New cultures in France...

[Kaigon]

Ok, in the Independent Europe Scenario I have divided the french culture into 4... but I'm not really satisfied, as the culture borders are simply ugly and they're too ahistorical (I think)...
Anyone (preferably someone knowing France) might help or come with tips...

Here's the post

 

[Twoflower]

Maybe this cultural/linguistic map of today's France helps you

Going by this, and considering that regional cultures were more widespread in the 15th century, the setup could be:
French/Oil:
Ile de France, Picardie, Artois, Champagne, Caux, Normandie, Maine, Orléanais, Nivernais, Berri, Vendée

Occitan:
Poitou, Gascogne, Guyenne, Limousin, Auvergne, Cévennes, Languedoc, Provence

Francoprovencal:
Bourgogne, Franche Comté, Dauphiné, Lyonnais, Savoie

Celtic/Brythonic:
Bretagne, Armor, Morbihan

German (or the subdivisions):
Alsace (Upper German/Alemannic), Lorraine (Middle German/Franconian)

Iberian/Catalan:
Roussillon

Basque:
Béarn

Italian:
Corsica

Dutch or Anglosaxon:
Calais

Occitan could be divided into Aquitanian, Auvergnat, Languedocien and Provencal, however I don't know if it's really needed.

 

[Kaigon]

That's almost exactly what is was looking for... thanks!... it'll become useful...

The only problem would be that the french and occitan are too big... and if I am to divide occitan, it'll be into two groups...

btw, what's the difference between francoprovencal and provencal? if there's any...

 

[unmerged(8606)]

Originally posted by Kaigon
btw, what's the difference between francoprovencal and provencal? if there's any...

Provençal is just a dialectical variant of the occitan. As you can see in the map the linguistical area of occitan is very large, so not surprisingly you can find different variants of the same language: from west to east the more important are (more or less): gascon, limousin, languedocian and provençal.

Otoh, francoprovençal is a distinct language, closely related to french and occitan (as its very name indicates).

 

[Twoflower]

Francoprovencal, as can be seen by the provinces it covers, is not identical nor even closely related to Provencal. It is a distinct group of Gallo-Rhaetian languages (including Dauphinois, Lyonnais, Neucatelais, Savoyard and Bourguignon) that evolved independently from both the Occitan and the Oil cultures, however seems similar to both, which is the reason for the somewhat strange, definitely misleading name (it is not a mixture of Northern and Southern French ínfluences).
The number of French provinces can also be reduced by making Calais Anglosaxon or Dutch (the province only represents the city and its immediate surroundings, otherwise it would be part of France in 1492) and Lorraine German, or if you want to add more detail to German, Middle German or Franconian.
Quite a good source for determining the degree of difference between certain languages and cultures is http://www.ethnologue.com/family_index.asp
Did you already work out a division of the German cultures?

 

[Kaigon]

Originally posted by Twoflower
Francoprovencal, as can be seen by the provinces it covers, is not identical nor even closely related to Provencal. It is a distinct group of Gallo-Rhaetian languages (including Dauphinois, Lyonnais, Neucatelais, Savoyard and Bourguignon) that evolved independently from both the Occitan and the Oil cultures, however seems similar to both, which is the reason for the somewhat strange, definitely misleading name (it is not a mixture of Northern and Southern French ínfluences).
The number of French provinces can also be reduced by making Calais Anglosaxon or Dutch (the province only represents the city and its immediate surroundings, otherwise it would be part of France in 1492) and Lorraine German, or if you want to add more detail to German, Middle German or Franconian.
Quite a good source for determining the degree of difference between certain languages and cultures is http://www.ethnologue.com/family_index.asp
Did you already work out a division of the German cultures?

Yeah, somewhat... but I had german instead of franconian... I think I'll rename that one...

 

[Twoflower]

German culture as a whole shouldn't be renamed to Franconian, Franconian is a possible subculture.
I've had a look at your German culture setup. If you're aiming at a similar level of detail (to your French and Iberian culture split) and somewhat accuracy, a possible division for German could be (reusing also the Swiss culture):

Alemannic:
Alsace, Baden, Württemberg, Bern, Schwyz

Bavarian:
Bavaria, Ansbach, Ostmarch, Tirol, Steiermark, Salzburg, Austria, Odenburg

Franconian:
Lorraine, Luxembourg, Köln, Pfalz, Mainz, Würzburg, Hessen

(Upper) Saxon:
Sachsen, Silesia, Anhalt

Westphalian (actually Western Low Saxon, but Westphalian is more rememberable although not accurate):
Kleve, Münster, Hannover (Oldenburg if it's not made Frisian), Bremen, Magdeburg, Holstein

Wendish (actually Eastern Low Saxon, Wendish was the term for the Hanseatic towns east of the Elbe)
Mecklenburg, Brandenburg, Küstrin, Vorpommern, Hinterpommern, Danzig

Frisian culture could be introduced in Friesland and Oldenburg

All this is only my humble suggestion, and probably wouldn't work out in standard EU2, but looks really cute and might be nice for your scenario.

