Changing culture after conquest

[Benjamin Bones]

Does anyone know if changing culture after conquest is planned / announced by TW?

For me it's such an important feature in a sandbox. And it's not just that, current features like rebellions, loyalty or recruitment very much rely on culture, so if changing culture becomes a thing these features need to be balanced around it plus additional mechanics. For me it would be one of the top priorities.

Generally, if you conquer a settlement there should be a way to change culture over time. This process could be accelerated with building projects, perks and skills, governors and policies. Until conversion is finished, you face a higher risk of rebellions because people don't identify themselves with their leaders (lower loyalty). The other obvious effect would be the ability to recruit troops of your own culture.
You could also add all sorts of other side effects, for example that your kingdom policies are more efficient when the settlement has your culture.

If party speed penalties get applied when you are in enemy / neutral territory this should be affected by culture as well:

Example: You conquer a settlement you get -20 speed penalty in that territory because it's not your culture. This also means that the former owner of the settlement has an advantage in these lands until culture changes and the speed penalty no longer applies to you.

I think it should also be possible to play completely different though. Maybe you don't want to assimilate but prefer cultural diversity. This could also have benefits like a larger pool of troop types. If you allow people to keep their cultural identity it could also mean they rebel less. At the same time it might be a better target for the former owner because they already share their culture.

Or you mix both, assimilate settlements at your border but allow people to remain their culture in a settlement far away.


Obviously it's not realistic that culture of a settlement changes within a few years, but for gameplay reasons the whole campaign speed is already increased anyway so I guess it would fit the pace of the game.

Really nice ideas - I like them a lot. However, I would add this one thing.

Let's say you want to keep the culture of your conquered town, but also want to recruit certain types of troops from that settlement... Why not have the ability to invite a notable of a certain culture to take residence in your town so you can recruit troops of their culture? No culture change needed and you can still have (some) of the culturally specific troops you want from that settlement.

 

[shikaka]

Does anyone know if changing culture after conquest is planned / announced by TW?

For me it's such an important feature in a sandbox. And it's not just that, current features like rebellions, loyalty or recruitment very much rely on culture, so if changing culture becomes a thing these features need to be balanced around it plus additional mechanics. For me it would be one of the top priorities.

I'm not sure about this.
In history it was not common to slaughter the peasants on the conquered territory. I remember two example from Europe, but I'm getting older, so who knows:
1: mongols! They actually made a point of killing off the whole ruling class, and they did actually slaughter the inhabitants of villages and towns (partly for loot, but it was mostly a terror weapon, so they could avoid further sieges). They were aware, that if the ruling class, and especially the royal family doesn't survive, there is noone to organize future uprisings.
2: norman England. They let the commoners be, but most of the saxon ruling class was replaced with norman in a very short timespan (less than 20 years). This is a quite unique event in European history.

Generally, if you conquer a settlement there should be a way to change culture over time.

Well, over time. Since a M&B game is ususally not that long, the time is too short for mass migrations or culture conversion in my opinion.
As an example, EU3, which is very-very generous with culture conversion, has the time to happen at 250 years. With an ideal setup (dedicating your national focus, building a temple, going free subjects instead of serfdom), you can do it in 25-50 years.

In Bannerlord, this is one of the few gameplay effects, which could be used to make snowballing harder...


So, I would not support:
- changing culture in villages
- changing culture in cities

I am undecided changing culture in castles only. This could represent the followers of the new noble moving into the area. I think adding meaningful recruitment and culture change to castles only would add some gameplay features to castles.

It is also somewhat defensible from historical point of view. The population of Hungary, Serbia, Romania, Croatia didn't change to ottoman, despite being occupied for 150 years. (= villages didn't convert to new culture) BUT the ottomans did have huge amount of troops in castles, living next to the natives. An other example is a german knight moving to the baltics, surrounding himself with other german soldiers and advisors, but ruling over village with baltic population.


edit:
To be a bit more productive, changing culture could work with different buildings. For example an "organize settlers" building, which takes long to build, expensive, and causes relationship to drop.
Or maybe a small (1-2%) chance per month, depending on national policies.

 

[babelfisch]

I'm not sure about this.
In history it was not common to slaughter the peasants on the conquered territory. I remember two example from Europe, but I'm getting older, so who knows:
1: mongols! They actually made a point of killing off the whole ruling class, and they did actually slaughter the inhabitants of villages and towns (partly for loot, but it was mostly a terror weapon, so they could avoid further sieges). They were aware, that if the ruling class, and especially the royal family doesn't survive, there is noone to organize future uprisings.
2: norman England. They let the commoners be, but most of the saxon ruling class was replaced with norman in a very short timespan (less than 20 years). This is a quite unique event in European history.




Well, over time. Since a M&B game is ususally not that long, the time is too short for mass migrations or culture conversion in my opinion.
As an example, EU3, which is very-very generous with culture conversion, has the time to happen at 250 years. With an ideal setup (dedicating your national focus, building a temple, going free subjects instead of serfdom), you can do it in 25-50 years.

