Another appeal to flesh out East Africa

[Mad King James]

I know this is becoming a semi-annual event, but nevertheless, I feel like I have to again bring up the topic of East Africa. Unlike west, south and central Africa, East Africa was quite a bit more "plugged into" the world, it was part of the greater Indian Ocean cultural horizon if you like, and received technological developments at about the same rate and around the same time that the Indian states did.

Also all of East Africa and Yemen are all way too poor. Yemen was the richest part of Arabia, and the Rasulids were the big power in Arabia, but in EU4 it is by far the poorest and Yemen rarely survives a few decades into the game.

Anyways my proposal:

Sudanese should be in the Arab-Berber culture group as should Somali and Ethiopian, Ethiopian is a Semitic language and Somali has been influenced by Arabic as much as Amazigh (Berber) has. If you're going to leave Tuareg as a stand-in for Libyan, can you at least put that in the Arab-Berber group as well?

Even if you completely ignore my East African suggestion, I would like to argue for Yemen being much richer than it is, and I can justify Sana'a being so rich (6 tax). Modern Yemen may not be considered wealthy but neither is Sicily these days, but they were both wealthy back in the EU4 period, rich provinces that people wanted to get a hold of. Also shouldn't Yemen have some of their own national ideas, Yemen was a trade oriented sultanate like Oman, it should have ideas more like Oman than Hijaz. Yemen also is way too homogenous, there were the Zaidi imams in Sanaa who should be trying to rebel all the time and break away from the Sunni Rasulids. There are possibe revolters in Hadramawt like the Kathiri.

Also Qatar and Bahrain would make a lot more sense under Hasa than Najd, it was only centuries later Najd tribes invaded that area. The UAE provinces should really be in Oman shouldn't they?

 

[AgentPaper]

Sounds like a good thing for a mod to cover, at least for now.

 

[Saintrl]

Yes, sounds like a job for some enterprising modders!

 

[unmerged(229459)]

In my current game Yemen has conquered almost all Arabian peninsula (Bahrain and some desert regions in North are lacking), Iraq, Kurdistan and Tajura.

 

[Xara]

Modern Yemen may not be considered wealthy but neither is Sicily these days, but they were both wealthy back in the EU4 period

That'd be interesting, if provinces could both wax and wane in tax. You could buff them in the early game by providing them a higher tax, but give a nod to their historic decline by subtracting 1 every 150 years or something.

 

[Mad King James]

That'd be interesting, if provinces could both wax and wane in tax. You could buff them in the early game by providing them a higher tax, but give a nod to their historic decline by subtracting 1 every 150 years or something.

This basically already happens with the shift in importance from Tax income to Trade income then finally production income being king.

If a modder wants to take this up I will help with flag suggestions and monarch lists and history help and stuff.

 

[Incompetent]

I like this. I'd also include the Swahili coast in the area that needs to be spruced up (by dividing it into city-states, and giving it much better tech than it has now - maybe even Muslim tech). Swahili culture should also arguably be in the Arab culture group.

 

[Mad King James]

Somewhat unrelated but I can't figure out how to register games on Steam, I used to always get the non-Steam version but now I have to figure out how to register EU4 on these boards through Steam. I don't usually use Steam

I bought a steam key on gamersgate and it works in Steam but it doesn't work to register it here.

 

[Zander]

The biggest issue with east Africa (though there are many things that could use improvement) is the ridiculously backward tech. The merchant princes of the Swahili kingdoms can't even build ships! Adal doesn't know where Mecca is! Trying to shoehorn these nations into the same tech group as Kongo doesn't really make sense.

 

[Mad King James]

The biggest issue with east Africa (though there are many things that could use improvement) is the ridiculously backward tech. The merchant princes of the Swahili kingdoms can't even build ships! Adal doesn't know where Mecca is! Trying to shoehorn these nations into the same tech group as Kongo doesn't really make sense.

I hear ya, though I think Muslim tech group is TOO fast tech advancement, Yemen and Oman were ahead of the Swahili states and Adal and Ethiopia, that's why I think maybe a copy of Indian with different units would be about right.

 

[billclintonmask]

The fact that East Africa was so developed is I think lost on most of the world unless you've specifically studied it. It was exactly its contact with Arabia and India and the transfer of ideas and wealth that made the area prosper.

 

[Labrynian Rebel]

I'm hope we get Mesoamerica, Hoards and East Africa fixed up, they're definitely the places that need the most work.

