Culture conversion vs. accepted culture. Suggestion.

[darthfanta]

I dunno, maybe the culture conversion indicates something more like the plantation system in Ireland? Then again, that would mean it ought to take decades to culture-convert a province.

Culture conversion in this game is similar to what the Arabs/Han Dynasty/Roman Empire did when they conquered new lands.They managed to attract conquered subjects to adopt the culture of their conquerors rather than through genocide.The same thing happened with Alexander's conquest of the East and after the Turks conquered Anatolia.

 

[unmerged(652342)]

The culture gaming in EU4 may be treated as something like genocide: you kill natives to settle, you integrate a culture by 'converting' everyone to your ethnicity, you suppress/kill patriot and nationalist rebels, etc.
Frankly speaking, I do not like this somewhat genocidic model but can agree that there is a little of historical peaceful culture-conversion examples apart from culture groups or low-populated areas in this time frame.

- 1) you dont have to kill natives when settling; 2) culture =! ethnicity; 3) you kill nobles, burgers and peasants when they raise up against your rule, is that a genocide too? Dont you think that your examples are a bit inappropriate?

 

[TheAtreides84]

I really don't think the culture conversion mechanic amounts to genocide. It's simply too quick, generates no unrest and consumes diplo points, not military ones like rebel suppression. As for coring, it represents spreading your language and customs just to the ruling class of the province, like nobles in the british isles adopting norman mannerism after Hastings and so on. Nevertheless, the OP suggestion for accepting cultures as groups is sound.

 

[aplsin]

Aww.. I came here thinking this topic was about the strategy of converting culture vs. trying to get more cultures accepted. Oh heck I'll just ask anyway!

What do you consider best, trying to culture convert everything (with help of religious ideas etc) or trying to get everything accepted (with humanist + advisors)?

 

[FrosT37]

Culture conversion is not only unrealistic, in most cases it's also a waste of diplo points.

I think the only time you may want to culture convert is when you're playing in an isolated area (America and Sub-Saharan Africa first come to mind).

 

[lolada]

I also don't like culture conversion concept. Its unrealistic and weird, especially how fast it can be done. Some kind of assimilation mechanic would certainly be better.

Accepted culture concept for the game is cool as it is implemented now, there's a nice feeling of achievement when you get Humanism and accept some smaller culture to get significant advantages.

 

[Therion]

I've always imagined that culture conversion is what happens when, say, the whole of Britain becomes English or the whole of France French. It is mainly done through public "education" and does not necessarily involve any physical (as opposed to cultural) genocide.

Having said that, I totally disagree with removing implications of genocide from games (even though I would not say that they are present in this particular game). For what exactly? Whether you like it or not, colonialism, imperialism, slavery, genocide, etc. are wholly intertwined and one should not go about inculcating the Whig fairy tale of their being disconnected from each other. This promotes a more mature view of history (compared to progressivist historiographies) in which the zero-sum nature of power and the relativity of progress are shown in full light.

 

[lolada]

Aww.. I came here thinking this topic was about the strategy of converting culture vs. trying to get more cultures accepted. Oh heck I'll just ask anyway!

What do you consider best, trying to culture convert everything (with help of religious ideas etc) or trying to get everything accepted (with humanist + advisors)?

I believe it is not cost effective / practical to mass convert cultures in most cases so I would say its better to try to accept other cultures. The provinces you would most likely want to convert are high base tax provinces, but they also cost more diplo points (should be 25 diplomatic points per base tax). Going further, only western nations have some spare monarch points and here only Aragon (not sure about this, Wiki says Aragon) has -10% Culture conversion cost. Muscovy has -20% bonus, but it also has eastern tech group.

Religion ideas can give -25% Culture conversion cost and there is a policy (Influence + Religion) which gives -20% more. Thats total 55% or 65% reduction for these nation and 45% for mostly everyone else. So to convert, say 10 provinces with 5 base tax it would cost 10*5*25 = 1250 points, with huge discounts (50%) it would be about 600 diplo points which is practicaly one tech level.

 

[Azraeil]

I partly agree that the mechanics aren't that well worked out, but genocidal? That is just plain wrong. Genocide implies the deliberate massacre of an ethnicity. EU IV merely implies you culturally convert them, NOT ethnically. It would imply the Austrians start to speak French and become Cosmopolitaine, not that you murder the Austrians and have French ppl settle. That is a prepostorous idea cause it would imply they even have the demographic potential to do so That said the whole system isn't that well worked out. I still like to see the divisions, I'm against grouping them together in se, I do wish for more 'policies' (in the broad sense, game events, modifiers, actual policies, etc) that might make the managing of minorities more interesting.

The whole idea that cultures could be 'converted' is itself somewhat retarded. In history it would be the exception, hardly the rule, plus it is only possible to pull of such feats for late 19th century nation-states. Early modern states lack all apparatus to do so.

I certainly have to agree with this guy. Culture conversion is a pretty broad abstraction and doesn't necessarily have to represent genocide. I think more appropriately, it should really be abstracting the displacement/expulsion of 'troublesome' populations, such as the Jews in Spain, the Tartars in the Russian controlled steppe, Natives in NA english colonies etc. What would the culture conversion of say, a significant capital city represent? Well as the guy says the concept is pretty absurd to begin with and really shouldn't be possible in provinces above a certain basetax. So really, the only nations that should be culture converting is Russia (or whoever controls territory belonging to a nomad nation). The colonies already do so and since religious minorities aren't represented in Vanilla these are non issues.

