Could we please have three tiered culture in ck3?

[Allu]

If we're looking at changes for ck3 I would definitely like a more robust culture system (celtic>brittonic>welsh rather than celtic>welsh) as it would create a more immersive game for several reasons:

It would allow modders more depth when they create new cultures or want to mod things dependent upon culture (instead of having to mod in if: breton, welsh, pictish they could mod if: brittonic

For theapplication of game rules across cultures (celtic>goidelic could be given access to tanistry succession so that celtic>goidelic>irish and scottish both got it but you're not applying it to celtic>everything)

and for the application of foreigner debuffs/benefits (a breton and a breton could be 0 malus, a breton and a cumbrian could be -5 malus, a breton and a scot -10 and a breton and a swede -20)

I feel that the ck2 culture system is a bit too simplistic

 

[Vivs]

I second this, not just because of the reasons you listed, but also because we're already getting three tiers for religions (e.g. Abrahamic>Christian>Catholic), so we wight as well have that for cultures too.

I also think it'd be great for rectifying some minor annoyances from CK2, such as leaving Iberian cultures out of the Latin group. I completely understand why they had to do that, within the constraints of the game's systems and the two-tier culture mechanics. With a three-tier system, though, you don't have to give an Occitan ruler of Aragon the same opinion malus as, say, a Mongol or Mandinke ruler. Furthermore, this would allow the devs to better flesh out more local cultures, so we don't have to apply "Italian" to the entire peninsula, nor ignore all the subtle differences between Swabians, Bavarians, and all other German subcultures.

It's not even about making all these disparate cultures share the same special troops (if there even is such a thing in CK3), seeing as you can just lock these to the second of the three tiers. Or maybe even have different special troops for each of the first level cultures, who knows! (pretty please?)

There are some caveats, however. I don't think the third (uppermost) culture tier, as per our hypothetical model here, should always correspond to broad linguistic families. So, while I do think the example you gave in the OP (i.e. Celtic cultures) is a good one, there shouldn't be, for instance, a sweeping "Latin" top-tier culture which includes everything from Portuguese to Romanian. I think these broader groups should be split up.

This is to prevent some cultures being too accepting of others when in reality they wouldn't be. So scenarios such as an Anglo-Saxon kingdom being relatively cool (or at least less angry) with having a Swabian ruler just because they're both Germanic would be avoided. All things considered, I think it's a great idea, and it would also be in keeping with greater historical accuracy, which Henrik has stated is one of the goals for CK3.

 

[nick5436]

I would also rather that they assigned culture-groups based on actually relationships between the cultures, rather than geographical proximity or existing under the same state for most of the game.

 

[Allu]

That is a great point Vivs and I think that there could still be a lot of play in the terms of top tier cultures so if we take just 867 Britain as an example (please ignore Bedeish ahistoricity as ck2 definitely bought in to it so I'll run with that for now) we would have as cultures:

Celtic>Brittonic>Welsh
Celtic>Brittonic>Cumbrian
Celtic>Brittonic>Cornish

Celtic>Goidelic/Gaelic>Irish
Celtic>Goidelic/Gaelic>Scottish

I would say North Germanic would act as a good top-tier in this situation as there are direct links between a Frisian, Dane and Anglo-Saxon in terms of culture, language and history that would lead to a mutual understanding that say the English and Swabians wouldn't have.

North Germanic>Insular (this would also include Frisians on the continent)>Angle
North Germanic>Insular>Jute
North Germanic>Insular>Saxon
North Germanic>Norse>Danish
North Germanic>Norse>Norwegian

Obviously I'm not suggesting that it is handled in this way at all or that this naming convention is used; I'm just trying to better represent what I'm trying to say

 

[Vivs]

I would also rather that they assigned culture-groups based on actually relationships between the cultures, rather than geographical proximity or existing under the same state for most of the game.

Even if they do apply the "existed under the same state for most of the game's time period" approach to some of the macro culture groups, having a three-tier system would at least make it more palatable. Take the Byzantine group, for example: having an extra degree of separation between, say, Greeks and Georgians would make it a lot more comfortable to place them all under the "Byzantine" umbrella, even though liguistically they are not directly related.

