Tinto Maps #26 - 15th of November 2024 - Indonesia

[Roger Corominas]

What religion is in the location of Bay.(In the Philippenes,Tagalog culture,and bordering Tagalog and Hindu religion.)

Mahayana

 

[matfer13]

@Roger Corominas Is Lanfang already in the game?

 

[Roger Corominas]

First of all the Iban did not have that massive distribution back then, they only spread out in the 1700s-1800s.
View attachment 1216577

Proposed religion
Kepercayaan: Throughout Indonesia and before recently across all of Southeast Asia there was an organic blend of various schools of Hinduism and Buddhism that melted into local indigenous belief systems. It is a somewhat similar situation to what happened in China, but there was even less differentiation between the different religious systems. Thus western Indonesia and Malaya should be dominated by a religion called Kepercayaan with rural areas and eastern Indonesia following their indigenous religions fully. It is also likely that throughout mainland Southeast Asia at this point there were likely still many who weren’t fully converted to Theravada Buddhism so you could justify having minorities scattered throughout mainland Southeast Asia, especially in remote and low control areas, but I don’t ir locations have any information on them so I’d understand their exclusion. Yet for gameplay, it would allow for more varied possibilities as players can try to stamp Kepercayaan out (as happened historically) or try to revive them. You could justify giving them mechanics similar to what I or others proposed for the mahayana/sanjiao/whatever in the China Tinto Maps, but you could also justify having them function in a unique way mechanically. Representing buddhism, indigenous religions and hinduism separately builds a religious conflict into the game that I don’t think existed historically outside royal courts and patronage. Kepercayaan means belief in Indonesian and is already used by the government as a catchall name for religions that aren't christianity or islam and are descendants of this blended religious landscape. It's an anachronistic name, yes, but I know of no alternative.

Thanks for the feedback, we'll take a look at it.

 

[Intrspace]

I imagine the sea tile around Christmas Island is a mistake?

 

[Mef]

Malaya

The part of this edition of Tinto Maps that I was most interested to see was Malaya, which is extremely rich in natural resources. Looking at the world map, you may be forgiven to think that it’s the place in the world that is most densely packed with resources, but since it’s at the equator, the map distorts quite a bit. Malaya actually has more land area than England (especially if you add Pattani which I did here), so it’s not that small.
I count 28 locations in Malaya while England is going to end up with what, over 120 locations?
Of course I’m not saying that Malaya should have anywhere near as many locations as England, its geography and vegetation is very different and its population in the time period was absolutely tiny. Also, to my knowledge England wasn’t entirely covered in rainforest, even if the weather really tries.

Back to the resources for a moment. Some of them are obviously not relevant for this game, such as oil, rubber, manganese, bauxite, tungsten or palm oil.
But it still has plenty that can be represented in the game, such as iron, coal, kaolin and silica(clay and sand, not as glamorous), gold (way more glamorous and why it was called the “Golden Peninsula” by ancient geographers), spices, tropical fruit, rice, lumber and of course tin, which even the local currency was made of.

Small historical geography lesson
Malaya represented a barrier for shipping between India and China. The monsoon winds that hit the peninsula alternate in a rhythm over the year, which meant that Indian merchants or Chinese merchants using favorable winds to sail to Malaya had to wait several months for winds to change so they could use them to get to their destination.
This meant that many merchants from different cultures sought shelter along the Malaya coast and entrepots were established there to store wares. (It was possible to work against the monsoon, following the coastline, and this was mentioned extensively in logs from the 18th and 19th century.)
The eastern side of the peninsula is fully exposed to the monsoon, so its ports were unusable for months (“musim kuala tutup” the season when the estuaries are closed), while the western side is somewhat sheltered by Sumatra. The east did still have plenty of ports and city states, but the western cities were visited more by western traders so we tend to know them better today.

Now to my feedback!

I believe that Malaya’s historical geography could be better represented. Before the late 19th century, the small population settled along the coast and rivers and rarely ventured into the interior jungle where secluded Orang Asli tribes lived. We’re talking about the 1880s when exploration and mapping of the interior really started to kick off. During the game’s time period, Malaya should be full of impassable areas, with only a few river routes allowing passage. (See picture) As it looks right now, it’s more reminiscent of modern Malaya with highways, railroads and palm oil plantations everywhere, rather than historical Malaya which should look more like the Amazon or Siberia. Especially when considering that we’re talking about movement of armies here. Yes, people could move across mountains and jungles, but if you want to bring an army or trade goods, you better stick to the known river routes. We know from historical accounts of military campaigns that this is what was done by armies. Didn’t people live in these jungles? Yes, it’s likely that some of these areas were inhabited by Orang Asli tribes. However, since the only interaction these groups had with the rest of world happened when they came to the river routes and traded their jungle goods, I would argue that it’s reasonable, from an administrative perspective, to count them as belonging to the settled areas, even if they lived their daily lives somewhere in the rainforests. “On the Peninsula, the collection of resins, aromatic woods and rattans was a task that ideally suited the Orang Asli with their knowledge of the jungle. A network of exchanges developed among the different Orang Asli groups because of their areas of habitation. The more interior Senoi would have negotiated the exchange of certain products with the Semang, who then brought these products to the Malay or Chinese traders at the fringe of the jungle or on the coast.” “The decline in the use of the land routes in the north, combined with lower demand for forest goods, eroded the economic and the social position of the Orang Asli. The final blow came with the establishment of British colonial control in the late nineteenth century, when the jungles began to be cleared in order to create rubber estates and oil palm plantations. Not only was the habitat, and hence the nomadic jungle lifestyle of the Orang Asli threatened, but their economic participation in the international economy severely curtailed” (From Orang Asli and the Melayu in the History of the Malay Peninsula)

The first proposal I prepared had 42 locations (I posted a preview last week), but since the locations would have probably been too small, I decided on a proposal with 31 locations:

As you can see, passage is only possible along the historical routes. The Muar-Pahang route was important and often mentioned in sources, it's on this map of the Aceh raids for example. Using boats to follow the coast was also popular, of course. I would even consider making the southern east coast entirely impassable, but that might be a bit too extreme. I don't know of any military campaign that used the south-eastern littoral and the Muar-Pahang route was clearly the popular route to go from the south to Pahang, but it might have been possible to move along the coast? Even though it was super undeveloped even by the time the late 19th century maps were made.

