Traders & Colonists & Refugees - Minority communities for CK2 DLC

[elvain]

Let's speculate that after HF there could be one more DLC and it could be dedicated to Inland trade, economy or more developed cultural stuff.

Such DLC could develop the idea of minor communities which existed all over the medieval world, having their own towns or walled neighbourhoods inside or outside medieval cities. They were everywhere...
In Europe, there were the Jewish communities, German od Dutch colonists establishing cities across Mitteleuropa among Slavic or other populations, there were Italian merchant communities across the Mediterrean world, or German Hanseatic merchants across the Baltics, Arab and Berber merchants in the Sahelian kingdoms of Africa, Soghdian and Persian merchants in Central Asia or India, Armenian migrants and refugees, the Wangara gold merchants of West Africa etc. (don't hesitate to add if I forgot some)

What would these communites serve for in game?
Generaly speaking they would greatly enrich the peactime gameplay in numerous aspects such as:
- influence technology spread
- spead up/slow down cultural shift of provinces and possibly even simulate medieval colonisations (Mitteleuropa, Spain, Sahel)
- give nice bonuses from trade
- spice up the religious aspect of game (minorities may gain/lose certain rights giving your certain bonuses, your majority clergy would like to get rid of non-believers or heretics)
- give the player more possibilities to attract / gain skilled courtiers from foreign cultures
- provide new CBs and other tools to influence neighbours for expansionist players (your cultural communities abroad could serve as your emissars or even spies, being a protector of persecuted community gives you CB against persecutor)

They will NOT serve for:
- counting population percentages. The aim is exact oposite of this - to give variability in populations without the need of counting population or its percentual fragments

How could an expatriate community be created in eyes of player?
There would be several ways. Some communities could exist as refugees from hardship and/or persecution (Jews, Armenians) or overpopulation in their homeland, some as merchant adventurers, others as invited spearheads of innovations and technologies.
This means player can both send his people abroad and welcome them in his own lands. The basic tools would be:
1) in times of war or forced religious conversion (persecution)... or perhaps even a revolt led by other culture/religion, a migrant community is created. This community would have its leader (random character) and would keep its culture, religion as well as technology of its original province (maybe even some of its laws) and such a community would then be available in its Geographical region (Francia, Britain, Arabia, Bengal, West Africa etc.), there it will roam for some time being available for rulers to invite it, but after some time (a year or more) it will start offering itself to various rulers in the region and provinces in its direct neighbourhood
2) if a province witnessed long peacetime and its prosperity (with RD) is thus rising, its community gets also selected to the list of available communities. But unlike the case mentioned above, the community does not offer itself, it can only be picked by some of the rulers
3) if a ruler wants to spread his influence, he can himself create a community out of his prospering province and offer it to the general pool of available communities, but more usual way for this would be that he directly picks a province or a town where he wants to send his colonists - more about this later.

These are generally the 3 ways how a community appears on the list of available communities which will look like this:

at this list of communities available for Iberian geographical region you can see 5 communities - 2 catholic - Catalan and Occitan from Barcelona and Foix, 2 jewish - Sephardi from Fez and Ashkenazi from Seville, and Andalusian sunni from Malaga. Each has technology values it can bring (thus increase/decrease your technology development), trade bonus it can provide, number of provinces held by the culture and number of communities of this culture in total and in your realm.
Other values which could appear at the list could be number of rulers independent and vasals (at count and higher level) and possibly also CoA of their protector if they have any. And lastly there might be indicator how they became available, if by persecution, other hardship (hunger), prosperity, overpopulation or were offered by somebody

Then there are few ways how the communities from this pool can get to their final destination - their new province:

1) Pick the community from the list as shown above. That would be done by clicking at the icon settle them in the list and then you would pick a province where they could be settled. Communities could only be settled in provinces which are under player's control, are prosperous and are not hit by no illnes or epidemic. This method allows you to first pick the community and then the target province and lastly its town (if there is more than one). One community of certain culture+religion can only be once at one town, but there can be multiple such communities inside one province in various towns.

2) Community can also be established directly from province view.

As you can see on pic above, in the province view you can see that there already is a Jewish (should be Sephardi) and Muslim (Arab/Maghrebi) community. By right-clicking the province's town you can chose establish community and then pick from the available - which are at this moment Muslim Berber and West African Wangara. A tooltip might show basic information as they are on the table shown above.

3) Event in which a community of Culture A and religion B from province X would ask owner of province Y to settle there. The ruler can a) accept, b) offer them to settle in other province, or c) refuse them -> b) would mean he then has to chose which province they would settle (they can refuse), c) would mean they either move away to another country/province or they force-establish their community if they are both desperate and strong enough (this would be a case of war or other refugees)

Settling a community in your province usually increases prosperity, allows you to hire its members as courtiers or commanders

Rules and limits for settling down a community:
- The communities should be only available to towns settlements. Each town in a province would have basic limit of maximum 4 possible communities. But the more towns there are inside the province, the fewer communities can settle in each town (the first town can have 4, the second only 3, the third 2, the fourth only 1 - this is to prevent urban overpopulation). However, if a province lies on a trade route, the limit could be higher.

- if certain community (of the same culture and religion) has more than X* communities in your realm, the community leaders will by themselves start to behave as important community and create the own head of their comunity. This character would be chosen amongst the various leaders of the small communities (based on strength of the community and his own diplomacy skill) and will ask for special recognition of his community. That means either he would ask for a seat at your court, or for special rights and privilegues for the community.**

- each community could be developped via building some buildings. The more deveolped the community is, the higher chance there is for getting skilled courtier, physician etc.


* I would suggest 5 or more, but it could IMHO be set anywhere between 3-10 and it might also depend on the rank... for instance in case of a duke it would be 5, in case of a king, it would be 6, for emperor 7 and for count 4

** these privilegues could be:
- right to have permanent representative at court (if leader of the community is not given a court position he is at the court as additional advisor)
- right to build own place of worship (in case of community of another religion/heresy - increasing chance of religious conversion)
- right to build own schools (thus increasing the chance of cultural change, but also generaly increasing technology spread)
- right to leave community's ghetto
- right to further explore royal land (creating mines but also new settlements - increasing wealth of the province, but also chance of cultural shift in their favour)
- right to do craftmanship
- monopoly on trade or a trade with some country
- right to buy and own land
- right to chose own judges for internal issues of the community
- right/duty to build wall around own settlements
- right to bear arms and have its own militia / levies
None of these is obviously irreversible, which means, what can be given, can always be also taken back. Some rights would be automatically tied to certain communities and could only be taken from them, some rights might be tied only to certain communities.

Each of these would obviously be tied to certain amount of events both on the side of that particular community and possible conflicts with the majority population or other communities (i.e. one community having a right which other doesn'tn have might cause tensions). Some of these (or lack of them) might in fact mean duties towards the crown... many would mean additional tariffs being paid, either by other communities or general populace or the community itself which can provide additional income... but as always, granting some privileges to some group may often mean envy somewhere else... and for instance granting too many rights to too many communities may cause internal problems among the general populace... and for instance the burghers or lower nobility then might want to ask for similar rights (which might open up interesting path for late-game developments such as establishment of États généraux, English Parliament and other similar institutions).

All this would depend on both the community and its nature as well as the conditions of the province. It means a Jewish community in Rheinland would have different rights but also demands than Jewish community in Egypt or Andalusia... German colonists in Poland will both offer and ask very different things than Jewish community in the same province.

Each community can be accessed by clicking its icon in province menu (this way you can develop its buildings), or - if it has its representatives - via community window. Through it you can grant them or take away their privilegues and rights, but also do some nasty things such as organize pogroms, expel them, confiscate their money, either in accordance with your nature and traits, or in accordance with your clergy/vasals' demands... or simply as part of collective punnishment...

