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MadDoctorScientist

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Dec 30, 2019
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  • Europa Universalis IV: Third Rome
  • Europa Universalis IV: Cossacks
  • Europa Universalis IV: Golden Century
  • Europa Universalis IV: Dharma
  • Europa Universalis IV: Rule Britannia
  • Europa Universalis IV: Cradle of Civilization
  • Europa Universalis IV: Mandate of Heaven
  • Europa Universalis IV: Rights of Man
  • Europa Universalis IV: Mare Nostrum
  • Europa Universalis IV: Common Sense
  • Europa Universalis IV: El Dorado
  • Europa Universalis IV: Pre-order
  • Europa Universalis IV: Res Publica
  • Europa Universalis IV: Call to arms event
  • Europa Universalis IV: Wealth of Nations
  • Europa Universalis IV: Conquest of Paradise
  • Europa Universalis IV: Art of War
Important Disclaimer: I already raised this issue before, but given that Emperor is about to be released it may be worth mentioning it again. I do remember a screenshot regarding the Ark of the Covenant and reworking Catholicism implies reworking other religious populations. Seriously, the game as it is barely acknowledge the existence of Jewish communities and individuals in game, both were they existed in small or large numbers. That has been bothering for months and I have been thinking of how to highlight exactly how unfair and inconsiderate that is. And it was not easy, because at best it may sound like Cancel Culture and worst case it may sound like I am accusing Paradox of anti-Semitism. So, I am trying to be as tactful as I can while still being comprehensible to everyone and within the (rather restrictive) guidelines of the forum. So, please do not shred me to pieces. This is intended as constructive criticism and customer review, and I am trying my best to keep it as well mannered as humanly possible. Also, I really do not want to spend money on a lawyer during this economy, so that is an extra incentive.


As my previous posts and comments said, Judaism and Jews are incredibly absent from the game. Several people pointed out that given how Jewish History is not exactly lots of fun it was left out due to that. And that is quite unfair, because when I play I want the Jewish people in my realm to interact and be interacted with, both for immersion and gameplay reasons. As I have stated before, while their numbers were few it was always a influential community that provided some of the most extraordinary individuals of the day; and was also present during some of the most important, tragic and noteworthy events of the time, so their addition is more than justifiable, and their absence is both disappointing and unsettling.

The argument that Paradox, as every business under the Sun, is avoiding to better integrate and represent Jews were it is due sounds to me like a really poor argument. In another episode of "doomed if you do and doomed if you don't" the two options are adding more active and visible representation of them and risking someone complaining about the Inquisition and such, or not adding the afore mentioned and being in a situation were E.U.IV represents as best as possible all cultures and faith of back then, EXCEPT by Judaism, which was singled out. Both are not ideal positions to be in, but it is my understanding that doing the first one and risk upsetting some people is preferable to the second one, where you are guaranteed to upset most if not all of the Jewish/Jewish Enthusiast players, plus being in a situation of erasing Jewish presence and history on purpose. So, someone please correct me if I am wrong, but that sounds really bad. I mean, a province in Ethiopia and one Jewish advisor every two hundred years is barely anything, with or without the New World lost civilisation thing. Judaism is basically no-existing in game.

The game already deals with some not very subtle aspects of human History, slavery, war, persecution, genocide, religious extremism, and so on. It really makes no sense to Judaism be left out, for better or worse. If the people above are right and the intention is to avoid controversy, that is not really to work. Plus, since one of the greatest and most beautiful thing about Jewish history is how they survive and thrive no matter what you throw at them it can be noted that tragedies such as the Inquisition were the reason why the Serfadi Jews came to be, with their culture and identity and influence in History (I think I used Spinoza as the example on that other post) or the massive development of Protestant and occasionally Islamic nations in detriment of Catholic/Orthodox ones where some of the most educated and wealth individuals were forced out (not that Luther was friendly towards Jews either). So, leaving them out due to the horrible things is also leaving them out for the great things. Which, as kids would say, it sucks.
(that is also why I could raise the point that censoring the nwadis in Hearts of Iron and the forum is a terrible idea, but I am not pressing my luck here)

And as i said, I am concerned this may sound like a entitled complaint of some Cancel Culture oaf. So to clarify, these cancel culture types never consume the medias they bend to their will and will never be happy with anything offered to them. I am a player of the game with most DLCs and 2000 hours of play according to Steam, and I am not making an outrageous impossible demand either. Just the same input everyone does.

So, that is that and hopefully I will not get banned. I have yet to make a thread about how the soundtrack of the game is incredibly unoriginal.
 
