No Incan navy?

[unmerged(25822)]

The Incas lived in an area that was almost empty , few Indios & Amazonian tribes only , south America is like 4 times bigger than Europe so if they felt the need to expand they could just move farther inland and plant a couple of colonies .
To fit that in game mentality go to history/countries file and edit INCA into Latin technology group , play the game up to 1550 and you will see why you don't need to built any ship .

 

[sprites]

if you do that you'll need some toget rid of pirates

 

[unmerged(140958)]

Although the Inca definitely would have had boats- they traded with a fair amount of countries on the Pacific coast, probably up to Panama- they wouldn't have had warships capable of transporting 1000 people at a time, and since that's the regiment size in EU3 it doesn't make sense to give them transport ships. Canoes, yeah, definitely, but not anything big. The Inca were not a maritime power to begin with, but just about every coastal nation in the Americas would have had boats. Myself, I'd like to know the archaeological basis for having countries like the Inca labeled as Tribal, but that's a different issue.

 

[Evie HJ]

To be fair, more or less nobody until fairly late in the EU era had ships capable of transporting 1000 men at a time. 200 soldiers per ship was closer to what Europe usually managed in the EU era.

For example, moving the 1200 men of the Carignan-Salière regiment from France to Canada in 1665 took 6 ships. In the same vein, the Armada's 22 galleons and 108 armed merchants carried 19 000 soldiers, not the 108 000 EU III would allow.

The logical conclusion is that a single transport in EU actually represent a flotilla of transports in sufficient amount to carry 1000 men.

And from that perspective, when you have war canoes (West Africa and the Pacific Northwest come to mind) that could stack up a hundred men in a boat...well, getting ten such boats together doesn't exactly stretch the imagination to the breaking point.

(As far as hypothetical might-have-beens...given what the Haida pulled toward the end of the EU timeline, I don't see why the other natives couldn't be given a shot at it earlier on)

 

[VivaStPauli]

And from that perspective, when you have war canoes (West Africa and the Pacific Northwest come to mind) that could stack up a hundred men in a boat...well, it's not TOO difficult to imagine getting enough of them together to amount for 1000 men.

Uhm having no experience what so ever in seafaring and/or war canoes I still find it hard to believe that these canoes would be able to sail the world oceans and transport troops any meaningful distance.

 

[Earl Uhtred]

Uhm having no experience what so ever in seafaring and/or war canoes I still find it hard to believe that these canoes would be able to sail the world oceans and transport troops any meaningful distance.

It would be the equivalent of trying to mount Operation Olympic with lilos.

 

[Evie HJ]

Given the sort of canoes we're talking about, it would be the equivalent of sailing long distances and crossing oceans in 60+ft long shallow draft wooden ships open to the elements and powered in large part or only by oarsmen.

Which sounds about impossible until you remember that this is pretty much exactly what the vikings did.

Granted, the longship were better boat than the war canoes, but long-range coastal operations would definitely be within the realm of what they could do. Trans-oceanic...we have no formal evidence they did do it, but in 1978 a dugout canoe built on the Haida model (with a sail added) went from Vancouver to Hawaii.

 

[jalapen0]

Canoes =\= navy

 

[Evie HJ]

What an enlightening statement.

So, canoes used for naval warfare (including ambushing western ships and capturing a half-dozen in the late EU era) and transport of troops over nearly a thousand kilometer cannot in any way be counted as a navy in EU terms?

What are they, then, in EU terms, if not a navy? (Besides which, historically speaking, most "navies" in large parts of the EU era were collections of private ships pressed into service during emergencies)

Much more realistic to give the natives the boats (and make it incredibly hard for them to get Quest For the New World) than to give them no boats at all. That way they can sail around freely the areas they did sail around freely, and they should have a hard time landing raiders in Europe.

 

[unmerged(66531)]

Gavin Menzies has a place right up there with Dan Brown and that Black Athena retard in the pantheon of crack pipe pseudohistorical fantasy.

