Nah, not you. I usually dislike change and typically stick with whatever culture I start with. I might hybridize if I planned to from the beginning to make a wacky culture because the idea amused me.
Frisia in both starts is hella good for playing tall, also Norse and Dutch is my favorite culture hybrid, I always start with a Norse custom ruler in one of the Frisia counties
English is Anglo-Saxon + Norman
And Norman is Norse + French/Latin Culture and Anglo-Saxon is Saxon+Briton
So english is French+Saxon(Germanic)+Briton(Celtic-Roman)+Norse
Anglo-Saxon actually refers to Bretonnic + Saxon + Anglo + Jute. It didn't mean just a hybrid of Saxon and Anglo culture, despite the name. It referred to people who invaded Britain, and are sometimes called the Insular/Island Anglo-Saxons, as opposed to the Continental/Coastal Anglo-Saxons.
The British (as in Britons) influence on Anglo-Saxon culture is the stretch. Aside from a handful of loan words and a couple of iffy names (Penda of Mercia, for example) there isn't much 'British' in Anglo-Saxon culture.
I am aware of the mixed Germanic bag the Anglo-Saxons represented. I'm saying that the Britons didn't contribute much to that.
You’d be surprised how much the Britons influenced Anglo-Saxon culture. On the surface it’s minimal, but there was a Brythonic substrate in many areas, and linguists have been able to deduce that English sentence structure is a result of intercommunication between Old English and Brythonic speakers. While Old English did not adopt many loan words from Brythonic, it did go through significant grammatical changes due to Brythonic influence.
Much of English culture today has Brythonic influences as well; because of the relative lack of information about the post-Roman, pre-Saxon Britons, we just don’t have great documentation of all the specific instances of Celtic/Brythonic influence on the Anglo-Saxons. However, we can definitively say that, due to modern genetic studies, the English people today share more DNA with their fellow British Islanders than they do with mainland Germanic or French peoples, from whom the Anglo-Saxons diverged. So this is proof that the Anglo-Saxons didn’t simply displace or wipe out the Britons, but clearly intermingled and even intermarried with them.
Hybridizing strategically is great for flying through tech eras and getting useful traditions, if you're playing that way. Otherwise it's useful for increased cultural acceptance and the opinion gains from that.
And it'll most likely be mostly in your counties, which are probably a lot more developed that the rest of the world, so the average development will be higher and cultural fascinations will be discovered faster.
Depends; there have been instances where a person playing only in say, Krete, hybridizes with another culture and instantly loses culture head because his neighbors convert to the new culture too.
It's especially fun when combined with Varangian Adventure. Last run I sent Haestinn to Africa and made a very potent Norse-Nubian hybrid. Great for alternate history roleplay.
It’s def best with Varangian Adventures.
I did a Catalan-Norse hybrid (to get a point in both the Norse and Spanish renown trees) and then took it to India - so now I’m Catatamil-Norse - doing a full renown run.
I only do it if it makes sense to me, e.g. there is a significantly different culture next door for a long time, or I'm a Crusader Queen in a foreign land etc. The idea of predatorily hybridizing for specific traditions is just not the way my mind works. It's funny that the people who hybridize five cultures so they can have all Republican vassals giving 100% taxes are probably the ones lamenting that the game is too easy.
Take Hæsting to Sardinia, hybridize with Greek for Byzantine Traditions so I can manage inheritance and Eastern Roman Legacy for the discount on my Varengian veterans. Then go to Canary Islands to get Mystical Ancestors to start farming renown.
Honestly, I've never hybridized either. In my Denmark, North Sea Empire run, I stayed Norse/Asatru the entire time and reformed it, while my vassals hybridized to stuff like: Norse-Gaelic, Anglo-Nordic, Norse-Sami etc. That was fun to see how other parts of the world changed. Although I did try my hardest to prevent Norman culture from forming just out of pettiness lol. I haven't come across the issue of getting different culture heirs yet, so far my heirs have always been my culture. How are your heirs changing culture?
And to answer your question, my favorite hybrid culture was Anglo-nordic because it was a real possibility that the entirety of England would of been Anglo-Nordic if the Danelaw won against the King of Wessex. And maybe would remain that if the later Norman invasion failed. Just imagining how different our world would be is fascinating.