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The problem with Judaism and the jews is that they never formed a majority anywhere (I believe formed a majority in the city of Thessaloniki, but even there the province includes the surrounding area so they are still a minority) and in general didn't have enough power to be important in the governing of the country (so an estate would not make sense). This combined with the fact that the game does not represent minority culture and religion creates a situation where Jews are absent in most of Europe even though they were a (small) factor in most of it. I personally do not see how they could possibly be represented in any way (outside of a few sporadic events (which are even doubtful, considering they would generally not be important enough to be discussed on the higher levels of government) and some advisors (Spinoza is actually in the game as an advisor)) that makes sense.
 
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So what would you like the devs to do about it? EUIV doesn't do a good job representing minority populations. People have been bringing this up for years, but no one has come up with a good solution.
I've seen some suggestions on this forum for a Jewish estate which I think have potential and hopefully the devs will consider those in the future.
 
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There are a couple of Jewish provinces in Ethiopia in the releasable nation of Semien. However, there was no province in Europe or the middle East in which Jews were the majority. The game excludes several other groups for that reason. There are no interactions with gypsies, Anabaptists, Unitarians, and the like. (A few minority religions are shown as heretic rebels, but those are anachronistic and silly.) The game does not have a POP system, so it is not possible to show minorities.

Regarding the Jewish estate, the Jews would be part of the burgher estate. In the game's time frame, the Jews no longer had a monopoly of lending money, so they aren't really a separate estate. (Maybe this could be shown in game by increasing burgher loyalty if tolerance of heretics and heathens is high.)
 
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As others have mentioned, the Jews were not a majority anywhere in the world, except for the Semien region of Ethiopia. EU4 does not represent minority cultures in the game at all. There are no Arvanites, Aromanians, Copts, Grikos, Mandaeans, Monguors, Votes, or Yazidis represented in the game at all.

At best, the game could make the two Jewish provinces a separate Beta Israel culture, splitting them from the Christian Amharas. It would make sense as the Beta Israel spoke a language that was different from the Amhara and it would also the Jewish Semien tag to not disappear in around 1600 AD.
 
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While i agree that jewish people should be representated better there remains the question of "could" they be represented better without fundamentally changing game systems. The mentioned lack of a majority and them not realistically being an estate leaves their impact in the flavour. I agree that we could have more events etc, maybe some good cross tag event chains but beyond that i have no idea. Do you have any concete ideas on how to implement a fitting representation?
 
While i agree that jewish people should be representated better there remains the question of "could" they be represented better without fundamentally changing game systems. The mentioned lack of a majority and them not realistically being an estate leaves their impact in the flavour. I agree that we could have more events etc, maybe some good cross tag event chains but beyond that i have no idea. Do you have any concete ideas on how to implement a fitting representation?

I gave both suggestions a lot of thought. Ultimately we will have to see how much Emperor changes things, but one thing I do remember from the original Europa Universalis was the meter that allowed you to set how much tolerance you had for other faiths. Now that is the True Faith/Heretics/Heathens values, but if there was somehow a way of making Jews sort of a state but with a tolerance value/national decision(s) of their own, that would be closer to ideal. The case of Poland in particular, showing how much it would enrich your nation to give Jews freedoms could benefit you in a way while the case of Spain or Russia persecuting the Jews would enrich you in a whole different way, possibly until things got so harsh they all moved and the estate ceases to exist to you. The same thing applying to Islamic nations were the minorities estate, that I never remember the name of, could be a separate one from the Jewish one. Not extremely accurate, but in game mechanics, Jews sometimes were more tolerated than Christians and others under Muslin rule.
So far, that was the best I can think of, but it always great to discuss each other's ideas.

I thought the Romani people could be added as a estate-ish to Slavic nations in particular, but not sure how that ties with the Cossacks. Someone more versed in their history may have a better input.
 
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I think it would be a poor choice to use the estate system for this, since estates are essentially an administrative system and not a religious one.

My personal preference would be to have religious minorities of any kind as a province modifier. These would work as triggers for a whole lot of events, likely on a new pulse. Many provinces would start with a minority as a province modifier and on conversion the old religion stays as a minority. This way not only religions wouldn't get eliminated from the game (thing judaism and zoroastriam) but also can impact events in a very fluid way if tolerance can be integrated accordingly
 
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I think it would be a poor choice to use the estate system for this, since estates are essentially an administrative system and not a religious one.

My personal preference would be to have religious minorities of any kind as a province modifier. These would work as triggers for a whole lot of events, likely on a new pulse. Many provinces would start with a minority as a province modifier and on conversion the old religion stays as a minority. This way not only religions wouldn't get eliminated from the game (thing judaism and zoroastriam) but also can impact events in a very fluid way if tolerance can be integrated accordingly

I thought of the same thing at first, but since the interaction would be de facto similar to that with the estates, the less invasive way of testing it would be the estate route. Associating minorities with provinces would be ideal, but for that they would have to remodel the whole game pretty much, and after weighting things, it would be a marvelous thing for them to do, but with the focus being adding Judaism to the game as accurately and fast as possible, the estate thing would be a simpler solution. For now, at least.
 
