Historicity - Culture group "east asian"

[L'Afrique]

If we separate out languages based on how people say it, you would need a few dozen cultural groups in China alone.

Er, that IS how languages are separated. And anyone who knows about Chinese linguistics would tell you that China has many, many near-incomprehensible dialects, that would certainly be considered different languages if they had not been a united state for so long. Writing is simply a representation of a language and has no bearing on how it is classified. See Croatian and Serbian. Hell, you say Japanese and Chinese must be similar languages because they share a written system, we must also say that Japanese and English are similar because I can write Japanese entirely in romaji. No, wait, you have no idea what you're on about.

 

[Checco]

Having studied Japanese and Chinese history, I can only agree with the fact their cultures should be treated very differently.

I also wholeheartely agree with the fact Italy should have more subcultures, being Italian myself (if Albanian as a subculture exists in just one few-populated province, I do not see why the same couldn't be done for largely populated italian city-states).

The problem, game-wise, is what happens when rebels make provinces defect, with the very strange unhistorical outcomes this thread vastly described.

Maybe the vanilla game itself should (or could) be more designed to manage more culture and subculture groups, something I suggested often in the forum.

The answer is often: 'Modding is easy, just make the adjustments you see fit, after all the game is very modder-friendly', which is true, the problem is that it cannot be done in MP, as the MP community will not use a mod for just these changes.

Regarding SP, one can make his own modding himself I guess, unless the devs decide to shape the game to manage cultures differently (though I find it hard, those among us asking for culture focus just had the Culture map , I doubt the devs wish to spend too much time for requests which change the gameplay few).

 

[Evie HJ]

The forms of the hiragana originate from the cursive script style of Chinese calligraphy. The figure below shows the derivation of hiragana from manyōgana via cursive script. The upper part shows the character in the regular script form, the center character in red shows the cursive script form of the character, and the bottom shows the equivalent hiragana.

The form. The *SHAPE* of the characters. Not the idea of using a limited alphabet to represent sound in order to better represent the Japanesse language than Kanji did. That's like saying that if I take the twenty-six letters of the latin alphabet and use each of them to represent a word (eg, A represents a mountain, B represents glasses, C represent a mouth...), I'm still using the latin alphabet.

As for Chinese being able to understand (the basics, anyway - I've known a few Chinese-readers and I know they were definitely not fluent-level readers of Japanese) of a Japanese text, so? If they're willing to make the effort (rarely worth it), French/Italians/Spanish can often understand the general meaning of texts in each other's language, because of overlap from their common latin roots.

I'm pretty sure Spanish, French and Italian are in fact in separate culture groups...

 

[ADP101]

Point is, you have a guy ruling both England and a third of France with his subjects on both sides not complaining. In game terms, they do not deserve culture penalties.

Yes but the ruling dynasty was french (norman) and England was their respected territory. I guess you can call it an accepted culture game wise. Their culture was a mix of French and Anglo Saxon. It was also their rightful land.

On the otherhand if Ming decided to take Japan, the Japanese would definitely not treat them the same way as the French treated the French ruling dynasty of England. Theyre two different things.

 

[BritNavFan]

If they're willing to make the effort (rarely worth it), French/Italians/Spanish can often understand the general meaning of texts in each other's language, because of overlap from their common latin roots.

I'm pretty sure Spanish, French and Italian are in fact in separate culture groups...

As an aside, my father spoke Latin and Italian, but not Spanish. When he met Spanish-speakers in a social setting, he would try to talk to them: he'd say something in Latin, and they'd say "I got most of that but not this word or that word", then he'd repeat it using Italian where they didn't understand the Latin. It was slow, but they could understand each other.

Regarding Checco's post, if people are interested we could make a community cultures mod or a community enhancements-to-stuff-outside-Europe mod. I don't think Paradox is going to do much more with the game given that they've given the Magna Mundi group the rights to use the engine, and in any case Paradox hasn't shown much interest in anything outside Europe recently.