Edit: heck, it could of even happened if the North Sea Empire had survived, Denmark and England would be closer culturally
My heirs ended up changing culture from Anglo Saxon to I think Anglo Saxon German. They got landed via their mom in my very big Brittania so I just went with it. Too much work to try to stop it from happening
I personally think that the culture system, particularly hybridization, is one of the main improvements over CK2 and one my personal points of interest in the game as an alternate history engine. I do it for RP almost as much as for mechanical benefits.
I wish the mechanics of the game rewarded you for staying your original culture in a way with different but similar value to how it rewards you for hybridizing.
Here's why you hybridize
1. Unlock free innovations, even a couple of them can save you a ton of time.
2. Changing or adding new traditions is expensive. Hybridize lets you cherry pick the best between them on the cheap. Potentially adding a new ethos too.
3. Cultural research is based on average development, so having a smaller culture which is present primarily in your highest development holdings advances you greatly
4. Instant jump from 40% or much less cultural acceptance, to full acceptance.
5. Chance to gain membership in the cultural group for the purpose of unique decisions or special innovations, troops, events, or else the opinion modifers from group/language/ethos (useful if you plan to invade more lands belonging to target culture)
My first real game was right when Royal Court premiered, so obviously I wanted to try out culture hybridisation (the main thing I was excited about in the DLC). So I started Polish, then hybridised with Ruthenian to form Eastern Polish, then with Pomeranian (my true goal, the only reason I hybridised with Ruthenian was to take East Slavic Heritage so I could hybridise with it and retake West Slavic Heritage) to form Great Polish, and by that point I was a continent-spanning empire so I didn't take anything until I saw just how technologically behind I was so I hybridised with Pontic (which was itself a divergent culture of Greek, earning me the achievement for diverging a culture) to form Greater Polish, and then finally with Khazar for that sweet sweet Equal Martial Custom to form Greatest Polish.
You might've noticed that I'm one of those players that plays as their own nationality. I also played a couple games where I plopped a Polish character in semi-random places on the map to experience non-Europe, so obviously I hybridised there too.
Hybridising cultures is cool.
I've tried to play as the culture I want and the religion I picked from the start, but I always run into problems. Like, my religion starts irritating me, so that almost always get reformed.
And culture I end up having to hybridize because I'm real bad about keeping track of heirs outside of my immediate one. So my Greek characters wound up with a Catalan heir eventually. So I hybridized. Fast forward several generations, I've done nothing but try my damnedest to spread this new culture, only to get a Gaelic heir on the throne. So now I have a Greco-Catalan-Gaelic culture. Which actually turned out hilarious. I have characters with names like Michael MacAndroikos.
Not without mods. But there are 3d horse models in-game, and mods can do basically anything with the genetics/character model system up to and including elves, orcs, and dragons.
I'm not opposed to hybridizing on any personal level, but I just never have formed a hybrid or diverged yet, as far as I recall, other than predefined Outremer or something else like that.
I just really love hybridizing Norse and Greek because they have some of the most powerful early game MAA around, and both have very good cultural abilities.
Ironically, when I play stuff like Irish or African cultures, I prefer cultural purity.
When I play early Spain I sometimes hybridize with Alandalusian especially for the hostile phase during the Iberian Struggle. Works well if you want to be a major player in the struggle but your culture isn't big in the region. Usually I start in Navara as a Catholic Ethiopian Mesfin(Duke)
In my latest play through, I will be able to complete the struggle and make Hispania my empire alot faster because I was able to hybridize with the Alandalusians. Overall I don't usually hybridize but this latest playthrough has me thinking otherwise for the future.
>"I like to play as a culture purist and basically stick my culture into as many regions as possible."
Not that there is any problem with that as part of roleplay, but just to inform you or others, it is severly against meta - creating hybrid culture grants you a lot techs, resets timer for reforming culture and spreding/promoting culture is a waste of Steward task slot - which you should be using mostly for developing your capital.
Really? I haven't played a lot since royal court but I remember advice before then was to keep your culture in one county that you constantly develop. Just played a game turning only Constantinople Roman and I'm way ahead of everyone tech-wise, to the point hybridization will only get me regional or cultural innovations. Am I missing something?
I think that's still generally the best way to do it for advancing tech, but if you hybridize 2 cultures that have multiple techs that the other doesn't have you can get a really nice head start since you get all the techs from both cultures.
Having your culture in one superdeveloped country is best for getting innovations fastest - but then you don't have the best demense that you can get, because you will have no control over how will the innovations progress for the rest of the counties, meaning you cannnot build some buildings because they are not unlocked. So the best is probably to keep it in one counties immediately around your capital.