- if you have sent your own expatriates abroad and have communities in foreign (or even enemy) lands, you can access them the same way and initiate actions such as sabotage production in province, steal money, damage fortifications

- Naturally if the number of communities of one culture+religion is relatively high in the province they are settled, it may trigger faster cultural conversion. If that happens, the original culture will automatically have its own community inside every town of that province. These communities can always be resettled, expelled or treated like any other community.

there's a lot more they could do...
For instance
- the Wangara will be specialized in creating monopoly trade (in gold in West African gold-bearing counties) from which they will give you special bonuses. They would have events tied to searching for gold mines in the semi-jungle zone of Africa. If sent to a province at the edge of the map, they could organize also slave trade.
- inviting German colonists could mean introduction of new laws (inviting them would mean you can adopt new laws faster)
- Having Arabs, Indians, Soghdians etc. from Silk road may give you bonuses which are tied to Silk road

The most obvious downside of these foreign communities is unhappiness among your clergy (perhaps except indian and chinese religions they would most likely not be welcome) and your clerics may demand those unbelievers to be expelled or that their provileges to be taken away, or their rights to be further limited (they might would be disabled to hold land, disabled to build their places of worship, etc.).
This would lead to obvious effects - the more limited the rights are, the less prosperous the community is and the less income it generates. Less prosperous community also means lower chance of its talented member showing up If their rights are very limited they might also protest and in worst scenarios ask:
- their relatives (or other communities) to stop trading with you leading to negative impact on trade income or potentialy blocking access to some other benefits from trading
- their landed protector (could be brother in faith/community or other ruler who took them under his patronage) to intervene for their rights - first via demanding negotiation and if not successfull, possibly even declaring war.

 

[Salix]

Great Idea, it would certainly make the map more accurate(The complete Baltic sea region, have a big problem there, but also a lot of other places) And would add way more instability to greater empire, while helping small empire to flourish or quickly to build up.

Maybe I missed it, but you need the possibly to kill/force convert communities.
And the assimilation of communities, which would easier for smaller than bigger empires.

 

[elvain]

Great Idea, it would certainly make the map more accurate(The complete Baltic sea region, have a big problem there, but also a lot of other places) And would add way more instability to greater empire, while helping small empire to flourish or quickly to build up.

Thanks. Yes, it is meant to represent various minorities in a game, which doesn't operate with population.

And as you correctly understood - a large empire which has many and numerous communities has one more destabilizing factor, while smaller entities are too small to take the negative effects and can only take its bonuses...

Maybe I missed it, but you need the possibly to kill/force convert communities.
And the assimilation of communities, which would easier for smaller than bigger empires.

Oh, you haven't missed it, I only forgot to add those.
And of course these things should be possible... and as you wrote: it would be much easier for smaller realm which has only one such community, than for empire, which has dozens of various communities with demands for privilegues and other rights

 

[noahk777]

There is an issue to be decided though: Are the community leaders considered as vassals to the province owner, or to the person who sent them there? It would seem to make more sense them being vassals of the province owner, but then that begs the question of what the purpose of sending colonists out is then.

Another is how the community is represented. Are they minor holdings, like forts and trade posts? Are they just a list of characters with a new 'community leader' trait? You said one of the rights would be having it's own levies, in which case, how does that work if it's not a holding? Do they just spawn the troops like mercenaries when they want to raise them? And would the liege be able to raise their levies? And would they be able to go to war? Like, joining crusades and stuff of their religion, or even just an event where a group from that community spawns, similar to rebellions, and goes off to join the Great Holy War.

And about building schools, places of worship and walls, how does that work if they aren't a minor holding? Does it just give a permanent modifier to the county?

Also, would you be able to settle communities in a vassal's lands? Would a vassal be able to settle communities without their liege's permission? Would vassals be able to kick out a community without their liege's permission, and would the liege be able to remove them from a vassal's lands? I would suggest this being based on Crown Authority.

Could be a nice idea to add a new set of laws to the game, being religious tolerance. (Or minority tolerance I guess, but it seems that different religion communities should be treated a bit differently to different cultures.) Have it go on a scale with the lowest being none, where communities can be pushed into ghettos/expelled, and where you can arrest other religions without tyranny, up to where they have full rights and the ruler can't declare holy wars. (Essentially creating a fully secular state) Most realms would be somewhere in between, of course.

Also, another idea: If there is an extremely large amount of a certain community in a realm, and an empty holding slot in said realm, what if the community asked to built a city for themselves? Accepting would get you a city, but it would be ruled by people of that community. The leader of it would need to have the 'true believer' thing that makes them always refuse conversion, and they could make it so that revoking that city (Which you could easily do without tyranny since different religion) starts a rebellion of that community, or at least serious unrest.

Its a really good idea, but it definitely needs a lot of polishing first.

 

[Tryvenyal]

Very intereting! If I holy war infidel land, can I then settle minorities from my capital there to faster convert it´s culture/religion? Or must the minorities differ from the ruler?

Can I convert minorites and assimilate them? Shoud I be able to forbid them to assimilate?

How will minorities spawn? Assume I know some ways. Are there others?

• "Expell the Jews decision" will spawn available jew minorites.
• A successfull holy war will spawn desperate migrants of that culture/s / religion/s(Should also serverly depopulate the region)
• High propserity for a long time will overpopulate the province and spawn a group of migrants.(Should they not in first case move to a neightbour province and boost the prosperity there?)

 

[noahk777]

Very intereting! If I holy war infidel land, can I then settle minorities from my capital there to faster convert it´s culture/religion? Or must the minorities differ from the ruler?

Can I convert minorites and assimilate them? Shoud I be able to forbid them to assimilate?

How will minorities spawn? Assume I know some ways. Are there others?

• "Expell the Jews decision" will spawn available jew minorites.
• A successfull holy war will spawn desperate migrants of that culture/s / religion/s(Should also serverly depopulate the region)
• High propserity for a long time will overpopulate the province and spawn a group of migrants.(Should they not in first case move to a neightbour province and boost the prosperity there?)

Settling lads of your culture somewhere makes way more sense that the current way of culture conversion, which is a county of culture X can just randomly convert to culture Y if its owned by a character with culture Y for long enough.

Would also be cool if adventurers came with their own minority group with them. Like, places like Normandy and England didn't just get Scandinavian-ish cultures randomly, its cause vikings settled there and brought their lads with them.

Also, merchant republics can build a building called 'merchant exclave' in their trade posts, basicilly representing that those republics often sent colonists to live and work in their trade posts. Maybe that can create minorities of the republic's religion and culture?

 

[elvain]

There is an issue to be decided though: Are the community leaders considered as vassals to the province owner, or to the person who sent them there? It would seem to make more sense them being vassals of the province owner, but then that begs the question of what the purpose of sending colonists out is then.

First of all - in general very good points
To asnwer the question:
The plan/concept/design is that the colonists would be vasals of the holder of colonized province

The purpouse of sending out the colonists can be various:
1) prevent possible revolt in province (I know it isn't much, when the revolt can be easily crushed)
2) gain and spread influence abroad. The one who sends the colonists has always a choice to be their protector in their new land. That means - if your colonists are abroad, they contact you if they fail to gain the rights they demand, or when their rights are being removed. And that is only a step from possible intervention and CB. The stronger the community is, the stronger influence you can have, if you care about their rights. As with all other relations, they are always interpersonal, so you can influence them via gifts... and there should also be a possibility to finance development of those communities (unless it is banned by their actual liege)

Another is how the community is represented. Are they minor holdings, like forts and trade posts? Are they just a list of characters with a new 'community leader' trait? You said one of the rights would be having it's own levies, in which case, how does that work if it's not a holding? Do they just spawn the troops like mercenaries when they want to raise them? And would the liege be able to raise their levies? And would they be able to go to war? Like, joining crusades and stuff of their religion, or even just an event where a group from that community spawns, similar to rebellions, and goes off to join the Great Holy War.

