Instead of cultural conversion, why not cultural suppression?

[Pellucid]

The current culture mechanic is really clunky and stupid right now. Historically speaking, the lines of culture almost haven't changed at all in most regions of the world and, when they did, it was often by genocide or other horrors. Now, I'm not advocating that genocide be added to the game; what I am saying is that maybe, instead of being able to change cultures on demand, you should just have the ability to suppress the negative elements on a province by province basis and, if they remain suppressed for long enough, only then would culture shift.

Let's take an example. I always hate it when Castille inherits Aragon and starts switching Italy to Castillian, which is just about the most ridiculously ahistorical thing I can think of. What I propose is that they be able to spend those same DIP points (perhaps even less; maybe half or a quarter as many?) in each province to simply remove the penalty that the province being Sicilian gives them. If they do this, the province will eventually become Castillian in 50-100 years provided they can keep the following things from happening (all of which restore the penalties in the province and force Castille to do it all over again):

1. Nationalist or Patriot rebels occupy the province (creating hope for independence).
2. A nation with Sicilian as their primary culture declares war with the province as the wargoal (reigniting cultural pride).

I think this would be a lot more realistic, and would also allow us to get rid of that dumb "can't convert as long as X exists" thing that I hate so much.

 

[Friedrich von Deutschland]

sounds great I am in favor of this change.

 

[AmbroStoics]

I dislike anything that involves automatic cultural conversion. If the way accepted cultures worked was tweaked (see my thread) it'd eleminate the ahistorical and frustrating (can't convert back) AI behavior that leads to Castillian Italy and Austrian Wallonia.

 

[lolada]

I also never liked culture conversion concept in EU4, its too gamey. I think that this idea to suppress culture penalties is much better than what we have now.

 

[applecar18]

I think culture could be a bit more in-depth. There is often a difference between the culture in a city and in the country side. Also, not everyone in a city has to been the same culture right? I think a pie chart should be used to display the percentages of culture of people in the city.

 

[Y. D. Dandy]

I dislike anything that involves automatic cultural conversion. If the way accepted cultures worked was tweaked (see my thread) it'd eleminate the ahistorical and frustrating (can't convert back) AI behavior that leads to Castillian Italy and Austrian Wallonia.

This.

I like the idea of cultural suppression. I don't like the idea of automatic cultural conversion. The only time that that happened in our timeframe was when the native population was culturally close to the new one, or when there was colonization and intermarriage that pushed the borders back. In the former case, the Danes of Scania became Swedish; the Leonese, Aragonese, and southern Basques became Castillian; and the Norns of the Northern Isles became Scottish. In the latter case, the Russians settled among the Volga Finns, fragmented their territory, and gradually began to assimilate them.

I will note that intentional cultural conversion didn't just happen through genocide. The steppes became Russian because they were thinly-settled by largely-nomadic tribesmen and Slavs moved in to populate them with their serfs and sedentary feudalism. Southern Hungary became Serbian because the wars with the Ottomans depopulated the regions, and the Hungarians invited them to settle. (Note that that's a case of a country essentially culture-converting away from the accepted culture in order to increase a province's BT and MP.)

 

[Karnak]

I agree with every sentiment so far. Culture converting is rubbish, too expensive, too permanent and too easy.

I still advocate a system of spending DIP to gain 'acceptance' of a culture. Basically pay dip equal to the BT of core provinces of a specific culture, in order to lose the penalties.
The whole accepted cultures system needs a re-haul. We could integrate both culture conversion with accepted culture thresholds into one new screen for managing the cultures of the entire nation.
I advocate that only cultures originating from cores can be influenced in this manner though. A swedish core of finnish culture might be accepted, but upon conquering a new finnish culture province, it has to wait to be a core before it can gain acceptance.

Cultures should still be able to be flipped, but it shouldn't be easy.
I advocate something like settling provinces, being able to send colonists there. That would in time have a chance to increase BT, representing population and/or increased efficiency from your nation.
Once the new BT equals or surpasses the original BT of the province, the culture would swap.

Or something like that.

 

[Y. D. Dandy]

I advocate something like settling provinces, being able to send colonists there. That would in time have a chance to increase BT, representing population and/or increased efficiency from your nation.
Once the new BT equals or surpasses the original BT of the province, the culture would swap.

This would be awesome. It would allow the hordes' BT to start at a more realistic level, meaning that Muscovy doesn't take so long to conquer them but also doesn't get the huge boost it does now.

One suggestion: if the province is adjacent to a province of an accepted culture, it will become of that culture instead of the primary one. This would represent how the Finns settled Lappland and the Ukrainians much of "New Russia."