Tinto Maps #27 - 22nd of November 2024 - Oceania

[ScienceNinja7]

I am not terribly familiar with Australia and never originally intended to write anything about it, but when looking through the culture and language maps I noticed that several locations appear to have accidentally been given the wrong culture, resulting in a bunch of cultures being present in two discontiguous (but usually nearby) locations. In almost all cases the misassigned culture is in place of what is probably intended to be a separate culture that is therefore not present on the map. I'm sure someone will have noticed this during review, but I might as well report it here.

These are the cases I've found, but there might be more. Cultures in [square brackets] are ones that I don't see otherwise present on the map. I have removed the random "-i" and "-an" suffixes on the culture names (why were those ever added in the first place?)

Location	Misassigned culture	Presumed intended culture
Unggami	Jaru	[Unggami]
Worora	Kija	[Worora]
Worla	Ngarinman	Worla
Ngarinyin	Doolboong	Ngarinyin
Bagu	Karangpuru	[Bagu]? or [Miwa]?
Doolboong	Bilinara	Doolboong
Kuwena*	Kungarakany	[Kuwema]? or [Malak Malak]?
Kungarakany	Nunggubuyu	Kungarakany
Woolna	Rembarnga	[Woolna]
Tiwi	Gunbalang	[Tiwi]
Kamor	Ngalakan	[Kamu]?
Jawoyn	Mara	[Jawoyn]
Mangarayi	Yanyuwa	[Mangarayi]
Yanyuwa, Budjanga	Mingin	Yanyuwa, [Binbinga]?
Bakanh	Guugu Yimithirr	[Thaayorre]
Koknar	Djabuganjdji	[Koknar]
Kungara, Walangama	Nyawaygi, Mayi	[Walangama]
Takalak	Wargamaygan	[Takalak]
Agwarmin	Bindal	[Agwamin]
Kutjala	Yuwi	[Warrongo]?

Additionally, the location of "Malak malak" has been given Ngandi culture; this appears to have been a mix-up with the intended Ngan'gi culture, but as a result, the Ngandi culture that already exists has been put in the Daly "language," giving it a random exclave. The location of "Kuwena" (should be Kuwema) currently has Kangarakany culture, but the adjacent location called Kungarakany does not. It looks like the Daly area in general has a big disconnect between location names and the cultures in those locations.

There are many other locations which have the name of a culture that is not in the location, but I haven't bothered to identify all of them. One noteworthy case, though, is that the entire Kamilaroi province has been given "Ngoorabuli" (i.e. Ngarabal) culture, while the adjacent location of Ngarabal has not. It appears that no Kamilaroi(~Gamilaroi~Gamilaraay) culture exists.

I dare not make any more specific suggestions regarding the culture or location setup - I'll leave that for someone more knowledgeable about it. However, I do think that the language setup needs an overhaul; I can understand a little bit of "abstraction" when dealing with such a linguistically diverse area, but these top-level, in some cases speculative language families certainly should not be at the level of "language," and probably not even at the in-game level of language family.

 

[Xero_99]

Tasmania is 68000 km² and perfectly habitable, so in the standards placed in the early tintomaps, it should have around 40 or 50 locations.

Maybe half that 'cause there's nothing here at game start (though that should probably be "nothing known" and/or "nothing worth giving a whole eighth of the island").

8 is ridiculous (but it isn't the first area with these problems, and I've got the impression I'm repeating myself everywhere )

What they've said in previous Tinto Talks is that its not just about habitability, but also political granularity. That's why Germany and Italy get some of the highest location density counts, because the locations are required to show the many different polities in the area.

What would more locations do to represent Tasmania better, that can't be done by its vegetation/terrain/etc.?

 

[Big_birdy]

Noongar looks a bit bigger than it was in reality

Spoiler: culture map

Spoiler: noongar dialects

 

[Big_birdy]

the Lardil people should be separate from the Ganggalidda

the Kayardild and Yanggal people should also be separate but the locations would probably be too small

Spoiler: proposal

 

[Brohatu]

Tasmania is 68000 km² and perfectly habitable, so in the standards placed in the early tintomaps, it should have around 40 or 50 locations.

Maybe half that 'cause there's nothing here at game start (though that should probably be "nothing known" and/or "nothing worth giving a whole eighth of the island").

8 is ridiculous (but it isn't the first area with these problems, and I've got the impression I'm repeating myself everywhere )

What they've said in previous Tinto Talks is that its not just about habitability, but also political granularity. That's why Germany and Italy get some of the highest location density counts, because the locations are required to show the many different polities in the area.

What would more locations do to represent Tasmania better, that can't be done by its vegetation/terrain/etc.?

