Culture issues with CK3

[Duarte]

Yeah but "Visigothic" is a political, not an ethnic name, like "Langobard" for the Italian, referring to the people who were subject to that political entity, in the same way a Breton is a French.
Cultures should be called with names of cultures.
I can be wrong on that, but, the name "Visigothic" isn't used only by later historians to name those scripts? I knew that the Visigoths in the Iberian peninsula were not seen in a so good way after the Arab invasion, because people considered them guilty of losing the kingdom to the Arabs.

almost all cultures in game are a mesh between political identity, ethnic identity, linguistics and self identification, if cultures would be only on an ethnic basis then there would be almost most no "french" or "occitan" or worse still the vast majority of the steppes would be a drab "Turkic" for the majority of the game since most share the same ethnicity, sometimes the political part takes precedence, other times the linguistic and other self identification thus that argument is not full proof

my point remains "Visigothic" is a perfectly suitable term is refers well enough to the dialectical continuum that they largely preserved, refers nicely to the idea of restoring the visigothic kingdom that was at it's strongest during the early reconquista, was a term that was actually used in reference to the Christian peoples of Iberia, and finally the overly archaic implications of the name fit nicely with the fact that without player intervention it will die out to be replace with andalusian, Portuguese, castillian etc

on the visigotich script, my point was about the timeframe of it's usage not the actual name it's self, since it matches rather nicely (largely because using the partition of Leon is slightly misleading in term of terminology)

 

[Duarte]

Ibero-Romance is similar to Occitan and/or Gallo-Romance in similarity to Vulgar Latin, whereas French is a bit further apart.

my point was how people in both areas saw themselves as Roman to a degree, not exactly in terms of linguistics, though fair point nonetheless

 

[KAMCITY13]

So guys, I saw there is a lot of people who has issue with CK3 cultures, what is in, what isn't in the game and where some cultures are/should be. So, why not make a single thread where we express our opinions clearly so that maybe Devs can see it and have an idea without have to browse a lot of threads whom get inevitably buried after some hours/days? Only, let's make it civil, no fighting, no salty posting. Let's only state what we think should get reviewed, if you can post some evidence, it's ok, but don't fight! I could edit OP post to add the issue.

Spoiler

View attachment 578574

Issues:

• Cisalpine culture in Northern Italy (should be split into Cisalpine and Venetian?);
• French, Occitan and Ango-Saxon culture blog opposed to more granular cultures elsewhere: could add Arpitan culture in France (also Guascon and so on); split Ango-Saxon split anglo-saxon (angles, saxons and jutes?, with Angosaxon as a melting pot?)
• Cornish not majoriti in Devon
• More pictish scotland?
• Better rename Visigothic to Ibero-Romance in Iberia? Splitting Iberia blob into Galician, Asturian/Leonese, Castillan, Aragonese, Catalan, Mozarabic, Basques?
• Rus' culture named improperly (Russian);
• No Slovenian/Carinthian culture in Istria;
• No Dalmatian culture in Dalmatia; should be in Istria too;
• No Romanic African culture in Africa (maybe add Christian Berbers too?);
• Flanders should be Dutch (not French), also Flemish is an anachronism (should be only Dutch), north-eastern of modern Netherlands should be Saxon;
• No Albanian cuture;
• No Assyrian culture;
• No Circassian culture;
• The spread of Romanian culture is wrong (should not be in Serbia);
• Bulgarian culture (should be Bulgar and not Bulgarian);
• Bosniac culture too early?
• No Basques in Aquitanie;
• No Circassian culture in Caucasus;
• Arabia should be divided in "North" (Adnanites) and "South" Arabians (South Semetic/South Arabian/Soqotri/Qahtanite)
• Northern Curonian coast was inhabited by Livonians not Balts in both start dates.
• Latgalian should not be the culture of the whole of Latvia at either start date (could simply rename it "Latvian");
• There shouldn't be any Lombards culture at start date;
• No Rhaeto-Romance culture;
• No Chrimea Goths;
• A lot of issues with Vepsian, Sami, Finnish, Mari and Chuvash cultures (see Slime99 and Karlingid posts);
• No Assyrian (they were not Kurds);
• Taijik culture anachronism;
• There should be Aramean culture in the Levant, particularly in Syria, with a large christian population until the Crusades;
• Levantine culture as melting pot between Arabic culture and Aramean?
• There should be some Jewiwish or Samaritan area in the Levant;
• Distinsion between Swabian and Bavarian culture in 867 anachronistic (better united as Suebi/Alemannic);
• No coptic culture;
• Alan culture;
• Coastline from South-Western Estonia to Western coasts of Curonia inhabited by Livonians. Latgals did not have access to the sea;

What’s the problem with the Tajik Culture?

