Assimilation - particularly for religion - happens too fast

[Rostan]

I noticed that the speed of assimilation is too fast across areas where native people are under the control of a foreign empire. This is especially true for religion, but also for ethnic groups.

Take the Balkans - by 1880, up to 60% of Bulgarians are Sunni. Similarly, 50-60% of Poles are Orthodox by this point.

Ethnic conversion is also a dash too fast. I formed Romania circa 1850, and the share of minorities was 30%. By 1885, without any emigration, this had falled to just 15%. I get that assimilation needs to happen in Europe as well, but it should have a cap and perhaps not exceed 0.5% of an existing population per year or so.

 

[elbiotipo]

I hope this gets revised. The 19th century was the century of nationalism, assimilation should, if anything, get HARDER as the game passes. The devs were talking about something like "national fervor" which I hope takes a look at this.

The model that Victoria 3 uses for religious conversions also produces very, very strange results, like communities that are strongly identified by religion simply converting just like that. It also makes for some strange fragmentation of immigrant pops. Instead of having "Italian protestant" pops in the US, for example, shouldn't it more make sense that they convert to "Yankee" or "Dixie" catholics first? I think that if anything, people would rather learn a new language and culture before changing their religion that easily.

I also think that the model of assimilation of immigrants should be different from the assimilation in "homelands". I'm not sure how to put this, but the whole model of assimilation and discrimination that Victoria 3 uses seems to be based in the US, and it doesn't really make much sense outside of it.

 

[TitaniumMan91]

Instead of having "Italian protestant" pops in the US, for example, shouldn't it more make sense that they convert to "Yankee" or "Dixie" catholics first? I think that if anything, people would rather learn a new language and culture before changing their religion that easily.

They learned a new language and adopt new practices while still speaking Italian at home and belonging to fraternal orgs that existed to sustain that part of their cultural identity while still merging into the broader American milieu.

Order Sons of Italy in America - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It's 2025 and it still has 600,000 members.

It would be terrible for performance, but probably the best way to really represent assimialtion would be a 4th cultural trait representing civic identity or to X-Americans/British/Whoever. The Irish came to the US and remained very proud of their Irish identity and heritage, it's how we ended up with songs like "Irish Volunteer" or "We'll fight for Uncle Sam," and that's probably the best way to model in the time period and on the time scale we're working with. My ancestors had been here 80 years by the end of the game, had fought in the Civil War for the Union, and still face anti-Irish/anti-Catholic bigotry. But they also had full rights as citizens. It's a tricky subject.

 

[ScaleZenzi]

It's really hard to make assimilation work as a mechanic, since they need it to simultaneously allow for the European 19th/20th century nationalist movements and awakenings, but also allow the New World nations to assimilate all the immigrants that they receive. It ends up being particularly bad for the former case (The balkans will oftentimes end up plurality turkish and majority muslim, which is obviously obnoxious).

I'm hoping the next DLC is able to introduce a mechanic to address this, since it's meant to focus all on nationalism and the like. Maybe just make assimilation/conversion happen slower in general, but pops that mass migrate get a modifier to have it happen way faster to them

 

[Rostan]

It's really hard to make assimilation work as a mechanic, since they need it to simultaneously allow for the European 19th/20th century nationalist movements and awakenings, but also allow the New World nations to assimilate all the immigrants that they receive. It ends up being particularly bad for the former case (The balkans will oftentimes end up plurality turkish and majority muslim, which is obviously obnoxious).

I'm hoping the next DLC is able to introduce a mechanic to address this, since it's meant to focus all on nationalism and the like. Maybe just make assimilation/conversion happen slower in general, but pops that mass migrate get a modifier to have it happen way faster to them

I do not think it is all that difficult, as they do have the „homeland” mechanic. There should be two assimilation speeds: the current rate when populations migrate outside their homelands and a much slower speed in their homelands. So Poles stay Catholic, Bulgarians and Greeks Orthodox, etc. But if they migrate in the USA, than they slowly assimilate into the American melting pot. Though even here, I would make assimilation a tad slower. In fact, religious assimilation in particular should be slower - Irish or Italian Americans remained mostly Catholic.

 

[M Sohl]

I think a combination of homeland-mechanic where assimilation in homelands is severely slowed down and a mechanic where assimilation is more tied to loyalty. Pops that like and enjoy the country and it's government sholud convert while pops that don't stay unassimilated. This combined with citizenships laws would mean that assimilation is faster in democracies than authocracies and that minorities in homelands don't assimilate the same way as immigrated minorities.

 

[TitaniumMan91]

It's really hard to make assimilation work as a mechanic, since they need it to simultaneously allow for the European 19th/20th century nationalist movements and awakenings, but also allow the New World nations to assimilate all the immigrants that they receive. It ends up being particularly bad for the former case (The balkans will oftentimes end up plurality turkish and majority muslim, which is obviously obnoxious).

I'm hoping the next DLC is able to introduce a mechanic to address this, since it's meant to focus all on nationalism and the like. Maybe just make assimilation/conversion happen slower in general, but pops that mass migrate get a modifier to have it happen way faster to them

The solution existed and people hated it; pops shouldn't assimilate in their homelands, period. Convert religion? Absolutely, plenty of people in the Balkans converted, but they were still Greek/Bulgarian/etc.

