A collection of EUIV Mechanics currently unimplemented in EUV

[SAmaster]

My problem with cultural unions is that they feel like sort of a nothing mechanic. Like I reach a certain point and then suddenly accept everyone and then that's my culture group dealt with for the rest of the game. When in reality I think culture, especially local non-primary cultures, should become more important over the course of the game, as we shift away from medieval views of culture and towards more modern views.

In some ways it feels to me like a mechanic that exists solely because the limits on accepted cultures don't work well with a few countries (e.g. France), so then this was designed as a workaround.

It feels to me like it's the creation of a national identity where everyone in the culture group SHOULD be accepted. The idea of the United Kingdom for instance, isn't simply that it's the nation for the English, that's England, but a union of kingdoms across the British Isles (as of today the full title is 'the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland'). Likewise- it makes sense that everyone in the Chinese group should be accepted as part of the Chinese Empire, or the Persian group under the Persian Empire.

While civic nationalism is a recent concept, the idea that these Empires stood for more than just the primary culture group is something that dates back to the middle ages just fine.

I don't get what your version of this sort of mechanic should be, I'd like if you'd elucidate on that more.

I have played it, but not in a while. But it's been a very long time since I played someone like France who has a lot of local cultures to deal with, so I have mostly ignored the mechanic in more recent games (because you don't really interact with it, it just happens at a certain point). This discussion is restoring my memory of it a bit, but that memory is still pretty much all associated with France (because most nations, at least that I've played, don't have so many local cultures that it becomes a thing you need to target).

Well I haven't played a France campaign for a while, but you have your various French cultures that you have to mind while at kingdom rank. And you have to weigh the 'semi-accepted' status (for cultures in the same group that are non-accepted, you still get more tax and manpower than from non-accepted foriegn cultures) and potentially accepting them (for a diplo mana cost), or using your limited slots on say Dutch culture, or Rhinish culture if you expand into the Lowlands or the Ruhr. Or Basque culture since the French some Basque provinces.

But upon getting an empire rank (most likely through expanding through colonialism given the large neighbors) your slots are freed up since you now accept all French cultures. And now you can use those open slots on other cultures you've expanded into, gaining more resources and lowering the revolt risk.

Now I think this is a decent setup for weighing the value of your same-group-culture provinces and foreign culture provinces, and gives a path where a more tolerant humanist approach is subtly incentivized- you COULD culture convert everyone, but with a bit of patience you'll be able to accept them in time. It's not a perfect system, but I don't find it encouraging any ahistorical behavior for players while offering more rewards for expansionism than say Imperator Rome's culture system does.

Cultures that are tied to race are simply difficult to handle without having race in the game. Victoria has struggled with the same issue, despite it being much more central to that time period. It'd also be weird to have African-American assimilate to American. It'd also be weird African-American become accepted under a cultural union just through reaching Empire tier, because it's the early 1800s and race relations were what they were.

I disagree on that last part- while it's being pushed in the 1830's, race hadn't quite become a central mode of thought yet. It should be noted the US had a substantive free black population, and it wouldn't be until later that free blacks would be automatically re-enslaved in southern states. What a lot of people misunderstand is the US actually got worse on race-relations after the Revolution, as southern states began to fear their large black population following the Haitian Revolution.

You talk about alternate history, a large British Empire automatically accepting African-American culture feels to me a perfectly fine alt-history scenario, since I don't think the racist treatment of African-Americans and segregation was the only historical path that could have happened. A very likely one, certainly, but I think there's plenty of scenarios where in the timeframe that they could be accepted.

Unify Culture Group is a generic mechanic and generic mechanics usually have some specific historical case that results in a weird interaction. But it's not unique to that mechanic and I don't think the problem is so widespread it's a major issue.

If it's designed to be the endgoal for most campaigns you run, I call that the definition of widespread.

As do the cultures that result from the unification. Which is why it only applies to cultures that share both a culture group and a language. I said "national culture" and not "national identity" for a reason.

Define a 'national culture' then.

Imperator has a very problematic cultural acceptance system and I don't really see a point in discussing it deeply here. But I disagree that the fundamental problem with it is a lack of cultural unions, adding that would help smooth over some of the symptoms but the fundamental problems are deeper.

I use imperator as an example, because EUV seems to be following the same design philosophy, such as the inclusion of Pops. Now I don't think that everything in Imperator Rome was wrong-minded, but I think this was.

I also say that it's the worst part of that game because it means that conquest isn't really rewarded with the ability to grow your army. I think it was an attempt to try to balance larger nations against smaller ones, where smaller nations in theory could use more of their population, but I think this completely failed, and just made conquest WAY less fun than any other game. I don't like Crusader Kings for different reasons, but it doesn't have this same problem- even if culture is pretty much irrelevant in that game.

Anyway- I think what I think is circling around a lot of what you think- or rather, the arguments I'm trying to make aren't landing because you and I are trying to address very different things. I think you make a point about the rise of a National Identity, I just think that 'Unify Culture' doesn't even approach this, so I'd like you to discuss the sort of historical processes YOU think should be emulated here.

 

[Arizal]

I think you fail to appreciate how big the Hagia Sophia is. It's kind of like asking 'why didn't the Romans build more Colloseums'? Or like asking 'why does the United States only have the ONE big freedom lady statue?'. Yes in theory with the right resources you could make a second of any building on earth. But you gotta remember what the CONTEXT for that building is. For the Hagia Sophia the context was 'the Roman empire is crumbling around it, it's all downhill from here, we need to throw literally everything we have at this building because it's gonna act as the source of legitimacy from the nation from hear on out, and we're never gonna rebound to get as much material or expertise to build anything of it's like again'.

I think from your 'emphasis on simulationist' mentality, you aren't really considering the national significance of these monuments. These buildings are more than just the masonry and techniques of them, but what they represent to the people. Another example would be St. Peter's Basilica, the center of the Papacy. It's not simply a set of buildings, it a symbol of the nexus of the Catholic world.

It reminds me a bit of one episode of the Big Bang theory, where Sheldon suggests solving peace in the middle east by moving all the Jews to Utah, and giving them a second holy land. If you find the comparison humorous and not insulting.

I guess I wish the simulationist approach could take all of that in consideration. The sheer cost of Hagia Sophia should be a very big argument against constructing something similar until your empire is as big as the Byzantine empire once was. But the idea that sheer cost and, presumably, technical prowess, should give an extra prestige to the holder of the monument, doesn't seem like something that can't be generalized.

