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Tinto Flavour #4 - 31st of January 2025 - Mali

Hello, and welcome one more week to Tinto Flavour, the happy Fridays in which we take a look at the flavourful content created for the super secret Project Caesar! But before we start, I want to share with you that we have a new job opening in Paradox Tinto: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/come-work-for-tinto.1727521/

Today we will be traveling throughout the Sahara toward the Sahel, where the Empire of Mali stands, ruled by the infamous Mansa Mūsā:

"The mighty Mansa Mūsā Keita of Mali astonished the world one decade ago, when he performed his Ḥajj ('pilgrimage') to Mecca. Such an event was recorded by chroniclers and chanted by minstrels, and it served to establish his fame as the richest man as he spread his prodigality, gifting Zakāh ('almsgiving') gold wherever his long and luxurious courtly caravan passed by.

This display of splendor might have reflected the richnesses of the Malian lands, after its Empire expanded and consolidated under the Keita dynasty. However, one day Mansa Mūsā will pass away, and his successors may not find it so easy to rule over his very diverse holdings..."

Country Selection.png

The mighty Mansa Mūsā is still ruling Mali in 1337 (we don’t know exactly when he died, so we decided to have him as the ruler at the start of the game). As usual, please consider the UI, 2D and 3D art as WIP.

And here are the lands of Mali:
Mali.png

Some more fun camera rotations this week! Today, with the flat map mode on again.

Mali starts with one Vassal, which is Jolof:
Jolof 1.png

Jolof 2.png

Let’s take a look at some Government-related features of Mali, which can be checked in the Estates window:
Estates.png

There is one starting government reform for Mali, the Manden Kurufa:
Manden Kurufa.png

You might also notice that all Estates start with a privilege with the same icon, as it’s a similar one, made to portray the religious diversity of Mali, a country ruled largely by Mande-speaking Sunni people, but with a fragmented, but tolerant, society:
Protected Faith.png

Religions.png

The second screenshot comes from a tooltip on the Religious panel and shows the religious distribution of the country. Please note that we’ve already done the ‘Pagan’ split, but haven’t yet incorporated feedback from the West African Tinto Maps, nor reviewed the starting population.

There are also a couple of unique privileges for the 'Umarā', the Nobility of the country, that may be available later on after an event triggers:
Office of the Farima-Soura.png

Office of the Sankar-Zouma.png

Mali also starts with a couple of unique policies enacted, the first for the Distribution of Power estate law, and the other for the Levy Law military law:
Gbra.png

Ton-tan-jon-ta-ni-woro.png

Mali also starts with 3 Works of Art:
Works of Art.png

Let’s now take a look at some unique advances:
Koroukan Faga.png

This advance is the one that unlocks the Manden Kurufa government reform.

Gold of Bure.png

Mali is famous for its gold exports, yeah…

Mali has a bunch of unique units, also:
Mandekalu Levies.png

Here are the Levy units unlocked by it:
Mandekalu Infantry.png

Mandekalu Horsemen.png

You might note that the description of these two levy units refers to the Farari Corps, which is the following advance:
Farari Corps.png

That unlocks the following Regular units:
Farari Infantry.png

Farari Cavalry.png

Another unique advance:
Kele-Koun.png

That unlocks the Jonow Auxiliary, an Auxiliary unit:
Jonow Auxiliary.png

Finally, another military advance, that unlocks one more unit, and two more buildings:
Sofa Levies.png

Sofa Infantrymen.png

Sofa Barracks.png

Sofa Stockade.png

Let’s now take a look at the narrative content. This event will trigger while Mansa Mūsā is still alive, as an announcement of the potentially harsh time to come:
Zenith of the Mali Empire.png

This is the disaster that may end up triggering for your country, ‘Decline of Mali’:
Decline of Mali 1.png

It will trigger a number of nasty events, such as:
A fragmented realm.png

This event allows you to start playing with Songhai instead of Mali if you select the third option.

If you overcome the disaster, you’ll get a reward, in terms of Prestige, Stability, etc. (we need to do some balance tweaks on it, so there might be more!).

Nonetheless, besides the disaster, you can also get nicer events while playing as Mali, such as some about the development of Timbuktu:
Bolstering Timbuktu.png

And that’s all for today! I hope you enjoyed it! Next week we will travel back to Europe, to the lands of the Crown of Aragon! Cheers!
 
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Are all the unique units of Mali unlockable in the age of renaissance? That seems a lot, also am I crazy or can levy units become standing units?
 
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The one with the red banner behind it? It's the Building Category, which is 'Military' for the Sofa Barracks, and 'Defensive' for the Sofa Stockade.
What about the checkmark? Also why does the desciption says that they are made of materials native to the Sahel when they are common to everywhere?
 
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Are the Wangara estate dominated by the Soninke culture? Wangara is specifically a Soninke merchant caste widely distributed throughout West Africa iirc
The Dyula was the merchant caste among the Mande-speaking people, and they're over-represented among the Wangara, yes.
 
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Thanks for the dev diary! I'm curious, given Project Caesar simulates internal politics in more detail than EU4 did, what was the reasoning behind giving Mali a specific disaster for a period of internal political decline? Which parts of Mali's historical decline did you find that PC wasn't able to capture just by giving Mali a weak ruler and letting the regular systems play out?
 
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Why did Mali deteriorate, or at least diminish, after Mansa Musa?

Paradox GSGs are at their best when they illustrate why certain nations acted as they did, and why certain events happened. But after this DD (which is otherwise great, don't get me wrong), I'm no closer to understanding what it was about the succession that brought the downfall. This feels a bit like there is a disaster just because there was a downfall in real life. What was the reasoning behind the pullback?
 
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Are all the unique units of Mali unlockable in the age of renaissance? That seems a lot, also am I crazy or can levy units become standing units?
1. Yes, as this period is the zenith of Mali's military power, and also a gameplay tool to fight the 'Decline of Mali' and its consequences.
2. In this specific case, the Mandekalu levies can become Farari regular units, which is a very unique feature.
 
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"Bolstering Timbuktu" says "the growth of Town." I assume this should either be "the growth of Timbuktu" or "the growth of our Town."

Anyway, this is neat. I don't know a lot about West Africa during this period, but I'm interested in seeing more.

Incidentally: Feedback left in the other Tinto Flavours after you stop posting in it is still being recorded by someone, right? I left some thoughts and suggestions in the Novgorod diary about the Orthodox clergy estate, but it was after you were done posting for the day. There have been a bunch of mentions about how the Tinto Map stuff gets constantly checked for new stuff to contribute to the reviews, but AFAIK nothing similar has been said for the Tinto Flavours.
 
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  1. Will more special units have access to this promotion system?
  2. Will generic units have access to something like this as well?
Currently not, it's something unique in the game; but as it's scriptable, this also means that could be expanded in the future, and also makes it modding material.
 
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