Great demo. Too bad culture is a joke

[telesien]

It is. You get these new groups like what, once every 50 years. In that amount of time, I would have build a gigantic empire at the pace I was going at. This is a valid point, it's just that it doesn't seem like a fair trade upon closer inspection.

Not unless you also got a huge pile of monarch points to core creation and another huge pile of monarch points to peace negotiations. And huge pile of monarch points to prevent revolts.

 

[Jia Xu]

On gameplay balance - Peter Ebbeson calculated quite well the cost of converting the entire Iberian peninsula. If you intend to blob AND keep up with Tech, there´s simply no way you can cultureconvert everything. Doing so would cripple your Tech and leave you at the mercy of your smaller, ever so slightly less stable but unimaginably more teched neighbours that tear your outdated army and navy to pieces.

He used Castille as an example which was already established as the most ridiculous example. Portugal can form Spain, the Iberian union country, making culture conversion there a waste of time. Anyone who thinks that this cripples anything, didn't play EU3 in multiplayer. In EU3 we had to wait 50 years for cores and that did not cripple us. It barely even slowed us down.

Not unless you also got a huge pile of monarch points to core creation and another huge pile of monarch points to peace negotiations. And huge pile of monarch points to prevent revolts.

My starting monarch in Portugal had an ADM skill of 2 or something, if I recall correctly. I cored half of Morocco in 20 years. This doesn't seem to be an issue. Revolts? Everyone is Catholic and Portuguese! Who is left to revolt?

 

[keynes2.0]

To be honest, it seems like most people in this thread are looking at the "Culture conversion" thing all wrong. When you convert, let´s say...Småland to danish Culture, you´re not forcing every peasant who lives there to speak danish and think about things in a danish way. What you´re doing is convincing the nobility and people of some importance to embrace the danish Culture.

Which is why the culture flips back automatically when the ownership changes? Why there will continue to be nationistic movements to free the people of the majority culture?

And huge pile of monarch points to prevent revolts.

That's what the army is for.

 

[telesien]

My starting monarch in Portugal had an ADM skill of 2 or something, if I recall correctly. I cored half of Morocco in 20 years. This doesn't seem to be an issue. Revolts? Everyone is Catholic and Portuguese! Who is left to revolt?

20 years of full focus to get meager Morocco? Yeah, I don't think the world needs to worry that much

Not that I don't think better balance regarding conversions would better, but you focus way too much on it after playing just the short demo.

 

[Jia Xu]

That's what the army is for.

Yep. I had maybe two little revolts in the demo and I squashed them effortlessly as a 3rd rate military power like Portugal. Imagine if I had been playing a serious land power like France or imperial Russia? I'd like to see a rebellion stand up to half a dozen 30K stacks. I'd like to see another player stop a 200K army using their 2 level tech lead.

 

[awesomeClaw]

Which is why the culture flips back automatically when the ownership changes? Why there will continue to be nationistic movements to free the people of the majority culture?



That's what the army is for.

If you´re saying what I Think you´re saying, that can be explained.

Let´s go back to Småland. The nobility now speaks danish, and also has loyalty to their danish overlords. Suddenly, Sweden bursts in and takes Småland back. The nobility is now used to speaking danish, and reluctant to change back to Swedish again. Sweden needs to use their DIPLOMATIC power to convince them to speak Swedish again.

And that´s that.

 

[Jia Xu]

20 years of full focus to get meager Morocco? Yeah, I don't think the world needs to worry that much
Not that I don't think better balance regarding conversions would better, but you focus way too much on it after playing just the short demo.

Full focus? Nope. I had colonies in South Africa and Brazil. I squashed Morocco in between wars I was called into for being allied with Spain. Ruining Morocco under full focus would have been a 7 year venture I think. 1 year to beat them, 5 years for the truce, and another year to beat them again.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

He used Castille as an example which was already established as the most ridiculous example. Portugal can form Spain, the Iberian union country, making culture conversion there a waste of time. Anyone who thinks that this cripples anything, didn't play EU3 in multiplayer. In EU3 we had to wait 50 years for cores and that did not cripple us. It barely even slowed us down.

I used it as an example of the cost of converting a large region that most people will have a grasp of how big is compared to all of Europe, such that they could adequately understand that converting large areas of real estate that was non-overseas is a really bad idea.

Just like in my first post to which you replied with an "MP noob" reply, I did not intend it to prove anything else, as should be blatantly obvious from the context. I merely wanted to point out that your claims about culture conversion and the conclusions you draw as to what this means for culture ONLY APPLY TO OVERSEAS REAL ESTATE, and that is REGARDLESS of which country you play and which possibilities it has for acquiring accepted cultures. Portugal, Denmark, France, Trebizond.... NOBODY that is not overseas from the Iberian peninsula should waste their DMPs on converting it following conquest unless they are truly overflowing with DMPs.

I agree with you that you should culture convert overseas real estate most of the time; I have made this bloody explicit in my posts. Your continued deliberate misunderstanding of what I write is getting bloody annoying.

