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Tinto Maps #28 - 29th of November 2024 - North America

Hello everybody, and welcome one more Friday to Tinto Maps, the place to be for map lovers! Today we will be looking at North America, which is very handy, as we can deliver some Thanksgiving turkey maps to our friends from the USA (and Canada)!

But before I get started, let me have a word on some (shameless) promotion. You may know that we in Paradox Tinto have also been in charge of Europa Universalis IV in the past few years. Well, I just want to let you know that there’s currently an ongoing sale on the game, with several discounts on diverse packages, of which outstands the hefty Ultimate Bundle, which includes all the DLCs developed and released by Tinto in the past 3 years (Leviathan, Origins, Lions of the North, Domination, King of Kings, and Winds of Change), and a whole bunch of the older ones. I’m saying this as you may want to support the ongoing development of Project Caesar this way! Here you may find more detailed information, and all the relevant links: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...toria-bundle-up-for-this-autumn-sale.1718042/

And now, let’s move from the Black Friday sales to proper Tinto Maps Friday!

Countries & Societies of Pops:
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For today’s Tinto Maps, we thought it would be a good idea to show both the land-owning countries and the SoPs. As I commented last week, we’re trying to follow consistent criteria to categorize countries and societies. This is our current proposal for North America, with Cahokia and some Pueblo people being the only regular countries in 1337, surrounded by numerous SoPs. I’m not bothering to share the Dynasty mapmode, as we don’t have any clue about them, and they’re auto-generated.

However, we have been reading and considering the feedback we received last week, in the Tinto Maps for Oceania, so we want to let you know that this is our current design proposal and that we want to hear from you what are your expectations regarding the countries that you would consider landed in 1337*, and also which countries you’d like to play with in this region, either as landed, or as a SoP.

As you may already know, our commitment is to make Project Caesar a great, fun game with your help, and we greatly appreciate the feedback we receive from you in that regard.

* This is already quite tricky, as most of our information only comes from post-1500s accounts when the native societies were already looking very different from two centuries ago. Eg.: The first reports made by Hernando de Soto about the Coosa Chiefom around 1540 points it out to be organized in a way that we’d consider it a Tribal land-owning tag, as confirmed by archaeology. However, that polity was not organized at that level of complexity in 1337, as there isn’t any contemporary data comparable to that of Cahokia. And some decades after the encounter with de Soto and some other European explorers, the mix of diseases had made the Chiefdom collapse, being more akin to what a SoP would be. This type of complex historical dynamism is what makes it so difficult to make the right call for the situation in 1337, and also for us to develop with our current game systems the proper mechanics that would be needed for SoPs to be fully playable (and not just barely half-baked).


Locations:
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Plenty of locations, at the end of the day, are a big sub-continent… You may notice that we’ve tried to use as many native names as possible, although sometimes, we’ve failed to achieve that. Any suggestions regarding equivalences of Native and Post-Colonial will be very much appreciated, as this is a huge task to do properly!

Provinces:
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Areas:
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Areas… And with them, an interesting question that we’d like you to answer: Which design and style do you prefer, that of the East Coast, more based on the Colonial and Post-Colonial borders? Or the one for the Midwest and the Pacific Coast, more based on geography, and less related to attached to modern states? Just let us know!

Terrain:
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Some comments:
  • Most climates are portrayed in NA, from Arctic to Arid.
  • The Rocky Mountains are rocky!
  • Regarding vegetation, we wanted to portray the forest cover in 1337, which is tricky, and that’s why some areas may look too homogeneous. Any suggestions are welcome!

Development:
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Not a very well-developed region in 1337…

Natural Harbors:
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Cultures:
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Lots of cultural diversity in NA!

Languages:
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And the languages of those cultures!

Religions:
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We have a mixed bag here: On the one hand, Eastern and Northern religions look more like the design we’re aiming to achieve, while on the other, to the south, you can find the splitter animist religions based on cultures that we now want to group into bigger religions, more akin to the northern areas.

Raw Materials:
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Wild Game, Fish, and Fur are king in this region! But we are also portraying the ‘three sisters’ (maize, beans, squash), the agricultural base for many of the native American societies, using Maize, Legumes (beans), and Fruit (squash). Cotton is also present in the south, as it was also native to the region (although the modern variant comes from a crossing with the ‘Old World’ one), and there are also mineral resources present here and there.

Markets:
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Two markets are present in 1337, one in Cahokia, and another in the Pueblo land.

