More Melting Pot Cultures

[DreadLindwyrm]

If they went this way, you could probably handle all the edge cases by figuring out a simple Vowell / consonant shift list.

E.g. "If Tibet conquers Iberia, the sino-Tibetan culture in Iberia takes the Tibetan name list and replaces all the ch's with g's"

Is Gogden a gibberish made up name? Yes. Are some of these names going to be worse, and distractingly ugly for some people? Yes. Is it going to be worse than the border gore that got us here? Probably not.

Vowel/consonant shifts aren't simple *within* language families (or indeed within individual languages).

That's not even to mention that in some languages the same letter group doesn't always have the same sound anyway.

"Bough" and "cough" for example. Or indeed "bow" (the action of bending at the waist) and "bow" (a knot tied in a ribbon).

 

[Manbearpig]

Given their mechanics and how they were able to go anywhere in CK2, it might be fun for Norse to have a melting pot culture for every culture group, or at least one for every culture group that traditionally has coasts. Founding Norse kingdoms in far off lands was already fun, but getting a unique culture out of it would be awesome.

I agree, I feel the most relevant melting pots to focus on would be Norse with every culture group, as well as expanded melting pots for the Crusades for which this game is named. There could be one more influenced by Berbers for Crusaders in North Africa, one more influenced by the Copts for Egypt, Outremer in Jerusalem, one more influenced by Greeks for the Latin Empire, one more influenced by Assyrians for Mesopotamia, one more influenced by Persians, etc.

While I like the idea of dynamic melting pots, I would strongly fear that they would all suffer in terms of depth.

 

[Tschobo]

The biggest issue is the missing culture dev diaries. While I want customizable melting pots for the player, it could be impossible for a potentially new system where they decided to give each culture more depth. I would love to see more culture-wise first from the devs.

 

[Tyrannus]

Just some thoughts:

1) Limit the melting parts, except for special cases like Normandy, to independent dukes or higher. This would be to reduce the frequency for it happening.

2) Name the merged culture after the location, maybe even using the more modern form of the name. The melting pots that I can think of all match the location names (England, Italian, Spanish, Norman). If the kingdom’s name is used already, then do a duchy name.

3) I am agnostic on what to do with name lists (I would be happy with them being merged but understand why people disagree), but probably the cleanest way to do it is to keep the foreign culture's name list. Have existing local dynasties keep names that have already been used in addition to the new culture's names. If that's not possible, then have the existing dynasties keep their old name lists.

4) Make clothing match the local culture as suggested above. That makes a ton of sense.

5) Make the default ethnicity for new characters a blend, with more weight to the local culture if that is possible.

6) If one culture has a special feature (sails up rivers, etc.), then give the new culture that same feature. If both have features, then use the local culture's features with a small RNG chance that they are combined with the foreign culture's features.

7) If CK3 has special troop types, than keep the troops of the local culture.



I would think that a melting pot mechanic will be much more likely to be created if it relies on rules rather than creating new name lists, culture names, etc.

 

[Manbearpig]

In addition to the obvious language issues that everyone has pointed out, that is far from the end of the questions for us to be asking. In these hypothetical dynamic melting pots, is one culture dominant? That means that you have to double the already huge number of potential melting pots, determining what clothes and martial gear is used, the previously mentioned naming, cultural titles and title names.
And then you get into ethnicity, which cannot be ignored as newly generated characters of your new melting pot need to have some sort of set ethnicity to use. So do you just use the dominant culture's ethnicity?
Or do they use a blend of the two ethnicities? That assumes that there even is a blend of every ethnicity, in CK2 there were numerous different blends used for different ethnicities breeding, but many were too close that the children just use one or the other.
Or do you use the After the End system where you put both ethnicities within the new culture?

 

[MinotaurWarrior]

Vowel/consonant shifts aren't simple *within* language families (or indeed within individual languages).

That's not even to mention that in some languages the same letter group doesn't always have the same sound anyway.

"Bough" and "cough" for example. Or indeed "bow" (the action of bending at the waist) and "bow" (a knot tied in a ribbon).

So?

