National Ideagroups - 20th of October C - Tarasca

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Johan

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Tarasca

Traditions
+1 Legitimacy
-3 Years of Nationalism

  1. Copperworking: +10% Infantry Power
  2. No Mercy: -1 Unrest
  3. Merchant Officials: +10% Trade Efficiency
  4. War Bonfires: -10% Recruitment Speed
  5. Fortified Frontier: +15% Defensiveness
  6. Otomi Settlements: +15% Manpower
  7. Tarascan Assimilation: -15% Core Creation Cost


Ambition
+10% Manpower Recovery
 
Not at all.

Think Aztecs, except more defence-orientated and surviving several decades longer via an arrangement with the spanish.

More defense-oriented and more long-term oriented...the Tarascans in general did a better job of not having half of Mexico wanting them dead than the Aztecs.

They could be compared to an EU state that grows super fast gobbling up provinces left and right but accumulating AE like there's no tomorrow and failing to core half their conquests (Aztecs) to a more careful expansionist who get fewer provinces at a time, but core them all and build them up (Tarascans). One's going to look mighty impressive, but in the long run the other has fairly good odds of outlasting them.
 
More defense-oriented and more long-term oriented...the Tarascans in general did a better job of not having half of Mexico wanting them dead than the Aztecs.

They could be compared to an EU state that grows super fast gobbling up provinces left and right but accumulating AE like there's no tomorrow and failing to core half their conquests (Aztecs) to a more careful expansionist who get fewer provinces at a time, but core them all and build them up (Tarascans). One's going to look mighty impressive, but in the long run the other has fairly good odds of outlasting them.
I've heard stories, though I can't source them, of the Mexica sending envoys desperately to the Tarascans, telling them of their plight and asking for any kind of aid. The Tarascans just sent them away with vague promises and did nothing. Then, when the spanish came, they just agreed to pay tribute and carried on as they were, until the spanish discovered later they were still taking taxes and brought the armies of colonial mexico down on them.

Interesting nation to play- I note the first NI was copperworking, but I thought it was iron that was novel for the tarascans? After all copper metallurgy had been around for a long time in the americas.
 
Copper metallurgy in the Americas is a mixed history (some regions had it early, others very slowly). But in Mesoamerica specifically, the use of metal tools took off very late, and started taking off with the Tarascans. Bronze tools (and, per some version, weapons) were a lot more common there than among their other neighbors.
 
This intrigued me so I had to look it up more. It seems that Tarascan tin-bronze and arsenic-bronze was a major export from west mexico since ~1200 CE, though apparently there was another source somewhere in the south-east.

This paper: http://www.famsi.org/reports/02063/02063Maldonado01.pdf suggests they certainly had no lack of obsidian, though, which makes it all the more remarkable to me.

This one: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~izapa/M-28.pdf suggests (fig 4) that the centre of Tarascan governance was actually quite distant from the main metal-producing regions. Might be useful for tradegood maps too : P

There's more exploration of west mexican metallurgical movements here http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11837-999-0034-6#page-1 which also emphasises the significance of Cu-Pb.
 
Never heard of Tarasca, is this some kinda tribe in mexico?

Very few Mexican states were tribal. Tarasca was the Aztec's main rival.

Think Aztecs, except more defence-orientated and surviving several decades longer via an arrangement with the spanish.

They didn't have a ton of rebellious vassals for the Spanish to take advantage of, that's why they lasted longer. They were still mostly destroyed by rebels backed by the Spanish but it was slower and bloodier.
 
Love this set of ideas, lots of promise in this start.
 
Tarasca

Traditions
+1 Legitimacy
-3 Years of Nationalism



  1. [*]Copperworking: +10% Infantry Power
  2. No Mercy: -1 Unrest
    [*]Merchant Officials: +10% Trade Efficiency
  3. War Bonfires: -10% Recruitment Speed
  4. Fortified Frontier: +15% Defensiveness
  5. Otomi Settlements: +15% Manpower
    [*]Tarascan Assimilation: -15% Core Creation Cost


Ambition
+10% Manpower Recovery

Okay, I love it.

Although I am pretty sure it should say '-10% recruitment TIME' instead of '-10% recruitment SPEED' :D :D :D
 
very good set of ideas !! gonna definitely try a game with tarasca