Why are there firearms in the Americas prior to colonization?

[Orkonkel]

It just seems really strange that all American tech groups has access to cannons even before anyone colonizes the continent. As far as I know, many of the American tribes weren't actually hauling cannons around even past the end date of the game (or, y'know, ever?).

Another thing that seems strange to me is that we have unique units for different tech groups, but for some reason everyone has the same cannons. Surely, Chinese or Indian cannons different from European cannons?

It seems everyone's just sort of accepted that cannons are what they are, but it's just one of those pet peeves of mine tbh.

 

[Darth.]

Surely, Chinese or Indian cannons different from European cannons?

European cannons go brrr

Indian cannons go pew pew

 

[ImAdrian]

Ease of coding would be my guess, as they would have to turn cannons into special unit accessible only to certain tech groups in the code, and depending on how the engine works, it could be either easy, or a big hassle.

 

[RobbieAB]

Q1: The game completely fails to model just how vast the technology gap between Afroeurasia and the Americas really was. The reality is that the biggest barrier to conquest of the new world were the small moats surrounding the new world which prevented old world powers from casually shipping armies around the way you can in game. Any old world power fielding a contemporary field army in the new world was likely to have conquered any new world polity with ease, but logistically that was impossible.

Q2: I am not sure that there were any widespread successful cannon making traditions in the time period outside the European patterns. There is also a limited design space for “metal tube closed at one end to explode things in to blow things out the other end”.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Everyone's on the same tech path as an abstraction, so that's what we get.

It's not the craziest thing that happens there though. At tech 6, you get horses. While the natives independently inventing cannons was wildly improbable, at least the materials to accomplish it were present and some future mind instructing them could get them to do it.

Even today, building horses from not-horses would be challenging. I doubt we have such a technology. And that's before we consider that if you make a Hindu primitive in NA/SA, you can have elephant cavalry immediately at tech 1. Even more challenging to build elephants from not-elephants than it is to make horses!

 

[Me_]

The entire unit system is painfully outdated. It contains meaningless choices (which units to choose? - there's always one that is better and the choice is obvious or both are equally viable and the choice is meaningless) and stuff like identical canons and ships for the entire world.

 

[ImAdrian]

The entire unit system is painfully outdated. It contains meaningless choices (which units to choose? - there's always one that is better and the choice is obvious or both are equally viable and the choice is meaningless) and stuff like identical canons and ships for the entire world.

That's a good point about the unit choice - to me it was always unclear which unit to pick, as it was hard to tell in which situations one would be better than the other. So I just have an excel spreadsheet open with the best unit for each tech level... It's not really a good design

 

[Sete]

Q1: The game completely fails to model just how vast the technology gap between Afroeurasia and the Americas really was. The reality is that the biggest barrier to conquest of the new world were the small moats surrounding the new world which prevented old world powers from casually shipping armies around the way you can in game. Any old world power fielding a contemporary field army in the new world was likely to have conquered any new world polity with ease, but logistically that was impossible.

Q2: I am not sure that there were any widespread successful cannon making traditions in the time period outside the European patterns. There is also a limited design space for “metal tube closed at one end to explode things in to blow things out the other end”.

There was.

 

[RobbieAB]

@Sete Immediately before your first hilighted section the line is "had become". That, to me, implies they had not been better before the Portuguese arrived. While they had a native industry, the whole paragraph suggests it rapidly merged in European ideas, and with a two way exchange, implied by the second hilighted section, any advantages the local industry had were incorporated into European designs, effectively merging the two traditions.

Now there might be a legitimate case to be made that it was less a European tradition and more a global tradition, but that would reinforce my initial point: there was only one widespread large scale tradition of artillery design.

A more interesting counter argument would be that different cultures used their field artillery in different ways in their armies. Such differences, in the game abstraction, could be captured in the infantry differences, which after all, are definitely gunpowder equipped by the end of the game.

 

[xrws31]

It always seemed weird to me that, supposedly CK2 was the "diplomacy" game and EU4 was the "war" game, and yet the combat mechanics and unit-choices in CK2 are significantly deeper than those in EU4.

 

[Zander]

It always seemed weird to me that, supposedly CK2 was the "diplomacy" game and EU4 was the "war" game, and yet the combat mechanics and unit-choices in CK2 are significantly deeper than those in EU4.

Well, in one sense the CK style makes it much less about "strategy" - since some unit setups are vastly, vastly better than others, it really becomes much more about "pick the best combination and fight 5x better than the AI". While that's engaging for one kind of player, it's still reductive and strongly encourages things like switching to an OP culture.

 

[Junuxx]

Yeah there is much room for improvement with the depiction of early artillery. I hope that EU5 will make a better attempt at distinguishing between field and siege artillery. And have it appear earlier.