This is a crucial point which I didn't evaluate previously.

Here we can see how the community could be created. Also in the upper part you can see Star of David and Crescent, which represent Jewish and Arab community present in the province.

I thought community should be a special palace type holding tied to each town, with buildable buildings, its own leader character and raisable levies (in case they acquire this privilege). The case when the community gains the right to raise levies should be extremely rare, but in that case, the levies should be led by the community leader (a baron tier title, just like mayor), who is - as mentioned above - a vasal of local count, but these troops should work as allies (and thus be independent of your direct orders) and should not be automatically usable by the province owner.
The community leader would raise his levies independently, the province owner couldn't do it.. and in case of war against their protector, the communities can turn against their actual liege.

If there are more communities of the same culture-religious group, they should automatically form an alliance and the leader of this community (represented by titular count-tier title), should be able to raise and lead these armies united. But we should keep in mind that these levies should be like town levies - they are from merchant/craftsmen militia from towns. No cavalry etc. As of crusades etc. the nature of these levies should be local militia for defensive wars. Since they would work as allied forces (blue) and not directly controlled (green) you can not automatically send them to Crusades etc. They should be designed to join crusader armies only if a crusade is taking place in neighbouring duchy.

And about building schools, places of worship and walls, how does that work if they aren't a minor holding? Does it just give a permanent modifier to the county?

As said above, they should be minor holdings with own buildings. Those can be constructed by both the province owner or their protector.
I can imagine this could be problematic in terms of coding and game's hardcoded capabilities... in that case there would be no other choice than a permanent modifier, if necessary right is given.

Also, would you be able to settle communities in a vassal's lands? Would a vassal be able to settle communities without their liege's permission? Would vassals be able to kick out a community without their liege's permission, and would the liege be able to remove them from a vassal's lands? I would suggest this being based on Crown Authority.

This should depend on Crown Authority/Centralisation laws. Normally I think it should be the direct owner of province who has the final word. His liege, however, should be able to ask him to settle a certain community... but still, the vasal should be able to refuse such request with no major consequences.
On the other hand, under normal feudal conditions, the vasals should not need their liege's permission for settling communities, unless the crown authority/centralisation laws are on the top 2 levels of centralisation.

Could be a nice idea to add a new set of laws to the game, being religious tolerance. (Or minority tolerance I guess, but it seems that different religion communities should be treated a bit differently to different cultures.) Have it go on a scale with the lowest being none, where communities can be pushed into ghettos/expelled, and where you can arrest other religions without tyranny, up to where they have full rights and the ruler can't declare holy wars. (Essentially creating a fully secular state) Most realms would be somewhere in between, of course.

The communities would always work as ghettos, but the idea of new set of laws is perfect, yes, it should exist somehow.

The point is: the community laws would be little more complex, especially in case of large empires with potentialy very high number of various and also numerous communities and conflicting jurisdictions of each ruling tier.

Each supreme liege should be able to say his word about the general settings of community tolerance/autonomy. This means, on empire/kingdom level, there should be a section where this basic tolerance should be set and controlled.
It should generaly influence which laws can be granted or not and at which level of hierarchy.
I won't go into detail now (hopefully later), but in general the minimal tolerance/autonomy would mean that all rights are being decided by the central power and also minimal rights are allowed. Maximal autonomy means that it is up to counts to decide and they can grant whatever rights they want. This set of rights would of course be closely tied to centralization. Maximal centralization would be required for minimal tolerance/autonomy (and vice versa).

This would be a basic setting defining conditions for each community or group of communities. I should elaborate this later...

Also, another idea: If there is an extremely large amount of a certain community in a realm, and an empty holding slot in said realm, what if the community asked to built a city for themselves? Accepting would get you a city, but it would be ruled by people of that community. The leader of it would need to have the 'true believer' thing that makes them always refuse conversion, and they could make it so that revoking that city (Which you could easily do without tyranny since different religion) starts a rebellion of that community, or at least serious unrest.

To be honest I didn't think about this possibility, but it is indeed very interesting. I can imagine it being possible.
It might cause a clash, since I thought that communities would be a separate hierarchy, but on the other hand that could tie it nicely interconnect it with the baisc feudal system.

The other interesting and important questions and ideas will have to be replied later, though both you @noahk777 and @Tryvenyal deserve them to be adressed. Really interesting inputs from both of you

 

[Tryvenyal]

This suggestion have ruined my sleep this weekend! Actually more exalted over this than for HF atm!

I think your majority inhabitants should have the same representation. And that they should have a figure of reprecentation, maybe just a % of the total inhabitants or something more.
Province culture and religion could be determined but the total percentage for each of them. Meaning, the biggest group could be in minority in for example religion as you have 3 other groups sharing the another religious group, and a 4th from another one. Do there need to multiple groups for same set of culture/religion? If a second arrives, should it not just merge with the current one, flipping the balance in the province?

 

[elvain]

This suggestion have ruined my sleep this weekend! Actually more exalted over this than for HF atm!

oh noes! don't tell me that. Do you know how my suggestions end up, right? 2years ago I posted the idea of desert tribals rework and functionality... and guess what... it's not a DLC and none of the many ideas made it into the game

 

[Tryvenyal]

oh noes! don't tell me that. Do you know how my suggestions end up, right? 2years ago I posted the idea of desert tribals rework and functionality... and guess what... it's not a DLC and none of the many ideas made it into the game

I know, unfortunatly most ambitious suggestions face the same destiny Niether have any of my suggestions reached the game. Have read your The Qabila suggestion. It´s a solid foundation for a DLC I´d purchase without hesitation!

Why it ruined my weekend sleep? Because I have long fancied the population reprecented by a peasant leader and now you suggested a solution not only to reprecent the majority but also minorities!!

 

[noahk777]

Very cool ideas. A few things though:

For the protector, what kind of things would they get from it? For instance, what kind of casus belli? Would it be to take over the province with the community? To make the province independent under the rule of the community leader? Or just to force the province owner to give the community the rights they want? And what kind of abuses would give the protector these casus belli? Obviously things like expelling the community or downgrading their rights, but what about refusing to increase their rights? And if that gives the casus belli, which rights? Can the community call for help if their liege refuses to allow them their own levies, or not? Where would the line be drawn? If they can always call for help when they don't get what they want, then letting in colonisers from a more powerful neighbour is suicide. But if its just strict limits, it doesn't seem dynamic enough.

As well as that, what about benefits for the protector if theirs no dispute between community and province owner? Maybe when the protector is in a war they can randomly get an event where a group from that community decides to go fight for their 'homeland' and you get some event troops? Maybe you get prestige for protecting your culture group, and piety for protecting your religious group? Maybe traits or modifiers giving positive opinion with other characters of that culture/religion?

Another is what happens if the protector changes culture/religion to be different from the community? Do they stop being the protector?

And on that, is their a way to usurp being protector from someone else? Maybe if the previous protector fails to support the community in something they want, then other character of the same culture/religion as the community can try to step in and take it from them?

Also, you said the communities would be palace-type holdings, right? But also that a right they could ask for is fortifying their town with walls. You can't siege palaces though, right? (Sorry if I'm wrong, I don't have the Republic DLC) Would you be able to siege their towns? Considering other holdings tend to be bigger, it would be kind of odd for an invader to siege that. Maybe they'r only siegeable in a revolt by the community, or by the protector stepping in to help? In that case, though, its always a bad idea to allow them to build defenses, as they can only be used against you.

