After Leviathan, this game needs a huge revamp/balancing update.

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That is not true for the majority of the tags.
There are some anachronistic or unconfirmed tags in Africa, mainly in Central Africa and Madagascar and there are some tags named wrong by the developers.
But the vast majority of tags in West and East Africa and some Central Africa tags have confirmed existance during second half of XV century.

A good book for research about this topic is "The Cambridge History of Africa Vol 3" this is a old book and research in the epoch already had a lot of information about the historical situation in the continent during early modern age, peoples that have access to more modern books about the topic probably known even more details.

I don't known why peoples are disliking my last post if I only bring to the thread factual information about a topic that the majority probably never researched in specialized sources.

Yeah people getting over their skis all over the place here.

Arguably Africa needed an update much more then the Americas and Australia.

Not just because it's better documented but also because it affects actual gameplay issues
 
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Yeah people getting over their skis all over the place here.

Arguably Africa needed an update much more then the Americas and Australia.

Not just because it's better documented but also because it affects actual gameplay issues
Africa have so much potential in game to the implementation of new mechanics.
Modern age in Africa was a time where old and traditional kingdoms crumbled while uncentralized tribes organized themselves in states for the first time in their history, a time where traditional and sedentary kingdoms could be destroyed by tribal nomads coming from other areas (like what sometimes happened in Middle East and Europe during the Antiquity), a time where native political power become dependant of good relations with European traders and slavers that became the main source of gunpowder weapons and other strategical goods.

There is many possibilities for new disaster types, new mechanics for the slave trade, new mechanics for european trade posts in the litoral, a new mechanic where nomad armies can appear in uncolonized land and invade your kingdom (a similar mechanic was implemented in Imperator: Rome), a better mechanic for the spawning of new tags in previously uncolonized lands, etc.
 
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They had extensive written records of those times?

Or is this accepting modern oral tradition as historical fact?
So are we to assume none of Aboriginal history occurred because it was only recorded orally? Does writing it down on paper make it more factually correct than speaking it out aloud? When you have thousands of elders of all different nations describing in great detail the networks of alliances, political entities, national borders and wars that existed across Australia for thousands upon thousands of years (as well as painting and monuments to depict such events dated back tens of thousands of years), we either have to assume a great hoax meant to con the rest of the world into believing in a lie about Aboriginal society or that there is a degree of truth to the matter. It is also important to remember that this is how their people recorded history, each set of elders would pass down the spoken word to the next generation to be passed onto the next and so on. There are also multiple Dreaming stories referring to events that seem to suggest large political networks involving diplomats and politicians who would debate policy and foreign relations.
 
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So are we to assume none of Aboriginal history occurred because it was only recorded orally? Does writing it down on paper make it more factually correct than speaking it out aloud? When you have thousands of elders of all different nations describing in great detail the networks of alliances, political entities, national borders and wars that existed across Australia for thousands upon thousands of years (as well as painting and monuments to depict such events dated back tens of thousands of years), we either have to assume a great hoax meant to con the rest of the world into believing in a lie about Aboriginal society or that there is a degree of truth to the matter. It is also important to remember that this is how their people recorded history, each set of elders would pass down the spoken word to the next generation to be passed onto the next and so on. There are also multiple Dreaming stories referring to events that seem to suggest large political networks involving diplomats and politicians who would debate policy and foreign relations.

Yes oral traditions are not reliable historical evidence.
 
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Yes oral traditions are not reliable historical evidence.
Do you mean yes, Aboriginal history is deemed to not have existed because there is mostly only oral evidence for it?

Why is oral evidence not reliable and written evidence is? Now I know that the main reason why is because this is how we are taught to currently view history, but why is there any reason to believe that thousands of corroborating oral recollections is less reliable than a couple of books? Many authors are bias, many translations of books completely miss the original point, books could only be written by the richest in society for most of history, copies of books were often edited by others long after they were originally written, books are usually translated to serve someone's agenda, and there is often little way to know that what someone actually wrote down in a book actually happened. Yet despite all these flaws we often consider a single book to be paramount to thousands of corroborating oral accounts of history?
 
