Scottish Culture Conversion Event is BROKEN

[A0978]

Probably one of the more confusing culture conversion events in the game with the Charlemagne start I will explain in detail the rules on how to get the Scottish Culture Conversion Event to work and explain in detail how it actually kinda sorta works with real Historical events but the gameplay mechanics for it are...broken.

Rule #1 MOST IMPORTANT*** - The Province MUST be Pictish in Culture

Rule #2 VERY IMPORTANT*** - The Province holder of said Pictish Province must NOT be Pictish

Over time the MTTH will tick once the Pictish Province is being ruled over by a at the lowest level a non-Pictish Count, this can be somebody from any Culture whether he be Irish, Anglo-Saxon or Norse. Suddenly after 20 years or so an event will pop up "With foreign influences comes foreign ideas, the Pictish people in [insert province here] no longer consider themselves Pictish, they are Scottish now!

You are probably thinking, yay! Right? Well, wrong, especially if you are following this via the historical route...

You see from the way how Paradox are telling us how Scottish culture was born when the Picts were ruled by somebody who is not Pictish, well who are they referring to?

Enter the Petty Kingdom of Dál Riata, an Irish Kingdom bordering the Kingdom of Pictland, it was said in legend long ago that an Irish Dynasty would come to rule over not only the Gaels of the Western Isles and Highlands but also the Picts of the rest of Caledonia, this man is King Cináed mac Ailpín, King of Alba.

In Historical Truth Pictland did turn into the Kingdom of Alba and Scotland was ruled over by Irish Gaels for many centuries with the Gaelic culture only starting to die down by the time of the rule of either King Alexander or King David...one of the two, I would consider those two guys to be the first proper Lowland Scottish monarchs (in my opinion at least).

Now if you've ever tried to play and recreate this event...hehe, you will notice that if you do somehow manage to conquer Pictland as Dál Riata and rule over the Picts Scottish culture will in fact start cropping up, but...when you right click on your character portrait you will notice one missing button - the fast-track "Embrace [x] Culture" button.

You see here this is where the hidden Rule #3 comes into play and really decides to f you up in the bum.

Rule #3 The only way you can "Embrace Scottish Culture" (not convert to local culture" is if the character is...Pictish. Yep. And I've tested it myself.

I cheated in the console to force the event to happen in Pictland, played as a Pictish character and I noticed I could embrace Scottish culture.

So what is the difference between Embracing a Culture and Converting to a Local Culture?

The simple answer to that is Embracing a culture makes you and all of your immediate family members in your court follow that particular culture, you do not need to even directly rule the province where the metling pot culture appeared to even embrace said culture. For example - You can be the Suebic King of Galicia, you noticed Portuguese culture appeared in the Duke of Portucale's land, you can now embrace Portuguese culture and convert all of your family members to Portuguese culture.

However converting to a local culture has a lot of restrictions and limitations, firstly you need to directly rule over said land in order to convert to that local culture, you need to have that County as one of your titles. Secondly when you covert to said local cultlure none of your immediate family members will convert as well. You have to use guardians to ensure your future generations will continue in the new cultural practices.

So now you know the flaws of the Scottish conversion culture event, and it is just stupid, it is in reality quite an easy fix, to follow historical accuracy you could just simply allow Irish, Welsh, Anglo-Saxon and Pictish characters the option to Embrace Scottish Culture when it appears, this will also help alleviate a common problem with a Charlemagne Scotland playthrough with constantly having to deal with rebellious Welsh and Anglo-Saxon Lords in the Lowlands.

Share this if you'd like in the Paradox forums, let these guys know we need a small fix with this, gracias and have a nice day :)

[Segovax]

Thanks, I just started a game in Insee Orc earlier. Will keep this in mind.

[Ea0]

I always wondered why neither the AI nor I myself had to face Scottish culture conversion...

An additional note: to convert to the local culture, you need the RoI DLC.

[A0978]

Yeah in the Charlemagne start 99% of the time Scotland will remain Pictish and Pictland because the historical merger, the area that started the melting pot in real history, Dál Riata gets swallowed up by the Pictish Kingdom in two decades, pretty much the only time you will see Scottish culture pop up naturally is if somehow the Pictish succession gets a non-Pict or a massive Norse Pagan invasion of Pictland is successful (which they do happen but often times are unsuccessful)

If you decide to start as a vassal of Pictland, hmmm...that will be a tough one I will imagine, I guess just pray that Pictland gets conquered by a non-Pict and then convert to that liege's culture and wait it out for Orkney and the Isles to become Scottish? It is very likely to happen as it is nearly impossible for Islands to convert culture unless you are Tribal and you are actively settling the tribe in Counties you directly own.

[A0978]

Another note on Culture during gameplay especially if you are playing in a sort of role-playing mood is a few key interesting features to keep in mind:

One playthrough I do enjoy doing is being the Breton Duke of Cornwall that is vassal to either the Anglo-Saxon King Harald or the Norman King William, as long as you get Cornwall and Devon under your control you will never ever have to worry about the Cornish lands being converted to Anglo-Saxon, Norman, English or any other foreign culture, because this is how Normal Culture Conversion works...

In order for a county to convert culture one of two prerequisites have to be made
1. You share the same Culture as your Top Liege.
2. The Culture that you and your Top Liege share has to border the minority Culture's lands.

So basically you can keep Cornwall Cornish (Or in Paradox's case Breton) so long as you and your future generations remain culturally Breton. The Major downside to this is the A.I. knows this too and they will be absolutely relentless in forcing your future generations to flip to the Top Liege's culture, every freaking 5 years or so - so long as you have children that are of the eligible age to be under a Guardianship (6 years old) will keep sending you messages to make Arthyr mab Constentyn to become a "proper" Norman Catholic by accepting guardianship of Guy le Whatever, and everytime you decline you get a -15 opinion modifier with whoever asked permission.

It gets pretty annoying after 80 years of gameplay, constantly having to reject guardianship offers for your brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, cousins, nieces, nephews, etc., etc....