Regarding ops proposals, I think what you are really asking for is some sort of cultural dynamism, loosely based on historical precedents, but I think this is beyond the capabilities of EU4. Perhaps a more constrained proposal would be to prevent cultural conversion of high base tax provinces, (or at least scale their diplo cost non linearly), and provide a bonus to the accepted culture threshold if you own all of that cultures provinces.

I see similar topics seeking to improve various game abstractions. The reality is that EU4 is not an empire simulator. It's a risk based warfare game with various mechanical abstractions based loosely on history. Keeping this in mind, we can recognize what culture conversions true purpose is... another cost-benefit decision. Do I sink diplo into culture conversion as insurance against losing a war (thereby guaranteeing that nations can't be released) or do I save them for other things.

TL;DR EU4 not empire simulator. Vanilla designed to enhance game play not necessarily from a historical standpoint. Should instead go play a mod like MEIOU (where culture conversion is practically impossible).

 

[Yorkie-GBR]

Culture conversion argument has two opposing faults.

1) You are converting the social elite to the primary culture, and example would be the Norman conquest of England.

or

2) You are converting the entire populace, and you touch on the genocidal mechanics that go with that. And I struggle to find a historical context where and Entire population was eradicated to the core and replaced with another with in the time frame and not simply absorbed into a hegemonic culture or developed its own distinct culture. An example of the latter would be American as opposed to English.

If we use point 1, then the North of England [Yorkshire] should still be Brigantine and not English but this is not the case. They were assimilated by Romans, Saxons and then later on Assimilated by Danes and thus creating a whole different culture set to those down in Wessex for example. Yet the population was "culled" By the Normans, but still retained its own identity.

 

[Cataphract887]

Culture conversion argument has two opposing faults.

1) You are converting the social elite to the primary culture, and example would be the Norman conquest of England.

or

2) You are converting the entire populace, and you touch on the genocidal mechanics that go with that. And I struggle to find a historical context where and Entire population was eradicated to the core and replaced with another with in the time frame and not simply absorbed into a hegemonic culture or developed its own distinct culture. An example of the latter would be American as opposed to English.

If we use point 1, then the North of England [Yorkshire] should still be Brigantine and not English but this is not the case. They were assimilated by Romans, Saxons and then later on Assimilated by Danes and thus creating a whole different culture set to those down in Wessex for example. Yet the population was "culled" By the Normans, but still retained its own identity.

Look into how anatolia turned from greek to turkish culture. I dont think culture conversion implies genocide in the way we think of it (holocaust) but i think it has some relation to that, trying to to use a wide range of methods to make the natives more in line with your ruling culture. I feel like people are going to take a more optimistic view of culture conversion simply to avoid facing some ugly reality. Culture conversion is so cheap and easy in eu4 with absolutely no side effects its hard for me to tell what the intention is though.

 

[Yorkie-GBR]

Look into how anatolia turned from greek to turkish culture. I dont think culture conversion implies genocide in the way we think of it (holocaust) but i think it has some relation to that, trying to to use a wide range of methods to make the natives more in line with your ruling culture. I feel like people are going to take a more optimistic view of culture conversion simply to avoid facing some ugly reality. Culture conversion is so cheap and easy in eu4 with absolutely no side effects its hard for me to tell what the intention is though.

Greek culture still exists therefore the Turks never eradicated it.

 

[unmerged(652342)]

Culture conversion argument has two opposing faults.

1) You are converting the social elite to the primary culture, and example would be the Norman conquest of England.

or

2) You are converting the entire populace, and you touch on the genocidal mechanics that go with that. And I struggle to find a historical context where and Entire population was eradicated to the core and replaced with another with in the time frame and not simply absorbed into a hegemonic culture or developed its own distinct culture. An example of the latter would be American as opposed to English.

- we dont know because EU4 does not have population.

 

[Viperswhip]

I only culture convert the Dutch, everyone else, well, if they don't get accepted when I take Humanitarian ideas then whatever, 33% less income and more revolt risk, it doesn't really matter in the long run.

 

[Teije]

Culture conversion argument has two opposing faults.

1) You are converting the social elite to the primary culture, and example would be the Norman conquest of England.

This is how I look at it to explain that diplo points are needed for it, and given the short length of time it takes.

It is odd how some people get exercised about the "genocidal" nature of culture conversion in EUIV, when it's just a minor game mechanic. You can change a province's religion, routinely kill thousands of people, destroy countries, profit from the slave trade, all of that, yet we rarely see complaints about the morality of those mechanics.

 

[Yorkie-GBR]

- we dont know because EU4 does not have population.

The debate is about the abstraction of culture conversion, and hence the two plausible arguments to support this abstraction.

The abstraction requires the suspension of belief that populations are represent in an abstract way and thus to dismiss it is out of hand is not productive to the debate.

 

[Viperswhip]

There should be some events tied to culture and having it flip naturally in some cases over 100 years or something because one province holding out despite being surrounded...oh, Quebec, nevermind. I mean if you could actually culturally convert without genocide I think Canada would have done that a long time ago.

 

[Steelers1990]

There should be some events tied to culture and having it flip naturally in some cases over 100 years or something because one province holding out despite being surrounded...oh, Quebec, nevermind. I mean if you could actually culturally convert without genocide I think Canada would have done that a long time ago.

I wish is was that easy to convert cause it would have saved a lot of problems and money if Quebec was English.

 

[Teije]

I wish is was that easy to convert cause it would have saved a lot of problems and money if Quebec was English.

Uh oh. Don't start the "neverending referendum" discussion up again on the forum.

 

[SignedName]

Shouldn't culture conversion also have a possible negative effect, like lowering base tax/manpower (and possible displacement of that tax/manpower to same culture provinces)? If it's supposed to represent things like pogroms or ethnic cleansing, there ought to be negative consequences for this.