Custom nationalism

[Bezborg]

A thing I always wanted in Victoria - when I had conquered vast expanses of the world, and having brought the light of my wisdom to all sorts of unfortunate and primitive souls on the face of this good earth...I always wanted a degree of self-determination other than actually modding the game

What I mean is - I want an in-game mechanism that will allow me to rename my nation (dominant culture, national identity, whatever) - AFTER a certain degree of expansion and multi-ethnicity within my borders...

For instance I enjoyed on occasion conquering Europe as Switzerland... A bit unrealistic obviously, but it brought me great joy and amusement, and there's something glorious in having a huge European super-state with a capital in the Alps... What can I say, I'm the worst kind of megalomaniac...

Well, obviously, I couldn't remain as Switzerland, so I renamed my nation with a multitude of names over the years (oh yes, many many years of Vicky), such as the United Federation of Nations, European Dominion blabla (errr the European Union too, lol)... The dominant culture had to be changed as well, so alongside the French, German and Italian majorities there was a growing nation named either European, or just something plain like "Federal Citizen", whatever...

My point is this, finally (and please excuse the absurd example but I'm sure most of you have had the same issue) - after a point where I have obviously achieved feats that do not conform with history (another example, let's say, starting as China and conquering all of Asia and India ugh) - the game might offer me an event that presents me with an option of forming a brand new national identity.

This would be entirely optional of course, and if the developers should like the idea but lack the practical element of actually making it work - they might implement their own hard coded mechanisms. An example to this effect: the world map is divided into several "unseen" regions. The player, after conquest (or any other means of appropriating territory) of 100% of this region, is presented with an option of forming a new national identity (including a name for the entire state as well as a new, federal or however unified, ethnicity). This option might be in form of a choice depending on the form of government. For instance, if I as China ruled as a Const. Monarchy conquer entire Asia, I might be presented with an option of renaming my nation as "Commonwealth of Asia", or something along those lines. This, of course, after I've conquered the entire region that would qualify me for such an event, and AFTER my starting dominant culture(s) is the majority (even a certain high degree of majority if you will). Just a suggestion.

This would obviously require a greater investment of imagination, but why not. Isn't deviation from history kind of the whole point? And I think it would increase immersion.

Regarding the inevitable comments of the following type: "lol". Well, I'd just like to point out that history is full of examples where a multi-ethnic nation might choose to redefine its national identity to solidify their sovereignty and unionism, even with generic self-explanatory names. The United Kingdom for example. How generic is that? With a name like that you could easily rule the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish without anyone complaining about the name favouring a single nation, regardless of actual history The "British" nation is an excellent example, and in terms of my proposal, the qualifying region is obviously Britain Let's move on, the united States of America You could rule the entire western hemisphere with a name like that. To further amplify my point - in real life, you could never rule Italy and France (for example) as Germany, and have a national German national identity/dominant culture. No way in a cold Hell In a thousand years you couldn't make an Italian consider himself as part of a German nation

Ok, there's my proposal, thank you for reading, if you had the nerve Cheers, good luck Vicky 2, can't wait!

 

[Red_Communist]

Actually, this is a very good idea. I've always wanted to change a name of a country I play as in other games, but if they add it to Vicky 2 then that would be awesome.

Good thing you brought this up! xD

 

[Bezborg]

I'm from Croatia, and a close example is Yugoslavia (albeit from a much later time). Several nations joined in a federation and unified by a single generally applicable name. Most of the people retained their native nationality (Croatian, Slovene, Serb, Macedonian...); but all had an option to designate their nationality as Yugoslav, and were encouraged to do so, without any historic foundation to the term. Self-determination, as simple as that.

Considering this, it's completely unfair that the UK ingame should have "British" as its dominant culture/ethnicity, but other nations should be precluded from cultural unification just because it happened for Britain a couple of decades prior to the start of the game. And no, the "melting pot" mechanism is not an effect that corresponds to cultural unification in a pluralistic society. It's more of an assimilation than anything else.

The developers could tie this option either to be completely free of restrictions (the player types names - I don't imagine this level of freedom to be possible), or they could restrict the option in whatever way they want - hard coded options in form of events, activated by ownership of specific provinces, having fulfilled certain perquisites such as full citizenship and a low militancy level for the entire country, a high pluralism value, sanction by the Parliament, a suffrage restricted referendum or whatever, just give me my right to self-determination!