Take Rome, which is very relevant since it's period appropriate. The Pope has the choice to build a very small church or St Peter's Basilica, which would take a lot of money coming from all of Europe. If he builds the small church, nothing much has been accomplished, but if he cranks the cost further and further, he may reap the prestige reward, and then the corruption and greed accusations. Any other place which would construct a church during the era would do so relative to its own income.

Actually, this discussion makes me wonder if the size and cost of churches is in any way related to the power of the countries who built them. One of the biggest cathereal is Milan's, from what I see, and its construction started in 1386. At the time, Milan was under the Visconti. It then took centuries to be completed.

Churches could definitely be big projects that are built over many years of labor. But wherever you choose to build them, if you are willing to put the money, you should be able to build them enormous.

I'm not sure about costing troops- since A. where would those troops have gone? and B. manpower is a relatively cheap resource. Manpower should be 'spent' on assaults instead.

The idea was that as you breach the walls, you lose troops, at least some of them. Maybe you need special siege engineers as well.

It's not instant, it takes 10 years to complete. Again I agree that the mechanic has flaws, and the 10 year timer is one of them, but I don't agree with throwing it out completely. If this thread were about making the mechanic slower or more simulationy I wouldn't be opposing that.

I think I agree with your general sentiment. As a further criticism, I would argue : why should it happen only once? Say you are a country in eastern Europe. You have a big chunk of territory and you "press the button" in the 1700. Gradually, maybe over 50 years, cultures similar to your main one and who like it enough coalesce and a "new" national identity is created. Then a few years later, you invade a big neigbour to your west and you get a new minority. The minority is close to your main culture. If they like you, should it be possible to integrate them as well, or, well, you hit your "golden era" once and you can't ever have it again? Plus, those pesky ukrainian will eventually renounce you.

So my question is : why can you do it only once?

Also, I think it should be linked to education. From what I understand, it's mostly in the XIXth century that the various cultures which made France were welded into a single French identity. There might have been some feeble attempts at fostering a national identity before the revolution, but since the monarchy was wary of nationalism, as a way to deny that the "people" had any inherent power, I'm not sure it should be a mechanic that is readily available in any circumstance.

 

[SAmaster]

I guess I wish the simulationist approach could take all of that in consideration. The sheer cost of Hagia Sophia should be a very big argument against constructing something similar until your empire is as big as the Byzantine empire once was. But the idea that sheer cost and, presumably, technical prowess, should give an extra prestige to the holder of the monument, doesn't seem like something that can't be generalized.

Take Rome, which is very relevant since it's period appropriate. The Pope has the choice to build a very small church or St Peter's Basilica, which would take a lot of money coming from all of Europe. If he builds the small church, nothing much has been accomplished, but if he cranks the cost further and further, he may reap the prestige reward, and then the corruption and greed accusations. Any other place which would construct a church during the era would do so relative to its own income.

Actually, this discussion makes me wonder if the size and cost of churches is in any way related to the power of the countries who built them. One of the biggest cathereal is Milan's, from what I see, and its construction started in 1386. At the time, Milan was under the Visconti. It then took centuries to be completed.

Churches could definitely be big projects that are built over many years of labor. But wherever you choose to build them, if you are willing to put the money, you should be able to build them enormous.

The buildings aren't just their cost and expertise- but their history. Did you know that St. Peter's Basilica is built from marble scavenged from the rest of Rome? Or that it sits upon what was once Nero's villa? Or how about the iconic paintings of Michealangelo in the Florentine Cathedral?

A dynamically built monument will never have this kind of weight of history behind it, because the historical weight behind these real monuments is, well REAL, and you're not gonna reach the same level of impact from a dynamically generated textbox or generic image. I liked the ability to build your own monuments in Imperator and Crusader Kings, but I always found them disappointing compared to the real stuff.

Let's not also forget the real-world cultural importance a lot of monuments have to the players.

So I think you should consider that as part of the list of requirements for a monument-

>Unique construction in terms of design, or scale
>Circumstances that made them that are incredibly hard to replicate
>The importance they hold culturally, potentially religiously, and historically to people of the time period, and of today

I know you have a very simulationist mindset, and I don't say that as a critique, but I think monuments are very important for representing the romanticist notions of a nation.

As an example- one monument they had in EUIV was the White House. Which- actually isn't too relevant to the time period. The original US capital was first in Philadelphia, then in New York, and DC was built as a compromise between northern and southern states, and was considered unimportant a location until basically the Civil War. What's more the original White House was pink, and burned down in the War of 1812 anyway. But I think it's still an important monument because it represents the importance of DEMOCRACY to a new United States and their cultural legacy, both to Americans, and to the world. Now- for the reasons I'm listed I'm not convinced that the White House specifically is what is needed to act as that symbol- especially since as I said, DC during this time period wasn't too central to American national identity. But I do think something taking the place of that symbol is necessary to be represented. Arguably a building in Philadelphia or Boston might work better.

The idea was that as you breach the walls, you lose troops, at least some of them. Maybe you need special siege engineers as well.

Except you probably aren't gonna loose a bunch of cannoneers in an artillery barrage which you are using. We both agree there should be a cost that limits it, I just don't think manpower works lore wise, or in terms of a limited resource you carefully spend.

I think I agree with your general sentiment. As a further criticism, I would argue : why should it happen only once? Say you are a country in eastern Europe. You have a big chunk of territory and you "press the button" in the 1700. Gradually, maybe over 50 years, cultures similar to your main one and who like it enough coalesce and a "new" national identity is created. Then a few years later, you invade a big neigbour to your west and you get a new minority. The minority is close to your main culture. If they like you, should it be possible to integrate them as well, or, well, you hit your "golden era" once and you can't ever have it again? Plus, those pesky ukrainian will eventually renounce you.

So my question is : why can you do it only once?

Also, I think it should be linked to education. From what I understand, it's mostly in the XIXth century that the various cultures which made France were welded into a single French identity. There might have been some feeble attempts at fostering a national identity before the revolution, but since the monarchy was wary of nationalism, as a way to deny that the "people" had any inherent power, I'm not sure it should be a mechanic that is readily available in any circumstance.

I think it's been stated you can do it multiple times- but still only to cultures within a culture group.

