Changing Primary Culture?

[Will Steel]

Still don't understand why they don't allow us to change culture, even if you educate the heir in foreign culture and said culture is the majority.

I mean, even the UI is there now, all that needs is a button to promote as core. Changing cultures and migrating is fun. Changing culture and tag-switching is sometimes half the fun in EU4. Why take that feature away for no reason?

Just because the old EU Rome also lacked it?

Another problem is how integrating cultures doesn't apply to the rest of the group - it only allows you to integrate one by one, single individual culture. You want to play historical Rome and integrate the Greeks to the east? Well too bad, you can only integrate the Macedonians and Attics (and face revolts if you try to integrate any more). No Epirotes, Lacadaemonians, Ionians, Cypriots, Cretans, Syrohellenes and Cyrenics for you...they'll assimilate away and disappear.

You can't even promote the culture you have integrated, to replace the rest of the same culture group. For example you cannot integrate Macedonian culture as Roman Empire and then replace other unintegrated Greek cultures with it, to bring all of the Greek world up as equals.

You want to assimilate Persians as Seleucids and Parthians did in real life? Well too bad, assimilate maybe just the southern Persian and Median western culture (and maybe one more before you face revolt), the rest will die out for no reason.

Personally, I think neither should be a game over. This isn't CK3 where you're playing a character - you're playing a nation. Having one faction win in a civil war leading to a game over has always struck me as an odd decision. This is an area where the game should lean more into its EU4 influences, I think.

Completely agreed.

It doesn't make sense indeed. By this game's weird logic, Rome was destroyed in 87 BC because a certain guy named Sulla successfully marched on the capital. And all that talk about Caesar and Augustus and Trajan are mythical nonsense and peasant superstition. Rome ceased to exist after 87 BC.

Its a legacy from the horrible design decisions during release version, and hasn't been changed yet. I hope they focus on it now.

I know there needs to be a late-game challenge, but a complete nonsense challenge that ends your game for no reason only leads to players leaving in bad taste. Especially when it doesn't even allow you to choose which side to play.

Your nation isn't even destroyed in civil wars. It is only damaged, continues to exist and can become greater after civil wars. And you aren't a character or a government, you are playing a nation. Why does it end, then?

 

[Bovrick]

I know there needs to be a late-game challenge, but a complete nonsense challenge that ends your game for no reason only leads to players leaving in bad taste. Especially when it doesn't even allow you to choose which side to play.

Your nation isn't even destroyed in civil wars. It is only damaged, continues to exist and can become greater after civil wars. And you aren't a character or a government, you are playing a nation. Why does it end, then

How would you balance the self-sabotage problem then?

 

[Ololorium]

Another problem is how integrating cultures doesn't apply to the rest of the group - it only allows you to integrate one by one, single individual culture. You want to play historical Rome and integrate the Greeks to the east? Well too bad, you can only integrate the Macedonians and Attics (and face revolts if you try to integrate any more). No Epirotes, Lacadaemonians, Ionians, Cypriots, Cretans, Syrohellenes and Cyrenics for you...they'll assimilate away and disappear.

You can't even promote the culture you have integrated, to replace the rest of the same culture group. For example you cannot integrate Macedonian culture as Roman Empire and then replace other unintegrated Greek cultures with it, to bring all of the Greek world up as equals.

This is so true. The culture system is designed with small realms in mind, and doesn't scale at all, so if you own more than one region it starts to make little sense. When you have dozens of provinces, it doesn't make much sense to accept any culture (except probably Macedonian, or whoever lives in the Nile delta) from gameplay perspective, because each individual culture is usually a majority in 1-2 provinces, and there is no point to lose your integrated pop happiness for these 1-2 provinces to become more productive. It makes even less sense from the role-playing/historical perspective.
Maybe for great powers the mechanics should work differently: when they accept a culture, they start treating all cultures of that group as unaccepted cultures of their own group, and assimilate them into the accepted culture instead of the primary.

 

[IsaacCAT]

For integration and assimilation mechanism I like very much this suggestion.

This way, a player will integrate those cultures that wants to assimilate and the other cultures will remain non integrated=non assimilated.

From a gameplay point of view, levies will be raised from integrated cultures, that will slowly assimilate to your culture. From non integrated cultures the player will be able to raise auxiliaries=levies+mercs.

You will end up with only POPs from your primary culture. Then, It will make a lot of sense for a player to want to change their primary culture to achieve the best mix of units for their levies.

Changing your primary culture should be possible as a national decision as you can adopt another religion or change your type of republic.