I thought of the same thing at first, but since the interaction would be de facto similar to that with the estates, the less invasive way of testing it would be the estate route. Associating minorities with provinces would be ideal, but for that they would have to remodel the whole game pretty much, and after weighting things, it would be a marvelous thing for them to do, but with the focus being adding Judaism to the game as accurately and fast as possible, the estate thing would be a simpler solution. For now, at least.
I have to disagree because especially with the emperor update estates become more passive parts of the government with less interaction, therefore less representation. Also the concept utilizing province modifiers is really EASY to implement, the main issue would be the workload on writing the new flavour, but that would occur regardless.
 
@MadDoctorScientist, thank you for being up. I encourage you to please writings more investigative articles about the Judaism. So the devs and people here can learn more about Jew culture and religion aspects. I am really appreciate if you do that, so we and anyone in the forum can brainstorming together. I did know some from my world religions course, but I would like to learn more in order to make better judgment. Thank you.

I think the fear for devs are misrepresented of people who they do not understand well. Plus if they are not understand and just implement like you want. Then, they will create another problem. I think you are aware right? That Judaism as religious aspect have many sects. Also Judaism as culture have different practices and languages usage. If devs decide to represent only one sect of Judaism, then another sect will not be please. I think the company tried to be professional as possible to avoid angry mobs attack.

For the technical aspects, I think events are easy for devs to do and plus it is easy to implement and least likely to create another technical problem in the game.
 
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(...) I think the fear for devs are misrepresented of people who they do not understand well. Plus if they are not understand and just implement like you want. Then, they will create another problem. I think you are aware right? That Judaism as religious aspect have many sects. Also Judaism as culture have different practices and languages usage. If devs decide to represent only one sect of Judaism, then another sect will not be please. I think the company tried to be professional as possible to avoid angry mobs attack. (...)

It is impossible to avoid angry mobs, sadly. The best course is going with the least damageable option.

But about the many sects of Judaism, I did mention the Sefardi by name. Other than that, a small representation is better than no representation. Unless they go really out of their way to ensure you have the option of restoring the ancient Kingdom of Judah/Israel as you could do in I think it was Crusader Kings II or something, Judaism is nearly guaranteed to remain as a minority. From that perspective it would make sense a generic representation of Judaism and Jewish life under the Diaspora to be added first and then be developed overtime, as it happened with other religions in game. It would be unrealistic to expect they first attempt at introducing them properly would halt the player of, say, a Catholic Poland of doing whatever because Baal Shem'Tov and Vilna Gaon started pulling each other's beards. A small start is better than nothing, and the game is seven years old by now.

The only real cultural and religious issue is if there would be the option of rebuilding a Jewish nation. That would raise issues between Messianic and non-Messianic Judaism and between Zionist and anti-Zionist Judaism. That is the only real difficult decision as I see it.
 
Have any of you bothered seeing my original post? (-__-)

I did indeed read your post which was what my response was about:

I personally do not believe Judaism should have representation in the current eu4 outside of some events (a number of events for Iberian and polish nations and maybe a few generic ones(mostly involving buffs like institution progress/spread or small development buffs) ) and maybe a few province modifiers for areas that contained a lot of Jews. As long as other minorities (who would in most cases have a bigger effect on both the local economy and the local politics) aren't represented I don't see why they should.
An estate would not make sense as they would then have the possibility of being given land which to my knowledge didn't happen.
A generic tolerance meter also wouldn't make sense as not all European countries were influenced by the jews (Spain, Portugal, Poland and (very) maybe Russia are to my knowledge the only countries in which they really had an impact) while only giving these few countries a mechanic would also not make sense as it would be arbitrary (why would Jews only go to those countries), buff countries that don't need more buffs and would probably not make much sense (for this to have any meaningful impact both sides of the meter would have to be attractive, which would be almost impossible).
Finally I also don't think province modifiers would work as you would have to create those for every single province in the game and would cause several issues (do you only track the religious minority or also the cultural one) and would in general still not give the Jews provinces (as the usually would be bigger minorities in areas, especially after the reformation).

The current state of eu4 does in my opinion just not lend itself to specific mechanics for Jews and as long as minorities aren't represented by either pops or percentages I also don't see how they could be represented in a way that is both meaningful and historical as they generally did not make up a large enough amount of the population to have an impact that would be visible in game and the local impact they had is mostly out of the scope of the game (the jewish population could have an influence on the local government and economy, but only in a few provinces and keeping track of every single province would just not make sense). These factors mean that even though Jews did have an impact on our history I do not believe the game should have specific mechanics for them (outside of events and a few province modifiers).
 