And yes, the ignorance to the history of the whole area around the Horn of Africa is very widespread.

 

[Glentoran]

Excellent thread MKJ, and a big +1 from me in support of getting these changes implemented, preferably via an official patch (one can dream...), but a kind and history-friendly modder would also be most welcome.

On a related note, i'd also like to see the Mali Empire given a bit of a work-over, to vastly increase their wealth and trade power up until the late 16th/ early 17th century. Perhaps in the early 1600s there could be a succession event that would all-but destroy/split Mali (assuming it still existed in the game, of course). I think it would make an interesting player choice if someone was willing to put a little work in.

 

[Mad King James]

Excellent thread MKJ, and a big +1 from me in support of getting these changes implemented, preferably via an official patch (one can dream...), but a kind and history-friendly modder would also be most welcome.

On a related note, i'd also like to see the Mali Empire given a bit of a work-over, to vastly increase their wealth and trade power up until the late 16th/ early 17th century. Perhaps in the early 1600s there could be a succession event that would all-but destroy/split Mali (assuming it still existed in the game, of course). I think it would make an interesting player choice if someone was willing to put a little work in.

Yeah I agree, there are a lot of unrepresented states like the Mossi, all the Wolof and Fulbe kingdoms, Cayor and all the breakaway Mali states, not to mention all the Niger river states.

Maybe a West African pagan religion called Vudon or something that doesn't have the built in new world pagan penalties, and a little bit of beefing of the subsaharan techgroup, and a bit more detail and playing a west African state could be a bit more interesting.

 

[Talq]

Basic problem with Africa is that every nation you put there is pretty much asking to be part of a pre-1850 scramble for Africa, unless you make them 1 tax grain provinces. You need to fix the problem of making Africa unattractive to elsewhere, and its counter-problem of not making it an invulnerable fortress for an African player. (and yes, we know the AI doesn't do a good job of conquering in there, but thats a generic problem it has with naval invasions)

 

[Mad King James]

Basic problem with Africa is that every nation you put there is pretty much asking to be part of a pre-1850 scramble for Africa, unless you make them 1 tax grain provinces. You need to fix the problem of making Africa unattractive to elsewhere, and its counter-problem of not making it an invulnerable fortress for an African player. (and yes, we know the AI doesn't do a good job of conquering in there, but thats a generic problem it has with naval invasions)

The scramble happens because they are ahistorically weak, but nations who devoted resources to conquest did succeed like Portugal in Zenj.

 

[Incompetent]

Basic problem with Africa is that every nation you put there is pretty much asking to be part of a pre-1850 scramble for Africa, unless you make them 1 tax grain provinces.

Even that wouldn't matter so much - players will want to kill off most of the African states just for the sake of streamlining their trade routes. I think we need to bring in some nasty attrition modifiers for tropical provinces to give an idea of how inhospitable these places were to outsiders (and even locals to some extent) due to diseases like malaria and sleeping sickness.

 

[Saintrl]

Even that wouldn't matter so much - players will want to kill off most of the African states just for the sake of streamlining their trade routes. I think we need to bring in some nasty attrition modifiers for tropical provinces to give an idea of how inhospitable these places were to outsiders (and even locals to some extent) due to diseases like malaria and sleeping sickness.

You could potentially make it religious related similar to how unreformed pagans in CK2 causes massive attrition for non-pagan enemies.

 

[dionysus81]

I bought a steam key on gamersgate and it works in Steam but it doesn't work to register it here.

Go into steam,
right click Europa Universalis IV,
pick View CD key,
copy key to clipboard,
click 'My Games' here on the forums,
pick Europa Universalis IV from the drop down list and CTRL+V the key into the box next to it,
register


if that doesn't work, it is best to contact a board admin, I guess.




and ontopic: It wouldn't surprise me if Africa gets a rework in a DLC, just like the New World is getting a rework soon. New Nations and changes and such are all included in the (free) patch, normally.

 

[Mad King James]

Go into steam,
right click Europa Universalis IV,
pick View CD key,
copy key to clipboard,
click 'My Games' here on the forums,
pick Europa Universalis IV from the drop down list and CTRL+V the key into the box next to it,
register


if that doesn't work, it is best to contact a board admin, I guess.




and ontopic: It wouldn't surprise me if Africa gets a rework in a DLC, just like the New World is getting a rework soon. New Nations and changes and such are all included in the (free) patch, normally.

Thanks that did it