(why would a player want to invest in technologies and buildings to speed up assimilation in this configuration? To have the max happines (primary culture will always be the happier), and to have the primary culture type of units))

 

[Will Steel]

How would you balance the self-sabotage problem then?

I

Firstly, based on how large two parties in a civil war are (and how long it has been going on) give a devastatingly heavy penalty modifiers (representing immense political, social and economic damage and broken bonds from the civil war) that last at least a decade, followed by less harsh modifiers for years after that, and a final tier of penalty modifiers that last for a few years. Combined that with the already gruesome damage civil wars can deal with current mechanics.

Maybe assign an event chain tied to that modifier - i.e. an event at the start that gives you that heavy penalty modifier. When it expires, another event that gives you the lesser modifier. And when that expires, one more event that gives you the final light penalty modifier. When that expires, the event chain ends.

It can be more than that and done in many ways of course, and there is a lot of potential for flavour events as well. But this way, it will also prevent minor civil wars from wrecking every part of your nation for no reason.

II

Secondly, make civil wars dangerous by letting outsiders take advantage of it.
In almost every civil war, there is always someone from the outside looking to settle score with a broken nation busy fighting itself.
Let powerful enemies of your nation invade your nation to gain lands for themselves. Let other nations avenge their loss of territory you took from them. Let vassals pick a side, or use this to attempt to break free (gradually, not just suddenly out of nowhere). Let other major powers try to influence and support leading characters if possible.

Some examples -

Spoiler

- Mauryan Empire collapsed because despite being the most powerful and wealthy empire of the time, the recurring series of civil wars and secessionist rebellions in their last 15 years (especially in the south) coincided with a massive Greek invasion from the west, led by Demetrius I of Bactria. The invading army even managed to raid the undefended imperial capital in the chaos before being driven back later.

- Seleucid Empire went from being a great power of the ancient world and the strongest of the Diadochi, to a weak rump state annexed by Rome, precisely because of their five devastating civil wars that all happened within 60 years. With each civil war, they lost more and more lands in the east, west and the south. Armenians and Anatolian powers broke off their support, and Jews successfully declared independence, until they were left with just Syria.

- Egypt's civil war resulted in Rome "inviting itself" to settle matters there, get involved more and more until Egypt was (despite being a great power) annexed by Rome.

- Whenever Armenia was in a civil war, both Rome and Parthia would back the opposing candidate and try to get them on the throne by force. It often escalated into direct full scale warfare between the two great powers.

- Rome's own civil wars presented a perfect opportunity for barbarian invasions, Parthian Empire's invasions and client states breaking off (or increasing their power and status within Rome's sphere). That happened in both late republic and imperial era of Rome.

Point is - a civil war always creates opportune vultures looking to feed on the broken nation. It is always a risky thing. There is a lot to be lost diplomatically/internationally in a civil war.

Players won't try to trigger one every 20 years lest they lose their vassals, get attacked by vengeful rivals and invaded by thirsty barbarians allying each other.

III

Thirdly, make civil wars a bit more bloodier. More character deaths and more vicious battles. A bit more devastation to the pops and cities that do get sieged. Whenever ancient nations and civilizations fell, civil war was always either the leading or second biggest cause.

This will add to the first point about modifiers I mentioned earlier, making civil wars something to be careful about.

This will also discourage civil wars that go on for too long. You may be having fun crushing your political opponents and watching them run, but your nation is losing as a whole. Longer civil wars can also be discouraged via modifiers and increasingly painful war exhaustion, alternatively.

IV

Allow us to pick sides in civil wars. Don't treat it as just another rebellion with extended mechanics. Let us play as that very popular rebel who built up a big army and treasury conquering Gaul, and then marched on his own nation, and actually won.

This will mean civil wars will actually be worth it if you are set to gain a popular god-tier badass in power. But not at all if it is a more generic civil war with less powerful leaders.

===

Do all of that, and no player would dare to self-sabotage unless it was for a good reason. Civil wars will not be worth killing your own nations, while also not making them a taboo feature they are now.

Just don't make civil wars game ending for no reason.

This is so true. The culture system is designed with small realms in mind, and doesn't scale at all, so if you own more than one region it starts to make little sense. When you have dozens of provinces, it doesn't make much sense to accept any culture (except probably Macedonian, or whoever lives in the Nile delta) from gameplay perspective, because each individual culture is usually a majority in 1-2 provinces, and there is no point to lose your integrated pop happiness for these 1-2 provinces to become more productive. It makes even less sense from the role-playing/historical perspective.
Maybe for great powers the mechanics should work differently: when they accept a culture, they start treating all cultures of that group as unaccepted cultures of their own group, and assimilate them into the accepted culture instead of the primary.

