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

[Samgee Gamwise]

PROPOSAL FOR TEXAS

For this proposal, I focused on the eastern half of the state - roughly the area de facto controlled by the Republic of Texas, or the "Tejas" portion of Coahuila y Tejas, ending at the Nueces River to the south and slightly west of modern Austin/San Antonio. Every location in this region should be in the area of Texas. The name is of indigenous derivation and has a fairly long history (the "Kingdom of the Tejas", referring to the Hasinai Caddo, was known in Spanish New Mexico very early in the 1600s) Most borders are natural, as well - the Red River to the north, Sabine River to the east, and Nueces River to the south. The current area covering most of Texas, Natahende, derives from Mescalero Apache, who only lived on the westernmost fringes of the state, in my opinion making it a much better fit for that region (perhaps replacing the Spanish Llano Estacado).

I will eventually make a post covering west and south Texas, but I wanted to focus on this core area first. Outside of the Caddo and Wichita, most of Texas' indigenous people were nomadic hunter-gatherers, meaning placing definite "locations" is difficult and, given the hundreds of tribes listed in Spanish and French sources, there is both a lot of information and very little information at the same time, and it's all from a time several centuries after 1337. I mentioned in my initial comment that the current map is a mess, but that's not surprising, and these locations are also somewhat messy but slightly less so. The detailed location proposal is at the end of the post; in all, I suggest 51 locations for this region, a density which I believe is appropriate. I will try to do Louisiana next.

COUNTRIES/SOCIETIES OF POPS
There are some really strange choices on the current map. First, why are the Hasinai "Caddoan" while the Kadohadacho and Natchitoches have their actual names in their indigenous form? To be consistent, "Caddoan people" should be "Hasíinay" or "Hasinai". I also think all three of these confederacies should be settled states. They had already reached near the apex of their social complexity in 1337, and were well-organized with defined social hierarchies and extensive trade networks. There have been other comments with good descriptions of the specifics of this complexity, so my only addition would be to point out that it's not unreasonable to project these political subdivisions into this past, as the archaeological record within the Caddo homeland shows relative stability and very little indication of intra-Caddo warfare until the late 17th century, when Europeans began to arrive in earnest. There's very little evidence of "decline" even after the fall of Cahokia, aside from some small contractions on the fringes of settlement likely due to drought.

I'm loath to call for removing SOPs, but the inclusion of the Ishak (and their split into two components, for some reason?) is very confusing to me. The Ishak/Atakapa were pure hunter-gatherers, with low population density and very little established political hierarchies. If you're going to leave any region empty of SOPs, this is probably it. If the Caddo confederacies are made settled states it might make sense for the Ishak to stay, but as things stand having both represented as SOPs at the same time makes no sense. They had vastly different forms of social organization. Also if the Ishak are a SOP I'd argue the Karankawa should be as well, but with the current criteria I don't see much issue leaving most of Texas blank.

PROVINCES/AREAS
As stated, I believe all locations included (except the two Oklahoma ones) should be in a "Texas" area. Regarding provinces, I suggest the following divisions:

- Tso'to: taken from the Caddo name for modern-day Caddo Lake. Alternative name could be Nondacao.
- Nacogdoches: taken from the Caddo settlement that gave the modern city its name.
- Nachawi: taken from the Caddo name for the Neches River.
- Bidai: taken from the Quasmigdo people, who were called Bidai by others. Alternative name could just be Quasmigdo.
- Akokisa: taken from the Akokisa people. Alternative names could be Orcoquisac or Atakapa.
- Tokonohono: taken from the Caddo name for the Brazos River. Currently a location, but IMO makes more sense as a province.
- Karankawa: named for the group that resided in this area.
- Payeye: named for the tribe whose settlement, Yanaguana, became San Antonio.
- Tickanwatic: named after the endonym of the Tonkawa. Alternative could just be Tonkawa.
- Waco: named for the Waco, a Wichita subdivision.
- K'itaish: named for the K'itaish or Kichai, the SOP that occupies this area on the current map.

CULTURE
The Caddo shouldn't be split. While there were differences between each Caddo confederacy, they all shared many cultural traits and I believe it would be a disservice to split them up. I have added one new cultures: Quasmigdo to represent the Bidai (endonym: Quasmigdo) people south of the Caddo (who were not themselves Caddo). If needed, the Quasmigdo can be folded into the Ishak. I have opted not to break up the Coahuilteco culture because the migrations into Central Texas over the centuries following 1337, plus the elimination of most of its native population, have made tracing defined cultures back that far basically impossible.

