Hello, another of my africa threads, this time focusing on parts of southern africa
Now the precolonial history of this area is very obscure, no indigenous writing, almost no direct contact with the outside world, archeology don't 'speak' the way written sources do and oral traditions make for only so-so sources. Leading us to do a bit of a guess work in the region, and possibly using some ahistorical solutions (which is not unprecedented in the EUIV). The level of political organisation and cohesion in these areas varies, in the 17th-19th century many actual states emerges in the area, originally federations like the Mtethwa paramouncy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mthethwa_Paramountcy would be followed by larger kingdoms like the iconic Zulu kingdom of the 19th century, which occasionally get's requested on the forum. still we can see traces of proto-states throughout the area, larger tribe based society, by far more justifiable of a tag than many other existing tags currently in EUIV.
A note on sources: I have been reading relevant parts of several books on african history, internet webbpages, wikipedia, britannica online etc to puzzle up a doable suggestion. For this thread I will mainly link wikipedia, because it's easy to do. But much of my information, comes form books such as cambridge history of africa, Africans: the history of a continent (full PDF here https://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/file uploads /john_iliffe_africans_the_history_of_a_continentbookos.org_.pdf )
The first thing we need for this suggestion to work is a new government with the ability to migrate and to do overland raids
I have drawn enough maps for this forum, and that's an activity I'm not gonna continue with (for some time at least). The region of Transvaal, roughly located between Highveld and Zimbabwe, aswell as eastern parts of modern Botswana could be opened up and form around 3-4 new provinces.
Transvaal, one of the famous Boer republics, a region settled by european settlers in the 19th century, clearly proving it's habitable status and capacity to field provinces.
Possible province names include: Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Bechuanaland/Botswana (which would include parts of modern RSA), Swaziland
Anyway to the actual history part of this suggestion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_South_Africa
When and how the bantus spread in south africa can only be partially reconstructed through archeology and comparing to mdoern ethnicities and traditions. What's clear is that by 1400 a number of Bantu groups had started migrating into the more hospitable regions of Botswana and south africa, east of Kalahari and the cape area. These people can be further divided into a number of top-level groups, which had/would fracture into the modern groups of south africa and Botswana. Top level groups such as the Tswana-Sotho would form modern Tswana and Sotho people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sotho–Tswana_languages
Nguni groups would become Xhosa, Zulu, Swazi and others https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguni_people
Other Bantu tribes such as the Tsonga also existed in the region https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsonga_people
So my thoughts are to include a handfull of these groups as these Savanna chiefdoms in the area. The problems have been with difficult it can be to establish for example when Nguni people reached their modern core territory of the southeast african coast, migrating from further north.
My suggestion as of now are to include the following tribes:
Xhosa in Xhosa.
Mtetwa in Mtetwa
Sotho in Highveld
Tsonga in Limpopo
Tswana in new province (Botswana/Bechuanaland)
Zwasi in new province (Swaziland)
The alternative, as it's not sure whether Mtetwas (which are proto-zulu), Xhosa and other Nguni tribes had reached that far south yet. There could be a chiefdom higher up in the Transvaal, called Nguni which could have in it's NI's ideas making it drop of new chiefdoms at a higher rate leading to more states that can migrate south.
Now the precolonial history of this area is very obscure, no indigenous writing, almost no direct contact with the outside world, archeology don't 'speak' the way written sources do and oral traditions make for only so-so sources. Leading us to do a bit of a guess work in the region, and possibly using some ahistorical solutions (which is not unprecedented in the EUIV). The level of political organisation and cohesion in these areas varies, in the 17th-19th century many actual states emerges in the area, originally federations like the Mtethwa paramouncy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mthethwa_Paramountcy would be followed by larger kingdoms like the iconic Zulu kingdom of the 19th century, which occasionally get's requested on the forum. still we can see traces of proto-states throughout the area, larger tribe based society, by far more justifiable of a tag than many other existing tags currently in EUIV.