I thought the number of locations might be too low across the continent even accounting for political granularity so threw together a comparison of post-review France and Australia. I was actually quite surprised by how close the location sizes have ended up.
I still reckon I'll want to make a mod with more locations, but for the base game this is honestly great.

(For reference I've added the screenshot from thetruesizeof I used to scale the game images.)

 

[Thorum]

Trusting your map scaling skills, these are the exact same size extracts for Brittany as for the Melbourne region (one of the densest in the map shown here). Locations are around 2-3 times larger, so I disagree with your conclusion that it is surprisingly close. Occam's razor says you might have been comparing Breton provinces with Melburnian locations ?

What would more locations do to represent Tasmania better, that can't be done by its vegetation/terrain/etc.?

I think the way I argued that question in the "Europe has too large areas" treat was well-worded :
It's not about Tasmania specifically, plenty of more important regions to heavily scale up.

I agree that locations, provinces and areas in all decently habitable places should be similarly sized, wherever in the world, for two main reasons:

- balance, both during gameplay and during the final phases of development (release and again each dlc)

- educational purpose, as currently proposed this game will teach a lot of people a wrong concept of the respective sizes between regions, even though the map is now better than in eu4 (with the to me incomprehensible choice to keep pretending it's a cilinder)

I very much disagree the problem lies in Western Europe.

The granularity in vegetation/terrain/etc would be the main reason to scale everything up to Western European standards, instead of scaling everything down to "Tasmanian" standards...

 

[korandder]

To throw some numbers into this discussion, the locations on the main island of Tasmania average about 8000 sq km; the locations in Brittany average about 1000 sq km. The location sizes in Indonesia, for example, are in the 3000 to 4000 sq km range.

There does seem to be a bit of a disconnect when the islands in Bass Straight are deemed to require two locations totalling about 3000 sq km while the main island only gets eight locations covering about 65 000 sq km.

Edit: The main island of Tasmania is almost the same size as Sri Lanka (25 locations in PC) and only slightly smaller than Sakhalin in what is now eastern Russia (8 locations in PC).

 

[Big_birdy]

Macquarie Harbour should be a natural harbour (no idea how good though)

 

[Brohatu]

Looking at the map again I agree that tassie could do with a few more locations, and I do personally want there to be more locations across Australia, but going by how the rest of the map is divided regarding geography, population density, and political divisions, Australia's in a pretty good spot.

Trusting your map scaling skills, these are the exact same size extracts for Brittany as for the Melbourne region (one of the densest in the map shown here). Locations are around 2-3 times larger, so I disagree with your conclusion that it is surprisingly close. Occam's razor says you might have been comparing Breton provinces with Melburnian locations ?

View attachment 1222340

Key word is "surprisingly". Given how awful Australia is in Eu4, PC Australia is decent overall and fantastic in comparison.
I need to look at Africa and the Asian steppe again to get a comparison of similar environments because I imagine there's similar 2x-3x size difference.

 

[korandder]

The south east coast of Tasmania looks full of natural harbours. Besides the River Derwent (Hobart) which I have mentioned before, other good places include Huon River, Norfolk Bay and Port Arthur.

File:Admiralty Chart No 1079 Tasmania, formerly Van Diemen Land, Australia, Published 1860.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

commons.wikimedia.org

 

[Zazzzzar]

@Pavía I'm working through a comprehensive review of the NSW region of Australia atm and the resolution and lack of identifying geographical features makes it very hard to gauge the size and extent some locations cover, particularly the further inland it goes.

Any chance we could have a screenshot of eastern/southeastern Australia with rivers overlaid over the map? It would make it much easier that way to line up historical colonisation routes/borders, possible wastelands/mountain ranges and tribal boundaries etc.

 

[gestr]

What they've said in previous Tinto Talks is that its not just about habitability, but also political granularity. That's why Germany and Italy get some of the highest location density counts, because the locations are required to show the many different polities in the area.

What would more locations do to represent Tasmania better, that can't be done by its vegetation/terrain/etc.?

Peloponnese has third of the land of Tasmania, it's less habitable, there's nearly no political granularity, and it has like 55 locations. 8 is absolutely ridiculous.

 

[finlarion]

Perhaps combine the various Australian religions into one Dreamtime/Alcheringa faith? Obviously there are some local differences between groups, though that may be preferable to the current state. Also perhaps consider adding some Aboriginal societies of pops and states; a good piece of literature on the subject of their agricultural practices (which were settled in some parts) can be found in Bruce Pascoe's "Dark Emu." Whilst there were hunter gatherers, there was a whole lot more, with things like the Brewarrina fish traps worthy of a google. TLDR add native Australian tribal nations, or at the very least societies of pops. The current state isn't satisfactory.