In Bannerlord, this is one of the few gameplay effects, which could be used to make snowballing harder...


So, I would not support:
- changing culture in villages
- changing culture in cities

I am undecided changing culture in castles only. This could represent the followers of the new noble moving into the area. I think adding meaningful recruitment and culture change to castles only would add some gameplay features to castles.

It is also somewhat defensible from historical point of view. The population of Hungary, Serbia, Romania, Croatia didn't change to ottoman, despite being occupied for 150 years. (= villages didn't convert to new culture) BUT the ottomans did have huge amount of troops in castles, living next to the natives. An other example is a german knight moving to the baltics, surrounding himself with other german soldiers and advisors, but ruling over village with baltic population.


edit:
To be a bit more productive, changing culture could work with different buildings. For example an "organize settlers" building, which takes long to build, expensive, and causes relationship to drop.
Or maybe a small (1-2%) chance per month, depending on national policies.

Actually culture often changed drastically after conquest. Romans are a popular example, Napoleon as well. Sometimes culture even changes within a few years like it happened with the DDR in Germany.

 

[shikaka]

Actually culture often changed drastically after conquest. Romans are a popular example, Napoleon as well. Sometimes culture even changes within a few years like it happened with the DDR in Germany.

Culture can change with time, I don't dispute that. But I don't think it does change swiftly enough to justify it in the base game. It depends on lot's of factors, but even in the swiftest cases, it is usually more than a generation.
Even internal changes require at least a generation, but usually more. (Just think of vikings. Or raiding hungarians becoming a settled feudal kingdom. It took 4 consecutive "great" rulers + outside pressure.)

Communist states with secret police are a bit out of scope I think But even than, in Hungary, 50 years of them was not enough to have a 100% communist population. (I understand that there is a difference between the hungarian secret police and Stasi/Securitate)

 

[babelfisch]

Culture can change with time, I don't dispute that. But I don't think it does change swiftly enough to justify it in the base game. It depends on lot's of factors, but even in the swiftest cases, it is usually more than a generation.

Communist states with secret police are a bit out of scope I think But even than, in Hungary, 50 years of them was not enough to have a 100% communist population. (I understand that there is a difference between the hungarian secret police and Stasi/Securitate)

True, but as I said earlier the pace of the game already is faster than the real world. I can conquer the entire map in a few years.
And even if I take my time, it's almost impossible not to conquer a couple of castles / towns within a few months when you are at war.
So I think it makes perfect sense when cultural conversion is sped up as well.

 

[Askorti]

I think rather than trying to simulate the change in culture, I think it would be better to simulate assimilation and the acceptance of foreign rule.
The normans conquered the Anglo-Saxon England, but the anglo-saxons never became Norman. They did however, in time, accept the norman rule. In time, it was the Normans who ended up assimilating and creating a mixed culture.

I think this would make more sense to simulate, since it can happen in a shorter time span. So instead of making a settlement's culture flip to yours, you just work to reduce their unwillingness to be ruled by you, all the while they retain their culture.

 

[Mikal Manfriedson]

I think reducing the "wrong culture" penalty over time you reign a fief might be a better solution. The proposal that a notable from the new culture could establish in the settlement and produces recruits accordingly is intriguing as well. The settlement should keep its overall culture and architecture but you could add some flavor from other cultures present.

 

[babelfisch]

Really nice ideas - I like them a lot. However, I would add this one thing.

Let's say you want to keep the culture of your conquered town, but also want to recruit certain types of troops from that settlement... Why not have the ability to invite a notable of a certain culture to take residence in your town so you can recruit troops of their culture? No culture change needed and you can still have (some) of the culturally specific troops you want from that settlement.

I really like this idea and it should work pretty well with the current system. You could even add a few quests for it.

 

[Benjamin Bones]

I really like this idea and it should work pretty well with the current system. You could even add a few quests for it.

 

[Lag'ier Barlida]

The feature should be added, maybe with a campaign option to enable or not.

 

[JurgenJuggernaut]

For starters would be nice if fiefs change their noble troops to the clan owner culture.

Would be awesome that conquered fiefs adopted over time customers, like clothing and recruits also change too.

Ex. A conquered Battanian fief by Imperial to have special troop tree or something like imperials with Battanian human models.

 

[Short_n_quick]

I am not sure, quite large part of conquering Calradia is based on balancing resupply of key troops and expanding to where you have to in order to have constant supply of men. Enabling change of culture would indeed add realism to the gameplay, but at the same time it would kill challenge, and if enabled for AI, Khuz would just flood everything, the same for battanians.
I am not against, as I said, I am not sure. It poses too much of a destabilisation for balance of factions, and to the point harms the concept of culture.

 

[Bob Gnarly]

Really nice ideas - I like them a lot. However, I would add this one thing.

Let's say you want to keep the culture of your conquered town, but also want to recruit certain types of troops from that settlement... Why not have the ability to invite a notable of a certain culture to take residence in your town so you can recruit troops of their culture? No culture change needed and you can still have (some) of the culturally specific troops you want from that settlement.