Anyway- I'd argue that national identities predate the early-modern era. The Scottish one was forged in the War of Scottish Independance at the start date, and English and French identities were forged in the Hundred Years War. Arguably the beginnings of Portugese and Spanish national identities were forged in the Reconqusista. It's a critique I have of Crusader Kings, where national identity plays absolutely no role in the game. While this would be understandable in the low-middle ages, it was ceasing to be the case by the high-middle ages. In addition, the Chinese arguably have a national identity at this point- while nationalism was a central tenet of the 1911 Chinese Revolution, Chinese Civilization has always had a pre-eminent role in Asia and defined every other nation by how close it was to China. The Shogunate also specifically aimed to create a national Japanese identity during the Invasion of Korea as an attempt to solidify it's control over the remaining Daimyo- arguably questions of Japanese national identity date back to the Mongol Invasions (which had the after-effects of shattering the Kamakura Shogunate thanks to their inability to keep the Samurai loyal through anything but promises of land).

 

[Ekyman]

It feels to me like it's the creation of a national identity where everyone in the culture group SHOULD be accepted.

If this is the goal then they should actually make you build your country that way (sliders, advances, laws, whatever seems appropriate for that) and not just go "this is how every big country works, once you get big enough you just automatically and instantly accept everyone."

I don't get what your version of this sort of mechanic should be, I'd like if you'd elucidate on that more.

I don't really get why there needs to be a mechanic for this, unless cultural capacity is balanced in a way where a workaround is needed again. It's already cheaper to accept cultures in the same group AND cheaper to accept cultures that share a language AND cheaper to accept cultures with a good opinion (which similar cultures will probably often have). Why should there be a separate thing that does nothing but make all those accepted for free because you got big?

If you mean a mechanic that allows a country to lean towards acceptance rather than assimilation, then that should involve developing your country in a manner that increases your cultural capacity.

Well I haven't played a France campaign for a while, but you have your various French cultures that you have to mind while at kingdom rank. And you have to weigh the 'semi-accepted' status (for cultures in the same group that are non-accepted, you still get more tax and manpower than from non-accepted foriegn cultures) and potentially accepting them (for a diplo mana cost), or using your limited slots on say Dutch culture, or Rhinish culture if you expand into the Lowlands or the Ruhr. Or Basque culture since the French some Basque provinces.

But upon getting an empire rank (most likely through expanding through colonialism given the large neighbors) your slots are freed up since you now accept all French cultures. And now you can use those open slots on other cultures you've expanded into, gaining more resources and lowering the revolt risk.

Which is exactly why it feels like a workaround mechanic put in to smooth over limitations of the accepted culture system. France has a ton of local cultures, which creates interesting gameplay juggling them early on as you unify France. But once you're ready to expand further, having so many local cultures becomes a problem because the accepted cap doesn't work well with such culturally dense countries. So they just give you all of them accepted for free at that point so you have space to conquer more and still accept some cultures.

You say that second paragraph like it's a good thing, when I think it sounds incredibly silly.

If it's designed to be the endgoal for most campaigns you run, I call that the definition of widespread.

That's not at all what I said, read it again.

Define a 'national culture' then.

For example France, which is one scenario this mechanic is explicitly intended to represent. The creation of French culture as a singular thing that, in theory, is what French people should be. Not as "you're Norman culture and he's Francien culture and I'm Champenois culture and she's Berrichon culture and we all also have a shared French identity," but as "we're all French culture." Not every country went with the "disparate cultures, unified nation" route.

So my question is : why can you do it only once?

In terms of how it's designed right now you can only do it once because it's about the creation of a new culture that is the union of that culture group, and that can't happen twice.

 

[SAmaster]

If this is the goal then they should actually make you build your country that way (sliders, advances, laws, whatever seems appropriate for that) and not just go "this is how every big country works, once you get big enough you just automatically and instantly accept everyone."

I mean it is though. If it's not you're setting yourself to implode in five years. Unless you want to provide some counter examples.

I don't really get why there needs to be a mechanic for this, unless cultural capacity is balanced in a way where a workaround is needed again. It's already cheaper to accept cultures in the same group AND cheaper to accept cultures that share a language AND cheaper to accept cultures with a good opinion (which similar cultures will probably often have). Why should there be a separate thing that does nothing but make all those accepted for free because you got big?

If you mean a mechanic that allows a country to lean towards acceptance rather than assimilation, then that should involve developing your country in a manner that increases your cultural capacity.

What I mean is there's a limited capacity. And say- the Andean group we know is going to compose of lots of different cultures. And I don't think the Incan Empire should be forced to pick and choose what cultures of it's own group it accepts. What I'm saying is that a cultural union shouldn't have it's own culture-group count against it's cap of cultures that it can accept.

Which is exactly why it feels like a workaround mechanic put in to smooth over limitations of the accepted culture system. France has a ton of local cultures, which creates interesting gameplay juggling them early on as you unify France. But once you're ready to expand further, having so many local cultures becomes a problem because the accepted cap doesn't work well with such culturally dense countries. So they just give you all of them accepted for free at that point so you have space to conquer more and still accept some cultures.

You say that second paragraph like it's a good thing, when I think it sounds incredibly silly.

Provide me an alternate system then.

That's not at all what I said, read it again.

You described it as a capstone, I don't know what other interpretation I should use. I'm not being snippy, I'm asking for elaboration.

For example France, which is one scenario this mechanic is explicitly intended to represent. The creation of French culture as a singular thing that, in theory, is what French people should be. Not as "you're Norman culture and he's Francien culture and I'm Champenois culture and she's Berrichon culture and we all also have a shared French identity," but as "we're all French culture." Not every country went with the "disparate cultures, unified nation" route.

As many have noted though, this presents a system where someone might identify as BOTH Norman AND French- which I think is the more historic route. It's not that the state mandated a list of does and don't when it came to cultural practices- it layered a national identity ontop of what was already there.

 

[ChaosBoiC]

This post is about national Ideas and idea groups, trying to send it in but it's considered spam. (got it through, thank god.)

>National Ideas
This one worries me because I think every tag should have something that makes it play at least slightly differently than every other nation. Otherwise you really have no reason to not do anything but play the major nations. This is a problem I think Crusader Kings has- once you've worked your way up from Count to Emperor, there's not really much else you can do to make the experience different. Now I think this was done away with to be replaced with the National Values sliders system. But I don't think the sliders are really a replacement- because at the end of the day the sliders are mutable. They can be changed by the player, and I think in short order players will find the optimal/path of least resistance to them and you have the same problem of doing the same strategies every time.

Now to pitch my own idea, while I want National Ideas to return, I think a complement to them could be a cultural modifier for every culture group. Now this might come with an issue for Hybrid Cultures, but you could just pick which one modifier it gets, rather than letting it get multiple. In general I think Cultures end up being pretty universal in that the only important thing about them is their size- how large a culture can easily be integrated into your society. Whereas I'd like them to give a gameplay benefit.