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So are we to assume none of Aboriginal history occurred because it was only recorded orally? Does writing it down on paper make it more factually correct than speaking it out aloud? When you have thousands of elders of all different nations describing in great detail the networks of alliances, political entities, national borders and wars that existed across Australia for thousands upon thousands of years (as well as painting and monuments to depict such events dated back tens of thousands of years), we either have to assume a great hoax meant to con the rest of the world into believing in a lie about Aboriginal society or that there is a degree of truth to the matter. It is also important to remember that this is how their people recorded history, each set of elders would pass down the spoken word to the next generation to be passed onto the next and so on. There are also multiple Dreaming stories referring to events that seem to suggest large political networks involving diplomats and politicians who would debate policy and foreign relations.
Yes? Physical objects can be carbon dated and give you context when you have contemporary account of the world, and further reinforced or debunked by archeological finds or by comparing them to each other.

It’s much more complicated to verify something that like a story your grandpa tells you.
It’s not like we believe everything that’s written down, but at least you can study it more easily than oral history
 
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Yes? Physical objects can be carbon dated and give you context when you have contemporary account of the world, and further reinforced or debunked by archeological finds or by comparing them to each other.

It’s much more complicated to verify something that like a story your grandpa tells you.
It’s not like we believe everything that’s written down, but at least you can study it more easily than oral history
Well there is multiple instances of archaeological evidence that has been found so far, but not as much as there is expected to be (many still refuse to fund research into this area) but corroborate the idea of organised democratic societies in many of these nations.

If everybody's grandpa said relatively the same thing it is hard to say your grandpa is wrong by this point right? Enough of the oral history has been written down into books by this point to study it easier (lots of the books I referenced earlier include such oral history). Many of the things we are still taught in schools today are still derived from a single or a couple of primary source books.
 
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For everyone wanting EU5 now, please tell me a single PDS game in the past 10 years that was worth a darn in it's initial release? It always takes at least 2 years and multiple patches for their games to be something besides a buggy monstrosity. Latest example being Stellaris and Imperator, both of which had to have major overalls after release to be playable.

I would much rather Johan invest the time now to fix what is fixable in EU4 than wait the next 2-4 years for EU5 to be released and actually playable.
The sooner they release EU5 the sooner it will be fixed, don't you think?

And EU4 won't be fixed ever. Just look at how they released Emperor full of bugs, and instead of releasing patches that fix all those bugs, they made another 20€ gimmick DLC to earn money. And be sure that Leviathan will add new bugs that never will be fix.

I don't want new skins for natives canoes, I want new mechanics. I want EU5, no more silly EU4 DLCs.
 
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  1. Bruce Pascoe, Dark Emu, Magabala Books, Broome, WA, 2013.
  2. Robert A. Dahl, ‘Democracy’, <www.brittanica.com>, accessed 2 May 2015.
  3. Fred Myers, ‘Emotions and the Self: A Theory of Personhood and Political Order among Pintupi Aborigines’, Ethos, vol. 7, no. 4 (2009), p. 368.
  4. J. Bulmer, quoted in Henry Reynolds, The Other Side of the Frontier, Penguin, Melbourne, 1984 (1981), p. 151.
  5. W.E.H. Stanner, The Dreaming and Other Essays, Black Inc, Melbourne, 2011, p. 66.
  6. Dianne Bell, Daughters of the Dreaming, Spinifex Press, Melbourne, 1982, p. 182.
  7. Aunty Mary Graham, public talk, ‘Conversation about Country’ with Melissa Lucashenko, Federal Town Hall, Federal, NSW, February 2015.
  8. Stanner, The Dreaming, p. 72.
  9. R. Wild and P. Anderson, Little Children Are Sacred, report of the Northern Territory Board of Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse, 2007, accessed 1 June 2015.
  10. David Runciman, ‘The Trouble with Democracy’, Guardian (UK), 21 November 2013.
  11. Larissa Behrendt, 'Aboriginal Australia and Democracy: Old Traditions, New Challenges', 2011
To avoid having to list you too many sources that say relatively the same information I will mention that the first two links have further references to corroborating sources at the bottom of the respective documents. There is no one that can historically say beyond a definitive doubt (yet) that the democracy in Australia was formed prior to the Greeks (as even though the Government no longer bans researching these sort of topics, it is still extremely difficult to get funding for research as Terra Nullius was still being taught in schools till 1990's), but as we are sure that democracy existed prior to European arrival and these nations had existed for somewhere between 60,000 and 100,000 years prior to this occasion it would be hard to imagine that the Greeks invented democracy first (which we already know is the case as there were plenty of 100% confirmed cases of democracy prior to Greece but that is outside the point I am trying to make).