“Muzaffar Shah, the fifth sultan of Melaka, who reigned from 1445 to 1458, refused to acknowledge the suzerainty of Ligor over his country. The Ligorians, in assertion of their claim, sent an invading army led by Awi Chakri, overland to Melaka. The invaders, who were aided by Pahang auxiliaries, followed the old route by the Tembeling, Pahang and Bera rivers. They were easily defeated and fled back by the same route. Subsequently, they attempted a naval invasion, but were again defeated. Muzaffar Shah then conceived the idea of checking Ligorian pretensions by attacking the Ligor vassal state of Pahang. An expedition was organised by Muzaffar's son, Raja Abdullah and was personally led by the Melakan Bendahara Tun Perak with two hundred sail, big and small, accordingly proceeded to Pahang and conquered it in 1454”

Spoiler: Here’s the full list of locations:

NOTE: The one change I would make after seeing the current map in the OP is keeping Kuantan as its own location. For my proposal, I merged it with Pahang/Inderapura to reduce location count, but if it's already its own location, there's no need to get rid of it. It would be part of Pahang province and produce medicaments.

Name	Equivalent	Comment	Raw Material	Harbor	Vegetation	Topography	Development	Population
Patani Province		(Siam/Thailand) Patani in Malay, Pattani in Thai						24112
Patani	Pattani	Trading town, Pattani in Thai	Spices	Medium	Jungle	Flatland	High	10308
Sai	Menara	Mueang, Teluban in Malay, Sai Buri in Thai, called Sai in old maps	Medicaments	Okay	Jungle	Flatland	High	6821
Reman	Yala	Mueang, alternatively Rahman, Raman in Thai - this includes the area of Jala/Yala	Wild Game		Jungle	Mountains	Very Low	4547
Legeh		Mueang, Ra-ngae in Thai	Gold		Jungle	Mountains	Very Low	2436
Kelantan Province	Kelantan Province							23710
Kelantan	Kelantan	Trading town, modern Kota Bharu	Incense	Medium	Jungle	Flatland	High	6308
Ulu Kelantan	Pulai	Upper Kelantan with Galas and Lebir tributaries	Stone		Jungle	Hills	Very Low	2598
Terengganu	Trengganu	Trading town	Elephants	Medium	Jungle	Flatland	High	5821
Dungun	Dungun	Trading town	Lumber	Medium	Jungle	Flatland	High	5410
Kemamam	Paka	Settlement on the Kemamam river, modern Chukai	Tin	Okay	Jungle	Flatland	Medium	3573
Pahang Province	Pahang Province							20625
Inderapura	Kuantan+Pahang	Trading town, Also known as Pekan or Pahang	Sugar	Medium	Jungle	Flatland	High	10069
Ulu Pahang	Bera	Upper Pahang River	Dye		Jungle	Flatland	Low	4547
Tembeling	Jerantut	River and part of the old north-south route	Iron		Jungle	Hills	Very Low	2598
Lipis	Kuala Lipis	Kuala Lipis and Raub were founded here for gold mining, in the 19th century	Gold		Jungle	Hills	Very Low	3410
Johor Province	Johor Province							22411
Endau	Gelanggi	River and fishing village on its mouth	Clay	Bad	Jungle	Wetland	Very Low	2761
Johor	Johor Lama	Old Johor is located east of the estuary - note that Johor settlements in the time period were along the Johor River, rather than across from Singapore like modern Johor Bahru ("New Johor")	Salt	Okay	Jungle	Flatland	Medium	6658
Temasek	Temasek	Also Singapura or Singapore	Fish	Good	Jungle	Hills	High	4872
Batu Pahat		Modern city wasn't founded until after the time period, but there was a settlement here at the Batu Pahat river	Sand	Bad	Jungle	Wetland	Low	2761
Muar	Mura	One of the few places with long recorded history, mentioned as a fishing and rice farming town in the time period	Fish	Okay	Jungle	Flatland	High	5359
Selangor Province								28992
Malacca	Malacca	Trading town, Melaka in Malay	Fruit	Very Good	Jungle	Flatland	Low	4385
Seri Menanti	Rantau Panjang	Capital of Negeri Sembilan, also known as Sri Menanti	Lumber		Jungle	Hills	Low	3573
Klang	Klang+ Kajang	The big dog here, Klang founded nearby Kuala Lumpur in 1857	Tin	Okay	Jungle	Flatland	High	14214
Selangor		Trading town	Incense	Okay	Jungle	Flatland	High	6821
Perak Province	Perak Province							21924
Perak	Manjung	Along the river Perak,capital of Perak - the capital was Teluk Mak Intan from 1528 to 1877, so it could be called this, but Perak is more concise - includes Bernam, the start of the route into the interior	Medicaments	Okay	Jungle	Wetland	Medium	8120
Mjmjam	(Manjung)	aka Dinding, tin mining settlement - location is a bit larger than the borders of the British colony. Could be called Manjung instead of Mjmjam.	Tin	Okay	Jungle	Wetland	Medium	3573
Beruas	Beruas	Capital of an older civilization and frequently mentioned settlement during the time period - in modern times, cities like Taiping, Kuala Kangsar and Ipoh are more important here	Tin	Bad	Jungle	Wetland	Medium	7633
Ulu Perak	Gerik	The upper reaches of the Perak. Could be named Kroh (border town in the mountains, now Pengkalan Hulu) or Gerik, but I don't know if these existed yet	Lumber		Jungle	Mountains	Very Low	2598
Kedah Province	Kedah Province							25349
Penang	Bujang	Island and surrounding area, British colony	Spices	Good	Jungle	Flatland	Low	2274
Jerai		14th century account lists Jerai as settlement, Mount Jerai is in southern Kedah - could be called Pendang which would be more modern	Elephants	Okay	Grassland	Flatland	High	7308
Kedah	Kedah	Location of the Kedah river and site of Kedah capitals, like the modern Alor Setar	Rice	Okay	Farmland	Flatland	High	8445
Kota Sena	Perlis	Became capital of Kedah in 1653, modern Kangar/Perlis.	Livestock	Okay	Jungle	Flatland	Medium	4222
Satun		Was part of Perils/Kedah in the past, but has a large Thai population, so it makes sense to keep it separate - part of the Thai Phuket province today	Lumber	Bad	Jungle	Wetland	Medium	3100
Removed	Kampung Paloh