>Idea-Groups
Like National Ideas I think this was folded into the National Values sliders. And like them, I don't see this as a replacement. I think nudging the sliders over the various decades of a campaign is going to be a much more passive experience than looking at the ideas menu, strategizing, and committing to a path for your country that will impact your strategy. Your first idea group is one of the most important, and I think engaging, decisions you make while playing the game.

Personally I suspect a lot of people will think the sliders will work tremendously better than either of the above two systems, and they'll get pretty bored of the sliders by their fifth campaign, at which point I hope that we can get Paradox to get them back in. Optimally as a free patch feature, since this was a base-game option in EUIV.

Edit: got my reply.
tbh I think both national ideas and idea groups are completely unnecessary and are quite frankly bad. idea groups are bad mostly because of how all the groups compete with each other and how there is a clear meta lineup that makes all the other groups not worth taking like defensive or innovative(+1 possible advisor). In MP as well it's mandatory to take 4 mil ideas because they matter the most to fight other players. Regarding your argument that the experience with the sliders being passive and ideas being strategic, this is maybe the case for like the first few times you play, but is not true for like 1000 hours. Like sure you could argue that in singleplayer you could RP and choose other idea groups, but the nature of them being modifiers just makes it so that picking bad idea groups results in a weaker country then if you just picked the meta groups (offensive and quality +5% discipline is way better than anything you get in Defensive for example). Also having a more dynamic system where your values can change over time is a lot better than just having a set of static modifiers you are locked into for the entire 500 year period. I think the idea that people will get bored of sliders and that they will ask for idea groups to be inaccurate as well, EU5 is going to add in a more in-depth economy management as well as more general internal management stuff like Cabinets, which weren't present in EU4 and would add more things to focus on. Strategizing about idea groups has never been something I quite frankly thought about at all, it was pretty much Offensive as the first idea group then going Colonial if I was playing in Western Europe or Humanist if I was playing outside (-5 years of separatism is pretty hard to beat in terms of power).

For national ideas, it is just incredibly difficult to make every single nation have a unique national idea set from a set of limited modifiers, especially when a lot of those modifiers aren't actually that great either (+10% Trade efficiency interest and +0.5 interest per annum from Genoese Ideas vs 5% discipline that's often in major nations like Ottoman national ideas or the 15% morale France idea). Also adding in specific cultural bonuses would basically be the same, and also suggest that cultures have a preternatural affinity for certain things when that is not the case (the environment does affect people to have affinities for certain things but German culture in Livonia would probably not have the same bonuses as German culture in Austria). National ideas don't even really make it so nations play slightly differently, the Sengoku jidai plays basically the same regardless of which Daimyo you pick, conquer other daimyos then become emperor, making Oda's Military focused national ideas way better than any of the other clans. A German minor wants to unite it's local culture group then play towards Germany(which is why Prussia is the best for this), same for Italian minors, same for French vassals. It also doesn't paint the historical reality of Prussia either, it was insanely expensive for them to maintain a professional army, but the player gets only the bonuses of this costly venture, none of the negatives due to how ideas work as purely bonuses (adding the negatives would just make it redundant and better to represent through actual mechanics).

The problem you referred to about making the experience different in crusader kings has a solution already in the form of resources, pops, and tech. As an example from a previous game by Paradox, Victoria 2 (I'll be honest and say it's bad by its self, but the mods make it very good, also Johan worked on it), the GPs of the game all play pretty differently. GB is the sprawling colonial empire that has it's hands all over the world trying to maintain hegemony with everything it needs(large army, navy, resources), France is pretty similar except instead it's colonial empire is smaller in exchange for having a bigger interest in mainland Europe and less Iron and coal for industry, Russia has a load of pops but needs to focus heavily on Literacy to industrialize with oil that comes later, Ottomans has an even lower literacy and pop but it's connected coastline allows for a huge navy but also that their Resources are really poor for industry (wool and grain mostly), USA is weak at start but immigration and hegemony in America allow for a strong power later, Austria is large and industrious but has many revolting cultures and Prussia wants to beat them to form Germany, Prussia has everything for industry but needs to fight to form Germany and barely any starting colonies. They all focus on different techs depending on their start (Prussia and Austria don't do Navy techs, Britain doesn't need culture techs as much, Russia needs culture tech a lot for literacy, etc.) and they all have different ambitions for conquest due to resource need as well (Bohemia, Rheinland, and Britain have lots of coal for Industrializing, Anatolia doesn't). This doesn't happen in EU4 due to lack of depth, trade resources aren't really that important and having a monopoly on a good barely means anything outside of a bonus and how much arbitrary money they are worth rather than supply and demand, pops are replaced by development which you can increase at the push of a button and is too abstract to really understand what it means, and Tech path is basically the same for all countries outside of cultural troop type. These have all been remedied in EU5 based on the Tinto talks, so there's no need for national ideas and idea groups to return to make nations feel different. Brandenburg and a united Bavaria for example will actually feel different because of population and resource needs.

 

[zeruosi]

I think you are wrong specifically about Shun, as I remember doing a campaign for them where they had unique national ideas. I even double checked on the wiki- Dali and Miao and Yi also get unique ideas, while the others get the semi-generic Chinese ideas. But this is the sort of thing I'm talking about- national ideas help set apart the Chinese releasable that otherwise wouldn't exist. They don't deserve say unique Mandate of Heaven mechanics, but we would assume that each possible China formable would bring something unique to the table. when it comes to running the country. It also adds a lot more versatility in how to play the game if there's a reason to take each chinese releasable and have the form China in some new way.

I think the same for the Japanese Daimyo, as well as the 'Indian Thunderdome' as people like to call it.

What I mean is, apart from the few I've specifically marked, all the others lack their own distinct national ideologies. Due to potential machine translation errors, there might be a misunderstanding of my intended meaning. However, I did overlook the fact that Dali had its own unique national ideology. My mistake.

zeruosi did state that Shun has unique National Ideas. He worded it a little complex, but it was legible.

The ridiculous machine translation made it hard to read—that's on me.

 

[Ekyman]

I mean it is though. If it's not you're setting yourself to implode in five years. Unless you want to provide some counter examples.

What? You become empire rank, you automatically accept every culture in your group. There's no downside, nothing is setting you up for failure.

What I mean is there's a limited capacity. And say- the Andean group we know is going to compose of lots of different cultures. And I don't think the Incan Empire should be forced to pick and choose what cultures of it's own group it accepts. What I'm saying is that a cultural union shouldn't have it's own culture-group count against it's cap of cultures that it can accept.