So no, I can't say 100% beyond a doubt that democracy was invented in Australia prior to the Greeks, it is far more plausible that this is the case (and hopefully in decades to come research funding will become more available for these topics, if it isn't too late yet).

@Steel_atlas
So there were actually groups of humans, other than some Mediterraneans, that managed to mind their own business without the need of someone telling them what to think and do?

Unbelievable.

OT: EU4 has become too big to patch, the development of EU5 is inevitable.
 
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Yeah people getting over their skis all over the place here.

Arguably Africa needed an update much more then the Americas and Australia.

Not just because it's better documented but also because it affects actual gameplay issues
hopefully theyre saving a combined south america and african dlc so we can get historical brazilian slavery
 
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Well there is multiple instances of archaeological evidence that has been found so far, but not as much as there is expected to be (many still refuse to fund research into this area) but corroborate the idea of organised democratic societies in many of these nations.

If everybody's grandpa said relatively the same thing it is hard to say your grandpa is wrong by this point right? Enough of the oral history has been written down into books by this point to study it easier (lots of the books I referenced earlier include such oral history). Many of the things we are still taught in schools today are still derived from a single or a couple of primary source books.
oral histories may be more well preserved than people think chinese whispers are, but that does not stop innately untrue things being correct. Aspects of the quaran may have happened, whilst others may be fraudulent
oral history you can only ask the living, whereas the written word you can always go back to, e.g. dead sea scrolls proving continuity throughout the ages
 
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Africa have so much potential in game to the implementation of new mechanics.
Modern age in Africa was a time where old and traditional kingdoms crumbled while uncentralized tribes organized themselves in states for the first time in their history, a time where traditional and sedentary kingdoms could be destroyed by tribal nomads coming from other areas (like what sometimes happened in Middle East and Europe during the Antiquity), a time where native political power become dependant of good relations with European traders and slavers that became the main source of gunpowder weapons and other strategical goods.

There is many possibilities for new disaster types, new mechanics for the slave trade, new mechanics for european trade posts in the litoral, a new mechanic where nomad armies can appear in uncolonized land and invade your kingdom (a similar mechanic was implemented in Imperator: Rome), a better mechanic for the spawning of new tags in previously uncolonized lands, etc.
broke: polynesian dlc
woke: african dlc
ascended: kalmyk migration dlc
 
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For everyone wanting EU5 now, please tell me a single PDS game in the past 10 years that was worth a darn in it's initial release? It always takes at least 2 years and multiple patches for their games to be something besides a buggy monstrosity. Latest example being Stellaris and Imperator, both of which had to have major overalls after release to be playable.

I would much rather Johan invest the time now to fix what is fixable in EU4 than wait the next 2-4 years for EU5 to be released and actually playable.

Oh yes, because nobody played EU4 on release, everyone stuck to EU3. Everyone played Ck1 when 2 came out and everyone is playing ck2 when ck3 is come out. Everyone played EU Rome when I:R came and everyone is playing Vicky 1 and HoI3.

I dont know if its worth a darn or not, but its always been way better than its predecessor, even if with less content. Thats why they need to put EU4 to sleep already and bring EU5.
 
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Oh yes, because nobody played EU4 on release, everyone stuck to EU3. Everyone played Ck1 when 2 came out and everyone is playing ck2 when ck3 is come out. Everyone played EU Rome when I:R came and everyone is playing Vicky 1 and HoI3.

