[1.2.1 Encinades] Forcing Vassal to Change Culture – Global 10-Year Cooldown

[luba781978]

Hello,

I noticed a change after patch 1.2.1 (Encinades), and I can't find any mention of it in the patch notes.

Before 1.2.1 (1.2 Rossbach / 1.1.x):
– I could force multiple vassals to adopt my primary culture in the same month.
– Each vassal required a diplomat.
– There was no global cooldown.

After 1.2.1:
– After forcing ONE vassal to change culture, I cannot force ANY other vassal for 10 years.
– The tooltip over the disabled action says: "This action cannot be used again for 10 years."
– This is NOT per vassal – it is a global 10-year cooldown for my entire country.

Questions:

Is this change intentional, or is it a bug introduced in 1.2.1?

If intentional, why wasn't it documented in the official patch notes for 1.2.0 or 1.2.1?

Is there any way to reduce this cooldown (ideas, reforms, policies, hegemon status)?

I checked the official patch notes for 1.2.0 (Encinades) and 1.2.1 hotfix. Neither mentions any change to diplomatic actions related to forcing vassal culture conversion.

Other players on a Spanish forum also reported this change on May 8, 2026, right after 1.2.1 was released. They describe exactly the same problem – a global 10-year cooldown that makes it impossible to convert multiple vassals in a reasonable timeframe.

Thank you.

[Toblm]

Not a bug.

Автор сообщения: 1.2 Patch Notes

Diplomacy
...
Added cooldowns to Enforce Culture and Enforce Religion
...

[zacharyb]

There's almost no point in having them switch cultures now since they either don't try to convert cultures or it's so slow it's basically worthless.

[Butterlord]

Fiefdoms shouldn't change back culture after you enforce culture on them, so make sure your vassal is a fiefdom. And I guess it has something to do with the AI having more logic when it has control of its own ruler.

[Brakiros]

They still also haven't fixed the bug of them reverting culture when it shouldn't even be possible (it also doesn't even culture convert kids)

[GuastardoDellaRadica]

This is working as intended.
The devs are more busy cracking down on cheesing and exploits than fixing situations, working on balancing and playtesting their own game.

[General Kuroi]

Автор сообщения: Butterlord

Fiefdoms shouldn't change back culture after you enforce culture on them, so make sure your vassal is a fiefdom. And I guess it has something to do with the AI having more logic when it has control of its own ruler.

I tested it with fiefdoms, still doesn't convert. My culture has 10 times the influence vs. their cultural tradition, yet my fiefdom after 20 years wasn't even able to convert their capital location, let alone a single province.

In all but one cases it even went down. From the original 16% you get when enforcing after 20 years it went down to 13%.

So not only is the entire global cooldown mechanic so utterly stupid I could cry, even the one vassal Paradox does allow you to convert simply doesn't/isn't able to.

And with the new core mechanic (which is equally stupid) I can never get control, therefore I can't even convert the provinces that are a core at the start of the game myself. Yes, it was too overpowered in 1.1, but now they broke the entire game because they nerved vassals into the ground so hard they are 6 feet under.

Personally I have given up on 1.21.

[Snejku]

Not to mention the "great" idea of 20y truce...

[Toblm]

Автор сообщения: Snejku

Not to mention the "great" idea of 20y truce...

Not sure where you got that idea from. The 1.2 patch notes explicitly say truces are 5-15 years.

[CrazEBlaster]

Автор сообщения: Toblm

Автор сообщения: Snejku

Not to mention the "great" idea of 20y truce...

Not sure where you got that idea from. The 1.2 patch notes explicitly say truces are 5-15 years.

not any less brain damaging. not that you'd notice

[Toblm]

Автор сообщения: CrazEBlaster

Автор сообщения: Toblm

Not sure where you got that idea from. The 1.2 patch notes explicitly say truces are 5-15 years.

not any less brain damaging. not that you'd notice

Its exactly the same truce length range as EUIV. Did you find truces in EUIV particularly challenging?

