Culture issues with CK3

[Vias]

I agree that there's little sense to have a Cisalpine culture into the game but there's no reason at all to keep Langobards as a distinct Germanic culture into the south, or to keep them as a distinct culture at all, it's wrong exactly like having a Cisalpine culture imo.
Italian cultures (not dialects) south of the Rubicon, including Tuscany, are well similar to each other so that into the game they can just be represented as a single culture, I proposed "Italic" because having Italic and Lombard and Venetian together sounds less wrong than having them together with Italian.
Otherwise, the division can become too senseless in-depth, creating a different culture for every Italian dialect (Tuscan, Roman, Umbrian...) would mean to have no Italians at all, to make that sound correct you will need to translate every Italian name into their own dialectal correspondent like for example the name "Giacomo" in Venetian will be "Xacomo", to put the correct names into the correct geographical areas in which those names are used in Italy and so on. For example a Lombard named "Gennaro" sound's like a Russian named Heinrich, to an Italian, if you know what I mean.
To avoid this mess, it's better to just divide into Lombard, Venetian, Italic, and then a melting pot to create a Sicilian culture to the south.

Although I agree with you I don't think the example you gave is really correct: you can't compare a Lombard called Gennaro with a Russian called Heinrich. Italian name origins are usually:

• Italics and Romans names (Marco, Paolo), also originally family names (Mario, Giulio);
• Ebraic names (Michele, Maria);
• Greeks names (Giorgio, Sofia);
• Germanic names from Goths, Lombards and Franks, but also saints names (Carlo, Francesco);
• "Byzantine" names in the south, usually saints one (Agata, Basile, Calogero, Damiano);

Now, you can find someone called Adelaide in Sicily and don't thing anything of it, like you can find someone called Agata or Damiano in the North. There are definitely some names that are really regional, like Ciro in Naples or Ambrogio in Milan, but usually you won't think of it like something so foreign.

IMO, the point here is that while Venetian area was still subject to a strong byzantine influence (especially in the 867 start date), and Venetian languages came directly from the romanized Veneti language (and as everybody know, Veneti weren't gallic people), "Cisalpine" culture would represent the Gallo-italic speaking people that were subject to an important (although not extremely so) influence by the Lombards. So it make no sense to give Veneto and Venice "Cisalpine" culture, it's an insult to their identity and it's like giving Sicily "Norman" culture and call it a day.
Also, like you pointed out, it would make no sense to put Lombard culture as in the Langobards (the germanic people) culture per se in the 867 stat date, because they were already "italianised" by VII century, so I don't think that putting Lombard culture into Germanic group would be a good idea. Not in 867 AD at least.
I sincerely hope Devs will fix all of this mess without going like in CK2 and painting half peninsula "Lombard" just to give the Peninsula more diversity or for gameplay reasons. Lombards vere rather quick to adopt Roman/early Italian culture, but people seems to forget this.

EDIT: in the end I'd just stick with the division you gave in the first page, with "Cisalpine" and a new "Venetian" culture in the Northern part of the Peninsula, and call the rest just italian. From devs answers we now know we have a Sicilian melting pot in the South so I think it should be good like this.

Maybe the only addition I'd make would be to split the Southernmost regions from Greek and make a new Greek culture called "Italo-Greeks" or something like this, because regional identity were pretty strong in the Byzantine Empire and Italy has always been a problematic region to retain for the empire. This would help spice up things a bit.

EDIT2: found a version of the 867 culture map that include all the world thanks to @Colin post from another thread, thank you! Added to the OP

 

[elvain]

The Tajik culture isn't really anachronistic
The name was used already in medieval period to describe the sedentary people in Persia, mainly in its eastern parts, where the Turkish incursions were strongest. I agree that Khorasani would be slightly more accurate, since it was the name Khorasani which was used by medieval Iranians to differentiate North-Eastern Iranians from the Daylamites or people from Fars/Persia propper, but Tajik certainly is not anachronistic.

 

[Byzantium2000]

Am I going blind or is there a Greek Enclave in that sea of Bulgarian culture that now stretches into the Adriatic(which based on a educated guess I assume is Philippopolis.