An Incan Empire that wants to accept all of the cultures in its group and can't afford it should make the strategic decision to take actions that increase its cultural capacity.

There's already an acceptance cost discount for same culture group, and another for same language, and another for high opinion. That's plenty of bonus for for being similar. If we really need that discount to go all the way to free they they should just be permanently free, or free with a certain advance or government policy; giving it for free halfway through the game because the country got extra big makes no sense.

Provide me an alternate system then.

Balance the cultural capacity and acceptance costs and/or the number unaccepted cultures that it's ok to have so that there's no need to make a bunch of stuff free halfway through the game.

EU5 is already doing it better because capacity is based on the cost of each culture and not just a max number of cultures, which allows for modifiers on the cost, and because it's a soft cap with penalties for going over instead of a hard cap. Those factors alone might be enough to solve the issue.

Alternatively, make getting the free cultures dependent on having a certain advance or government policy or slider position, so that there's strategic decision making and opportunity cost involved and it's a result of pushing your country in a certain direction.

You described it as a capstone, I don't know what other interpretation I should use. I'm not being snippy, I'm asking for elaboration.

I said I don't think the problem of having specific historical cultures that it has weird interactions with is widespread enough that it's a major issue. Nothing about how often you might be using the mechanic.

 

[P.Quirinius]

Now I think Great Works are good for representing say written works of art, or paintings or the like, or even small artifacts.

Why do you think Great Works are better for representing written works of art like books? An important book would exist in hundreds, thousands or more handwritten or printed copies so unlike a building it does not exist in one location, can’t really be owned by one tag, can’t easily be destroyed and so on. The system seems to clearly be designed for unique objects like buildings and it is horrible for books, unless I missed something.

 

[SAmaster]

Why do you think Great Works are better for representing written works of art like books? An important book would exist in hundreds, thousands or more handwritten or printed copies so unlike a building it does not exist in one location, can’t really be owned by one tag, can’t easily be destroyed and so on. The system seems to clearly be designed for unique objects like buildings and it is horrible for books, unless I missed something.

I'll have to wait until after work to provide proper responses to most things, but to my knowledge great works also include written works (for instance I think it was said Dante's inferno can spawn in the game) and they are something that can be moved around. It seems to me that Paradox is trying to combine the Monuments system from EUIV with the artifacts system in Crusader Kings. Which I don't oppose- I just want the buildings- or at least the big important ones, to be something that still give substantive buffs you can invest in. And that you can't move them around, but I think that's already implied.

 

[SAmaster]

tbh I think both national ideas and idea groups are completely unnecessary and are quite frankly bad. idea groups are bad mostly because of how all the groups compete with each other and how there is a clear meta lineup that makes all the other groups not worth taking like defensive or innovative(+1 possible advisor). In MP as well it's mandatory to take 4 mil ideas because they matter the most to fight other players. Regarding your argument that the experience with the sliders being passive and ideas being strategic, this is maybe the case for like the first few times you play, but is not true for like 1000 hours. Like sure you could argue that in singleplayer you could RP and choose other idea groups, but the nature of them being modifiers just makes it so that picking bad idea groups results in a weaker country then if you just picked the meta groups (offensive and quality +5% discipline is way better than anything you get in Defensive for example). Also having a more dynamic system where your values can change over time is a lot better than just having a set of static modifiers you are locked into for the entire 500 year period. I think the idea that people will get bored of sliders and that they will ask for idea groups to be inaccurate as well, EU5 is going to add in a more in-depth economy management as well as more general internal management stuff like Cabinets, which weren't present in EU4 and would add more things to focus on. Strategizing about idea groups has never been something I quite frankly thought about at all, it was pretty much Offensive as the first idea group then going Colonial if I was playing in Western Europe or Humanist if I was playing outside (-5 years of separatism is pretty hard to beat in terms of power).

Sounds like you and me just approach the game very differently then. To me idea-groups were a very engaging strategic decision. There were certainly some idea groups that could have been refined or improved. But as an example- as Austria or Ming I'm incentivized much more to pick a diplomatic idea group to manage the diplomacy that comes with the HRE and Mandate of Heaven over a military idea for straight up conquest. Likewise with the UK- where I don't know about you, but I feel continental ambitions defeats the point of picking them, so a colonial or naval idea work better. I also find unlocking a modifier more engaging than slowly getting a 1% increase of an existing stat over time.

For national ideas, it is just incredibly difficult to make every single nation have a unique national idea set from a set of limited modifiers, especially when a lot of those modifiers aren't actually that great either (+10% Trade efficiency interest and +0.5 interest per annum from Genoese Ideas vs 5% discipline that's often in major nations like Ottoman national ideas or the 15% morale France idea). Also adding in specific cultural bonuses would basically be the same, and also suggest that cultures have a preternatural affinity for certain things when that is not the case (the environment does affect people to have affinities for certain things but German culture in Livonia would probably not have the same bonuses as German culture in Austria). National ideas don't even really make it so nations play slightly differently, the Sengoku jidai plays basically the same regardless of which Daimyo you pick, conquer other daimyos then become emperor, making Oda's Military focused national ideas way better than any of the other clans. A German minor wants to unite it's local culture group then play towards Germany(which is why Prussia is the best for this), same for Italian minors, same for French vassals. It also doesn't paint the historical reality of Prussia either, it was insanely expensive for them to maintain a professional army, but the player gets only the bonuses of this costly venture, none of the negatives due to how ideas work as purely bonuses (adding the negatives would just make it redundant and better to represent through actual mechanics).

Well they did though. As I mentioned only a handful of nations have generic or semi-generic ideas in EUIV now. And of those most are obscure releasables.

I certainly understand the argument it's not a radical change though. That said, I do think the effort to say make every HRE member play radically different to be something beyond the Dev's scope. I will say though that the setup of say the Teuton's mil focused ideas, and the Free City's economic ideas, and bishoprics religous ideas are substantively different. I'll also note on the topic of 'uniting cultural area' that a big part of formables are the (presumably) enhanced national ideas that they bring that act as the reward for forming that nation. I also think that adds a dimension where your strategy can change substantively as you play. As an example- Danzig gets more economic and naval buffs than the Teutons and Brandenburg, meaning a less mil-heavy start if you wanted to play as them. Yet you can then form Prussia for those Mil heavy ideas. OR- keep your Danzig ideas for a different strategy when forming Prussia. Same for Japan too- Oda's very strong mil ideas stand in contrast with the formable Japan's ideas- to the point where many players strategize around playing a daimyo and keeping their original ideas- leading to a Japan that focuses on conquering much more territory outside the home islands. And then contrast to that you have Ashikaga's diplomatic ideas focused on the Shogunate mechanics.