 

[.Me]

almost all cultures in game are a mesh between political identity, ethnic identity, linguistics and self identification, if cultures would be only on an ethnic basis then there would be almost most no "french" since or "occitan" since most share the same ethnicity, sometimes the political part takes precedence, other times the linguistic and other self identification thus that argument is not full proof

on the visigotich script, my point was about the timeframe of it's usage not the actual name it's self, since it matches rather nicely (largely because using the partition of Leon is slightly misleading in term of terminology)

Well, never said cultures should be called only on ethnic basis, I used the term "ethnic" to distinguish between the identity of local people (ethnicity/culture) and the belonging to a political entity or state.
Ethnicity just means "a group of people who share culture, appearance, religion..." so it's not wrong to use in that case.
People of Occitan culture / Ethnicity are politically French because they live into what's now France. Doesn't mean they're French Ethnically.
The Visigoths were the only one to really unite the Iberian peninsula ever, so the name was used as "legacy name" by historians, but the term is absolutely wrong in this period and context to refers to the entirely of the population of Hispania, it's historically out of context, and even worse it creates confusion in the mind of the player, in particular the ones who doesn't know history, who will absolutely not think that the name "Visigoth" was used because it's sound nice as a place holder for the Iberian Romance culture.
What's sure, until evidence to the contrary, is that if call the culture "Iberian" is wrong because anachronistic, so even more wrong is to call it Visigothic.

I think we're overthinking, because the matter is simple, if I say "Visigothic" to you, I will intend the barbaric kingdom of the VI century, not the romance inhabitants of the Iberian peninsula of the IX century, where the gothic identity already faded when the Visigoths converted to calcedonianism.

 

[Duarte]

Well, never said cultures should be called only on ethnic basis, I used the term "ethnic" to distinguish between the identity of local people (ethnicity/culture) and the belonging to a political entity or state.
Ethnicity just means "a group of people who share culture, appearance, religion..." so it's not wrong to use in that case.
People of Occitan culture / Ethnicity are politically French because they live into what's now France. Doesn't mean they're French Ethnically.
The Visigoths were the only one to really unite the Iberian peninsula ever, so the name was used as "legacy name" by historians, but the term is absolutely wrong in this period and context to refers to the entirely of the population of Hispania, it's historically out of context, and even worse it creates confusion in the mind of the player, in particular the ones who doesn't know history, who will absolutely not think that the name "Visigoth" was used because it's sound nice as a place holder for the Iberian Romance culture.
What's sure, until evidence to the contrary, is that if call the culture "Iberian" is wrong because anachronistic, so even more wrong is to call it Visigothic.

I think we're overthinking, because the matter is simple, if I say "Visigothic" to you, I will intend the barbaric kingdom of the VI century, not the romance inhabitants of the Iberian peninsula of the IX century, where the gothic identity already faded when the Visigoths converted to calcedonianism.

has i have said time and time again during this thread the term Visigoth and Visigothic was actually used in the games time frame to refer to peoples of the iberian peninsula the term was used from Pelagius's rebellion all the way into the early 11th century, either as part of the titularity of the kings, an adjective in referring to documents that come from that area by the papecy, and much more indicative is that when the the old Visigothic law codes where recovered they where adopted outright for the sole purpose of "restoring" them, indicating that an identification with the old kingdom existed even that far after it's demise, there is nothing out of context in the usage of the terms, specially for a "culture" that most of the time will die out after game start

for contrast the term Iberian was the peak of a "legacy name" a name that was only fished out of the dregs of memory for the sole political goal of countering the pan-peninsular charcter of the name Spain

the sole point you can present is that the term Visigothic it was never universally used has such, in that contemporaries also used the term "Spanish"

 

[cybrxkhan]

Getting some South Arabian cultures would be nice, maybe separate "South Arabian" and "Himyarite" cultures, since Himyarite nobles lasted in Yemen well after the rise of Islam and were, linguistically and probably in identification, distinct from the common South Arabian peoples. Whether to split remnant Old South Arabian and the sibling branch of New South Arabian is contentious and I think the cultures might be too small and ultimately too similar to justify doing it, so the real question is which language to pull the names from.