Agreed.

I think after reaching a certain national rank (especially when you become a great power), you should start assimilating entire culture groups at once rather than individual cultures. Kinda like what Mughals do in EU4. Every single major empire in this era was a multicultural and multi-ethnic empire.

Another alternative is to start converting non-integrated cultures into integrated culture of the same culture group. For example, if you integrate Macedonian (Koine) culture in your fully formed historical Roman Empire, the Greeks down south and east should also convert from Cretan/Attic/Ionican/Pontic/Cypriot/Syriac/Cyrenic whatever to Macedonian. But that's a very lame, patchwork alternative.

 

[Bovrick]

Those fixes all assume that self-sabotage leads to a relatively balanced civil war. The whole point of self-sabotage is that it is within your power to never have a balanced civil war. Instead you can just pick the winner before it starts. I'm not talking about intentionally starting Civil Wars, I'm talking about never bothering to try to fight one on an even footing.

Either it will be a small one you can quickly crush (and avoid your modifiers), or if it is approaching and likely to last a while, it is within your power to stack the deck in favour of the opposition and then make yourself lose the war in a few months; again avoiding the costs associated with a balanced/bloody civil war.

1) Increases this incentive by punishing you more for winning an even (longer) civil war, and less for sabotaging your own side to lose quickly.
2) Does present an issue for losing vassals, but if there's any way to game them joining the opposition that goes away. If they break away from both sides that is a more solid cost of Civil War in general, but not an incentive to actually go through and attempt to win a difficult civil war.
3) See 1
4) Again the whole point is that you can make it a cakewalk for your god-tier ambitious general. Even if you want him to rule after the Civil War, it would probably be easier to let one start, pack your side onto some boats and let them drown in the North Sea, to avoid any contested Civil War and end it quickly.

 

[IsaacCAT]

Why is there a player side? I think all sides are the player’s

The player juggles with the loyalty of characters to have the max benefits.

Then, something happens that makes a powerful faction not loyal. Sometimes is directly by the player action (tyranny, scorned family) but many times is not (power base, personality traits, foreign schemes).

The player may judge that the faction not loyal is right and the government has to be changed. For this to happen, the rebel faction should have a motive and objective that now is missing. For example, to change the primary culture, religion, government, etc...

In order to avoid sabbotage to one of the sides, player has to declare its aliegance with one of the sides when the conflict is unavoidable. This is when the objective and motive has been declared. There will be no deactivating civil wars, but choosing sides. Except if player concedes with the rebel objective (1).

When the war starts, the player decides which side is on and fights with the resources/armies available to that side, while the other is controlled by the AI. If the player looses, game over, as it is now.

After the motive is declared and the civil war ticking starts, the player can convice characters to remain loyal or switch to the other cause. This is not sabbotage, but an active option. To make it possible, the objective has to be declared. Then you can try to switch over characters with actions coherent with that objective. If the rebellion is about changing to oligarch republic, characters with that party will have a malus on loyalty. Thus, some characters will be in favour, opposed or neutral to the civil war objective. The player options: make friend, bribe, free hands, etc... will boost that character loyalty to the cause already supported by the character. Because a civil war is not something that can be ignored by characters in your nation. While the motive and objective is declared, characters will pick sides (favor, opposed or neutral).

(1) if the player concedes and is able to enact the objective pursuit by the rebels, the characters in favor will have a loyalty boost, while the caracters opposed will have a penalty. If the conditions for civil war are still met (because the opposing faction now is the one rebellious) then the ticking for civil war continues with the opposite objective, to revoke the just enacted reform. If the situation after enacting the change does not qualify for civil war, then conflict is avoided.

 

[Nostalgium]

I

II

III

IV

I might just have misunderstood how these modifiers are applied, but I completely fail to see how making civil wars bloodier and more punishing would help with the issue of self-sabotaging if you can continue playing as the victor who defeated you, or even pick a side if civil wars continue being a response to poor management like now. If anything, it further incentivizes deleting your Legions, your forts, and take every effort to ensure the war is ended as quickly as humanly possible by offering absolutely 0 resistance, because the longer it drags on, the more the modifiers hurt, the more time you give nations to jump on you.

The problem with self-sabotaging, as @Bovrick says, isn't that people would deliberately start them, but rather that they can completely neuter the mechanic when they happen due to poor management. You just lose on purpose. Picking a side would help with this, but not much, as nothing is really stopping you from deleting forts, deleting Legions, that would land on the Loyalist side of the fence and then pick the Rebels.