I dont know if its worth a darn or not, but its always been way better than its predecessor, even if with less content. Thats why they need to put EU4 to sleep already and bring EU5.
eu4 is too broken and unwieldy to fix, but compare ck2 and 3, there's just so much lacking content that really should have been in there at launch. yes they might not like how hordes and merchant republics worked, but they could get placeholders, as the norse did
 
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eu4 is too broken and unwieldy to fix, but compare ck2 and 3, there's just so much lacking content that really should have been in there at launch. yes they might not like how hordes and merchant republics worked, but they could get placeholders, as the norse did

Lack of content doesn't mean its a worse game. And thats why you have so many more people playing CK3. And the few people who still play CK2, they will all progressively move to CK3 as it adds content.

It doesn't mean that CK3 didnt need to ever be created. It is a superior game. It just needs content.
 
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Lack of content doesn't mean its a worse game. And thats why you have so many more people playing CK3. And the few people who still play CK2, they will all progressively move to CK3 as it adds content.

It doesn't mean that CK3 didnt need to ever be created. It is a superior game. It just needs content.
They're playing it because it got advertised heavily and just got a new dlc. Look at the amount of players in between patches, far lower than ck2, especially when fervour was broken
 
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I would just like to remind people that in Australia the word some used by some people in their posts on this thread to describe the Indigenous nations are not too dissimilar to the use of the n-word in American culture to describe people of African descent. On an additional note the myth of all First Nations people being hunter-gatherers is just that, a myth. It was based largely in the Terra Nullius doctrine used to justify the cruel treatment and genocide of these people.

Now that historians are not barred from researching deeper into these topics there has been increasing evidence to find that they were mostly an agricultural society that built buildings and tools out of various materials (stone and wood) and sailed out into the ocean to trade with some nearby nations (including the Indonesian islands). They also had democracy and republics long before the Classical Greeks came along; governmental systems in some cases nearly indistinguishable from that of a single-chamber parliamentary system. They did engage with wars with the British (unless we are now considering armies smaller than 5000 in size as "skirmishing armies" which means we would need to remove most HRE nations) and they also traded with the Ming on at least four occasions between 1500 and 1650.

There were certainly still nations that were mostly hunter-gather societies that were forced to roam around due to the lack of resources available deep inside the interior desert of Australia, but these nations aren't in the scope of the upcoming EU4 update.

Essentially what I am saying is that you can be upset about some game features being bugged, or lacking updates, but this shouldn't be used as a continual excuse to pretend that these people had no impact on history in this time-period or that it is ahistorical that they are included in the game. And also what I am saying is to stop using that word to define these people.

Aborigines vs aboriginal is not the N word, and It's absurd that you would accuse me of that. Nor is it automatically invoking Terra Nullius.

A lot of what you say is technically and narrowly true, but presented in a throughly misleading manner.

Yes there were trade networks that had goods and coin go between some Aboriginal populations in the far north, and Ming China. But they were not started by the Aboriginal populations, it was Chinese and Macassans merchants coming to Australia, not them routinely going to Indonesia. They didn't embark on a trading empire, they used the coins they got as fishing weights. Signs are that their naval capacity was very rudimentary and largely limited to areas near the Torres Straights. Tasmania effectively lost contact with the mainland and lost the ability to refine stone tools. Which is not at all a far distance from the mainland, and the Polynesians easily covered far greater distances.

They had rudimentary aquaculture in a few niche areas, and cultivated plants in a Proto agricultural manner. But saying they were a mostly agricultural society is absurd. They were nomadic, their staples were hunting, fishing if they were coastal, and gathering.

Tribal democracy is clearly not the same as Greek democracy and you know it. Tribal style democracy has been pretty universal from the historical record. That is basically just how humans organise small societies of that scale.

They deliberately didn't fight pitched battles, which is what Eu4 represents. Professor Henry Reynolds, whose expertise in frontier warfare described their warfare against the British as an individual or small unit guerrilla warfare. There was resistance, but it was flatly not the fight a single pitched battle and occupy a province style of Eu4 warfare. Nor would there be an Aboriginal tribal commander marching thousands of troops into the lands of his neighbours to 'conquer' their lands. There was inter-tribal warfare, but there were no holding borders like Eu4. Some HRE states had small armies, but they fought and were organised similar to their larger counterparts, and would add their armies in coalition when called up.