Wouldn't that be grand...

 

[Orinsul]

This would take all of two minutes to mod in a new culture and an event that turns all POPS into it. There is no need for it to be in the game, it would piss off alot of people and add very little.

 

[dongwookuk]

I agree with Orinsul, this doesn't make gameplay or historical sense.

Even if China or Switzerland did suddenly conquer all of Asia or Europe, no German or Japanese person is suddenly going to say "Hmmm....i might turn into a 'federal citizen'" or whatever. national identities are pretty much set in stone for people, and a 'unifying culture' just wouldn't materialize. I know that there's the British culture, and it appears in Ricky as a single culture, but this is also just plain inaccurate. English and Scottish people always have and still do consider themselves to be fundamentally different people. Although they did change the name to the United Kingdom through the Act of Union, this did nothing to quell Scottish independence movements. In the same line of thinking, just because the USA is called the United States of America does not in any way mean that any of the Southern Americans or Canadians would be happy to be annexed by them and ruled by them. Historically this idea is implausible.

In terms of gameplay, what if Germany suddenly became independent? Then that German state would fight to reclaim its people from the European superstate, right? But if it's primary culture is 'Federal Citizen', then it could just as easily swallow Italian and French lands with no repercussions. No, it is simply better to have the national identities seperate, otherwise it simply makes for a lacklustre and implausible game.

You can always mod them in by yourself you know.

 

[unmerged(91061)]

I think a more realistic feature would be for your nation to add National Cultures. If your nation has a majority of non-accepted culture POPs in one of it's cores for >20 years, you can undergo a process to make that culture a national culture. Furthermore, any province with a majority POPs whose culture is one of your Nation's Naitonal POPs, you can, (with Irredentism) claim that province as a core.

 

[Bezborg]

I agree with Orinsul, this doesn't make gameplay or historical sense.

Even if China or Switzerland did suddenly conquer all of Asia or Europe, no German or Japanese person is suddenly going to say "Hmmm....i might turn into a 'federal citizen'" or whatever. national identities are pretty much set in stone for people, and a 'unifying culture' just wouldn't materialize. I know that there's the British culture, and it appears in Ricky as a single culture, but this is also just plain inaccurate. English and Scottish people always have and still do consider themselves to be fundamentally different people. Although they did change the name to the United Kingdom through the Act of Union, this did nothing to quell Scottish independence movements. In the same line of thinking, just because the USA is called the United States of America does not in any way mean that any of the Southern Americans or Canadians would be happy to be annexed by them and ruled by them. Historically this idea is implausible.

And that's precisely why I tried (and obviously failed) to illustrate the difference between ETHNICITY and NATIONALITY, my efforts being best illustrated by the Yugoslavia example. I might call myself a Croat in terms of nationality, but even in a small country like mine there are substantial ethnic diversities between Dalmatians, Slavonians, Istirans (according to region) etc... It goes so far as to say that I as a native of Dalmatia have less in common to a native of the northern Slavonia than a Scot has with an Englishman. Nationality, however, is better considered as an external trait, how a pluralistic society regards itself as opposed to nations outside its borders, the ethnic angle being relevant mostly internally. On a larger scale, in Yugoslavia for example, all federal units were national states with a degree of sovereignty, but on a federal wide scale there were no Croats, Serbs, Macedonians, Slovenes... Just Yugoslavs It wasn't that big a deal internally, either you stated yourself as a Croat or a Yugoslav (the latter being encouraged by the stae), but externally we were all Yugoslavs.

And it is this angle that I would like Victoria 2 to recognize, the bigger picture. If the German people are to remain diversified as South and North German, then the term "British" is obsolete in my opinion. There are as much differences between those 2 groups of people as there are between Scots and the English.

Regarding the "unhistoric" argument - I fail to see why the Manhattan Commune should be considered a valuable alternative to history and my idea should be discarded as an obstruction to the historic feel of the game. Doesn't it make sense? Why can't my empire have its Act of Union? Or must I have an Italy that spans the entire Continent? Or a democratic mega-state that opened its arms to all immigrants and grants full citizenship etc but still imposes its own culture (ethnicity + nationality), even if it's in the minority?

