Slavs in 867 in SWMH map

[elvain]

As we are now making cultural overhaul of Persian and Turkish and German cultures now with events which add dynamism to those cultures, I am thinking about my long-planned wish to overhaul the setup of Slavic cultures in 867 which would realisticaly simulate the possibility, the ambition and creation of the Moravian Slavic "empire" east of Francia.

There has been a mod, which introduced it and I really liked the idea, so I turn to the eternal knowledge of the forum and especially you who like playing/reading about/ HIP with an essential question:

Should there be only one Slavic culture [to rule them all...], or there shall be 3 of them [for the Elven-kings under the sky] - the West, South and East to better represent the already emerging diversity?

I don't know if we may get an universal agreement on this at all (ever), and especially if we can make it, so it is already implemented in the Eastern expansion as I would love to, but anyway I would really love to add it to SWMH sooner or later, so it is good to know what our experts on Slavs think.

I myself think it would perhaps be better to have only one culture in 867, but I do realize the prolems it may cause, especially with names being used, so we might end up with bunch of Boleslavs and Mojmírs in Bulgaria, Borises and Ivans in Bohemia and Vladimirs, Olegs and Igors in the Balkans.
This leads to other question which is how many Christian names do you think there shold be in the universal Slavic culture(s) and what should be the name list.

And now, let's have the Pandora's box open.....

 

[Nyrael]

Problem with one culture at start: it would be EXTREMELY HARD to simulate the diversifications and melting pots as some Slavic cultures emerged due to mixing with foreign cultures, some emerged due to religion and most of them emerged because tribes just could not stand one another (and this one is near to impossible to replicate in CK2).
And that's without mentioning that one Slavic culture is highly ahistorical already for 867.

Three cultures are better, but too geographically focused and feels too general: the Slavic cultural splits did not happen in such an orderly and timely fashion.

Personally, I don't think the current cultural setup is bad (it is already a compromise anyway). I'd rather just add several emerging cultures (like one Slavic if there is a pan-Slavic Empire with high CA and rules by a Slav in 13th or 14 century; or Rus culture splitting into Russian, Ukrainian, etc.; or Bosnian emerging if independent and is Bogomil, Cathar or Muslim) and several melting pots (Avars turning into a Slavic people if they survive (they were already highly Slavicized in 9th century from what I have read, even their state language was Slavic); or Croats and Serbs merging into one if there is a unified realm with high CA in Early or High Middle Ages) to spice the things up and allow for some interesting alternate histories.

 

[elvain]

the reason why I ask is that I am quite sure that the concept of Bohemian, Moravian, Polish, Wendish and Pommeranian culture which is in the West just isn't valid. But my knowledge of history of other Slavs farther to the east and south is very little compared to you, SBolshevik and others.

The Moravians's idea of reuniting all the Slavs of Carpathian basin and what is now Poland basicaly had no cultural borders to break, because there was no Polish nation. There were tribes, but they dynamicaly changed, united together with others to create another ones or disappeared and the essential thing as I see it was their ability to form a kingdom. Once it was created, even if it fell the identity survived even if the kingdom fell (Moravians, Karantanians), when it didn't, we sometimes find it hard how to even call those people on a super-tribal level (Polabian Slavs)...

But even here I am facing problem, which is simulating probability/vulnerability of certain cultures to convert to another, compared to others, who shouldn't be that vulnerable.
Another thing is that we already have kingdom of Moravia formed, just to give Moravians a chance to survive Magyar invasion. OTOH forming the kingdom means emergence of Moravian culture (which OTOH is the only one which isn't that inacurate in this region).. but still I think it should be easier for Moravians to absorb Vendish peoples from Sorbs, Lusatians, Bohemians, Silesians and Lendians to those living around Balaton, than to deal with Bohemians and Poles, who are still about 50-100 years too early to be formed.

The identity has indeed been created by many factors including external cultural influences, but what was essential in the end IMHO, was their religion and their ability to create a state, without that no nation formed.
The question of later cultures and alternative histories is another field which I, on the other hand, don't want to enter.
I can think of some possible scripting of German colonization where again an existence of centralized state was something to protect the Slavic element despite invitations to Germans and strenghtening of the German element within the kingdom. Where there was a strong central authority in the 13th-14th century (Bohemia, and despite its problems also Poland propper), the Slavs remained the basic element at least on par with the German. Where there was no such central authority (Silesia, Wendish lands), there the local Slavic identity got replaced by German one. Again both Bohemia and Poland are kingdoms. That is what leads my way of thinking, but again I do admit that it is heavily influenced by Poland/Bohemia(and Hungary) region, while remaining quite ignorant to other areas.

