Tinto Maps #10 - 12th of July 2024 - Syrian Levant & Egypt

[Pavía]

This is look pretty awesome!
- Why is Hijazi a transliteration of the Arabic name, but then you have names like Egyptian, Libyan and Levantine? I'd honestly just stick with the English names.
- Libyan is out of timeframe as a name - I'd suggest Tripolitanian, as the Ottoman Regency of Tripoli ruled most of modern Libya. Super happy it's finally in the game instead of an awkward split between Egyptian and Tunisian though.
- Is Najidi a typo? It should be Najdi, without the i in the middle.
- What are the blue cultural minorities in Al Majdal? Samaritans? or crusader descendants? It might just not show on the map, but shouldn't Samaritans be concetrated around Nablus?
- Why did you choose to represent Alawites as Shiites? Indeed they originated from Shiism, but they were considered disbelievers by mainstream Shiite scholars, and they are extremely heterodox, apparently allowing alcohol, believing in reincarnation and a trinity, and didn't even have mosques in the 14th century. I think at least they should be a distinct sect of Islam.

Thanks for your feedback! The blue stripes in Al Majdal are Mizrahi Jews, which account for 15% of the population in the location.

 

[Pavía]

Still only one Shiite religion it seems....

I also question Najdi and Bedouin being on the map on the same time. Bedouins are just Arabs who live a nomadic lifestyle, Najdi Arabs are Bedouins.

Will there be any mechanics to represent the unique situation of the Mamluk monarchy, where a Mamluk usually coups the throne and has his descendants rule for a bit until getting couped by another Mamluk but it's all considered part of the same "dynasty" if the Mamluks are of ethnic origin?

Will there be anything to represent the Abbasid Caliph in Cairo?

We have some interesting mechanics for the Mamluks, yes.

 

[Pavía]

- Why did you choose to represent Alawites as Shiites? Indeed they originated from Shiism, but they were considered disbelievers by mainstream Shiite scholars, and they are extremely heterodox, apparently allowing alcohol, believing in reincarnation and a trinity, and didn't even have mosques before Baibars tried to force them to build them. I think at least they should be a distinct sect of Islam.

Still only one Shiite religion it seems....

I also question Najdi and Bedouin being on the map on the same time. Bedouins are just Arabs who live a nomadic lifestyle, Najdi Arabs are Bedouins.

Will there be any mechanics to represent the unique situation of the Mamluk monarchy, where a Mamluk usually coups the throne and has his descendants rule for a bit until getting couped by another Mamluk but it's all considered part of the same "dynasty" if the Mamluks are of ethnic origin?

Will there be anything to represent the Abbasid Caliph in Cairo?

Seems like they're choosing to represent Alawites as a culture rather than representing them as a religion. Which is probably fine.

Worth mentioning that "Alawite" is a neologism, the term "Nusayrite" (after their founder) was used by themselves and others at this time, the issue is that I think it's a bit offensive nowadays.

Shiites will be internally divided, as we want to portray the differences between their different denominations.

 

[Pavía]

I am surprised so much of the Mameluks is represented as under direct control instead of some sort of subject. Could be correct, I don't know much about them, but it feels wrong. In Europe during that time, true direct control was rare, and here distances are much greater, which should make direct control more of a challenge.

European and Islamic feudalism were different, and thus, we're portraying it differently. And yes, how to control your country is one of the challenges of the game.

 

[Pavía]

Do you guys have a mapmode for towns/cities?

Yes, but it's not something we want to show yet, as it's currently a matter of balancing and rebalancing, so we're not ready to start discussions about it.

 

[Pavía]

What kind of government is Candia - a monarchy or a republic?

And could we see, which locations are rural / town / city?

A republic.

 

[Pavía]

arent there too few locations in egypt? Egypt is supposed to be the breadbasket of many civilizations, but it looks like egypt has the least land so far. Wouldnt that make it incredibly weaker than basically every other nation?

It has a lot of population, and the food capacity and resources to sustain an even bigger population, potentially.

 

[Pavía]

Colored wastelands (I was just reporting that corridors should have similar behavior, which is most likely a bug):

 

[Pavía]

What, so it's going to be one "Shia" religion on the map but there will be "mechanics" to represent the different sects?

I don't think you appreciate just how much differences there are between a Nizari and an Imami. That's like having one "Christianity" religion for the entirety of Europe.

We think that we have a good way to portray it, as we're doing with other religions with very deep differences. We will talk more in the future about it, in any case, and receive and gather feedback, as usual.

