Religion and culture feels disconnected, on a map basis

[treb]

How long did the syriacs last?

To the modern day

They are present to this day.

And the ones that converted to Islam ? They were ARABIZED. Because they started to interact with arabs nore than syriacs, leading them to use arabic language more and in turn, arabize.

I think the issue there stems from the fact that CK3 lacks the pop system to properly model cultural/linguistic and religious minorities. So it has to use the binary 50+1 rule to model a given counties culture. which has the knock on effect that you and the AI are directly incentivized in most cases to convert them, which in the games context is analogous to genocide. in cases involving cultures or religions that survived as minorities results in completely removing said religion or culture from the game.

 

[AbstractTraitorHero]

I think the issue there stems from the fact that CK3 lacks the pop system to properly model cultural/linguistic and religious minorities. So it has to use the binary 50+1 rule to model a given counties culture. which has the knock on effect that you and the AI are directly incentivized in most cases to convert them, which in the games context is analogous to genocide. in cases involving cultures or religions that survived as minorities results in completely removing seid religion or culture from the game.

Maybe one way you could deal with this a tiny bit is still having courtiers of that old religion & culture still show up for a significant time? One annoying thing I've experienced with so many courtiers is that they are just my religion & culture by default rather then any of the cultures or religions that are in my counties or my realm

 

[Ral Rednaxela]

I've wondered if some or maybe all Cultures should have a preferred religious heritage (Christian, Islamic, Pagan, etc.). And it would be really hard to convert to a religion outside your heritage.

 

[Slime99]

I'd like to say that Paradox is not a stranger to just scripting things without any general system that applies to all faiths and cultures, such as with Scots converting Gaelic counties in Scotland or Ashari not converting Muwalladi counties, so rather than making elaborate systems to get a very specific result sometimes it's just better to point out an example and ask for that. So you could just auto-convert Muslim Syriac counties to Levantine unless held by a Muslim Syriac or by the player as an example and discourage the AI from converting those counties in the first place.

 

[paulatreides0]

They are present to this day.

And the ones that converted to Islam ? They were ARABIZED. Because they started to interact with arabs nore than syriacs, leading them to use arabic language more and in turn, arabize.

Feel that there is some conflation going on here. If anything the game is weirdly over-aggressive in how fast these religious and cultural transformations can and did happen. Islamization and Arabization were parallel and interrelated, but not really linear and necessarily predestined, processes that took centuries of active work, and didn't really start yielding majorities until like the 10th to 14th centuries (depending on the region in question - Syria-Palestine is estimated to have become majority Muslim around the 12th century, and Egypt only became majority Muslim around the 14th century). In many cases it was very gradual and centered around cities and administrative centers (remember that the vast majority of populations at the time were rural) where knowledge of arabic and being muslim were big plusses (if not outright requirements). But this also wasn't a passive thing, a lot of this was a policy of cultural integration pushed by the Abbasids (and successive administrations) to move the state towards Arabization and Islamization (by restricting social mobility and offering favorable conditions to Muslims over Christians much as early Christian rulers had done during the Christianization of Rome). It also isn't as simple as Islamization => Arabization (or vice-versa) - IIRC Arabic had become the primary language among Syrian Christians by sometime in the 9th century - before Syria became majority Muslim - and the Arabization of Syrian Christians may have been functionally complete before the First Crusade.

Not sure how it flowed in the other direction (would not be surprised if it was faster), but the point remains is that things like Arabization and Islamization were interrelated policies that were actively sought after by the state as a result of active state policy and not just one thing that naturally resulted in the other. In a counterfactual where the state only pushed one or the other, it's not a given that Islamization would naturally lead to Arabization as "quickly" - if at all (in the same way that the Persians were not successfully Arabized for a bevy of factors, even after becoming Muslim - which, again, was a process that spanned multiple centuries).

 

[Muezzahan]

Maybe they could introduce the "cultural tradition/influence" mechanic from EU5 ?

 

[Hopciu]

How about adding "Minorities" Cultures and Religions?

Instead of Counties only having one Culture and Religion, they could have one dominant, and up to few minority ones. Characters generated in said County would be created mostly with dominant culture, with smaller chance of having minority one, instead. Changing County's dominant Culture would work just as current culture promoting, but getting rid of minority culture should be hard, take long time, and generally not be worth the costs and efforts. This way, small pockets of Nestorian Syriacs would probably stay for entire gamespan as minority.

Minority mechanic could also be useful to represent Jews living in Christian Europe. Currently, they only randomly appear through events, while, in reality, there were significant Jewish minorities throughout most larger cities.

It could also better represent Slavic countries after adopting Christianity. In Poland, for example, despite Mieszko I becoming baptized in 966, and officially converting the country, Slavic paganism was still prevalent in rural regions, enough to cause pagan uprisings throughout XI and even XII century. Currently, it's not possible, as counties are either 100% Christian, or 100% Pagan, and once all of Poland gets painted white in religious mapmode, their pagans just cease to exist.

Having minorities implemented could also improve how culture hybrydization works, by making it require both Cultures to interwine in some Counties.

 

[BoomKidneyShot]

I've wondered if some or maybe all Cultures should have a preferred religious heritage (Christian, Islamic, Pagan, etc.). And it would be really hard to convert to a religion outside your heritage.

That seems needlessly restrictive.

Why not have a mechanic representing some form of inertia? Say, have a malus to conversion depending how unified the culture (weighted by development/total cultural development) is religiously.

So initially converting Persians to Tengri is difficult, but it becomes easier the more it's done.

 

[GhostDanny]

Most of the converting I let my AI vassals handle, I don't even need to tell them to do it.
After 100 years most of my realm will be of my faith, regardless of what faith I am and what faith was there first...