From what I've seen so far, most people agree it makes sense to split Korean and Japanese into their own culture groups, and one person made a good case for splitting Tibetan from Burmese. Ryuku could be a subculture of Japanese (but it doesn't make much difference because they're Animist religion, so whoever conquers and converts them will change their culture.) How Manchu culture should be classified remains an interesting question. (I've thought of starting it as "Jurchen" culture, in the Altaic group, and then allowing it to change to "Manchu" culture, in the Chinese group, around the time of Nurhachi.) Presumably the three provinces of Yunnan should have their own culture - if so, would it be Burmese, Tibetan, or Thai group?

Here's a question for the more knowledgable of you: what religion should the Manchu be classified under? On the one hand, they don't seem to have had a problem with religious revolts after they took over China. On the other hand, they seem to have been quite similar in beliefs to the Buddhist Mongols. Should they start as "Buddhist" with an option to change to "Confucian"? Should "Buddhist" and "Confucian" be distinguished in game terms? As far as I know nobody fought holy wars between Buddhists and Confucians the way the Europeans fought wars between Catholics/Protestants, Catholics/Orthodox, etc., or the Muslims between Shiites and Sunnis.

 

[Dafool]

I think this boils down to the French/Spanish/Italian issue. The nations in question all have similar roots and some similar cultural characteristics, but ultimately they are not the same. They should be split up. There's really no question there. I think one of the biggest things has been overlooked. They're all in the Chinese techgroup. I think that solves the same issue as the Spanish, Italian, French, etc all being "the same." Their ways are similar, but culturally they're all somewhat distinct from each other. East Asia could use some changes, although I myself don't feel I know enough to divide them all into their appropriate culture groups, I feel it's fairly justified.

 

[ADP101]

what I've seen so far, most people agree it makes sense to split Korean and Japanese into their own culture groups, and one person made a good case for splitting Tibetan from Burmese.
Here's a question for the more knowledgable of you: what religion should the

Wait... Tibetan is in the Burmese group?.... your joking right?:wacko:

 

[Trin Tragula]

Wait... Tibetan is in the Burmese group?.... your joking right?:wacko:

It makes more sense than Japanese and Chinese sharing a group Atleast language wise they're related (unlike Japanese and Chinese I might add)... As has been stated numerous times in this thread that alone doesn't a culture group make though.

 

[BritNavFan]

Wait... Tibetan is in the Burmese group?.... your joking right?:wacko:

Of course! I thought everyone knew that! :rofl:

(seriously, check your vanilla files)

 

[unmerged(193439)]

Cultural differences in upper Italy greater than those between China and Japan?

And Milan deserves its own culture different from that of Verona or Venice while we should be content with the fact that Japan and China are at least in the same cultural group?
Then, I don't see why Kyushu and Tohoku culture should be lumped into one Japanese culture let alone China and Japan being in a same cultural group. Same with Samnam (Gyungsang + Cholla) and Hwabuk (northern part of Pyongahn). After all, they all spoke different dialects, spelled things differently (kana and Korean letters did not have unified ways of spelling things before modernization efforts in the late 19th century much like pre-modern English), had distinct cuisine, distinct clothing, and different attitude toward foreigners around them and isolationism.

I appreciate this game and love the developers for their efforts to depict history as correctly as possible, but please, a game is just a game. They made the game this way just to balance the game out. Let's be more tactful and let's not state something that is totally misrepresentative of actual history and culture of peoples and regions where your hand-on sources of information is limited to a few articles on Wikipedia.

 

[yuje]

As an aside, my father spoke Latin and Italian, but not Spanish. When he met Spanish-speakers in a social setting, he would try to talk to them: he'd say something in Latin, and they'd say "I got most of that but not this word or that word", then he'd repeat it using Italian where they didn't understand the Latin. It was slow, but they could understand each other.

Regarding Checco's post, if people are interested we could make a community cultures mod or a community enhancements-to-stuff-outside-Europe mod. I don't think Paradox is going to do much more with the game given that they've given the Magna Mundi group the rights to use the engine, and in any case Paradox hasn't shown much interest in anything outside Europe recently.