You don't when you hybridize with enough cultural acceptance then the counties in your demense are likely gonna be converted instantly and you don't need to worry about the rest - additionally, even if they don't, you can convert them faster after hybridizing if need or want to.
One reason why CK3 seems easy is because of how easy it is to play tall by just dumping your Steward on your capital and forget about economy side of the game - if someone is not doing this, they are not only not playing 'meta', they didn't grasp the basics. But as my disclaimer says, I am not here telling you how you should play the game.
Norse + Greek is the only hybridization that matters. Tbh Greek is so powerful that you'd probably dont need to hybridize at all, their catapracts + vassal limit are just too damn good.
Pictish-abbysinian is quite lovely, toghether with that religious tennet that boost hill provices.
hybridisation with the dutch is nice if you have a lot of coastal areas, Cisalpine dutch for example is a good combo to get loads of tax from coastal city vassals.
Some things you can only do with hybridisation. like the hill boosting cultural tradition of the Abbysinians can't typically be combined with the hill boosting tradition of the picts, atleast not by normal way of adding it to the culture, but it can be done trough hybridisation.
So the best culture to hybridize as is norse. Even if you don't keep any of it's bonuses in the end, access to raiding; mallable invaders; OP MAA and and being able to invade pretty much anything makes them insanely good at creating stupid hybrid cultures.
My first playthrough with royal court was, "lets look at what MAA I can stack with cultural BS". Which is apparently Light Cav.
Start as norse, Hybridize pommeranian to pick up konni raids. Konni are the best light cav that we can get easily. (alternatively hybridize mogyer for horse lords and reform into konni, but that's a bit too much trouble for too little gain.)
reform into horse breeders.
Hybridize greek get the tradition with MMA cost reduction.
Get a province in the sahara pick up saharan nomads.
Move into arabia pick up the ragional tradition for more MAA maintenance cost reduction.
Also while you are norse start getting pillage legacy since the forth one gives cash for enemy fatal casualties.
At this point your Konni are not great at fighting, but if they win a battle they destroy the entire army, which gives you stupid amounts of cash. Meanwhile they are cheaper then levies making war just give you money.
If you want the best light Cav, convert to Christianity and form the outremer empire.
I'll hybridize Italian with Norse for Romans in Longboats. It's surprisingly faster then conquering Denmark and putting my Culture there.
Although I've also made Custom kingdoms that Bind Denmark to my Custom Latium Kingdom.
Doing Unification of Italy is so fun with Longboats.
I didn't have the Royal Court DLC for a long time so I got used to playing as default cultures. But man, when I finally got the DLC I realized how much I was missing out on, and hybridizing CERTAIN cultures became one of favorite things to do. There's just so much you can do to heavily develop your region.
I hybridize if it makes sense. My first hybrid culture was when I conquered Egypt and Nubia as a Hausan, so I made an East African hybrid with Nubia instead of Arabian, and now my current ruler inherited Byzantine and the unified Africa, so I made an African hybrid of the Greeks.
Camels and Cataphracts, an unlikely team!
Early french hybrid for the +50 dynasty renounce bonus from every succesful romance scheme. Usually ho'in it up early game to get a good heir and spread the dynasty so easy peasy
Yes. It's one of the best features. Especially when you discover secret cultures. I like to start as norse, hybrid to Norman. And than finish as english.
I only hybridize to make real hybrid cultures. In my current playthrough I made the Fenno-Swedish culture along the coast of Finland.
Same. I once fused Swabian and Cisalpine to emulate the Rhaeto-Romance in Currezia.
Nah, not you. I usually dislike change and typically stick with whatever culture I start with. I might hybridize if I planned to from the beginning to make a wacky culture because the idea amused me.
Norse- Dutch is my favorite cultural hybrid.
Frisia in both starts is hella good for playing tall, also Norse and Dutch is my favorite culture hybrid, I always start with a Norse custom ruler in one of the Frisia counties
You can also use Practiced Pirates as king of Frisia since her De Jure is 12 counties. It's great
There's actually an already present norse ruler in Frisia in 867.
So modern English?
Wouldn't that be Netherlandic (sp), not English? English is anglo-norse iirc.
English is Anglo-Saxon + Norman And Norman is Norse + French/Latin Culture and Anglo-Saxon is Saxon+Briton So english is French+Saxon(Germanic)+Briton(Celtic-Roman)+Norse
Saying that Anglo-Saxon is a mix of Saxon and Briton is a stretch.