A bigger issue (in my opinion) is that pops who assimilate will still be accepted if you go back up the ladder to something like National Supremacy or Ethnostate, which is ridiculous. I'm personally against the assimilation being a change of culture from the start. This is an era where you either had a civic nationalist identity like the US or to a lesser extent, UK, or you were an ethnonationalist empire who was going to try and fail to suppress identities like Austria-Hungary and Russia. I'm not sure how it would work, but a better system than assimilation would be acceptance where pops who have been there long enough are seen as equals by pops who want more inclusive laws, which would still let reactionaries come to power and try to undo that.

 

[Falrinn]

Just throwing an idea out there, but perhaps instead of assimilating changing a pop's culture/heritage, it just gives them an "assimilated" tag. Which raises their acceptance score on an amount based on your citizenship laws.

So National Supremacy or Ethnostate will barely care about it, Racial Segregation will only really care about it for pops with the same heritage trait, Cultural Exclusion will care about it quite a lot for everyone, and Multiculturalism will be enough to push baseline acceptance to 100 when assimilated.

I'd be okay with pops changing their culture to be limited to just scripted events, or perhaps make it a special feature for "New World" countries that can assimilate immigrants into their primary culture thanks to having slightly tweaked citizenship laws.

 

[DominusNovus]

I want to suggest that assimilation means different things in different countries, and for different groups. It is very messy.

I'd like to demonstrate an interesting US example: my local Catholic parish has a Holy Ghost festival (my daughter marched in it this past weekend). This is festival that is an Azorean Portuguese tradition, specifically. New England got a sizeable influx of Azorean Portuguese immigrants in the early 20th century (largely to work in the fisheries). They all assimilated pretty quickly, and maintained this festival. Now, this particular parish has, more recently, seen an influx of Brazilian immigrants. For *them* part of assimilating to the local culture has been participating in this festival that was a legacy of a more-assimilated Lusophone population.

Or, put more commonly: On March 17th in the US, *everyone* is apparently Irish. Doesn't matter if all your ancestors came over on slave ships or you have a single Irish great-grandparent, or you yourself were born in Ireland. (I kid... mostly)

 

[Rostan]

The solution existed and people hated it; pops shouldn't assimilate in their homelands, period. Convert religion? Absolutely, plenty of people in the Balkans converted, but they were still Greek/Bulgarian/etc.

I would say that religious assimilation in homelands was minimal. Sure, some happened, but not in high rates in the 19th century. Some 10% of Bulgarians perhaps converted to Islam, but then again this was spread out over 500 years, not 50% in 40 years.

Oddly enough, there were a few moments of rapid religious conversions. E.g. Albanians adopted Islam fairly quickly. And Romanians and Ukrainians in the Austrian Empire adopted the Greek Catholic faith in big numbers fairly rapidly, over the span of decades. But all of this happened before 1800.

 

[DarkBlue]

Just throwing an idea out there, but perhaps instead of assimilating changing a pop's culture/heritage, it just gives them an "assimilated" tag. Which raises their acceptance score on an amount based on your citizenship laws.

So National Supremacy or Ethnostate will barely care about it, Racial Segregation will only really care about it for pops with the same heritage trait, Cultural Exclusion will care about it quite a lot for everyone, and Multiculturalism will be enough to push baseline acceptance to 100 when assimilated.

I'd be okay with pops changing their culture to be limited to just scripted events, or perhaps make it a special feature for "New World" countries that can assimilate immigrants into their primary culture thanks to having slightly tweaked citizenship laws.

If it wasn‘t terrible for performance this would be a great way to accurately depict the assimilation dynamics.

I also wish there could be decrees/decisions to increase (or decrease) acceptance for a sizable minority.

 

[M Sohl]

Just throwing an idea out there, but perhaps instead of assimilating changing a pop's culture/heritage, it just gives them an "assimilated" tag. Which raises their acceptance score on an amount based on your citizenship laws.

So National Supremacy or Ethnostate will barely care about it, Racial Segregation will only really care about it for pops with the same heritage trait, Cultural Exclusion will care about it quite a lot for everyone, and Multiculturalism will be enough to push baseline acceptance to 100 when assimilated.

I'd be okay with pops changing their culture to be limited to just scripted events, or perhaps make it a special feature for "New World" countries that can assimilate immigrants into their primary culture thanks to having slightly tweaked citizenship laws.

I was thinking something similar. Today we have a two tier identity: religion and culture. Maybe there should have been a three tier: religion, culture and citizenship. Alternatively: religion, culture, language. Changing language could simulate what happened in USA pretty well, immigrants remained irish or italian to a large extent, kept their religion but changed language and thus were assimilated into american society and workforce. In homelands they would keep their language. In the multicultural empires of Europe speaking a common national language was not relevant until earliest late 19th century. This would allow a form of assimilation and still simulate recurring racism and nationalistic movements even late game. Language is a change happeneing from one generation to the next. Culture change over a few generations and religion hardly at all. So this could perhaps been a good way to simulate this.

