Can a country lose cores on provinces of its primary culture?

[ancapailldorcha]

I'm playing as Odoyev into Russia for the two acheivements Kinslayer and the Mass Production.

I was at war with Qing and I thought I'd nab a province in Korea for the reconquest CB as those provinces tend to have high development. However, Korea does not exist and isn't releasable because it does not have cores on any of the Korean provinces which still have Korean culture.

I will attach a save if anyone would like to take a look.

I wonder how this happened as they were annexed by Qing so they should still have cores.

 

[Asaipuol]

I'm playing as Odoyev into Russia for the two acheivements Kinslayer and the Mass Production.

I was at war with Qing and I thought I'd nab a province in Korea for the reconquest CB as those provinces tend to have high development. However, Korea does not exist and isn't releasable because it does not have cores on any of the Korean provinces which still have Korean culture.

View attachment 1336041

I will attach a save if anyone would like to take a look.

I wonder how this happened as they were annexed by Qing so they should still have cores.

I do not have access to my computer so cant check your save, but Korea indeed can't lose it's cores on primary culture provinces.
But Korea could have changed its primary culture. There are two ways for the AI to do this. The first one is having a rare-ish event if you have a different culture advisor and a young heir, which converts your heir's culture to the advisor's. Then, after the heir becomes ruler, another rare-ish event can switch the country's culture to the ruler's.
The second way is going bankrupt while owning only one province. This changes your primary culture and state religion to match your province's religion and culture if they weren't yours.
Given how Korea does not exist anymore, I think the second path is more likely. Check in the timeline if they were reduced to an OPM at any point.
In any case, this would have made them lose their cores 50 years after they lost the provinces (because they necessarily switched to a different culture group, as Korean is the only culture of the Korean group). Even less actually, as absolutism gives up to -50% foreign core duration.

 

[Asaipuol]

Okay, so it turns out pdx.tools somewhat works on mobile. So I could do a quick save check-up. It looks like Korea actually went through path 1 as described above. In 1464 they get a Manchu culture heir (he would be displayed as Manchu even if he was born Korean and switched to Manchu afterwards), then all subsequent rulers are Manchu until the country culture becomes Manchu in 1512. By then, they already had lost most of their territory in two wars against Jianzhou.

Sidenote: this Qing is quite the unicorn. I don't think I have ever seen Qing form, much less control most of China.

 

[ancapailldorcha]

That's some fine sleuthing! Thanks for that.

I did check PDX Tools but obviously, you did a much better job than I did.

What you're ultimately saying is that if Korea changes culture to Manchu, it no longer becomes the primary nation of the Korean culture and it suffers from losing cores on lost provinces of its former culture.

And yeah, I can't remember the last time I saw Qing. A shame as it's a lovely colour.