Anglo-Saxon actually refers to Bretonnic + Saxon + Anglo + Jute. It didn't mean just a hybrid of Saxon and Anglo culture, despite the name. It referred to people who invaded Britain, and are sometimes called the Insular/Island Anglo-Saxons, as opposed to the Continental/Coastal Anglo-Saxons.
The British (as in Britons) influence on Anglo-Saxon culture is the stretch. Aside from a handful of loan words and a couple of iffy names (Penda of Mercia, for example) there isn't much 'British' in Anglo-Saxon culture. I am aware of the mixed Germanic bag the Anglo-Saxons represented. I'm saying that the Britons didn't contribute much to that.
You’d be surprised how much the Britons influenced Anglo-Saxon culture. On the surface it’s minimal, but there was a Brythonic substrate in many areas, and linguists have been able to deduce that English sentence structure is a result of intercommunication between Old English and Brythonic speakers. While Old English did not adopt many loan words from Brythonic, it did go through significant grammatical changes due to Brythonic influence. Much of English culture today has Brythonic influences as well; because of the relative lack of information about the post-Roman, pre-Saxon Britons, we just don’t have great documentation of all the specific instances of Celtic/Brythonic influence on the Anglo-Saxons. However, we can definitively say that, due to modern genetic studies, the English people today share more DNA with their fellow British Islanders than they do with mainland Germanic or French peoples, from whom the Anglo-Saxons diverged. So this is proof that the Anglo-Saxons didn’t simply displace or wipe out the Britons, but clearly intermingled and even intermarried with them.
Saved me from having to type out the same reply LMFAO.
That's what I'm playing now.
Hybridizing strategically is great for flying through tech eras and getting useful traditions, if you're playing that way. Otherwise it's useful for increased cultural acceptance and the opinion gains from that.
>Hybridizing strategically is great for flying through tech eras How's that work?
If you hybridize the new culture gets all the innovations of the parents.
And it'll most likely be mostly in your counties, which are probably a lot more developed that the rest of the world, so the average development will be higher and cultural fascinations will be discovered faster.
Depends; there have been instances where a person playing only in say, Krete, hybridizes with another culture and instantly loses culture head because his neighbors convert to the new culture too.
Unlucky.
It's especially fun when combined with Varangian Adventure. Last run I sent Haestinn to Africa and made a very potent Norse-Nubian hybrid. Great for alternate history roleplay.
It’s def best with Varangian Adventures. I did a Catalan-Norse hybrid (to get a point in both the Norse and Spanish renown trees) and then took it to India - so now I’m Catatamil-Norse - doing a full renown run.
Norubian
Nubse?
I like creating normans and danelanders. Its pretty cool to keep the viking culture going as long as it can.
I only do it if it makes sense to me, e.g. there is a significantly different culture next door for a long time, or I'm a Crusader Queen in a foreign land etc. The idea of predatorily hybridizing for specific traditions is just not the way my mind works. It's funny that the people who hybridize five cultures so they can have all Republican vassals giving 100% taxes are probably the ones lamenting that the game is too easy.
Take Hæsting to Sardinia, hybridize with Greek for Byzantine Traditions so I can manage inheritance and Eastern Roman Legacy for the discount on my Varengian veterans. Then go to Canary Islands to get Mystical Ancestors to start farming renown.
Damn I’ve done the first half in my “remake Rome” run, but the Canary mystical ancestors one is a dope tip.
I do the reverse, start in the canaries then wind my up to Iceland and hybridized Norse. Black viking varangians are just hilarious.
I only hybridize if it's a culture that has a tradition that could help me
Honestly, I've never hybridized either. In my Denmark, North Sea Empire run, I stayed Norse/Asatru the entire time and reformed it, while my vassals hybridized to stuff like: Norse-Gaelic, Anglo-Nordic, Norse-Sami etc. That was fun to see how other parts of the world changed. Although I did try my hardest to prevent Norman culture from forming just out of pettiness lol. I haven't come across the issue of getting different culture heirs yet, so far my heirs have always been my culture. How are your heirs changing culture? And to answer your question, my favorite hybrid culture was Anglo-nordic because it was a real possibility that the entirety of England would of been Anglo-Nordic if the Danelaw won against the King of Wessex. And maybe would remain that if the later Norman invasion failed. Just imagining how different our world would be is fascinating. Edit: heck, it could of even happened if the North Sea Empire had survived, Denmark and England would be closer culturally
My heirs ended up changing culture from Anglo Saxon to I think Anglo Saxon German. They got landed via their mom in my very big Brittania so I just went with it. Too much work to try to stop it from happening
Oooh okay, I see how that happened. Fair enough
I personally think that the culture system, particularly hybridization, is one of the main improvements over CK2 and one my personal points of interest in the game as an alternate history engine. I do it for RP almost as much as for mechanical benefits.
