Why does Northern Africa start more developed than other places?

[Anthropoid]

I was wondering why some of the best soldiers who would come to join me in Bohemia in ca. 790 AD tended to be from Northern Africa.

 

[Woifee]

I recently read a very good book called 'Why the west rules the world...for now' by a Geographer/Historian called Ian Morris. It's a pretty long book, but it does contain lots of graphs that compare technological and social development between the East and West over the course of history. It's a pretty crude visual indicator, but the attached graph tracks social development from 14,000bc - 2000ce in the 'East' vs. 'West'.

In the CKII early starts most historians agree that Eastern cultures were significantly more developed than Western ones, hence why the west oftern refers to this period as the 'Dark Ages'.

View attachment 446521

How do they quantify Social Development? And what Sources the Author uses for that 10.000 bce?

 

[Vokasak]

Also I kinda feel like your last line was kinda of talking shit.

This isnt Byzantine fanboying if it was then I would be talking about oh how the Turks demolished Constantinople, how the Fourth Crusade was all the West’s fault. How Justinian was a god who didn’t ravage the hell out of Italy.

Maybe if you didn’t name yourself “Byzantium2000” it would take people longer than 5 seconds to figure out who you fanboy over.

And let’s not kid ourselves, you’re perfectly capable of being a fanboy and on-topic at the same time. No need to set the bar at “must talk about the Turks in a thread about North Africa”

 

[elvain]

I was wondering why some of the best soldiers who would come to join me in Bohemia in ca. 790 AD tended to be from Northern Africa.

Now that is really weird. This shouldn't be happening. For centuries it was rather the other way around: Europeans fought in Muslim, especially North African Armies, either as slave soldiers (early medieval Central Europeans) or as mercenaries (various Spanish, Portugese + some French and possibly even English) in 12the-13th century North Africa.

 

[wingren013]

How do they quantify Social Development? And what Sources the Author uses for that 10.000 bce?

Just ignore it. Social development is a nonsense term. We can talk about societal complexity, or technogical development, or economic development; but social development isn't a thing.

 

[Anthropoid]

Now that is really weird. This shouldn't be happening. For centuries it was rather the other way around: Europeans fought in Muslim, especially North African Armies, either as slave soldiers (early medieval Central Europeans) or as mercenaries (various Spanish, Portugese + some French and possibly even English) in 12the-13th century North Africa.

It isn't like I'm getting large numbers of them . . . only 6 to a dozen during any given 30 year period (at one point in my current IronMan I had at least six African phenotype dudes recruited all of whom had a Martial skill between 24 and 17 . . . I made one of them Count of Opava!). And when I say soldiers I mean "characters;" one of the foibles of the games design that population is not represented in any meaningful way so the sort of dynamic you are referring to isn't really possible.

Also, I'm not really paying attention where they are from originally. I just noticed they have African phenotypes, African names, the African pagan religion thing, and they are in range of Bohemian (with restricted diplomatic range) so "Northern African" might actually mean "along with some Levant, Arabian peninsula and Nile valley" recruits too . . .

What I really should have said was "I manage to recruit some of the highest Martial skilled characters in the world from Northern Africa playing as a Bohemia ruler in ca. 790, which seemed weird to me." Given what folks who know the history more are saying, it would make sense if there were some errant or wayward soldiers, 2nd sons, landless minor nobles, etc., who had received the best of training but were now largely excluded from any real opportunities in their home region and so were keen to go join an upstart Bohemian Duke/King.

Frankly the diplomatic contact functionality is only borderline "believable"

Little too much board game mentality in the design . . . but ah well, delightful game!

 

[BeyondExpectation]

I was wondering why some of the best soldiers who would come to join me in Bohemia in ca. 790 AD tended to be from Northern Africa.

For a second I thought you were talking about elvain, as he's a Bohemia who always gives info on Africa.