Picardie needs another culture

[Isaios]

Picardie is the only province in the English Channel that cannot be culture swapped, which irks me more than is strictly rational.

It is also not accurate as far as I can tell. The region of Picardie/Artois (and probably Calais) in the game could be represented by a separate culture of their own (Picard, Picardian which is a distinct language, and has had a culture somewhat distinct from more central France for some time), but since French already might have too many, I'd simply swap it for Wallonian and call it a day.

If keeping it as unaccepted, same-culture group (for Burgundy) is important, then swap it for Norman instead (though that can't be defended in the same way as Wallonian).

 

[elpibeuruguayo]

I always like new cultures but Paradox wont think that has a use.

 

[Isaios]

I'm generally against tiny cultures that can't ever become accepted, and since the other area that could theoretically be Picard is Wallonian, I'd just go with that, just so I don't have to utterly destroy France just so I can repopulate the coast properly

 

[Dutchman251]

You could argue that the Picardian is a different culture, but actually this makes little sense, as the current 'Francien' (just French) is mainly influenced by Picardian, and it doesn't make sense without splitting the entire culture, not only Picardia. But the current split in Wallonian and French is fine, in my opinion.

 

[Vaximillian]

I'd actually suggest to rename/remake Picardie into Artois.

 

[Isaios]

You could argue that the Picardian is a different culture, but actually this makes little sense, as the current 'Francien' (just French) is mainly influenced by Picardian, and it doesn't make sense without splitting the entire culture, not only Picardia. But the current split in Wallonian and French is fine, in my opinion.

Long as I can culture convert the province into whichever trading nation I'm currently holding the English Channel as, I'm plenty happy *shakes fist at primary nations*

 

[Itchel]

Calais was dutch

 

[Ariphaos]

This annoys me quite a bit as well.

 

[Soph]

Artois should be Dutch.

 

[SaphireSeas]

Long as I can culture convert the province into whichever trading nation I'm currently holding the English Channel as, I'm plenty happy *shakes fist at primary nations*

Grrrrrrr.........DIE FRANCE!!!!

In all seriousness I though Wiz said this aggravating nonsensical restriction was going to part ways with EU4 with Cossacks.

 

[VincentX]

Artois should be Dutch.

Uhm ... no. Calais/Kales still being Dutch by 1444 is accurate.

Artois being Dutch in 1444 isn't historically correct, not even by a long stretch. I'm not even sure how you'd come to the conclusion that it was. I literally can't find a single source that supports such a claim.

 

[Dutchman251]

Calais should be renamed into Duinkerken/Dunkerque!

 

[VincentX]

Calais should be renamed into Duinkerken/Dunkerque!

Not really. I'm fairly certain that Duinkerken/Dunkerque lies in the 'Vlaanderen' province, since its borders extend more westwards than its current counterpart does. Besides, it's much more important to have Calais/Kales as a province, because of how that city was fought over by the Flemish, French and English.

 

[Soph]

Uhm ... no. Calais/Kales still being Dutch by 1444 is accurate.

Artois being Dutch in 1444 isn't historically correct, not even by a long stretch. I'm not even sure how you'd come to the conclusion that it was. I literally can't find a single source that supports such a claim.

The region has been fought over a lot, saying something is Dutch or French would be weird considering there's not a lot of sources on the subject. I was just stating it as a hyperbole really, there's plenty of Dutch settlements in Artois, if Kales is going to be Dutch it's not such a long shot to make Artois Dutch as well. Artois was frenchified later due to a sudden switch of liege in 1477.

On the wiki it even states they spoke "Old Dutch" and "Middle Dutch" in the county as their primary two languages from 1217-1414. It's highly logical most of the populace would be dutch speaking still in 1444.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_of_Artois

Yeah, I know, noone is fond of Wikipedia and it's a bad source yadayada

If you however start looking at a detailed map of the region, you'll find that most settlements have dutch names, which have been Frenchified as well.

 

[VincentX]

The region has been fought over a lot, saying something is Dutch or French would be weird considering there's not a lot of sources on the subject. I was just stating it as a hyperbole really, there's plenty of Dutch settlements in Artois, if Kales is going to be Dutch it's not such a long shot to make Artois Dutch as well. Artois was frenchified later due to a sudden switch of liege in 1477.

On the wiki it even states they spoke "Old Dutch" and "Middle Dutch" in the county as their primary two languages from 1217-1414. It's highly logical most of the populace would be dutch speaking still in 1444.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_of_Artois

Yeah, I know, noone is fond of Wikipedia and it's a bad source yadayada

If you however start looking at a detailed map of the region, you'll find that most settlements have dutch names, which have been Frenchified as well.

