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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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This seems a bit like states it's a nice idea but there seems to be way to much inflation in the number you can have to make it matter.
 
semi-arbitrary limits of who gets along better with who replaced with arbitrary number of accepted cultures. What's the point?

At least you get to somewhat control the arbitrariness? Too bad the change doesn't really do anything about culture groups being so silly, though.
 
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I have just one question.

What am i- i mean what are we supposed to do without thee, oh Great one?

:'(
Oh yee of little faith, does thou not see that a child born unto the Great One is the hope for an heir to the legacy of His? Listen as I tell you: forsooth a pause in DD blessings of the Great One this shall be, yet the prolongation of His legacy is a Grand Strategy towards true immortality!
 
You can promote any culture in your nation that has at least 20 cored development in a state. It costs 100 diplomatic power.
I'm assuming you meant to say here 20% [more logical] instead of simply 20?

Here is a look of the new government window, which includes the culture lists.
So... considering the amount of space freed up in the old government [now ruler?] tab, does that mean you're adding some long requested features to dynasties like symbolic portrait/family-tree/more-heirs or do you just plan on using bigger letters? :p
 
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Since changing primary culture for larger nations is now going to be a lot harder, will you be looking into ways of changing nation formation decisions? Right now if you play, say, Switzerland and conquer most of italy, it's fairly trivial to culture shift to one of the Italian cultures for the formation. With the new system it'll be a lot more difficult since none of the individual cultures will be over 50%, even if the combined italian cultures would be.
 
Since changing primary culture for larger nations is now going to be a lot harder, will you be looking into ways of changing nation formation decisions? Right now if you play, say, Switzerland and conquer most of italy, it's fairly trivial to culture shift to one of the Italian cultures for the formation. With the new system it'll be a lot more difficult since none of the individual cultures will be over 50%, even if the combined italian cultures would be.
Am I wrong in remembering that one of the recent changes (not sure if patch or DLC) allowed you to culture-convert provinces to other cultures than your primary?
 
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Sooo... Does it mean that Lithuanian culture will be finally accepted in bigger Polish-LITHUANIAN Commonwealths?
 
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I am not normally one to outright disagree with changes to the game in EUIV, but this one . . . I don't understand the logic behind this change at all. How does this make any sense whatsoever? From what I'm gathering, we're going to literally be forcing entire populations to change their opinion of us. And if understand the mechanics correctly, I'll use an example inspired by the screenshot, France could ruthlessly conquer England and when it's finished take it all the way to becoming a primary culture. Like . . . what? Am I misinterpreting something here?
 
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I am not normally one to outright disagree with changes to the game in EUIV, but this one . . . I don't understand the logic behind this change at all. How does this make any sense whatsoever? From what I'm gathering, we're going to literally be forcing entire populations to change their opinion of us. And if understand the mechanics correctly, I'll use an example inspired by the screenshot, France could ruthlessly conquer England and when it's finished take it all the way to becoming a primary culture. Like . . . what? Am I misinterpreting something here?
I think it's more the other way around... you're changing your government to be more accommodating of a particular culture and their way of doing things, which results in lower unrest / better productivity (and presumably more political power / influence for people within that culture).

I wish the system had more interesting decisions involved, since it seems pretty deterministic which cultures you'll choose to accept (always the "biggest" ones in terms of development outside of niche strategies like specific culture changes for nation forming or whatnot). For instance, approximately no one will ever choose to accept Galician culture, because it exists in a grand total of one poor province but costs the same set of resources to accept as any other culture.
 
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I think it's more the other way around... you're changing your government to be more accommodating of a particular culture and their way of doing things, which results in lower unrest / better productivity (and presumably more political power / influence for people within that culture).

I wish the system had more interesting decisions involved, since it seems pretty deterministic which cultures you'll choose to accept (always the "biggest" ones in terms of development outside of niche strategies like specific culture changes for nation forming or whatnot). For instance, approximately no one will ever choose to accept Galician culture, because it exists in a grand total of one poor province but costs the same set of resources to accept as any other culture.
I'd mark your post with an Agree as well as the Helpful if I could, I have your same concerns. It also just seems way too easy. Maybe not allow any level of acceptance until separatism dies off?
 
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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.
 
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Congratulations Johan :)