RELIGION
I'm unsure why the Caddo are split yet again. The entire Caddo region should be in the "Ceremonial" area. Similarly, the Atakapa religion should extend into Louisiana rather than weirdly splitting the Ishak in half. The Bidai/Quasmigdo can go with them as well.

HARBORS
Galveston Bay could probably be a better harbor than it is currently.

TERRAIN
I've included suggestions for each location in my proposal. No changes to the climate, pretty much everything being subtropical is fine. I tried to represent the Texas Hill Country, which I believe should meet the criteria for Hills despite being shown as Flatland. If northern Louisiana and southern Arkansas somehow have hills, the Hill Country should definitely have them.

LANGUAGE
"Caddoan" is a language family that includes Wichita and Pawnee-Kichai, not just the modern Caddo language covered by the "Caddoan" language here. The current "Caddoan" language should just be "Caddo".

RAW MATERIALS
In terms of specifics: there should be stone in the Edwards Plateau (roughly locations with hills terrain in my proposal), to represent the widespread use of Edwards chert for tools in pre-colonial Texas. Compared to the current map, there should be no cotton at all (it was not grown in the southeast) and maize should be limited to locations with Caddo or K'itaish cultures. Some fur locations could also be added.

POPULATION
Estimates for the Caddo population vary widely, from as low as 8,000 to as high as 250,000. Somewhere between 18,000-60,000 seems to be the best consensus for the East Texas Caddo population pre-European contact.

For Southeast Texas, Lawrence Aten's Indians of the Upper Texas Coast gives estimates of roughly 800-1,200 for the Bidai, 1,333-2,000 for the Akokisa, 1,333-2,000 for the Ishak (Atakapa), and 4,000-6,000 for the Karankawa.

LOCATIONS
For dynamic colonial names, I have tried to include relevant Spanish, French, and English names that date before 1837. All English names are Anglo-American, so their relevance will depend on how dynamic naming works and whether colonial cultures are added. I have also included a few German names and one Sorbian name. These date from after the game's timeframe, but are fairly close and would be an interesting addition. (En. = English, Sp. = Spanish, Fr. = French, Ger. = German, Sor. = Sorbian)

I have done the least with North Texas (Dallas-Fort Worth area) because if sources are scarce elsewhere, they are almost nonexistent here, and the Wichita who resided in this area moved their villages around so frequently that you could have several locations named Tawakoni and they would all be placed accurately. Since I don't plan to do a proposal for Oklahoma, I've also added two locations there that I believe should be included.

I messed up the numbering, which is why there are two 25s.


SOURCES
Aten, Lawrence E. Indians of the Upper Texas Coast. New York: Academic Press, 1983.

Foster, William C. Historic Native Peoples of Texas. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2008.

Perttula, Timothy K. Caddo Landscapes in the East Texas Forests. Oxbow Books, 2018.

Girard, Jeffrey S., Timothy K. Perttula, and Mary Beth D Trubitt. Caddo Connections: Cultural Interactions within and beyond the Caddo World. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2014.

Hudson, Charles M. Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun: Hernando De Soto and the South's Ancient Chiefdoms. Revised paperback edition ed. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2018.

Texas Beyond History

Texas State Historical Association: Handbook of Texas

This article from the Big Bend Sentinel for some Hill Country locations

The map on this page of the Caddo Nation's website

Different Caddo map from the Texas Standard

Wichita map from the Texas Observer

I like this map suggestion, as it does shape locations to be more in line with geographic markers, such as the many rivers that flow into the Gulf of Mexico, as well as the Balcones Fault, the middle Hill Country, the Piney Woods to the East, etc.

Also if I may suggest some additional place names (in addition to Friedrichsburg and Neu-Braunfels that you mentioned) in line with your revised map suggestion, in German and Czech -- they are not historical for the Age of Discovery period, but in the unlikely event that we have German or Czech colonization of Texas, the German-Texan and Czech-Texan communities that came over in the 19th century have some place names that could be used as Easter eggs in homage to them.

Location ID	German	Czech
23	Rosenberg
26	Schulenburg	Dubina
38		[Maticka] Praha
39	Pflugerville
43	(Neu) Westfalen
48	(Neu) Münster

My geography may be a bit off, as I was taking the real-world cities and eyeballing them to your suggested map.

