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Tinto Flavour #17 - 13th of May 2025 - Vijayanagar & Indian regional content

Hello, and welcome one more week to Tinto Flavour, the happy Fridays Tuesdays & Fridays in which we take a look at the content of Europa Universalis V!

Today we will talk about three topics: the generic content available for most of the countries in India; the unique content of Vijyanagar; and other regional content available for other Indian countries. A meaty TF, so let’s start without further ado!

Let’s start by talking about the generic content available for Indian countries. There are some reforms, policies, and units that are available to most countries, like these:

Nayankara System.jpg


Poligar.jpg


Paik System.jpg

The Paik System unlocks three types of levies, depending on the age:

Early Paik.jpg

Paik.jpg

Late Paik.jpg

There are also Elephant units:
Elephant Cavalry.jpg

Elephant Auxiliary.jpg

And a building that produces Ivory from Elephants - For those of you not so tuned into the Tinto Maps series, we’re representing African elephants with the Ivory resource, and the Indian elephants with the Elephants resource, so it can be used for units (as Elephants), or for other economic purposes, by transforming it first into Ivory with this building:
Elephant Hunting Grounds.jpg

Advances like:
Saqiyah.jpg

And a unique type of vassalage - The Samanta System, with 3 different subject types:
Samanta Feudalism.jpg

Samanta.jpg

Maha-Samanta.jpg

Pradana-Maha-Samanta.jpg

Finally, let’s take a look at the flavour naming of the states in the Hindu Indian countries:
Indian Estates.jpg



Let’s now take a look at the unique flavour content of Vijayanagar, a country that in 1337 was leading the resistance against the Sultanate of Delhi in Southern India:

The newly founded Mahārājya of Vijayanagar stands strong after the momentous defeat of Delhian troops in the Deccan, with Mahārājā Harihara Sangama and his brother Crown Prince Bukka Raya Sangama leading the fight against the Muslim rulers of India.

Although the Vijayanagari rule has only recently been established, the current situation in the Deccan promises us a rapid rise to power if we can utilize our momentum correctly, as we can secure control over important trade routes between China and Europe, and profit from exporting valuable goods from our resource-rich lands.


Vij Country Selection.jpg

Vijayanagar1.jpg

Vijayanagar2.jpg


Vijayanagar has a unique policy for the Administrative System law:
Vij Rajya.jpg

It also has unique advances, as usual:
Vij City of Victory.jpg

Vij Bunds.jpg

Vij Bund.jpg

Vij Carnatic Music.jpg

And it also has several flavour events, such as:
Vij Prophecy of.jpg

Arirayavibhada.jpg


Administration of the Realm.jpg

Multilingual Court.jpg


Vij Astadiggajas.png

Astadiggajas.jpg

Another country with unique content is Orissa, which has a very interesting setup, with some countries as Samanta subjects:
Ori Country Selection.jpg

Orissa1.jpg


Ori Anka Year.jpg

Ori Elephants.jpg

Ori Elephants 2.jpg

Ori Odia.jpg

We also have unique content for countries such as Bengal, Bahmani, and Pandua. For example, in the first case, it starts as three independent countries, which in the case of unifying the region and forming the Sultanate of Bengal:
Bengal.jpg

Would get contents and events such as:
Pandua.jpg

Finally, we also have a bunch of content for other formable countries, that will work as ‘regional powers’ with unique content such as advances, etc. This is a list of these formables:
  • Deccan
  • Gujarat
  • Hindustan
  • Marathas
  • Mughals
  • Nepal
  • Punjab
  • Rajputana

…But since this Tinto Flavour is already long enough, you’ll have to find out about it when playing our game, as that’s all for today!

Remember that tomorrow there will be a Tinto Talks about Hinduism, Jainism & Sikhism; on Friday a Tinto Flavour about Delhi; and next Monday we will have the Tinto Maps Feedback for India. Cheers!
 
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If I recall right Vijay has much less population (2 v 3M I think) then the kingdom to the south. What makes Vijay a better start? Do they have unique flavor relating to conquering Delhi?
Vijayanagar was the 'historical winner' of the region, until it fell to the Bahmani Sultanate. Therefore, we prioritized its content over Hoysala. Nonetheless, you can access new flavour content starting as Hoysala by forming one of the formables, it's how we organized the flavour content of the region.
 