 

[SaintDaveUK]

Fingers crossed! Although some of the members of the team, such as @SaintDaveUK , are probably crossing their fingers on the opposite direction...

Of course I support Spain, my adoptive country, the land of my employment, my new family, my new friends.

It's coming home

 

[Pavía]

Hi! Does that mean that sephardim and mizrahim will be considered as two different cultures? also will it be possible to recreate Israel? thanks!

They are different cultures, yes.

 

[Pavía]

What's with the obscured market in Sahara to the west of Egypt?

Low market access.

 

[Pavía]

Given how big the HRE is and how much feedback we're likely going to have, would your schedule fit it being split in half?

It wouldn't make much sense, TBH.

 

[Pavía]

I would love to give you feedback to the Egyptian locations and provinces but I literally can't read anything.

I'm working today on a laptop, and won't be able to make a better screenshot. I can provide you with a list of provinces, though:

1. Al Buhayra
2. Al Gharbiyya
3. Ash Sharqiyya
4. Cairo
5. El Minya
6. Asyut
7. Aswan

 

[Pavía]

So you aren't doing feedbacks in order? Eg. Poland is skipped for now even though it was the 4th?

Yes, as we need a bit more time to process all that feedback.

 

[Pavía]

It's really difficult to see the branching rivers, zoomed out almost impossible. There should be a bigger variation of river sizes.

Maps of the era, such as this one, show distinctive branches. There should at least be a second large branch to Damietta.

View attachment 1162503

We need to do some more work and review the rivers before sharing them; we'll probably start posting stuff about them before the end of the summer.

 

[Pavía]

At that point:

1) Lower Egypt starts in Cairo up to the North (in that fashion it would be even more reasonable to make it comprise Cyrenaica than Middle Egypt which has always been considered part of Lower Egypt).

2) In no logical, geographical or historical way Cyrenaica neither Eastern Desert are and were considered part of Upper Egypt

3) In this period there were important Coptic/Remenkemi (as cultural and not religious) communities that for sure should have a representative culture of their own.

4) people change the religion much quicker than culture. It's simple, culture is a full set of rules, language and ideas. Religion is mainly as much as 2 of those ones. If you start with a fully myaphisite Egypt, you should start with a fully Coptic/Remenkemi Egypt (which is not historical, but less wrong maybe than what's shown in the cultural map). In this fashion it should be some more muslim areas, as well Remenkemi/Coptic cultural spaces.

4. There's a Sunni majority in Egypt, with a Miaphysite minority, unless I'm not understanding you correctly.

 

[Pavía]

So religiously it was my wrong reading the bar density. Still the point, there was a huge cultural Coptic/Remenkemi population in the 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th and even 18th centuries, that I really think most of the potential players will think it deserve its place in the game

There's already a big Coptic population in the game, with different mechanics available to interact with it.

 

[Pavía]

Will there be multiple graphical options for colouring the wastelands and corridors? I'd like to have rules on both how they're coloured, and on the colour these segments get. Something like this:

• Wasteland colouring: off/majority control (wastelands coloured if one country has a majority of surrounding locations including corridors)/absolute control (wastelands coloured only if the country controls all surrounding locations)
• Corridor colouring: off/on (corridors coloured if the country controls the inhabitable location at each end)
• Empty terrain colour scheme: same as country/corridors same, wastelands faded/faded in gradient (corridors slightly faded, wastelands fully faded)/all fully faded

The reason I want the last one is because I think it'd be good to have a visual shorthand for when a country has total effective control over both sides of a corridor, and when a country has effective control over a whole region, without creating the mistaken impression that it's a proper inhabited location. The first map you've shown here gives no indication of how each oasis links up. If I were fighting over this region, I'd want to know at a glance how I and my enemies' troops are getting around, and thus by extension which oases are the most strategically significant at a given time.

The idea is to have different available settings for this, yes.

 

[Pavía]

But cultural, or just religious? Because in the cultural map doesn't seem to be any coptic cultural area.

Cultural. The culture colors might need to be made a bit more different, but they're there. I've also spoken about them:

Coptic people are quite important in Egypt, accounting for about 10% of the [total] population of the Mamlūk Sultanate [that includes Egypt, Syria, and Hejaz, so they're actually more than 10% of the population in Egypt] (...) Most of the Coptic are Miaphysite, adhering to the Patriarchate of Alexandria, although some of there still follow the Orthodoxy of Constantinople.