Also, when the communities ally under that titular count tier title, how would that work? What if the communities are in a province owned by a count? Since counts can't have other counts as vassals. Also, would the count-community have the smaller communities as vassals? Wouldn't that take them away from the province owner as vassals?
Or do you mean they would only ally under the count-tier if their rebelling against their liege, and the titular count title stops existing when the revolt is over? (Kinda like how faction revolts get that titular revolt title for the faction leader)

And a super minor thing, what government type would the community leader be? Probably just republic, but IDK.

This is a really good idea, and could add a lot more to do in peacetime, managing the realm and all. Could also be something to give a ton of new random events to keep the game interesting. (Riots between communities, petitions from the leaders, and could add a decent bit to the internal politics of a realm, which is always good.)





Wow, looking at this post, I did not expect it to be this long.

 

[Tryvenyal]

I can't leave this! I have added it to the UI with a basic scetch of how it could look! Sorry @elvain, my intention is not to steal your Idea! There are just so much potential in this!!

The bigger slot is for the individual biggest population group. Most likely the one alone defining culture/religion of the province but you will see exceptions later!
There are buildings for this group as well

As a major minority - second raw and a maximum of 2. They are allowed to pick up artisan work and can also benefit from the prosperity in the province. They are quite dangerous, at least for a single count, to manage but their labor is invaluable!

Bottom is definatly slum and building can only cover the basic needs for survival. Here is where they land when you offer them refuge. Communities down here would probably migrate on if they could. They are not much more than slaves. And can definatly be slaves if the coutyruler so wish. Ofc that would anger rulers with their Culture/religion greatly! Their hard work provide a nice boost to prosperity but also their ghettos attract the less nice stuff with prosperity multiplied a few times - Deceases prosper too! There is smal QoL upgrades to be build but quite restrictive! If there´s an empty spot in tier 2, they can be promoted there freely or demand to be.

I promised to get back to how to calculate the majority inhabitabts. Although the top slot holds individual biggest population in the county, it might be no more than 20% of the inhabitants. Thinking of it, even less! Ponder 5 minorities here, where 2 share the Persion Culture. Only one share the Baloch culture and non of them are Zoroastian but 2 are Sunni.
Still though - leading faction is setting province religion and culture!

compisition could be:

• Leading faction is Baloch/Zoroastian - 26%
• Major faction 1 is Persian/Sunni - 21%
• Major faction 2 is Ashanti/Jew - 17%
• Lesser faction 1 is Beduin/Shia- 14%
• Lesser faction 2 is Baloch/Sunni- 12%
• Lesser faction 3 is Persian/Zun - 10%

Culture

• Baloch - 38%
• Persian - 31%
• Ashanti - 17%
• Beduin- 14%

Religion

• Sunni - 33%
• Zoroastian - 26%
• Jew - 17%
• Shia - 14%
• Zun - 10%

This lord though happens to be a Abbasid vassal. Beeing Beduin/Sunni himself, he ofc does what he can to promote his etnicity and religion, though non of them match him exactly!
The leaders cant be converted though, as they always represent the faction.

If this count would place his Sunni Court Iman proselytize here, it would boost the sunni factions on the cost of the non- sunni Persian and Baloch factions. In this cse, he would not touch the Jew or Shia faction as they have no group tp move to! Was there empty slots, more small minorities would emerge!

Tell me if I´m over-working this!

 

[elvain]

@Tryvenyal the basic question: What would those percentages serve for?

I wanted this feature to:
- give some more possibilities to play with as minor count etc. - some more characters you can interact with and boost your provinces
- give a tool which would add more challenge and potential threats to larger empires
- have something to represent the dynamics of medieval society WITHOUT HAVING TO DEAL WITH POPULATION AND POPULATION NUMBERS. I mean I like historical demographics, how it was dynamic and changed fates of many regions, but at the same time I like the fact that this game doesn't operate with population...
a) because we don't have enough sources for population numbers per provinces
b) medieval rulers didn't really care how many people live in their provinces and what percentage of them is of this or that culture.

To be honest, I don't want this to become a tool for graphs and statistics which are here only to be watched. What would those things add to the gameplay, how can they be employed for more interesting game? It will help you to spread cultures you want etc., but that can work with these communities without having to deal with those statistics, without forcing the AI to calculate those percents for what gain? note that the thing you are suggesting would be very performance heavy... and it in fact goes against the main purpouse of this suggestion - to have minorities witout having to deal with numeric populations.

Also - the province has one major population, which can change via communities, but it would not be a matter of percentages. I really don't want to force the game to calculate how many people does certain building etc. represent and then reevaluate it... for 3-7 holdings + several special holdings for some 2000 provinces.
Note that in middle ages, the population did not have its representatives. Only in the very latest era of middle ages, the towns were gaining rights and did get some representatives in early parliaments, but those were far from what we know in the 17-18th century first real parliaments... there really is no historical base for using this, is there? I may be wrong...

@noahk777 as always some very good points. Frankly some of them go into a level of detail I didn't consider, but I will elaborate how it fits to the concept later thanks!

 

[elvain]

View attachment 381203

I can't leave this! I have added it to the UI with a basic scetch of how it could look! Sorry @elvain, my intention is not to steal your Idea! There are just so much potential in this!!

The bigger slot is for the individual biggest population group. Most likely the one alone defining culture/religion of the province but you will see exceptions later!
There are buildings for this group as well

As a major minority - second raw and a maximum of 2. They are allowed to pick up artisan work and can also benefit from the prosperity in the province. They are quite dangerous, at least for a single count, to manage but their labor is invaluable!

Bottom is definatly slum and building can only cover the basic needs for survival. Here is where they land when you offer them refuge. Communities down here would probably migrate on if they could. They are not much more than slaves. And can definatly be slaves if the coutyruler so wish. Ofc that would anger rulers with their Culture/religion greatly! Their hard work provide a nice boost to prosperity but also their ghettos attract the less nice stuff with prosperity multiplied a few times - Deceases prosper too! There is smal QoL upgrades to be build but quite restrictive! If there´s an empty spot in tier 2, they can be promoted there freely or demand to be.

I promised to get back to how to calculate the majority inhabitabts. Although the top slot holds individual biggest population in the county, it might be no more than 20% of the inhabitants. Thinking of it, even less! Ponder 5 minorities here, where 2 share the Persion Culture. Only one share the Baloch culture and non of them are Zoroastian but 2 are Sunni.
Still though - leading faction is setting province religion and culture!

compisition could be:

• Leading faction is Baloch/Zoroastian - 26%
• Major faction 1 is Persian/Sunni - 21%
• Major faction 2 is Ashanti/Jew - 17%
• Lesser faction 1 is Beduin/Shia- 14%
• Lesser faction 2 is Baloch/Sunni- 12%
• Lesser faction 3 is Persian/Zun - 10%

Culture

• Baloch - 38%
• Persian - 31%
• Ashanti - 17%
• Beduin- 14%

Religion

• Sunni - 33%
• Zoroastian - 26%
• Jew - 17%
• Shia - 14%
• Zun - 10%

This lord though happens to be a Abbasid vassal. Beeing Beduin/Sunni himself, he ofc does what he can to promote his etnicity and religion, though non of them match him exactly!
The leaders cant be converted though, as they always represent the faction.

If this count would place his Sunni Court Iman proselytize here, it would boost the sunni factions on the cost of the non- sunni Persian and Baloch factions. In this cse, he would not touch the Jew or Shia faction as they have no group tp move to! Was there empty slots, more small minorities would emerge!

Tell me if I´m over-working this!

The question is:
What defines major faction etc? How is one faction bigger or smaller than another?