You can always mod them in by yourself you know.

As I said in the first sentence of the first post... And I assure you I'll continue to do so, but I'm not trying to accomplish that in this post, as I obviously already did, but rather I'm trying to persuade the forum population that this might be an interesting and valid feature to add in Vicky 2.

 

[GregoryTheBruce]

And that's precisely why I tried (and obviously failed) to illustrate the difference between ETHNICITY and NATIONALITY, my efforts being best illustrated by the Yugoslavia example. I might call myself a Croat in terms of nationality, but even in a small country like mine there are substantial ethnic diversities between Dalmatians, Slavonians, Istirans (according to region) etc... It goes so far as to say that I as a native of Dalmatia have less in common to a native of the northern Slavonia than a Scot has with an Englishman. Nationality, however, is better considered as an external trait, how a pluralistic society regards itself as opposed to nations outside its borders, the ethnic angle being relevant mostly internally. On a larger scale, in Yugoslavia for example, all federal units were national states with a degree of sovereignty, but on a federal wide scale there were no Croats, Serbs, Macedonians, Slovenes... Just Yugoslavs It wasn't that big a deal internally, either you stated yourself as a Croat or a Yugoslav (the latter being encouraged by the stae), but externally we were all Yugoslavs.

As you point out, ethnicity is a pretty flexible concept; how specific it is depends on scale. The game tends to model ethnicity at a political level; i.e. it distinguishes not between tribes and regions but between politically-salient groups. That is why, for example, the distinction between Scots and Englishmen is not made, but the distinction between Yankee/Dixie or North/South German is--these are ethnic divisions that were politically salient in the period.

And it is this angle that I would like Victoria 2 to recognize, the bigger picture. If the German people are to remain diversified as South and North German, then the term "British" is obsolete in my opinion. There are as much differences between those 2 groups of people as there are between Scots and the English.

That is the concept of "culture groups," which was included in EU3 and which I sincerely hope will be included in V2.

Regarding the "unhistoric" argument - I fail to see why the Manhattan Commune should be considered a valuable alternative to history and my idea should be discarded as an obstruction to the historic feel of the game. Doesn't it make sense? Why can't my empire have its Act of Union? Or must I have an Italy that spans the entire Continent? Or a democratic mega-state that opened its arms to all immigrants and grants full citizenship etc but still imposes its own culture (ethnicity + nationality), even if it's in the minority?

Because no state has ever successfully constructed a large-scale ethnicity. You bring up the example of Yugoslavia, which is reasonable, as ethnic identities were submerged for much of the Communist period. But the majority never identified solely as Yugoslav, in a sense that a culture change in Victoria would indicate--in 1991, all of a sudden everyone knows exactly what their ethnicity is again. Thus the individual ethnicities (Slovene, Croat, Muslim, Serb, Montenegrin, Macedonian) would all be part of a "Yugoslav" culture group, but would not individually shift to "Yugoslav" culture.

People criticized your suggestion as historically accurate because, well, it has never happened. Or at least did not happen in the period of the game. There was no Austro-Hungarian identity, etc.

 

[Bezborg]

Because no state has ever successfully constructed a large-scale ethnicity. You bring up the example of Yugoslavia, which is reasonable, as ethnic identities were submerged for much of the Communist period. But the majority never identified solely as Yugoslav, in a sense that a culture change in Victoria would indicate--in 1991, all of a sudden everyone knows exactly what their ethnicity is again. Thus the individual ethnicities (Slovene, Croat, Muslim, Serb, Montenegrin, Macedonian) would all be part of a "Yugoslav" culture group, but would not individually shift to "Yugoslav" culture.

And we come back to the distinction which I consider to be extremely relevant, that being the difference between internal and external social pluralism, or lack there of, respectively. Within Yugoslavia all nations retained their native national element, and recognizing oneself as a made-up Yugoslavian was optional and indeed encouraged, but not mandatory. These are obviously internal matters that need not concern the international community in terms of diplomatic and economic interaction. From an external point of view, all mentioned ethnicities were considered as integral parts of a common nationality, that being Yugoslav. The term "Yugoslav", in this context, would signify a strong union between whatever peoples chose to join in a federation. And I'll say it again, I fail to see why Victoria, as a large-scale game, should prevent me from making my population unite in a common nationality, while retaining their ethnicity.