Population:
Broken map! But as this is an interesting topic to discuss, these are the current numbers we’ve got in the region:
  • Continent:
    • 20.487M in America (continent)
  • Sub-continents:
    • 10.265M in North and Central America (we have a pending task to divide them into two different sub-continents)
    • 10.222M in South America
  • Regions (roughly 1.5M):
    • 162K in Canada
    • 1.135M in the East Coast
    • 142K in Louisiana
    • 154K in the West Coast
    • 43,260 in Alaska

And that’s all for today! There won't be a Tinto Maps next week, as it's a bank holiday in Spain (as I was kindly reminded in a feedback post, you're great, people!), so the next one will be Central America on December 13th. But, before that, we will post the Tinto Maps Feedback review for Russia on Monday, December 9th. Cheers!
 
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When Europeans colonize this region, will it be possible to have each individual colony (Virginia, New Jersey, New York etc) be separate colonial subjects, perhaps united in an IO? Because that would lessen the need for colonial borders IMO.
Since the colonization TT has said that charters are based on provinces, and once you created a colony you can then decide if a second charter gets to become a new colony or join the first one you've established, I think mechanically there shouldn't be any issues to recreate the individual colonies. As for an IO, that's obviously a setup choice, but I think they could/should pre-program a type which would allow any colonial overlord to group together geographically close colonies, should they choose to do so.
 
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In the Areas mapmode, I would suggest maybe changing the names "New Brunswick" to "Acadia", and "Acadia (Nova Scotia)" to "Acadian Peninsula" if colonial/post-colonial is the direction that ends up being used.
 
Thanks. So another question: how do you deal with locations with multiple harbors? Do two Palma de Majorcas add up to a Sevilla, do you go with the best harbor, or something in between?
Best harbor.
 
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I am completely fine with limiting the amount of playable nations in north america in 1337. In EU4 it's been nothing but a pain, and I'm using a mod to remove the migratory tribes in north- and south america anyways. I mean, maybe there could be one or two more on the east coast, but I'm generally fine with it. I'm assuming the aztecs, maya and inca are going to be playable, and that's what I'd consider important.

I do however hope, that the SoP are properly able to fight and resist. Otherwise it would at least seem fairly simple for that blue blob to conquer the continent.
 
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I have a few comments.

On geography I don't know what you decide is the difference between forest and woods, but Virginia is one of the most heavily forested regions in the world, and I think that should be reflected in a difference in terrain to it's north and south. I also think there should be some wastelands representing the everglades in Florida- Florida was only really settled in the 1950's and that's because that level of technology was necessary to really settle the area thanks to its massive swamps that were considered impassable. They were also vital to the two Seminole wars fought between the US and Seminole indians. I'd say simply turn most of the interior into a wasteland while leaving the coasts free to settle.

Anyway I gotta say I'm disappointed in the lack of native-tags. Honestly I would say in the absence of data to represent how complex they were we should ere on the gameplay side of things, and make them more complex so that they can be played. Especially since the AI is probably going to be pretty dodgy in forming their own tags, most colonial games will probably find the America's pretty empty. I'd say you should at least make the tags that make up the Huron and Iroquois confederacies represented as tribal nations. I would also go for the Seven Civilized Tribes, among them the Iroquois and aforementioned Seminoles.

I wonder if SOP's are going to have a lot of the Native American mechanics like in EUIV, like migration and federations. I still feel they could have been more refined, but I appreciated how they made for a different playstyle than other nations, and it helped to represent those nations being less advanced while allowing them a mechanic to reform their societies.
 
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A bit late since it’s still early morning here in America. Theres a few issues with California I wanted to point out.

Lakes:
1. Why is Lake Tahoe missing? I know it’s not of much strategic importance in this time period, but for a map of this granularity it should definitely be included.
2. What’s with the random lake west of Fresno (about midway between LA and San Francisco)? This region of California is typically way too dry to support natural lakes, so I think this might be a reservoir you’re accidentally including.

3. Why is the Salton Sea (the lake west of San Diego) present? As far as I remember, this lake only appeared in the early 20th century as a result of artificial flooding. Im not extensively familiar with the geological record, but I don’t think this lake existed in the 14th century.

Mountain passes
While formidable, the Sierra Nevadas are certainly a more passable range than they’re made out to be. Some passes you might want to add:
1. Donner pass, between Sacramento and Reno. Probably the most historically important, since it was the main route used by settlers to go to California by land.

2. Carson pass, south of Lake Tahoe. Used by the Fremont expedition in 1844.

3. Spooner Summit, the lowest pass and also where the first transcontinental highway would go through.

Province density
Again I know California is not the most strategically important region in this time period, but it’s definitely more important than say, Alaska or Utah, which have similar province density. I think that you could at least make a province out of each of the 21 missions the Spanish established.