From what I've seen so far, most people agree it makes sense to split Korean and Japanese into their own culture groups, and one person made a good case for splitting Tibetan from Burmese. Ryuku could be a subculture of Japanese (but it doesn't make much difference because they're Animist religion, so whoever conquers and converts them will change their culture.) How Manchu culture should be classified remains an interesting question. (I've thought of starting it as "Jurchen" culture, in the Altaic group, and then allowing it to change to "Manchu" culture, in the Chinese group, around the time of Nurhachi.) Presumably the three provinces of Yunnan should have their own culture - if so, would it be Burmese, Tibetan, or Thai group?

Here's a question for the more knowledgable of you: what religion should the Manchu be classified under? On the one hand, they don't seem to have had a problem with religious revolts after they took over China. On the other hand, they seem to have been quite similar in beliefs to the Buddhist Mongols. Should they start as "Buddhist" with an option to change to "Confucian"? Should "Buddhist" and "Confucian" be distinguished in game terms? As far as I know nobody fought holy wars between Buddhists and Confucians the way the Europeans fought wars between Catholics/Protestants, Catholics/Orthodox, etc., or the Muslims between Shiites and Sunnis.

I'm somewhat the reverse of your father: I know Latin and Spanish, but not Italian, and I too found that I could understand much of Italian, but not quite, during my past trip to Italy. But with a bit of vocabulary from a travel phrasebook, I found I could communicate quite adequately enough for travel since I already had the Romance grammar basics down and basically just needed to know more Italian vocabulary.

Back to your question, at the time of the game, Yunnan was a mix of all the ethnic groups you mentioned, plus Han Chinese. For most of the several centuries prior to the Ming, the ruling class tended to be of the Bai ethnic group. The anthropologists aren't sure of their exact relation than that it's definitely Sino-Tibetan. Their language is hypothesized to be an early split off from Chinese during ancient times, but it's hard to tell since their language has continuously borrowed from Chinese throughout the centuries and it's hard to tell apart the indigenous vocabulary from the native one.

In game terms, Yunnan would be a mixed bag, but some of the southern areas, (Xishuang Banna), I would make Theravada Shan (in the Tai group). The cities, like Kunming, would either be Confucian Bai, or Han Chinese (I'm not sure at which point Han becomes a majority), but Bai I think would be justified as part of the Chinese culture group. Outside the cities, I think it should probably be largely pagan. There's over 40 ethnic groups there in modern times, which can't be represented in game terms, but I think putting pagan Bai or pagan Shan works for this purpose.

The Manchus were Tibetan/Mongolian-style Buddhists, and never stopped being so even in their course of Chinese rule, but they also adopted Confucian trappings in addition to this, as Emperors would literally perform quick-changes when going from administering with his ministers to greeting Tibetan religious embassies. This could be represented in the game with the Manchus (after controlling China) have either Confucianism or Buddhism as their state religion, but have full-tolerance for same-religion group religions. Mongols on the other hand, would have Buddhism as state religion, but intolerance for same-religion group (historically, during Mongol rule, they allowed Taoist monasteries to be confiscated for Tibetan Buddhist purposes).

Edit: In terms of Confucian/Buddhist holy wars, Buddhism actually was actively persecuted several times in Chinese history, as it was seen as a strange foreign religion. It came to be accepted and tolerated a few centuries previous to the EU3 timeline. During the EU3 timeline, Confucianism and Buddhism were in conflict in Korea, as the pro-Neoconfucian ministers in Korea suppressed Buddhism, ended state religious support, closed monasteries and so on. In game terms, Korea during EU3 had low tolerance for heretics during this period, while China had opted for the "Declaration of indulgences" decision some centuries earlier.

 

[yuje]

It makes more sense than Japanese and Chinese sharing a group Atleast language wise they're related (unlike Japanese and Chinese I might add)... As has been stated numerous times in this thread that alone doesn't a culture group make though.