 

[Cassilda]

I agree that there's little sense to have a Cisalpine culture into the game but there's no reason at all to keep Langobards as a distinct Germanic culture into the south, or to keep them as a distinct culture at all, it's wrong exactly like having a Cisalpine culture imo.
Italian cultures (not dialects) south of the Rubicon, including Tuscany, are well similar to each other so that into the game they can just be represented as a single culture, I proposed "Italic" because having Italic and Lombard and Venetian together sounds less wrong than having them together with Italian.
Otherwise, the division can become too senseless in-depth, creating a different culture for every Italian dialect (Tuscan, Roman, Umbrian...) would mean to have no Italians at all, to make that sound correct you will need to translate every Italian name into their own dialectal correspondent like for example the name "Giacomo" in Venetian will be "Xacomo", to put the correct names into the correct geographical areas in which those names are used in Italy and so on. For example a Lombard named "Gennaro" sound's like a Russian named Heinrich, to an Italian, if you know what I mean.
To avoid this mess, it's better to just divide into Lombard, Venetian, Italic, and then a melting pot to create a Sicilian culture to the south.

I'm not of the idea that Lombards in the south should be Germanic in the game timeframe, but on the maps of the Dev Diaries, it seems they have kept the Lombards in the south as a separate (still German) culture from the rest of Italy, like in CKII. In my opinion, a "Lombard" (Latin) culture for both north and south is more than appropriate for the age; if the Lombards in the south will be annexed by an Italian state, they should switch to "regular" Italian culture.

 

[.Me]

Although I agree with you I don't think the example you gave is really correct: you can't compare a Lombard called Gennaro with a Russian called Heinrich. Italian name origins are usually:

• Italics and Romans names (Marco, Paolo), also originally family names (Mario, Giulio);
• Ebraic names (Michele, Maria);
• Greeks names (Giorgio, Sofia);
• Germanic names from Goths, Lombards and Franks, but also saints names (Carlo, Francesco);
• "Byzantine" names in the south, usually saints one (Agata, Basile, Calogero, Damiano);

Now, you can find someone called Adelaide in Sicily and don't thing anything of it, like you can find someone called Agata or Damiano in the North. There are definitely some names that are really regional, like Ciro in Naples or Ambrogio in Milan, but usually you won't think of it like something so foreign.

IMO, the point here is that while Venetian area was still subject to a strong byzantine influence (especially in the 867 start date), and Venetian languages came directly from the romanized Veneti language (and as everybody know, Veneti weren't gallic people), "Cisalpine" culture would represent the Gallo-italic speaking people that were subject to an important (although not extremely so) influence by the Lombards. So it make no sense to give Veneto and Venice "Cisalpine" culture, it's an insult to their identity and it's like giving Sicily "Norman" culture and call it a day.
Also, like you pointed out, it would make no sense to put Lombard culture as in the Langobards (the germanic people) culture per se in the 867 stat date, because they were already "italianised" by VII century, so I don't think that putting Lombard culture into Germanic group would be a good idea. Not in 867 AD at least.
I sincerely hope Devs will fix all of this mess without going like in CK2 and painting half peninsula "Lombard" just to give the Peninsula more diversity or for gameplay reasons. Lombards vere rather quick to adopt Roman/early Italian culture, but people seems to forget this.

EDIT: in the end I'd just stick with the division you gave in the first page, with "Cisalpine" and a new "Venetian" culture in the Northern part of the Peninsula, and call the rest just italian. From devs answers we now know we have a Sicilian melting pot in the South so I think it should be good like this.

Maybe the only addition I'd make would be to split the Southernmost regions from Greek and make a new Greek culture called "Italo-Greeks" or something like this, because regional identity were pretty strong in the Byzantine Empire and Italy has always been a problematic region to retain for the empire. This would help spice up things a bit.

EDIT2: found a version of the 867 culture map that include all the world thanks to @Colin post from another thread, thank you! Added to the OP

Wait you're misunderstanding a bit, what I meant with the example of Gennaro/Heinrich is just that there are some names that are endemic to a certain place and a local Italian subculture as you also stated, not that there's a so great difference between different Italian groups.
And so, to explain myself better, what I meant is that if they want to balkanize culturally Italy, as they did with Germany and Spain, I would want local spelling of names in the local languages/dialects, as in Italy as in Germany, for the same reason a character in the game of Asturian culture has it's name spelled in Asturian, not in Spanish, I want a Sicilian guy with the name spelled in Sicilian.
I agree completely on everything else.
On the Lombards in particular, there's no reason to have them as germanic, it's like to have Russia half Norse only because the ruling Rurik's Dinasty is of Norse heritage.

 

[Duarte]

I hope to God they did not keep the Lombard in the south in the Germanic culture group, that alone made their inclusion nonsensical

 

[Captain Frakas]

In my very humble opinion, the easy and pertinent parallel with German stem nations would be, for France, based on pairies and on former realms:

West Frankish, Languedoïlish or French culture group:
- Salian Frankish, West Frankish, Neustrian or French proper: in former Neustria;
- Burgundian: in the former realm of Burgundy (being the Duchy of Burgundy, the County of Burgundy, the Cisjuranian Burgundy and the Transjuranian Burgundy);
- Norman: in Normandy;
- Picard: in Picardy.