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Could you perhaps add some info on Zoroastrianism in tomorrow's dev diary? I know I'm on heavy hopium, but zoroastrianism has a common rigvedic origin with hinduism and I don't think it fits in any other dev diary.
 
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Is the reduced food production and possible nobles (presumably landowners) something that also appears on other raw material producing buildings? We haven't really seen that before, it wasn't on the fiber crops farm for example.

Why does the icon for Possible Nobles have a heart?
There are 5 estate buildings and 2 unique buildings that also use this modifier.
 
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So, here is my question... I almost* always play England, so, of course, I am going to be naturally biased towards the benevolent British colonial rule of India. ;P But assuming that the East India Company will be the actual country (or at least an IO) in the base game, what are their units going to look like? Units used by other Indian states? Indian units unique to any East Indian companies formed by a European country? Or just European units? Indeed, what are units raised in far-off lands very different from the homeland going to look like? Moreover, EIC regiments were all contract, so no conscription there.

EIC armies were generally raised to fight the colonial wars and to defend its company holdings, so they are unlikely to be suitable for any deployments in Europe in the timeframe covered by EU5, their standards tending to be lower than that of the regular Crown forces, and there need to be things to make transporting any armies from your colonies to Europe much, much unattractive. And, of course, EIC is a company that always seem to have hard times trying to not fall into a bankruptcy, and that isn't just limited to the British (Dutch and French (one, two!) seem to suck at them, too). ;P So, not a good one to rely on in European battlefields when they can't keep their finances straight. You might as well have to subsidize their forces in Europe... not worth the expenses when you aren't fighting a total war in this era. ;)

I could see deployment of EIC regiments to the East African coast to augment the Crown forces fighting colonial wars there, but not so much sending of EIC regiments to that cold, rocky island of Heligoland... ;P

Seeing that unit card is what prompted me to ask these questions.

* So far, played Brandenburg and Savoy at least once to play the early unification of Germany and Italy, respectively. :p But I should change that... maybe attempt the Byzantine Empire next. Byzantine East India Company, when? ;)
 
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Very nice, do the maldives have any unique content ?
Sadly not. There are more than a hundred countries in India, so we needed to prioritize which countries would get more or less unique content, and then structure the rest around the regional formables.
 
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Wait, these guys were known for resisting the muslim invasion, but then in 1444 all their expansion is to the south in hindu territories, what a twist!
Well, Timur was known as the "Sword of Islam", and yet the Crusaders wished they could have killed half as many Muslims as he did.
The only time he went to war with non-Muslims he promptly keeled over and died.

Many such cases, indeed.
 
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A few comments:
1. The Nayankara system and Palaiyakkarars (Poligars) were limited to the Karnata Samrajya (Vijayanagara), while Paiks were limited to Mallabhum and the states of North-Eastern India, so making them generic Indian advances feels odd.
2. Characterising the Vijayanagara Empire as a "Hindu polity" which stood as a "bulwark against Islamic expansion" is quite reductive especially wrt modern academia. Their cosmopolitan character and composite culture is a rich tapestry; Carnatic music didn't diverge from Hindustani because of some desire to "keep music pure".
4. Why not call the Odia advance "Gajapati"? It means the exact same thing and is shorter too. Also it's Odia or Oria or Oriya or Odiya not Orissan.
5. Why is the Vijayanagara Raja half naked???? It is very well attested that they wore persian-style clothes with ornate Indian crowns. And weird to see Odias sharing Telugu costumes.

Also, please consider the following salient points for showing me one or two Bengali advances:
please please please please please please please please please please please please
 
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This is all cool. Vijayangar and Orissa are two fun nations. I am also happy to see so many people and the tribal faiths of india being repersented just makes me happy.

can you tell us if any of the tamil kingdoms like the Pandayas or Cholas would have flavor? what about Sri Lanka will they have anything? being a buddhist kingdom in south asia makes them fun.
 
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What does "allow assume fort command" do?
Assume Fort Command.jpg


This gives a Defensiveness bonus and a Fort Maintenance Reduction to the locations in the selected area.
 
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