 

[Kaigon]

Ok... I divided german culture into four groups...
Saxon (the central/eastern provines)
Austrian (the southern provinces)
Pommeranian (the baltic provinces)
German (the western parts)

 

[Kaigon]

My concern is that French is too big...

(Red = new, Orange = Old)

Would it be wrong to call francoprovencal burgundian... or can I use burgundian for something else?

 

[Twoflower]

Regarding French:
Burgundian is only one subbranch of Francoprovencal, hence calling the whole thing Burgundian is just as wrong as calling Occitan Provencal or German Bavarian.
French culture was quite widespread. If you feel an irresistible urge to divide it, create Picard which can be considered quite different from French in Picardie, Calais and Artois. The other subdivisions of French would only be one or two-province cultures and are not truly distinct.

Regarding German:
Your four-fold division doesn't make that much sense, you should either only have the three basic groups (Upper German, Middle German and Low Saxon) or discrimate between the west and eastern part for all three (i.e. make Alemannic and Bavarian of Upper German, Saxon and Franconian of Middle German and Westphalian and Wendish of Low Saxon). Swiss culture certainly shouldn't be separate; for historical (the Alemannic people in Helvetia were just one German cultural group of many and always considered part of the greater German culture) as well as for game balance reasons (since it's only in two provinces).

 

[unmerged(8606)]

Just another comment: if you want to stick to historicity Roussillon should have catalan culture or at least the same culture as the provinces "Girona" and "Catalonia" (I don't know if you have splitted iberian culture).

 

[Kaigon]

Originally posted by mfigueras
Just another comment: if you want to stick to historicity Roussillon should have catalan culture or at least the same culture as the provinces "Girona" and "Catalonia" (I don't know if you have splitted iberian culture).

Split into castillian, catalan and portuguese...

 

[Kaigon]

Originally posted by Twoflower
Regarding French:
Burgundian is only one subbranch of Francoprovencal, hence calling the whole thing Burgundian is just as wrong as calling Occitan Provencal or German Bavarian.
French culture was quite widespread. If you feel an irresistible urge to divide it, create Picard which can be considered quite different from French in Picardie, Calais and Artois. The other subdivisions of French would only be one or two-province cultures and are not truly distinct.

Regarding German:
Your four-fold division doesn't make that much sense, you should either only have the three basic groups (Upper German, Middle German and Low Saxon) or discrimate between the west and eastern part for all three (i.e. make Alemannic and Bavarian of Upper German, Saxon and Franconian of Middle German and Westphalian and Wendish of Low Saxon). Swiss culture certainly shouldn't be separate; for historical (the Alemannic people in Helvetia were just one German cultural group of many and always considered part of the greater German culture) as well as for game balance reasons (since it's only in two provinces).

Ok, your three-culture systems looks good to me... which culture on which province??

 

[Twoflower]

Low Saxon:
Holstein, Bremen, Oldenburg (if not Frisian), Münster, Kleve, Mecklenburg, Hannover, Magdeburg, Vorpommern, Hinterpommern, Danzig, Brandenburg, Küstrin

Middle German:
Silesia, Erz, Sachsen, Anhalt,Würzburg, Mainz, Pfalz, Lorraine, Hessen, Cologne, Luxembourg

Upper German (replaces Swiss):
Alsace, Bern, Schwyz, Baden, Württemberg, Bayern, Ansbach, Tyrol, Salzburg, Ostmarch, Austria, Steiermark, Odenburg

 

[Archeolooginspe]

If French is to big you can always use Dutch for Calais or Kales which was in those days a rather more spoken language than now. Or Picard like Twoflower suggested

 

[C.N.]

If French is still too big after removing Calais, how about splitting off Normandie and Caux and making them Norman or something?

 

[Kaigon]

It seems fine...
Here's how I planned:

(I've not decided about Oldenburg and Danzig yet)

 

[Nikolai II]

Why not use czech for Erz and Silesia as well, to get easier maps

I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with having large areas of french (oïl) culture, they were the most powerful and the ones that won.

Looking nice


:edit: What about Italy?

 

[unmerged(8606)]

Originally posted by Kaigon
Split into castillian, catalan and portuguese...

Then Roussillon should have catalan.

 

[unmerged(12474)]

Your division is quite good but there are three provinces which could be changed : Bourgogne, Franche-Comté and Provence.

Provence is franco-provincal (it is, to be more specific, where this culture finds its roots) when it is really difficult to consider Bourgogne and Franche-Comté not being french. These provinces where indeed influenced by the franco-provencal culture but were closer to the "core" french culture. The franco-provencal culture (you can name it provencal to make it short) is basically linked to the geographical area covered by the Alps.

In any case, it is totally wrong to consider that the culture of the province of Calais was not french as only really small parts of it were linked with dutch culture. In any case, Anglosaxon is not even thinkable.

About Normandie, it is true that the Norman culture was still present but most of the people in these provinces were of french cultures (the norman culture was quite weak by this time and when you consider the timespan covered by EU 2, it would be wrong to consider it was still a major culture). IIRC, the Norman culture was more present on the other side of the Channel than in Normandy at this time...

Roussillon should be Catalan (this culture is still really important today in this area even if the language is no longer commonly used on the french side of the border).