[Submod] Italian Culture Divided

[Aerkhanite]

OR: MY ATTEMPT AT FIXING THE JOKE THAT IS THE CATCH-ALL "ITALIAN" CULTURE

After I proposed this in the suggestions thread, here is my work-in-progress.
I'll update this every time I make sufficient changes. As of yet it's very unfinished, but I'm posting this so that the devs know that I'm actually working on this.

Main Changes

The Italian culture removed from the Latin group, and divided into multiple new cultures in an Italic group;

Corsican
Dalmatian (culture-flip for Italic rulers on the Adriatic Coast)
Emilian (Culture of Romagna, Bologna, behind the Apennines)
Lombard (Italic Lombardy, not the Germanic Lombards)
Ligurian (Culture of Genoa)
Mediano (Central Italian, not really a culture but more of an abstraction for the dialects/cultures of Rome, Ancona and Urbino. If anyone has a better name, do say.)
Sardinian
Tuscan
Venetian
And split Neapolitan from Sicilian as well.​

The Lombard culture renamed to Longobard.​

What's done:

Italian provinces are all assigned their proper culture (unless I made a mistake somewhere).
Culture-changed the native Sardinian judges to Sardinian.
Various rulers given their proper culture, like the Genoese Doria family, among others.​

Other changes:

The isle of Sicily is now Siculo-Arab from 904 - 1072. So is Malta, but Malta stays Siculo-Arab to simulate the Maltese culture.
Reggio, Consenza, and Lecce become Siculo-Greek after 1074. Reggio eventually becomes Neapolitan in 1187.
Removed the County of Corsica from the Duchy of Sardinia, and made it it's own dukedom.
Renamed the Kingdom of Sardinia to the Kingdom of Corsica & Sardina (Regnum Corsicae et Sardinae).

Not yet finished:

No new culture has names yet, save for Corsican.
Culture-flipping events for Longobards to assimilate into the Italic cultures.
Culture-flipping events for Italic rulers to become Dalmatian on the Adriatic Coast.
Changing all Italian rulers into their proper culture.
Changing relevant events, decisions and dynasties to the new culture.​

Planned:

Corsican Revolt

Corsican rulers who own Corsica and has their capital in Corsica, but subject to an foreign liege, may get an event chain (as long as Corsica is still culturally Corsican), which will lead into the Corsican population revolting.
If said ruler sides with the population, they will war against their liege to free Corsica, and gains a free army (the revolting population).
If the rebellion wins, the ruler will be crowned as King/Queen of Corsica (titular title), but is forced to surrender any land they own outside of Corsica and Sardinia. If they refuse, their former liege gains claims on all their mainland holdings and starts another war, this time without the extra free troops.​

Unique content for all other Italian cultures, to not make them same-y.
Rule to toggle the changes on/off, like the German toggle in the game rules.​

What I need help with:

Finding census records/ship records of the provinces of Italy in this time period. Things like which language/dialect they spoke, names, etc.
Information in general of when certain regions "shifted" culture.​

Screenshots

(Note: things may have changed since these screenshots were taken)

769 Start

867 Start

1000 Start

1066 Start

1337 Start

Dalmation culture-flipping area.

Comparison to the rest of Europe.

Suggestions welcome!

 

[Aerkhanite]

FAQ and other things as I get around to/think of them

Q: Will this be merged into CK2+ ?
My plan and wish is that this would be indeed merged into the standard CK2+ mod, but I don't decide that.
I proposed this in the suggestion thread, but Vukica made it clear that, basically, I'd have to do this myself if I wanted it to happen any time soon.
Thus, I started this so that it may indeed be one day indeed be part of the standard CK2+.
(Note: I do not mean this in a bad way towards the devs at all. I completely understand that they too have more things to do and that this wouldn't be their highest priority).

