Cultural Tradition

[rickrolle88]

It seems to me that one of the biggest areas EU could expand is the culture system, which up to this point has been functional without much flavor. Furthermore, trying to create a homogeneous cultural society seems to be a poor strategic decision since Dip points could be used more effectively elsewhere especially with the addition of development. To fix both of these issues I would like to suggest Cultural Tradition.

Cultural tradition would be a rating from 0 to 100 which would measure the influence of ones primary culture. Every province would have an influence bar ranging from 0 to 100 reflecting how strong the culture of the province is on the populace. A high cultural tradition would gradually lower the influence of provincial culture that is not the primary culture every month. This would only apply to provinces that border other provinces with a nations primary culture. Once the influence of a culture reaches 0, the culture of that province would switch to match the primary culture of the nation. After the switch the cultural tradition of the nation would start filling the influence bar of the province back up to 100.

Cultural "pressure" can pass borders but would receive a big penalty to spread rate so that only nations with really high tradition bordering nations with low tradition would pass their culture to border provinces. Cultural spread would also receive penalties when converting provinces with different religion based on tolerance.

Things that would increase Tradition would be:

• prestige
• developing provinces
• maybe an idea group or traditions etc.
• maybe buildings

Things that would decrease tradition would be:

• Being at war
• War exhaustion
• Maybe a decay like prestige etc.

Lastly, a cutlural tradition of 50 or higher would give a bonus that would differ based on the culture group that the primary culture of the nation fell in.

Please add any thoughts you have!

 

[BrokenSky]

I think this is a good idea going in the right direction. Basically you're describing the religion spread mechanic from Civ5.

Somewhat, although unlike CiV, in this system minority cultures (ones that control one or more perdec) can spread the culture and there's less of the silly 1 religion per civ stuff that was the unfortunate downside to the G&K religion system, and the pressure could be modified by development.

 

[Vistariel]

Somewhat, although unlike CiV, in this system minority cultures (ones that control one or more perdec) can spread the culture and there's less of the silly 1 religion per civ stuff that was the unfortunate downside to the G&K religion system, and the pressure could be modified by development.

Yes, I agree. Regarding your mention of avoiding removing cultural acceptance, I think we could make humanist ideas focused on improving this. Based on my idea, the provinces would become individually "assimilated" and after a certain period of time would evolve into the primary culture (technically a hybrid) after a certain number of years and other criteria are met (nationalism completely gone, autonomy below 20% etc), similar to how unions can be spontaneously inherited after 50 years. Humanist ideas could expedite this process, instead of having accepted culture thresholds it would simply enhance the cultural pressure so that the time to assimilate provinces is reduced and probability of cultural integration firing is increased (changing to the primary culture). It would embrace the idea of seduction vs. coercion.

This would be symbolic of how people eventually become content to be within a state, and then eventually come to view themselves as members or citizens of that state. Also similar to how in CK2 a de jure title/province will eventually be assumed by its new overlord's crown title after enough time has passed.

 

[rickrolle88]

One thing with this that I think should be altered is that it shouldn't erode accepted cultures; heck maybe it should spread them!

This is mainly for game play reasons. If you take humanist and try to go down the accept cultures route, having a system like this could really screw such an endevour over since it could easily put you back under accepted culture threshold. In addition there is much less incentive to adopt the traditions of another culture if yours is supported. So I guess what I'm really asking for is for accepted cultures t have their own pressure, which would be on average equal or just less than equal to the primary culture, with cultures in the same group as the primary having more than those which are not accepted or in the same group.

So basicly on average, an accepted culture would be very slow to adopt the primary culture, while a non-accepted culture province would not. In addition, an accepted culture bordering an province of a non-accepted culture which does not border a province of the primary culture would be likely to flip to the accepted culture, and one that borders both the accepted culture and the primary culture would be very likely to flip, and be more likely to flip to the primary culture than to the accepted one, but would still have a reasonably chance to go to the accepted one.

Added notes:
Suggest that more developed provinces exert more pressure.
Suggest that nationalistic provinces exert more [defensive only] pressure (resist culture change)
Suggest that cultures be more susceptible to passive change to cultures within their own group. (So it may be easier for an accepted culture in a group different from the primary culture to flip a province to that culture than for the primary culture to do it).
Suggest that their be a small chance for cultures to randomly shift to other cultures (including extinct ones) within their own group.

A good point and some great suggestions! I originally thought of Cultural tradition as a replacement for the convert culture button. So, this would be used as a strategy for creating a homogenous culture. A strategy that would be used as an alternative to trying to build a more tolerant heterogeneous culture. That being said, I do think that as long as a culture is accepted it shouldn't be converted to your primary culture. Also, I agree with pretty much all of your suggestions!

 

[rickrolle88]

Yes, I agree. Regarding your mention of avoiding removing cultural acceptance, I think we could make humanist ideas focused on improving this. Based on my idea, the provinces would become individually "assimilated" and after a certain period of time would evolve into the primary culture (technically a hybrid) after a certain number of years and other criteria are met (nationalism completely gone, autonomy below 20% etc), similar to how unions can be spontaneously inherited after 50 years. Humanist ideas could expedite this process, instead of having accepted culture thresholds it would simply enhance the cultural pressure so that the time to assimilate provinces is reduced and probability of cultural integration firing is increased (changing to the primary culture). It would embrace the idea of seduction vs. coercion.

