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Well, I personally think Romuva and Suomenusko should be renamed to Baltic and Finnic, so I'm perfectly alright with West African. It's the most specific name that is still generic enough to cover every character and province which holds it, and I dare anyone to come up with another name that fits that bill.

I don't really know what to think of West Africa in Paradox games. On the one hand, it's always sorely underrepresented, and could be a really interesting place to play in if enough work was put into it. On the other hand, that would be a lot of work, all for a region which is for the most part just a microcosm - in the time period of every Paradox game except Vicky II, the only extensive interaction with other titles/tags would be with Morocco, and in Vicky II, it's just a matter of how long it will take the Europeans to eat the region up. If additional tags and provinces and characters didn't slow down the game, there wouldn't be any harm in putting more detail into the region, but there is such slow down, and if you added enough provinces and characters and tags/titles to make the region truly as interesting as any other, I imagine the slowdown would be noticeable. So, you slow down every campaign everyone ever plays, for the sake of a region which will only affect campaigns played in that immediate region or Morocco.

Of course, maybe the slowdown would only be a few percentage points, but I'd still rather have those few points be due to improvements in regions which have more chance of interacting with other regions. The best way for Paradox to do the region justice would be by making a highly specialized game like Sengoku, but sadly, I think it's safe to say that we'll never see a full-blown Paradox game dealing solely with Africa.
 
mudcrabmerchant said:
Well, I personally think Romuva and Suomenusko should be renamed to Baltic and Finnic, so I'm perfectly alright with West African. It's the most specific name that is still generic enough to cover every character and province which holds it, and I dare anyone to come up with another name that fits that bill.

I don't really know what to think of West Africa in Paradox games. On the one hand, it's always sorely underrepresented, and could be a really interesting place to play in if enough work was put into it. On the other hand, that would be a lot of work, all for a region which is for the most part just a microcosm - in the time period of every Paradox game except Vicky II, the only extensive interaction with other titles/tags would be with Morocco, and in Vicky II, it's just a matter of how long it will take the Europeans to eat the region up. If additional tags and provinces and characters didn't slow down the game, there wouldn't be any harm in putting more detail into the region, but there is such slow down, and if you added enough provinces and characters and tags/titles to make the region truly as interesting as any other, I imagine the slowdown would be noticeable. So, you slow down every campaign everyone ever plays, for the sake of a region which will only affect campaigns played in that immediate region or Morocco.

Of course, maybe the slowdown would only be a few percentage points, but I'd still rather have those few points be due to improvements in regions which have more chance of interacting with other regions. The best way for Paradox to do the region justice would be by making a highly specialized game like Sengoku, but sadly, I think it's safe to say that we'll never see a full-blown Paradox game dealing solely with Africa.
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It's true that I have participated to several how to make West Africa correct threads in EU3 and CK2 forums and it hasn't affected to anything (and it's likely that in the future I will also participate to these threads in EU4 forums). While militarily West Africa didn't have much contact (there's a theory about Almoravid conquest of Ghana, but it's historicity is in doubt), it was important otherwise. West Africa had close religious (spread of Islam) and economic (Trans-Saharan trade) ties with North Africa and it is said that when king Mansa Musa of Mali visited in Mecca all the gold he distributed as gifts made Egyptian economy collapse because gold devalued. I think that instead of removing West Africa they should include Kanem-Bornu Empire and it's trade routes. Currently only the trade routes from Mali to Morocco are on the map.

PS: And Suomenusko and Romuva are horrible names. I simply can't fathom how much I hate and despise name Suomenusko.
 
FredricBastiat said:
TBH, I don't really know why that region is even in the game to begin with. Its only role in the Maghrib was as a trade partner and since trade in that sense isn't in the game, it doesn't really need to be there. I think the Almoravids might have met Mali or somesuch briefly on the coast but to my knowledge Moroco only tried to take over Mali or anything in the Sahel only in the late 1500's, well outside our timescale. Even then they lost control over it because of the difficultly of communication over the Sahara. Most Moroccan leaders didn't worry about it and I don't think such an expedition was very practical, certainly not as easy as this game portrays. It would make more sense if it just wasn't on the play map.
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I was under the impression that Mali was added with SoI in order to give us a Muslim Ireland.
 
Since some have mentioned Romuva, does nobody find it strange that the temple of Romowe (Romuva) is not a holy site of the religion?
 
SBolshevik said:
Since some have mentioned Romuva, does nobody find it strange that the temple of Romowe (Romuva) is not a holy site of the religion?
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While few holy sites are real, many are just random provinces selected because of gameplay purposes with no connection to actual historical Pagan religions. Apparently Romowe's location didn't fit with that agenda.
 
Olaus Petrus said:
While few holy sites are real, many are just random provinces selected because of gameplay purposes with no connection to actual historical Pagan religions. Apparently Romowe's location didn't fit with that agenda.
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Well, there is another holy site in the same duchy. I don't see where the problem of moving it to Romuva would be.
 
MutantPenguin said:
Is that not what residual Old Paganism is supposed to represent? Not that I think it does a good job of it - having half the pagans in the world convert over night makes the transition way too smooth, and some different heresies after reformation would be nice - but I think what you're suggesting is just a more difficult way of achieving the same thing.

Also, you talk about intense religious conflicts between Muslims and West Africans, but from what I understand the conversion of Africa (or at least Ghana) to Islam went relatively smoothly - which in part explains the proliferation of old tribal traditions in modern-day African Islam.
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The Almoravids destroyed the Empire of Ghana in a jihad they called because the Ghanans were supposedly mistreating muslims.
 