Resources
Obviously before the Colombian exchange the situation in California was much different, but I think there should be some way of simulating the Cattle trade that became very important to the region at the end of the games time period. Also the Central Valley is some of the world’s most productive farmland because of its climate, which allows basically anything to be grown there. So this resource diversity should be allowed to come up at some point, though I suppose this would fit into whatever feature is used to simulate the Columbian exchange.

Climate
The central coast and the Bay Area should definitely be Mediterranean, in fact this region is a famous example of the appearance of this climate outside of Europe.

I know that California probably isn’t the biggest focus at the moment, but I hope this is useful whenever you take a second look!
 
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Probably a divisive opinion, but I'd much rather have organic area and province shapes than colonial ones. If I'd play in North America as a native they'd feel jarring, and if I'd play as a colonial power, I'd want to create my own colonies, instead of just recreating the US states with new names
 
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Hello from Tennessee! Specifically what you have marked as Watagua. Is it possible to get a map of the rivers. The Mississippi and Tennessee rivers are both very important for orientation here
 
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I think I'd prefer the East Coast colonial and post-colonial borders, since ultimately the Europeans will be colonizing that area at some point during the game's timeframe. Also, if we are to ever to form the United States, it would seem a better idea to have the colony footprint already there.


but why the british colonly lines / american? what about new sweden lines, or New Netherlands lines? Let alone colonial powers that appear during the game play such Brittany, Ireland, Belgium, Italy, Norway, Poland, etc.
 
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I know that this region is a fairly peripheral area to EU4 2.0, but I do hope that the Mississippian do eventually receive an expansion.

As an aside, Cahokia being the sole Mississippian polity seems kinda odd - it wasn't unique in its political integration or complexity, it just had the largest capital. It would kinda be like having ancient Greece uncolonized with the exception of Athens.
 
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Areas… And with them, an interesting question that we’d like you to answer: Which design and style do you prefer, that of the East Coast, more based on the Colonial and Post-Colonial borders? Or the one for the Midwest and the Pacific Coast, more based on geography, and less related to attached to modern states? Just let us know!
I don't know much about Native Americans and if they had already known and measured the shape of the earth and thus were able to partition their lands based on latitude and longitude lines or not, but I imagine a Native American country would probably have their border (or lack thereof) based on cultural or natural borders like rivers, mountains, drainage basins, similar to Europe and parts of Asia (not entirely, but you get my idea) instead of a wobbly compromise version of straight lines that was drawn by the British colonizers who didn't care about natural borders or ethnic group populations.

So if my assumption above was correct, what if there are two versions of borders?

Version 1: Based on natural and cultural borders, available for natives by default and foreign colonizers by choice (Europeans, or whatever country that can circumnavigate the earth first in a single game run)
Version 2: Based on (colonial) historical borders with those straight lines, available for foreign colonizers by default, based on latitude and longitude lines as it was drawn by them

This way we could have an interesting dynamics between a Native American country with its natural borders being in a competition with a European country (or whatever country who has figured out the meridian lines) who is trying to impose their version of straight borders in North America. And with that being said, perhaps the same could also be applied in Africa, parts of Asia, Australia, or anywhere with those straight lines?

These are merely suggestions though, I know it's way too difficult to code and balance because this game has fixed locations instead of "free world" that can later on be separated into different regions like drawing a district in Cities Skylines
 
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Isn't Erie location eerily big?
Erie the location is fine, it covers the extent of modern-day Erie County, PA. Erie the area is way too large, though, because it encompasses the wasteland area representing the Alleghany Forest State Park. That area historically was settled by Onondagawa (Seneca) peoples, and so should ideally either be included in its area, or (if strictly defining inside modern state borders), probably given to the Lycoming area to 'balance out' the map.
 
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Not isolated, I mean with only one point of entry:

Locations9.png


Tuktoyukiug, K'áhbahmitúé, Jalgiitsik and Qurliqtuq all seem like dead-ends.
Oh, yes. Well, that's not different from Otranto, Sicily, or Korea, in game terms, it's just a different scale.
 
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So we can have areas' names in the native languages?
We're going back to the Europe's maps, we have a lot of renaming to do!
We may change it to Alaska... :p
 
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but why the british colonly lines / american? what about new sweden lines, or New Netherlands lines? Let alone colonial powers that appear during the game play such Brittany, Ireland, Belgium, Italy, Norway, Poland, etc.

No particular reason, other than that's what was historical. I wouldn't be upset about it either way, honestly.

But, if you could share some sources on the New Sweden or New Netherlands colony lines, maybe that would be enough to change my mind and ignore historical precedent.
 
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Oh, yes. Well, that's not different from Otranto, Sicily, or Korea, in game terms, it's just a different scale.

Yeah, but you do not move armies at that scale, right? You only move from location to location. So I guess it's intentional and is not really a problem for the game, then? Okay
 
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