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I did indeed read your post which was what my response was about:

I personally do not believe Judaism should have representation in the current eu4 outside of some events (a number of events for Iberian and polish nations and maybe a few generic ones(mostly involving buffs like institution progress/spread or small development buffs) ) and maybe a few province modifiers for areas that contained a lot of Jews. As long as other minorities (who would in most cases have a bigger effect on both the local economy and the local politics) aren't represented I don't see why they should.
An estate would not make sense as they would then have the possibility of being given land which to my knowledge didn't happen.
A generic tolerance meter also wouldn't make sense as not all European countries were influenced by the jews (Spain, Portugal, Poland and (very) maybe Russia are to my knowledge the only countries in which they really had an impact) while only giving these few countries a mechanic would also not make sense as it would be arbitrary (why would Jews only go to those countries), buff countries that don't need more buffs and would probably not make much sense (for this to have any meaningful impact both sides of the meter would have to be attractive, which would be almost impossible).
Finally I also don't think province modifiers would work as you would have to create those for every single province in the game and would cause several issues (do you only track the religious minority or also the cultural one) and would in general still not give the Jews provinces (as the usually would be bigger minorities in areas, especially after the reformation).

The current state of eu4 does in my opinion just not lend itself to specific mechanics for Jews and as long as minorities aren't represented by either pops or percentages I also don't see how they could be represented in a way that is both meaningful and historical as they generally did not make up a large enough amount of the population to have an impact that would be visible in game and the local impact they had is mostly out of the scope of the game (the jewish population could have an influence on the local government and economy, but only in a few provinces and keeping track of every single province would just not make sense). These factors mean that even though Jews did have an impact on our history I do not believe the game should have specific mechanics for them (outside of events and a few province modifiers).

Correct me if I misread it, but your argument seems to be "the developers should not add them because they are too lazy to implement them right and Jews are a minority anyway". Did I miss something?
And the presence or absence of Jews here or there is a complex one, because of all the persecutions and what not. That is why I mentioned to JaxElite that a meter of tolerance is a good thing. Jewish presence and influence changes depending on that, some or less as the influences of the estates work.
About granting them land, thinking of Napoleon's Emancipation of the Jews, that should be a decision you can make at some point in the later game, with the possible exception of Poland and Islamic nations (only a few were that generous, but game mechanics). But as far as I remember, you can not grant lands to that estate representing Christians/Jews/etc. in the Islamic nations, yet they exist. Someone correct me if I am wrong.

Also, I am not if you considered the tiny small issue that representing everyone EXCEPT the Jews passes a not very good message. I know how much Cancel Culture-ish this sounds, but it is really weird.
 
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Finally I also don't think province modifiers would work as you would have to create those for every single province in the game and would cause several issues (do you only track the religious minority or also the cultural one) and would in general still not give the Jews provinces (as the usually would be bigger minorities in areas, especially after the reformation).
That would be high initial effort yes, but only once. I would only track religious minorities, culture needs to stay a little more abstract since doing it exactly is absolutely impossible.
Also it was not the intend to give whole provinces to jews but represent their minority

(Spain, Portugal, Poland and (very) maybe Russia are to my knowledge the only countries in which they really had an impact)
Bohemia, Prague says hello.
 
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But as far as I remember, you can not grant lands to that estate representing Christians/Jews/etc. in the Islamic nations, yet they exist. Someone correct me if I am wrong.
The whole point of the Dhimmi estate is to grant them the non-muslim provinces.
 
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But about the many sects of Judaism, I did mention the Sefardi by name. Other than that, a small representation is better than no representation. Unless they go really out of their way to ensure you have the option of restoring the ancient Kingdom of Judah/Israel as you could do in I think it was Crusader Kings II or something, Judaism is nearly guaranteed to remain as a minority. From that perspective it would make sense a generic representation of Judaism and Jewish life under the Diaspora to be added first and then be developed overtime, as it happened with other religions in game. It would be unrealistic to expect they first attempt at introducing them properly would halt the player of, say, a Catholic Poland of doing whatever because Baal Shem'Tov and Vilna Gaon started pulling each other's beards. A small start is better than nothing, and the game is seven years old by now.
Ok, I did not see that. Sorry. What about Sefardi Jews [Hispanic Jews ]? What were their beliefs? and what were their practices? [I do not know and I do not pretense to know] How about Ashkenazi Jews? How about Orthodox Jews? How about Mizrachi Jews? How about Litvish? How about Masorti Judaism? How about Reform Judaism?

If you cannot explain their belief system, I do not think you should expect the devs to understand clearly about those concepts.
 
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