Cultural groups

[HKFlash]

This everyone's rant of their countries inaccuracy is starting to stink. You can mod all of that stuff!!!

Sooner of later we will have a super mod, with many little mods included that will "realistically" recreate cultures, religions and de jure kingdoms/duchies/whatever! Although I can predict alot of versions of the same countries because there are many different views on how they evolved through history.

 

[Otger]

This everyone's rant of their countries inaccuracy is starting to stink. You can mod all of that stuff!!!

Sooner of later we will have a super mod, with many little mods included that will "realistically" recreate cultures, religions and de jure kingdoms/duchies/whatever! Although I can predict alot of versions of the same countries because there are many different views on how they evolved through history.

Yes that's true. But I'm not talking about a version, I'm talking about the fact that the count of Barcelona controlled all that land and that they were the same culture.
And, of course, that the french had to supress and to kill a lot of occitans.
That's not a version of the history, inside that you can think closer to one point of view or another, but that happened. Althought, that doesn't like to people that belive blindly in the version that paradox have chosen to follow. And neither to the french men that re-wrote the history 2 or 3 centuries ago to unificate and build a modern state. I can understand that.

 

[Ruwaard]

yeah having frankish is the latin group is a bit odd but seems essential to keep occitania under french rule. (if it is what's wanted).

That depends on how one defines Frankish, since the Franks split in Romance and Germanic speakers. So the Romance Franks aka French could be placed in a Romance group. OTOH the Dutch culture is placed in the western Germanic group together with English, whereas during this era they were closely related to the German culture, which is placed in a central Germanic group. So this doesn't seem optimal either.

Maybe new cultural groups can be modded in?

 

[HKFlash]

Yes that's true. But I'm not talking about a version, I'm talking about the fact that the count of Barcelona controlled all that land and that they were the same culture.
And, of course, that the french had to supress and to kill a lot of occitans.
That's not a version of the history, inside that you can think closer to one point of view or another, but that happened. Althought, that doesn't like to people that belive blindly in the version that paradox have chosen to follow. And neither to the french men that re-wrote the history 2 or 3 centuries ago to unificate and build a modern state. I can understand that.

Well once we get the full game one thing you should check out (and I'm going to do it too for curiosity's sake) is go to 1106 (40 years after Hastings) and check if the Count (Duke of Barcelona) really holds the southern France, because if he doesn't you may as well mod that too.

 

[Otger]

Well once we get the full game one thing you should check out (and I'm going to do it too for curiosity's sake) is go to 1106 (40 years after Hastings) and check if the Count (Duke of Barcelona) really holds the southern France, because if he doesn't you may as well mod that too.

I'm happy to hear that. Curiosity is the key.
To see Provence ruled by the count of Barcelona check 47 years after hasting, in 1113.
And for Carcassona and Rasès in 1067 :laugh: just 1 year after hastings. Some nobles conquered it back again in 1082 but they signed peace accepting being vassals of Barcelona's count.
And they had possesions aswell in Gavaudan, Roergue, Auvèrnhe and other occitan places by that time. And that was even before that this noble family (casal de Barcelona) became Kings of Aragón.

But, outside that, I would like to see France having to repress the occitan eople and killing them to keep the control over the lands, like it happened. The game would be by far much more realistic and better balanced because in all the games I've played France always ends with a lot of lands in the Iberian Peninsule, and just in 20 years time.

 

[Umkharss]

I think that just 2 centuries ago from nowadays only the 10% of France population could speak french, that's something to be aware of.

Nope. That's a total misconception to think as French as barely the academic French, mostly subsequent to the Renaissance by any means. I won't go all historical linguistics here but French dialects were and remain French nonetheless. And that covers half of the country, plus some of our todays neighbors. Even a heavy proportion of British and Irish nobles and landlords during this period.

During the classic Middle Ages Occitan (although I resent the term, which is modern and way too much political) and Catalan were a same language, and I think they still are to a certain extent (I can read extremely easily Catalan without having ever learned it, thanks to my experience in modern Provencal and medieval literary Occitan).
I think the first map you featured is erroneous. The dialectal distribution seems modern, and on the western side Occitan used to go a bit upper, since Saintonge was emptied during the Hundred Years war and repopulated with populations hailing from French-speaking regions.

 

[Nuril]

That depends on how one defines Frankish, since the Franks split in Romance and Germanic speakers. So the Romance Franks aka French could be placed in a Romance group. OTOH the Dutch culture is placed in the western Germanic group together with English, whereas during this era they were closely related to the German culture, which is placed in a central Germanic group. So this doesn't seem optimal either.

Maybe new cultural groups can be modded in?

