Cultural genocide?

[FrosT37]

Is it common to see cultures completely wiped out from Earth by big AI countries?

In my current game, Austria (not Spain!) inherited Aragon and they completely converted all the provinces to the "Austrian" culture.

The same thing happened for some provinces in the Netherlands (which they inherited when Burgundy collapsed).

I don't want to sound like a whiner, but I find this is the biggest annoyance in all the game right now...

 

[Velorian]

Is it common to see cultures completely wiped out from Earth by big AI countries?

In my current game, Austria (not Spain!) inherited Aragon and they completely converted all the provinces to the "Austrian" culture.

The same thing happened for some provinces in the Netherlands (which they inherited when Burgundy collapsed).

I don't want to sound like a whiner, but I find this is the biggest annoyance in all the game right now...

I agree it's pretty ridiculous. Goes to show that 25 dip cost for a tax 1 province isn't much. Historically quite few provinces were ever successfully converted but in the current game entire countries are wiped out culture-wise and then their old cores go away and then they are gone without a trace removing any chance of a future uprising.

It's annoying from a gameplay point of view and ludicrous from a realism point of view.

 

[Evil4Zerggin]

Culture conversion is in a rather odd spot:

1. It's never explained what exactly it is supposed to represent. Is it gaining the favor of the local nobility? Changing the customs of the local population? Wiping them out entirely and replacing them with your own people? Some combination of the above? Something else?
2. It's too easy, being possible to wipe out an entire culture in a decade...
3. ...but simultaneously completely not worth it in most cases, considering one base tax of culture change is worth 2.5 buildings in DIP points.

Honestly I wouldn't mind if it were removed from the game completely, though of course a more fleshed-out culture system would be better.

 

[AdmRepublic]

It needs to be made more interesting, fun and plausible. Previous games had some processes that ran over a much longer timescale than in EUIV and I think using a longer timescale for culture would be appropriate.

I've mentioned before that I would like to see it be influenced by lots of factors, including investments in goverment presence in the province. Think of courthouses, cathedrals, universities. Religion is not completely orthogonal either.

 

[General Baker]

Aye, perhaps instead of changing culture, it should be 'make accepted culture' for most things.

 

[Velorian]

Culture conversion is in a rather odd spot:

1. It's never explained what exactly it is supposed to represent. Is it gaining the favor of the local nobility? Changing the customs of the local population? Wiping them out entirely and replacing them with your own people? Some combination of the above? Something else?
2. It's too easy, being possible to wipe out an entire culture in a decade...
3. ...but simultaneously completely not worth it in most cases, considering one base tax of culture change is worth 2.5 buildings in DIP points.

Honestly I wouldn't mind if it were removed from the game completely, though of course a more fleshed-out culture system would be better.

It doesn't matter too much what exactly it means, the gameplay effect is to make them exactly like your home territories with no remaining risk of rebellion. That's stronger than just replacing the local elite.

It's also not such a huge waste of investment, you don't just get money you get local stability and if you are not behind technologically you are wasting points on paying ahead of time penalties anyhow, which makes spending a techs worth of dip points a nice prospect for permanently pacifying an entire region.

 

[Rey]

You could say the same about religion, since you can within a few months have 100% of the population of a province to change to your religion. Relax, it's a game.

 

[Velorian]

You could say the same about religion, since you can within a few months have 100% of the population of a province to change to your religion. Relax, it's a game.

I do say almost the same about religion and I am relaxed. Games are about having fun, but the argument "it's a game" is meaningless, changing this aspect will make me enjoy the game more.

 

[Dorevai]

Turn off lucky nations and it will happen less. They get a boost to points and due to AI priorities they burn them on cultural conversions when they're doing well.

It is very dumb that you can convert cultures so easily. I commented on it earlier in development when a gameplay video of ottomans had them religious and culture converting parts of northern bulgaria. If it were France I could see widespread conversion as a priority of the government, but the turks were on the opposite side of the spectrum, the padishah of the empire relied upon cultural/religious minorities for political stability in his administration and military as they were loyal to the crown rather than islamic aristocracy.