Just noticed this buried in the spoiler and wanted to discuss further due to my interest in pre-Islamic and/or Southern Arabia (and even did some research for a Socotra mini-mod I was thinking of making) - in my personal mod for CK2 I added in a Himyarite culture that assimilates to Yemeni Arabic (kind of like I guess Pictish > Scottish in Ck2). Maybe something similar could be done, since we have a Yemeni culture?

I did have Sabaean to represent Old South Arabian in my personal mod, but I don't know whether that's accurate as I'm not sure how long it lasted into Crusader King's timeline, if at all (I just did it for the lulz and flavor more than anything).

For the modern south Arabian language speakers, it seems to me the most plausible names for it to be called would be:

• Mehri - given it is the largest in number of speakers, albeit in the current day, so that might not reflect historical reality
• South Arabian - I think technically the best in terms of accuracy, but may be confusing for some who aren't aware it is referring to the linguistic term (this is what I used for them in my personal mod)
• Soqotri - to refer to Socotra since it's a bit well known as a challenging spot for CK2 veterans, though it would be odd to identify the whole group with what's on the Socotra Island

Names I say would ideally be pulled from either Mehri or Soqotri.

I would like to see the South Arabians separated and indicated on the map, but I can understand if the devs do not choose to do so given it may be hard justifying a relatively small culture in terms of how many provinces it would occupy in-game (but then again, that hasn't stopped them from other small random cultures before).

 

[Duarte]

It took me a while but I have found it the chronicle of Alfonso III compiled in the 900's compiled, might i had for the express purpose of emphasizing the continuity between in this case Leon and the old Visigothic Kingdom, in this text the Christian population is refered multiple times with the term Gothi (Godo in Spanish) to the point that on later entries in the chronicle one man is even singled out for although "being of gothic origin being obsessed with the laws of muhammed"

now, it's rather self evident, that the term Gothic can not be used since, well, other seems to think it would induce an insurmountable confusion with the 5-6th century people (even though I would be quite happy with the usage of the term "Gothi" myself) thus the term Visigothic becomes much more preferable since it both reflect what at least the literati saw themselves as (a continuation of the old kingdom) but also the overall political aspiration of the ruling class

Chronicle of Alfonso III - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

in the attach files comes a Spanish translation of the text

I hope this proves my point.

P.S. I will admit my mistake, the term used internally was Godo/Gothi (gothic) not Visigodo/Visigothi (Visigothic), I miss-remembered, and since i can not find my other of my sources on this matter I must concede that the external term might have been just "Gothic" rather then "Visigothic" (even then it would have been a minority of the times since "Spanish" was the most used one) because clearly my memory isn't full proof

 

[Endleofon]

Do we know if there are changes to culture groups?

 

[EmoPro]

Mainly the absent cultures could boil down to the root problem, where CK3 has no way to represent minorities. They had it in I:R and decided against it for CK3 for some weird reasons.

 

[LMaquiel]

m

What’s the problem with the Tajik Culture?

Is an a-historical term, in the middle ages this territory are persian. Tajik, to refer a people, are a modern term, after the soviet administration in Central Asia

 

[Karlingid]

Just noticed this buried in the spoiler and wanted to discuss further due to my interest in pre-Islamic and/or Southern Arabia (and even did some research for a Socotra mini-mod I was thinking of making) - in my personal mod for CK2 I added in a Himyarite culture that assimilates to Yemeni Arabic (kind of like I guess Pictish > Scottish in Ck2). Maybe something similar could be done, since we have a Yemeni culture?

I did have Sabaean to represent Old South Arabian in my personal mod, but I don't know whether that's accurate as I'm not sure how long it lasted into Crusader King's timeline, if at all (I just did it for the lulz and flavor more than anything).

For the modern south Arabian language speakers, it seems to me the most plausible names for it to be called would be:

• Mehri - given it is the largest in number of speakers, albeit in the current day, so that might not reflect historical reality
• South Arabian - I think technically the best in terms of accuracy, but may be confusing for some who aren't aware it is referring to the linguistic term (this is what I used for them in my personal mod)
• Soqotri - to refer to Socotra since it's a bit well known as a challenging spot for CK2 veterans, though it would be odd to identify the whole group with what's on the Socotra Island

Names I say would ideally be pulled from either Mehri or Soqotri.