You're talking like its some kind of accepted fact that the Chinese explored the Americas, when in fact it is nothing more than a wild theory. Sure, many of the ships in Zheng He's fleet had the capability of crossing to the Americas, but you'd think if they had gone all the way over there they would have left something behind, brought something back with them (They brought tons (literally) of stuff back from all over India and Africa, but no Incan artifacts? Please!) or at least mentioned the trip in any of their journals. But no, there are no artifacts or primary or secondary sources to validate this theory. Which is why the vast majority of historians reject it. It makes for good fictional reading though...

"Examination of the book's central claims reveals they are uniformly without substance."
-Professional Historian Robert Finlay on Gavin Menzies' 1421: The Year China Discovered America

"1421: The Year China Discovered the World, is a work of sheer fiction presented as revisionist history. Not a single document or artifact has been found to support his new claims on the supposed Ming naval expeditions beyond Africa...Menzies' numerous claims and the hundreds of pieces of "evidence" he has assembled have been thoroughly and entirely discredited by historians, maritime experts and oceanographers from China, the U.S., Europe and elsewhere."
-Professor SU Ming Yang of the United States, Dr. Jin Guo-Ping of Portugal, Captain Philip Rivers of Malaysia, Captain Malhão Pereira and Dr Geoff Wade of Singapore, in a message to the Library of Congress

did either of you actualy read the book? Gavin tells about many things that are indeed evidence. He explains things left behind, things taken (pretty sure), and why the chinese themselves destroyed most of the records. Like I said, almost nobody in the world wants to honestly consider these theories, because the 'history' books would have to be rewritten. Also, nobody wants to be made fun of, they want to be liked by everyone else, so they are not going to easily stick thier neck out for an idea.

it doesnt really matter much, we dont need to discuss this any further. the whole point of the thread is about Incan ships and weather they should be able to build them or not, or how a person can edit thier game to make it happen. My whole point about bringing up the treasure fleets was that to explain why there was a trust for the spanish and that the Inca would have the ability to make ships to cross the oceans if they had wanted to, but that they as a society were probably not ready to do.

 

[Colombo]

I see documentary film, where the best "proof", the chinesan world map was totally fake.
And maybe here I read, that best proof against theories of Chinesan conquering the New Wold are angry Japanese warships.

 

[sjones25]

did either of you actualy read the book? Gavin tells about many things that are indeed evidence.

To be fair, no I have not read the book. But thousands of professional historians have. And almost to a man they have rejected Gavin's theory, debunked his "evidences" and called his book a work of pure fiction. Personally, I would take their word on it over some ex-submarine officer.

I'm not saying that it isn't possible. The Chinese certainly had the capabilities and Zheng He certainly had the navigational skills and ambitions to have made the trip, but so far no evidence has stood up to professional scrutiny suggesting that the trip actually took place. You find me an authentic Chinese sword in Peru, get it carbon dated and verified to have been there 600 years and I'd happily admit Gavin's theory is right.

By the way his theory on why the Chinese records of the trip were destroyed make no sense. Zheng He reports a land overflowing with gold and other natural resources and the Empire's response is "We can't go back to claim it, its too expensive"? Thats like saying I'm not going to work to earn $10 an hour because it will cost me $0.50 in gasoline to get there.

 

[Trin Tragula]

"We can't go back to claim it, its too expensive"? Thats like saying I'm not going to work to earn $10 an hour because it will cost me $0.50 in gasoline to get there.

While not supporting the theory of Zheng Hes american travels in general I would like to note that the emperor did react this way to the Zheng Hes journeys in general and the other regions we do know Zheng He visited was a lot richer than the Americas (namely India) and was also a lot closer (granted also a lot harder to "claim" but as I recall atleast one of the kingdoms on Ceylon considered itself to be a Chinese vassal for 50 years or so after his visit. Then again India was very much part of the east asian trade network, including China, in general so going there to exact tribute might not've be the best course anyway.)