A much better system would be to make them accepted cultures.

Conversions should be very rare and done by event with the option to opt-out for some cost to manpower or stability. Like, "englishman now outnumber the normans in the province of caux, should we put a stop to this or accept the migration of the commons?"

 

[Xara]

Aye, perhaps instead of changing culture, it should be 'make accepted culture' for most things.

This.

Culture conversion should be replaced with cultural acceptance.

For the same price as conversion is now, using diplo points will make a province's culture 'accepted' for that province only.
Then, imo, once you control some set percentage of that culture in provinces that have accepted it, it becomes a permanent global accepted culture to you

Example : You are Brandenburg, you start conquering Hannover lands. You annex all of the Hansa. You spend 600 dip points or whatever to make them accepted in Lubeck and Hamburg and whatnot. Hannoverian becomes accepted in Lubeck etc. and gives no penalty. You continue conquering, and annex 50% of the base tax of Hannoverian provinces worldwide. You make those provinces accept culture, now you have 50%+ accepted Hannoverian provinces out of all Hannoverian provinces, Hannoverian now becomes perma-accepted with no need to convert the remaining ones, if you conquer more.

Now no cultural cores are lost due to shifting culture. Would also fit 'cultural union' nations much more appropriately.

 

[FrosT37]

This.

Culture conversion should be replaced with cultural acceptance.

For the same price as conversion is now, using diplo points will make a province's culture 'accepted' for that province only.
Then, imo, once you control some set percentage of that culture in provinces that have accepted it, it becomes a permanent global accepted culture to you

Example : You are Brandenburg, you start conquering Hannover lands. You annex all of the Hansa. You spend 600 dip points or whatever to make them accepted in Lubeck and Hamburg and whatnot. Hannoverian becomes accepted in Lubeck etc. and gives no penalty. You continue conquering, and annex 50% of the base tax of Hannoverian provinces worldwide. You make those provinces accept culture, now you have 50%+ accepted Hannoverian provinces out of all Hannoverian provinces, Hannoverian now becomes perma-accepted with no need to convert the remaining ones, if you conquer more.

Now no cultural cores are lost due to shifting culture. Would also fit 'cultural union' nations much more appropriately.

I like this idea a lot.

I wonder if this could be implemented in a small mod? If it's hardcoded, then we might have to wait a very long time before seeing it happen :S

 

[Evil4Zerggin]

It doesn't matter too much what exactly it means, the gameplay effect is to make them exactly like your home territories with no remaining risk of rebellion. That's stronger than just replacing the local elite.

Yet the text associated with the tooltip and when you lose/gain an accepted culture implies that it represents whether your nation accepts the culture, not the other way around (which is rather odd). My point is that the game seems to be confused as to what it represents.

It's also not such a huge waste of investment, you don't just get money you get local stability and if you are not behind technologically you are wasting points on paying ahead of time penalties anyhow, which makes spending a techs worth of dip points a nice prospect for permanently pacifying an entire region.

The main competition is buildings, not tech ahead of time. If you're short on ducats I suppose it's better than the other available options, but the fact remains that you culture converting 4 base tax costs the same DIP as building the maximum (excluding manufactories) 10 DIP buildings in a province. I don't find non-accepted culture enough to trigger rebellions other than JV either.

I support something along the lines of General Baker's idea, it would be a relatively simple system that still makes more sense than what we have currently.

 

[Sun_Wu]

Is it common to see cultures completely wiped out from Earth by big AI countries?

In my current game, Austria (not Spain!) inherited Aragon and they completely converted all the provinces to the "Austrian" culture.

The same thing happened for some provinces in the Netherlands (which they inherited when Burgundy collapsed).

I don't want to sound like a whiner, but I find this is the biggest annoyance in all the game right now...

What is this Netherlands you speak of? Is that that Lowlands country entirely inhabited by Dietsch speakers who were assimilated into Austrians and then into Spaniards?

You could say the same about religion, since you can within a few months have 100% of the population of a province to change to your religion. Relax, it's a game.

Isn't Dei Gratia beautiful?