The groups are obviously meant to shape the world reasonably according to the historical models. At the game start, for example, Danish-Swedish-Norwegian didn't really exist in any real sense. Apart from minor dialectical differences they'd all be a "Norse"-culture. But since they develop differently due to their Political circumstances across hundreds of years they decided to just facilitate that from the get-go.

None of the Scandinavian characters at the game start had remotely the same spellings of their names that you see, as they were still Norse ones like "Knútr inn ríki" not modernized ones like "Knud den Store". It's just more accessible. Runes weren't even replaced by the Latin alphabet yet in the peninsula (See: Lawbook around the year 1300 in Skåne still using them.), so that'd be an indicator to note.

 

[Otger]

Nope. That's a total misconception to think as French as barely the academic French, mostly subsequent to the Renaissance by any means. I won't go all historical linguistics here but French dialects were and remain French nonetheless. And that covers half of the country, plus some of our todays neighbors. Even a heavy proportion of British and Irish nobles and landlords during this period.

During the classical Middle Ages Occitan (although I resent the term, which is modern and way too much political) and Catalan were a same language, and I think they still are to a certain extent (I can read extremely easily Catalan without having ever learned it, thanks to my experience in modern Provencal and medieval literary Occitan).
I think the first map you featured is erroneous. The dialectal distribution seems modern, and on the western side Occitan used to go a bit upper, since Saintonge was emptied during the Hundred Years war and repopulated with population hailing from French-speaking regions.

A quote that's been put in wikipedia: "According to historian Eric Hobsbawm, "the French language has been essential to the concept of 'France'", although in 1789, 50 percent of the French people did not speak it at all, and only 12 to 13 percent spoke it fairly well; even in oïl language zones, it was not usually used except in cities, and even there not always in the outlying districts"

The problem comes if you consider that the Norman, Picard and others were dialects or languages. Just depends on how you wanna write the history. And of course it's a quick quote and problably unaccurate, I know that it's just a quote of another quote on wikipedia, but I've read the same in many ocasions and even in the brittish show QI they talked about it.

About the map, yes, it's unaccurate. I put it there only because for those who don't know anything about this languages would be easier to see a map than to read a message and then go and search where is every place they've read about.

And I agree about what you say of the political use of the occitan language. Actually I think (just is a personal opinion) than the occitan spoken in Tolosa or Carcassona is closer to the catalan of Barcelona than to the occitan of Provença, but I don't know. I just know that sometimes I can understand mucha better a person from Tolosa than a person from Menorca or any other catalan place so far away from Barcelona.

 

[Sternness]

Culture in Paradox games is never solely about language, is it? I've always looked at it as an abstraction that helps the game stick closer to history. A French king in this game is going to be looking at his empire as coming down from the Merovingian tradition that tied the Franks and the proto-Occitans under Clovis 560 years before the start of the game.

Spoiler

^ Compare that to the Catalan areas that were brought into the sphere 250 years later (and that wouldn't persist in it for nearly as long).

From another angle, had the Carolingian empire stayed united into the medieval ages and not split the German parts off from France in the Treaty of Verdun, I'd say there'd be just as much of an argument to have them all under the same culture group in this game:

Spoiler

Either way, after the partition, the Catalan speaking area of Spanish Marche split off politically from the Franco-Occitans, and would never really reunite in the period, no? Combined with their shorter history under the Merovingian sphere, isn't this enough justification for the game to put them in separate "culture groups", making it more of a challenge to go against history and bring them together?

 

[Otger]

Culture in Paradox games is never solely about language, is it? I've always looked at it as an abstraction that helps the game stick closer to history. A French king in this game is going to be looking at his empire as coming down from the Merovingian tradition that tied the Franks and the proto-Occitans under Clovis 560 years before the start of the game.

In order to skick closer to the history France should have to fight revolts and kill occitans everywhere, that would be closer that what we have now and I think would belance better the game since the French conquer the Iberian Peninsula every game.
And you're talking about hundreds of years before. I think there was a "Iberian" goth kingdom with it's capital in Tolosa by that time, but we can't count that for CK.
But if we want to stick closer to the history we have to be aware that catalan and occitan were the same thing back then. And that the catalan nobles had much stronger ties with those lands than the french ones.

Either way, after the partition, the Catalan speaking area of Spanish Marche split off politically from the Franco-Occitans, and would never really reunite the period period, no? Combined with their shorter history under the Merovingian sphere, isn't this enough justification for the game to put them in separate "culture groups", making it more of a challenge to go against history and bring them together?

They were politically united at the time CK is set so I'm not sure what you mean. Have you read the post? perhaps I misunderstood you.

 

[Umkharss]

There's been a huge Wisigothic Kingdom of Toulouse which last less than a hundred years, since Clovis conquered most of it. Our side of the Pyrenees they just kept Septimania (todays Languedoc, more or less) and went south to Spain, taking Toledo as their new capital. This new kingdom lasted until the Arab conquest.