Occitan, Languedocian or Gallo-Roman culture group (might potentially be united with Catalan's culture group):
- Occitan or Aquitainian: in Aquitania and Toulouse;
- Gascon: in Gascony;
- Provençal: in Provence;
- Catalan: in Roussillon and other part of Catalonia.

Germanic culture group:
- Franconian, Rhineland Frankish or East Frankish: in the former realm of Lotharingia and in Franconia.

Dutch culture group:
- Flemish or Dutch: in Flanders and Flemish speaking Lowlands.

Brythonic culture group:
- Breton: in Brittany.

 

[Duarte]

Splitting Iberia blob into Galician, Asturian/Leonese, Castillan, Aragonese, Catalan, Mozarabic, Basques?

All of those are present in the 1066 start date, well assuming Andalusian also represents Mozarabic that is, so i think that bit should be removed from the OP, the main contention is with the usage of the term Visigothic, not that those won't apper

 

[Farfour]

Demotic is a modern term which has no sense for the time period covered by the game. "Romaioi" (actually "Rhomaioi") is instead a classical Greek word that is easily translated in the modern languages of the game so to give it the sense of Byzantine Romans: "Romaic" in English, "Romée" in French, "Rhomäer" in German and "Romio" in Spanish; each of these word is distinct from "Roman", or "Romain", "Römer", "Romano" in the other languages.

In the same vein, I don't understand the attempts to rename the Byzantine Empire into weird endonyms such as "Rhomaioi" or "Rhomaion" (respectively the nominative and genitive Greek forms of the plural word "Romans"). If you don't like "Byzantine Empire", which is historically inaccurate but still works, "Romania", "Empire of the Romans" or "Roman Empire" are better alternatives than Rhomaioi/Rhomaion. The word "Romania" can be confused with the modern country; "Rhomania" is not too much better, the other two are confused with the classical version of the Empire - all in all I'd stick to "Byzantine".

I understand Demotic being a modern term, but it existed as its own thing at the time. Rhomaioi makes sense for the Hellenic-speaking population and if we aren't going to have Greek split up, but I think it would receive backlash.

Here:

Spoiler

 

[Aquamancer]

I understand Demotic being a modern term, but it existed as its own thing at the time. Rhomaioi makes sense for the Hellenic-speaking population and if we aren't going to have Greek split up, but I think it would receive backlash.

Here:

Spoiler

Are there any maps portraying the dialects of Greek in Anatolia back when the entire region spoke only Greek? That might help map out how deep into Anatolia each of the Greek dialects permiated.

 

[Farfour]

Are there any maps portraying the dialects of Greek in Anatolia back when the entire region spoke only Greek?

Not on wikimedia, this one's after Manzikert and the loss/recovery of all/coastal Anatolia (respectively).

 

[Karlingid]

do you have literature on that?

"The Lech, separating Alamannia from Bavaria, did not form, either ethnologically or geographically, a very strong boundary, and there was a good deal of intercommunion between the two races."

"There was no strong ethnical boundary either between Swabians and Bavarians, and the destruction of the Bavarian nobility in 907 must have led to further Swabian infiltration."

 

[SoKraTes1]

On a different note, I'm guessing that Szekely culture hasn't been added, so I'd have an idea for that as well. Were it to be implemented, it could be done by either event or by decision for a march vassal of the Kingdom of Hungary if he is of Hungarian culture and his primary title has existed for some time, with the text talking about how life on the frontiers has made the people and/or the character culturally drift apart from the rest of the Hungarians.

There should also make an event that if k-hungary exists and ruler culture is magyar you get an event that asks you if you want to colonise saxons in transilvania. If yes then a historically apropiate region changes culture to saxon and gets a development boost as to portray the economic development transilvania went through due to the german colonists.

 

[mahidevran]

No Circassian culture

Do we know what the splotch of green in the Northwest Caucasus represents on the 1066 map? I was thrilled at first, thinking medieval Circassians had finally
been represented, but now I have my doubts based on this thread and their absence on the earlier start date. Although I'm not an expert in the region nor of Caucasian ancestry, the region is one of my favorites to read about and play (I made a post for expanding on the region during the CK2 era) and really hoped for some improvements in the new game. Maybe I'll start a thread on the topic again...