A note on location names: I chose to omit “Kuala” (which means estuary/confluence and is followed by the name of a river), as it was generally not included with settlement names in the historical sources. Almost all of these historic settlements are named after a river (for obvious reasons) and in the few cases where I couldn’t find a settlement during the time period, I named the location after its river, so it’s consistent.
Perak, Terengganu, Kedah, Kelantan, Selangor, Johor, Pahang, Klang are all names of a river, settlement and state. While the rule is supposed to be that locations are named after the exact name of a settlement, in this case using river names for locations just feels more historically correct.
It’s also easier to distinguish locations if you don’t have half of them starting with “Kuala”...


Vegetation

The vegetation of Malaya at the time can be summarized as: everything is jungle, except for some coastal settlements. A lot of rainforest was cut down in more recent history, but on the other hand, much of the agricultural production in Malaya does involve trees, such as palm oil, rubber, banana, cocoa, durian, coconut. So a lot of times you’re replacing trees in forests with trees on plantations and even a modern tree cover map will show basically everything but the cities covered. Due to monsoons affecting Malaya from both sides, it has enough rainfall that there are no real dry zones on the peninsula. If left to nature, Malaya would be entirely covered in forest and since there is no season where plants don’t grow, regeneration happens fast. Only places with significant human settlement could have any vegetation other than jungle. Considering how small the population was at the time, and how outside of the small villages, everything would still be jungle, I decided to place jungle everywhere. Malaya was not a hospitable place in this time period. The only exception is Kedah, which had already established itself as the peninsula’s rice bowl at the time.

Topography

Not much to say here, most of the mountains are already impassable, so the locations here are flatland or wetland on the coast and more hilly/mountainous in the interior. It’s documented that 14th century Singapore (Temasek) consisted of terraces carved into its hilly landscape, so it should definitely be hills as well.

Raw Materials

To put it bluntly, Malaya’s economy in the time period was tin, trade and jungle. Some of its natural resources that we know about now were never exploited to a significant degree during this time, so that has to be taken into account.

Gold and Tin:
The two most important mineral resources, historically. Malaya was referred to as a place of gold by all ancient cultures that encountered it.
Records of tin exports to Arabia exist since the 10th century, while China started importing it from Malaya in the 14th century.

Spoiler: Map

Other mining:
Malaya also produces iron, clay, sand and stone. I have distributed them to appropriate locations.
Coal was only discovered in the 20th century. I think it’s fair not to place any here, but if you want to make it possible to discover it in the late game, the location would be Batu Arang (Selangor).
I don’t know of any significant production of marble, gems, alum, silver, copper, lead, saltpeter or mercury.

Rice:
Kedah was known as the rice-bowl of the peninsula. Not a lot of Malaya is naturally suitable for rice production and plenty of other staple foods exist that don’t really have a good in the game, such as sago (palm starch).

As suggested by records of trade with China, I’ve placed the following goods along the east coast:
Medicaments (camphor mentioned as medicament in an Arab treatise), Spices, Elephants (Ivory), Dye (Lac), Lumber, Incense

NO COTTON - it’s mentioned in Chinese records as an export, but Malaya’s climate isn’t suited for growing cotton, so they possibly meant cotton cloth that was traded

NO HORSES - a traveler’s account mentioned that the land didn’t have horses or donkeys, so there was likely no significant production of horses here. Elephants were used to transport goods.

I’ve further distributed the following goods as they are mentioned by visitors from the time period:
Spices, Sugar, Wild Game, Fruit, Fish, Lumber, Elephants, Medicaments (Camphor), Salt (produced on the coast), Livestock
I believe that pearl fishing wasn’t really done in Malaya, as opposed to much of South East Asia.

A note on Malacca, which is shown to have spices in the OP:
When Malacca was founded, it was a fishing village. It was not suitable for rice production and the most important produce of Malacca became fruit. After the city grew, fruit trees dominated the landscape as noted by visitors.
Malacca was a TRADING hub, not a production center. It didn’t really produce much spices of its own, but it was the central distribution hub for spices coming from the islands to the east.

Also note that Malaya has the potential to produce cocoa, tea and coffee, but these would only be introduced later in colonial times when plantations were built in previously undeveloped land - not relevant for this game.


Harbors

As mentioned above, the western coast was somewhat sheltered from the monsoon, so its ports had more potential than the ports on the east coast, but there weren’t that many locations with really good ports. Malacca lies in an advantageous position, had the best port, was founded for trade and became the primary trading city of Malaya. I'm not 100% sure if it should be the better port than Temasek, but overall it was more important in the time period.

Population
Starting population here necessarily has to be a wild guess.
Numbers were generally VERY low until up to the 19th century, when Chinese mass immigration waves happened, as well as more modern development by the British.
This book lists Maddison’s estimated population of Malaysia. I’m going to estimate Malaya’s population to be 50% of that of Malaysia, until the 1870 figure after which I estimate it to be 70% (today it’s 79%). I’m also adding the population of Singapore of course.
1500: 171k (86k)
1600: 198k (99k)
1700: 231k (116k)
1820: 292k (146k)
1870: 884k (618k)
1900: 2447k (1712k)
Malaya changed a lot after this game’s time period, due to explosive population growth and immigration.
If we extrapolate the estimated growth rate to 1337 we get a population of 136k for Malaysia or around 68k for Malaya.

Reid’s estimation in Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce has Malaya+Pattani at 500k in 1600. That’s almost 5 times more!
Considering what the description of the main settlements along the coasts were like in the 16th century (almost all of them were in the hundreds of people), I find it hard to believe that Malaya had 500k in 1600. However, Maddison’s pre-1870 figures also look quite low considering how high the population was later on.