All of those I'd say are actually great examples of why I want national ideas to stay.

The problem you referred to about making the experience different in crusader kings has a solution already in the form of resources, pops, and tech. As an example from a previous game by Paradox, Victoria 2 (I'll be honest and say it's bad by its self, but the mods make it very good, also Johan worked on it), the GPs of the game all play pretty differently. GB is the sprawling colonial empire that has it's hands all over the world trying to maintain hegemony with everything it needs(large army, navy, resources), France is pretty similar except instead it's colonial empire is smaller in exchange for having a bigger interest in mainland Europe and less Iron and coal for industry, Russia has a load of pops but needs to focus heavily on Literacy to industrialize with oil that comes later, Ottomans has an even lower literacy and pop but it's connected coastline allows for a huge navy but also that their Resources are really poor for industry (wool and grain mostly), USA is weak at start but immigration and hegemony in America allow for a strong power later, Austria is large and industrious but has many revolting cultures and Prussia wants to beat them to form Germany, Prussia has everything for industry but needs to fight to form Germany and barely any starting colonies. They all focus on different techs depending on their start (Prussia and Austria don't do Navy techs, Britain doesn't need culture techs as much, Russia needs culture tech a lot for literacy, etc.) and they all have different ambitions for conquest due to resource need as well (Bohemia, Rheinland, and Britain have lots of coal for Industrializing, Anatolia doesn't). This doesn't happen in EU4 due to lack of depth, trade resources aren't really that important and having a monopoly on a good barely means anything outside of a bonus and how much arbitrary money they are worth rather than supply and demand, pops are replaced by development which you can increase at the push of a button and is too abstract to really understand what it means, and Tech path is basically the same for all countries outside of cultural troop type. These have all been remedied in EU5 based on the Tinto talks, so there's no need for national ideas and idea groups to return to make nations feel different. Brandenburg and a united Bavaria for example will actually feel different because of population and resource needs.

The example falls apart when you remember that there's less than a hundred tags in Vic-2, and several hundred in EUIV. And while I'm a geographic determinist when it comes to history, I think it makes for awfully boring gameplay if the ONLY thing that makes your country unique is your starting position. This is why I find Crusader Kings boring, because that's how that game works. Outside of Iberian Reconquista and some content around Charlemagne, the only thing that chances gameplay is your religion and starting position. You work your way up from Count to Kingdom once, and you'll have the same experience every other time you do it. Sometimes you'll start in a stronger or weaker county. What you strategy is to do so rarely changes. Playing France is pretty much identical to playing England. I understand arguments that the middle ages didn't have the same sort of national consciousness, and that courts often did very similar things despite cultural differences. It's still makes for a much less interesting game to me.

What I mean is, apart from the few I've specifically marked, all the others lack their own distinct national ideologies. Due to potential machine translation errors, there might be a misunderstanding of my intended meaning. However, I did overlook the fact that Dali had its own unique national ideology. My mistake.


The ridiculous machine translation made it hard to read—that's on me.

It's no problem.

What? You become empire rank, you automatically accept every culture in your group. There's no downside, nothing is setting you up for failure.

As opposed to what? That's not a gotcha, I just want you to expand on that idea, what should be the downsides to forming an empire in your mind? And what historical examples would you draw from?

An Incan Empire that wants to accept all of the cultures in its group and can't afford it should make the strategic decision to take actions that increase its cultural capacity.

There's already an acceptance cost discount for same culture group, and another for same language, and another for high opinion. That's plenty of bonus for for being similar. If we really need that discount to go all the way to free they they should just be permanently free, or free with a certain advance or government policy; giving it for free halfway through the game because the country got extra big makes no sense.

Why would it make sense for the Incans to say 'you're not good enough to be a citizen in the empire' to a group of people they acknowledge as being very similar to themselves?

Balance the cultural capacity and acceptance costs and/or the number unaccepted cultures that it's ok to have so that there's no need to make a bunch of stuff free halfway through the game.

EU5 is already doing it better because capacity is based on the cost of each culture and not just a max number of cultures, which allows for modifiers on the cost, and because it's a soft cap with penalties for going over instead of a hard cap. Those factors alone might be enough to solve the issue.

Alternatively, make getting the free cultures dependent on having a certain advance or government policy or slider position, so that there's strategic decision making and opportunity cost involved and it's a result of pushing your country in a certain direction.

I think we agree on the basic idea, but disagree very much on the solution.

I'm very skeptical about turning everything into a slider, like I said I think they are a very passive way to engage with mechanics. I'm not wholly against them, I just don't want them to be the go-to solution just because. I also think it being a government policy would be a mistake, since that creates a meta-game problem- go wide, you HAVE to go for the extra culture slots.

I'll also say that I want to make an important distinction between soft and hard caps. I do think a hard cap is pretty gamey, and therefore- increased costs as you go up makes sense. But I do think you need a certain level of 'freebies' first. And I use Imperator Rome as the example, because that's how they handle it, and as I noted: Badly. That game provides no incentive to accept a smaller culture in your group, versus a larger group outside of it- the pop dissatisfaction goes up across the board regardless, so you only incorporate a small number of big cultures (which is incredibly ahistorical in my mind- why would Athenians get more pissy at the Romans for accepting Spartan culture when both are given the right to vote? The Athenians want to feel more special?)

What I think is important, and what we agree on, is there needs to be some level of strategic decision making and cost to accepting a culture that you weigh. Now- the requirements I would have for this system would be that such a cost would NOT come at the expense of refusing to incorporate small same-group cultures into your nation because the math won't math. It makes sense that say English won't accept Ashkenazi Jews because they are too small a population to be worth the cost. But what about the Cornish population? Should the math always mandate that it's better to culture convert a people that still exist because their numbers are too low to be worth incorporating? If we use the Imperator Rome model, where incorporating them would decrease satisfaction of all your other pops, then they would never be worth incorporating. Hence there should be some sort of 'freebie' system. And if we simply have a set number of 'free' slots (that could go up with technology or reforms) then we would still require that Cornish doesn't occupy a slot that could go to a more valuable culture (Lowlander Scots being one, Norman being another). I hope that lays out why I support the 'Cultural Union' system, because it solves those problems, and I hope you can see why the game encouraging you away from accepting such a culture by making it so it'd never be worth the cost as something that doesn't make a lot of sense. But back to what you were saying- like I said there still should be a strategery when it comes to who to incorporate and who to not.