As for "culture issues": the Caucasian Avars are another notable group from the region absent from the CK3 map, a carryover from CK2. Avars were the culture of Sarir, a relatively small yet prominent Christian kingdom that flourished from the fifth to twelfth centuries, and often allied with Alania. It was also the culture of the Avar Khanate, its Muslim successor state. The Caucasian Avars bear no connection to the Pannonian Avars already represented in the game, so they will need to be identified by a different name -- "Daghestani" has been suggested in the past, also as a catch-all term for the related cultures speaking Northeast Caucasian languages (including the Albanians).

Ideally I'd also like to see the Nakh peoples represented in the game as well, but I don't know how feasible it is to put more small states and cultures in such a small area, especially with how the map projection makes the Caucasus look kind of distorted.

 

[Samitte]

Do we know what the splotch of green in the Northwest Caucasus represents on the 1066 map? I was thrilled at first, thinking medieval Circassians had finally
been represented, but now I have my doubts based on this thread and their absence on the earlier start date. Although I'm not an expert in the region nor of Caucasion ancestry, the region is one of my favorites to read about and play (I made a post for expanding on the region during the CK2 era) and really hoped for some improvements in the new game. Maybe I'll start a thread on the topic again...

As for "culture issues": the Caucasian Avars are another notable group from the region absent from the CK3 map, a carryover from CK2. Avars were the culture of Sarir, a relatively small yet prominent Christian kingdom that flourished from the fifth to twelfth centuries, and often allied with Alania. It was also the culture of the Avar Khanate, its Muslim successor state. The Caucasian Avars bear no connection to the Pannonian Avars already represented in the game, so they will need to be identified by a different name -- "Daghestani" has been suggested in the past, also as a catch-all term for the related cultures speaking Northeast Caucasian languages (including the Albanians).

Ideally I'd also like to see the Nakh peoples represented in the game as well, but I don't know how feasible it is to put more small states and cultures in such a small area, especially with how the map projection makes the Caucasus look kind of distorted.

The Caucasus definitely needs some improvement from what I've seen so far. The images we've seen in this weeks DD show a tiny speck of Cornish culture in the appendix of Britain, so adding in multiple cultures in the caucasus should not be too big of a problem. (Abkhazian*?), Adyghe/Circassian, Dzurdzuk/Chechen/Nakh, Avar/Dagestani, Udi/Aghuank could probably cover most peoples in the area that are missing right now. Yes, they did not have a large coverage, but if Cornish has a place the other Caucasian peoples should too.

*Not sure if they were separate enough to really be worth splitting off from Georgian at this time.

 

[mahidevran]

The Caucasus definitely needs some improvement from what I've seen so far. The images we've seen in this weeks DD show a tiny speck of Cornish culture in the appendix of Britain, so adding in multiple cultures in the caucasus should not be too big of a problem. (Abkhazian*?), Adyghe/Circassian, Dzurdzuk/Chechen/Nakh, Avar/Dagestani, Udi/Aghuank could probably cover most peoples in the area that are missing right now. Yes, they did not have a large coverage, but if Cornish has a place the other Caucasian peoples should too.

*Not sure if they were separate enough to really be worth splitting off from Georgian at this time.

Looking over the county map now, I'm encouraged by the further breakdown of Georgia relative to CK2 -- which also serves to highlight how much the provinces of the north Caucasus could be broken down to accommodate more states and cultures for interesting gameplay. Cabardinia in particular is a huge provincial blob, with a name that raises questions in itself. If it's supposed to represent Kabarda (if so, that spelling makes my eyes twitch), it should be west of Maghas, not east.

Absent of their own individual culture in the game, I feel Abkhazia would be better represented as a culturally Circassian province rather than a Georgian one due to closer ethnic, cultural, and linguistic ties.

At minimum, I'd like to see Circassian in the west and the Daghestani Avars in the east, but I think the Albanians and Nakhs can be accommodated as well, though a further county breakdown is needed to realize the latter to a greater potential.

 

[Vias]

Ok guys, updated OP post!

 

[SoKraTes1]

The Avar culture spread in Transilvania in the 867 start date is wrong, historically the Avars didn't have such a strong cultural presence and did not populate the mountainous and dense forest regions the inside the Carpathians (should be Vlach instead) and in fact the Avars first settled along the Maris and Tisa rivers as shown by the strong archeological evidence found in those areas.