You find me an authentic Chinese sword in Peru, get it carbon dated and verified to have been there 600 years and I'd happily admit Gavin's theory is right

I don't know much about chinese swords but you'd have to date the handle or something as carbon dating metal would be rather hard

 

[sjones25]

While not supporting the theory of Zheng Hes american travels in general I would like to note that the emperor did react this way to the Zheng Hes journeys in general and the other regions we do know Zheng He visited was a lot richer than the Americas (namely India) and was also a lot closer (granted also a lot harder to "claim" but as I recall atleast one of the kingdoms on Ceylon considered itself to be a Chinese vassal for 50 years or so after his visit. Then again India was very much part of the east asian trade network, including China, in general so going there to exact tribute might not've be the best course anyway.)

You kinda argued yourself out of that argument... As you pointed out China did get everything it wanted out of India: tribute from those they could intimidate easily, and trade from those who were strong or hard to reach. But yet they took nothing from the rich lands of Peru and Mexico? Unlikely.

I don't know much about chinese swords but you'd have to date the handle or something as carbon dating metal would be rather hard

Lol. Perhaps a sword was a bad example, though I beleive there are other methods of radioactive dating used for non-organic artifacts such as swords.

 

[unmerged(41794)]

Minerals can be dated by a method known as termoluminescence. I don't know much about natural science so I can't explain the details (wikipedia can, though), but as far as I learnt from my antiquity studies course, it measures how long has passed since an object last saw sunlight.

 

[BritNavFan]

Given the sort of canoes we're talking about, it would be the equivalent of sailing long distances and crossing oceans in 60+ft long shallow draft wooden ships open to the elements and powered in large part or only by oarsmen.

Which sounds about impossible until you remember that this is pretty much exactly what the vikings did.

Granted, the longship were better boat than the war canoes, but long-range coastal operations would definitely be within the realm of what they could do. Trans-oceanic...we have no formal evidence they did do it, but in 1978 a dugout canoe built on the Haida model (with a sail added) went from Vancouver to Hawaii.

The Norse did not use longships for their transoceanic voyages. They used knarrs, which were broad-beamed sailing ships. (And if they wanted to navigate with any accuracy they stayed as close to land as they could. They were never intentionally out of sight of land for more than a few days.)

The Polynesians (including the Maoris) did use canoes for ocean-going voyages, and were capable of colonizing distant island groups. Were they capable of amphibious invasions? To some extent. I don't think it would be too far-fetched to create a Polynesian tech group that had ships and could invade each other.

The Spanish reported sighting a Peruvian trading vessel between Mexico and Peru, so one could certainly justify the Peruvians knowing the Aztecs etc. exist at the beginning of the game. But there's no reason to believe that the Incas could have moved armies by ship, much less that they could have supplied armies by ship, or that they could deny use of the sea to enemies, so I don't think they should, in EU3 terms, be able to build ships (without improving their tech group). In any case, it's much more important to give them some ability to expand their empire into adjacent provinces, which they certainly did historically and can't do in vanilla.

did either of you actualy read the book? Gavin tells about many things that are indeed evidence.

I did read the book. My suspension of disbelief failed when he claimed the Chinese circumnavigated Greenland. I haven't examined Menzies' claims in detail, but I don't think that you should necessary accept that something is true just because he claims it is.

 

[unmerged(148296)]

I think the guy wants to know if there is a way for him to build a navy as the incans.

 

[Trin Tragula]

You kinda argued yourself out of that argument...

Ah yes it seems I did, I was very tired.
I wasn't trying to prove the america travels anyway.

 

[unmerged(25822)]

if you do that you'll need some toget rid of pirates

The pirates are European phenomenon , if you ever see any Attahualpa leading a pirate gang please post a photo.

 

[Evie HJ]

BritNavFan - the art of supplying an army from the sea is something that, IIRC, developed fairly late in the era, no?

You're right, though, about the longships and their not being used on oceanic journeys.

Agreed that developing their overland expansion ability should come first, too.