 

[Rey]

I do say almost the same about religion and I am relaxed. Games are about having fun, but the argument "it's a game" is meaningless, changing this aspect will make me enjoy the game more.

Sure, my reply was directed to the OP since he use the pretty strong term 'genocide'. Like previous posters said, changing it to 'make this province's culture be more accepted' would do it.

 

[Straigthtsilver]

I think the biggest problem is that there actually were some cases of cultures being massively displaced over the EUIV time period. The Tatar lands, for example, were massively settled and colonized by the Russians as they expanded southward and eastward.

On the other hand, it is ridiculous to see the Balkans entirely Sunni and Turkish in a few decades, or Austria turning the entire Netherlands and chunks of Italy into Austrians. For this reason, I think culture conversion should be inordinately expensive in 'civilized' areas of the world, so you don't see random enclaves of cultures popping up in bizarre places.

Another alternative could be making colonists the agents needed for cultural conversion, that way only nations which take exploration/expansion (or have colonists in national ideas) would be able to conduct cultural conversions. This would also fit in nicely with my Tatar example above, since Russia's insanely fast colonization of Siberia could be slowed by making them use their colonists for culture-flipping the Tatar provinces from the former Hordes.

 

[Velorian]

Yet the text associated with the tooltip and when you lose/gain an accepted culture implies that it represents whether your nation accepts the culture, not the other way around (which is rather odd). My point is that the game seems to be confused as to what it represents.

The main competition is buildings, not tech ahead of time. If you're short on ducats I suppose it's better than the other available options, but the fact remains that you culture converting 4 base tax costs the same DIP as building the maximum (excluding manufactories) 10 DIP buildings in a province. I don't find non-accepted culture enough to trigger rebellions other than JV either.

I support something along the lines of General Baker's idea, it would be a relatively simple system that still makes more sense than what we have currently.

The game isn't all that clear about it, but based on the effects it seems to mean full cultural conversion right down to the peasantry.

As for the cost, as Denmark I was able to convert the entirety of Sweden/Finland for exactly 900 dip points. That is a pretty huge area and aside from the economic benefits you also benefit from removing revolt chances (and cores) and solidifying your hold on the area forever. In that particular game I didn't yet have the ducats to buy buildings instead and I was at max DIP so there wasn't any downsides regardless.

 

[Sun_Wu]

I think the biggest problem is that there actually were some cases of cultures being massively displaced over the EUIV time period. The Tatar lands, for example, were massively settled and colonized by the Russians as they expanded southward and eastward.

On the other hand, it is ridiculous to see the Balkans entirely Sunni and Turkish in a few decades, or Austria turning the entire Netherlands and chunks of Italy into Austrians. For this reason, I think culture conversion should be inordinately expensive in 'civilized' areas of the world, so you don't see random enclaves of cultures popping up in bizarre places.

Another alternative could be making colonists the agents needed for cultural conversion, that way only nations which take exploration/expansion (or have colonists in national ideas) would be able to conduct cultural conversions. This would also fit in nicely with my Tatar example above, since Russia's insanely fast colonization of Siberia could be slowed by making them use their colonists for culture-flipping the Tatar provinces from the former Hordes.

That really is an excellent case for the EU3 culture conversion province event being brought back (we came to that conclusion in M&T and are bringing it back).

 

[FrosT37]

Sure, my reply was directed to the OP since he use the pretty strong term 'genocide'. Like previous posters said, changing it to 'make this province's culture be more accepted' would do it.

Yeah I'm sorry about the use of the term "genocide", but this is exactly what it feels like

 

[Dorevai]

Well without a base tax or manpower reduction it's more like re-education/propoganda. You didn't massively kill off the peasants and replace them from the next province over. You just made them behave differently.

 

[Nyrael]

You could say the same about religion, since you can within a few months have 100% of the population of a province to change to your religion. Relax, it's a game.

It is a game where one expects a decent dose of realism and plausibility... and this is over the top (the EU3 system was more realistic and more balanced than this).
honestly, the whole Internal Politics part of the game needs flavor... especially now that warmongering has been successfully discouraged.