But what do Aboriginal tags offer? Nothing. It is just ahistorical bullshit, of standing armies, and if you colonise Australia now you send a small doomstack around rolling over their conventional armies in a single pitched battles. If the Devs wanted them accurately represented, just expand colonial events. Tags are just dumb.


Anyway, as to the oral history stuff. They did record some stuff that has been verified in the historical record as having happened hundreds or even thousands of years ago, like major weather events. But that is still not the mark of a EU4 level civilisation.
 
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Aborigines vs aboriginal is not the N word, and It's absurd that you would accuse me of that. Nor is it automatically invoking Terra Nullius.

A lot of what you say is technically and narrowly true, but presented in a throughly misleading manner.

Yes there were trade networks that had goods and coin go between some Aboriginal populations in the far north, and Ming China. But they were not started by the Aboriginal populations, it was Chinese and Macassans merchants coming to Australia, not them routinely going to Indonesia. They didn't embark on a trading empire, they used the coins they got as fishing weights. Signs are that their naval capacity was very rudimentary and largely limited to areas near the Torres Straights. Tasmania effectively lost contact with the mainland and lost the ability to refine stone tools. Which is not at all a far distance from the mainland, and the Polynesians easily covered far greater distances.

They had rudimentary aquaculture in a few niche areas, and cultivated plants in a Proto agricultural manner. But saying they were a mostly agricultural society is absurd. They were nomadic, their staples were hunting, fishing if they were coastal, and gathering.

Tribal democracy is clearly not the same as Greek democracy and you know it. Tribal style democracy has been pretty universal from the historical record. That is bascially just how humans organise small societies of that scale.

They deliberately didn't fight pitched battles, which is what Eu4 represents. Professor Henry Reynolds described their warfare against the British as individual or small unit guerrilla warfare. There was resistance, but it was flatly not the fight a single pitched battle and occupy a province style of Eu4 warfare. Nor would there be a Aboriginal tribal commander marching thousands of troops into the lands of his neighbors to 'conquer' their lands. There was inter tribal warfare, but there was no holding borders like Eu4. Some HRE states had small armies, but they fought and were organised similar to their larger counterparts, and would add their armies in coalition when called up.

But what do Aboriginal tags offer? Nothing. It is just ahistorical bullshit, of standing armies, and if you colonise Australia now you send a small doomstack around rolling over their conventional armies in a single pitched battles. If the Dems wanted them accurately represented, just expand colonial events. Tags are just dumb.


Anyway, as to the oral history stuff. They did record some stuff that has been verified in the historical record as having happened hundreds or even thousands of years ago, like major weather events. But that is still not the mark of a EU4 level civilisation.
Agreed fully. Tribal democracies are partly so common because within a single tribe it's hard to exert complete control as you don't have that much of a leg up vs your rivals.
Having colonial nation provinces not auto flip culture but reliant on your native policy would be awesome, as well as further events over native treatment, although sadly too late to implement. Eu4 does suffer with various events being locked to certain areas in order to help sell dlc. Christian theocracy events which give devotion should be with other Christian gov forms impacting piety and papal opinion
 
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Aborigines vs aboriginal is not the N word, and It's absurd that you would accuse me of that. Nor is it automatically invoking Terra Nullius.

A lot of what you say is technically and narrowly true, but presented in a throughly misleading manner.

Yes there were trade networks that had goods and coin go between some Aboriginal populations in the far north, and Ming China. But they were not started by the Aboriginal populations, it was Chinese and Macassans merchants coming to Australia, not them routinely going to Indonesia. They didn't embark on a trading empire, they used the coins they got as fishing weights. Signs are that their naval capacity was very rudimentary and largely limited to areas near the Torres Straights. Tasmania effectively lost contact with the mainland and lost the ability to refine stone tools. Which is not at all a far distance from the mainland, and the Polynesians easily covered far greater distances.

