Melting-Pot Culture: Sicilian

[JohnC14]

Culture: Sicilian (Latin)

Formation Requirements:

• Ruler MUST be of Italian, Greek, or Norman culture.
• Ruler MUST be of a Christian religion.
• Province has Berber culture and is of a Christian religion.

Sicilian culture historically began to form following the Norman conquests of the region in beginning in 1038 when Islamic traditions were adopted alongside the Norman culture of its new rulers. A mix of Norman, Berber, Italian, and Greek culture created this "Melting-Pot Culture". If implemented, it could add a new layer of depth into the already turbulent region of Italy.

 

[Emikke88]

And I would love to see a Sicilian culture, Italy should have way more cultures all over.

“For over twenty-five centuries we’ve been bearing the weight of superb and heterogeneous civilizations, all from outside, none made by ourselves, none that we could call our own.

This violence of landscape, this cruelty of climate, this continual tension in everything, and even these monuments of the past, magnificent yet incomprehensible because not built by us and yet standing round us like lovely mute ghosts; all those rulers who landed by main force from every direction who were at once obeyed, soon detested, and always misunderstood, their only expressions works of art we couldn't understand and taxes which we understood only too well and which they spent elsewhere: all these things have formed our character, which is thus conditioned by events outside our control as well as by a terrifying insularity of mind.”

― Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, The Leopard

This book always makes me think of Crusader Kings, even though it is set in a different time. It really sends home how little culture of the commoners mattered in those days.

 

[Gurkhal]

While it sounds cool, I'm feeling that this is a kind of "once in a blue moon" event that will almost never fire, just like Russian, Norman and English cultures pretty much are never created due to the right circumstances almost never coming into place in my games.

I'd like to be wrong, because I like the idea, but I do see that its unlikely to happen.

 

[rbc1989]

Honestly I think Berbers should be able to form it too.

 

[Lewa263]

While it sounds cool, I'm feeling that this is a kind of "once in a blue moon" event that will almost never fire, just like Russian, Norman and English cultures pretty much are never created due to the right circumstances almost never coming into place in my games.

I'd like to be wrong, because I like the idea, but I do see that its unlikely to happen.

If you're starting from the Charlemagne start, then no, it will never happen. But in 1066, there are Normans already in position to conquer Berber Sicily. And in 1081, they have most of Sicily already and only need to convert it to Catholicism.

 

[klopkr]

Some day

 

[JohnC14]

While it sounds cool, I'm feeling that this is a kind of "once in a blue moon" event that will almost never fire, just like Russian, Norman and English cultures pretty much are never created due to the right circumstances almost never coming into place in my games.

I'd like to be wrong, because I like the idea, but I do see that its unlikely to happen.

I apologize for the very late reply but I see what you are saying. Just remember that "Once in a Blue Moon" events as you call them make the game exciting and unpredictable. What would otherwise be an uninteresting part of Europe could perhaps be a great point of contention among Italians/Normans/Berbers/Sicilians. This could result in more dynamic situations regarding revolts, crusades, jihads, and vassal diplomacy.

 

[Castimirr]

This could result in more dynamic situations regarding revolts, crusades, jihads, and vassal diplomacy.

This gave me a thought, though I suspect it would take engine-level changes. I wonder if they could use/extend the melting-pot system to create dynamicly generated cultures as a destabilizing force for large homogeneous empires.

It doesn't need to mix cultural features. Creating a copy of a culture with a different name, possibly derived from the parent culture and geographic location (e.g. North-African Norse) would be enough to trigger the "foreigner" penalties to relationships.

It would represent the various areas growing apart over time as they develop separately based on local conditions. Even with the same root traditions and religion there just isn't enough communication and movement to maintain cultural unity across long distances for centuries. (Except maybe for some of the nomad cultures, since they actually are moving between the areas.)

You could also extend it by moving the new culture to a cultural group based on terrain if it differs from the parent. The cultural adaptations you need to survive in a desert are going to push you away from a parent culture that originated in the forests of Northern Europe and closer to others that are adapted to your present environment.