Kales refers to a single city that was majority Dutch-speaking. Just like in Kales, the Dutch-speaking majority-areas of Artois and Picardy were found almost entirely along the coastline, while the inland area was majority French-speaking. There are a lot of 'old Dutch' names there, yes, but that has to be nuanced with two vital pieces of information. 1) Many of those names go back to Frankish toponomy and are leftovers from before French and Dutch split. There's a high occurence of Frankish words in French (about 20%). That doesn't mean they're somehow 20% Dutch-speaking. Common ancestors, that's all. 2) Many of the Dutch names in Artois are actually exonyms that were given by Dutch traders and later immigrants to the region (there has been a lot of immigration back and forth over time).

In any case; while there were certainly quite a few native Dutch-speakers in Artois, by and large they were the minority just about everywhere, with the exception of the coastal region and of course the current department of Duinkerke (which, like I said, I believe is part of the 'Vlaanderen'-province, since it's a necessairy area to connect it with the 'Kales'-province). Note that Artois in EU4 is already separated from its historical coastline. This leaves the province with Bethune, Arras and Douai as its major towns, all of which had few (if any) Dutch speakers in 1444.

Taking a good look at how Paradox has made the map, the below is what I'm seeing, transplanted to a modern map. Province borders in grey. The blue line marks the commonly accepted language border between Dutch (orange province names) and French (blue province names) around the start of EU4. As you can see, Paradox is already quite generous to the Dutch with its borders. If anything, you should be happy that Artois has Wallonian for culture and not Francien. At least you get a shot at culture converting it.

Personally, I'm already happy enough Kales starts as 'Flemish', just as it should. Now the only thing left is to somehow convince Paradox to change all Flemish into Dutch.

 

[Chlodio]

Unfortunately language = culture is no longer valid argument as Paradox is moving away from that policy (Breton was moved to French Group, etc).

Language and religion are important part of culture, but they aren't the culture

 

[VincentX]

Unfortunately language = culture is no longer valid argument as Paradox is moving away from that policy (Breton was moved to French Group, etc).

Language and religion are important part of culture, but they aren't the culture

Yeah, only to prevent tiny cultures from being culture converted. They're generally the exception. Because despite that being done, we still have the culture groups following linguistic divisions, except there where gameplay trumps realism. It's a less than ideal solution for a less than ideal system.

But yeah, even so Artois belongs squarely in the French cultural sphere, not the Germanic one ... which it did exactly because of language.

 

[Soph]

Kales refers to a single city that was majority Dutch-speaking. Just like in Kales, the Dutch-speaking majority-areas of Artois and Picardy were found almost entirely along the coastline, while the inland area was majority French-speaking. There are a lot of 'old Dutch' names there, yes, but that has to be nuanced with two vital pieces of information. 1) Many of those names go back to Frankish toponomy and are leftovers from before French and Dutch split. There's a high occurence of Frankish words in French (about 20%). That doesn't mean they're somehow 20% Dutch-speaking. Common ancestors, that's all. 2) Many of the Dutch names in Artois are actually exonyms that were given by Dutch traders and later immigrants to the region (there has been a lot of immigration back and forth over time).

In any case; while there were certainly quite a few native Dutch-speakers in Artois, by and large they were the minority just about everywhere, with the exception of the coastal region and of course the current department of Duinkerke (which, like I said, I believe is part of the 'Vlaanderen'-province, since it's a necessairy area to connect it with the 'Kales'-province). Note that Artois in EU4 is already separated from its historical coastline. This leaves the province with Bethune, Arras and Douai as its major towns, all of which had few (if any) Dutch speakers in 1444.

Taking a good look at how Paradox has made the map, the below is what I'm seeing, transplanted to a modern map. Province borders in grey. The blue line marks the commonly accepted language border between Dutch (orange province names) and French (blue province names) around the start of EU4. As you can see, Paradox is already quite generous to the Dutch with its borders. If anything, you should be happy that Artois has Wallonian for culture and not Francien. At least you get a shot at culture converting it.

View attachment 143335

Personally, I'm already happy enough Kales starts as 'Flemish', just as it should. Now the only thing left is to somehow convince Paradox to change all Flemish into Dutch.

Very helpful post!

 

[Mr. Capiatlist]

As you can see, Paradox is already quite generous to the Dutch with its borders.

I would like to note, as a moderator, this is like the first time I've seen someone argue that their culture doesn't need to be expanded. *mind blown*

 

[VincentX]

Very helpful post!

Thank you, I do my best.