This article is accurate for the latest versions of EU3, Napoleon’s Ambition, In Nomine and Heir to the Throne 4.1b.
Please help update this page to include information on the DW expansion.

The concept of culture as implemented in EU3 is a gameplay factor designed to affect expansion. In the game, cultures are divided into groups. Each province has one dominant culture, and each country has one primary culture and possibly one or more accepted cultures.

It is worth noting that culture and culture groups are not tied to language. For example, Hungarian is part of the West Slavic group even though the Hungarian language is part of the Finno-Ugric family.

Culture groups

As mentioned above, all cultures are grouped into culture groups. As an example, the Scandinavian group consists of Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. As defined in Cultures.txt:

Scandinavian = {
    Swedish
    Danish
    Norwegian
} 

European:

Germanic

Scandinavian

British

Gaelic

Latin

Iberian

French

Basque Group

Finno-Ugric

South Slavic

West Slavic

East Slavic

Baltic

Byzantine

Turko-Semitic

Primary culture

All countries have one, and only one, primary culture. Provinces with this culture have no tax income penalties from culture. Provinces from another culture within the same group has a 10% tax income penalty.

Accepted culture

If a culture becomes a significant minority within a country, they can gain the status as accepted culture. The criterion for "significant minority" is that it represents 20% or more of the base tax value in all your core provinces (not just the ones you own) and that you own at least one core of that culture. As of v.1.3, a culture loses its accepted status if it drops below 5%. These percentages can be changed in defines.txt.

Provinces of an accepted culture have, like primary culture provinces, no income penalties from culture. Provinces with a culture that isn't in the primary culture's group or an accepted culture has a 30% tax income penalty.

Culture Change

There are a few ways to change a province culture:

Colonies

If an unclaimed province has natives then they have a particular culture and religion, by sending your colonists you not only gain ownership of the province but change the culture and religion to your own.

If you "gain" a colony of another nation, you can change the culture/religion by sending one of your own colonist, IF he arrives before the colony growing to 900 settlers... in other words if your colonist arrives and the result is still a colony (up to 999 settlers) then you get the culture/religion change.

You can use the Spy action Incite Natives before gaining your enemy's colony in order to reduce the settlers below 900 so after gaining ownership you can convert it to your own culture/religion.

Cities

Once the province grows into a city it won't fall bellow 1000 population no matter what, there is no way to devolve the city into a colony.

There *MIGHT* be an exception to this, it seems that a province controlled by rebels can fall bellow 1000 population and devolve into a colony, it's quite difficult since it takes forever and rebels end up defecting, and you have to make sure the province is actually LOSING population.... FURTHER CONFIRMATION REQUIRED!!

Nevertheless if the province has a Pagan Religion sending a missionary will turn it into your own religion AND culture. For city provinces with non-Pagan religions in "In Nomine" you could use the Religious Rebels to change the province religion into Pagan and then use missionary conversion.

Cultural Assimilation Event

In "In Nomine" there is an event that changes the culture of provinces into your culture via Cultural Assimilation

List of Culture Groups (In Nomine and Heir to the Throne)

Several culture groups are assigned a cultural union state. These states do not suffer from the same cultural group tax penalty. For example, France does not suffer any penalties from Norman or Gascon provinces despite having Cosmopolitaine as its primary culture.

Most notably, Turkish culture has been grouped with all the Arabic cultures since In Nomine. This encourages the Ottomans to historically expand into the generally poor Arabic lands without stiff economic penalties. Among other minor changes, Highland and Lowland Scottish have been combined into Scottish.

Germanic Union: Germany Pommeranian Prussian Hannoverian Hessian Saxon Rheinlaender Bavarian Austrian Dutch Flemish Scandinavian Union: Scandinavia Swedish Danish Norwegian British Union: Great Britain English American Scottish Gaelic Welsh Breton Irish Latin Union: Italy Lombard Umbrian Sicilian Iberian Union: Spain Castillian Catalan Galician Andalucian Portuguese Maltese French Union: France Cosmopolitaine Gascon Normand Aquitaine Burgundian Occitain Wallonian Basque Basque Finno-Ugric Finnish Estonian Sapmi Ingrian Karelian