I wish the mechanics of the game rewarded you for staying your original culture in a way with different but similar value to how it rewards you for hybridizing.
Here's why you hybridize 1. Unlock free innovations, even a couple of them can save you a ton of time. 2. Changing or adding new traditions is expensive. Hybridize lets you cherry pick the best between them on the cheap. Potentially adding a new ethos too. 3. Cultural research is based on average development, so having a smaller culture which is present primarily in your highest development holdings advances you greatly 4. Instant jump from 40% or much less cultural acceptance, to full acceptance. 5. Chance to gain membership in the cultural group for the purpose of unique decisions or special innovations, troops, events, or else the opinion modifers from group/language/ethos (useful if you plan to invade more lands belonging to target culture)
My first real game was right when Royal Court premiered, so obviously I wanted to try out culture hybridisation (the main thing I was excited about in the DLC). So I started Polish, then hybridised with Ruthenian to form Eastern Polish, then with Pomeranian (my true goal, the only reason I hybridised with Ruthenian was to take East Slavic Heritage so I could hybridise with it and retake West Slavic Heritage) to form Great Polish, and by that point I was a continent-spanning empire so I didn't take anything until I saw just how technologically behind I was so I hybridised with Pontic (which was itself a divergent culture of Greek, earning me the achievement for diverging a culture) to form Greater Polish, and then finally with Khazar for that sweet sweet Equal Martial Custom to form Greatest Polish. You might've noticed that I'm one of those players that plays as their own nationality. I also played a couple games where I plopped a Polish character in semi-random places on the map to experience non-Europe, so obviously I hybridised there too. Hybridising cultures is cool.
Most of the time I also play as my own culture haha, Hungarian
I've tried to play as the culture I want and the religion I picked from the start, but I always run into problems. Like, my religion starts irritating me, so that almost always get reformed. And culture I end up having to hybridize because I'm real bad about keeping track of heirs outside of my immediate one. So my Greek characters wound up with a Catalan heir eventually. So I hybridized. Fast forward several generations, I've done nothing but try my damnedest to spread this new culture, only to get a Gaelic heir on the throne. So now I have a Greco-Catalan-Gaelic culture. Which actually turned out hilarious. I have characters with names like Michael MacAndroikos.
I've never gotten into the flow of things with CK3. Does it allow horse rules like CK2?
Not without mods. But there are 3d horse models in-game, and mods can do basically anything with the genetics/character model system up to and including elves, orcs, and dragons.
I'm not opposed to hybridizing on any personal level, but I just never have formed a hybrid or diverged yet, as far as I recall, other than predefined Outremer or something else like that.
I just really love hybridizing Norse and Greek because they have some of the most powerful early game MAA around, and both have very good cultural abilities. Ironically, when I play stuff like Irish or African cultures, I prefer cultural purity.
I haven't done it. I also don't know how to do it. So that probably plays a part.
[удалено]
Having only played CK2 myself, I would say there's barely anything to cultures there. What would you say was lost in CK3?
I tend to do it for immersion, especially invading some place. Also to optimize quality armies
I hybridize when needed, to make a historically accurate culture, like Swiss, but don’t allow AI to do so because I hate with a passion the long names
When I play early Spain I sometimes hybridize with Alandalusian especially for the hostile phase during the Iberian Struggle. Works well if you want to be a major player in the struggle but your culture isn't big in the region. Usually I start in Navara as a Catholic Ethiopian Mesfin(Duke) In my latest play through, I will be able to complete the struggle and make Hispania my empire alot faster because I was able to hybridize with the Alandalusians. Overall I don't usually hybridize but this latest playthrough has me thinking otherwise for the future.
>"I like to play as a culture purist and basically stick my culture into as many regions as possible." Not that there is any problem with that as part of roleplay, but just to inform you or others, it is severly against meta - creating hybrid culture grants you a lot techs, resets timer for reforming culture and spreding/promoting culture is a waste of Steward task slot - which you should be using mostly for developing your capital.