The first cannons in game appear at Tech 7 (supposedly around 1492). Everyone knows that siege artillery was essential in the siege of Constantinople 40 years earlier, and that was hardly the first relevant occurrence.

 

[Jarvin]

The entire unit system is painfully outdated. It contains meaningless choices (which units to choose? - there's always one that is better and the choice is obvious or both are equally viable and the choice is meaningless) and stuff like identical canons and ships for the entire world.

That's literally the entire game in a nutshell.
Whether it's about choosing a unit type, an option in an event or what building to make in a province, the "choices" that the game gives to us are always a non-choice if you understand how all the modifiers work. This isn't a great game design, but at the same time, to be brutally honest, it works, as most players don't actually know how the mechanics in this game function.
The number of people I've seen or talked with who either pick unit types at random, or pick with wrong understanding of what pips do, or by using some wrong sheet(like old Zwirbaum's) far, far, far outweighs the number of people who actually know what to pick.

That's a good point about the unit choice - to me it was always unclear which unit to pick, as it was hard to tell in which situations one would be better than the other. So I just have an excel spreadsheet open with the best unit for each tech level... It's not really a good design

Not that it matters, but the likelihood of that sheet being actually accurate is low

 

[ImAdrian]

That's literally the entire game in a nutshell.
Whether it's about choosing a unit type, an option in an event or what building to make in a province, the "choices" that the game gives to us are always a non-choice if you understand how all the modifiers work. This isn't a great game design, but at the same time, to be brutally honest, it works, as most players don't actually know how the mechanics in this game function.
The number of people I've seen or talked with who either pick unit types at random, or pick with wrong understanding of what pips do, or by using some wrong sheet(like old Zwirbaum's) far, far, far outweighs the number of people who actually know what to pick.

Not that it matters, but the likelihood of that sheet being actually accurate is low

Yup, the sheet says "According to Zwirbaum" so i assume its not accurate anymore? Still, it's online on google docs and I always see like 30-40 people looking at it.

 

[Jarvin]

Yup, the sheet says "According to Zwirbaum" so i assume its not accurate anymore? Still, it's online on google docs and I always see like 30-40 people looking at it.

Goes to prove my point from earlier that even though most 'choices' like with unit types are fairly obvious once you get a hold of how they work, most people still don't actually follow that.

That entire sheet, both for unit compositions and unit types(though unit types is slightly better because it's also easier to get than army compos) is absolutely garbage and if I could somehow contact the author of it I'd legit pay him to remove it, just so that all those people stop falling for it.

okay /s, I wouldn't actually pay him. I think EU4 loses a ton of its charm once you learn how its underlying mechanics work so these days I typically encourage people to not even bother trying to 'play good'.
It's still frustrating though to see just how many people consider that sheet to be an authority of any sorts

 

[Sete]

@Sete Immediately before your first hilighted section the line is "had become". That, to me, implies they had not been better before the Portuguese arrived. While they had a native industry, the whole paragraph suggests it rapidly merged in European ideas, and with a two way exchange, implied by the second hilighted section, any advantages the local industry had were incorporated into European designs, effectively merging the two traditions.

Now there might be a legitimate case to be made that it was less a European tradition and more a global tradition, but that would reinforce my initial point: there was only one widespread large scale tradition of artillery design.

A more interesting counter argument would be that different cultures used their field artillery in different ways in their armies. Such differences, in the game abstraction, could be captured in the infantry differences, which after all, are definitely gunpowder equipped by the end of the game.

I was specifically refering to canon making traditions.

Ignore the highlight, I made for another post and cant remember for what it was lol

 

[RobbieAB]

@Sete let's agree to call it a global tradition of making fat metal tubes to explode things in.

Actually, rereading that article, what jumped out to me was the name checking of iron cannon, was Europe still working in bronze? My understanding is that India tended to crucible steel compared with Europe favouring bloomery iron. This potentially would have given Indian gunsmiths a substantial material advantage.

 

[colinljx]

1. Technically speaking, material exchange begins as you discover America, so no problem there with native firearms.

2. Superior cannons for Asians sounds nice, since they don't have the early/late game pip advantage that muslims and western units have.

 

[J Farrell]

Because it's a game and not a documentary.

 

[Sete]

@Sete let's agree to call it a global tradition of making fat metal tubes to explode things in.

Actually, rereading that article, what jumped out to me was the name checking of iron cannon, was Europe still working in bronze? My understanding is that India tended to crucible steel compared with Europe favouring bloomery iron. This potentially would have given Indian gunsmiths a substantial material advantage.

Portugal did take a lot of cooper into Asia aswell if I'm not wrong, and set up armouries around especially in Goa and Macau for bronze casting of cannons.
I read somewhere that in Java they were skilled smiths aswell.