I’m going to go with an estimate somewhere in between those two extremes: 167k for Malaya, Pattani and Satun in 1337. This is almost exactly half of what it's at currently.

Of course, this also means that the population of East Malaysia (Sabah and Sarawak) would have been around the same. With an estimation of around 470k for the total population of Borneo at the time, 167k for the northern part (without Brunei) sounds reasonable.

Some quotes on population:
“By the early sixteenth century Tomé Pires is listing eleven ports on the east coast as against twelve—or possibly thirteen, if we include Muar—on the west. Sixteenth century maps of the Peninsula tell the same tale of settlements strung along the coast from Pahang northwards, so that we can only conclude that the idea of an unpopulated eastern littoral is a myth”
“Just beyond the Malacca boundary to the south was Muar, a community of padi-farmers and fishermen. Pires records 2,000 men in the settlement, which implies a total population of at least 4,000, but this is probably an exaggeration. The Batu Pahat River was more thinly populated but no less productive of fruit and fish. Finally, in the extreme south of the Peninsula a few Orang Laut still haunted the shores of what is now Keppel Harbour, Of the settlement on Singapore hill Pires makes no mention.
Northwards beyond the Linggi River was a succession of settlements which were under the direct rule of Malacca and which, in addition to paying an annual tribute of tin, engaged in a coastal trade in foodstuffs for that city. Most of these were mere villages. Sungei Ujong, Klang and Perak each had about 200 persons, Sëlangor was somewhat larger, while Bernam had 400. The largest producer of tin was the district of Mjmjam (Dinding), which was notable for its colony of 500 Filipinos. Bruas, comprising two villages on the river of that name, was of a rather different character, depending less on tin production than on its fleet of trading prahus.”


Development

The colors in the map are relative, there shouldn’t be much development here on a global scale. The eastern coast from Pahang upwards would have had the highest development, along with some of the western coast. The interior and most of the south were basically undeveloped.

Market

My suggestion for a 1337 market center here is Inderapura/Pahang.
The west coast had been in the shadow of Srivijaya on Sumatra for centuries and possibly was already influenced by the Majapahit Empire at the time, although Singapura did apparently still exist independently.
The north was under the influence of Siam, while the northern east coast, with its numerous trading ports that actively traded with China, would have been in the strongest position on the peninsula.
Specifically the old kingdom of Pahang, which is consistently named as important in the sources and projected power along the entire east coast. The Majapahit chronicle even uses Pahang as the name for all of Malaya.
It traded a lot with China (this trade really took off during the Southern Song (1127-1279) which focused southward), but it was also the first port on the east coast that you’d encounter when sailing around the peninsula from the west.

As far as I can tell from the sources, Temasek is already on the decline at this point, but it was also quite important of course.


Suggestions for possible content

-The founding of Malacca. It started out as a small fishing village, but starting around 1400, trading infrastructure was built up and the town slowly became the main trading center and acquired a population in the thousands.
-Immigration from South East Asia? In the 15th century, Mjmjam (Dinding) had a population of 500 pinoys. The Bugis people from Sulawesi were also quite involved in Malaya’s history. I came across quite a few references to Sulawesi’s population drain due to emigration and slave trade. Malaya’s trade ports being an attractive region for immigrants might be something that can just be simulated with game mechanics.
-What about the Chinese migrations all over South East Asia? I’m assuming there will be some sort of representation?


Sources:
Wheatley, The Golden Khersonese: Studies in the Historical Geography of the Malay Peninsula before A.D. 1500
This map (the uncompressed tif is great) https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-231529372/view
This map https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/Siam_in_1893,_During_Rama_V's_Reign.jpg

Sejarah Melayu: A History of the Malay Peninsula

Sejarah Melayu: A History of the Malay Peninsula

www.sabrizain.org

Other sources are various online maps and generic geography

 

[Roger Corominas]

Currently Hinduism and Buddhism seem way to monolithic in the religious map mode, the makeup should be a lot like Mali with a common animist population ruled over by Hindu/Buddhist elites. (Nobles/Merchants)

“But Indonesia did have organized religions, Hinduism and Buddhism! But while that satisfies criterion 1, were Hinduism and Buddhism really a fundamental part of pre-Islamic Indonesian society? Would your average Indonesian peasant been a 'Hindu' or a 'Buddhist'? The little evidence we have suggests no. In all of Indonesia, Hinduism and Buddhism had the greatest impact in Java. But even in Java in the 14th century during the Majapahit empire, which was the height of Hindu Javanese civilization,1


Similarly, while the Indian caste system was known in Java, it "seems to have had no validity in actual life."2 Hindu dietary laws also had little impact on what commoners ate. One 14th-century Javanese poem contrasts the Hindu rules for food with what people actually ate (Nagarakertagama 89:5 and 90:1):3





This isn't to say that the average Javanese had no knowledge of Indian religious concepts. They most likely knew at least little, thanks to things like networks of ascetics and ashrammonasteries or puppet plays about Hindu heroes. But Indian religions weren't strong enough to fundamentally influence the Javanese lifestyle, as Islam was to do. So, to quote one anthropologist, "clearly there was no Hinduism in Java, only a Javanese religion that drew on Indian religious praxis and mixed it with local ones."4

Outside Java, people were even less attached to Indian religions. For example, one Sumatran king (Adityavarman) encouraged Buddhism in the mid-14th century. But once he dies, "nothing more is heard of Buddhism." Adityavarman's "demonic form of Buddhism" involving "rites of human sacrifice, the drinking of blood and the rattling of human bones in ecstatic dances" might actually have scared any potential converts out of the religion!5 And in many places in Indonesia there just weren't any Buddhism and Hinduism in the first place.

So when most Southeast Asians converted to Islam, they weren't converting from Hinduism to Islam, which we know from India didn't happen that much. The vast majority of Indonesians were converting from animism to Islam, which we know can happen much more easily. This animist heritage, more so than Indian religions, would be what shaped initial perceptions of Islam in Southeast Asia.”