On that note- I think the primary cost should be 'time and effort'. Which I think is the most historic reason cultures are left by the wayside. Incorporating a people into a state takes time and effort as you push against reactionary backlash- cultures trying to keep the pie from getting divided and weakening their own powerbase. In EUIV you click a button and now suddenly everyone is accepted. This is something I'm fine with changing to be a more involved process. And I might even go so far as to say you can only incorporate one culture at a time (though maybe accepting cultures faster can be rewards in events or missions?) so in essence what you are doing is focusing on your largest cultures (who would provide the most benefits) but once you've incorporated them, could work on the smaller populations. Additionally- perhaps size of a culture can increase or decrease acceptance speed? (total pop size across the map- becoming 'home of the Russians' would probably be more work if you only have 2000 russians in your country out of 3 million). In this way minority populations might fall by the wayside, but not for the entire game- just until incorporating another culture no longer takes precedence. That said- I do think there should be ways to form a 'Cultural Union' like in EUIV- but the process this is done could be done differently (I'll save ideas on that for the next post if you want to discuss that). The important thing would be ensuring your culture group doesn't work against the cap so the English aren't keeping the Cornish out so they can work on incorporating Hessian Culture or whatever.

 

[Ekyman]

As opposed to what? That's not a gotcha, I just want you to expand on that idea, what should be the downsides to forming an empire in your mind? And what historical examples would you draw from?

I never said there should be a downside. You said that "you're setting yourself up to implode in five years" and I'm asking what you mean because I have no clue what you're talking about.

Why would it make sense for the Incans to say 'you're not good enough to be a citizen in the empire' to a group of people they acknowledge as being very similar to themselves?

By that logic everything in your culture group should always be freely accepted for every country at every rank. Which is a feasible solution in theory but also kind of bland.

I think we agree on the basic idea, but disagree very much on the solution.

I'm very skeptical about turning everything into a slider, like I said I think they are a very passive way to engage with mechanics. I'm not wholly against them, I just don't want them to be the go-to solution just because. I also think it being a government policy would be a mistake, since that creates a meta-game problem- go wide, you HAVE to go for the extra culture slots.

I'll also say that I want to make an important distinction between soft and hard caps. I do think a hard cap is pretty gamey, and therefore- increased costs as you go up makes sense. But I do think you need a certain level of 'freebies' first. And I use Imperator Rome as the example, because that's how they handle it, and as I noted: Badly. That game provides no incentive to accept a smaller culture in your group, versus a larger group outside of it- the pop dissatisfaction goes up across the board regardless, so you only incorporate a small number of big cultures (which is incredibly ahistorical in my mind- why would Athenians get more pissy at the Romans for accepting Spartan culture when both are given the right to vote? The Athenians want to feel more special?)

What I think is important, and what we agree on, is there needs to be some level of strategic decision making and cost to accepting a culture that you weigh. Now- the requirements I would have for this system would be that such a cost would NOT come at the expense of refusing to incorporate small same-group cultures into your nation because the math won't math. It makes sense that say English won't accept Ashkenazi Jews because they are too small a population to be worth the cost. But what about the Cornish population? Should the math always mandate that it's better to culture convert a people that still exist because their numbers are too low to be worth incorporating? If we use the Imperator Rome model, where incorporating them would decrease satisfaction of all your other pops, then they would never be worth incorporating. Hence there should be some sort of 'freebie' system. And if we simply have a set number of 'free' slots (that could go up with technology or reforms) then we would still require that Cornish doesn't occupy a slot that could go to a more valuable culture (Lowlander Scots being one, Norman being another). I hope that lays out why I support the 'Cultural Union' system, because it solves those problems, and I hope you can see why the game encouraging you away from accepting such a culture by making it so it'd never be worth the cost as something that doesn't make a lot of sense. But back to what you were saying- like I said there still should be a strategery when it comes to who to incorporate and who to not.

On that note- I think the primary cost should be 'time and effort'. Which I think is the most historic reason cultures are left by the wayside. Incorporating a people into a state takes time and effort as you push against reactionary backlash- cultures trying to keep the pie from getting divided and weakening their own powerbase. In EUIV you click a button and now suddenly everyone is accepted. This is something I'm fine with changing to be a more involved process. And I might even go so far as to say you can only incorporate one culture at a time (though maybe accepting cultures faster can be rewards in events or missions?) so in essence what you are doing is focusing on your largest cultures (who would provide the most benefits) but once you've incorporated them, could work on the smaller populations. Additionally- perhaps size of a culture can increase or decrease acceptance speed? (total pop size across the map- becoming 'home of the Russians' would probably be more work if you only have 2000 russians in your country out of 3 million). In this way minority populations might fall by the wayside, but not for the entire game- just until incorporating another culture no longer takes precedence. That said- I do think there should be ways to form a 'Cultural Union' like in EUIV- but the process this is done could be done differently (I'll save ideas on that for the next post if you want to discuss that). The important thing would be ensuring your culture group doesn't work against the cap so the English aren't keeping the Cornish out so they can work on incorporating Hessian Culture or whatever.

Accepting a small culture will probably be pretty cheap because the cost is modified by size. A small culture that shares your group and your language will be even cheaper. From the (old and maybe outdated) screenshots we've seen, it seems a midsize country at what I assume is the start date can support maybe 4-ish small related languages without hitting the soft cap. Maybe even more if they're really small. And that will (or can, at least) increase over time.

And the Imperator system where accepting more pisses off the other cultures is really bad, if they do that I'm with you in opposing it. But AFAIK there haven't been any hints of that.

I'm not strictly opposed to having free accepted cultures in the game. I just think that if it exists it should be something you have to deliberately decide to focus on and go for, not just an expected and automatic thing that's sort of necessary for the balance of the overall system.

 

[Thormagor]

One of the Consequence of the 'Unify culture' button that I haven't seen discussed yet, is the way the new culture will be treated by foreign country.
If Poland unified it's culture, and is then partitionned between Russia, Prussia and Austria, it open a lot of potential for strategy and diplomacy.
Austria could create a Polish vassal or accept Polish Culture and create unrest in the Polish part of Prussia and Russia, or even creating sessesion mouvment to join the Polish Austrian vassal.
Another example, if France unified it's culture and is then conquered by Britain or Germany. If there is a rebellion, all French will rebel together and make a unified country if succesfull. While if they haven't unified, it would be multiple small rebellion to create multiple country.
So that's one bonus point for the "Unify culture". but I agree that the "Press a button and make everyone French in 10 years if you are an empire" is'nt the best way to handle it. You should also need a high level of centralisation, (while a high level of decentralisation should give you more cultural capacity) and a lot of cultural prestige (don't know if it's the exact term).