 

[EU3NOOB]

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 would argue that location/State/Area/Region boundaries should be based, at least in part, on the historical situation at the end of the game's time frame, at least for the states east of the Mississippi.

Sure, the historical situation is unlikely (almost to the point of impossible) to happen from a game starting in 1337, however, it's essentially impossible to predict how any one game will shake out between 1337-1837, so the argument between more geographically determined boundaries and historical/modern boundaries really comes down to personal preference rather than what would actually be better gameplay wise.

It should also be noted that the borders of US States east of the Mississippi River were at least partially determined by geography anyway, so its not like you're completely shunning geography by accepting historical/modern borders.

Also, just because this is how it is at launch doesn't mean it can't be changed in future updates.

 

[Demetrios]

Provinces:

• Lushootseed: Should be Cascadia, really. At present, the province of "Cascadia" doesn't cover any of the actual Cascade Mountains, whereas the Lushootseed province is all along the North Cascades and generally seen as the "center" of Cascadia from my experience. Also, "Suquamish" location should be a part of this province.
• Cascadia: I'm not sure what a good name for this province would be. It's the Olympic peninsula. Maybe Olympics?

Areas:

• Pomo: I would rename this to Cascadia. This is almost perfectly aligned with the southern half of the Cascadia bioregion. Otherwise it could be called Pacific Northwest or maybe Lower Columbia or something.
• This is my own wish, but if the non-rockies part of "Columbia Interior" was given to athabaska, it would fulfill my dreams of uniting the Cascadia bioregion with Pomo/Cascadia, Columbia Interior, and Northwest Coast perfectly in the shape of the Cascadia bioregion.
• Pomo Sea: Maybe just American West Coast? I've never heard of the Pomo Sea.

Cultures:

• Lushoot: I honestly cannot tell if this is abbreviated or not. It should be Lushootseed. There isn't anything called Lushoot. Since it includes the Twana, Puget Salish might be better, but they are their own culture with their own language, separate from Lushootseed. Separating them would be the most accurate.
• Halkomelem: Saanich, Klallam, Lhaqtemish are all their own culture, called Straits Salish. Halkomelem only includes the Fraser River and parts of Vancouver Island.
• Chehalis: Rename to Tsamosan, as it includes the Quinault and Cowlitz. Tsamosan is the term for all of them combined. They are all pretty closely related and their languages likely diverged relatively recently.
• I would also create another for the Quileute/Hoh (Chala'at) as I described earlier. They have their own culture and language which isn't even related at all to the Salishan peoples in the area.

I would love to see these changes to make this region the most accurate for gameplay!! I am very excited to play these societies of pops, assuming that will eventually be in the game! Nevertheless, the work put into North America has clearly been massive. For detailed maps of the Northwest Coast peoples, I would definitely reccommend looking at Volume 7 of the Handbook of North American Indians. They are more clear than I am here!

Yeah, the Cascadia province really does need a re-name, as it's not even within the Cascades (the Olympic Peninsula is part of the Coastal Ranges). Obviously, "Olympic Mountains" is not a good choice as a European name, but according to Wikipedia, the Olympic Mountains were named "Sun-a-do" by the Duwamish, so that would be a much more reasonable name for the province.

The Pomo never lived anywhere near the region named after them, and, as far as I can tell, never had the Pacific coast named the "Pomo Sea" after them either. I definitely agree that the Pomo region needs to be re-named as Cascadia, since, as you said, it covers the American part of the Cascades nicely. I would just say that the "Pomo Sea" should be called "American West Coast" in equivalence to the "American East Coast" on the opposite side of the continent. It's too large to be anything like "Salish Sea" or the like. Whatever it is eventually called, its southern boundary should be at Point Conception (Ineseno location), which is the dividing line between the cold waters to the north and the merely cool waters to the south.

 

[Dechoh.no]

Background: I work in archaeology and am based in the Northern California coast. Here are my initial reactions:

- I'm Impressed by the density in Northern California, but I am sorta dissapointed by the lack of density in Central and southern California. I could recommend more locations based of tribal boundries but I have a feeling that would make the location map way too dense. Southern and Central California should definetely have more locations though, where the tribes are easy to look up. (Split up Awaswas and Ramaytush pls so we can have San Francisco and Santa Cruz)

- I not sure why Sparse vegitation was used for much of Central California instead of Grasslands./ potentially more woods on the coast.