In that last sentence you might notice I've contradicted nothing you or I already stated.
I know full well that Vicky 1 had a single basic way to establish a common cultural identity of pluralistic nations, that being the dominant ethnicity, which would in turn assimilate minorities to its own - and I say that's an inferior concept (I'd like to return to the German-Italian problem again ).

continuing after the following quote...

Because no state has ever successfully constructed a large-scale ethnicity.

Hence - the (common) NATIONALITY system In V1, we have the ethnicity "Croat", but we also have the "ethnicity" "British", which is more of a nationality than an ethnicity. Something's wrong here, we should make up our minds or make a superior cultural designation system.

What I propose, in essence, is a new layer of social diversification and designation. I want to see ALL ethnicities that my population's comprised of (as was in V1), but I also want to give them a COMMON identity in terms of nationality; the technicalities of which I've already dealt in my first post.

People criticized your suggestion as historically accurate because, well, it has never happened. Or at least did not happen in the period of the game. There was no Austro-Hungarian identity, etc.

But why shouldn't it? China wasn't an advanced socialist democracy either but it CAN happen, the game being what it is, and thank God for that
Is my proposal so destrucitve to the game concept? I think not

 

[Andrelvis]

Hence - the (common) NATIONALITY system In V1, we have the ethnicity "Croat", but we also have the "ethnicity" "British", which is more of a nationality than an ethnicity. Something's wrong here, we should make up our minds or make a superior cultural designation system.

I just changed "British" to "English" in my games. But, what you speak of is not "nationality", but "citizenship".

 

[Bezborg]

I just changed "British" to "English" in my games. But, what you speak of is not "nationality", but "citizenship".

Technically "citizenship" is a term more descriptive of political participation of the country's inhabitants. You might be called a citizen if you have the right and ability to influence your country's political system. If you have no such rights (or a very low degree), you'd be called a subject

"Nationality", however, is descriptive of the person's membership in a certain nation (or from the state's point of view, "nationality" is the right of the state to determine its members - individuals or social groups that are subject to its decisions/functions), not concerning with his or her's political rights and statuses, and the term may include non-citizens. The term obviously has a much wider context than citizenship.

For instance, a slave might be called a national, as he might be born in my country and has permanent residence here, and as such is affected by my government's decisions regularly, and he's officially registered in my country's documents etc; but he might not be called a citizen of my country as he has no political rights. I hope this is clear enough.


"Citizenship" might be confused with "nationality" in colloquial use, but let's not make that mistake here

 

[Zakharov]

Maybe the problem is that in Victoria there is no difference between ethnicity and nationality. Take France for example : in Alsace, you have south german pop, in Corsica there is Italian pop (at least i think there is), and you can add basque pop in the southwest to be truly realistic. But all these pop, don't have the right to vote, unless you have a full citizenship government, and you can make an accepted culture, unless you want france to annex without any problem south germany and north italy.

So i think the solution may be to have 2 values, ethnicity (you got french, south german, north italian, basque, sefarade jews in algeria), but with french nationality (after 1870 and the Décret Crémieux for the sefarade jew).

Just my two cents

 

[Bezborg]

Zakharov, that's exactly what I'm proposing, to the letter. A more complex system of differentiation between different ethnic groups within the same political entity, and through that - an option to unite them in a common nationality.

As Germany, I have a dominant ethnic group called Germans (which may in turn be divided into south and north, whatever)... If I conquer (or acquire through any other means) Italy, and establish my political organization so that they have full citizenship rights just like the Germans, well we can't call them Germans in terms of nationality, can we? At least a joint name would then be required to theoretically satisfy the Italians in the new political establishment, the nationality being named German-Italian for example...

