EU4 Development Diary - 18th February 2016

[Johan]

Hello and Welcome to another development diary for EU4. This time we take a look at Africa, and the changes there. This one of those times when pictures are worth more than 1000 words.

First of all, we have added the entirety of the Kongo region, reaching up to the Great Lakes area. Not just home to the countries of Kongo, Loango and Ndongo, this area now have multiple nations, and could be the basis of a powerful empire.

While we have added over 20 new nations to Central Africa, we have also added new idea groups and unique ideas for these mighty states, including the Great Lakes ideas for our states near the Lake Victoria. These Central Africans also have their own unique technology group, with technology costing 65% more than Westerners.

North we find the Great Lakes Area, with lots of minor nations, some that still exist today, after a brief period of colonialism.

Southeast of Kongo, is Zambia and Mozambique is now filled with provinces and several new nations as well. Magagascar has also seen a rework, with 5 nations struggling for supremacy of the island, complete with their own national ideas and Pagan/Islamic friction

The tradesetup for Africa have changed as well, Zanzibar is now the coast tradenode, with three inland nodes of Kongo, Great Lakes and Zambezi leading to the coasts either west and east. This makes the Zanzibar node a hugely important tradenode for everyone along the Indian Ocean.

No diary on our Africa changes would be complete without giving some attention to religion in the region. Previously we had carpeted non-specific pagan areas with Shamanism or Animism. Now many of our African provinces which have not converted to Islam are portrayed with the Fetishist Pagan religion which grants greater tolerance to heathens and a diplomatic reputation bonus along with the usual pagan decision.

Next week, we’ll talk about two different and new concepts, one which has its own icon in the top bar.

 

[Trin Tragula]

Does this mean it is time for Shaka Zulu now? Please say yes!

Sorry, no zulu state. The rozwi who took over Butua and later most of whats Mutapa in 1444 are considered by some to have pioneered the same type pf tactics and training though.

 

[Trin Tragula]

@Johan , can you explain please what Fetishist means lol? Cuz to me and seemingly a lot of other people it sounds like something very naughty haha.

Its a common name for traditional african religions. Today its a bit dated (and has come to be associated with another discipline a lot more) but it works a lot better than saying "traditional African religions" everywhere in the interface

 

[Trin Tragula]

In a bit of a hurry here (and not at work) so I'm sorry if the post could be structured a bit better:

I'd love to know what source material the team used here because my knowledge of this region is so weak, do you have any pointers?

I'm also struggling to think what the third nation, in eastern Madagascar is... I'm certain the western malagasy country are the sakalava, and merina are merina, but the third seems to have its capital comewhere near Toamasina.

As in many other places in Africa we started with the Unesco history of Africa. It's not very fresh but it is thorough. For the extended Congo river area @Guillaume HJ has been of great help (just as he was with West Africa if you recall the West African dev diary back during art of war). UNESCO isn't the only source but it is probably the most useful due to its ambitious scope. Obviously real historical sources don't lend them to an exact map of the world in 1444 so some liberties has been taken such. Here are a few examples:

In some regions information is pretty spotty for our start date and in these cases we've extrapolated backwards a bit, named a state after another more famous entity that would absorb it soon enough or united tags prematurely (this is the case for most tags on Madagascar, many of them where really broken into chiefdoms of smaller size than an EU4 province). Such disunited areas are referenced in their idea sets and some provinces have heightened starting autonomy to account for it a bit as well.
The eastern Malagasy tag you see is Betsimisaraka and is an example of such a prematurely united tag.

For much Central Africa none can be sure of exact dates (among other things as we have no real literate direct sources for the 1444 period). That's always a tricky situation but given what we do know having the states there rather than leaving the area as a vacuum is more realistic (and more fun). For instance the Congo kingdom should be interacting with other states deeper into Africa rather than trying to "colonize" them and later on the Lunda Empire should be spreading via conquest and not colonization in game terms. From traditions and archaeology we know a bit about what was going on and who was doing it and from written sources how things turned out later which is what we've used (again much as in South America, where written sources are available only after the arrival of the Spanish, even if they are based on local recollections). We can be reasonably sure what entities where around but perhaps not exactly what they where up to in 1444. The guesswork is in the details more than in the overall picture and mostly adopted from the thoughts of greater (and more specialized minds). As always some considerations also have to be taken for gameplay.

So to summarize:
Any game has to be abstract by nature and even more so for regions where we don't have as good sources as we do for Europe, India, China and the Middle East. Undoubtedly there are some errors that have slipped in either by design or because we missed something (in case of the later I'll be expecting bug reports so we can fix them ). Still I dare say the new setup should do the region a lot more justice than the old wasteland covered approach.

 

[Trin Tragula]

Oh, o-okay
I was hoping it would be an event spawn or a formable, but I guess that's fine. Maybe in a later patch.

Well if it makes you feel better Butua's NI set does reference these tactics so you can still have Shaka style armies No outright mention of the still unborn Zulu kingdom though.

 

[Trin Tragula]

Because they don't have smaller provinces for Livonia? It only got divided for the first time ever (north to Estonia, south to Latvia) in 1920s.

This exactly the reason