---

0 Of course Buddhism is much more diverse than most Abrahamic religions, while Hinduism really isn't one religion at all. But here I mean the variants of these religions officially backed by the state - I'm not sure how Hinduism worked in India, but Theravada Buddhist orthodoxy was strictly enforced by law in Myanmar and Thailand.

1 The main general source on Majapahit AFAIK is still Java in the Fourteenth Century: A Study in Cultural History by Theodore G. T. Pigeaud, even though it's more than 50 years old (from 1962). I could be wrong and there might be newer general sources, but if there are I haven't seen them. For religion in Majapahit, see Java in the Fourteenth Century volume IV, p.479-494. I specifically quoted p.480-481 and p.487.

2 For caste see Java in the Fourteenth Century vol. IV, p.260-261.

3 From Java in the Fourteenth Centuryvol III, p.106

4 Durga's Mosque: Cosmology, Conversion and Community in Central Javanese Islam by Headley, p.363

5 The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia vol I, p.322; Islamic Revivalism in a Changing Peasant Economy: Central Sumatra, 1784-1847 by Christine Dobbyn, p.118.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5o8avu/how_did_indonesia_and_malaysia_become

We are aware that it is an area where a lot of syncretism was going on. Unfortunately, we have again the limitation that pops and countries can only have one religion, so we can't properly represent such blending. That being said, minorities have not been done here yet, and that will introduce a quite bit more blending of religions.

 

[Flower_Marlin]

Having spices as one or multiple resources is something that has been appearing in discussions now and again. Having them grouped was better for some aspects of the gameplay, but as always, everything is still subject to change.

Honestly if you guys do go for the split of spices you can easily represent them by breaking up into 3 groups: Seed spices (fennel, coriander, cumin etc.) would be more common, bark spices (cinammon and cassia) spread them across southern India and Indonesia, and fruit spices (black pepper, long pepper, & cardamom) which would be rare and highly sought after.

Cloves & Saffron can be their own thing with a very high base price range (similar to cloves in EU4) and the cloves would be found in the far moluccas and Coromandel coast and drive gameplay for the spice trade routes.

Similarly Vanilla, Chile peppers and Cocoa can be their own thing and drive colonization of the new World.

EDIT: Saffron could be in a very few locations of persia, kashmir valley, andalusia and so on...

 

[CorneliusBottomly]

Where is the Orangutan society of pops?

 

[Roger Corominas]

Have you considered making the various sea nomads Naval-Based Countries?

Will you keep the bold outline for locations even though it makes it harder to read than during the first tinto maps?

1. That would be an option to consider
2. Mapmodes are always being tweaked and changed

 

[Vohen]

Mahajapit, Majahapit, Mapajahit, Mahapajit, Mapajahit… Majapahit

r/unexpectedbillwurtz​

...or was it expected?

 

[Roger Corominas]

Singapore/Temasek is real and its an island I could die happy... Now only if you guys could figure out a way to do the same for Venice.

Also a lot of countries like Palembang, Melayu, Sambas, Tanjungpura all the way upto Pasai share a same pinkish-red colour range, are they all vassals or tributaries of Majapahit?

Yes

 

[Roger Corominas]

Maybe the Ifugao would work as a society of pops?

We didn't consider them as such when we did the area, but as always it's something that can be reviewed.

 

[Goran42069]

This might not be the correct thread for this question but will these many indigenous religions be way more prone to be converted than more organized religions ?

 

[Roger Corominas]

Sumatra, Borneo and the Philippines are way too big to be a single area, I would suggest splitting them in two.

They are quite consistent with other similar areas, and a perfect fit geographically, but when we do the review it may change.

 

[dw70676]

Semi-random question, but is "the Philippines" a tag you can acquire for uniting the Filipino islands, either as a native Filipino culture, or as a colonial nation?

 

[Roger Corominas]

@Roger Corominas Is Lanfang already in the game?

No, that one comes way later.

 

[bokorthedust]

Mana detected, Johan lied, game's gonna be an instant failure.

 

[Roger Corominas]

I imagine the sea tile around Christmas Island is a mistake?

View attachment 1216590

Yes, fixed.

 

[Pinguille]

no veo el momento de hacer el cibersultanato de brunei para sultanear los mares

 

[Roger Corominas]

Malaya

The part of this edition of Tinto Maps that I was most interested to see was Malaya, which is extremely rich in natural resources. Looking at the world map, you may be forgiven to think that it’s the place in the world that is most densely packed with resources, but since it’s at the equator, the map distorts quite a bit. Malaya actually has more land area than England (especially if you add Pattani which I did here), so it’s not that small.
I count 28 locations in Malaya while England is going to end up with what, over 120 locations?
Of course I’m not saying that Malaya should have anywhere near as many locations as England, its geography and vegetation is very different and its population in the time period was absolutely tiny. Also, to my knowledge England wasn’t entirely covered in rainforest, even if the weather really tries.

Back to the resources for a moment. Some of them are obviously not relevant for this game, such as oil, rubber, manganese, bauxite, tungsten or palm oil.
But it still has plenty that can be represented in the game, such as iron, coal, kaolin and silica(clay and sand, not as glamorous), gold (way more glamorous and why it was called the “Golden Peninsula” by ancient geographers), spices, tropical fruit, rice, lumber and of course tin, which even the local currency was made of.

Small historical geography lesson
Malaya represented a barrier for shipping between India and China. The monsoon winds that hit the peninsula alternate in a rhythm over the year, which meant that Indian merchants or Chinese merchants using favorable winds to sail to Malaya had to wait several months for winds to change so they could use them to get to their destination.
This meant that many merchants from different cultures sought shelter along the Malaya coast and entrepots were established there to store wares. (It was possible to work against the monsoon, following the coastline, and this was mentioned extensively in logs from the 18th and 19th century.)
The eastern side of the peninsula is fully exposed to the monsoon, so its ports were unusable for months (“musim kuala tutup” the season when the estuaries are closed), while the western side is somewhat sheltered by Sumatra. The east did still have plenty of ports and city states, but the western cities were visited more by western traders so we tend to know them better today.