As it stands in V1, the system of cultural designation is way too simplistic. I think it would be a major improvement to make this feature more complex in the future

 

[Andrelvis]

Technically "citizenship" is a term more descriptive of political participation of the country's inhabitants. You might be called a citizen if you have the right and ability to influence your country's political system. If you have no such rights (or a very low degree), you'd be called a subject

"Nationality", however, is descriptive of the person's membership in a certain nation (or from the state's point of view, "nationality" is the right of the state to determine its members - individuals or social groups that are subject to its decisions/functions), not concerning with his or her's political rights and statuses, and the term may include non-citizens. The term obviously has a much wider context than citizenship.

For instance, a slave might be called a national, as he might be born in my country and has permanent residence here, and as such is affected by my government's decisions regularly, and he's officially registered in my country's documents etc; but he might not be called a citizen of my country as he has no political rights. I hope this is clear enough.


"Citizenship" might be confused with "nationality" in colloquial use, but let's not make that mistake here

I didn't mean anything that contradicted that. What Vaul had proposed was that "British" is a nationality, while "Croat" is an ethnicity. Now, nationality in this case could be said to be same as ethnicity, but by nationality he clearly meant allegiance to the British State, not being British culturally.

 

[dongwookuk]

OK, I'm now starting to catch your drift (Thanks to Zakharov's clearer proposal)

However, the suggestion for a seperation of ethinicity and nationality doesn't really makes sense for that period of time, and I don't really think its necessary at all. The point of the whole culture thing in Ricky was that German minorities in France would be more militant, and a German state would be able to exploit these POPs more effectively in RGOs and factories (same culture workers, more satisfies etc.). But if we make the nationality of these German minorities French, meaning that their allegiance is to France, then there's no real point for a German player to 'liberate' them, since they'll be more militant and ineffective etc.

Also, ethinicity and nationality should not be seen as two completely seperate things. Despite what it means to former Yugoslavs (a muti-ethnic country from what I hear), for most people around the world, these two are very closely interconnected (in fact, almost inseperable). Even if Germany conquered all of Italy, and even gave the Italians equal rights and stuff, Italians still wouldn't really be any less militant, productive, and most of all, they would still consider their 'nationality' to belong to Italy, and not to the German-Italian state (despite the name change and everything).

I think Ricky's representation of culture being a dominant factor is fairly accurate for the Victorian era. Hence why this period is also called the Era of Nationalism, when in fact, such nationalism was based solely around culture and to a degree, ethnicity. Nationality and culture/ethinicity meant the same thing for people in that time. Obviously we can make some exceptions for the USA, but certainly not for Germany-Italy or Commonwealth of Asia.

I just wanna repat what GregoryTheBruce said btw, there was no Austro-Hungarian nationality.

 

[Bezborg]

OK, I'm now starting to catch your drift (Thanks to Zakharov's clearer proposal)

However, the suggestion for a seperation of ethinicity and nationality doesn't really makes sense for that period of time, and I don't really think its necessary at all. The point of the whole culture thing in Ricky was that German minorities in France would be more militant, and a German state would be able to exploit these POPs more effectively in RGOs and factories (same culture workers, more satisfies etc.). But if we make the nationality of these German minorities French, meaning that their allegiance is to France, then there's no real point for a German player to 'liberate' them, since they'll be more militant and ineffective etc.

OR you could tie their militancy to their ethnicity, while maintaining their French nationality. That way you could satisfy the German inhabitants' angle as they consider themselves different from the rest of the French population, but you could also satisfy the angle of the French state, that being its wish to keep the German inhabitants of that particular province as its citizens, and not Germany's. By adding different layers of social complexity you could have very interesting gaming options. In my opinion this would improve Vicky 2 considerably in this aspect.

I just wanna repat what GregoryTheBruce said btw, there was no Austro-Hungarian nationality.

And I agree with you and Greg. NEVER has there been an Austro-Hungarian nationality. But WHY NOT? In theory, an Austro-Hungarian nationality would not be any different from the "British" nationality, the only obstruction is actual history, but that is simply not a problem for this game. Has there been a Manhattan Commune? NO, but the game recognized its theoretical possibility in history, which you as a player may or may not wish to pursue. Is an Austo-Hungarian nationality so hard to imagine? Actually it really isn't, and I can speak to that effect as being part of a nation that was under Austro-Hungarian administration for centuries. And another thing, in Austria-Hungary there wasn't an Austrian nationality as well! No Czech considered himself an Austrian ---> and to modify my argument to the social mechanics of Vicky 1 - no Czech, Hungarian, (northern) Italian, Slovene or Croat considered himself to be a member of the Austrian CULTURE. The definition of the Monarchy (even in its time) was the recognition and preservation its multi-ethnicity. The Empire's moto was "viribus unitis"!!!
(FOR EXAMPLE, let's not get too hung up on Austria-Hungary).

