[suggestion] Colonial Cultures

[mudcrabmerchant]

Well, I think ethnic identity is the most important aspect of in-game culture. It's what (theoretically) contributes to revolt risk and rebellion, and tag-teams with linguistic difficulties in contributing to tax inefficiency.

As for the French Canadians, I didn't know just how much they embraced their Canadian identity as opposed to French, or what the causes for it were.

I don't know exactly what to do, but I definitely think there should be a fundamental difference between the colonies that were made up of European colonists replacing natives, and those where the Europeans were dealing with conquered empires instead of settlements, and where there was much more mixing between peoples and culture.

Then again, I don't know if your average colonial Spanish peasant was as concerned about identity and politics as much as your average Canadian or Anglo-American. There's lots of stuff going on, and I don't know how it should or could be represented with game mechanics.

 

[Evie HJ]

It's what (theoretically) contributes to revolt risk and rebellion, and tag-teams with linguistic difficulties in contributing to tax inefficiency.

Hardly the only thing. Cultural difference also translate into different approaches to government, different tolerance to different type of government intervention, different perception of what rights and freedoms you should have, and how much they're being trampled on, different perception of how problems should be dealt with, etc.

They all breed causes for misunderstandings and therefore conflicts between governing people and governed people.

 

[Bluehawk]

If one excludes the French part, maybe. (Don't mix nationality - Canadian - with culture. Many French may identify with the country Canada, but that doesn't mean they identify with any Canadian culture. Two VERY different concept).

Also, you know, Canada. Multicultural state. I kind of don't buy the idea that "it's all one culture"

That was my point: "Canadian" is a label slapped on anything and everything while signifying nothing. It is considered imperative that we create a national culture to bind us all together, and many willingly perpetuate the stance that it already exists (while rejecting the possibility that it could ever be so homogenous as American culture), yet it is, in my opinion, a fallacy. We are united by a set of essential laws and by the inertial desire to not destroy ourselves with infighting - that is Canadian culture in the present. Everything else must be provided by the individual and derived from their motherlands, diaspora communities etc.

 

[shanadir]

How about if you colonize canada as france you get the culture "french canadian", in the same culture group as france. But then there is a MttH event based on, RR and time and other stuff like that, that changes the culture to "canadian french" (or something) which is in the north american or the colonial culture group. Maybe even the canadian culture group if you really want to throw a lot of them in there.

Lots of rebels of different cultures in the colonial culture group could be the requirement for USA (or any other US country) forming. Otherwise, they're named after culture and area they live in.

 

[UniversalWolf]

How would the game handle a situation in which a nation had colonies and colonial cultures in multiple places? For example, France might have large colonies in North America, Southeast Asia, and Africa. All three could potentially develop their own colonial cultures. They should not all shift to a single colonial culture, I would think.

 

[unmerged(368864)]

How would the game handle a situation in which a nation had colonies and colonial cultures in multiple places? For example, France might have large colonies in North America, Southeast Asia, and Africa. All three could potentially develop their own colonial cultures. They should not all shift to a single colonial culture, I would think.

That's why it the Regional culture should be mixed with the Owners culture.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

This video feels relevant to this discussion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlUiSBXQHCw

 

[unmerged(368864)]

How about if you colonize canada as france you get the culture "french canadian", in the same culture group as france. But then there is a MttH event based on, RR and time and other stuff like that, that changes the culture to "canadian french" (or something) which is in the north american or the colonial culture group. Maybe even the canadian culture group if you really want to throw a lot of them in there.

Lots of rebels of different cultures in the colonial culture group could be the requirement for USA (or any other US country) forming. Otherwise, they're named after culture and area they live in.

That's a good idea, but why not just shift the "French Canadian" to the North American Culture group after a Colonial independence?

 

[Jaws210]

This video feels relevant to this discussion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlUiSBXQHCw

Congrats. You just showed me my new history drug.

 

[unmerged(368864)]

MM did that.

Too bad it's in MM, Paradox said none-0% of it is making it into the game

 

[Dafool]

Too bad it's in MM, Paradox said none-0% of it is making it into the game

I believe PI said they would not be using material from MMtG. The mod featured this mechanic, as do a few other mods if I'm not mistaken. It's not an unheard of idea and although PI rarely pulls directly from mods, the idea is broad enough that it certainly isn't unthinkable that they could work around it. That said, I still think the earlier end date makes something like this less likely to appear, but its presence in a few major mods isn't going to be the thing that nixes it.