Now to my feedback!

I believe that Malaya’s historical geography could be better represented. Before the late 19th century, the small population settled along the coast and rivers and rarely ventured into the interior jungle where secluded Orang Asli tribes lived. We’re talking about the 1880s when exploration and mapping of the interior really started to kick off. During the game’s time period, Malaya should be full of impassable areas, with only a few river routes allowing passage. (See picture) As it looks right now, it’s more reminiscent of modern Malaya with highways, railroads and palm oil plantations everywhere, rather than historical Malaya which should look more like the Amazon or Siberia. Especially when considering that we’re talking about movement of armies here. Yes, people could move across mountains and jungles, but if you want to bring an army or trade goods, you better stick to the known river routes. We know from historical accounts of military campaigns that this is what was done by armies. Didn’t people live in these jungles? Yes, it’s likely that some of these areas were inhabited by Orang Asli tribes. However, since the only interaction these groups had with the rest of world happened when they came to the river routes and traded their jungle goods, I would argue that it’s reasonable, from an administrative perspective, to count them as belonging to the settled areas, even if they lived their daily lives somewhere in the rainforests. “On the Peninsula, the collection of resins, aromatic woods and rattans was a task that ideally suited the Orang Asli with their knowledge of the jungle. A network of exchanges developed among the different Orang Asli groups because of their areas of habitation. The more interior Senoi would have negotiated the exchange of certain products with the Semang, who then brought these products to the Malay or Chinese traders at the fringe of the jungle or on the coast.” “The decline in the use of the land routes in the north, combined with lower demand for forest goods, eroded the economic and the social position of the Orang Asli. The final blow came with the establishment of British colonial control in the late nineteenth century, when the jungles began to be cleared in order to create rubber estates and oil palm plantations. Not only was the habitat, and hence the nomadic jungle lifestyle of the Orang Asli threatened, but their economic participation in the international economy severely curtailed” (From Orang Asli and the Melayu in the History of the Malay Peninsula)

View attachment 1216563

The first proposal I prepared had 42 locations (I posted a preview last week), but since the locations would have probably been too small, I decided on a proposal with 31 locations:
View attachment 1216566

As you can see, passage is only possible along the historical routes. The Muar-Pahang route was important and often mentioned in sources, it's on this map of the Aceh raids for example. Using boats to follow the coast was also popular, of course. I would even consider making the southern east coast entirely impassable, but that might be a bit too extreme.

“Muzaffar Shah, the fifth sultan of Melaka, who reigned from 1445 to 1458, refused to acknowledge the suzerainty of Ligor over his country. The Ligorians, in assertion of their claim, sent an invading army led by Awi Chakri, overland to Melaka. The invaders, who were aided by Pahang auxiliaries, followed the old route by the Tembeling, Pahang and Bera rivers. They were easily defeated and fled back by the same route. Subsequently, they attempted a naval invasion, but were again defeated. Muzaffar Shah then conceived the idea of checking Ligorian pretensions by attacking the Ligor vassal state of Pahang. An expedition was organised by Muzaffar's son, Raja Abdullah and was personally led by the Melakan Bendahara Tun Perak with two hundred sail, big and small, accordingly proceeded to Pahang and conquered it in 1454”

Spoiler: Here’s the full list of locations:

Name	Equivalent	Comment	Raw Material	Harbor	Vegetation	Topography	Development	Population
Patani Province		(Siam/Thailand) Patani in Malay, Pattani in Thai						24112
Patani	Pattani	Trading town, Pattani in Thai	Spices	Medium	Jungle	Flatland	High	10308
Sai	Menara	Mueang, Teluban in Malay, Sai Buri in Thai, called Sai in old maps	Medicaments	Okay	Jungle	Flatland	High	6821
Reman	Yala	Mueang, alternatively Rahman, Raman in Thai - this includes the area of Jala/Yala	Wild Game		Jungle	Mountains	Very Low	4547
Legeh		Mueang, Ra-ngae in Thai	Gold		Jungle	Mountains	Very Low	2436
Kelantan Province	Kelantan Province							23710
Kelantan	Kelantan	Trading town, modern Kota Bharu	Incense	Medium	Jungle	Flatland	High	6308
Ulu Kelantan	Pulai	Upper Kelantan with Galas and Lebir tributaries	Stone		Jungle	Hills	Very Low	2598
Terengganu	Trengganu	Trading town	Elephants	Medium	Jungle	Flatland	High	5821
Dungun	Dungun	Trading town	Lumber	Medium	Jungle	Flatland	High	5410
Kemamam	Paka	Settlement on the Kemamam river, modern Chukai	Tin	Okay	Jungle	Flatland	Medium	3573
Pahang Province	Pahang Province							20625
Inderapura	Kuantan+Pahang	Trading town, Also known as Pekan or Pahang	Sugar	Medium	Jungle	Flatland	High	10069
Ulu Pahang	Bera	Upper Pahang River	Dye		Jungle	Flatland	Low	4547
Tembeling	Jerantut	River and part of the old north-south route	Iron		Jungle	Hills	Very Low	2598
Lipis	Kuala Lipis	Kuala Lipis and Raub were founded here for gold mining, in the 19th century	Gold		Jungle	Hills	Very Low	3410
Johor Province	Johor Province							22411
Endau	Gelanggi	River and fishing village on its mouth	Clay	Bad	Jungle	Wetland	Very Low	2761
Johor	Johor Lama	Old Johor is located east of the estuary - note that Johor settlements in the time period were along the Johor River, rather than across from Singapore like modern Johor Bahru ("New Johor")	Salt	Okay	Jungle	Flatland	Medium	6658
Temasek	Temasek	Also Singapura or Singapore	Fish	Good	Jungle	Hills	High	4872
Batu Pahat		Modern city wasn't founded until after the time period, but there was a settlement here at the Batu Pahat river	Sand	Bad	Jungle	Wetland	Low	2761
Muar	Mura	One of the few places with long recorded history, mentioned as a fishing and rice farming town in the time period	Fish	Okay	Jungle	Flatland	High	5359
Selangor Province								28992
Malacca	Malacca	Trading town, Melaka in Malay	Fruit	Very Good	Jungle	Flatland	Low	4385
Seri Menanti	Rantau Panjang	Capital of Negeri Sembilan, also known as Sri Menanti	Lumber		Jungle	Hills	Low	3573
Klang	Klang+ Kajang	The big dog here, Klang founded nearby Kuala Lumpur in 1857	Tin	Okay	Jungle	Flatland	High	14214
Selangor		Trading town	Incense	Okay	Jungle	Flatland	High	6821
Perak Province	Perak Province							21924
Perak	Manjung	Along the river Perak,capital of Perak - the capital was Teluk Mak Intan from 1528 to 1877, so it could be called this, but Perak is more concise - includes Bernam, the start of the route into the interior	Medicaments	Okay	Jungle	Wetland	Medium	8120
Mjmjam		aka Dinding, tin mining settlement - location is a bit larger than the borders of the British colony	Tin	Okay	Jungle	Wetland	Medium	3573
Beruas	Beruas	Capital of an older civilization and frequently mentioned settlement during the time period - in modern times, cities like Taiping, Kuala Kangsar and Ipoh are more important here	Tin	Bad	Jungle	Wetland	Medium	7633
Ulu Perak	Gerik	The upper reaches of the Perak. Could be named Kroh (border town in the mountains, now Pengkalan Hulu) or Gerik, but I don't know if these existed yet	Lumber		Jungle	Mountains	Very Low	2598
Kedah Province	Kedah Province							25349
Penang	Bujang	Island and surrounding area, British colony	Spices	Good	Jungle	Flatland	Low	2274
Jerai		14th century account lists Jerai as settlement, Mount Jerai is in southern Kedah - could be called Pendang which would be more modern	Elephants	Okay	Grassland	Flatland	High	7308
Kedah	Kedah	Location of the Kedah river and site of Kedah capitals, like the modern Alor Setar	Rice	Okay	Farmland	Flatland	High	8445
Kota Sena	Perlis	Became capital of Kedah in 1653, modern Kangar/Perlis. population, so I think it makes sense to make it its own location.	Rice	Okay	Jungle	Flatland	Medium	4222
Satun		Was part of Perils/Kedah in the past, but has a large Thai population, so it makes sense to keep it separate - part of the Thai Phuket province today	Lumber	Bad	Jungle	Wetland	Medium	3100
Removed	Kampung Paloh