All I'm saying is that Vicky 2 might be interested to recognize this level of player freedom as historically possible... in the same way as Vicky 1 recognized the possibility for China to become the leading industrial power of the world, through player efforts.

Ok, I've finally said all I can on the matter

 

[Rakonas]

I agree wholeheartedly, this could add some very nice plausible areas to the game. It's not only realistic to happen, but necessary to exist in-game to model such scenarios and, just as importantly, fun.

 

[OHgamer]

i think rather than having to create yet another population category that the developers will then need to reconfigure all the POPs for in game and figure out exactly how the new population category will work in game in terms of political, economic and military impact, simply for the ability to create mostly ahistorical supranational identities, the better solution would be to allow players to create a mod that would transform the nationalities into the new supranational identity based on various gameplay conditions. Something that can already be done in V1 (just use one of the user-defined culture tags and convert all pops in your empire to that new culture, truly a 5 minute piece of mod scripting) and would not require additional developer time being spent on an issue that is, IMHO, more superficial and aesthetic than structural and allow for focus on deeper strucutral gameplay issues regarding the economic, politicalm diplomatic or military spheres.

 

[Bezborg]

...truly a 5 minute piece of mod scripting...

and would not require additional developer time being spent on an issue that is, IMHO, more superficial and aesthetic than structural and allow for focus on deeper strucutral gameplay issues regarding the economic, politicalm diplomatic or military spheres.

Indeed, the 5 minutes you mentioned will consume their creativity completely and all fans shall suffer for eternity :rofl:

And you missed my point completely. I WANT my minorities to retain their ethnicity on a local level, but I also want to give them a common national identity; for reasons I've explained at length, besides pointing out a few paradoxal features in this regard in V1 (the "British" for example...). Read the topic

 

[OHgamer]

Indeed, the 5 minutes you mentioned will consume their creativity completely and all fans shall suffer for eternity :rofl:

And you missed my point completely. I WANT my minorities to retain their ethnicity on a local level, but I also want to give them a common national identity; for reasons I've explained at length, besides pointing out a few paradoxal features in this regard in V1 (the "British" for example...). Read the topic

You miss my point. If you are going to create this second degree of identity, do you simply leave it blank for most POPS? Or do you duplicate what already exists for culture for the 95+% of POPs for which this new category will not have any real impact whatsoever.

And what exactly will this new identity impact in terms of a POPs behavior in the political, economic, social or military realms of the game.

Basically you are asking the developers to spend a large number of hours to integrate a new category of identity for every single POP in the game for a benefit that can be done using the current system with a simple mod changing the name of the POPs culture to something new.

Now, if you want the game to include "flavor events" to allow this to happen by default should human player of X nation create some overarching state, so that all POPs in the players new empire have a new supranational identity instead of their old identity, that is something that might be a better approach to take (though that would require making a laundry list of possible/potential new categories to make sure the vast majority of player whims are addressed and no player feels like their imaginations were ignored because their massive empire based upon Sikkim or Costa Rica is not given its own new supranational category), instead of spending countless hours of developer time creating new categories, adding the new category to every single POP listing in the POP files, and then making the new category have relevance in the game other than simply cosmetic, with all the testing and balancing such addition of new categories would require.

Like I've said before, the idea itself is not a bad one, but these proposals need to cosider at the same time the amount of work it is going to take the developers to properly integrate the new ideas and make it part of a balanced whole with actual meaning in the game. And in the end, I still think its a better use of developer time to focus on more basic structural elements of the game, like the working of the economy, the immigration model, the nature of diplomacy and warfare, and let what in the end is mostly a cosmetic element of gameplay for the handful of players playing with wildly ahistorical ideas to mod for themselves. Even that five minutes needed to have a developer script an event to include in the base game might be five minutes better used by the developer testing the economic model or military combat.