It makes far more sense for Burmese and Thai to share a group than for Burmese and Tibetan. Burmese and Tibetan Buddhism are very very different. While the Burmese and Thais may have been fierce rivals, they have the same religion, and very similar cultural values, and they didn't have trouble ruling over each others' peoples. Their rulers demanded the peasant's loyalties, not their assimilation. Burmese and Thai share Theravada Buddhism, Indian-influenced cultures, both have their own version of the Ramayana as their national epics, their cuisines, dress, architecture are similar, and even the same sports (Burmese kickboxing is very similar to Muay Thai).

 

[ltm6942]

I like your thoughts on how to mod china
http://www.europa-universalis.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10724184&postcount=91

I am making a japan only mod and am wondering your thoughts on how you would handle religion their??

 

[Checco]

And Milan deserves its own culture different from that of Verona or Venice while we should be content with the fact that Japan and China are at least in the same cultural group?

I appreciate this game and love the developers for their efforts to depict history as correctly as possible, but please, a game is just a game. They made the game this way just to balance the game out. Let's be more tactful and let's not state something that is totally misrepresentative of actual history and culture of peoples and regions where your hand-on sources of information is limited to a few articles on Wikipedia.

I did not understand if this is a reply to my last post, but to clarify, I wish to point it out 2 things:

1) I think that both: the Italian city-states should have more subcultures and Japan should definitely be in a culture group different from China (I do not see how it was not clear, re-reading what I wrote).

2) As for Japan/China, I assure you there is much more than 'few articles on Wikipedia' to demonstrate what many others wrote, the thesis is easy to explain with a huge amount of quotes.

For Italian subcultures, I only have to make quotes when I have to make the situation clear to others, since living in north Italy myself makes most of my point self-evident to me.

Regarding Checco's post, if people are interested we could make a community cultures mod or a community enhancements-to-stuff-outside-Europe mod

That could be interesting.

Please feel free to contact me if the project gathers enough adepts .

 

[Evie HJ]

As an aside, my father spoke Latin and Italian, but not Spanish. When he met Spanish-speakers in a social setting, he would try to talk to them: he'd say something in Latin, and they'd say "I got most of that but not this word or that word", then he'd repeat it using Italian where they didn't understand the Latin. It was slow, but they could understand each other.

Regarding Checco's post, if people are interested we could make a community cultures mod or a community enhancements-to-stuff-outside-Europe mod. I don't think Paradox is going to do much more with the game given that they've given the Magna Mundi group the rights to use the engine, and in any case Paradox hasn't shown much interest in anything outside Europe recently.

Indeed.

Cards on the table, I've got a enhance-stuff-outside-Europe mod largely under work. Most of what's been done on it so far focuses on North America, and some of the decisions my co-modder and I have made may be controversial and unpopular (especially the part where we kill standard map-painting colonization, via putting native nations of this or that sort mostly everywhere - national decisions, spy missions and blatant conquest is how you take over the world now. Unless I can finally fire up an event that can obliterate a city, but so far, no luck there), but if anyone's willing to join in the effort, drop me a line.

Particularly if you have working knowledge of African, Australian or South American history. (South/South-East Asian history, too).

For the curious, here's what the culture groups in North America tends toward right now (primaries have yet to be added/readded, as well as the occasional union tags - Great Western Confederacy for the central algonquians, etc) :

iroquoian = {
	iroquis = {
		primary = IRO
	}
	huron = {
		primary = HUR
	}
	laurentian = {
	}
	susquehannock = {
	}
	tuscarora = {
	}
	cherokee = {
		primary = CHE
	}
	erie = {
	}
}

eastern_algonquian = {
	abenaki = {
	}
	mikmaq = {
	}
	massachusett = {
	}
	pequot = {
	}
	powhatan = {
	}
	conoy = {
	}
	mahican = {
	}
	delaware = {
	}
}

central_algonquian = {
	montagnais = {
	}
	cree = {
	}
	anishinaabe = {
	}
	algonquin = {
	}
	fox = {
	}
	illinois = {
	}
	shawnee = {
	}
	beothuk = {
	}
}

muskogean = {
	creek = {
	}
	natchez = {
	}
	yamasee = {
	}
	choctaw = {
	}
	chickasaw = {
	}
	karankawa = {
	}
}