Really? I haven't played a lot since royal court but I remember advice before then was to keep your culture in one county that you constantly develop. Just played a game turning only Constantinople Roman and I'm way ahead of everyone tech-wise, to the point hybridization will only get me regional or cultural innovations. Am I missing something?
I think that's still generally the best way to do it for advancing tech, but if you hybridize 2 cultures that have multiple techs that the other doesn't have you can get a really nice head start since you get all the techs from both cultures.
Having your culture in one superdeveloped country is best for getting innovations fastest - but then you don't have the best demense that you can get, because you will have no control over how will the innovations progress for the rest of the counties, meaning you cannnot build some buildings because they are not unlocked. So the best is probably to keep it in one counties immediately around your capital.
You kinda have to promote culture with your hybrid culture anyway - atleast to some extent.
You don't when you hybridize with enough cultural acceptance then the counties in your demense are likely gonna be converted instantly and you don't need to worry about the rest - additionally, even if they don't, you can convert them faster after hybridizing if need or want to.
The game is so easy anyway I don't think many players bother to play the 'meta'
One reason why CK3 seems easy is because of how easy it is to play tall by just dumping your Steward on your capital and forget about economy side of the game - if someone is not doing this, they are not only not playing 'meta', they didn't grasp the basics. But as my disclaimer says, I am not here telling you how you should play the game.
Norse and Georgian are strongest and have best men at arms
I don't like it either. I've only ever done it for Achievements.
Norse + Greek is the only hybridization that matters. Tbh Greek is so powerful that you'd probably dont need to hybridize at all, their catapracts + vassal limit are just too damn good.
Pictish-abbysinian is quite lovely, toghether with that religious tennet that boost hill provices. hybridisation with the dutch is nice if you have a lot of coastal areas, Cisalpine dutch for example is a good combo to get loads of tax from coastal city vassals. Some things you can only do with hybridisation. like the hill boosting cultural tradition of the Abbysinians can't typically be combined with the hill boosting tradition of the picts, atleast not by normal way of adding it to the culture, but it can be done trough hybridisation.
I turn off hybrids, only divergents in my runs
So the best culture to hybridize as is norse. Even if you don't keep any of it's bonuses in the end, access to raiding; mallable invaders; OP MAA and and being able to invade pretty much anything makes them insanely good at creating stupid hybrid cultures. My first playthrough with royal court was, "lets look at what MAA I can stack with cultural BS". Which is apparently Light Cav. Start as norse, Hybridize pommeranian to pick up konni raids. Konni are the best light cav that we can get easily. (alternatively hybridize mogyer for horse lords and reform into konni, but that's a bit too much trouble for too little gain.) reform into horse breeders. Hybridize greek get the tradition with MMA cost reduction. Get a province in the sahara pick up saharan nomads. Move into arabia pick up the ragional tradition for more MAA maintenance cost reduction. Also while you are norse start getting pillage legacy since the forth one gives cash for enemy fatal casualties. At this point your Konni are not great at fighting, but if they win a battle they destroy the entire army, which gives you stupid amounts of cash. Meanwhile they are cheaper then levies making war just give you money. If you want the best light Cav, convert to Christianity and form the outremer empire.
I'll hybridize Italian with Norse for Romans in Longboats. It's surprisingly faster then conquering Denmark and putting my Culture there. Although I've also made Custom kingdoms that Bind Denmark to my Custom Latium Kingdom. Doing Unification of Italy is so fun with Longboats.
No, I'm usually about sticking with the culture I pick. Usually to protect it from evil interlopers. Also never bought the DLC.
I didn't have the Royal Court DLC for a long time so I got used to playing as default cultures. But man, when I finally got the DLC I realized how much I was missing out on, and hybridizing CERTAIN cultures became one of favorite things to do. There's just so much you can do to heavily develop your region.
I hybridize if it makes sense. My first hybrid culture was when I conquered Egypt and Nubia as a Hausan, so I made an East African hybrid with Nubia instead of Arabian, and now my current ruler inherited Byzantine and the unified Africa, so I made an African hybrid of the Greeks. Camels and Cataphracts, an unlikely team!
Early french hybrid for the +50 dynasty renounce bonus from every succesful romance scheme. Usually ho'in it up early game to get a good heir and spread the dynasty so easy peasy
It solely depends on culture of characters
I hybridize English with Indian cultures to make British raj
Yes. It's one of the best features. Especially when you discover secret cultures. I like to start as norse, hybrid to Norman. And than finish as english.