A note on location names: I chose to omit “Kuala” (which means estuary/confluence and is followed by the name of a river), as it was generally not included with settlement names in the historical sources. Almost all of these historic settlements are named after a river (for obvious reasons) and in the few cases where I couldn’t find a settlement during the time period, I named the location after its river, so it’s consistent.
Perak, Terengganu, Kedah, Kelantan, Selangor, Johor, Pahang, Klang are all names of a river, settlement and state. While the rule is supposed to be that locations are named after the exact name of a settlement, in this case using river names for locations just feels more historically correct.
It’s also easier to distinguish locations if you don’t have half of them starting with “Kuala”...


Vegetation

The vegetation of Malaya at the time can be summarized as: everything is jungle, except for some coastal settlements. A lot of rainforest was cut down in more recent history, but on the other hand, much of the agricultural production in Malaya does involve trees, such as palm oil, rubber, banana, cocoa, durian, coconut. So a lot of times you’re replacing trees in forests with trees on plantations and even a modern tree cover map will show basically everything but the cities covered. Due to monsoons affecting Malaya from both sides, it has enough rainfall that there are no real dry zones on the peninsula. View attachment 1216575 If left to nature, Malaya would be entirely covered in forest and since there is no season where plants don’t grow, regeneration happens fast. Only places with significant human settlement could have any vegetation other than jungle. Considering how small the population was at the time, and how outside of the small villages, everything would still be jungle, I decided to place jungle everywhere. Malaya was not a hospitable place in this time period. The only exception is Kedah, which had already established itself as the peninsula’s rice bowl at the time.

View attachment 1216574

Topography

Not much to say here, most of the mountains are already impassable, so the locations here are flatland or wetland on the coast and more hilly/mountainous in the interior. It’s documented that 14th century Singapore (Temasek) consisted of terraces carved into its hilly landscape, so it should definitely be hills as well.

View attachment 1216576

Raw Materials

To put it bluntly, Malaya’s economy in the time period was tin, trade and jungle. Some of its natural resources that we know about now were never exploited to a significant degree during this time, so that has to be taken into account.

View attachment 1216578

Gold and Tin:
The two most important mineral resources, historically. Malaya was referred to as a place of gold by all ancient cultures that encountered it.
Records of tin exports to Arabia exist since the 10th century, while China started importing it from Malaya in the 14th century.

Spoiler: Map

View attachment 1216579

Other mining:
Malaya also produces iron, clay, sand and stone. I have distributed them to appropriate locations.
Coal was only discovered in the 20th century. I think it’s fair not to place any here, but if you want to make it possible to discover it in the late game, the location would be Batu Arang (Selangor).
I don’t know of any significant production of marble, gems, alum, silver, copper, lead, saltpeter or mercury.

Rice:
Kedah was known as the rice-bowl of the peninsula. Not a lot of Malaya is naturally suitable for rice production and plenty of other staple foods exist that don’t really have a good in the game, such as sago (palm starch). I have given rice to those few locations that produced it.

View attachment 1216580

View attachment 1216581

As suggested by records of trade with China, I’ve placed the following goods along the east coast:
Medicaments (camphor mentioned as medicament in an Arab treatise), Spices, Elephants (Ivory), Dye (Lac), Lumber, Incense

NO COTTON - it’s mentioned in chinese records as an export, but Malaya’s climate isn’t suited for growing cotton, so they possibly meant cotton cloth that was traded

NO HORSES - a traveler’s account mentioned that the land didn’t have horses or donkeys, so there was likely no significant production of horses here. Elephants were used to transport goods.