Tibet invading Spain doesn't make sense. Tibetan culture entirely replacing Spanish culture with no modifications is a vast oversimplification. Tibetan-Iberian merging being based on a find-and replace of character strings from both languages being transliterated into the English alphabet (ñ is still missing, right?) is a slightly less vast oversimplification.

Gogden is a gibberish name. The "ch" in Chogden isn't even pronounced like the "ch" that became "g" in some Spanish names, and the "g" in "Chogden" is also transliterated as a "k" and isn't really quite either. The simple solution isn't an answer to "what is the most academically robust method possible" it's just an answer to "how can we economically handle a problem that exists on factorial scale".

If you have name lists for each culture, and find & replace rules for each location, you can easily generate every combination.

 

[Despotism]

I think making a melting pot culture system would cause more problems than it fixes. Just look at Stellaris half-species and you will get the idea of where that might lead.
It would be much simpler to just make melting pot cultures that happened historically, put in some plausible melting pot cultures that might have been formed had history gone differently (for example, Outremer), and a few fun ones like Norse melting pot cultures for every culture group.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

So?

Tibet invading Spain doesn't make sense. Tibetan culture entirely replacing Spanish culture with no modifications is a vast oversimplification. Tibetan-Iberian merging being based on a find-and replace of character strings from both languages being transliterated into the English alphabet (ñ is still missing, right?) is a slightly less vast oversimplification.

Gogden is a gibberish name. The "ch" in Chogden isn't even pronounced like the "ch" that became "g" in some Spanish names, and the "g" in "Chogden" is also transliterated as a "k" and isn't really quite either. The simple solution isn't an answer to "what is the most academically robust method possible" it's just an answer to "how can we economically handle a problem that exists on factorial scale".

If you have name lists for each culture, and find & replace rules for each location, you can easily generate every combination.

And using that "find and replace" system, you get names that resemble neither parent.

That's not a solution to the issue at all.

And yes, I agree that Tibetan just replacing Spanish doesn't make sense. But simply replacing all appearances of a particular letter or digraph with another letter or diagraph systematically isn't an answer to how to create a workable namelist. You need to (if you're going to do this sort of thing) consider how the sounds work, and that will require manual work and a lot of thought. There are multiple ways to write sounds in a lot of languages, and you can't simply take all examples that share a given letter combination and just replace them with a different one to represent a vowel or consonant shift. Remember that "ghoti" is a phonetic way to write the same sounds as "fish", but could also be pronounced something more like "goatee", depending on where your syllable breaks are - (is that gh-o-ti (as (enou)gh-(w)o(men)-(sta)ti(on), or g(olf)-ho(tel)-ti(ssue) ?). Both of those to be transliterated into another language would require different syllable combinations based on the phoneme being used. And then of course it doesn't cover names that are *broadly* pronounced the same becoming merged to one or the other spelling even if the transcription wouldn't make sense.

If you were using English as the language being transliterated would you treat a lone "c" as an "s", or a "k" sound? (It can be both from the same four letter word - a "celt" (selt) is a stone age knife; a "celt" (kelt) is a member of a north western european culture; "celtic" (keltic) is that culture; "celtic" (seltic) is a football team in Scotland.

The same principle applies to many, many letter combinations across many, many languages and there isn't a clear shift *even inside a language as it develops*.

 

[pesco77]

Understanding that dynamic melting pots could be cool but could also be awkward due to the historical fiction aspect and some problematic details (what names to use?), the choice would be great. I don't see this choice affecting Ironman at all.

Rule: Allow Melting Pot Cultures
Yes - Dynamic and Historical
Yes - Historical only
No

 

[MinotaurWarrior]

And using that "find and replace" system, you get names that resemble neither parent.

That's just false. A fake name that is a few letters off from a real name resembles that real name. Especially to someone unfamiliar with it, Gogden looks as much like Chogden as Chokden does.

And yes, I agree that Tibetan just replacing Spanish doesn't make sense. But simply replacing all appearances of a particular letter or digraph with another letter or diagraph systematically isn't an answer to how to create a workable namelist

work·a·ble
(wûr′kə-bəl)
adj.
1. Capable of being put into effective operation; practicable or feasible:

It is, in fact, very feasible. You already have the name lists. You create the shift-lists in as little as an afternoon. The combinations are generated in seconds.