- Karuk, Tsnungwe, Natinixwe, and Wintu should be Mountains or at least hills, not plateaus.

- I really appreciate the use of Native names for tribal locations.

- In terms of Culture I'm not sure what you are basing this off of since its not off of tribes, it seems abbritrary but I dont know how to classify North Coast tribes on culture other than languistically. Maybe you could do "Coastal Algic", "Coastal Dene","Hill Penutian", and "Plains Penutian" to represent the different ways of life?

- Linguistically where you drew the line of what is a distinct language and what isnt seems very arbitrary again. For example why is the Southern Na-Dene languages seperate but the rest aren't? Linguistically Tlingit and Eyak diverged earlier, and the Californian/Oregon Coast Dene are just as distinct of languages from Northern Dene as teh Southern Dene Are.

- Chidkhu (I assume mean Tolowa based on location), Tututni, Ko Kwel, Quuiich, and Umpqua should all be Dene(Coast Athabaskan)
- Natinixwe and Tsnungwe should also be Dene(Coast Athabaskan) not Hokan or Penutian
- Onasatis should be Yuki(Yuki-Wappo) not Hokan

- Also IMO Jaroujiji (Humboldt Bay) although currently highly underutilised is a major natural deep water port. So I would upgrade it to a higher natural port level.

- OBSIDIAN, I'm not too familiar with your raw goods systems but Obsidian might be a great addition to the Americas as it was a very highly valued substance used to make all sorts of tools.

- I really appreciate how detailed you guys have been for such an intimidating region, keep up the good work!

 

[fraughtGYRE]

Do we really need to represent the accident of history that is the Northwest Angle

 

[Ekyman]

but according to Wikipedia, the Olympic Mountains were named "Sun-a-do" by the Duwamish, so that would be a much more reasonable name for the province.

Not the most academic source, but according to this that's not correct.

TBH I think "Olympic Peninsula" or "Olympics" is perfectly fine if a good native-derived name can't be found.

 

[Spartakus]

Yes! And we'd also welcome suggestions regarding this!

Are you looking for suggestions of historical names or for a dynamic renaming system?

For the latter I propose the following:

• For each nation that historically was a colonizer have a pool of historically used names. If the nation ends up owning the location a name was used and the location is at least a town, rename it.
• Do not use names from that pool for locations anywhere else.
• For other locations, rename them when they become a town and dynamically create names based on
  • Old world locations controlled by the colonizer with a majority of accepted culture (New York, La Nouvelle Orléans, Cartagena, Monterrey,...)
  • The nations rulers (current or former) or certain cabinet members (Jamestown, Charleston, Charlotte Amalie
  • Saints if the colonizer is catholic (San Francisco, St. Louis)

The examples are of course all to be found in the historic names pool and should not be used dynimically, but are here to explain the idea.

 

[Ulpia Batavorum]

I'm not personally an expert on the topic, but I think the main issue with carpeting the central and southern US with centralised tags is that pretty much all of them vanished about two centuries after the start date, with many of them barely leaving remnants behind. In order to represent this process properly for the entire civilisation, you would need really well-fleshed out mechanics for centralised tags to transform into SOPs and vice versa, and represent the spectrum of reasons that caused this to happen in real life. In what I presume to be the current state of the game, the only way you'd be able to do this is by kind of just giving them all events that make them explode, which would kind of render everything pointless for either people playing as them or people playing as the colonisers.

So I think it would be helpful for people to give suggestions on exactly how they think Mississippian gameplay should work and how the collapse should be represented and what the path could be to surviving it.

But unless that kind of mechanic is implemented, the only states with an ironclad case for their inclusion on the map would be, in my opinion, those states which survived into the late game. These would be, in my opinion, the Natchez/Emerald Mound polity, the Calusa kingdom and other polities in southern Florida such as the Ais and maybe others, and possibly the Iroquois (although I'm not sure if they should really be considered a state since from what little I know they are consistent with the kind of political structure that SOPs are supposed to portray). These all survived into the 18th century and the South Florida polities in particular had a long history of coexistence with the Spanish.

Other than these, I think there's a strong argument for showing the Coosa polity, the Moundville polity, the Winterville polity, the Angel Mounds polity, and the Spiro Mounds polity, just because these were the largest and most influential states, according to this post, and showing Cahokia but not them would be inappropriate.

And how many tags should be removed from all the previous TT maps because they no longer existed 200 years after the start date? That argument can/should then be applied to all tags not just those in the Americas.