I would like to see the South Arabians separated and indicated on the map, but I can understand if the devs do not choose to do so given it may be hard justifying a relatively small culture in terms of how many provinces it would occupy in-game (but then again, that hasn't stopped them from other small random cultures before).

I'm more in favor of "South Arabian" myself, it casts a wide enough umbrella to catch them all without resorting to just taking the biggest one. "Yemenite" or "Sayhadic" would be more convenient terms in their specific usage to languages and cultures entirely local to the region, while also being only one word long.

 

[Manbearpig]

In-game all of the Levant AND Mesopotamia is Levantine. I don't know what the appropriate culture would be for the more "civilized" Bedouins ruling over Mesopotamia, but I'm sure one exists and someone here is more familiar with it.

 

[cybrxkhan]

I'm more in favor of "South Arabian" myself, it casts a wide enough umbrella to catch them all without resorting to just taking the biggest one. "Yemenite" or "Sayhadic" would be more convenient terms in their specific usage to languages and cultures entirely local to the region, while also being only one word long.

Hmm. I suppose the problem with Yemenite is that it could be confused with Yemeni. I also feel that since the connection between the modern and old South Arabian language groups seems a bit uncertain, that Sayhadic might not work either, though this is not something that would bother most people I'm sure. But, as you hint, "South Arabian" while the nicest umbrella term, is a little wordier, so Sayhadic would work for something a little more quick and catchy.

Anyways, I took the liberty of outlining the provinces (based on the excellent province map from the County Map thread) that would potentially make sense for some kind of modern South Arabian culture, so this doesn't account for the Old South Arabian speakers per se:

As I am no expert on the region, I cannot attest to how accurate this is (as this is purely based on where speakers of the modern south Arabian languages are currently located), but whatever.

Based on other previews and videos, for comparison, it appears that Yemeni Arabic as it currently is in CK3 occupies most of Yemen (duh) and a bit of the southernmost part of the dark green on the above map.

 

[Austregisel]

I don't know what the people were thinking of putting at the same time "Cisalpine", "Italian" and "Lombards", they made a huge mess in this area, it is even grotesque.

 

[Farfour]

I don't know what the people were thinking of putting at the same time "Cisalpine", "Italian" and "Lombards", they made a huge mess in this area, it is even grotesque.

View attachment 579393

The inclusion of Lombard in the Lombard principalities (including Benevento and I believe Spoleto) makes practical sense to me, if only they'd name it Langobard to distinguish it from the more Cisalpine Lombard and either break up Cisalpine and Italian (similarly to HIP, w/a few changes) or just keep everything else as Italian.

 

[Bearnest]

Regarding the 1066 start date culture map if someone find it please post it here because I tried but had no luck.

Found it here!

 

[Vias]

It took me a while but I have found it the chronicle of Alfonso III compiled in the 900's compiled, might i had for the express purpose of emphasizing the continuity between in this case Leon and the old Visigothic Kingdom, in this text the Christian population is refered multiple times with the term Gothi (Godo in Spanish) to the point that on later entries in the chronicle one man is even singled out for although "being of gothic origin being obsessed with the laws of muhammed"

now, it's rather self evident, that the term Gothic can not be used since, well, other seems to think it would induce an insurmountable confusion with the 5-6th century people (even though I would be quite happy with the usage of the term "Gothi" myself) thus the term Visigothic becomes much more preferable since it both reflect what at least the literati saw themselves as (a continuation of the old kingdom) but also the overall political aspiration of the ruling class

Chronicle of Alfonso III - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

in the attach files comes a Spanish translation of the text

I hope this proves my point.

P.S. I will admit my mistake, the term used internally was Godo/Gothi (gothic) not Visigodo/Visigothi (Visigothic), I miss-remembered, and since i can not find my other of my sources on this matter I must concede that the external term might have been just "Gothic" rather then "Visigothic" (even then it would have been a minority of the times since "Spanish" was the most used one) because clearly my memory isn't full proof

Bizantines called themselves Romans, but here are called Greeks for clarity reason. So, I think it should be Ibero-Romance because, as you can see, in this very thread a lot of people get the impression Visigothic is confusionary. The aim of this thread is to show CK3 devs that there are issues with their cultural portrait of the world, and this is one of them: Visigothic get mixed up by a majority of the people. It's ok that you are ok with devs decision but let's not derail this thread to a dispute between who is right and who is wrong, the point here is there is a problem with that name.