Q: Emilian? What? Why not just divide it between Tuscan, Veneto and Tuscan?
Well, for one, Emilian is behind the Apennines (from the Tuscan perspective) so, even though they're very close, there's a clear divide between the two cultural areas. It also never spoke the Tuscan or Venetic languages, perhaps Lombard, but it was always (and still is) it's own cultural area.
Emilian is, practically, an abstraction of the Romagnol and Emilian cultures and languages of what makes up the Emilia-Romagnol region.

Q: Mediano isn't a real culture! It's a group!
I realize this, but to have two or three cultures there that, in-game, would be practically useless as they'd be the same. It's an abstraction of the Central Italian cultures of (mostly) Rome, Umbria, and Ancona (Marche).
It wasn't (and still isn't) Tuscan or Emilian.

Q: Dalmatian?
Because I like having it and you'll have to stab me before I get rid of it.

Q: What about Friulian, Piedmontese, Savoyard, etc?
While I initially wanted to include Friulian and Piedmontese, Friulian would be a one-culture province that would've practically been Veneto, but a one-culture province that gives no extra value.
Piedmontese, on the other hand, would've had some value as an abstraction of a "border culture" between the French Gallo-Italic cultures like Franco-Provencal, but it too would've been more of a Lombard-clone than an actual unique culture. Also, CK2 doesn't have mechanics that would actually simulate it being in-between culture groups.
Other cultures would either be a renamed clone of another culture (I could split, say, Emilian into Emilian and Romagnol, but there wouldn't be any practical gameplay differences) and probably unused one-province-cultures.

 

[LordPeter]

I'd suggest something, but it seems you have included all my suggestions already
Good luck with all this, I'll try it out when I have time.

On help with information about cultures, we do have some books about Italian history in the Middle Ages at our university, but they are mostly in Italian, which I can't read :/
I can try to find some info in the English books though when I get there again.

 

[pottypie]

That was fast, good show!
Unfortanately I'm in my CK2 recessive state until Monks and Mystics comes out, so I'll take a look when CK2+ gets update then.

 

[Aerkhanite]

I'd suggest something, but it seems you have included all my suggestions already
Good luck with all this, I'll try it out when I have time.

On help with information about cultures, we do have some books about Italian history in the Middle Ages at our university, but they are mostly in Italian, which I can't read :/
I can try to find some info in the English books though when I get there again.

Indeed, I was thinking and, after seeing the culture list be looong in-game, I decided to indeed get rid of Friulian and Piedmontese. Something for EU4, where culture matters less .

It's very unfinished, so I don't recommend having a playthrough with the current release.

I appreciate it. Most books I own and know of focus more on the history (what-they-did) aspect then the cultural and/or linguistic part.

That was fast, good show!
Unfortanately I'm in my CK2 recessive state until Monks and Mystics comes out, so I'll take a look when CK2+ gets update then.

Ahah, fast, but not nearly complete. But thanks!

 

[Aerkhanite]

Updated the OP with the latest release.

 

[jariasduarte]

This looks great!

 

[BrokenSky]

Which version of CK2+ is this compatible with? The current version, the beta or both?

 

[Aerkhanite]

Which version of CK2+ is this compatible with? The current version, the beta or both?

It was made for the pre-M&M version. Haven't tested it with the M&M beta version.
HOWEVER I'm now working with the dev team on integrating this into CK2+ proper, so hopefully it'll be available in the next version!

 

[LordPeter]

It was made for the pre-M&M version. Haven't tested it with the M&M beta version.
HOWEVER I'm now working with the dev team on integrating this into CK2+ proper, so hopefully it'll be available in the next version!

Well that's great news then

 

[plussocram]

Great mod idea look forward to it being added into the game. On a side I noticed that the colors for the Italian cultures are very deserve which is a bit out of character with most other cultures fallowing a theme, ex German going for gray or red, Arabic going for green, french cultures going for yellow ect. I think making the Italian cultures a slight variant of what the original Italian cultures colors are would be add a level of professionalism into it. It is just a detail tho and can't wait to see it integrated into the game!

