I'm a massive culture gore flavor fanatic and participated in many debattes about culture and written threads about myself. That said I do not really support any of your suggestions right now.
Ingrians: This would be the most likely one to support for me.
First: the finno-ugric group does not include any baltic finns anymore, it has been completly moved to the ural mountains and western siberia. So would they be in the slavic, baltic or scandinavian culture group?
Secondly: They originate from Karelia and were close to Karelians in language and culture (which is the culture of the province right now)
Thirdly: The other indigenous finnic group of Ingria, the votes, are closer to estonians.
I wouldn't mind having them included but it's not important.
Cornish:
Very close to Welsh, would probably be pretty happy being part of a welsh nation had they got that chance.
Kurdistan:
We have a handful of Kurdish states, the name is quite arbitary in the end but countries like Bohtan and Ardalan did exist in this timeline and if Kurds rebels they'll form one of those. Why add a new tag?
Lastly, there are definitly many cultures which could be added to this game. Recently I suggested to break out Agew people from Amharic and Kaffa people from Sidamo in the horn of africa region. I also argued that Nubian for all of Sudan is very incorrect and that the region could be made much more interesting.
Kashubian, possibly. I'm very doubtful about Rusyn, they'd have one very poor province. Szekely is included in the transylvanian culture and I'm personally fine with that (better idea would be to represent them as an estate or special modifier or something than a culture). I doubt that any of these groups: Aromanian, Ashkenazi, Sephardim, Romas and Gaugaz would have the plurality in any province whatsoever. The jews and romas could be represented through events and modifiers but since a lot of these would risk carry racist intonation I heavily doubt nor do I support any inclusion of that.
I used to be in favor of Assyrians and Copts but my support has been vaning for them as distint cultures. I Think the new set up with coptic powers getting extra bonuses from conquering antioch and alexandria is sufficient recognition.
Looking into the future I could imagine better solutions to minority related issues without adding them as a unique culture. Szekelys, Transylavnian saxons and lipka tatars are some of the things I've been thinking about, but then I've been thinking mre in line of modifiers, estates and events
Ah, Baltic for the Ingrians then.
The Ingrian Finns originated from Karelia, but they came out of Karelia during Swedish rule. Before then, i.e. 1444, they were Izhorians and Votes, who were indigenous Ingrians. It's true, it's not that big a deal, but it is more accurate and adds a bit of flavour IMO.
"Very close to Welsh" I would think they're at least a sight further apart than Lowlander Scots and English (which includes the north in this case). The latter two both speak stuff descended from Middle English; Cornish and Welsh are different languages and have been distinguishable for perhaps a thousand years by game's start.
Which, on that note; I think it would be a good idea to have Highlander, then a kind of Lowlander-north spread thing from southern Scotland to northern England, then actual English only in the south. Or, even, only Highlander, and English, given the Lowland Scots speaking a form of it. But people probably like the British Isles too much.
Don't know much about either Agew or Kaffa but seems like a good idea. It's not like Ethiopia wasn't an ethnic gorehouse anyway.
Also don't know much about the Nubian people, but I do think it would be a good idea to keep a "Nubian" around, given that there was in fact an actual Nubian language.
The Assyrians seem to have lost majority in any areas after the Mongols.
I like the idea of Copts, though I can't find very much at a pinch on whether they were majority or plurality in areas, though given their numbers I would imagine so.
AFAIK Kurdistan is represented in game by Ardalan. They even use the same flag as today's supporters of an independent Kurdistan.
Problem with Ardalan and Bohtan is that they, historically, were just local little states; using them to represent Kurdistan is like using Epirus to represent Greece. They, of course, also don't get the claims on the region. As I understand it, Ardalan in game takes its flag from modern Kurdistan.
Yes this is a good start and the sooner we include all nations which are being historically denied by EU4 the better.
We can start with Cornish and Ingrian; continue with Kashubian and Rusyn, go on with Szekely Aromanian and Ashkenazi, and finish with Sephardim, Romas and Gagauz.
The Middle East greatly discriminates against historical accuracy game balance and affirmative action:
the Copts, the Assyrians (and possibly also the Yezidis) should be represented and deserve to be represented game play wise, as it is historically confirmed and agreed upon that yes they did constitute majorities or at least pluralities in some provinces at the 1444.
I would also argue for a Catholic Gafsa, but I understand that it is pointless
It's not that clear whether Kashubian was a majority against the Germans by 1444 when Ostsiedlung had been going on for quite some time... and it would be most accurate to have an event for ostsiedlung getting rid of the Kashubians not long before game start. But if they were indeed a significant majority in a decent area, the latter is still preferable.
Aren't the Rusyns a relatively recent thing? I mean even today, their distinctiveness from Ukrainians is disputed.
Szekelys were kind of just a subset of Hungarian...
I can't find much on the Aromanians, are you sure they were a plurality in any EU4 provinces?
Where would Ashkenazi, Sephardim or Roma be a majority?
Gagauz is an idea but troublesome because of the mystery surrounding their origin (so whether they were there in 1444, esp. as a distinct group or plurality/majority is disputable)
The problem with adding new cultures with less than 20 development is that the logical reaction to those cultures is always "culture-convert them at the earliest opportunity", even when they're cultures that - historically - survived to game end and beyond.
Especially when they're below 10 (as Ingrian would be if it were reinstated) and thus even if you could accept them it would be a more efficient use of DIP to just mapwipe them.
To be honest, kind of the point. IRL the Welsh and Cornish became all but English, and the Ingrians are replaced by Ingrian Finns IRL perhaps a century after 1444. It is quite realistic (and flavoursome!) for some of these cultures to be small and powerless, and thus get converted.
Another few things I thought of;
- add Arpitans in Switzerland, especially the modern day French speaking bit (which being made Swiss German culture is silly IMO), probably in French group anyway
- Jilu (dialect, so like Jianghuai and stuff) being the name instead of Zhili (which was just some province)
- Japan should be just Ainu, Japanese and Ryukyuan instead of Tohoku and stuff, which IMO doesn't have a strong enough case to be separate
- Isle of Man should get a province and culture (please?), in Celtic group
- Merge Flemish and Dutch; at the time there was little distinction, and what distinction there was was not along lines similar to later Netherlands-Belgium (which is roughly what the game does atm); that was a more political, economic and religious split, and even today dialects straddle the border
- Add Frisian, which was significantly different from Dutch, in Germanic group though I think there's a good case for splitting Dutch and German groups
- Add event for changing Calais to Francien or English or something; historically, IIRC, the city was explicitly repopulated because of the Hundred Years War and defence or something so it'd be a nice bit of flavour
- Sort of relating to what was said earlier; make Transylvanian into Romanian and Hungarian, as historical
- Just a very minor thing, and perhaps not worth it, but it'd be nice to see the Aborigine culture group in Australia be more specified (also better dynamic names when but I digress)
- Don't know how I feel about Belarussian-Ruthenian merger but it's something to look into
ryukyan was included in Kyushan cause it'd be too small and Ainu is not in the Japanese group, it's in Kamchatkan group.