 

[nick5436]

That is a great point Vivs and I think that there could still be a lot of play in the terms of top tier cultures so if we take just 867 Britain as an example (please ignore Bedeish ahistoricity as ck2 definitely bought in to it so I'll run with that for now) we would have as cultures:

Celtic>Brittonic>Welsh
Celtic>Brittonic>Cumbrian
Celtic>Brittonic>Cornish

Celtic>Goidelic/Gaelic>Irish
Celtic>Goidelic/Gaelic>Scottish

I would say North Germanic would act as a good top-tier in this situation as there are direct links between a Frisian, Dane and Anglo-Saxon in terms of culture, language and history that would lead to a mutual understanding that say the English and Swabians wouldn't have.

North Germanic>Insular (this would also include Frisians on the continent)>Angle
North Germanic>Insular>Jute
North Germanic>Insular>Saxon
North Germanic>Norse>Danish
North Germanic>Norse>Norwegian

Obviously I'm not suggesting that it is handled in this way at all or that this naming convention is used; I'm just trying to better represent what I'm trying to say

What is a-historical about that culture setup for Britain?

 

[Allu]

What is a-historical about that culture setup for Britain?

So... the idea of the three distinct migrations (and monocultural nations) of Angles, Saxons and Jutes comes from Bede (a Northumbrian monk writing in the early 8th century, the closest thing we have to a contemporary English author) and for a long time this was accepted as fact by lay people and historians as fact. In the last forty years or so this has been overturned as the solid fact people thought it was (with genetic information and the updated archaeological record and such).

I don't know if it is ahistorical by 867 because people may have actually believed it by this point so no idea how they will/should handle this if they go for more cultural granularity

 

[neutrondecay]

Why not have flexible hierarchy depth? Some groups might only go to two levels, some to four. Requiring exactly three is potentially inflexible for mods and later development.

nd

 

[halbort]

Speaking of culture, one nitpick but sill annoying thing about CK2 is the Rajput Culture. CK2 uses this like a geographic ethnnicity within India. However, it is actually a caste. The geographic term would be Rajasthani.

 

[Ephafn]

I dislike the suggestion of having three tiered culture system, mostly because it is still a hierarchical culture organisation scheme. It would still lead to Normand turned English no longer having close culture to their kins in Normandie.

If I was to design a culture system, it would be one where each pair of cultures have their own proximity modifier, with the possibility of said modifier evolving during gameplay.
It would be:
- Close cultures: people from those cultures can communicate without translators and are aware of each other cultural norms.
- Foreign cultures: people from those cultures know the other exists and they interact from time to time, either from trade or from war. Translators are easy to find, but diplomacy is harder due to difference in cultural norms.
- Exotic cultures: people from those cultures are not even aware the others exist. If there is interaction, it is very recent. Translators are scarce, and diplomacy is near impossible.

 

[Vivs]

Why not have flexible hierarchy depth? Some groups might only go to two levels, some to four. Requiring exactly three is potentially inflexible for mods and later development.

nd

In my opinion, that would be an unnecessary complication and would probably get people up in arms: "why did my culture only get two tiers, while some other cultures get four?". I don't think anyone is saying the three-tier model is perfect, just that it would be a fairly easy improvement on the system we already have.

Having said that, I'd be totally OK with cultures that don't necessarily need three cultural tiers just using the same name (or similar names for the same thing) for different levels. Something like Euskera>Vasconian>Basque or simply Basque>Basque>Basque wouldn't put me off in the slightest.

 

[Vivs]

I dislike the suggestion of having three tiered culture system, mostly because it is still a hierarchical culture organisation scheme. It would still lead to Normand turned English no longer having close culture to their kins in Normandie.

The model is not hierarchichal, so much as it is taxonomical (though not striclty in terms of linguistic taxonomy, as I stated in a previous post). The problem of "English no longer having close ties to Normandy" (which I don't think is a problem, but that's a different discussion) has less to do with how we organize in-game cultures and more with how CK2's culture-related mechanics, especially culture conversion as it pertains to rulers, work.