This would be symbolic of how people eventually become content to be within a state, and then eventually come to view themselves as members or citizens of that state. Also similar to how in CK2 a de jure title/province will eventually be assumed by its new overlord's crown title after enough time has passed.

I like the premise of this idea alot, maybe a ticking bar for each accepted culture (non accepted ones would get converted via cultural pressure). When that bar fills every province with that accepted culture would flip to the primary one.

 

[rickrolle88]

I think this is a good idea going in the right direction. Basically you're describing the religion spread mechanic from Civ5. The more cultural clout your nation has will result in the progressive conversion of your territories and impact duel with the influence of adjacent territories. I think we could make "cultural identity" a similar mechanic to legitimacy/republican tradition. To be honest I think religion should also function on a similar scale, where the religious authority of a nation slowly converts the religion of its provinces according to the influences and size of the provinces (like how centers of reformation work, but not one-province specific and much, much slower).

Instead of cultural "conversion" as we have it now, I think it would be better to make it an "assimilation" system, whereby cultures that are assimilated have the non-accepted culture penalties removed. This would symbolize the mingling of the national culture with the local culture. For example, when folks migrate or colonize newly acquired holdings of their state. The British deliberately colonized Ireland with their folks in attempts to modify the culture in a favorable way to their interests. After assimilation the province would have a MTH event trigger that would fully convert the culture to the primary culture (which would trigger significantly faster once the previous owner's cores are lost).

I think for culture:
*Base strength should be a function of the base development of all primary culture provinces (maybe increased also by diplomatic tech).
*The base strength is universally modified by prestige, legitimacy/republican tradition/devotion, religious unity, power projection, and diplomatic reputation.
*Provincial specific modifiers could be religious tolerance, autonomy (low autonomy = faster conversion), revolt risk/nationalism, and home vs. overseas (with overseas suffering major penalties) I think religious conversion.
*If not adjacent to a primary culture province, then distance from nearest primary culture province would make assimilation slower.

This would basically require provinces to have low autonomy and be the same religion to be culturally assimilated.

The religious conversion strength could be more of a point system instead of a % system, where--like diplomatic annexation--a certain number of points are applied toward the total every month. Not monarch points, just as a means of tracking progress.
*Base points required to convert a province would be development based, for example, 10*development, like annexation costs.
*Base points would be provincially modified (increased) by negative religious tolerance for the present religion, revolt risk, and autonomy. Also increased by distance from nearest province following the religion (if not adjacent).
*Universal points applied would be similar to diplomatic reputation. Instead of % increases to missionary strength we would have point bonuses, which would then be affected by % modifiers. So a country's base conversion strength would be a sum from ideas, national modifiers, decisions, government type (theocracies should get a bonus) and perhaps ADM technology (religious education was quite effective, look at the Jesuits).
*The base mission points would then be modified (+/-) by prestige, legitimacy/RT/Devotion, power projection, and maybe a universal moral authority mechanic similar to CK2, where events similar to reformation desire will impact it in addition to winning wars against other religions/heresies (divine right of kings in concert with God's providential favor upon the true religion sort of thing). Every province successfully converted could improve the MA of the converting religion and decrease the MA of the converted religion.
*Each religion could have a unique mechanic to improve the moral authority of their religion.
--Catholics could spend papal influence (symbolic of deferring authority to the Pope).
--Protestants could spend church authority.
--Reformed could spend fervor.
--Orthodox would have an increase over time as a function of high patriarch authority.
--Muslims would have the same as orthodox, caused by high piety, where negative piety may decrease it.
--Buddhists would increase by maintaining balanced karma.
--Hindu, Confucian, Shinto....don't know. Maybe they wouldn't have the moral authority mechanic since Hinduism is highly syncretistic (maybe give Hinuism a high bonus to tolerance instead) and Confucian and Shinto are more rooted in cultural tradition and identity than piety.
--A mechanic could be implemented for the Mesoamerican religions.

A gateway to begin conversion could be a gold or adm point investment to establish a mission in the province.

Oh well, I guess I went off on religion reform. I like the idea for both.

Its funny that you posted this, because I was originally planning on sharing my thoughts on converting the moral authority mechanic from CK to EU in this thread in addition to cultural tradition. I decided that I should probably break them up into separate posts because they are so different and there was alot of text in my original post already. I like the percentage system but I definitely think they should bring moral authority into EU. Having a high moral authority could increase your missionary strength and make all provinces with your religion harder to convert. So that religions with high moral authority are more apt to stay in the game. Another idea I was going to throw out there was that having really low moral authority could stop the special mechanics of the religion from working. So if catholics lost rome from ANY religion they may lose the papal mechanic. Additionally, having a high MA could give additional benefits to countries with the religion. Any one know how I should move this particular topic to a different thread?