South Slavic Croatian Serbian Bulgarian Romanian Albanian West Slavic Czech Slovak Polish Hungarian Schlesian East Slavic Union: Russia Russian Byelorussian Ruthenian Baltic Lithuanian Old Prussian Latvian Byzantine Union: Byzantines Greek Georgian Armenian Turko-Semitic Turkish Maghreb Arabic Al Misr Arabic Al Suryah Arabic Al Iraqiya Arabic Bedouin Arabic Berber Iranian Union: Persia Persian Baluchi Khorasani Altaic Union: Mongol Khanate Azerbadjani Turkmeni Mongol Uzbehk Khazak Kirgiz Uralic Siberian Yakut Tartar

Central American Zapotec Mayan Aztec South American Inca Guarani Aimara Amazonian Patagonian Guajiro Teremembe Tupinamba Mataco Caribbean Arawak Carib North American Dakota Cherokee Pueblo Aleutian Inuit Cree Iroquis Huron Navajo Shawnee Delaware Creek East Asian Japanese Manchu Chihan Cantonese Korean Mon Khmer Khmer Mon Vietnamese Malay Polynesian Cham Malayan Filipino Madagascan Sulawesi

Thai Central Thai Lao Northern Thai Shan Burman Burmese Tibetan Chin Pacific Papuan Aboriginal Melanesian Moluccan Eastern Aryan Assamese Bengali Bihari Nepali Oriya Sinhala Hindusthani Avadhi Kanauji Panjabi Kashmiri Western Aryan Gujarati Marathi Sindhi Rajput Dravidian Kannada Malayalam Tamil Telegu African Madagasque Tuareg Senegambian Dyola Nubian Somali Bantu Swahili Ethiopian Kongolese Shona Mali Yorumba Aka Ashanti

Note that some of these culture groups only appear in uncolonized, unowned provinces.

List of Culture Groups (EU3 and Napoleon's Ambition)

Germanic Pommeranian Prussian Hannoverian Hessian Saxon Rheinlaender Bavarian Austrian Dutch Flemish Scandinavian Swedish Danish Norwegian British English American Lowland Scottish Celtic Highland Scottish Welsh Breton Irish Latin Lombard Umbrian Sicilian Iberian Castillian Catalan Galician Andalucian Portuguese French Cosmopolitan French Gascon Normand Aquitaine Burgundian Occitain Wallonian Basque Basque Finno-Ugric Finnish Estonian Sapmi Ingrian

South Slavic Slovenian Croatian Serbian Bulgarian Romanian Albanian West Slavic Czech Slovak Polish Hungarian Schlesian East Slavic Russian Ukrainian Byelorussian Ruthenian Baltic Lithuanian Old Prussian Latvian Byzantine Greek Georgian Armenian Semitic Maghreb Arabic Al Misr Arabic Al Suryah Arabic Al Iraqiya Arabic Bedouin Arabic Maltese Berber Persian Persian Azerbadjani Baluchi Kurdish Altaic Turkish Turkmeni Mongol Tunguz Pashtun Tajihk Uzbehk Khazak Kirgiz Uralic Siberian Yakut Tartar

Central American Zapotec Mayan Aztec South American Inca Guarani Aimara Amazonian Patagonian Guajiro Teremembe Tupinamba Mataco Caribbean Arawak Carib North American Dakota Cherokee Pueblo Aleutian Inuit Cree Iroquis Huron Navajo Shawnee Delaware Creek East Asian Japanese Manchu Chihan Cantonese Korean Mon Khmer Khmer Mon Vietnamese Malay Polynesian Cham Malayan Filipino Madagascan Sulawesi

Thai Central Thai Lao Northern Thai Shan Burman Burmese Tibetan Chin Pacific Papuan Aboriginal Melanesian Moluccan Eastern Aryan Assamese Bengali Bihari Nepali Oriya Sinhala Hindusthani Avadhi Kanauji Panjabi Kashmiri Western Aryan Gujarati Marathi Sindhi Rajput Dravidian Kannada Malayalam Tamil Telegu African Madagasque Tuareg Senegambian Dyola Nubian Somali Bantu Swahili Ethiopian Kongolese Shona Mali Yorumba Aka Ashanti

Note that some of these culture groups only appear in uncolonized, unowned provinces.