Middle East Reduced Provinces

[Tibi088]

From what I've seen on youtube I love the cities graphics from Imperator Rome, would love to see something similar in CK3 for major historical cities

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The aesthetics of IR are incredible - far above CK3 IMO. Dont get me wrong, CK3 does look good but I prefer IR.

 

[elvain]

it's funny how one short post, absolutely irrelevant to the origial topic, completely switches the discussion to something entirelly different - from province density of the map to graphical representation of holdings and their aesthetics

Doesn't it deserve an own thread?

 

[Ezumiyr]

but actually much of West Africa was on par or more developed than even Central and Western Europe in 867 and 1066

I mean, it can be hard to measure "development", but come on. We don't even have proper sources to know where the capital cities were at the time in the area. You're just making a wild guess here. It's really unlikely that "much of west africa" was more populated or more urbanized than western europe.
Just because we want to rehabilitate Africa in modern science doesn't mean that we are allowed to make wild claims like this.

Or maybe you're confused with the christian and muslim kingdoms of Abyssinia, which is the only place (aside from northern Africa) that we know had comparable urban and societal landscapes to Europe at the time.

 

[elvain]

I mean, it can be hard to measure "development", but come on. We don't even have proper sources to know where the capital cities were at the time in the area. You're just making a wild guess here. It's really unlikely that "much of west africa" was more populated or more urbanized than western europe.
Just because we want to rehabilitate Africa in modern science doesn't mean that we are allowed to make wild claims like this.

Or maybe you're confused with the christian and muslim kingdoms of Abyssinia, which is the only place (aside from northern Africa) that we know had comparable urban and societal landscapes to Europe at the time.

Good catch (and even better in the context of my previous post. got the hypocrite of me. but maybe we shall move it to another thread?)

it has 2 parts again.
First, look at the dates I intentionally pointed out. I was talking about 1066 and 867 respectively, dates in which Central and partially also Western Europe was not yet what we all see as medieval Europe, with many busy cities etc.
1066 is only a beggining of this, right before Europe started to get this shape. In mid 11th century the urban centers are yet few - in France and Germany still mainly limited to old Roman cities, most of them having barely very few thousand inhabitants, in Central Europe still practically non-existant. The foundations of feudal Europe have just been laid in the country with first castles, some of which would later turn into castles or cities, others would remain small. All that big urbanization is yet to start right away in the late 11th and 12th century (and later). 867 is obviously much worse in this respect, as all of the advanced civilization is limited to old Roman cities or very few newly found capitals such as Moravian Veligrad.

On the other hand, (2nd part) in the Western Sahel, the local civilization has just passed its peak. We don't have many written sources, but archaeology is more than clear that in 4 relatively large regions, (Mema, Hodh/Hawd and around Inland Niger delta + Kawkaw AKA later Songhay) there were dense nets of urban and sub-urban populations with with centers/capitals like Jenne-Jeno, Kumbi Saleh, Awdaghost and Gao with 10-15 or 15-20 thousand inhabitants, surrounded by clustered net of dozens smaller urban artisan/craft centers with 2-5 thousand people and dense net of smaller urban or rural settlements.

We don't know names for most of these, only their modern ones with the medium-size cities being for instance Hambarketelo (near Jenne), Kolima, Akumbu or Toladie in Mema etc., but they existed. In area approximately as large as Northern France to Rhine and (including) SW Germany

Some of those places declined and/or relocated before and during the period in question, but the peak of this urbanized culture(s) is, according to archaeology, roughly between 800-1100, with foundations in the 4th-5th centuries and declining in the warmer 12th century which expanded Sahara some 150-200 kilometers southwards.
The late 13th and 14th century saw relative revival of this civilization, with the core of economic and political life moved southwards to Manding and along the Niger, but from archaeological perspective the density and level of urbanization has never since reached the leves of 9th-11th centuries.

EDIT: Conclusion
I consider this relatively on par with mid 11th century France and Lowlands and most certainly more urbanized civilization than contemporary eastern half of Germany, Bohemia, Poland or Hungary...and even 9th century non-Mediterranean France.

EDIT2: which means, no, I haven't confused them with Nubia or Abyssinia. Although Nubia - according to archaeology - certainly wasn't far behind Egypt. But I don't consider it Sub-Saharan Africa.
(+ some additions, minor corrections and I had to make some grammar and spelling corrections, writing from a phone)

 

[elvain]

okay, finally at my computer, here's something so you won't think I'm making this all up.

A short section from Ray A. Kea's work Expansions and Contractions: World-Historical Change And The Western Sudan World-system
Part which roughly describes the scale of archaeological sites in the area described above. What I presented above is a very brief summary of this paper and number of other archaeological works

in other words, the density of pre 12th century settlements in Western Sudan in the area described as Middle Niger Valley is comparable to density in Mesopotamia. Other (archaeologic and climatologic) data and already conducted researches show that the peak of this World-system (preferred term instead of civilization) was between 9th and 12th century, hence the largest number of those settlements belong to this era. Could Europe in mid 11th century or mid 9th century be in any way compared to a civilisation as urbanized and developed as the one in the Fertile crescent?

On the other hand, we should be cautious. The existence of similarily highly urbanized society doesn't mean the same level of development like the Middle East. Through the lack of monumental architecture and known writing system it is clear that craftmanship and social organization were on lower level than in the most advanced parts of the world. But still quite ahead before early medieval Europe.

 

[erdem701]

My kindly proposal, because no city below Jerusalem not good i think

 

[elvain]

but the question is what city and should it be there historically?

the area you encyrcled to the south is a desert and was a desert in the game's period.
The place around Beit Jibrin or Hebron (al-Khalil) seem to be a barony already, although not built for some reason. So that's a possible potential improvement - the city probably should exist as built-up barony and not empty one.

The area you circled to the west of Jerusalem - just check the pictures with the entire game map - that area seems to be pretty packed already, when compared to other regions. I honestly don't think you could put a province there, as I explained in my previous posts.

But the area south of Hebron and south east of Gaza has always been a desert and frankly I have no idea why and what province should be there.