 

[theKing1988]

The difference between say the West and the South. And i don't claim to be an expert by any stretch of the imagination on the cultural development of Serbian/Bulgarian/Croatian identity here, but i do have some knowledge about the history of the Slavs of the southern region as it was important for events in the ERE, is that there was already a firmly established Kingdom/Empire in the Slavic region here and the process that hadn't started in the West yet, had already begun in the south with the introduction of the Turkic Bolghars as foreign rulers over the Eastern parts of Slavs in the region (Who became the modern-day Bulgarians)

As far as i know, and it seems like Nyrael is willing to back me up here, 1 culture for the south is maybe oversimplifying the setup compared to how it is now.

 

[elvain]

Yes, I do agree with this. The idea of one culture was just one idea to be discussed, and I would want SBolshevik to comment on this before we make final judgement. But I do agree that in the south it definitely is different and there one culture most probably won't stand, especially in contact with Byzantine civilization and Bulgarian state. But how about the Serbs, Croats and other West Balkanic Slavs?

At the moment I'm rather leaning to use Wendish culture for all Western Slavs for now, keeping the rest as it is now, or maybe change something in the West Balkans and the East?

 

[SBolshevik]

You called?
I agree with Nyrael on the whole melting pots idea, since you had Croats and Serbs as separate entities before they came to the Balkans. It also prevents that stupid idea of Catholic = Croat, Orthodox = Serb (coastal Serbs were Catholics during the Middle Ages mostly AFAIR, and I've seen proposals for making them different to inland Serbs (but still not Croats), but then you could divide other cultures into far smaller bits, which is stupid), which is always good.
The problem then is: what do you do with the areas inbetween?
Well, I might be biased, but for starters, I'd make Bosnia mostly Serbian in 867, for at this time the Serbian state hadn't moved much towards the east (if you look at maps you will see that the state slowly moves east and inland), while at later start dates, when Croats control the area, have it as Croatian. Same goes for the coastal areas (Pagania, Travunia, et cetera).
Also, the Bosnian culture idea is good, however the question is what it would represent, the Bošnjani (Bogomilist Christians) or those that would later in time be known as Bošnjaci (Muslim, Turkified). You could, however, have both, with the former forming when you have an independent Bosnian state (or Bogomilist/Cathar state) and the latter appearing when Croats or Serbs convert to Islam.
Bulgarians should, of course, stay separate.

 

[theKing1988]

So if i get it right, you are definetely a proponent of 3 Cultures for the South Slavs in 867? That would have been my preference as well, based on my research to fix the Adriatic borders of the ERE, but it's always good to involve people who know more than yourself on the subject.

I think that Elvain is talking about Slavs in general though, and not just about the South Slavs. He has been wanting to create a single Western Slavic culture for a while now, but he wanted to hear people's opinion on whether the East Slavs and the South Slavs should receive a similar setup.

 

[SBolshevik]

So if i get it right, you are definetely a proponent of 3 Cultures for the South Slavs in 867? That would have been my preference as well, based on my research to fix the Adriatic borders of the ERE, but it's always good to involve people who know more than yourself on the subject.

I think that Elvain is talking about Slavs in general though, and not just about the South Slavs. He has been wanting to create a single Western Slavic culture for a while now, but he wanted to hear people's opinion on whether the East Slavs and the South Slavs should receive a similar setup.

The South Slavs really aren't good for that, unfortunately. Even if you make Serbs and Croats one culture in 867, you have to split them eventually, and at that point you have a problem. If you split them along religious lines, you run into problems like the Serbian Catholics of Dioclea, and if you split them via de jure lines you can get Croats magically appearing in a Serbian state, making it simpler to simply make them two cultures to begin with, which can be argued is even more historical due to the tribes being separate beforehand. You also can't merge the Bulgarians into that because they are a mix of the Bulgars and local Slavic tribes.

There's also the issue of representing the Slavs in Greece. Technically OCS is classified as an East South Slavic language, so you'd likely put it in with Bulgarian. But then that puts Bulgarians as having too large of an extent, so you try to give it to the Serbs, which makes sense to an extent, but you could also argue that that overextends the Serbs, so you just get your mind boggled.

Also, important to note, Carantanians were originally West Slavs, so Wendian culture should become Carantanian in the area of the Alps. However, if Great Moravia survives and that area is connected to other West Slavs, then it is practically nonsensical to make the culture South Slavic, it should be West Slavic.

I cannot give any insight into the East Slavs, except perhaps that one could do a better division into tribes, like the once Charlemagne had, only actually good, unlike Charlemagne's. You could also possibly divide the general area of Novgorod off from the rest of the Russians considering that their language had no second palatalization (sibilarization) unlike all other Slavic languages, but that would kind of be dumb, you really need more basis for that.

 

[herrmarisa]

or Rus culture splitting into Russian, Ukrainian, etc

No please no

 

[elvain]

great, thanks.