The concept of minorities is meant to have communities, but do not care how big they actually are. Their importance does not measure by number of their population, but by their wealth (taxes paid) and privilegues. A small wealthy community is much more important and valuable than large and poor - at least from perspective of the ruler.

Even with communities the province should still IMHO have only one culture. If there are more communities of one particular culture and religion, the flip may happen, but it should be rather simplistic: 3 German communities in towns, ruler is a German, his liege is a German, the percentage to switch from Polish to German is higher than if there was one less community. No percents, no nothing. Keep it simple, that's what game design needs

Why should I as ruler care that the Baloch community has 3% more people than Jewish community? To measure cultural or religious change? Couldn't it be done by simpler way?
The game already needs to keep track of communities, ther buildings and rights, what would be the gain for calculating the percentages of population which may define the cultural change? It can and will have to be calculated from other factors...
and frankly I don't even know why the player should know this. To invite more settlers in order to initiate cultural change? Should the player really be in charge of doing intentional cultural changes?

Let's not overthink it...
I apologize if I'm undermining your enthusiasm

 

[Tryvenyal]

@elvain Yes, my enthusiams took a hit now. But this is your suggestion I´ll have to adopt. I thought of this as a tool for simulating a province does not have one culture, nor 1 religion. Well, I can easy enough get rid of the counters and the percentage - they were there for the purpose of illustating the demogaphy in the province - which you outright disagree to. My illustation did not cover how to precent the exect digits to the count.

but it should be rather simplistic: 3 German communities in towns, ruler is a German, his liege is a German, the percentage to switch from Polish to German is higher than if there was one less community. No percents, no nothing. Keep it simple, that's what game design needs

So to the cost of an unhappy bishop, I as Catholic Breton count can fill upp my catholic breton county with technoligically superior jew communities without the risk of turning the province into their culture and religion? What except a third instance of countyboost after "the hermetics" and "Schoolar focus" is this then? A jewish counceller? Can probably live with that Thought that if I settle foreigners, treat them well to harvest the benefits, they would risk to influence the culture, either with a mixed new culture or swallowed by the foreign one.

Why would a German/Catholic count treat his german population as a minority? I don't think your suggestion is all about checking the list of available minorities for those matching you and settle them in your non- matching provinces? And why whould there be exceeding germans in that scale to begin with? Thought that the absolute majority of available communities are landless exiles, more or less desperate refugees driven from their land? A small part would be settlers from a prospering realm that seeks new land to claim?

If the "buildings"/"laws" or whatever they will be able to build will not affect their fertility in any direction, what will they do? Affect the leader´s opinion only? Like nomad sentiment? What is the tech figures do? A boost to the local spread where it´s lower in the province? I would like to see how you picture the buildings/laws. I picture them as a mix of holding buildings/policies and outright laws on the same holding screen to make them unique to that minority.

 

[elvain]

Very intereting! If I holy war infidel land, can I then settle minorities from my capital there to faster convert it´s culture/religion? Or must the minorities differ from the ruler?

I thought that you could settle a community in any province you control... which means if you control a province, you can establish a community there, even if the community officialy belongs to somebody else. But frankly, in case of Holy war, there may be high probability that after/if the defender takes it back, he would expel the community ASAP (expeling would give him money!)

To the second question: no, the communities don't need to differ. A Bedouin ruler might want to settle his Bedouin people (if there are available Bedouin colonists) in newly conquered province, because it may bring him benefits (the province becomes wealthier, may eventualy turn to his culture*), A German ruler may settle German colonists in Silesian county owned by his vasal Polish count (if the vasal agrees)

* he can expect it to happen, but he definitely be able to trigger cultural conversion.

Can I convert minorites and assimilate them? Shoud I be able to forbid them to assimilate?

Yes, you can convert minorities religion, but not culture - as mentioned above, cultural conversions should not be possible.
Frankly I haven't thought about assimilating minorities (since forced cultural conver were not taken under consideration), because assimilating the community means removing it. The reason for communities to exist is not to introduce populations, but to show diversity... and if the diversity ceases to exist, so does the status of community.

How will minorities spawn? Assume I know some ways. Are there others?

• "Expell the Jews decision" will spawn available jew minorites.
• A successfull holy war will spawn desperate migrants of that culture/s / religion/s(Should also serverly depopulate the region)
• High propserity for a long time will overpopulate the province and spawn a group of migrants.(Should they not in first case move to a neightbour province and boost the prosperity there?)

I have already outlined how the communities will be created:

This means player can both send his people abroad and welcome them in his own lands. The basic tools would be:
1) in times of war or forced religious conversion (persecution)... or perhaps even a revolt led by other culture/religion, a migrant community is created. This community would have its leader (random character) and would keep its culture, religion as well as technology of its original province (maybe even some of its laws) and such a community would then be available in its Geographical region (Francia, Britain, Arabia, Bengal, West Africa etc.), there it will roam for some time being available for rulers to invite it, but after some time (a year or more) it will start offering itself to various rulers in the region and provinces in its direct neighbourhood
2) if a province witnessed long peacetime and its prosperity (with RD) is thus rising, its community gets also selected to the list of available communities. But unlike the case mentioned above, the community does not offer itself, it can only be picked by some of the rulers
3) if a ruler wants to spread his influence, he can himself create a community out of his prospering province and offer it to the general pool of available communities, but more usual way for this would be that he directly picks a province or a town where he wants to send his colonists - more about this later.

but perhaps you wanted me to describe it in even higher detail?

1) war or forced conversions creating refugee communities:

• Pillaging a holding creates number of dissatisfied people who leave the place - these will have the same culture and religion as the pillaged holding = the province of the pillaged holding
• Forced conversion of certain province - creates refugee community with the same culture and religion as the province before conversion. This may happen even during failed proselytization. In this case - any ruler who shares the religion with the refugee community can proclaim himself a protector of that community (1)
• Expelling already existing community (it doesn't necessarily have to be Jews)

2) possibilities under this category don't need more evaluation, do they?
3) creating community even if you don't have prospering province with potential new colonists:

• You can pick a holding in some of your province (directly controlled) and rightclicking it would allow you the option to resettle these people elswhere. It would mean that the holding is removed and you have a community at your disposal. This community can be resettled in any of your provinces. Conditions are similar as with resettling other communities: if the target province has same culture and religion, you can create a new holding (town) there. If the 2 provinces have different culture or religion, you can add that community to one of province's towns. This can be tool for kingdoms which need to boost wealth and power of some weaker provinces. It however requires 4 or 5 centralization and Late or Imperial administration law. This tool was being used by Byzantines when they resettled Slavic populations from the Balkans to Anatolia.

I know I have probably not described all potential possibilities and am up for suggestions for more as long as they convene with the basic concept.
I don't have patent for inventions and there already appeared few other valuable examples.

For instance as mentioned below, probably if an advanturer successfully takes a province, he should have the possibility to create a community of his culture and religion in the province he conquered. Having a ruler and community of one culture in province of other culture should be the pre-requisite for cultural conversion (i.e. Norse in Frankish Normandy => Norman etc.).
The other example of perfect idea which I didn't mention and fits perfectly this concept is Merchant republic holding a province overseas - the ruler should have the possibility to resettle his people. Either he can pick some community of his culture, or take a holding of one of his provinces and turn it into colonist community in some other province. There are various examples of Italian, German, Arab but also other merchant communities being established in distant lands.