You can have any culture classification model you want, but if the mechanics don't change, the English will still "not care" about Normandy in just under 10 years any which way.

 

[The Biso]

I agree with the three tiers, as it'd help in as much as immersion and storytelling and as little as the EU4(ahem. 5?) converter not having the whole of Germany as "German".

I mean, has anyone ever tried playing CK2 in Germany? everyone is just German! It's lovely. no Franconia, Swabian, Bavarian, or other cultural friction to worry about. Except those swamp Germans calling themselves Dutch, of course. They make all sorts of trouble.

 

[Ephafn]

You can have any culture classification model you want, but if the mechanics don't change, the English will still "not care" about Normandy in just under 10 years any which way.

Hence my suggestion. The main issue with the CK2 culture model is that it try to do classification, which lead to instead of directly describing the in-game effect of cultural differences causing ruler/subject frictions.

 

[Vivs]

Hence my suggestion. The main issue with the CK2 culture model is that it try to do classification, which lead to instead of directly describing the in-game effect of cultural differences causing ruler/subject frictions.

The suggestion you made didn't address CK2's problems with culture mechanics and culture conversion, you just expounded on cultural proximity and familiarity. As it is, that would not prevent the English "forgetting about Normandy" in under 10 years.

At worst, it would just replicate the current CK2 model (better relations with closer cultures), at best it would just add something that would be functionally equivalent to a fourth tier to the model proposed in this thread OP.

 

[Vityviktor]

This. I've always found weird how French, Occitan and Italian cultures were Latin, but not Castilian, Catalan or Portuguese, because they're "Iberian" instead.

 

[Allu]

I agree with the three tiers, as it'd help in as much as immersion and storytelling and as little as the EU4(ahem. 5?) converter not having the whole of Germany as "German".

I mean, has anyone ever tried playing CK2 in Germany? everyone is just German! It's lovely. no Franconia, Swabian, Bavarian, or other cultural friction to worry about. Except those swamp Germans calling themselves Dutch, of course. They make all sorts of trouble.

It's even better in early Scandinavian starts: form sweden in 769 and you can form scandinavia within ten years cause all the count level norse rulers will accept vassalage immediately

 

[Will Steel]

I love this idea. A 3-tier culture system would also fix India, because cultures in India weren't that different from each other compared to what CK2 presented them as (complete with relationship maluses that wouldn't exist in real life). With a 3 tier system, all of India could be one supergroup under which Aryan, Dravidian and others could be three culture groups, followed by individual cultures. Like for example Indic -> Aryan -> Malvi.

It would also allow fixing of the decade long problem of Indian character names in every Paradox game ever - Persian Muslim names mixed with Hindu Sanskrit names, which doesn't happen in real life. This thing is most broken in EU4's India as well. With a new 3-tier culture system, Delhi Sultanate could have its own proper Indian Muslim surnames that don't have to replace entire culture groups in India.

And I also like how it could finally allow proper German and Greek cultural zones instead of a single giant Byzantine/Germanic group.

 

[Mauer]

I would also like a more dynamical culture system rather than groups of cultures and arbitrary melting-pots. It makes sense that Norman becomes English when they rule Anglo-Saxons, but only when it happens like it historically did, the system should allow for other variations. A system of cultural proximities based on rulers and province cultures would be better.

So for example provinces of a culture that fall under the same realm for a period of time gain an affinity to that of the realm's ruling culture or culture group, for example Basques under Latin Iberians, Pommeranians and Prussians under Germanics; and they lose an affinity level towards their original culture group. And maybe also by who they border, so Hungarians start with an affinity towards other Finno-Ugrics rather than in their own group or in the South Slavic, but eventually become closer to other Balkans. And also the opposite with Anglo-Saxons and Franks losing their affinity to other Germanics after a period of them being in a separate realm, while other Germanics remain close because of being within the HRE.