 

[hellfirematt]

I've noticed that southern Australia lack recognition of the natural harbours that they do have. Keep in mind that these locations contain a comparatively large area / coastline compared to locations elsewhere in the world, so there's an adequate natural harbour to be found in many of these locations, though the issue many of them had was inadequate drinking water.

Pretty much every location in South Australia inclusive from Bookabie to Ngarrindjeri (except Nawu and Kadu) could be at least the lowest level of natural harbour, similar to Queensland. There are decent natural anchorages pretty much everywhere in the Spencer Gulf, Gulf St Vincent and Encounter Bay into the Coorong.

In Victoria, I'd also recommend Gunditjmara as the location of Portland: the only deep sea port between Adelaide and Melbourne and I think should be a decent natural harbour.

Hobart (Toogee) in Tasmania should also be marked as a decent natural harbour, though maybe it would also be worth splitting this location in two to make a more clearly 'Hobart' location separate from the largely uninhabited Southwest.

 

[Zjarr]

Some more background for the Kingdom of Kaimana, which was traditionally stated to be founded in 1309 by Imaga (Rat Sran Patimunin I) and is mentioned in the Negarakertagama (as Wanin or Sran) as having diplomatic relations with Majapahit. The capital of Kaimana and the surrounding villages are currently listed as wasteland in the map of New Guinea, I think adding an additional province or location for the opposite side of Kaimana bay makes a lot of sense as this is where the urban core and palace of the Kaimana kingdom was located. I've included a map of the later Kaimana kingdom here along with the current locations in the area to highlight it. Kaimana only came under Tidorean domination in 1498, so if we are going by traditional narratives (which we seem to be for Ternate and Tidore) then Kaimana would be an independent trading kingdom in the 14th century under Rat Sran Patimunin II. Fakfak and Weri on the western tip of the Onin peninsula are also represented as wastelands but these were urban centers (by Papuan standards) and are even mentioned in Srivijaya annals as important trading towns. I think at least two locations should be added on the map, whether or not they decide to make Fakfak/Weri and Kaimana playable states, one on the east side of Kaimana Bay (could just be named Kaimana or the older name E'man) and one around Fakfak (could be named Kapaur, which is what the Ternateans called their vassal town in the location, or Weri). Culture could stay as Buruwai/Baham, the cultural subdivisions in most of Papua are too granular to be shown on the map I think. However, if you want a specific culture for Kaimana, they speak Mairasi languages on that part of the Bird's Neck isthmus.

 

[Xero_99]

Peloponnese has third of the land of Tasmania, it's less habitable, there's nearly no political granularity, and it has like 55 locations. 8 is absolutely ridiculous.

The Peloponnese/Morea has 26 locations and starts with 5 different countries owning land, and is in between the two biggest Eastern Mediterranean rivals Venice and (eventually) the Ottomans.

Tasmania has 8 locations but is on nearly the end of the map, with no countries owning land in 1337, with colonisers only getting there probably in in the 1600/1700s.

I'm being standoff-ish but seriously what is the obsession with adding more locations? So you can specialise each town on an island at the very edge of the map that as a whole is probably going to have the same population as a singular location in Europe by the end of the game?

 

[Big_birdy]

Peloponnese has third of the land of Tasmania, it's less habitable, there's nearly no political granularity, and it has like 55 locations. 8 is absolutely ridiculous.

I hate this place 1 has X locations while place 2 has Y locations, I think instead of complaining people should just research the area and propose more locations

 

[Thorum]

I hate this place 1 has X locations while place 2 has Y locations, I think instead of complaining people should just research the area and propose more locations

I hate the "people should stop complaining about the general imbalance in location density and do research" angle.

Those are two separate things: which principle to follow, and how to implement it.

As to a huge majority of THIS map thread, there simply are no sources even close to the fourteenth century, so it DEFINITELY doesn't make sense here.

 

[Thorum]

That being said, I'd very gladly get paid to go buy some maps and draw fantasy maps with around 1000-1500 km2 granularity in all regions with (almost) no sources other than current day geography

But I'm quite sure it's way better if it's done by the people looking at different Deepl translations of obscure texts in (currently) some Slavic language, so they get a rest from that.

 

[YashaCarry]

Shameless plug, I know, but I've put a lot of my feedback on Polynesia here prior to the Tinto Map, and I just put out a post on Melanesia, so I really would appreciate if some of my feedback can be looked at because it could help make the region much better as a whole.

Polynesia Suggestions for Project Caesar