Well when everyone seems to be more or less happy with the way the cultures are (how unexpected, especially in the Balkans), I will leave it as it is and won't do any changes except the West Slavs whom I really would like to give an overhaul.
As for Carantanians, I know they should originaly belong to the western branch, especially if Moravia survives, so that might be the other change (not sure yet how to simulate it ingame, but we'll see),
and possibly the third would be to consider Bosnian culture to emerge only in case of heresy or independent kingdom of Bosnia

 

[zijistark]

Sidenote, since there's been so much talk of cultural melting pots / splits lately:

Dynamic cultural splits / melts are incredibly hard to plausibly implement in-game via events. Even the best that already exist are extremely fragile, somewhat CPU intensive, railroaded, and break when combined with de jure drift or custom-created kingdoms. Something to consider.

 

[SBolshevik]

Elvain, you could just make two Carantanian cultures, one that is West Slavic and one that is South Slavic, and have them appear accordingly.

 

[elvain]

Sidenote, since there's been so much talk of cultural melting pots / splits lately:

Dynamic cultural splits / melts are incredibly hard to plausibly implement in-game via events. Even the best that already exist are extremely fragile, somewhat CPU intensive, railroaded, and break when combined with de jure drift or custom-created kingdoms. Something to consider.

Well, what you mean CPU heavy. Like that the game slows down checking their parameters? That'd be a bad news.
As for their plausability, so far we are trying to script only those which shouldn't be that much hard, or at least I hope.. and many of them are done to have their conditions very possibly met not far from our main bookmarks...certainly before dejure drift can affect them. and this would apply also to these Slavic events I was suggesting here.

Elvain, you could just make two Carantanian cultures, one that is West Slavic and one that is South Slavic, and have them appear accordingly.

yup, that is the plan.

 

[zijistark]

Well, what you mean CPU heavy. Like that the game slows down checking their parameters? That'd be a bad news.
As for their plausability, so far we are trying to script only those which shouldn't be that much hard, or at least I hope.. and many of them are done to have their conditions very possibly met not far from our main bookmarks...certainly before dejure drift can affect them. and this would apply also to these Slavic events I was suggesting here.

They tend to be CPU heavy, because for each cultural split / melt, there generally need to be at least a few unconstrained MTTH events (triggered against all characters in the game constantly, forever) with extremely complex triggers to ensure that they exactly isolate the conditions necessary (no more, no less, and considering all corner cases such as the fact that de jure territory of only duchy titles can be used for regional constraints due to dynamic kingdom titles and de dure drift) to achieve the desired result.

Being CPU heavy is the least of the problems, though. The problem is the complexity that is realistically required to achieve robust and correct outcomes. With complexity also comes bugs and unintended behavior. Bugs need to be fixed quickly. Seeing as it's been almost a year since the SWMH team released something, obviously adding a lot of event logic to SWMH is going to require a change in the way development is done for the team so as to be responsive to logic bugs.

I don't mean to be cynical, but I've simply never seen a dynamic cultural melting pot coded by anyone that wasn't subject to these issues, so I think that unless you guys consider yourself better event/decision scripters than at least Paradox, you will probably run into similar issues along the way.

 

[elvain]

Ziji, my answer has little to do with Slavic cultures, which is the main topic here, so I answered in our team forum. I'd be glad to see your answer.

 

[Ruskhan]

maybe have Rus culture instead of Russian, and get Russian culture if a Rus kingdom becomes empire

 

[SignedName]

Wouldn't the problem with ahistorical names in Bulgaria be fixed by making the original rulers Bolghar and creating a Bulgarian melting pot culture? Also a question: would Vlachs be included in this culture-merging thing? From what I know (not much) that doesn't seem like it would be accurate.

 

[theKing1988]

The Vlachs south of the Danube are a catch-all Category for the Latin Speaking inhabitants from the Late-Roman Empire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jire%C4%8Dek_Line
and the Vlach Foederati that the Eastern Roman Empire pulled in from across the Danube and who particularly ended up in Upper Thessaly, the Macedonian region around Kastoria and in Aetolia. So including the Vlachs in a Slavic Melting Pot/Culture split mechanic would be quite wrong

 

[cldcrst]

On an unrelated and possibly controversial issue, the Vlachs beyond the Carpathians. I find it weird that there are so few provinces populated by Vlachs.

 

[theKing1988]

On an unrelated and possibly controversial issue, the Vlachs beyond the Carpathians. I find it weird that there are so few provinces populated by Vlachs.

We have actually had the discussion about Vlachs and Transylvania quite a lot of times before already, i assume it is Transylvania you are referring to. We have still not seen any sources or work from historians that we can base a larger Vlach setup on, that isn't hotly contested by other historians. It seems like Nationalist historians from Hungary and Nationalist historians from Romania tend to turn the entire area into either Vlach or Hungarian to support their own narratives without any regard to evidence of the contrary. And instead of supporting either end of the extremes, which we can't do without opening of a Pandora's box of discussions and arguments about the accuracy of such a setup, we have decided to follow a compromise course for the Culture setup of Transylvania.

Transylvania and other regions like it really makes us modders wish for a Cultural minority mechanic, which would make our job so much easier, but alas.