siouan = {
	assiniboine = {
	}
	tutelo = {
	}
	osage = {
	}
	quapaw = {
	}
	kansa = {
	}
	sioux = {
	}
	chiwere = {
	}
}

caddoan = {
	caddo = {
	}
	pawnee = {
	}
	wichita = {
	}
}

apachean = {
	western_apache = {
	}
	eastern_apache = {
	}
	navajo = {
	}
}

numic = {
	comanche = {
	}
	shoshone = {
	}
	paiute = {
	}
	pueblo = {
	}
	hokan = {
	}
}

pacific_coast = {
	yokutian = {
	}
	klamath = {
	}
	tsimshian = {
	}
	sahaptian = {
	}
	salish = {
	}
}

na_dene = {
	tlingit = {
	}
	northern_athabsacan = {
	}
	eyak = {
	}
	haida = {
	}
	wakashan = {
	}
}

eskimo_aleut = {
	yupik = {
	}
	inuit = {
	}
	aleutian = {
	}
}

kiowa_tanoan = {
	pueblo = {
	}
	kiowa = {
	}
}

plains_algonquian = {
	arapaho = {
	}
	cheyenne = {
	}
	blackfoot = {
	}
}

(As you can probably guess, the map has been somewhat expanded as well)

Ì may end up tweaking things down a little on the number of cultures.

 

[unmerged(193439)]

To Checco,

my previous post is not actually aimed at you, Checco, although you could have taken it as an attempt to rebut your arguments. Being totally honest with you, I haven't read your post closely, but I do believe that you have not mentioned anything about the scales of cultural differences in both parts of the world. I apologize if I have made myself confusing to you all.

Continuing on with my defense here on what I wrote last time, I never said that "everyone" here is making an argument only based on Wikipedia. I found a very few incidences where it seems like someone is making both historically and politically incorrect arguments such as kana letters were shared by Chinese (Wikipedia actually never says this, and I think the quoter misunderstood the article), and hence, the Chinese and Japanese share almost identical writing systems and culture! I never wanted to make such a rude impression to everyone here, but again, if my writing was unclear I do want to apologize again.

 

[ADP101]

the Chinese and Japanese share almost identical writing systems and culture! I never wanted to make such a rude impression to everyone here, but again, if my writing was unclear I do want to apologize again.

Yes but as said earlier so do many of the latin (wesern europeon culture). And if you study other things besides language, you'll find that japanese and chinese cultures have their other outside influence. China of course is land based, so they have culture coming from SE asia, Mongolia (and not to mention the several sub-cultures in china). Japan on the other hand is an island based civilization, they value the sea while China values more earthy things. This is seen heavily in their artwork.

Lets put this to rest: YES KOREAN CHINESE AND JAPANESE CULTURES ARE SIMILAR; The Korean and Chinese share many festivals and all three of them share similar morals and ethics. But so do the 3 major latin cultures in Europe (Italian, Iberian, and French). In both instances, they have a similar writing system that came from one original source. BUT at the same time they have differences that need to be represented.

If your a Spanish person going to Italy, you'll see similarties in culture like art, food, religion, language etc. If your a Japanese person going to Korea, you will also see similiarities like the ones mentioned above

At the same time if your a spanish person going to italy, you'll see differences in art, food, religion, and language. Yes they are similiar (its a shame that EUIII doesnt have a 3 layer culture system) but it would be weird putting Spanish and Italian cultures in the same group. So putting Chinese, Japanese, and Korean cultures in the same group would be like putting French, Iberian, and Italian cultures in one group. They need to be separated.

 

[Sejong]

During the EU3 timeline, Confucianism and Buddhism were in conflict in Korea, as the pro-Neoconfucian ministers in Korea suppressed Buddhism, ended state religious support, closed monasteries and so on.

Yes and no .. there was conflict, but it wasn't religious per se. Rather it was triggered due to political and historical reasons.

