A collection of EUIV Mechanics currently unimplemented in EUV

[AntarcticRanger]

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.

Fundamentally the point of cultural unions is to differentiate how you assimilate foreign cultures vs very similar cultures, since you very much want to be assimilating them, what with how the price to accept cultures depends on their size relative to your primarily culture.
I don't think culture unions do that very well, but I very much believe that there needs to be  a mechanic that does this. Castilian assimilating Aragonese should have the possibility of being very different than them assimilating Andausian. And in addition, Aragonese was historically assimilated, it wasn't just accepted.
(Sorry about double posting, I should have kept reading before posting)

 

[Ekyman]

Building an empire where they don't want to integrate all the cultures in their culture group.

Roleplaying, wanting to mess around with a different playstyle, imposing personal challenges on themselves, hunting for some hypothetical achievement...

Fundamentally the point of cultural unions is to differentiate how you assimilate foreign cultures vs very similar cultures, since you very much want to be assimilating them, what with how the price to accept cultures depends on their size relative to your primarily culture.
I don't think culture unions do that very well, but I very much believe that there needs to be  a mechanic that does this. Castilian assimilating Aragonese should have the possibility of being very different than them assimilating Andausian. And in addition, Aragonese was historically assimilated, it wasn't just accepted.
(Sorry about double posting, I should have kept reading before posting)

Sorry, do you mean EU4 cultural unions (what me and SAMaster have been referring to with that term) or EU5 Unify Culture Group here? The phrase used makes me think the former, but the references to assimilation make me think the latter.

 

[Streamlet]

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.

I feel the same about the unify culture button, after reaching a certain point I can just press a button, wait a few years, then suddenly a bunch of cultures and local dialects disappear?

Tbh, the root problem is probably the way culture exists in the game, it doesn't really represent anything tangible. All of the minor splits are made based on language/dialect rather than strict self-identity, but also we have a separate language system, but also the "Unify Culture" mechanic seems to represent unity in self-identity rather than language?

 

[SAmaster]

On Culture groups, and as far as I can tell no one as brought this up, Unifying culture is very much not the main point of them. It is not the replacement of cultural unions, the replacement of cultural unions is the significantly cheaper cost you have to accept cultures within your culture group(s).

Cultural Unions are barely relevant to this discussion, since they only apply to cultures that share a culture group and language, and there aren't actually that many cultures that are that close, you can't unify the entirety of France or Italy this way for example. Or just look at the number of languages with only one culture.

I'm referring to the EUIV mechanic when I say Cultural Union. The new EUV mechanic is 'Unify Culture Group'.

 

[SAmaster]

Roleplaying, wanting to mess around with a different playstyle, imposing personal challenges on themselves, hunting for some hypothetical achievement...

These sound a little too hypothetical to me- I don't see a lot of people who seem like they'd want to do this.

And it's not like accepting a culture means you can't assimilate them, so a 'one culture' run is still possible, as in EUIV.

I feel the same about the unify culture button, after reaching a certain point I can just press a button, wait a few years, then suddenly a bunch of cultures and local dialects disappear?

Tbh, the root problem is probably the way culture exists in the game, it doesn't really represent anything tangible. All of the minor splits are made based on language/dialect rather than strict self-identity, but also we have a separate language system, but also the "Unify Culture" mechanic seems to represent unity in self-identity rather than language?

Yeah, they way Ekyman seems to view it is a matter of national identity. Which I believe is very different from cultural identity- one can still be a Scotsman for instance but be a patriotic British national.

That said, I'd argue national identity is much weaker than cultural ones, and therefore they should take precedence. A bunch of people in the US identify as Irish or Italian still, but that doesn't mean they would support those countries over the US. I mean in WW2 Italian-americans made a big show of supporting the States over their mother country (the Germans a bit less so- they mostly tried to disappear into the woodworks). National identity should be modeled in some way, but I think trying to portray it as a culture is very wrong-minded.

 

[Ekyman]

These sound a little too hypothetical to me- I don't see a lot of people who seem like they'd want to do this.

It's not about volume, it's about maintaining player choice in a place where I don't see any reason to remove it.

And regardless, even if that's considered not important, the rest of my opinion there stands. If the player wants to accept every culture in their culture group, and that is more cultures than they can currently accept, that should be something the player decides to do and works towards, whether that be working to increase their cultural capacity or working to unlock/implement something that makes same-group cultures even cheaper or completely free to accept.

I don't think it makes sense to implement something meant to represent the idea that empires are broadly accepting of similar cultures, but to do it automatically with no gameplay involvement when the game has systems that seem perfect for tying it in to gameplay.

 

[SAmaster]

It's not about volume, it's about maintaining player choice in a place where I don't see any reason to remove it.

And regardless, even if that's considered not important, the rest of my opinion there stands. If the player wants to accept every culture in their culture group, and that is more cultures than they can currently accept, that should be something the player decides to do and works towards, whether that be working to increase their cultural capacity or working to unlock/implement something that makes same-group cultures even cheaper or completely free to accept.

I don't think it makes sense to implement something meant to represent the idea that empires are broadly accepting of similar cultures, but to do it automatically with no gameplay involvement when the game has systems that seem perfect for tying it in to gameplay.

Well in what way do you think such a system would be best handled?

 

[Ekyman]

Well in what way do you think such a system would be best handled?

I've already said that multiple times.

Societal values, government reforms, laws/policies, advances. Perhaps government type and religion, if there's some appropriate unique stuff or whatever.

We already know government reforms and policies play a role here, as a source of additional cultural capacity.

 

[Arizal]

An interesting point to keep in mind is that even though idea groups are gone, they are replaced by advances, yes, but also by starting and evolving privileges and by laws. There might be enough choices to make that the strange abstraction that always were the "ideas" won't be necessary anymore.

 

[SAmaster]

An interesting point to keep in mind is that even though idea groups are gone, they are replaced by advances, yes, but also by starting and evolving privileges and by laws. There might be enough choices to make that the strange abstraction that always were the "ideas" won't be necessary anymore.

Privileges all come with drawbacks though, where you are meant to balance them with the power of the estate- and remove them as you enter the age of absolutism.

Ideas are meant to act as a means to specialize your nation- as some nations did specialize- such as the Austrians in diplomacy, and the British into navy, or the Dutch into trade.

I think the Sliders problem is that they are mutable- flexibility is nice, but if you can scoot the sliders back down to where you need, you aren't really forming the same kind of long term strategies. And I'm not sure about tech advances, just cause we haven't gotten a good look at that system yet.

 

[AntarcticRanger]

I'm referring to the EUIV mechanic when I say Cultural Union. The new EUV mechanic is 'Unify Culture Group'

Roleplaying, wanting to mess around with a different playstyle, imposing personal challenges on themselves, hunting for some hypothetical achievement...

Sorry, do you mean EU4 cultural unions (what me and SAMaster have been referring to with that term) or EU5 Unify Culture Group here? The phrase used makes me think the former, but the references to assimilation make me think the latter.

That's my bad, I used the right terminology earlier on and then changed for some reason. Capital letters I am talking about Eu5.