 

[Jia Xu]

I used it as an example of the cost of converting a large region that most people will have a grasp of how big is compared to all of Europe, such that they could adequately understand that converting large areas of real estate that was non-overseas is a really bad idea. Just like in my first post to which you replied with an "MP noob" reply, I did not intend it to prove anything else, as should be blatantly obvious from the context. I merely wanted to point out that your claims about culture conversion and the conclusions you draw as to what this means for culture ONLY APPLY TO OVERSEAS REAL ESTATE, and that is REGARDLESS of which country you play and which possibilities it has for acquiring accepted cultures. Portugal, Denmark, France, Trebizond.... NOBODY that is not overseas from the Iberian peninsula should waste their DMPs on converting it following conquest unless they are truly overflowing with DMPs. I agree with you that you should culture convert overseas real estate most of the time; I have made this bloody explicit in my posts. Your continued deliberate misunderstanding of what I write is getting bloody annoying.

Actually, the only person who tried shouting "noob" was the first guy who claimed that culture converting provinces was a bad idea. You seem to agree with this individual. Whoops. Try again!

You used Castille because it was gigantic and ridiculous. Use a better example like Italy. You also seem to have established this incredibly ridiculous correlation where expensive automatically means bad. By all means, explain to me why Moscow shouldn't culture convert all of Lithuania, for example. Tell me why this is an objectively bad idea. Don't get "annoyed" because you don't understand the concepts of which I am talking about. Balance is only really important for multiplayer. If you have no MP experience and find my posts "annoying" then kindly show yourself to the door. I don't like being talked to as if I'm holding you hostage here.

 

[SoCCo]

I've never liked how fast cultural and religious conversion happens in this entire series, this is nothing new really, it's always been a part of their design. Cultural conversion in my mind should be prohibitively expensive, it should be something you almost never use and that takes a really long time (i.e. a few generations). Unless you are engaged in genocide, a population is going to be extremely resistant to giving up their language and customs. Religions should be a bit easier to flip than culture but should certainly take a lot longer (e.g. a generation) than the current implementation.

It's the same problem with coring too really, it seems way to fast and easy to me.

Any way, hopefully the opportunity cost of converting and coring will keep these mechanics in check, or else it's probably something we can mod pretty easily to slow it down.

well fast cultural swaps did happen:
1) see south Iberia during the Reconquista. Isabel and Ferran managed to flip the culture & religion of Andalusia, but at an expense. They expelled and in some the inquisition killed, all muslims and jews that did not want to convert to catholic. obviously they had to flip to the spanish way of life, spanish language and so on. the expense i was talking about, is that the whole south iberian peninsula was depopulated and with the great loss in demographic stats they also lost economic stats.
2) conquest of Constantinopole. The city went from half of million population to somewhere about 25-30k. then Mehmet II repopulated the city with muslim turks and other minorities whom were allowed to worship whichever god they choose as long as they paid the tax for it.

i wish you couldn't convert culture using MP, but convert at the expense of population, tax and production. you would have to send the population to a nearby country that has the same religion and culture group as the refugees. of course, some happy event with a happy population of one of region who decide to let go of their heritage and adopt yours wouldn't hurt anyone, but that should be a rare event, not once each year.

 

[K'shar]

If you have no MP experience and find my posts "annoying" then kindly show yourself to the door. I don't like being talked to as if I'm holding you hostage here.

He has a fair smidgen of experience.

 

[Merrivale]

Actually, the only person who tried shouting "noob" was the first guy who claimed that culture converting provinces was a bad idea. You seem to agree with this individual. Whoops. Try again!

You used Castille because it was gigantic and ridiculous. Use a better example like Italy. You also seem to have established this incredibly ridiculous correlation where expensive automatically means bad. By all means, explain to me why Moscow shouldn't culture convert all of Lithuania, for example. Tell me why this is an objectively bad idea. Don't get "annoyed" because you don't understand the concepts of which I am talking about. Balance is only really important for multiplayer. If you have no MP experience and find my posts "annoying" then kindly show yourself to the door. I don't like being talked to as if I'm holding you hostage here.

Uh, Peter is one of the most famous EU players on this board and a EUIV beta to boot, so I think he's not worried about his "lack of MP experience" or not understanding the culture concepts in EUIV. Your original point, Morocco shouldn't be so easy to culture convert if you're Portugal, is getting lost in a lot of unnecessary chest-thumping. We get it, you're awesome at MP.

 

[Jia Xu]

Uh, Peter is one of the most famous EU players on this board and a EUIV beta to boot, so I think he's not worried about his "lack of MP experience" or not understanding the culture concepts in EUIV. Your original point, Morocco shouldn't be so easy to culture convert if you're Portugal, is getting lost in a lot of unnecessary chest-thumping. We get it, you're awesome at MP.

It's getting lost in the deck which contains all victim cards. I don't need to be criticized for calling people "noobs" when I never did that. When a user has to make up claims to justify insulting another user, that's when points get lost. Peter here seems quick to tell me that I'm right about Morocco but still argues anyway for the purpose of being contrarian.

 

[Haresus]

Actually, the only person who tried shouting "noob" was the first guy who claimed that culture converting provinces was a bad idea. You seem to agree with this individual. Whoops. Try again!