FredricBastiat said:
TBH, I don't really know why that region is even in the game to begin with. Its only role in the Maghrib was as a trade partner and since trade in that sense isn't in the game, it doesn't really need to be there. I think the Almoravids might have met Mali or somesuch briefly on the coast but to my knowledge Moroco only tried to take over Mali or anything in the Sahel only in the late 1500's, well outside our timescale. Even then they lost control over it because of the difficultly of communication over the Sahara. Most Moroccan leaders didn't worry about it and I don't think such an expedition was very practical, certainly not as easy as this game portrays. It would make more sense if it just wasn't on the play map.
Click to expand...

Again, I think this region is in the map to simulate the Almoravid-Ghana conflict, or to play as Mansa Musa if you like. The war against Ghana went from 1062 to 1076, but doesn't seem to be in the game at this time frame, for reasons unknown.

http://www.mongabay.com/history/mauritania/mauritania-almoravids.html

Since I almost always play from the 1066 start date, I haven't got to play a Mande king yet, so no Mansa Musa pilgrimage to Mecca. But it sounds fun, nevertheless.
 
Matrim_Cauthon said:
Again, I think this region is in the map to simulate the Almoravid-Ghana conflict, or to play as Mansa Musa if you like. The war against Ghana went from 1062 to 1076, but doesn't seem to be in the game at this time frame, for reasons unknown.

http://www.mongabay.com/history/mauritania/mauritania-almoravids.html

Since I almost always play from the 1066 start date, I haven't got to play a Mande king yet, so no Mansa Musa pilgrimage to Mecca. But it sounds fun, nevertheless.
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Could be an interesting conflict.
 
As Olaus Petrus said the actual existence of an Almoravid-Ghana war is uncertain, and even the Wikipedia article states that whether Ghana was even collapsing at this time is uncertain (though frankly I think the game portrays Ghana as way too powerful at the 1066 start either way). There was, however, certainly interactions between the various Berber tribes and the West African states right below them, particularly the more southern Berber tribes such as the Tuaregs. Contrary to what some may think, the Sahara didn't really inhibit anything, or if it did it was a barrier as much as the Mediterranean was between Europe and North Africa.
 
I'm sure there was interaction. I mentioned the trade routes in my post and I'm sure other things happened. But AFAIK alliances and armies passed that way very seldom if at all in the period. And alliances and armies are all the game represents. Even later on Morocco couldn't hold onto the Sahel across the desert. If trade routes were in the game it would be a different matter, but they aren't and including them in the game just lets Morocco annex them and hold it securely forever, which is probably less historical than just abstracting the value of the trade route in the value of the Moroccan provices....
 
FredricBastiat said:
I'm sure there was interaction. I mentioned the trade routes in my post and I'm sure other things happened. But AFAIK alliances and armies passed that way very seldom if at all in the period. And alliances and armies are all the game represents. Even later on Morocco couldn't hold onto the Sahel across the desert. If trade routes were in the game it would be a different matter, but they aren't and including them in the game just lets Morocco annex them and hold it securely forever, which is probably less historical than just abstracting the value of the trade route in the value of the Moroccan provices....
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The only reason for us to think there was no political interaction is that there are no historical sources for it.
I suppose that we all know that our knowledge of political history entirely depends on historical sources we have.
For most of this time period almost all we have is archeaological sources which witness a huge exchange between the oposite shores of the Sahara. In the periods for which we do have also historical sources (Mansa Musa's Mali) we know there was also political interaction beyond the economic ties (Ibn Khaldun's information about intermariages between Mali and Maghrebian Berbers). I am always amazed how people are so sure about no political interaction between the regions while all we have is ignorance.

even the controversion of Almoravid-Ghanan/Wagadian conflict is caused by the nature of sources we have - we know about some hostility between them and we know that Ghana got destroyed by somebody, most probably from the north so we suppose there was a war between them. Doesn't it paint the picture of our knowledge/ignorance nicely enough?

It is pretty sure that the Berbers on both shores of the Sahara did interact with local political leaders (Maghrebian and Ghana/Mali/Songhayan) and so did the Berbers in north Sahara interact with the Berbers in south Sahara. They certainly did influence the political/military history of a broad region at least from Fezzan/Libya to Morocco, the problem is that we can't really say how - all due to so little historical evidence.
--------------------------

As to the religious thing. It is the same as with political. We know so very few information about religious life in the region that I believe that calling the religion West African is appropriate. The religious customs of the Wolof peoples, Mandé and Soninke were certainly different as were the customs of pre-muslim Hausa or others. Putting 3-4 various religions (of each we know nearly nothing) in a region like this would make no sense. I am even in doubts whether to split West African religion in SWMH mod where, as you may know, West Africa almost got the care it deserves.

And we're not even talking abuout things like that Ghana should pe pagan in 1066 and in 867 most of Sahara was not muslim yet and therefore it might deserve a wholly new religion for the Berbers...
 
Olaus Petrus said:
While militarily West Africa didn't have much contact (there's a theory about Almoravid conquest of Ghana, but it's historicity is in doubt), it was important otherwise. West Africa had close religious (spread of Islam) and economic (Trans-Saharan trade) ties with North Africa and it is said that when king Mansa Musa of Mali visited in Mecca all the gold he distributed as gifts made Egyptian economy collapse because gold devalued. I think that instead of removing West Africa they should include Kanem-Bornu Empire and it's trade routes. Currently only the trade routes from Mali to Morocco are on the map.
Click to expand...

Without trade routes, I don't think there's a point in putting West Africa and the rest of the world in the same game, at least before V2. Personally, I'd hope for a detailed mod of the region that I could load up when I wanted to play in it, and leave out when playing elsewhere - or, have another mod that edits out the entire region, that I would load up when playing anywhere further from the region than the Maghreb.
 
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