• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

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:
Countries.png

SoPs.png

SoPs2.png

SoPs3.png

SoPs4.png

SoPs5.png
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:
Locations.png

Locations2.png

Locations3.png

Locations4.png

Locations5.png

Locations6.png

Locations7.png

Locations8.png

Locations9.png

Locations10.png
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:
Provinces.png

Provinces2.png

Provinces3.png


Areas:
Areas.png

Areas2.png

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:
Climate.png

Topography.png

Topography2.png

Vegetation.png

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:
Development.png

Not a very well-developed region in 1337…

Natural Harbors:
Harbors EC.png

Harbors WC.png

Harbors3.png


Cultures:
Cultures.png

Cultures1.png

Cultures2.png

Cultures3.png

Lots of cultural diversity in NA!

Languages:
Languages.png

And the languages of those cultures!

Religions:
Religions.png

Religions2.png

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:
Raw Materials.png

Raw Materials 2.png

Raw Materials3.png

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:
Markets.png

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!
 
  • 177Like
  • 49Love
  • 20
  • 7
  • 7
Reactions:
Definitely strongly disagree with the lack of settled countries in the Southeast, if the pueblos are settled countries most of the countries encountered by De Soto should be as well, especially as they were very likely more complex in 1337 than they were two centuries later.

Focusing on my region of expertise, the three Caddo confederacies (Hasinai, Kadohadacho, Natchitoches) should all be settled countries, the set-up for them here is very weird and inaccurate. I'll make a more in-depth proposal later when I have the time but it's definitely in need of improvement. Location names are also a mess.

Also, why is the Texas area tiny? Please make it cover all of the de facto land of the Republic of Texas, that's the most accurate area division.

I have no idea why there's cotton in the southeast. There was no cotton grown in the pre-Columbian Southeast. There was in the Southwest, and that should be the region represented with cotton.
 
  • 49Like
  • 7
  • 3
  • 2
Reactions:
To be entirely honest, if having the area borders represented as the modern/colonial states have some benefits or gameplay implications, then that's totally fine by me. But if not, geographic designation of areas would make more sense.
 
  • 59Like
  • 10
  • 1
Reactions:
Okay since almost all of colonizable lands (Africa, Americas, Oceania) is either empty or SoP’s, can we remove the ability for countries to colonize other settled nation’s locations when they have high power projection?

As Inca and Aztecs were conquered instead of being colonized and colonizing Europe etc is kinda funny as high power projection country will be able to colonize its neighbours confirmed by Johan in one of
the comment last week/s

I dont know why we are able to colonize owned locations when there are less
tribal tags than eu4 anyway (and most are SoP so not a location based tag) , at first hearing I though it would be due to more native tags, but it is cetrainly not the case after seeing these maps, so pls tell us the reason of the addition of this mechanic?
100% agreed. Especially when I saw some dev confirm that Yuan could just colonise other Asian countries with high enough PP.
 
  • 18
  • 8Like
  • 7
  • 1
Reactions:
It wasn't posted in the picture and it may have been missed, but I'd maybe consider tribes of the Pacific NW as SOPs. They were permanently settled, with a clearly stratified caste system which included the division of labor and slavery. If the Calusa are to be considered SOPs, the Tribes of the PNW definitely qualify.
 
  • 32
  • 13Like
  • 3
Reactions:
I guess I'm going to be in the minority, but I like having area borders be based on actual borders that existed during or shortly after the timeframe, rather than on completely made-up "natural" borders.
I absolutely do not understand why so many people don't like straight borders, they appear in other parts of the map as well...
 
  • 74
  • 17Like
  • 6
  • 1
Reactions:
id prefer geographically based areas, im sure actual americans will have more opinions on this and thats who it matters to really, but looking at that """empty""" land and seeing it already cut up to its modern states feels odd, these games are about rewiting history (imo) so having our irl timelines decisions set in stone doesnt really work here. (also imo irl us state borders especially east coast are ugly)

also damn america got more good harbours than indonesia whats that about
 
  • 72
  • 21Like
  • 2
  • 1Love
Reactions:
Also what is the stance on those raw materials that existed, like cotton or tobacco, but weren't widely produced like in later plantation economies?
Should they still be present to the same extent as they were later during colonial times?
We'll reveal this in due time. ;)
 
  • 49Like
  • 12Love
  • 8
Reactions:
Those locations seem enormous, especially compared to Australia which is just as lacking in tags and wouldn't even be meaningfully interacted with by the rest of the world till waaay after north america.
 
  • 13
  • 4Like
  • 1
Reactions:
I definitely prefer natural borders over the late 18th century style. Which feels late for the time frame of the game and the straight lines seem out of place in general for the PC time period. And secondly it feels too pre-determined to me.
 
  • 65
  • 15Like
  • 3
Reactions:
We'll reveal this in due time. ;)
But how can we suggest raw materials if we don't know if these raw materials should be present to their colonial extent (which is pretty much what you've posted in the OP with so much tobacco and cotton on the East Coast) or to their actual 1337 extent?
 
  • 11
  • 2Like
Reactions:
I am surprised the Iroquois aren't a tag considering how many times they were mentioned across multiple TTs. I will leave commenting to people who know the region better than I am but I think its fine to extrapolate a bit the situation in the 1500s into 1337, considering that the tribal societies didn't just spring up out of nowhere and there was already likely a continuous development that was solidifying by 1337.
 
  • 15
  • 9Like
  • 2
Reactions:
Will settled and SOP gameplay overlap somehow?I'd imagine it would be pretty boring to play as Cahokia, being the only settled country in a vast area unless you can interact with all the SOP
It would be possible to have interactions, although it won't have the level of depth we'd like until SoPs receive proper full mechanics.
 
  • 55Like
  • 25
  • 1
Reactions:
I really dislike using colonial borders drawn hundreds of years ago.
Imagine a tribal chief on the East Coast trying to unite his neighbors, only to be blocked by a straight line.
At this moment, a voice echoes from the sky: "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further."
 
  • 43Haha
  • 16
  • 8Like
  • 3
Reactions:
Great to see several of the mapmodes returning to a clearer, more legible style!

Will the SoPs be free to migrate around? I can't remember from the TT about it, but can multiple SoPs be in the same location, and if so, will the mapmode eventually indicate minorities as per the others?
 
  • 8Like
  • 3
Reactions:
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?
I feel like this is kinda hard to answer, I'm of two minds myself. On the one had, I'd prefer borders based on geography, since colonial borders are a sample size of one and it just as well could have turned out some completely different ways. On the other hand, I feel for those who'd strive to recreate the Thirteen Colonies as 13 different colonies, which would only remain possible of the constituent provinces get to be those shapes. So maybe try to keep those closer to colonial maps, but make areas (which aren't inherently a limiting factor for colonial charters) follow more of a natural geography based approach?
 
  • 26
  • 11Like
  • 8
Reactions: