There should be reductions to culture conversion speed.

[kek]

We love to paint the map our color, in any of the map modes. We conquer new provinces and put them under our banner, we convert them to one true religion, and we spread civilization to these barbaric lands by enforcing our culture.

All of these glorious activities become more efficient as the game goes on, except one. We conquer more land due to advances in administrative efficiency, warscore/coring cost, ever increasing governing capacity... We increase the number and strength of our missionaries.

But one thing that does not change in any way is how long it takes to convert the culture. In fact, in only becomes longer as the provinces are being developed.

This becomes very annoying in some campaigns. Personally, I like to play small and tall, and of course I want to have a single culture, but there's no worse feeling than not being able to convert Aachen by the end of the game because some psychopath AI deved it up to 69.

Having to wait for decades before you can witness the glory of cultural purity in your nation - now that is true pain. Of course, in that time you get more land, you have to wait for separatism to tick down first, so you are never able to reach that 100%. On top of that, you cannot build in that province while it's being converted. Literally unplayable.

Before you object that fast culture conversion is not historical, let me ask you: is converting low countries to orthodoxy in a matter of years historical? What about Hussite Algeria? Did world conquests really happen? Is this a real history simulator or a game in a historical setting where we write our own history?

What matters most is not whether it's accurate but whether it's fun. And this has been the bane of tall players' existence for far too long. As far as I understand, culture cost reduction was initially meant to bring down the time as well, but something went wrong.

So can we please get some sort of time reduction? Maybe an idea, a policy, a trading good bonus? Technology bonus as well? Thank you!

[D-Black Catto]

culture conversion is already mostly ahistoric ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ on current speed in reality cultures resisted conversion for centuries

[grotaclas]

There are already several ways to reduce the culture conversion time which have been introduced in 1.35 and 1.36.

But I agree with D-Black Catto that culture conversion in eu4 is mostly ahistoric and already too fast.

[Marquoz]

Originally posted by grotaclas:

There are already several ways to reduce the culture conversion time which have been introduced in 1.35 and 1.36.

But I agree with D-Black Catto that culture conversion in eu4 is mostly ahistoric and already too fast.

Yup. Vastly too simple, cheap, and quick.

[kek]

Originally posted by grotaclas:

There are already several ways to reduce the culture conversion time which have been introduced in 1.35 and 1.36.

But I agree with D-Black Catto that culture conversion in eu4 is mostly ahistoric and already too fast.

Well, another approach could be to remove this ability from the game. All cultures are green and give no maluses on their own. Local resistance to conquest is simulated via other mechanics such as separatism and local autonomy. There may still be events related to cultures. The cultures may spread and change on their own, but the player has no (or very little) direct influence on them. This way you may conquer Egypt, but you cannot make it Norwegian. I would be happy with that.

But with the current setup you need to convert (or accept, but there's a hard limit on that). And it needs to be faster. If it were any slower, the mechanic would become pointless at that point. I think most people would have to learn to ignore it and forget culture mapmode exists.

[D-Black Catto]

Originally posted by kek:

Originally posted by grotaclas:

There are already several ways to reduce the culture conversion time which have been introduced in 1.35 and 1.36.

But I agree with D-Black Catto that culture conversion in eu4 is mostly ahistoric and already too fast.

Well, another approach could be to remove this ability from the game. All cultures are green and give no maluses on their own. Local resistance to conquest is simulated via other mechanics such as separatism and local autonomy. There may still be events related to cultures. The cultures may spread and change on their own, but the player has no (or very little) direct influence on them. This way you may conquer Egypt, but you cannot make it Norwegian. I would be happy with that.

But with the current setup you need to convert (or accept, but there's a hard limit on that). And it needs to be faster. If it were any slower, the mechanic would become pointless at that point. I think most people would have to learn to ignore it and forget culture mapmode exists.

there are examples of successful culture conversions tho like polonization in commonwealth or russification in russia and of course in new world colonies

a lot of them happened naturally, but some like russian were facilitated by the state such as circassian genocide in 18th century and replacement of tatars in crimea with ethnic slavs. that's what I imagine is happening every time I culture convert.

[grotaclas]

Originally posted by kek:

But with the current setup you need to convert (or accept, but there's a hard limit on that).

There is no need to culture convert at all. It is usually regarded as a waste of dip points by experienced players. Sooner or later you become an empire and accept all cultures in your culture group and you can use your accepted culture slots to accept the cultures which have the most development in your states. Most of the other cultures will be in territories or trade companies anyway, so the impact of the wrong culture penalties on your country are very small.
Instead of converting cultures, you can use the dip points to annex subjects which has a lower dip cost per dev(without modifiers) and gives you much more per dev.

[Marquoz]

Originally posted by grotaclas:

Originally posted by kek:

But with the current setup you need to convert (or accept, but there's a hard limit on that).

There is no need to culture convert at all. It is usually regarded as a waste of dip points by experienced players.

Right. I only do it when a mission or estate agenda requires it.

[Mr.M]

Originally posted by kek:

Originally posted by grotaclas:

There are already several ways to reduce the culture conversion time which have been introduced in 1.35 and 1.36.

But I agree with D-Black Catto that culture conversion in eu4 is mostly ahistoric and already too fast.

Well, another approach could be to remove this ability from the game. All cultures are green and give no maluses on their own. Local resistance to conquest is simulated via other mechanics such as separatism and local autonomy. There may still be events related to cultures. The cultures may spread and change on their own, but the player has no (or very little) direct influence on them. This way you may conquer Egypt, but you cannot make it Norwegian. I would be happy with that.