They had rudimentary aquaculture in a few niche areas, and cultivated plants in a Proto agricultural manner. But saying they were a mostly agricultural society is absurd. They were nomadic, their staples were hunting, fishing if they were coastal, and gathering.

Tribal democracy is clearly not the same as Greek democracy and you know it. Tribal style democracy has been pretty universal from the historical record. That is bascially just how humans organise small societies of that scale.

They deliberately didn't fight pitched battles, which is what Eu4 represents. Professor Henry Reynolds described their warfare against the British as individual or small unit guerrilla warfare. There was resistance, but it was flatly not the fight a single pitched battle and occupy a province style of Eu4 warfare. Nor would there be a Aboriginal tribal commander marching thousands of troops into the lands of his neighbors to 'conquer' their lands. There was inter tribal warfare, but there was no holding borders like Eu4. Some HRE states had small armies, but they fought and were organised similar to their larger counterparts, and would add their armies in coalition when called up.

But what do Aboriginal tags offer? Nothing. It is just ahistorical bullshit, of standing armies, and if you colonise Australia now you send a small doomstack around rolling over their conventional armies in a single pitched battles. If the Dems wanted them accurately represented, just expand colonial events. Tags are just dumb.


Anyway, as to the oral history stuff. They did record some stuff that has been verified in the historical record as having happened hundreds or even thousands of years ago, like major weather events. But that is still not the mark of a EU4 level civilisation.
I didn't accuse you of anything, just reminding you of the hurtful connotations associated with using that word instead of Aboriginal (due to the other word being mostly used by publications that spread harmful messages about Aboriginal people and that every organisation now recommends against using it as it has been observed to have negative impacts on Aboriginal people). I am not saying you are invoking Terra Nullius by using any particular words, but the description of them as hunter-gatherers as a whole was only ever factual in the view of Terra Nullius.

There is evidence of Aboriginal ships across the Indonesian islands (presumably sailed by the Aboriginal people as the Indonesian people had their own distinct ships); hardly ocean-faring on the scale of the Polynesians, but sufficient to engage in bi-directional trading and fishing. As you mention they had fish-farms (in multiple areas) and additional to that they had a large degree of full organised farms (many early explorers mention coming across great swathes of crops lined perfectly up and down in rows, growing one of a variety of native fruit or veggie).

How would you go about separating Tribal Democracy from Greek Democracy (I cannot find any sort of universal definition to separate the two)? Many Aboriginal nations had voting systems, and representatives they sent to parliaments and forums to write up laws, budgets and alliances among many other actions commonly associated with any democracy.

It is true that after the first few battles with Britain they had to forego with organised battles (their rapidly declining population from disease and the sheer scale of guns and cannons that the British could make use of contributed to this) but this is hardly any different to any nation that was confronted with a European power, it doesn't mean these nations were incapable of proper standing armies (which many Aboriginal nations did have).

If the validity of adding a new tag to the game is based off "can a doomstack wipe them off the map" then there is really little point to any tag outside of Europe or Asia. What the Aboriginal tags represent is a deep history and culture; the worth of adding tags to the game shouldn't just be based off what relative worth they add to playing a Great Power in EU4.

Some of the sources I mentioned earlier in this thread provide some nice reading on how we have only seen the top of the iceberg in terms of Aboriginal society and the innovations they have made.
 
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Yes oral traditions are not reliable historical evidence.

Then how do we legitimize historical records for illiterate tribes. Tribes on the Gobi Desert and the Steppe for a long time kept track of their history via oral tradition. I'll agree that oral tradition isn't as reliable as say a written document, but when compared with nothing else and a grain of salt, it enough to produce some level of historical understand. With this type of understanding, most Native American TAGs wouldn't have much to go off of because their very exclusive process of oral recording of history. I think that oral tradition should be accepted as reliable historical evidence here, but users should do some work to sift through it for what the facts are, versus actual story. It should also be noted that some oral traditions are no more reliable than written records, which are far more suspectible to bias, destruction and other human errors; whlie oral record is "safer" since it requires one person to memorize the history, less suspectible to bias, and is much harder to have an error occur in "recording".
 
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