Inclusion of the Banda Islands with South-East Asia Update

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Aquamancer

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Seeing that the South-East Asia update is under development of @neondt, I felt that it'd be a good idea to put my two cents in and propose the inclusion of a new province: the Banda Islands.

For almost the entirety of the game's timespan, the Banda Islands were the world's only producers of nutmeg and mace, thus giving the Bandanese a full monopoly on the valuable spice, and making the archipelago an important center of trade. This, however, made the archipelago a lucrative target for the Dutch and the English, who ultimately wound up conquering the archipelago: the islands were considered to be so valuable that the Dutch government exchanged the Dutch colonies in modern-day Manhattan for Pulau Run, the only island of the archipelago that the English held. It was only in the 1800s that the islands faded to irrelevance, due to the British having taken many nutmeg trees during the Napoleonic Wars and transplanted them to Ceylon, Grenada, Singapore and other British colonies in 1817, thus breaking the archipelago's monopoly on the spice.

Thus, due to the archipelago's historical significance as the only source of nutmeg in the world and being a subject of wars between the Dutch and the English, I could see the Banda Islands being included in the game, either as a single province of Banda Islands (with its capital likely being Neira, the largest of the islands and the historical administrative center of the archipelago), or two provinces of Banda Neira/Neira and Pulau Run/Run to represent the archipelago's political division between the English and the Dutch (Neira representing the Dutch-controlled islands of Neira, Api, Besar, Keraka and Pisang, while Run representing the English-controlled islands of Ai and Run).

Whether the Banda Islands should have a tag of their own or remain uncolonized is up to debate. Personally, I'd say that the Bandanese should be represented by a tag of their own, seeing that they had extensive trade contacts with the rest of modern-day Indonesia and had to be conquered militarily by the Dutch. However, the Bandanese weren't politically united: they were organized into an oligarchy led by a group of leading citizens known as "orang kaya" (AKA "the rich men"), so it probably wouldn't be accurate to represent them as being led by a single ruler.

Furthermore, with the introduction of cloves as a new trade good, there are a few options for how the Banda Islands' monopoly on nutmeg could be represented. Either Nutmeg could be added as a new trade good, exclusive to Banda Islands; or Banda Islands could have Cloves or Spices as its trade good, in addition to a province modifier to represent the archipelago's monopoly on nutmeg.

Finally, the inclusion of the Banda Islands would require it to be part of a certain region. In my opinion, the most sensible choice would be the Ceram region to the north of the real-life location of the Banda Islands. It would even have the added benefit of allowing the Ceram region to be turned from a two-province region into a three- or four-province region, depending on whether the Banda Islands are represented by one or two provinces.

I can see one major objection to the inclusion of the Banda Islands: their size. The archipelago is small: being only 172 square kilometers (66 sq mi) in size, it is smaller in size than many small island provinces like Malta, Bornholm, or Rügen. That said, Venice, Macau and Nauru are smaller than the Banda Islands and are represented in-game, so I don't see why the Banda Islands shouldn't be, especially due to their historical significance. The archipelago could always been shown as larger than it historically was.
 
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Canute VII

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I can see one major objection to the inclusion of the Banda Islands: their size. The archipelago is small: being only 172 square kilometers (66 sq mi) in size, it is smaller in size than many small island provinces like Malta, Bornholm, or Rügen. That said, Venice, Macau and Nauru are smaller than the Banda Islands and are represented in-game, so I don't see why the Banda Islands shouldn't be, especially due to their historical significance. The archipelago could always been shown as larger than it historically was.
It is said that modern Indonesia has over 17.000 islands. I think grouping some of those together to have some island groups or archipelagos should be possible, even if the individual islands are small.
 
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Cinnamon Ryce

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While I disagree with your point about adding a tag on the island, since the devs aren’t fond of OPMs and probably want the Moluccas to remain mostly open for colonization, you do bring up some good points for the inclusion of the Banda Islands as a province.

I also found what you said about the British planting nutmeg trees in their own colonies to break the monopoly on nutmeg really interesting; it would make for some really interesting flavor.