I like this idea.

 

[kweassa]

The Irish retained their cultural identity for more than 700 years, even 'til today. The "time" required for a culture to change, requires hundreds of years. Even in Crusader Kings, at the fastest it takes 100 years for a de facto to completely overwrite the previous de jure and become a new de jure.

A "culture change" is just unrealistic thing to expect from the game.

 

[babelfisch]

The Irish retained their cultural identity for more than 700 years, even 'til today. The "time" required for a culture to change, requires hundreds of years. Even in Crusader Kings, at the fastest it takes 100 years for a de facto to completely overwrite the previous de jure and become a new de jure.

A "culture change" is just unrealistic thing to expect from the game.

Crusader Kings has a completely different time scale.
And regarding the Irish, that's just one example. You are right that you can't completely erase cultural identity within a few years. But the Romans were quite successful exporting 'the Roman way of life' and the same is true for Napoleon. People actually welcomed him when he conquered new lands and this changed society completely.

 

[shikaka]

People actually welcomed him when he conquered new lands and this changed society completely.

Ok, so this is really off topic now, but the above statement is very strange.
Just think of Austria, Russia, Spain. Or even Sweden, where Bernadotte actually opposed him.
French did export some ideas, for example chauvinism, a new law structure, end drafted armies (and so the re-evaluation of nobility and professional soldiers), but they did so despite being defeated on all fronts, not because they were successful conquerors.

Romans: the Pannonia province was established between 20-50 AD (parts of it were conquered earlier and were attached to Illyria province). It was given to ostrogoth fodereati after the fall of the huns. It was under roman influence for 400+ years, and the province was still not romanized, even though it had some roman settlements. (most of them were military related)

 

[Short_n_quick]

Similar case with non-assimilation may be noticed with Poles under three oppressors - Austria, Russia and Prussia. Poles were not an individual country for 123 years, yet they still were organising rebellions (70 years after wiping off the map) and when the opportunity came, they still were ready to feel like the nation they grandfathers used to be - Poland. There are many influences of this time period, in culture and economy, but mostly they felt still as Poles, not Russians, Prussians and Austrians, despite them being parts of their armies and all.

So maybe the current state is not so unrealistic after all, especially considering the fact, that we are playing mostly in span of several years. Converting people to new culture in a year, two, or even ten years sounds too stretched out imo. Then again, it's just a game, so maybe some form of assimilation would be welecome, in form more of a accent in visible culture, not overall conversion. I know that culture of the notables is defining to their troops, but maybe there was a minor chance for kingom's culture troop appearing in a town or a village that was under the single rule for more that couple years (10?). Still, just speculation.

 

[shikaka]

So maybe the current state is not so unrealistic after all, especially considering the fact, that we are playing mostly in span of several years. Converting people to new culture in a year, two, or even ten years sounds too stretched out imo. Then again, it's just a game, so maybe some form of assimilation would be welecome, in form more of a accent in visible culture, not overall conversion. I know that culture of the notables is defining to their troops, but maybe there was a minor chance for kingom's culture troop appearing in a town or a village that was under the single rule for more that couple years (10?). Still, just speculation.

[off]Same with Hungary. It is "not visible" on most maps from 1541* (ottoman conquest of Buda) until either 1920 (post-WW1 peace) or if you want to be generous 1867 (Austria-Hungary)

*technically it is not correct, as after the ottoman conquest, the lands of János Zsigmond was still called Hungary. Most non-native historians call it Transylvania, a name what was adopted at a later date.[/off]


I could imagine changing the culture of castles though. They were manned by troops loyal to the owner, what changed regularly in real life.
Eg. polish villagers and cities didn't change to russian or prussian, but some fortresses were surely manned by opressors exclusively.

 

[Short_n_quick]

I could imagine changing the culture of castles though. They were manned by troops loyal to the owner, what changed regularly in real life.
Eg. polish villagers and cities didn't change to russian or prussian, but some fortresses were surely manned by opressors exclusively.

Oh, that is a nice touch. I mean it would be, if the castles were a little more useful, because for now, there is no notables in them that we can interact with, hence no real gain from them.

 

[babelfisch]

Ok, so this is really off topic now, but the above statement is very strange.
Just think of Austria, Russia, Spain. Or even Sweden, where Bernadotte actually opposed him.
French did export some ideas, for example chauvinism, a new law structure, end drafted armies (and so the re-evaluation of nobility and professional soldiers), but they did so despite being defeated on all fronts, not because they were successful conquerors.

The point was that some cultural changes can happen quite fast. It's irrelevant if Napoleon was defeated or not. It doesn't always take 1000 years until something changes.

Romans: the Pannonia province was established between 20-50 AD (parts of it were conquered earlier and were attached to Illyria province). It was given to ostrogoth fodereati after the fall of the huns. It was under roman influence for 400+ years, and the province was still not romanized, even though it had some roman settlements. (most of them were military related)

I never claimed that cultural changes always happen everywhere all the time.