? Ottomans, Egypt, and revolter POPs of Syrian culture?

Not yet

 

[BlueWarrior]

I'd rather "Alsations" weren't included at all, as it'd mean a load of other regions would also have to be incorporated. I much prefer cultural hegemony myself.

I think this is easily dealt with just by giving cores to both France and Germany on the provinces (I'm pretty sure that this is what King said they would do).