1) Map showing the passage the Avars took through Transilvania and their center of power along the Maris and Tisa rivers.
2) Map showing the spread of Avar artefacts in the Pannonian basin, as you can see most artefacts uncovered in Transilvania are around the Crișana region ((Maris and Tisa rivers) and while some remains were found in Banat, and Intracarpathia area too, they are too few compared to the other areas to suggest a strong Avar presence there and mostly around the ruins of the old romans castrums as the Avar remains found in Apahida and Turda sugest. (Note the white areas in Intracarpathia where no Avar remains were found).
Avar archeological remains are easy to discern from other due to their specific inventary of items, as they were often burried with their horse and bow along with other characteristic cultural elements.
Slavs first came to the Carpathian Basin along with the Avars and in Transilvania their settlements can be found all over (yellow areas included) but more in Banat, Marmaros and Intracarpathian region (Areas marked red on the second map). While the Avars (the rulling/dominating class) focused on ocuppying the old Roman castrums ( easily defensible positions) and the areas with important resources (as are the salt mines in Torda) the Slavs ocuppyied the countrysides where they came into contact with the romance speaking populations (known as the Bratei-Morești culture by historians with settlements and remains found in Alba, Sibiu, Mureș, Cluj, Biharea counties and others). The populations of this culture, retains in the ceramic style aspects from the roman ceramics, aswell as the technology of making pottery using the the wheel rather than handworked (as the slavs had). Later on wheel pottery will become generalised again as the slavs will came into contact with the romance population.
Between the VIII - X centuries the slavs will become assimilated with them resulting in the formation of the Vlachs people, ethnogenesis which by the 867 start date when the Bulgarian Empire is about to fall, is mostly finished.
In game, Vlachs have a strong presence in the Banat, Severin and Oltenia regions, whitch is corect since they were regions that were held the longest by the Roman Empire but their attested presence in Intracarpathia is wholly neglected, as shown in my posts Avar should not be there and instead Vlachs culture should ocupy the provinces closests to the Carpathian mountains.

Here, in the most horrible paint skills you have ever seen, you can see with red dots the teritories Vlachs ocuppy curently in CK3 , and with orange the suggested territories they should ocuppy. Avar culture should be where Cluj, Oradea, Seghedin, Debretin is on the map that is plains, major rivers areas.

Sources : Maps 1/2 - Kevin Alexander - The Avars in Pannonia and Transylvania
Maps 2/4 - poor photoshop skills
Archeological evidence for the Avars/Slavs/Romance populations - History of Transilvania Vol I - Ioan Aurel Pop, Thomas Nagler, Andras Magyari - ed III 2016
- The Dacian Stones Speak - Paul Lachlan McKendrick
- English wikipedia
- Magyar expansion in Transilvania - Alexandru Madgearu - 2019

 

[Slime99]

Do we know what the splotch of green in the Northwest Caucasus represents on the 1066 map? I was thrilled at first, thinking medieval Circassians had finally
been represented, but now I have my doubts based on this thread and their absence on the earlier start date. Although I'm not an expert in the region nor of Caucasian ancestry, the region is one of my favorites to read about and play (I made a post for expanding on the region during the CK2 era) and really hoped for some improvements in the new game. Maybe I'll start a thread on the topic again...

As for "culture issues": the Caucasian Avars are another notable group from the region absent from the CK3 map, a carryover from CK2. Avars were the culture of Sarir, a relatively small yet prominent Christian kingdom that flourished from the fifth to twelfth centuries, and often allied with Alania. It was also the culture of the Avar Khanate, its Muslim successor state. The Caucasian Avars bear no connection to the Pannonian Avars already represented in the game, so they will need to be identified by a different name -- "Daghestani" has been suggested in the past, also as a catch-all term for the related cultures speaking Northeast Caucasian languages (including the Albanians).

Ideally I'd also like to see the Nakh peoples represented in the game as well, but I don't know how feasible it is to put more small states and cultures in such a small area, especially with how the map projection makes the Caucasus look kind of distorted.

I think this map could be used to construct 1066 Caucasus. The lands confined in the Kura and Aras rivers are a little more ambiguous and changing so I'm not quite sure on that one, but North Caucasus should be okay. Khundzia is another name for Sarir.

 

[Samitte]

View attachment 581197
I think this map could be used to construct 1066 Caucasus. The lands confined in the Kura and Aras rivers are a little more ambiguous and changing so I'm not quite sure on that one, but North Caucasus should be okay. Khundzia is another name for Sarir.

Seems reasonably accurate for the south Caucasus, small mistake though:

South Artsakh was a separate entity in Miws Haband, often named K't'ish-Baghk' or Haband-K't'ish to distinguish it from Siwnik'-Baghk'. It would remain independent till around 1266 under the Aranshahikids. And Kakhet'i-Heret'i would have held a bit more land that it asscribes to Shirvan, probably everything west of the Aghuan/Alijanchay.