Performance would probably be horrible though so my computer is grateful for not having this feature.

 

[Ivashanko]

They learned a new language and adopt new practices while still speaking Italian at home and belonging to fraternal orgs that existed to sustain that part of their cultural identity while still merging into the broader American milieu.

Order Sons of Italy in America - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It's 2025 and it still has 600,000 members.

It would be terrible for performance, but probably the best way to really represent assimialtion would be a 4th cultural trait representing civic identity or to X-Americans/British/Whoever. The Irish came to the US and remained very proud of their Irish identity and heritage, it's how we ended up with songs like "Irish Volunteer" or "We'll fight for Uncle Sam," and that's probably the best way to model in the time period and on the time scale we're working with. My ancestors had been here 80 years by the end of the game, had fought in the Civil War for the Union, and still face anti-Irish/anti-Catholic bigotry. But they also had full rights as citizens. It's a tricky subject.

I love the idea of a Civic Identity trait. At the start of the game the vast majority of pops won't have any civic identity and over the course of the game many will pick one up. Multiethnic empires could struggle to make sure they never get a civic identity whilst ethnonationalistic states do all they can to encourage their ethnic population starts to identify themselves with a nation-state and flat out forbids ethnic minorities from adopting that vivid identity.

 

[nuarbnellaffej]

I'm personally against the assimilation being a change of culture from the start. This is an era where you either had a civic nationalist identity like the US or to a lesser extent, UK, or you were an ethnonationalist empire who was going to try and fail to suppress identities like Austria-Hungary and Russia. I'm not sure how it would work, but a better system than assimilation would be acceptance where pops who have been there long enough are seen as equals by pops who want more inclusive laws, which would still let reactionaries come to power and try to undo that.

I think one argument for some level of cultural switch would be representing the children born into the pop. Adopting the culture of society around them and becoming more separated from their ancestral culture. With that said I know that isn’t always the case.

 

[Blaze86420]

This could simply be fixed by making assimilation and conversion in homeland states very slow and making cultural separatism an actual threat. I don't think I've seen a single separatism revolt happen once in 1.9, repressed minorities are more likely to mass immigrate than to fight for independence which results in stupid outcomes like the Ottomans maintaining their European holdings every single game and converting the majority of the Balkans to Islam.

The devs have struggled to represent nationalism properly in this game which is a shame given how important it is to the time period. I'm hoping the planned Austria-Balkans DLCs addresses these deficiencies.

 

[Rostan]

This could simply be fixed by making assimilation and conversion in homeland states very slow and making cultural separatism an actual threat. I don't think I've seen a single separatism revolt happen once in 1.9, repressed minorities are more likely to mass immigrate than to fight for independence which results in stupid outcomes like the Ottomans maintaining their European holdings every single game and converting the majority of the Balkans to Islam.

The devs have struggled to represent nationalism properly in this game which is a shame given how important it is to the time period. I'm hoping the planned Austria-Balkans DLCs addresses these deficiencies.

The Ottomans are indeed the most annoying region for this type of ultra-assimilation, as in real life their domains had already shrunk considerably by the 1880s and collapsed fully by 1913.

But their National Awakening flavour pack seems focused on the region.

 

[TitaniumMan91]

If it wasn‘t terrible for performance this would be a great way to accurately depict the assimilation dynamics.

That's where a lot of these discussions leave me. I would love a 4th trait for pops representing civic identity (assimilated into X nation) but adding another trait sounds like a performance nightmare.

Changing language could simulate what happened in USA pretty well, immigrants remained irish or italian to a large extent, kept their religion but changed language and thus were assimilated into american society and workforce. In homelands they would keep their language.

Yes and no. There were whole towns that still conducted daily life in German in my state until WWI after coming over 70 years earlier.

Multiethnic empires could struggle to make sure they never get a civic identity whilst ethnonationalistic states do all they can to encourage their ethnic population starts to identify themselves with a nation-state and flat out forbids ethnic minorities from adopting that vivid identity.

I was actually thinking the reverse, multiethnic empires desperately want to create a civic identity to head off nationalist unrest. An Austria composed of Austrian, Italians, Croats, Hungarians, etc should be hard to hold onto, but if they all view themselves as being part of the Austrian empire on top of their cultural identity, they can keep a lid on the nationalist unrest. More ethnonationalist empires wouldn't have one, the ethnicity would fill the same function.

 

[Ivashanko]

I was actually thinking the reverse, multiethnic empires desperately want to create a civic identity to head off nationalist unrest. An Austria composed of Austrian, Italians, Croats, Hungarians, etc should be hard to hold onto, but if they all view themselves as being part of the Austrian empire on top of their cultural identity, they can keep a lid on the nationalist unrest. More ethnonationalist empires wouldn't have one, the ethnicity would fill the same function.

I think we're using two different definitions of civic identity: for me a person identifying with their own ethnicity is their civic identity.

I do like the idea of multiethnic empires trying to create civic identities divorced from ethnicities and ethnonationalist states trying to encourage ethnic-based civic identities, though. That could be quite cool.