 

[SAmaster]

I never said there should be a downside. You said that "you're setting yourself up to implode in five years" and I'm asking what you mean because I have no clue what you're talking about.

Oh I see. I'm talking about real life empires- can you think of some where they didn't accept cultures within their culture group as they expanded- in fact refusing to, thereby 'setting themselves up to explode'? The closest I can think of is the British, but most of the unrest they got from their policies came outside the timeframe, and I think it's covered well enough with how the Celtic group is being handled.

By that logic everything in your culture group should always be freely accepted for every country at every rank. Which is a feasible solution in theory but also kind of bland.

Well to me the Empire rank is meant to suggest a transition to a 'national identity' you were talking about, so I think that's the element we want to figure out. I think we agree nations should have the ability to form a national identity that lets them incorporate all their culture group into their identity. The question is what that threshhold should be.

Now, I maintain Empire rank works, because while nationalism as a force is mostly at the tail end of the timeline, we still see examples of it with large powerful nations- for instance the Chinese Empires, or the Persian Empire. It'd be very unusual for an empire to NOT incorporate parts of their culture group, don't you agree?

Now I'm not convinced this is the ONLY way to handle it, I do think it's the simplest. But I'm open to discussing alternate ideas, I think it's just pretty much every empire WOULD incorporate all their culture group (and this shouldn't be at the expense of foriegn cultures they could incorporate as well) and it serves as a way to use this mechanic partway through the game without making it the default for all tags.

Accepting a small culture will probably be pretty cheap because the cost is modified by size. A small culture that shares your group and your language will be even cheaper. From the (old and maybe outdated) screenshots we've seen, it seems a midsize country at what I assume is the start date can support maybe 4-ish small related languages without hitting the soft cap. Maybe even more if they're really small. And that will (or can, at least) increase over time.

And the Imperator system where accepting more pisses off the other cultures is really bad, if they do that I'm with you in opposing it. But AFAIK there haven't been any hints of that.

I'm not strictly opposed to having free accepted cultures in the game. I just think that if it exists it should be something you have to deliberately decide to focus on and go for, not just an expected and automatic thing that's sort of necessary for the balance of the overall system.

I don't remember the screenshot, but I remember the penalty looks pretty similar to what Imperator Rome does. But by that I mean- in terms of UI and percentage decreases. I forget what the modifiers were- in Imperator Rome it was pure productivity of all Pops in every category. I don't think EUV will be that bad, and I don't know if it'll be in the same ballpark, it was just enough to set off some warning sirens to me.

As I pointed out- a number of 'freebies' are necessary for smaller cultures to be worth incorporating, otherwise you'll only spend the 'cost' of accepting a culture for large cultures. In EUIV we had a base level of like four free culture slots for all nations. What I think might be better is if this is increased by culture rank-

Counties probably only get 2-3 'free' culture slots, duchies get 3-4, and empires get 4-5. Then ontop of this is the idea that a cultural union would grant 'free' slots to the same culture group.

One of the Consequence of the 'Unify culture' button that I haven't seen discussed yet, is the way the new culture will be treated by foreign country.
If Poland unified it's culture, and is then partitionned between Russia, Prussia and Austria, it open a lot of potential for strategy and diplomacy.
Austria could create a Polish vassal or accept Polish Culture and create unrest in the Polish part of Prussia and Russia, or even creating sessesion mouvment to join the Polish Austrian vassal.
Another example, if France unified it's culture and is then conquered by Britain or Germany. If there is a rebellion, all French will rebel together and make a unified country if succesfull. While if they haven't unified, it would be multiple small rebellion to create multiple country.
So that's one bonus point for the "Unify culture". but I agree that the "Press a button and make everyone French in 10 years if you are an empire" is'nt the best way to handle it. You should also need a high level of centralisation, (while a high level of decentralisation should give you more cultural capacity) and a lot of cultural prestige (don't know if it's the exact term).

Well cause I don't think that'll be a problem. I think Paradox has said they are getting rid of cores- but I don't know what they'll replace them with. But presumably they want a system like in EUIV-

If France annexes Champaigne then their lands become a French core. If Austria then conquers that land, and it rebels, it flips to France not to Champaigne, because they are still French cores, and this is the same if they aren't Francien culture.

There were also instances where certain tags were denoted as 'national' tags- to which a culture would always rebel towards if there wasn't any other one available. The most common one people would notice would be the Greek population of Rhodes rebelling and granting the land to the Byzantines despite them not owning a core on it. I think there's no reason to change the 'national' tags system as is, since it's a very background process.

 

[Ekyman]

Well to me the Empire rank is meant to suggest a transition to a 'national identity' you were talking about, so I think that's the element we want to figure out.

I just think this should be an active thing the player chooses to do and works towards. Even of it ends up being optimal, I don’t like that it’s just like “you’re big now, so of course that means you accept everyone similar.” It takes away the strategic requirement to actually develop your country socio-politically in a way that supports your big expansion, and it removes an opportunity for role playing or doing challenge runs or just messing around with weird stuff.

There’s so many mechanics that fit perfectly for enabling gameplay where you work to create a country that works this way, it’d be a shame if that’s all bypassed for some logic that big empires inherently become that way with no effort.

I don't remember the screenshot, but I remember the penalty looks pretty similar to what Imperator Rome does. But by that I mean- in terms of UI and percentage decreases. I forget what the modifiers were- in Imperator Rome it was pure productivity of all Pops in every category. I don't think EUV will be that bad, and I don't know if it'll be in the same ballpark, it was just enough to set off some warning sirens to me.

Nothing in the screenshot for being over the cap has anything to do directly with pop happiness or productivity. It having percentage decreases doesn’t mean it’s similar.

If you don’t remember the EU5 screenshot and you don’t remember the Imperator effects then it feels like you should just do research to see if they’re actually similar before worrying about it.

As I pointed out- a number of 'freebies' are necessary for smaller cultures to be worth incorporating, otherwise you'll only spend the 'cost' of accepting a culture for large cultures. In EUIV we had a base level of like four free culture slots for all nations. What I think might be better is if this is increased by culture rank-

Counties probably only get 2-3 'free' culture slots, duchies get 3-4, and empires get 4-5. Then ontop of this is the idea that a cultural union would grant 'free' slots to the same culture group.

You really should re-read the culture TT. There’s no such thing as a culture slot. You have a capacity and cultures have a cost and you fill that capacity with the cost. You could go for small, related cultures and fit like 4-5 or you could go for big, different cultures and only have room for one. Or anywhere in between.