You need to (if you're going to do this sort of thing) consider how the sounds work, and that will require manual work and a lot of thought. There are multiple ways to write sounds in a lot of languages, and you can't simply take all examples that share a given letter combination and just replace them with a different one to represent a vowel or consonant shift. Remember that "ghoti" is a phonetic way to write the same sounds as "fish", but could also be pronounced something more like "goatee", depending on where your syllable breaks are - (is that gh-o-ti (as (enou)gh-(w)o(men)-(sta)ti(on), or g(olf)-ho(tel)-ti(ssue) ?). Both of those to be transliterated into another language would require different syllable combinations based on the phoneme being used. And then of course it doesn't cover names that are *broadly* pronounced the same becoming merged to one or the other spelling even if the transcription wouldn't make sense.

If you were using English as the language being transliterated would you treat a lone "c" as an "s", or a "k" sound? (It can be both from the same four letter word - a "celt" (selt) is a stone age knife; a "celt" (kelt) is a member of a north western european culture; "celtic" (keltic) is that culture; "celtic" (seltic) is a football team in Scotland.

The same principle applies to many, many letter combinations across many, many languages and there isn't a clear shift *even inside a language as it develops*.

(emphasis mine)

You don't need to do any of that. I can say, with almost absolute certainty, that they aren't going to do that. What you are describing is an unworkable solution. There's likely going to be at least thousands of possible combinations. Those can't be handcrafted.

What you're adopting is an all-or-nothing approach to accurate linguistic theory that probably says we shouldn't include half the cultures in the game because the devs likely still aren't going to include all the characters needed to write out their names properly.

The only possible paths to take are less realistic than what you're talking about. The most likely path (The Tsenpo of Hispania spreads pure Tibetan culture to every province with an unmodified name list) is at least as unrealistic as making up melting pot cultures in a doable way.

 

[0yvind]

Naming your dynamic melting pots has potential problems.

Firstly you need to have the ability to give all of the cultures a "prefix and suffix" versions (So English is Anglo- and -English, French is Franco- and -French etc).
Not too bad as things go, but it'll need some work in some cases; I don't think there's a clear "Norse" prefix, as I'm used to seeing Norse always as the suffix for a blended culture.

Then we have to consider what happens when two blended cultures interact, and we have to create a blend of a blend.

For example, Anglo-Norse merges with Austro-Lombard. Do we pick two roots at random in order to keep the name length under control, or do we have Anglo-Austro-Lombardo-Norse or some other excessively long combination?

In regards to creating and naming new dynamic cultures, I've been wondering if it perhaps would be an interesting idea to name the new culture after a ruling dynasty of that new culture? Perhaps it is nonsensical, but I have an impression that both cultures (and places) often trace their name from some ancient ruler or dynasty. At least for some places in Norway it seems to be the case.

Anyway, I think it's an interesting thought.

 

[Manbearpig]

I think making a melting pot culture system would cause more problems than it fixes. Just look at Stellaris half-species and you will get the idea of where that might lead.
It would be much simpler to just make melting pot cultures that happened historically, put in some plausible melting pot cultures that might have been formed had history gone differently (for example, Outremer), and a few fun ones like Norse melting pot cultures for every culture group.

Yes, any automatic system would be doomed to flood the map with tons of silly melting pots that we would see every game, like French-Breton, Bedouin-Andalusia-to-Punjab, Castilian-Andalusian, Swedish-Finnish, Turkish-Persian. Plus they are almost certain to have awkwardness from the system being automatic and lack the kind of flavor that you would expect from those cool melting pot cultures.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

That's just false. A fake name that is a few letters off from a real name resembles that real name. Especially to someone unfamiliar with it, Gogden looks as much like Chogden as Chokden does.

Only if the names *as they would be pronounced* with those letter combinations resemble the original. If you're changing the name by substituting the wrong letters, then it no longer resembles the original.

Changing "Carlos" to "Sarlos" doesn't resemble the original. Changing "Cynthia" to "Kinthea" doesn't resemble the original.

work·a·ble
(wûr′kə-bəl)
adj.
1. Capable of being put into effective operation; practicable or feasible:

It is, in fact, very feasible. You already have the name lists. You create the shift-lists in as little as an afternoon. The combinations are generated in seconds.

