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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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Sorry, this is completely unrelated. But why isn't the ducat count more “realistic”? I feel like if, let’s say France was making several hundreds of thousands of ducats yearly, it would be far more immersive than them making a few hundred. At least for me. Is it a balancing issue?

Really great TF btw.
 
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Sorry, this is completely unrelated. But why isn't the ducat count more “realistic”? I feel like if, let’s say France was making several hundreds of thousands of ducats yearly, it would be far more immersive than them making a few hundred. At least for me. Is it a balancing issue?

Really great TF btw.
Smaller numbers are easier to work with mentally than bigger numbers. Though I assume in general similar to EU4 the amount of money being worked with at the end of the game will be more than at the start.
 
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Smaller numbers are easier to work with mentally than bigger numbers. Though I assume in general similar to EU4 the amount of money being worked with at the end of the game will be more than at the start.
Yeh that makes sense. But china is making way more than they are in EU4. In some TT it showed that china was making 1720 a month, with 2nd being the delhi sultanate with 540. And 3 others, lowest of which was bohemia with 50.
 
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View attachment 1249420

Feels like this should be available already in the Age of Traditions. Also to be pedantic, ”goldmines” is not a compound word, and also there weren’t actual mines there. Rather, gold was ”mined” from
the local rivers mostly by panning the water to get gold dust.

View attachment 1249425

Awesome dev diary btw :)
Often mining/quarrying/digging is involved for major gold yields of placer deposits though, "free gold" is often very limited in volume.
1738338652507.png

But I agree on Bouré, considering the capital Niani is situated on top of the gold field in question.
1738339006279.jpeg
 
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Can you tell me if this information is also present at the 'lobby' (Country selection screen)?

This type of information will help me decide to play a country more that a 3d model in a throne room.

I also agree that "Urban locations" should change to Locations where there number presented will be Urban / Rural
I would add the estate card to the information presented at the lobby (Even if it is just Icon : power value , satisfaction value)
 
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Are we working on a fix so that Mali Empire and Mali don't appear three times each on this map?
If we find the solution can we apply it to the other maps (if I am looking at a contiguous blob of forest I don't need it listed a dozen times in it)
Mali.png
 
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The Sofa Barracks must be where Armchair Generals recruit their finest troops.
It's a couch fort for couch warriors, err "Sofa infantry".

Are we working on a fix so that Mali Empire and Mali don't appear three times each on this map?
If we find the solution can we apply it to the other maps (if I am looking at a contiguous blob of forest I don't need it listed a dozen times in it)
I believe the the repeat for forests is due to it being repeated in every area. Which makes sure that the word appears at least once on reasonable zoom levels. Imagine seeing only one giant "Desert" covering the Sahara, that would not be visible when looking at e.g. Mauretania. The repeats on the terrain/vegetation maps are annoying, but are probably justified.
The small Malis here are just the oases' labels, because the labels do not care for the "color in wastelands" settings apparently (except for their positioning).
 
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The dynamic triggering conditions are (take them as WIP and matter of review, as usual):


And this is the flavour description:


After the disaster is triggered and functioning, you can get several events about court intrigues, pretenders rising, social changes, and breakaway peoples, that try to make for an immersive experience. This is the description of one of those events, for example (with some dynamic localization in place, for those curious):

This gets at something that I think is really hard, but really important to making this best game it can be. Great that Mali has this immersive chain based on the real-life trajectory it took. What I think would bring the game to another level is if there are generic disasters that can trigger for any country that finds itself in a similar situation as real-life Mali. So if you as the player manage to create a regional superpower on somewhat shaky foundation, you run the risk of hitting this sort of disaster even if such thing did not happen IRL. People talk a lot about anti-snowball mechanics but really the biggest potential one is bringing in the real life reasons why massive empires faltered and not just applying to them to the historical ones but to anyone who creates such a country.
 
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Mali also starts with 3 Works of Art:

Let’s now take a look at some unique advances:
View attachment 1249383
This advance is the one that unlocks the Manden Kurufa government reform.

View attachment 1249384
Mali is famous for its gold exports, yeah…

Mali has a bunch of unique units, also:

Here are the Levy units unlocked by it:

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

That unlocks the following Regular units:

Another unique advance:

That unlocks the Jonow Auxiliary, an Auxiliary unit:

Finally, another military advance, that unlocks one more unit, and two more buildings:
Will these buildings and units have their own unique illustrations and artwork?

If you don't currently have the resources for it... should I make some?
 
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mfw Mali emperor in Asante throneroom

Are there plans to give West Sudanic states (Mali, Songhai, I'll throw in the Hausa and Kanem-Bornu states here too) their own unique art (could be a set of generic assets for each of these, since ig they're similar enough)? It feels quite odd to give the Mali Empire throne-room art associated with modern Ghana -- even stranger given that art is filled with motifs the increasingly islamized Mali emperors would have surely seen as pagan, and given the Mali state had no serious connections to Ghana, aside from as conquerors in the region of Begho/Bono.
 
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I believe the the repeat for forests is due to it being repeated in every area. Which makes sure that the word appears at least once on reasonable zoom levels.

Topography.jpg
If we look at the top of India (just below the mountains there are a spate of flatlands. That doesn't match area, provinces, location, countries,


Imagine seeing only one giant "Desert" covering the Sahara, that would not be visible when looking at e.g. Mauretania. The repeats on the terrain/vegetation maps are annoying, but are probably justified.
The small Malis here are just the oases' labels, because the labels do not care for the "color in wastelands" settings apparently (except for their positioning).
I would think that the positioning of the labels would depend on the zoom level and what is presented on the screen. That would be more reasonable. If this isn't possible then I would be working on it as it makes for a terrible presentation.

Looking at the countries in India (as that happened to be the one that I was looking at to grab the topo.) the Sultanate of Delhi appears only once (in a different location depending on if we are coloring wastelands). Neither of these locations would be visable if we were zoomed into the Bhojpar area.
 
1738345933488.png

This part of the UI looks really elegant. The color scheme is nice as well.
 

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If we look at the top of India (just below the mountains there are a spate of flatlands. That doesn't match area, provinces, location, countries,
Areas.jpg
Topography.jpg
Compare Areas and Topography. E.g. the placement of Doab and its accompanying flatlands, or the small neighboring Kholkihand flatland. There is one label per connected section with the same topography class and area (hence there is only one bit flatland label in Bengal). Any change in area or class counts as a boundary for this purpose.
I would think that the positioning of the labels would depend on the zoom level and what is presented on the screen. That would be more reasonable. If this isn't possible then I would be working on it as it makes for a terrible presentation.
That could lead to awkward behavior when moving the camera or zooming. A angled mapview would also be weird.
But, as at least these maps are not changeable, the labels could also be hardcoded later?

Looking at the countries in India (as that happened to be the one that I was looking at to grab the topo.) the Sultanate of Delhi appears only once (in a different location depending on if we are coloring wastelands). Neither of these locations would be visable if we were zoomed into the Bhojpar area.
The labels for countries follow different rules as what counts as a separate section - just connected locations belonging to the same country. Country names are only repeated for disjoint exclaves / islands.
 
Thank you for the info on the university of Timbuktu. Regarding Mansa Musa's death, I was saying that there's evidence he had already died by 1337, in the year 1332 which you guys seemingly missed. There are sources which support this if you would like to know more.
Oh, yes, there's a debate about 1332 or 1337. For those interested, here is the Wiki entrance, that links to some academic works: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansa_Musa#Death

We decided upon the most commonly accepted date of 1337, though.
 
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