In game terms new cultural groups create even larger diplomatic penalties as the culture shifts over time, encouraging independence factions/revolts while also tending to fracture political support along geographic lines.

It might be a way to model the historical forces that tended to undermine empires over time.

 

[Matihood1]

This gave me a thought, though I suspect it would take engine-level changes. I wonder if they could use/extend the melting-pot system to create dynamicly generated cultures as a destabilizing force for large homogeneous empires.

It doesn't need to mix cultural features. Creating a copy of a culture with a different name, possibly derived from the parent culture and geographic location (e.g. North-African Norse) would be enough to trigger the "foreigner" penalties to relationships.

It would represent the various areas growing apart over time as they develop separately based on local conditions. Even with the same root traditions and religion there just isn't enough communication and movement to maintain cultural unity across long distances for centuries. (Except maybe for some of the nomad cultures, since they actually are moving between the areas.)

You could also extend it by moving the new culture to a cultural group based on terrain if it differs from the parent. The cultural adaptations you need to survive in a desert are going to push you away from a parent culture that originated in the forests of Northern Europe and closer to others that are adapted to your present environment.

In game terms new cultural groups create even larger diplomatic penalties as the culture shifts over time, encouraging independence factions/revolts while also tending to fracture political support along geographic lines.

It might be a way to model the historical forces that tended to undermine empires over time.

How about we FIRST rework the melting pot mechanic so that it actually had a proper counter. Right now, both conquered provinces and your vassals will just keep flipping endlessly and you can either embrace the new melting pot culture or fight the endless flips for the rest of your campaign.

 

[Castimirr]

How about we FIRST rework the melting pot mechanic so that it actually had a proper counter. Right now, both conquered provinces and your vassals will just keep flipping endlessly and you can either embrace the new melting pot culture or fight the endless flips for the rest of your campaign.

I'm basically suggesting expanding tat so it foes it mire over time as an anti-blob mechanic. It is something to fight against and shouldn't have a direct counter.

Unless you mean resetting counties and vassals to the original culture and watching them flip again I haven't seen them flip endlessly between things. I'm not saying they don't, I have just never seen it do that.

If you mean you keep try to make it not happen so you can maintain cultural unity, that's the point. Even in one realm they should grow apart over time as each develops separately.

 

[Matihood1]

Unless you mean resetting counties and vassals to the original culture and watching them flip again I haven't seen them flip endlessly between things. I'm not saying they don't, I have just never seen it do that.

Oh, but it does happen. I've seen it in my Lombardy game, where Visigothic Hispania was actually formed by the AI but there was 1 province that became Portuguese from Suebi because it wasn't reconquered fast enough. And now all Visigothic vassals that get that province instantly swap to Portuguese, even though their liege is Visigothic and the Portuguese culture doesn't spread anywhere else.

If you mean you keep try to make it not happen so you can maintain cultural unity, that's the point. Even in one realm they should grow apart over time as each develops separately.

In this case no, I don't need that in my games, thank you very much. As a togglable setting for some people who enjoy extra difficulty, maybe. But I'd rather have cultures staying the way they are.

 

[Castimirr]

I would hope they implemented it as a game rule. I think that should be done for most new mechanics. If it holds no interest for you, that doesn't bother me.

I just see it as a way to address the issue I have seen discussed recently that the game has almost no ability to regress situations. The more a single culture spreads the more stable any empire that contains it becomes. I see that type of dynamic change as a good way to represent the divergence of culture that happens over time.

I want the extra difficulty because I find it trivial to maintain control over insanely large empires. That really needs to be much more difficult.

 

[JohnC14]

How about we FIRST rework the melting pot mechanic so that it actually had a proper counter. Right now, both conquered provinces and your vassals will just keep flipping endlessly and you can either embrace the new melting pot culture or fight the endless flips for the rest of your campaign.

That is the only issue facing melting-pot cultures as of right now. Maybe a character's Stewardship could affect this. If the character has higher Stewardship, they could be more likely to see melting-pot cultures spawn in counties and those specific cultures stay.

It already does this with converting cultures of the character in power but this could be an extension of this mechanic to circumvent this issue.