All we need is a mechanic represeting the effect of the little iceage up untill 1450 with it slowly disappearing up to 1500, which could be a inconsistent/random and reduced food production mechanic in these locations including food from RGO's up untill 1450 which then changes back to how this would normally function in game for any other location in the next 50 years.

 

[Zerodv]

Reading the part about the population of the Americas really caused me some worry. I can't say much in relation to North America, since I haven't read as much on it as I have on South America. (which is because I'm from Brazil).

My biggest issue is which the following point:

The reason for my concern for this is that the Amazon rainforest alone likely housed between eight to ten million people, with a complex network of cities and polities spread across the major rivers of the basin. This stems from a combination of recent archaeological research in the region as well as observations by early European explorers in the continent.

On the archaeology point, research using Lidar as well as tracking anthropogenic Terra Preta (black soils) has shown the size and complexity of pre-columbian civilization in the Amazon.

As far as we are aware Amazonian societies cultivated a great variety of crops, from casava, sweet potatoes, and maize to even entirely novel varieties of rice not seen domesticated outside the continent.

They are known to have dug hundreds of kilometers of canals, roads, and causeways connecting settlements, as well as cuts between rivers, fish weirs, and artificial ponds. They made use of a great variety of landscaping techniques to build their towns and cities on artificial mounds to protect themselves from the seasonal flooding of rivers across the region.

According to research dating back to at least 2013, we have had studies suggesting the population of the Amazon Basin was higher than 8 million people.

And recent studies have agreed that the population of the region likely leaned to a more optimistic estimate between 8 million and 10 million. Mid range estimates from the 1970, 1992, and 2015 put the population at the very least 6 to 8 million people.

The rainforest was no prestine garden paradise prior to colonization, the modern landscape of the forest is a rather recent development resultant of the collapse of native socities across the amazon as a result of european contact and the arrival of european diseases.

Having that in mind, it's also important to note that the Inca Empire alone had a population between 6 to 14 million people, most likely around 12 million people.

This means that the Amazon and Inca Empire together would have a population between 12 to 24 million, likely around 20 million, and that's without including the rest of the continent.

Aggregate studies of multiple population estimates puts the population of the entire continent at around 60 million people by 1492

But potentially as high as 112 Million people.

Such a low population of 10.2 Million people completely misrepresents the vibrant and diverse mosaic of South America pre-columbian societies, when the population of the Amazon alone could potentially match that number.

The European colonization of the continent killed as much as 10% of the global population and around 90% of the population of the Americas as a whole. South and North America together may have had a combined lower range population of over 110 Million people (although it's possible it may have reached 200 million), of which in a mere 5 million survived by 1650. I worry that this representation, as presented by this edition of Tinto Maps, may be unintentionally downplaying the effects that the colonization of the Americas played on the indigenous populations.

(I'd post links to the sources I'm using, but it wont let me post links).

200 million for the Americas is just insanity, virtually no one argues for it, 110 million is already a very high count

 

[korandder]

Since several of the Areas share their names with rivers, one idea I have is to align the areas more with river drainage basins and name the areas after the rivers. Much of the Area currently called Pomo is drained by the Columbia river so I would consider adjusting its boarders and renaming after the Columbia (or a name for the Columbia in a First Nations language). The Area to the north should roughly follow the drainage basin of the Fraser and have a name based on the Fraser River. If the North West Coast is going to be its own area, I would extend it further south to include the land around the Salish Sea. Part of the Columbia Interior Area would be part of the Fraser Area, part to the Yukon Area and the remainder to a new Area that covers Peace and Laird Rivers which would take land from the Athabasca Area. I would split off much of the northern parts of the Yukon Area and the Athabasca Areas into a Mackenzie Area. An advantage to breaking areas up by river drainage is that they are often seperated by significant mountains in western North America.

 

[Wildrake]

Lake Superior is not navigable from the other lakes - the Soo Locks had to be built on the St Marys River between Huron and Superior to make that possible.

you're right, I was thinking of Huron, Michigan and Erie

 

[GalaxyEmperor]

200 million for the Americas is just insanity, virtually no one argues for it, 110 million is already a very high count

The sources I provided in my follow up comment corroborate my conclusion, but in any case I'll be attaching a file with the links to the different sources used (i can't link them here due to the filter preventing me)

The population sizes provided by Paradox for South America in specific and the Americas in general are absolutely the extreme low end for population estimates, which ignores much of recent scholarship on the topic that trend towards the twin continents having a large population with ranging from a conservative estimate of about 100 million for the total aggregate, 150 million for midrange estimates, and 200 million for the very optimistic high range.