[jonesmj]

The game is aiming at being a simulation. In medieval Europe, when you asked to a vassal to change cultures they would send a letter to your other vassals and let them know about it so that they would know that you were on a timer for any similar requests. So, yeah, it's working as intended.

[Knarral]

Автор сообщения: jonesmj

The game is aiming at being a simulation. In medieval Europe, when you asked to a vassal to change cultures they would send a letter to your other vassals and let them know about it so that they would know that you were on a timer for any similar requests. So, yeah, it's working as intended.

This isn’t the medieval period, and “forcibly changing culture” was something that simply wasn’t done nor could have been done. At the same time, culture literally didn’t matter in governance during this period. Tinto has introduced ahistorical mechanics to deal with a problem that historically didn’t exist. After all, it didn’t matter how dissatisfied you were with your king, you paid taxes all the same. In fact, you probably paid even more taxes than the core territories did, because the core territories were where the regime got their soldiers to enforce their order upon you if you weren’t in the core territories.

[Toblm]

Автор сообщения: Knarral

Автор сообщения: jonesmj

The game is aiming at being a simulation. In medieval Europe, when you asked to a vassal to change cultures they would send a letter to your other vassals and let them know about it so that they would know that you were on a timer for any similar requests. So, yeah, it's working as intended.

This isn’t the medieval period, and “forcibly changing culture” was something that simply wasn’t done nor could have been done. At the same time, culture literally didn’t matter in governance during this period. Tinto has introduced ahistorical mechanics to deal with a problem that historically didn’t exist. After all, it didn’t matter how dissatisfied you were with your king, you paid taxes all the same. In fact, you probably paid even more taxes than the core territories did, because the core territories were where the regime got their soldiers to enforce their order upon you if you weren’t in the core territories.

Except dissatisfied territories have long traditions of making the governance and taxation of them more expensive. Which is what is actually being modeled by low control.

Making taxation more expensive includes everything from 'bandits' (angry locals) attacking tax collectors to a wide number of tax evasion schemes (hidden fields, flocks ect, lying about harvests, smuggling).

So yes, local cultures that have grievances with their overlords get creative about making occupation difficult.

[The Emperor Of Milfgaard]

Автор сообщения: Toblm

Автор сообщения: Snejku

Not to mention the "great" idea of 20y truce...

Not sure where you got that idea from. The 1.2 patch notes explicitly say truces are 5-15 years.

I just got a 20 year truce. So I dunno man. I personally don't care there is enough war targets anyways. But it is true you can get 20 year truces.

[Knarral]

Автор сообщения: Toblm

Автор сообщения: Knarral

This isn’t the medieval period, and “forcibly changing culture” was something that simply wasn’t done nor could have been done. At the same time, culture literally didn’t matter in governance during this period. Tinto has introduced ahistorical mechanics to deal with a problem that historically didn’t exist. After all, it didn’t matter how dissatisfied you were with your king, you paid taxes all the same. In fact, you probably paid even more taxes than the core territories did, because the core territories were where the regime got their soldiers to enforce their order upon you if you weren’t in the core territories.

Except dissatisfied territories have long traditions of making the governance and taxation of them more expensive. Which is what is actually being modeled by low control.

Making taxation more expensive includes everything from 'bandits' (angry locals) attacking tax collectors to a wide number of tax evasion schemes (hidden fields, flocks ect, lying about harvests, smuggling).

So yes, local cultures that have grievances with their overlords get creative about making occupation difficult.

The game has minor rebellions to represent control reduction due to banditry and low level resistance, the control malus from generally being uncored is double dipping AND an ahistorical representation. Furthermore, what would happen when such low level rebellions happened? The king would send his men to put down the rebellion and execute the conspirators, of course.

Thus, there should be no difference between core and integrated for control. Tax farms were one of the most important government funding schemes during this era. Pretending otherwise is doing nothing but destroying the game altogether. This nonsense must go.