You used Castille because it was gigantic and ridiculous. Use a better example like Italy. You also seem to have established this incredibly ridiculous correlation where expensive automatically means bad. By all means, explain to me why Moscow shouldn't culture convert all of Lithuania, for example. Tell me why this is an objectively bad idea. Don't get "annoyed" because you don't understand the concepts of which I am talking about. Balance is only really important for multiplayer. If you have no MP experience and find my posts "annoying" then kindly show yourself to the door. I don't like being talked to as if I'm holding you hostage here.

Castille is smaller and poorer than Italy. All of Iberia and Italy appear to be pretty much equal. I am not sure why Italy would be a better example, could you elaborate?

 

[Jia Xu]

Castille is smaller and poorer than Italy. All of Iberia and Italy appear to be pretty much equal. I am not sure why Italy would be a better example, could you elaborate?

Because if you want to make that point, it makes sense to use it in a place where a different culture group exists. my whole point on that was in regard to ridiculously culture converting provinces that would be affected by a union bonus.

But again, I'd love for one of you guys to actually address any of my requests to run these numbers on Moscow expanding westward.

 

[telesien]

It's getting lost in the deck which contains all victim cards. I don't need to be criticized for calling people "noobs" when I never did that. When a user has to make up claims to justify insulting another user, that's when points get lost. Peter here seems quick to tell me that I'm right about Morocco but still argues anyway for the purpose of being contrarian.

Just no. You can be both right about Morocco and wrong about the rest.

Perhaps wait a bit until you have a chance to really play the game for some time. I can guarantee you, that in the longer run it's not that simple you won't be able to achieve what you think you can.

 

[Haresus]

Because if you want to make that point, it makes sense to use it in a place where a different culture group exists. my whole point on that was in regard to ridiculously culture converting provinces that would be affected by a union bonus.

France invades Castille to annex it, or maybe it just gets a lucky personal union. There, now you have your different culture group.

 

[Jia Xu]

But again, I'd love for one of you guys to actually address any of my requests to run these numbers on Moscow expanding westward.

Or constantly ignore this because it proves my point! Whatever!

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Actually, the only person who tried shouting "noob" was the first guy who claimed that culture converting provinces was a bad idea. You seem to agree with this individual. Whoops. Try again!

You told me, "Please don't "whine" when you get annexed in MP in the first 25 years of the game." and I interpreted that as calling me a MP noob. If you intended to convey some other impression, I would advise you to work on your communications skill.

You used Castille because it was gigantic and ridiculous. Use a better example like Italy. You also seem to have established this incredibly ridiculous correlation where expensive automatically means bad. By all means, explain to me why Moscow shouldn't culture convert all of Lithuania, for example. Tell me why this is an objectively bad idea.

I refer in full to my arguments in Post 75.

It is just too bloody expensive for the meager gains involved. Local manpower and taxes? I get plenty of that from the Russian core and from my colonies in which I build military buildings. Lower revolt risk? Nice but unessential. What I get out of conquering Lithuania is wonderful production and trade with taxes and manpower as a side dish.

I consider the expense of culturally converting all of Lithuania as Muscowy much too great due to the opportunity cost involved. For the 100 DMP, the cost of converting a single tax 4 province, I can get so many other things. I can build 10 trade buildings if we are talking about the middle game, building up my huge colonial exterior to provide more trade power and trade value, earning me considerably more money than I would gain from getting rid of the tax modifier. Alternatively, I could reduce war exhaustion by 4 if it should ever be necessary. As Muscowy, one thing I might frequently be short on is coastal provinces, so building up naval buildings in those to increase my naval force limit my be a good idea. Finally, I can invest in idea groups. In fact, let us look at idea groups for a moment, shall we? Lithuania is roughly 90 tax value, so it costs roughly 2250 DMP to convert. That is 80% of the cost of an idea group. Now, given that as Muscowy I am going to be pretty interested in Diplomatic ideas (to reduce coring costs) as well as either Exploration or Expansion (and possibly both) and probably trade as well, I am going to be spending lots of DMPs over the course of the game on investing in ideas.

There are, in other words, lots of things that it makes excellent sense to spend DMPs on as Muscowy, a Muscowy that - as is proper for Muscowy in any EU game - expands rapidly in all directions and all over the place! A TRUE Russian menace!

And you want me to spend 2250 points on culture converting all of Lithuania? Look, if you get brilliant DIP monarchs such that you have the DMPs to do all the things that benefit Muscowy without having to ruthlessly prioritise, and you might well do so, of course you should go ahead and culture convert. But, if you do not, you should spend your DMPs where they aid you the most, and culture converting Lithuania isn't it.

Don't get "annoyed" because you don't understand the concepts of which I am talking about. Balance is only really important for multiplayer. If you have no MP experience and find my posts "annoying" then kindly show yourself to the door. I don't like being talked to as if I'm holding you hostage here.

Don't get "annoyed" if I know what I am talking about.

 

[Joghurt]

Also, historically nations did never try to change their peoples culture before nationalism came up in the 19th century. I dont think cultural assimilation should even be an option to be done by a state on purpose. Thus, the option to do it for a ridiculously low price, is humbug.

Just look at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_assimilation