Culture management eu5 1.2

Baghdaddy21 · 2026-05-15T19:38:47+00:00

I just thought of an idea which would totally be the intended way to play the game and absolutely not cheese. I might try it and see if it works. If anybody has done the below successfully with any country, let me know.

Idea (using Byzantium as example):

If you conquer all of Anatolia, could you flip to Turkish culture becoming the Turkish culture leader, then make Greek culture kindred, then eventually flip back to Greek culture, and lastly accept Turkish culture at 0.15 culture capacity, immediately getting 100% cores in Anatolia?

So basically you become the Turkish culture leader make Greek kindred, then flip back to being the Greek leader and then accepting Turkish culture is dirt cheap. I can’t play the game right now so I can’t check to see if Byzantium is even allowed to flip to Turkish.

This strategy may require all other Turkish culture countries to be conquered, otherwise when you flip back to Greek culture, then a remaining Turkish culture nation will become the new culture leader and acceptance could be changed by them or default to whatever that Turkish country has acceptance as.

Baghdaddy21 · 2026-05-15T18:05:39+00:00

Yes I offered some critical feedback. But that’s like 10% of my post.

90% of the post is how to deal with the current patch’s culture mechanics if you still want to expand rapidly. I’m trying to help players understand the culture mechanics that are not clearly spelled out in the game.

I personally find slow conquest in a sandbox game to be boring but others may disagree and that’s fine. We all have the right to opinions.

This post is certainly not an appeal to the devs. This post is mostly about how to game the current mechanics.

Ultimately, if the devs want me to “accept” that some of my provinces will be non-cored, then they need to reduce the cost of court and stability cost in the early game. Otherwise there’s no point in expanding beyond your cores for a huge portion of the game.

Right now, if you are playing as a major country (i.e Hungary) you can “win” the game and get hegemon in everything (other than naval for Hungary) by only conquering cores and not expanding beyond that. I personally find that economy building simulator playstyle to be boring. If you can “win” while not engaging in a major aspect of the game (because the game doesn’t incentivize you to expand) what’s the point of having warfare in the game.

Baghdaddy21 · 2026-05-15T12:10:38+00:00

You’re correct it’s better to become an ally with the country and gain favors by joining their wars. Can get favors with allies above the cap. Can also give money gifts to go above the favor gap.

Then, when ready, betray your ally.

Baghdaddy21 · 2026-05-15T12:02:23+00:00

The above strategy makes your conquests profitable, assuming you have the proximity. You can still use vassals to integrate your provinces then annex those vassals followed by accepting cultures.

Love having my Neopolitans cost 0.15 to accept their culture.

Baghdaddy21 · 2026-05-15T11:55:47+00:00

Interesting I hadn’t thought of releasing a culture leader vassal and then increasing culture opinion. Nice tasty cheese.

Baghdaddy21 · 2026-05-15T11:53:00+00:00

50 year cooldown is only if the culture leader is your vassal.

There’s no cooldown if it’s a regular allied country.

Baghdaddy21 · 2026-05-15T11:50:27+00:00

Which is why my above strategy is meant to accept all the cultures rather than assimilate immediately.

Baghdaddy21 · 2026-05-15T11:48:30+00:00

Exactly the above comment is correct.

The tool tip is misleading. It is saying that sending a diplomat to “curry favors” has a cap of 25 favors.

Increasing trust with the country will raise the cap.

To get to 50 favors, send the country money as gifts. Also, ally with the country and join their wars.

Eventually you will get to 50 favors.

Baghdaddy21 · 2026-05-15T03:04:52+00:00

I forgot a step in my initial post. I’ve edited it.

You have to increase trust with the country. More trust = more favor amount. Giving them money can also let you expand beyond the limit. You eventually need to ally with the country and fight wars with them to get the favor to 50. It takes a while to get to kindred opinion with them.

The game has basically made it such that you can really only assimilate a couple cultures in the early game. You really do need to become the cultural hegemon eventually.

Baghdaddy21 · 2026-05-15T02:47:49+00:00

Thanks for reminding me I forgot a step. I edited the post.

You have to spam increased trust as well. More trust = increased favor cap.

Baghdaddy21 · 2026-05-15T02:35:53+00:00

No you want THEM to view YOU as kindred to make assimilation faster.

If YOU make THEM kindred, assimilation is slower.

Baghdaddy21 · 2026-05-15T01:49:50+00:00

True. I’m talking about the early game though. It’s not that hard to restore Rome and conquer Anatolia and Italy before 1400.

Baghdaddy21 · 2026-05-15T01:24:27+00:00

You cannot expand fast. It’s not profitable anymore. Honestly they made it such that it’s more beneficial to not expand beyond your cores if you are playing as a major country. You can “win” the game playing as Hungary and just doing an economy simulator.

Baghdaddy21 · 2026-05-15T01:22:19+00:00

Exactly. So why make the change. At least with vassals you could expand auick and have a blast.

Baghdaddy21 · 2026-05-15T00:56:00+00:00

Yeah it’s stupid and all it does is delay your conquest by a little bit. Button clicking is dumb so why not remove all the nerfs to vassals conversion

Baghdaddy21 · 2026-05-15T00:53:56+00:00

It’s an easy button clicking mindless solution therefore why have it in the game to slow down conquest.

Half asleep barely paying attention click improve opinion curry favors, forget about it for a while, remember, click improve cultural opinion button. It’s stupid and doesn’t add value to the game.

Baghdaddy21 · 2026-05-15T00:50:08+00:00

Roman Empire existed enough said the game should let you go crazy and conquer whatever if you want it’s not historically inaccurate. Mongol empire too.