The previous dynasty's policies had heavily favoured buddhist monasteries and resulted in their becoming significant economic powers, particularly in the ownership of land, and the monks became heavily engaged in politics. Stripping them of their power, both political and economic, was a political move to break with the previous dynasty's powerbrokers and was done along with reducing the amount of private land owned by the great aristocratic families. Persecution ended once the buddhist orders were under effective government control.

From a purely philosophical perspective neo-confucianism is actually a blend of confucianism (until then a governmental/moralistic philosophy) and aspects of buddhistm to form a meta-physical philosophy.

In game terms, Korea during EU3 had low tolerance for heretics during this period

Correct, although only if you define heresy as a deviation from the state-defined version of neo-confucianism .. buddhism would have been better regarded as a heathen religion in EU3 terms rather than heretical.

However that brings into question whether confucianism should be a religion at all.

 

[DarkThug]

It makes far more sense for Burmese and Thai to share a group than for Burmese and Tibetan. Burmese and Tibetan Buddhism are very very different. While the Burmese and Thais may have been fierce rivals, they have the same religion, and very similar cultural values, and they didn't have trouble ruling over each others' peoples. Their rulers demanded the peasant's loyalties, not their assimilation. Burmese and Thai share Theravada Buddhism, Indian-influenced cultures, both have their own version of the Ramayana as their national epics, their cuisines, dress, architecture are similar, and even the same sports (Burmese kickboxing is very similar to Muay Thai).

No, grouping Burmese with Tibetan is quite accurate. Our culture may be similar since we conquer and be conquered by each other for millinia. :rofl: Nevertheless, our origin is different. We have the native of Mon and Kmer, then we have Burmese who come from Tibet, followed by Tai ppl from China, thus three different culture groups there. Yunnan ppl could be in either Burmese or Tai culture group as well if you ask me.



Back to Topic, Eastern Asia could use some more work. Chinese, Korean and Japanese culture group definitely need to be seperated. But for that to happen, we'll need more sub-group in Korea and Japan else there wouldn't be much point having their own culture group if you ask me. I'm not that knowledgable about Korean, Japanese ethnic group to suggest any but I bet it's there.

Same as Eastern religion, at very least, there should be Theravada and Mahayana Budhism. Theravada in South East Asia and Mahayana in Tibet, Mongol (and Manju ?). We'll then have Bermese and Tibetan the same ethnic group but different religion, not the same old Budhism everywhere lol. China can also use some more religion variety in their teritory as well like many poster suggested. Eastern religions already have good tolerance againt heresy so I don't thik it will make Ming any harder to stay unified than it is. Just do something about that Confusian's -50% tax income instead, so we don''t cripple the Ming too much :rofl:
may be -20% for confusian, -10% for Theravada, -5% for Mahayana ? I'm not sure just a random number

 

[Garak]

Yes but as said earlier so do many of the latin (wesern europeon culture). And if you study other things besides language, you'll find that japanese and chinese cultures have their other outside influence. China of course is land based, so they have culture coming from SE asia, Mongolia (and not to mention the several sub-cultures in china). Japan on the other hand is an island based civilization, they value the sea while China values more earthy things. This is seen heavily in their artwork.

Lets put this to rest: YES KOREAN CHINESE AND JAPANESE CULTURES ARE SIMILAR; The Korean and Chinese share many festivals and all three of them share similar morals and ethics. But so do the 3 major latin cultures in Europe (Italian, Iberian, and French). In both instances, they have a similar writing system that came from one original source. BUT at the same time they have differences that need to be represented.

If your a Spanish person going to Italy, you'll see similarties in culture like art, food, religion, language etc. If your a Japanese person going to Korea, you will also see similiarities like the ones mentioned above

At the same time if your a spanish person going to italy, you'll see differences in art, food, religion, and language. Yes they are similiar (its a shame that EUIII doesnt have a 3 layer culture system) but it would be weird putting Spanish and Italian cultures in the same group. So putting Chinese, Japanese, and Korean cultures in the same group would be like putting French, Iberian, and Italian cultures in one group. They need to be separated.

The guy you'd quoting was saying the argument about them being the same was incorrect. In other words, he was basically agreeing with you.