Notes:
1 - This ruler receives an event and a community:

"Your brothers in faith from province of [converted province] are persecuted by self-proclaimed [title] [name]. The poor faithfull brothers have fled under leadership of [community_leader_name], who asks you to settle in your lands. Will you allow these poor people to settle down?"
Options:
A - if you hold a province which has the same religion and culture as the refugees:
"Settle these poor people in your province of [province with same culture and religion as refugees]" => a new town is founded in the province. It costs some small amount of money necessary to feed them (cca 15-30 gold). This can happen in any province with free holding slot or in prospering province. You also gain piety and prestige for accepting regugees.
B - available if you don't hold a province of the same culture AND religion, but hold a province which has either the same culture or religion.
"Allow them to create their own community in some of your provinces." => you can choose a province in which they will create a community, You gain piety and small prestige for accepting refugees.
C - "I don't have land good enough for you now, but I will help you to return." => you gain small amount of piety, a trait Protector of [community_name] and a "religious refugees CB" - it allows you to declare a small holy war for a duchy from which the community fled. The community is temporarily among available communities. If you don't declare the war in 2 years, the community leader asks you to declare the war. If you refuse, you get big piety and prestige penalty for broken promise. If you enter the war and win, you gain the duchy and the province in question as in holy war, the province from which the refugees fled re-converts back to its original religion and the community which asked for the war disappears (is resettled). This of course creates another refugee community, now of the other religion. White peace means the community becomes fully available for resettlement elswhere, the attacker pays small amount of money to defender, but gains small piety. If you lose, you lose piety and war "reparations", the community becomes fully available for resettlement.

Settling lads of your culture somewhere makes way more sense that the current way of culture conversion, which is a county of culture X can just randomly convert to culture Y if its owned by a character with culture Y for long enough.

Would also be cool if adventurers came with their own minority group with them. Like, places like Normandy and England didn't just get Scandinavian-ish cultures randomly, its cause vikings settled there and brought their lads with them.

Also, merchant republics can build a building called 'merchant exclave' in their trade posts, basicilly representing that those republics often sent colonists to live and work in their trade posts. Maybe that can create minorities of the republic's religion and culture?

Yes, these are perfect examples of how these communities could work

For the protector, what kind of things would they get from it? For instance, what kind of casus belli? Would it be to take over the province with the community? To make the province independent under the rule of the community leader? Or just to force the province owner to give the community the rights they want?

Above I tried to outline one of possible CBs, but to be completely hones, I haven't thought this out into deepest details.
I can imagine various levels of protectorship could offer various CBs... and the type of CB would also depend on the type of abuse.

For instance if certain ruler is a protector of major group, which has several province communities and its own hierarchy (there are several baron tier community leaders with higher leader), he should have more powerfull CBs than a protector of minor group with only one community inside the other realm. And the type of CB would also depend on that happens to a community.
For instance if the group with 6 communities and count-level leader enjoys good relations with their overlord, the protector should not be able to get Invasion CB... in this case I think there should be in fact no CBs available. The community can be used other way:
- if the community booms abroad, you as the protector get events in which the members of that community come to your realm to boost trade, they can boost inovation of your own country (events giving you technology points), they will increase your chance to intrigue inside the realm (your spymaster can use the network of your expatriates), the community leaders can participate in your plots (and will likely do so if you improve the relations too), they can serve as negotiators. Having a friently community on a territory you pass through (for a Crusade), makes your unit feel like they are on friendly territory (higher cap for suffering attrition)

OTOH, things could change in the realm with this group. A new ruler will start removing the rights of this community or even expelling them, that should give you CBs. If the community is still strong, but being opressed, you should be able to ask for their independence - a CB which, in case of victory, makes the community leader independent ruler of provinces whiere your community lives. But the first phase CB should rather be even softer - asking the other ruler to return back to status quo in which your protected community held its privileges. This may result in forcing the community leader as advisor at the royal council or locking the minority tolerance laws, which may only further undermine the power of your rival empire...
But when the communities are getting exterminated by expellations or forced religious conversions, the CB should be stronger. For instance the one I mentioned above. In case of smaller communities it could be simply a conquest CB... or community protection CB, making the province independent under the community leader.

And what kind of abuses would give the protector these casus belli? Obviously things like expelling the community or downgrading their rights, but what about refusing to increase their rights? And if that gives the casus belli, which rights? Can the community call for help if their liege refuses to allow them their own levies, or not? Where would the line be drawn? If they can always call for help when they don't get what they want, then letting in colonisers from a more powerful neighbour is suicide. But if its just strict limits, it doesn't seem dynamic enough.

I think there should be a limit. When asking for certain basic rights - such as right to build places of worship etc. - the community can turn to their protector for help. But it shouldn't be a CB, but rather an event:
Here is the sequence:
1) community asks for right to build schools and places of worship => its liege refuses => the protector receives event in which the community leader asks him for backing. If the protector agrees, both rulers have event in which the protector's envoy visits the community's liege, asking for this right to be implemented. If the liege disagrees, the protector has chance to give him something in exchange (money? marriage? nothing?), if he still refuses, it worsens relations between both and strenghtens the ties between the protector and the community. But the farthest this should be possible is IMHO the privilege to do craftmanship, have own judges or to buy land at best.

I think it shoud have this kind of limits, but at the same time, I still see it as rather dynamic thing, since there are many options which can change the balance. But I admit it might be hard to ballance.
Anyways, things are dynamic in the entire game. Note that the game lasts for several generations. In the beggining you may be accepting colonists from a regular medicore neighbour, but after 3 generations he may end up being dangerous neighbour... and as I see it, most of the options tied to colonists offer you something good AND some potential threat... I don't think any part of this should give anyone only positives or only negatives.
Even accepting colonists from powerfull and technologicaly advanced neighbour can boost your own realm... in times of need it may give you the chance to convert without being forced or threatened... you never know

As well as that, what about benefits for the protector if theirs no dispute between community and province owner? Maybe when the protector is in a war they can randomly get an event where a group from that community decides to go fight for their 'homeland' and you get some event troops? Maybe you get prestige for protecting your culture group, and piety for protecting your religious group? Maybe traits or modifiers giving positive opinion with other characters of that culture/religion?

I believe I have just mentioned some. But yes, traits giving positive opinion with characters of the other culture/religion is one of things which should work.
Not sure about the troops. But considering that privilege to have own levies should be an extreme, I can imagine that if a community manages to gain this privilege, it might be able to fight with their protector as allied forces (except a war against the community's liege)

Another is what happens if the protector changes culture/religion to be different from the community? Do they stop being the protector?

Being a protector should be a dynamic thing. If you don't follow the path of being good protector, you should lose this status. Therefore converting to other religion, or changing culture may lead to losing this status. OTOH, even a catholic ruler can be protector of jewish communities, etc. It should not be automatic, but generaly, if relations between the community and the protector drop to certain level, both the protector and the community leader should be noticed and have oportunity to do something about it, and cessation of the status of protector/protege should be one of them.

And on that, is their a way to usurp being protector from someone else? Maybe if the previous protector fails to support the community in something they want, then other character of the same culture/religion as the community can try to step in and take it from them?

To add to my previous imput: Yes. If the previous protector fails to support his proteges, the community leader should have possibility to ask another ruler. Could there be even a CB/war over the right to be protector of certain group/community in some realm? I can imagine that, although I admit I haven't thought about it in detail, so I'm not sure about possible details or consequences of it.

Also, you said the communities would be palace-type holdings, right? But also that a right they could ask for is fortifying their town with walls. You can't siege palaces though, right? (Sorry if I'm wrong, I don't have the Republic DLC) Would you be able to siege their towns? Considering other holdings tend to be bigger, it would be kind of odd for an invader to siege that. Maybe they'r only siegeable in a revolt by the community, or by the protector stepping in to help? In that case, though, its always a bad idea to allow them to build defenses, as they can only be used against you.