 

[Nilspart]

No, actually. They wouldn't. They'd definitely call themselves Canada, or possibly New France. Not Quebec, which isn't a name that French-Canadians really started identifying with until the 1900s.

In the EU era, "Quebec" as the name of a colony only existed 1763-91 as a name imposed by London. Before that, under French rule, it was the colony of Canada, and it's inhabitants called themselves Canadiens; after that, it was The Canadas (Upper and Lower Canada).

It wasn't until (well into) the nineteenth century that "Canada" and "Canadian" gained their broader and more English definition, and it wasn't until the 20th that Quebec nationalism started taking off. Francophone people even in Quebec defined themselves culturally as French Canadian, or Canadiens (especially in English, use of the french e-spelling usually means french canadian. See hockey team.), not Quebecer, until the 1950s-60s easily, and some older people still do today.

This was intresting to read!

 

[kingofnoobs]

Yes! This would be interesting...


If you colonize Canada,It could be like this : $ABC_ADJ$ Canadian and American would be : $ABC_ADJ$ American, so if Russia was to colonize America, it would be Russian American or Russian Canadian for Canada

 

[Math2]

Good idea!

 

[evilon]

So I wrote something and backspaced.
It was really cool and funny, and also particularly intelligent and well formulated.
But I forgot to do my ctrl+a then c routine, due to being hung over and stupid.
Any ways, it was really cool!

 

[Ferric_Oxide]

That's a good idea, but why not just shift the "French Canadian" to the North American Culture group after a Colonial independence?

Why have a North American cultural group?

During this time frame and indeed during the Victorian timeframe one would suggest that both Americans and Anglo Candians should belong to the same cultural group as the English.

 

[Evie HJ]

Anglo-Canadians, *yes*. Since many were loyalists who went to Canada to avoid not being British anymore.

American in my opinion should be a culture group, not a culture. Even as far back as before the revolution, there were several highly distinct cultures developping in the US: plantation culture in the south, the puritan-influenced coastal commercial culture of New England, and the Quaker-influenced, more frontierly culture of Pennsylvania and its surroundings. Three quite distinct cultures.

How close they'd be to English culture...after 1776, it would definitely lead to the wrong gameplay effects to put them in the same group as English cultures. Prior to that, I would still have them actual English culture, slowly drifting apart in the 1750-76 time frame as more and more alienation take place.

 

[KPJ]

My understanding (due to a course I took at school about American History) is that white US American culture developed after the revolution, due to the settlement of the west and the 'melting pot' that created (when white Europeans worked together to exterminate/enslave non-white populations in the West).

The discussion of French-Canada and the Quebecois is interesting, to say the least. I think it'd be fun to throw the fact in here that there are English speaking Quebecois! Meanwhile New Brunswick is the only bi-lingual province in the country; let's see the internationals wrap their head around that And yes, the dominant narrative (that most English-Canadians don't know anyway) is that the Quebecois preferred the British because of the protections offered to their cultural traditions (Roman Catholic Church and French language). The Americans, on the other hand, expected the Quebecois to rise up against the British because of The Conquest without offering any similar protections and so obviously failed.

I think this is something that would best be determined by an event with a MTTH based on particular factors. And I agree with the poster above who thinks they should be named 'German-Canadian' etc., but would rather they be more generic than that. Colonial German works, or German-American.

 

[Evie HJ]

I would disagree with that idea that it developped after the revolution. I think the development was well underway beforehand (thanks to living across an ocean from each other), though identification remained (eg, the two were developing in distinct cultures, but Americans still thought of themselves as Englishmen, and looked toward London as a source of culture), but once the shoe dropped, those who revolted and embraced the notion of a new country couldn't be fairly seen as part of English culture anymore.

To complicate the matter even further, in english, there are no actual anglophone Québécois - they are anglophone Quebecers. Québécois, when it is used, means francophone Quebecers . However, in French, a Québécois is simply an inhabitant of Quebec, so in French there are anglophone Quebecois but not in English. Much like in English a Canadien (not Canadian) is a francophone, but in Quebec French a Canadien is most often an anglophone.

Now that's a mess.

(And of course, while there are anglophone Quebecers, there are significant numbers of Franco-Ontarians and Franco-Manitobans, among other provinces)

 

[Don_Quigleone]

I'm pretty sure that prior to the Revolution, "Americans" still called themselves English. Colonial cultures should be in the same culture group as the parent culture.

The one exception might be mestizo cultures, say like in Mexico/Peru.