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EU4 - Development Diary - 2nd of June 2016

Hello and welcome to another development diary for Europa Universalis IV. This is probably the last one I’ll write for some months, as I’m taking some paternity leave. I’m leaving you in the capable hands of DDRJake though, who’ll give you weekly diaries in June, August and September.. As you all know, we’re a swedish company, so July is sacred and holy, and must be worshipped in the sun.


Speaking of Swedish, I guess it is time to talk about something related. Culture.

Culture in Europa Universalis, as most of you seem to grasp, have nothing with linguistic relations to do, but more of a semi-arbitrary limits of who gets along better with who, and who could rule others easier through history.

Which cultures were accepted in your nation in EU4 has not really been controllable though before, as you get gaining or losing, depending on the presence of a culture in your country.

In 1.18, which we aim to release in the autumn, we have completely removed the cultural acceptance percentage system, and instead give you control over which cultures are accepted or not in your empire.

First of all, there is now a limit on how many cultures a nation can accept.

There is a base of 2 accepted cultures, The Humanist Idea ‘Cultural Ties’ gives you 2 more slots, Enlighetened Despotism increases it with up to 3 at Empire level & Several Nations have ideas giving them an extra slot. There are also policies that can give you an extra slot each if you so desire and Diplomatic Technology gives you up to 5 more slots, currently from level 8, 14, 20, 26 & 31.

If you have too many cultures, you will lose the last one you accepted.

Any accepted or same culture group can be made into primary culture, if its at least 50% of your cored state development. This costs 100 diplomatic power and obviously this means that the cultural shift decision has been made obsolete and is now removed.


You can promote any culture in your nation that has at least 20 cored development in a state. It costs 100 diplomatic power.

You can also remove an accepted culture if you so wish, which costs 10 diplomatic power, and adds 5 unrest in all the provinces with that culture.


Here is a look of the new government window, which includes the culture lists.

fN0Ylyn.jpg


Stay tuned, next week Jake will all tell you about WHY it is better to be a great power than a minor.
 
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Months of paternity leave? Jesus, no wonder so little comes out of you Sweden. Congratulations btw, Johan.:p
In Denmark at least parental leave is 1 year to be split between the parents. I would be really surprised if it isn't something similar in Sweden.
 
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Congratulations @Johan !

While the new system is still not perfect and would need more levels of acceptance, it is better than the old one. I hope the revamped crown tab means there will be an overhaul of rulers and dynasties.
 
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Sooo... Does it mean that Lithuanian culture will be finally accepted in bigger Polish-LITHUANIAN Commonwealths?
Well, historically Lithuanian nobles took on much of Polish traditions and by the end of the Commonwealth Lithuanian was the language of commoners - and the topic of the Polish spelling of surnames in Lithuania is a contentious topic to this very day.
 
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So... will culture groups be reworked with this new system in mind? For instance there is no point in forcing Finnish and Sami culture into the Scandinavian group when Sweden can simply choose to accept them instead, imo.
 
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I really hope they make republics more dynamic and interesting then previously, as in getting rid of the 114, 141, 411 mechanic and also giving it a bunch more events as well. There are a lot of events currently, but it would be nice if there was more. Maybe a mechanic that if peasent rebels force demands later on, say 1600's they could force a republic? Also, more than one child per king would be cool, more dynamic monarchies
 
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This is pretty awesome! Two quick ideas about how to develop this further:

1) Allow going over the accepted cultures limit, but at the cost of 1 MP/month (ie. just like going over the diplomatic relations or leaders limits). DIP would be the logical choice here, although nothing drains ADM at the moment.
2) If you accept a culture in a certain cultural group, there should be spillover benefits to other cultures in the same group - maybe the same level of penalties as other "same culture group as primary culture" currently is, or perhaps an intermediate level of penalties between "not accepted" and "same culture group as primary culture". The rationale here is that it doesn't unfairly penalize culture groups that are more atomized or reward groups that are amazingly unitary. It kind of makes sense too: if you accept Tuscan, then it makes sense for Lombard to be treated somewhat better than say Aracuanian.
 
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Much better system for cultures!

But let's talk about tabs new and old instead. So government, culture and national modifiers have now been moved to a new tab. Things not moved are monarch, heir, national focus and advisors. Johan confirms earlier in the thread that we'll have changes to the old tab. Anyone wanna bet on improved/expanded ruler/heir mechanics? Perhaps even a Regency overhaul? :D
 
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Perhaps it has to do with their cultures?
It probably is cultural, since we have always been happy. Lord Molesworth (English ambassador to Denmark around 1690) noted that Danish peasants were really happy despite living really really bad lives; as long as they just had the very basics like food on the table then they were happy. This contentness was something Molesworth really despised. (His book on his experiences in Denmark was highly negative and pretty much the only positive thing in it was about the Danske Lov about which "he states that in justice, brevity and clarity, the Code surpasses all other legal texts he knows of. It is so clear and simple to understand, that any literate person can understand his case and is able to represent himself in Court if he so wishes." (quote from wiki) To no surprise the absolute Danish king got furious and wrote to the English king demanding that 1) Molesworth was properly punished and 2) that all copies of the book were publicly burned. The English king declined.)

I'm from Extremadura, you danish viking :p
Potato, potato. It is Moor land all the same.:p
 
Indeed; they cooperated with the Moors for long and hence should be deported as traitors.:p
@CyaN, @pirro

Oh, no, you got it the other way around. Andalusians are the actual Spaniards. The rest of them are a marauding Gothic horde.
 
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While I like these changes, I think they miss an important perspective on cultural acceptance. That is, what if the culture in question has no interest what so ever of becoming 'accepted' by a country. They might prefer to stay a non-accepted culture and be unruly. Cultural acceptance ought to be a two-way acceptance, where you both make the culture appected in your country and also makes the culture accept your country. Some cultures will happily accept to be an integral part of your country, while others will be hard to convince. The DIP cost of making a culture accepted should reflect this. The total size of a culture should modify the cost and also the percentage of the culture you own. If a small culture group is completely inside your country, they should be cheap to make accepted. But a large culture group should be more expansive, especially if you only own a small part of it.

For example, as Sweden it should be pretty cheap to accept finnish and sami, but it should be much more expansive to accept novgorodian and muscovite, especially if you only owned a couple of provinces with that culture. If you continued to expand into russia however the cost for acceptance should go down. Some cultures could also have a permanent modifier that increased the cost for acceptance, like highlanders and tatars.

This is a good idea. If there's a large and powerful nation where the culture in question is the primary culture, there ought to be a penalty to converting them to an accepted culture in your nation.