Do we know if there are changes to culture groups?

Yep, now technology are bonded to culture groups it seems. Every culture has a "leader", the ruler who is in possession of the highest number of counties of said culture, and he decide the tech focus of the group. Here you should find some screenshots.

Mainly the absent cultures could boil down to the root problem, where CK3 has no way to represent minorities. They had it in I:R and decided against it for CK3 for some weird reasons.

I agree. I find this wrong on so many levels, people asked for this very features since early CK2 times. Still they didn't put it in.

The inclusion of Lombard in the Lombard principalities (including Benevento and I believe Spoleto) makes practical sense to me, if only they'd name it Langobard to distinguish it from the more Cisalpine Lombard and either break up Cisalpine and Italian (similarly to HIP, w/a few changes) or just keep everything else as Italian.

The more time passes the more I hate that cisalpine culture. I saw the 1066 start date culture map (now is in the OP post) and it's all the northern part of the peninsula. It's really wrong, Venetian at least should be a separate culture group. Hope they will fix Italy because it's was already a mess in CK2.

Found it here!

THANKS MAN!

 

[Butterworth]

To make this thread well useful for developers, I add my post at my own thread to this topic.

At CK II, historical correctness was awesome for European nations/regions/cultures but for others like Arabians, Turks, Persians, Indians etc. there were some historical incorrectnesses. There were some Turkic looking lords with fully Arabian name and lineage or vice versa. Or some Persians and Indians were reflected like they were Arabs or Turks. On the other hand, dominant cultures at some regions were pretty wrong. For example, east of Turkey was shown at populated with Kurdish people and most of the lords at there were Kurdish but this is historically wrong. At the game's timeline, Kurdish culture was dominant at the region around Zagros Mountains. Eastern Anatolia was mostly populated with Armenians, Turks and remnants of Byzantine. There were also lots of Turkic states there. How did developers work on dominant cultures or generally culture at regions/world in CK III? At CK II, there were some event etc. to change dominant culture. Are we going to able change the dominant culture at CK III too?

 

[Aquamancer]

View attachment 578888
Here's some cultural changes I would do. Veps and Saami get territory labeled as Finnish and Mari and Chuvash (should be Burtas) get territory labeled as Bolghar. Penza, while under Bolghar administration, was still inhabited by Burtas. Yoshkar-Ola and it's vicinity was never Turkic or even under direct Bolghar administration. Aunus region was still Veps and the Karelian tribe inhabited north and west of Ladoga, and Saami held Viena and Kainuu.

The Vepsian culture as shown in your picture is way more widespread than it was historically. Vepsians had three major population centers: the valley of River Sheksna south of Lake Beloozero, the valley of River Suda southwest of Lake Beloozero, and the valleys of rivers flowing to Ladoga from southeast (Rivers Oyat, Syas and Pasha). This means that Vepsians would be limited to, at the largest, the surrounding provinces of Beloozero and River Svir.

Most of the lands that in-game is marked as being inhabited by Vepsians were actually inhabited by the Northfinns, a group of Baltic Finnic peoples who inhabited the lands of modern Arkhangelsk Oblast, at the time known to Russians as Zavolochye. The tribes who inhabited Zavolochye are not very well attested, but Finnish and Russian sources provide some examples of the various Balto-Finnic tribes thet lived in the regions, most notably Zavolochian Chudes/Dvinans, Toimans, Bjarmians, Vagans, Surans, Pinegans, Belozertsii and the Em. As such, it might be more accurate to represent most of the Vepsian culture's lands as Bjarmian, instead.

On the other hand, the provinces of Tikhvin, Bezichi and Valdai are represented as Vepsian, which is also inaccurate, seeing that Vepsian let alone Baltic Finnic settlements did not extend that far south. If these lands hadn't been Russified by 867, they would've been inhabited by the Volkhov Chudes, a poorly-attested Uralic ethnic group who based on lingustic evidence on toponyms appear to have been most closely related to the Meryans than the Baltic Finns to the north of them. As such, those provinces should probably be covered by Meryan culture instead. For further reading on the Volkhov Chudes (considering how obscure they are), I recommend this paper.

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

Better rename Visigothic to Ibero-Romance in Iberia? Splitting Iberia blob into Galician, Asturian/Leonese, Castillan, Aragonese, Catalan, Mozarabic, Basques?

Well they showed us Asturleonese in an earlier diary

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