 

[Aerkhanite]

Great mod idea look forward to it being added into the game. On a side I noticed that the colors for the Italian cultures are very deserve which is a bit out of character with most other cultures fallowing a theme, ex German going for gray or red, Arabic going for green, french cultures going for yellow ect. I think making the Italian cultures a slight variant of what the original Italian cultures colors are would be add a level of professionalism into it. It is just a detail tho and can't wait to see it integrated into the game!

At the time, I arbitrarily chose the colors so they'd stand out and easily distinguishable in the screenshots.
I'll change the colours, hadn't really thought about it.

 

[Vokasak]

I really like this mod, and I understand things like name lists are hard to generate, but all the Adam Smiths running around make running this almost worse than vanilla and having one unified Italian. If I can suggest just copying the namelist from the generic vanilla italian over to each of the new cultures? Just as a stopgap!

 

[Maal]

I'm now working with the dev team on integrating this into CK2+ proper, so hopefully it'll be available in the next version!

Well, dammit. Look like I won't be able to procrastinate my culture mod update for this once you are done, thankfully HIP has most of these cultures already so it'll be a fast update. It only leave Emilian and Mediano, which HIP recently deleted its generic "middle" Italian for Latin (area around Latium) and Umbric (the rest of your Emilian and Mediano not covered by Latin) that I could simply use.

 

[Aerkhanite]

I really like this mod, and I understand things like name lists are hard to generate, but all the Adam Smiths running around make running this almost worse than vanilla and having one unified Italian. If I can suggest just copying the namelist from the generic vanilla italian over to each of the new cultures? Just as a stopgap!

Aye, I know. The solution I chose now is using one large namelist for everything North-Italian (Ligurian, Lombard, Venetian, Emilian, Mediano) that's similar to the vanilla one (just as large, if not larger) with a regional variation when relevant, and each culture has a few "exclusive" names.
Makes sense historically, it works, and it doesn't stand out. Same goes for the Sicilian and Neapolitan, who share a large part of their name list.
Corsican and Sardinian have an unique name list that I (sadly) had to compile from more contemporary sources, and a few classical ones. They share a few names, but they're more or less unique.

Well, dammit. Look like I won't be able to procrastinate my culture mod update for this once you are done, thankfully HIP has most of these cultures already so it'll be a fast update. It only leave Emilian and Mediano, which HIP recently deleted its generic "middle" Italian for Latin (area around Latium) and Umbric (the rest of your Emilian and Mediano not covered by Latin) that I could simply use.

Not sure exactly what you mean.

I renamed Mediano (the "generic middle Italian") to Umbrian a while back. It doesn't stand out in English, but the word isn't a 100% correct (Umbria is technically the area between Rome and Marche, depending on the era's definition it could also include Ancona), but it does sound a bit better (EU4 uses it as well).
CK2+ has a policy of not having too many cultures for a region, so splitting it into two (Umbrian and Latin/Romanesque) isn't an option, sadly.

 

[Maal]

Not sure exactly what you mean.

I renamed Mediano (the "generic middle Italian") to Umbrian a while back. It doesn't stand out in English, but the word isn't a 100% correct (Umbria is technically the area between Rome and Marche, depending on the era's definition it could also include Ancona), but it does sound a bit better (EU4 uses it as well).
CK2+ has a policy of not having too many cultures for a region, so splitting it into two (Umbrian and Latin/Romanesque) isn't an option, sadly.

Oh damn, no no you got me wrong. I was not suggesting/critiquing your work. I was talking about my own culture mod, since you said yours is getting integrated into ck2+, it mean I'll have to add your cultures to my Cultural Bonuses mod. And that thankfully, most of your new cultures are already in HIP so i won't have do research for the bonuses.

 

[Aerkhanite]

Oh damn, no no you got me wrong. I was not suggesting/critiquing your work. I was talking about my own culture mod, since you said yours is getting integrated into ck2+, it mean I'll have to add your cultures to my Cultural Bonuses mod. And that thankfully, most of your new cultures are already in HIP so i won't have do research for the bonuses.

Oh, ahah. Sorry, about that.
I thought you meant you had a culture overhaul of some sorts.