But with the current setup you need to convert (or accept, but there's a hard limit on that). And it needs to be faster. If it were any slower, the mechanic would become pointless at that point. I think most people would have to learn to ignore it and forget culture mapmode exists.

What effin logic is that? Just because you cant convert faster, it shouldnt be in the game at all? Not at all Black/White...

If something they should smack a time penalty for distance to closest culture on top of the current one...

And you definitely dont NEED to convert, are you Siu King in disguise?

[kek]

Originally posted by grotaclas:

Originally posted by kek:

But with the current setup you need to convert (or accept, but there's a hard limit on that).

There is no need to culture convert at all. It is usually regarded as a waste of dip points by experienced players...

I should probably clarify something: there are different types of players and different types of playthroughs. You certainly don't need to convert culture. When you go for big conquest, it is indeed a "waste of points". It's not a secret knowledge acquired with experience, it is simply the optimal way to play for huge expansion.

There are many players who only play that way and that is fine. They won't understand the struggle as they don't use this feature in the first place. I imagine that people suggesting that conversion time should instead be longer never actually click the convert button.

However, some of us play for RP or play tall and want to have a single culture and religion. If you don't get it, then you don't get it.

[grotaclas]

Originally posted by kek:

However, some of us play for RP or play tall and want to have a single culture and religion. If you don't get it, then you don't get it.

You don't need to culture convert when playing tall, because then you can just accept the few cultures which you will have in your country.

If you want to culture convert for role-playing purposes, you can do it of course. But there is no need to do that for gameplay goals. The only exceptions would be if the culture conversion itself is the gameplay goal. But then there is no reason to make it any easier. One-culture runs are interesting because they are difficult to do.

[D-Black Catto]

Originally posted by grotaclas:

Originally posted by kek:

However, some of us play for RP or play tall and want to have a single culture and religion. If you don't get it, then you don't get it.

You don't need to culture convert when playing tall, because then you can just accept the few cultures which you will have in your country.

If you want to culture convert for role-playing purposes, you can do it of course. But there is no need to do that for gameplay goals. The only exceptions would be if the culture conversion itself is the gameplay goal. But then there is no reason to make it any easier. One-culture runs are interesting because they are difficult to do.

What are gameplay goals? What is the gameplay goal of playing tall? not what you call roleplaying?

some people's gameplay goal might be to culture convert, why not?

[Mr.M]

Originally posted by kek:

However, some of us play for RP or play tall and want to have a single culture and religion. If you don't get it, then you don't get it.

...and for RP and playing tall, what exactly is the problem of "long" culture conversions? Which is only 10 months per dev anyway?

Originally posted by kek:

They won't understand the struggle as they don't use this feature in the first place.

WHAT struggle? Not instantly having the culture you want...?

Originally posted by kek:

However, some of us play for RP or play tall and want to have a single culture and religion. If you don't get it, then you don't get it.

Then... get a single culture...? "Tall" means not getting many provinces in the first place...


And yeah... nice of you to assume that "people" dont use that button...

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3158152350

Of course, other game mechanics like religious conversion are also already completely busted (getting conversion of uncored territories down to 4 months) but i dont really see any logical reason as to why reduced culture conversion times should be added.

[grotaclas]

Originally posted by D-Black Catto:

What are gameplay goals? What is the gameplay goal of playing tall? not what you call roleplaying?

some people's gameplay goal might be to culture convert, why not?

What I meant with gameplay goals are goals which you try to achieve by good gameplay. Or in other words, you optimize your gameplay for something. Common gameplay goals are to have a big country or do a world conquest. A one-culture is also a gameplay goal, but it is a very unusual one.
The opposite would be roleplaying where you do things because they fit your role even if they would be counter to good gameplay. You could for example do roleplay based on the traits of your ruler and recall all your missionaries if you get a tolerant ruler, even if your gameplay goal is a one-faith. I think a common roleplaying is to do things which happened in our history.
Playing tall would be more of a restriction to make the game more difficult instead of a goal. And then you try to optimize to still have a strong army or a lot of development, despite that restriction.

My point was that culture converting is seldom useful unless you have a specific goal which requires it or because your role requires it(e.g. because you roleplay as a genocidal maniac).
When discussing if something is good in eu4, it is usually implied that the goal involves conquering a lot of land, because it is the most common goal. If you play with specific self-imposed restrictions(e.g. for role-playing) or have a very different goal, it has to be mentioned, because otherwise the discussion is useless. Even the most useless thing in eu4 is required if that thing is your goal for the campaign

[endymionologist]

The culture conversion mechanic is supposed to allow something matching the historical Swedenization of Skaane, which was largely a matter of standardizing the language of local governance while replacing a few elites, and declaring the culture changed without even really looking into what the vast majority of the population was doing. This is why there's such a discount for undoing a culture conversion, because most of the people in the province would be the same even after the change.
Of course, outside of Scandinavia in that era you had a lot worse things going on; I expect the Tinto team has a very different understanding of culture conversion than the original Paradox devs.

[RCMidas]

Originally posted by Mr.M:

And yeah... nice of you to assume that "people" dont use that button...

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3158152350

WAY cheaper now than it used to be. Anatolia can convert to Greek or Pontic culture automatically through Byzantium's missions if you play long enough.