I’ve further distributed the following goods as they are mentioned by visitors from the time period:
Spices, Sugar, Wild Game, Fruit, Fish, Lumber, Elephants, Medicaments (Camphor), Salt (produced on the coast)
I believe that pearl fishing wasn’t really done in Malaya, as opposed to much of South East Asia.

A note on Malacca, which is shown to have spices in the OP:
When Malacca was founded, it was a fishing village. It was not suitable for rice production and the most important produce of Malacca became fruit. After the city grew, fruit trees dominated the landscape as noted by visitors.
Malacca was a TRADING hub, not a production center. It didn’t really produce much spices of its own, but it was the central distribution hub for spices coming from the islands to the east.

Also note that Malaya has the potential to produce cocoa, tea and coffee, but these would only be introduced later in colonial times when plantations were built in previously undeveloped land - not relevant for this game.


Harbors

As mentioned above, the western coast was somewhat sheltered from the monsoon, so its ports had more potential than the ports on the east coast, but there weren’t that many locations with really good ports. Malacca lies in an advantageous position, had the best port, was founded for trade and became the primary trading city of Malaya. I'm not 100% sure if it should be the better port than Temasek, but overall it was more important in the time period.

View attachment 1216582

Population
Starting population here necessarily has to be a wild guess.
Numbers were generally VERY low until up to the 19th century, when Chinese mass immigration waves happened, as well as more modern development by the British.
This book lists Maddison’s estimated population of Malaysia. I’m going to estimate Malaya’s population to be 50% of that of Malaysia, until the 1870 figure after which I estimate it to be 70% (today it’s 79%). I’m also adding the population of Singapore of course.
1500: 171k (86k)
1600: 198k (99k)
1700: 231k (116k)
1820: 292k (146k)
1870: 884k (618k)
1900: 2447k (1712k)
Malaya changed a lot after this game’s time period, due to explosive population growth and immigration.
If we extrapolate the estimated growth rate to 1337 we get a population of 136k for Malaysia or around 68k for Malaya.

Reid’s estimation in Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce has Malaya+Pattani at 500k in 1600. That’s almost 5 times more!
Considering what the description of the main settlements along the coasts were like in the 16th century (almost all of them were in the hundreds of people), I find it hard to believe that Malaya had 500k in 1600. However, Maddison’s pre-1870 figures also look quite low considering how high the population was later on.

I’m going to go with an estimate somewhere in between those two extremes: 167k for Malaya, Pattani and Satun in 1337. This is almost exactly half of what it's at currently.

Of course, this also means that the population of East Malaysia (Sabah and Sarawak) would have been around the same. With an estimation of around 470k for the total population of Borneo at the time, 167k for the northern part (without Brunei) sounds reasonable.

Some quotes on population:
“By the early sixteenth century Tomé Pires is listing eleven ports on the east coast as against twelve—or possibly thirteen, if we include Muar—on the west. Sixteenth century maps of the Peninsula tell the same tale of settlements strung along the coast from Pahang northwards, so that we can only conclude that the idea of an unpopulated eastern littoral is a myth”
“Just beyond the Malacca boundary to the south was Muar, a community of padi-farmers and fishermen. Pires records 2,000 men in the settlement, which implies a total population of at least 4,000, but this is probably an exaggeration. The Batu Pahat River was more thinly populated but no less productive of fruit and fish. Finally, in the extreme south of the Peninsula a few Orang Laut still haunted the shores of what is now Keppel Harbour, Of the settlement on Singapore hill Pires makes no mention.
Northwards beyond the Linggi River was a succession of settlements which were under the direct rule of Malacca and which, in addition to paying an annual tribute of tin, engaged in a coastal trade in foodstuffs for that city. Most of these were mere villages. Sungei Ujong, Klang and Perak each had about 200 persons, Sëlangor was somewhat larger, while Bernam had 400. The largest producer of tin was the district of Mjmjam (Dinding), which was notable for its colony of 500 Filipinos. Bruas, comprising two villages on the river of that name, was of a rather different character, depending less on tin production than on its fleet of trading prahus.”


Development

The colors in the map are relative, there shouldn’t be much development here on a global scale. The eastern coast from Pahang upwards would have had the highest development, along with some of the western coast. The interior and most of the south were basically undeveloped.

View attachment 1216584

Market

My suggestion for a 1337 market center here is Inderapura/Pahang.
The west coast had been in the shadow of Srivijaya on Sumatra for centuries and possibly was already influenced by the Majapahit Empire at the time, although Singapura did apparently still exist independently.
The north was under the influence of Siam, while the northern east coast, with its numerous trading ports that actively traded with China, would have been in the strongest position on the peninsula.
Specifically the old kingdom of Pahang, which is consistently named as important in the sources and projected power along the entire east coast. The Majapahit chronicle even uses Pahang as the name for all of Malaya.
It traded a lot with China (this trade really took off during the Southern Song (1127-1279) which focused southward), but it was also the first port on the east coast that you’d encounter when sailing around the peninsula from the west.

As far as I can tell from the sources, Temasek is already on the decline at this point, but it was also quite important of course.


Suggestions for possible content

-The founding of Malacca. It started out as a small fishing village, but starting around 1400, trading infrastructure was built up and the town slowly became the main trading center and acquired a population in the thousands.
-Immigration from South East Asia? In the 15th century, Mjmjam (Dinding) had a population of 500 pinoys. The Bugis people from Sulawesi were also quite involved in Malaya’s history. I came across quite a few references to Sulawesi’s population drain due to emigration and slave trade. Malaya’s trade ports being an attractive region for immigrants might be something that can just be simulated with game mechanics.
-What about the Chinese migrations all over South East Asia? I’m assuming there will be some sort of representation?


Sources:
Wheatley, The Golden Khersonese: Studies in the Historical Geography of the Malay Peninsula before A.D. 1500
This map (the uncompressed tif is great) https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-231529372/view
This map https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/Siam_in_1893,_During_Rama_V's_Reign.jpg

Sejarah Melayu: A History of the Malay Peninsula

Sejarah Melayu: A History of the Malay Peninsula

www.sabrizain.org

Other sources are various online maps and generic geography

Thank you for the extensive feedback, we'll take into account during the review.