Caesar going rogue and conquering all of Gaul as an excuse to avoid being punished for crimes in Rome isn't why you get civil wars in this game - it's because you've ran the loyalty of your characters ragged through poor manangement of a core mechanic. Before you can get civil wars for factors largely outside of your control - Caesar VS Pompey i.e. - for reasons similar to what you describe, Civil Wars in this game are a direct reaction to the player's poor management. Not a group of characters fighting against another group of characters. Should this change? Yes, it should, but until it does, I am against allowing the player to pick sides. That's kind of like a government coming out and joining an anti-government protest.

The good reason to self-sabotage isn't to get a civil war - it's to make it a breeze for the side that would, per today, end your game, which is the BEST reason to not self-sabotage.

Though with all that said and out of the way - I really like your suggestions (bar picking sides, see above argument) and think they could actually serve to make civil wars as they currently exist more impactful than annoying, and make them feel like the potentially game-ending disasters that they should be. Though I do also think civil wars should be looked at hard, why they happen and how in particular. Maybe it can come in a large patch with internal factions (rather than families) with proper teeth, a general look at administration, and an Empire government type...

 

[Nostalgium]

I think the main takeaway from this, uh, enormous tangent from the OP, is that we'd all like civil wars to be a narrative tool instead of a punishment tool. That seems to be the crux of the pick sides/continue as victor/end campaign argument. We all want to follow the story of Caesar (or his would-be equivalent in these weird timelines we make), but currently, as civil wars exist to punish the player for not managing a core mechanic, that would require the game rewarding bad management of a core mechanic. I think the real discussion that should be had is about redesigning how loyalty works on a larger scale, as civil wars as they currently exist is a symptom of how that mechanic is implemented. I'd be happy to discuss this further in a dedicated thread though - maybe get some input from other forumites who pass this by, thinking it's genuinely a thread about changing primary culture.

 

[Arabkha]

I think the main takeaway from this, uh, enormous tangent from the OP, is that we'd all like civil wars to be a narrative tool instead of a punishment tool. That seems to be the crux of the pick sides/continue as victor/end campaign argument. We all want to follow the story of Caesar (or his would-be equivalent in these weird timelines we make), but currently, as civil wars exist to punish the player for not managing a core mechanic, that would require the game rewarding bad management of a core mechanic. I think the real discussion that should be had is about redesigning how loyalty works on a larger scale, as civil wars as they currently exist is a symptom of how that mechanic is implemented. I'd be happy to discuss this further in a dedicated thread though - maybe get some input from other forumites who pass this by, thinking it's genuinely a thread about changing primary culture.

I mean I got the answer to my question and it is unfortunately impossible to change my primary culture and I don't mind this tangent because many of these suggestions make sense. I hope the DEVs are listening and maybe something will be done. Overall, I like this game a lot.

 

[Bovrick]

I mean I got the answer to my question and it is unfortunately impossible to change my primary culture and I don't mind this tangent because many of these suggestions make sense. I hope the DEVs are listening and maybe something will be done. Overall, I like this game a lot.

Thanks for being so polite about it, and apologies for being a big contributor to the tangent!

 

[Ketchup & friends]

Here’s an idea (based on the Syracuse mission, Spanish civil war mechanics and our own proposal for playable independence movements in HoI):

Replace the red flag for civil war with an event allowing to choose side: rebels OR government.

If the player chooses to continue as the government, they’ll have to nake rebels loyal again or defeat them (same as now) losing would be a game over.

If they play as the rebels, the’d lose control of the government, controlling only the rebellion leader and loyal troops (and regions ruled by rebel governors).

They would be able to influence other powerful characters and other nations to support them (with PI, money and promises of rewards after victory)

Replace the 2-year countdown have a decision for the rebels to start the civil war. They would be able to do it immediately, but that would mean starting weak and risk losing quickly.

But if the government (now AI-controlled, with AI bonuses if H or VH) manages to increase loyalty, it would be a game over.

loyalty should be obscured, like health is now.

with this idea, the player won’t be able to self-sabotage:

• if the play as the government, doing it would still mean game over.
• if they play as the rebels, they won’t control anything not disloyal.

 

[LSF]

I agree that logically you should get to play as whoever wins the civil war, but in gameplay terms it would almost completely neuter the mechanic. Sure dealing with a civil war would still be annoying but if you literally can't lose there is less incentive to try and avoid it or fight it out properly if you can't.

Just give some debuffs if you lose the CW to incentivize trying to win, no need of game over.