A note on sources: I have been reading relevant parts of several books on african history, internet webbpages, wikipedia, britannica online etc to puzzle up a doable suggestion. For this thread I will mainly link wikipedia, because it's easy to do. But much of my information, comes form books such as cambridge history of africa, Africans: the history of a continent (full PDF here https://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/file uploads /john_iliffe_africans_the_history_of_a_continentbookos.org_.pdf )
The first thing we need for this suggestion to work is a new government with the ability to migrate and to do overland raids
Savanna Chiefdoms are a tribal government unique to a number of tribal states found throughout eastern and southern africa. They have the ability to migrate, as long as they're an OPM and also the ability to perform overland raids, as from my suggestion on steppe hordes: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...chanics-ideasgroup-buildings-bukhara.1048624/
Second spoiler, under the heading "horde raiding"
There are also a third mechanic I envision the Savanna chiefdom to have, I have been toying around with different ways to deal with the fact that these sort of societies often fragmented. Among Bantus and many other tribal people for that matter, it was common for princes to take a group of the people and break of and settle another valley, forming a new chiefdom. Or in the case of already nomadic people, just branching of in different directions.
The main way I imagine this mechanic could work is as a meter in the government interface. Once it fills up, an event fires which creates a new OPM on the borders of the motherstate. It should be a politically independent state, but the event should allow the player to tag switch if they so wish (this would be the way to create the Zulu kingdom)
The concept of Savanna Chiefdoms I originally developed for tribal groups in east africa, like the Nuer, Dinka, Maasai, Turkana and Azande. I have made some brief suggestions about some of these groups in the past, and there will be a suggestion about south sudan and east africa in the future (not by me) so I'm leaving that part out of here
Second spoiler, under the heading "horde raiding"
There are also a third mechanic I envision the Savanna chiefdom to have, I have been toying around with different ways to deal with the fact that these sort of societies often fragmented. Among Bantus and many other tribal people for that matter, it was common for princes to take a group of the people and break of and settle another valley, forming a new chiefdom. Or in the case of already nomadic people, just branching of in different directions.
The main way I imagine this mechanic could work is as a meter in the government interface. Once it fills up, an event fires which creates a new OPM on the borders of the motherstate. It should be a politically independent state, but the event should allow the player to tag switch if they so wish (this would be the way to create the Zulu kingdom)
The concept of Savanna Chiefdoms I originally developed for tribal groups in east africa, like the Nuer, Dinka, Maasai, Turkana and Azande. I have made some brief suggestions about some of these groups in the past, and there will be a suggestion about south sudan and east africa in the future (not by me) so I'm leaving that part out of here
I have drawn enough maps for this forum, and that's an activity I'm not gonna continue with (for some time at least). The region of Transvaal, roughly located between Highveld and Zimbabwe, aswell as eastern parts of modern Botswana could be opened up and form around 3-4 new provinces.
Transvaal, one of the famous Boer republics, a region settled by european settlers in the 19th century, clearly proving it's habitable status and capacity to field provinces.
Possible province names include: Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Bechuanaland/Botswana (which would include parts of modern RSA), Swaziland
Anyway to the actual history part of this suggestion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_South_Africa
When and how the bantus spread in south africa can only be partially reconstructed through archeology and comparing to mdoern ethnicities and traditions. What's clear is that by 1400 a number of Bantu groups had started migrating into the more hospitable regions of Botswana and south africa, east of Kalahari and the cape area. These people can be further divided into a number of top-level groups, which had/would fracture into the modern groups of south africa and Botswana. Top level groups such as the Tswana-Sotho would form modern Tswana and Sotho people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sotho–Tswana_languages
Nguni groups would become Xhosa, Zulu, Swazi and others https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguni_people
Other Bantu tribes such as the Tsonga also existed in the region https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsonga_people
So my thoughts are to include a handfull of these groups as these Savanna chiefdoms in the area. The problems have been with difficult it can be to establish for example when Nguni people reached their modern core territory of the southeast african coast, migrating from further north.
My suggestion as of now are to include the following tribes:
Xhosa in Xhosa.
Mtetwa in Mtetwa
Sotho in Highveld
Tsonga in Limpopo
Tswana in new province (Botswana/Bechuanaland)
Zwasi in new province (Swaziland)
The alternative, as it's not sure whether Mtetwas (which are proto-zulu), Xhosa and other Nguni tribes had reached that far south yet. There could be a chiefdom higher up in the Transvaal, called Nguni which could have in it's NI's ideas making it drop of new chiefdoms at a higher rate leading to more states that can migrate south.
Zulu empire:
As a savanna chiefdom created through the savanna mechanic, reform into a monarchy and have kingdom rank
As a savanna chiefdom created through the savanna mechanic, reform into a monarchy and have kingdom rank
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