They should be attached to their town-holding and share its fate in terms of wars, meaning - they are being besieged, defended and conquered together (a positive motivation of granting the community right to bear arms - it gives you free guards), but when the holding is conquered, the conqueror can pillage them separately.
Although there were instances of twin cities by two communities (in West Africa Walata-Biru), for the sake of sanity the game should treat these as one holding.

Building walls is here only for cases of possible clashes between the ruler and the community (both could benefit from walls, both can suffer from them). As you said - in case of revolt (or extreme opression), it gives the community some defensive position.
For instance a pogrom against unprotected community may mean 80% chance of community being eliminated with no survivors and 20% chance of some members of the community fleeing, but 0% chance of survival of community. If the community has walls, the chances should be 40% elimination, 30% survival, 30% survival, but fleeing right after pogrom. In case of walls and levies, it should be 10% elimination, 25% full survival and 25% fleeing after the pogrom ends.

But keep in mind that pogroms don't always happen at liege's will. The pogroms often happen in times of general turmoil and the community is natural first target which can happen before rebellion. That means...
1) it is positive to have community in your towns as it may turn the aggression first against the community and only then against the ruler.
2) you may want to give the community the right to build walls because you want that community to survive in your town, because it gives you money, courtiers and helps you to boost your relations with a neighbour (and taking care about his protected community may convince this neighbour to help you against another neighbour)
3) as said above, having a walled community also improves the defences of your holding and thus can be also good for you (although the bonus shouldn't be that large, it is for free).

Also, when the communities ally under that titular count tier title, how would that work? What if the communities are in a province owned by a count? Since counts can't have other counts as vassals. Also, would the count-community have the smaller communities as vassals? Wouldn't that take them away from the province owner as vassals?
Or do you mean they would only ally under the count-tier if their rebelling against their liege, and the titular count title stops existing when the revolt is over? (Kinda like how faction revolts get that titular revolt title for the faction leader)

I think I have described it above, that the titular count level leader of grand community would be available only if there is certain number of communities under your rule:

- if certain community (of the same culture and religion) has more than X* communities in your realm, the community leaders will by themselves start to behave as important community and create the own head of their comunity. This character would be chosen amongst the various leaders of the small communities (based on strength of the community and his own diplomacy skill) and will ask for special recognition of his community. That means either he would ask for a seat at your court, or for special rights and privilegues for the community.**

* I would suggest 5 or more, but it could IMHO be set anywhere between 3-10 and it might also depend on the rank... for instance in case of a duke it would be 5, in case of a king, it would be 6, for emperor 7 and for count 4

Although I thought it should only be available for dukes and higher, I see I allowed it also for counts. In this case I think it should only be available for dukes and higher (when writing the firs input I didn't realize they need some title).
Anyways, counts usually don't own that many provinces to have 4 and more communities of the same kind under them (although there can be more than one communities in one province). That was my error. Important communities should only be allowed for dukes and higher.

But I admit it may be little confusing with the vasalage and the hierarchy.
The community leaders are vasals of the direct ruler of the county. But then it gets little more complex.

Despite being direct vasals of the direct owner of provinces, the community leaders always group up only directly under the top ranked independent ruler (otherwise it could be a total mess).

Imagine a kingdom of Poland, which has 3 vasal duchies and 21 provinces. 6 of those provinces have 1 German community (Lubusz, Lower Silesia, Upper Silesia, Cieczyn, Krakow and Poznan), one has 2 German communities (Wroclaw) and 6 have Jewish communities (Krakow, Kalisz, Poznan, Lublin, Czersk, Plock). None of dukes has 5 of each, so none of them can have.

Even though the duke of Silesia (Upper&Lower Silesia, Wroclaw and Cieszyn) has 5 German communities in provinces under his rule, the Germans don't create their representative at his court, but can only ask the king of Poland. So do the Jews.

The representative of the important communities - the one holding titular count level - doesn't hold this title to be liege of the baron-tier leaders, but to have higher rank at royal courts. The count tier gives him pore prestige and distincts him from others, but they all remain vasals of their respective rulers. The leader of this community must always be from a community from a province directly held by duke, king or emperor.
It means, if all community leaders are direct vasals of counts and none of them is directly under a duke or king, the important community cannot be created.
The reason is simplicity but also the fact that this makes the community leaders to be usualy from larger centers and/or capitals, rather than some backwater villages.

And a super minor thing, what government type would the community leader be? Probably just republic, but IDK.

I have always considered them as republic, since they are town commoners. But I'm not sure how to treat them when they gain independence. Probably still republics.

This is a really good idea, and could add a lot more to do in peacetime, managing the realm and all. Could also be something to give a ton of new random events to keep the game interesting. (Riots between communities, petitions from the leaders, and could add a decent bit to the internal politics of a realm, which is always good.)

Exactly how it was meant to be. Expand both strategy and roleplay aspects of the game adding tons of events and interpersonal interactions.... still without having to care about percentages or other population stuff.

 

[Tryvenyal]

Frankly I haven't thought about assimilating minorities (since forced cultural conver were not taken under consideration), because assimilating the community means removing it. The reason for communities to exist is not to introduce populations, but to show diversity... and if the diversity ceases to exist, so does the status of community.

Well... I have had a high tech jewish community for a few generations and managed to convert them to my religion. Treated them well in general but opressed them with a small "EU3 style" "Settlement policy" - ie a percentage of their female population is enforced to take husbunds of the province culture. They are no longer superior in tech and are frankly not giving me much anymore. Are my only option then to get rid of them? Heavy settlement policies are a tyranny in it´s own right but not at same degree as expelling them. And expelling them would probably be a costly thing as they are now of my religion. So.. What are my options? There are new jewish communities, far superior in tech that´s knockng on the door

To fully but at an "humane" level assimilate or merge cultures must be a profitable way, boosting the province at the same time it frees up a communityspot. Meybe this can be a new way of adding new holding spots to a province with a limited number of these? This maybe doesn't benefit Constantinople but maybe in Iceland? It should ofcource be slow and many rights needs to be granted to make up the "settlement policy" tyranny.

Think tribal holdings needs to be denied communities. Maybe you covered this already - did you mean a City is required to be allowed to have communities?
If pagans should start accepting these communites, they would fairly quick convert. Considering what harm a single Christian/Muslim court physician can do today to any unreformed pagan.

 

[noahk777]

Above I tried to outline one of possible CBs, but to be completely hones, I haven't thought this out into deepest details.
I can imagine various levels of protectorship could offer various CBs... and the type of CB would also depend on the type of abuse.

For instance if certain ruler is a protector of major group, which has several province communities and its own hierarchy (there are several baron tier community leaders with higher leader), he should have more powerfull CBs than a protector of minor group with only one community inside the other realm. And the type of CB would also depend on that happens to a community.
For instance if the group with 6 communities and count-level leader enjoys good relations with their overlord, the protector should not be able to get Invasion CB... in this case I think there should be in fact no CBs available. The community can be used other way:
- if the community booms abroad, you as the protector get events in which the members of that community come to your realm to boost trade, they can boost inovation of your own country (events giving you technology points), they will increase your chance to intrigue inside the realm (your spymaster can use the network of your expatriates), the community leaders can participate in your plots (and will likely do so if you improve the relations too), they can serve as negotiators. Having a friently community on a territory you pass through (for a Crusade), makes your unit feel like they are on friendly territory (higher cap for suffering attrition)

OTOH, things could change in the realm with this group. A new ruler will start removing the rights of this community or even expelling them, that should give you CBs. If the community is still strong, but being opressed, you should be able to ask for their independence - a CB which, in case of victory, makes the community leader independent ruler of provinces whiere your community lives. But the first phase CB should rather be even softer - asking the other ruler to return back to status quo in which your protected community held its privileges. This may result in forcing the community leader as advisor at the royal council or locking the minority tolerance laws, which may only further undermine the power of your rival empire...
But when the communities are getting exterminated by expellations or forced religious conversions, the CB should be stronger. For instance the one I mentioned above. In case of smaller communities it could be simply a conquest CB... or community protection CB, making the province independent under the community leader.