And the shift lists inevitably create *wrong* name versions when machine methods are used. This means that the solution is unfit for purpose and thus cannot be put into *effective* operation.

(emphasis mine)

You don't need to do any of that. I can say, with almost absolute certainty, that they aren't going to do that. What you are describing is an unworkable solution. There's likely going to be at least thousands of possible combinations. Those can't be handcrafted.

What you're adopting is an all-or-nothing approach to accurate linguistic theory that probably says we shouldn't include half the cultures in the game because the devs likely still aren't going to include all the characters needed to write out their names properly.

The only possible paths to take are less realistic than what you're talking about. The most likely path (The Tsenpo of Hispania spreads pure Tibetan culture to every province with an unmodified name list) is at least as unrealistic as making up melting pot cultures in a doable way.

If you're going to create namelists that are usable and resemble their predecessors, then you do in fact need to consider the original and final sounds. Otherwise you might as well not bother with transliterating the names at all, and just pull random names out of nowhere.
If of course the goal *isn't* to create usable namelists that resemble their predecessors, then we're completely at cross purposes.

It would also help if the names were guaranteed to be able to be pronounced, which isn't the case when machine transliterating by strict, simple rules.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

In regards to creating and naming new dynamic cultures, I've been wondering if it perhaps would be an interesting idea to name the new culture after a ruling dynasty of that new culture? Perhaps it is nonsensical, but I have an impression that both cultures (and places) often trace their name from some ancient ruler or dynasty. At least for some places in Norway it seems to be the case.

Anyway, I think it's an interesting thought.

It's not *terrible*, although having a "de Normandie" culture or a "Guelph" culture would seem weird, especially if the culture spreads to other dynasties and potentially all members of the original dynasty convert to other cultures.

Maybe naming it by region that it appears in - although this has problems if there is more than one culture arises in an area.

 

[Atimo3]

If you're going to create namelists that are usable and resemble their predecessors, then you do in fact need to consider the original and final sounds. Otherwise you might as well not bother with transliterating the names at all, and just pull random names out of nowhere.

What percentaje of the playerbase knows or care enough about the linguistic characteristics of a of 2 different linguistic families and how and hypothetical pidgin of both would look like for this to be a problem?

Naming someone Sarlos is only a problem if the player understand why that would even be a problem. Wich is not going to be the case 99% of the time.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

What percentaje of the playerbase knows or care enough about the linguistic characteristics of a of 2 different linguistic families and how and hypothetical pidgin of both would look like for this to be a problem?

Naming someone Sarlos is only a problem if the player understand why that would even be a problem. Wich is not going to be the case 99% of the time.

Remember that the example of "Carlos > Sarlos" is one that you can get within a culture group, or between neighbouring ones.
You can (potentially) see this in a situation where the mistransliteration of a name is very, very obvious - it isn't something that will only happen with widely spaced culture/language groups.

 

[Tschobo]

Well. It seems that cultures are much more dynamic. There is a picture with cultural fascination.

New CK3 pictures from Steam, RockPaperShotgun and GameWatcher

forum.paradoxplaza.com

Also Cumbrian Culture is confirmed.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

Well. It seems that cultures are much more dynamic. There is a picture with cultural fascination.

New CK3 pictures from Steam, RockPaperShotgun and GameWatcher

forum.paradoxplaza.com

Also Cumbrian Culture is confirmed.

Does Cumbria actually have any culture?

It's good to see smaller cultures showing up provided that the heirarchy makes sense, and doesn't result in two (relatively) peaceable neighbouring cultures hating each other with a fury like a thousand suns.

 

[Geodynamis]

The main melting pots I want to see is Sicilian for Southern Italy, as well as an Anglo-Nordic melting pot (either due to successful Viking invasions in 867, or Harald Hadrada claiming the throne of England).

 

[Tschobo]

The main melting pots I want to see is Sicilian for Southern Italy, as well as an Anglo-Nordic melting pot (either due to successful Viking invasions in 867, or Harald Hadrada claiming the throne of England).

Sicilian is actually confirmed and is a hell of a ride to get (it needs 4-5 cultures). I aslo would love a Danelaw culture, which should be possible. Don't know much about alt-history cultures though (like a Berber-Norse culture etc).