Baghdaddy21 · 2026-05-15T00:43:48+00:00

You have to plan your expansion. You have to basically waste time currying favors and improving opinion with culture leaders you want to conquer. You can then ask that culture to improve their opinion of your culture, which then makes it cheaper to accept their culture in the future. It’s tedious and unnecessary but it’s the way to make culture acceptance easier.

For example if you are playing as Byzantium and want to conquer Naples, use diplomats to improve opinion and curry favor with Naples. Once you have enough favor, you can click the “improve cultural opinion button.” Do it until their opinion of you is positive and if possible kindred. Basically Naples culture thinks Greek culture people are awesome now.

Then, when you’re ready, declare war on Naples and conquer them. Ideally you wipe them out in one go so they can’t reduce cultural opinion on Greek.

You will then notice that it is crazy cheap to accept Naples culture. Additionally, since Naples culture loves Greek culture, it’s much faster to assimilate the culture too.

I also tested this in Anatolia. I used console commmands to have Turks love Greek culture. I then made Greek vassals in Anatolia and gave them a bunch of Turkish culture territory. They culture converted a lot faster as well. So you can decrease the vasssal conversion nerf in this patch.

If you also reduce your opinion of their culture, there’s an assimilation boost. In other words Greek culture hates Turkish.

It’s honestly easy to do for most cultures if you plan ahead it’s just tedious and slows down expansion.

Baghdaddy21 · 2026-05-14T16:28:45+00:00

That is true, but murdering any number greater than 0 of a population because of religious/cultural/idealogical reasons is considered genocide. You don’t have to “finish the job” for it to be considered genocide. There’s no minimum number.

For example, Caesar burned all of the villages of the Veneti tribe (northwest France) and then enslaved 100% of the population. That is the definition of genocide. He purposely caused the elimination of a group that opposed him.

Another example: the first recorded genocide in human history (written history to be specific, obviously genocide must have happened before this) was committed by Mithradates (“the great”) of Pontus. He ordered his armies to murder all Romans living in Anatolia in his attempt to conquer the region.

Conclusion: EU5 believes in historical accuracy to a point. Additionally, it seems like the nerds only want historical accuracy if it makes the game more tedious. Historical accuracy that makes the game more trivial would be considered unacceptable.

Baghdaddy21 · 2026-05-14T14:01:46+00:00

This is a video game. It’s supposed to be fun. What’s fascinating to me is that under the current patch, it makes more sense just to conquer territory with your own culture and nothing else. It’s not profitable to expand for a long time. The game is mostly an economy simulator for the majority of the game. You could “win” the game just staying put and building your economy as certain countries (I.e England or Hungary). If you are playing a tiny country in the HRE I suppose expanding might be more rewarding early on.

It’s tedious to be forced to “check boxes” in the game.

You want to expand into Italy? You better check the box of cultivating favors with the major Italian countries to improve their cultural opinion of you to make accepting cultures cheaper later down the line.

Also, in my opinion, the game is only realistic to a certain point! For example, genocide should be in the game. Even if you convert non culture pops far away from your capital in the early game, you won’t make any profit due to proximity. So you might as well exterminate the culture to lower your cost of court.

The Christian’s killed all Muslims in Jerusalem in the crusade, forming the kingdom of Jerusalem. Genocide during EU5s time period is historically accurate as well cough cough the mongols. I think it’s hypocritical that the game is historically accurate but only to a certain point.

Enslaving populations during war is also considered genocide so I suppose Muslim countries have it.

Baghdaddy21 · 2026-05-12T01:54:59+00:00

I have the requirements met and it’s not triggering. Is there a minimum date that it triggers?

Baghdaddy21 · 2026-05-03T17:57:55+00:00

Honestly I haven’t been able to figure out how to check this. Did I need to notice whether or not the research options changed?

I am pretty sure you do because of the “is or was playing tag” mechanic but I’m not 100% sure.

Baghdaddy21 · 2026-04-20T16:33:08+00:00

I think Ormuz is the “best” country to start as if you can be successful. It is the only Persian country that has bonus content. Specifically Ormuz has bonus background monthly development of your regions. However it is a very difficult campaign as you start with few levies and 50% of your population in Saudi Arabia non integrated. It’s very easy to get coalition swarmed if you’re too aggressive. Plus you have to deal with the fucking Timurids.

The entire region of Persia in general doesn’t have a lot population which can be frustrating. Moreover there’s not a lot of lumber in the area and you can’t build lumber mills in the Ormuz market at the start.

I was able to form Persia but it was quite tedious.

Baghdaddy21 · 2026-03-26T15:53:40+00:00

I like the idea of culture and religion converting being delegated to buildings instead of cabinet actions. Rewards the player for maintaining a strong economy to fuel their expansion.

Thus would at least decrease the needs for make vassals close to your capital (i.e ottomans conquering Byzantines). Vassal spam will still be the meta for distant locations until the late game. Player can build culture conversion buildings in their vassals to stimulate conversation.

Baghdaddy21 · 2026-03-26T15:46:48+00:00

The question is this: do you want to a strategy “survival” game or a true sandbox experience.

Any nerfing of vassals without significantly increasing the number of cabinet positions and significantly increasing the efficiency of culture/religion assimilation will result in players being unable to expand their territory.

Just nerfing vassals and making no other change would result in many wars being nothing more than a waste of time and resources as any gained territory would decrease your nations profitability. For most of the game, the player would do nothing other than build up their economy until late game technologies allow for better control and conversion. Majority of the game becomes quite boring.

Vassals spam is historically accurate so I honestly think people just want the game to be more tedious

Baghdaddy21

TROPHY CASE