Maybe, if the community your protecting is not of your culture and religion, then you get a casus belli that makes them independent, but as a tributary of you. If they are of both your religion and culture, then you get a casus belli that gives the community leader the province and makes him a direct vassal of you. (Unless the community gaining the province would make them the same rank as you, in which case they are a tributary.)

As you said, it could be different strengths for different circumstances. Maybe if you are protecting a single community then they gain the province and become count-rank, but if their is enough communities that they have a community leader, then the casus belli will take more land. It could either take a de jure duchy, or it could take all provinces that have communities.

Also, what if their are enough communities to have a community leader, but each community has a different protector? When the communities are asking for help as a whole, who do they ask? Do they ask all protectors to join a war as allies? Do they ask the strongest protector, or a random one?

 

[elvain]

Well... I have had a high tech jewish community for a few generations and managed to convert them to my religion. Treated them well in general but opressed them with a small "EU3 style" "Settlement policy" - ie a percentage of their female population is enforced to take husbunds of the province culture. They are no longer superior in tech and are frankly not giving me much anymore. Are my only option then to get rid of them? Heavy settlement policies are a tyranny in it´s own right but not at same degree as expelling them. And expelling them would probably be a costly thing as they are now of my religion. So.. What are my options? There are new jewish communities, far superior in tech that´s knockng on the door

Well, with the way the question is asked, I would say... why would you care about them?
They converted to your religion and this is probably a point where they wouldn't be a hassle for most of medieval rulers, so they would just not care about such community.
The question is what would a normal medieval ruler have at his disposal? Expelling a community which is of his religion? That would be correctly seen as tyranical.. and then, what did nedieval rulers do about communities with different culture? They really didn't care much as far as I know. And I don't see a reason why you should either...

But looking at this mechanic...
As you said, you have imposed hard policies on them, and that is what may take care of this community in long term perspective. If a comunity is facing hardship, it may eventually move by itself. They would most probably start asking you for more privileges and as long as you continue to deny them their basic rights, they will have no reason to remain in your city. As I described earlier, every community will, from time to time, face some negative events. There can be pogroms, just because they are different.... if there appears to be an epidemic (RD required), there might come another pogrom... and as described above, if the community isn't given the right to build walls, there would be high chance of this community to disappear after such pogrom... or several pogroms. So don't worry, the time can take care of your unwanted community. As long as it has no protector, imposing hard policy on them and giving them no support may get you rid of them.

You can of course be impatient and want them to leave sooner, in that case you can trigger the pogroms yourself. I think there might be some decision, in which your spymaster could trigger a pogrom against any community and you only need to hope that nobody recognizes it's you who is behind it.
If you would be revealed, it then depends - if the community has a protector, then you face the same consequences as if you try to expell them... if they are of your reliigion, you should expect a heavy piety and prestige hit... but that's a cost for demanding fast eviction of group of people.

To fully but at an "humane" level assimilate or merge cultures must be a profitable way, boosting the province at the same time it frees up a communityspot. Meybe this can be a new way of adding new holding spots to a province with a limited number of these? This maybe doesn't benefit Constantinople but maybe in Iceland? It should ofcource be slow and many rights needs to be granted to make up the "settlement policy" tyranny.

Frankly, assimilation of group of people is never a completely humane way, so, as said above, you either need to be patient, or face the consequences of impatience. Assimilation is a gradual process which needs some conditions... and if you create the conditions (deny the community the possibility to flourish), it will eventually assimilate or leave.

If they have the conditions to flourish in some way, but not develop their cultural identity, then they would probably assimilate... and yes, this might be an instance when a prospering community becomes a new regular holding. That's a good idea!
But this kind of assimilation would have to have certain limitations and should take pretty long time. The community would for instance need to be isolated (no brother community in any of neighbouring provinces), without protector, have the same religion as the province and the ruler and his liege. If there are these conditions, then after some 3-4 generations the community may eventually accept the province's culture and turn into regular town holding.

Think tribal holdings needs to be denied communities. Maybe you covered this already - did you mean a City is required to be allowed to have communities?
If pagans should start accepting these communites, they would fairly quick convert. Considering what harm a single Christian/Muslim court physician can do today to any unreformed pagan.

When we're at it, to be completely honest, when saying that communities should be available only to town type holdings, I meant normal province of typical CK2 government, for which I consider a feudal or iqta or similar government, which has all 3 types of holdings.

As for tribals - I think I have already mentioned the Wangara traders in West Africa - those existed in more or less tribal society.

I think it should be possible fot tribal provinces to accept the communities... with all possible costs and consequences. Of course for pagans it might threaten their religious integrity and having a prosperous community in tribal province may cause high probability even for cultural conversion, but I don't think it should be restricted.
Communities in tribal provinces should have little different conditions.
Since tribal society works differently, the cultural conversion should not be that easy and automatic and should be even less probable if the hosting tribal province converts to the religion of that community.

 

[Vantablight]

The way this has been outlined it seems like it would add a lot of clutter that might outweigh the flavor it adds. There's already many events to do with minorities along the silk road, with Jews throughout different religious groups, and there's stuff like libraries and universities that you can build through hospitals and city holdings.

What I would recommend is having these communities fit into the fort slot which is currently useless outside of pinning down nomad counties. You could click and then pick one of the minority communities to settle. While having more than one minority community in a large city might makes sense historically my sense is that it would be overwhelming to manage with the level of granularity you've talked about. The choice of which minorities could be settled could be based upon geographic area, silk road proximity, etc- or, you could have little choice in which to choose to settle but rather have to receive an event in which they arrive and ask to settle. Refugees from neighboring expulsions or wars could trigger events for neighboring rulers in which they choose whether or not to allow them to take up the open settlement slot in X county (when if refused it moves to the closest neighboring ruler). You could have an action that allows you to uproot a minority from one county and move it to another, even a move from another realm incentivized with a large sum of gold and promises of autonomy, or forcibly within your realm or while having invaded and occupied the counties of another realm. Here you could integrate this into the existing focus system- the ruler focus could allow actions and event chains that more aptly manage minority communities. The business focus could allow for more interactions with trade-related minority communities, the learning/faith focus could allow you to interact with minorities in a religious manner, etc.

In terms of privileges that these communities receive- I think it should be a matter of a single 'minority autonomy' option that you can toggle back and forth with a cooldown period. With no minority autonomy they remain by in large as small expansions of your holdings, and with full they can be fully settled and run their own affairs. At low they can have fewer of the positive events that benefit your rule while at higher autonomy they can unlock more buildings and provide more unique bonuses. At maximum autonomy they could perhaps demand to become a proper holding if a slot is available, maybe as a unique "free city" that cannot as easily be revoked or converted, and only then get it's own character as leader. The events could be based around three types- minority demands for greater autonomy, sparks of tension between the minority and majority group, and flavor events to do with the minority.

Having a bunch of minority groups as semi-independent entities with their own characters seems like it would put a non-insignificant burden upon the game's engine, and would require a fair amount of AI programming for the AI rulers to handle them. If each county can have a single minority group, let alone several, then you're talking about increasing the number of characters in the game by one for almost every holding- I believe there are around 3000 holdings at the start, and presuming only cities are given communities then you're probably adding about thousand characters within a hundred years of the earliest start date, which according to the graph I've seen of living characters would be a 5-10% increase. Having a single slot for these communities per county, and having them become a holding proper when receiving full autonomy, would allow all of the flavor of the events and buildings with neither a large increase in characters or flooding the player with too many entities to manage.