Like I mentioned in my first comment, the Amazon Basin alone likely had a population (between 6 to 10 million) that matched or was just slightly short of the number provided by Paradox (10.222M). Notwithstanding the existence of the rest of the continent, such as the Inca Empire (between 6 to 14 million, most estimates around 12M) and other regions.

 

[squid_whisperer]

I strongly prefer the natural geography-following borders. I guess the best thing would be to have events or similar that allow reshaping states if the player decides to follow a US-manifest destiny style expansion, but I guess the game engine is not really designed to do that...

 

[GastonEstBonne]

I'm convinced that the majority of pro-geography people just want the new world to be a blank slate for their own enjoyment, history be damned

Yes? This isn't some malicious cover up of our motives, we've been pretty open about this. Paradox games are sandbox video games where you make your own history. They are not a history textbook. So yes, 100%, after 1337 history be damned! And I'll enjoy every second of subverting history, doing things never done before. Enjoying a video game is not bad, in fact, it's the whole point.

 

[AHumpierRogue]

I made a post about population a few days ago, but now that its the weekend I sat myself down and reviewed some notes from the book 1491 and made a post on the reddit about my thoughts on America. I was advised to put it here. so I'll copy paste it minus the part about population to not be redundant.

EU5 is coming at a time where the historical study of pre-Columbian America is undergoing a revolution. While it is nice that you have added states in the Pueblo region and in Cahokia, (which I should add, has significant religious flavour potential) The rest of the continent is barren. It is reserved entirely to sops. And even then, much of it is missing. I believe that California, the Pacific North West, East Coast, pretty much all of America have a desperate need for playable states.

[Population section goes here]

The Case for states:

In order to show that we need states in the region, we need to find proof of states historically. Thankfully, we have a decent amount of evidence for this. Namely the emergence of the Hopewell Culture. Active in the 2nd Century, the Hopewell established trade networks connecting most of North America and (possibly) agriculture to the North. Mann states "Hopewell villages, unlike their more egalitarian neighbours, were stratified, with powerful priestly rulers commanding a mass of commoners. Archeologists have found no proof of large scale warfare, and thus suggest that Hopewell did not achieve its dominance by conquest. Instead the vehicle for transformation may have been Hopewell religion. If so, the adoption of Algonquian in Northeast would mark an era of spiritual ferment and heady conversion, much like when Islam rose and spread Arabic throughout the Middle East."

A stratified society, highly hierarchical ruled by a priestly class spreading its faith throughout the American East? That sure sounds like a state to me! And one that emerged in the 2nd Century! True, Hopewell was gone by the 6th Century.. But, it left its mark with agricultural settled communities dotting the East Coast.

As various historians have noted (Mann lists a few in 1491), there is a strong case for a large number of North American settled urban states. But the arrival of European disease wiped many out. '"That's one reason whites think of Indians as nomadic hunters," Russel Thornton, an anthropologist at the University of California at LA said to me. "Everything else, all the heavily populated urbanized societies, was wiped out.'

All that is well and good. But what should be the states in America at game start?

Well I for one would emphasise the Iroquious, but no doubt that point has been made here before. That being said, I want to look more at the West Coast. Namely, the Pacific North-West!

The PNW is 100% an area that should have full-states operating. The PNW became a hotbed of settled/sedentary societies due to the richness of the region. With fishing becoming one especially prevalent mode of food production in the area.

The PNW developed highly advanced economies, based on a model of something known as "Potlatch". Which has been compared to modern ideas of a Gift Economy. The richness and success of the PNW region led to a sky-high population density, with there being estimates that the population of the Pacific North-West pre-contact reaching 1,000,000! (Of course there is debate on the number, but it still shows us just how massive the PNW was)

The following:
Tlingit
Haida
Tsimshian
Heiltsuk
Kwakwaka'wakw
And the salish
There are probably, almost definitely, more.

The PNW is just one area however. I also feel that the Caddo, with a population in the hundreds of thousands, should have a state. The Ais people of Florida with a pre-contact population also in the hundres of thousands ought to have a state.

Trade:

One important thing to hammer out is trade. As surprising as it may seem, pan-American trade was a regular occurrence in the region.

"By 1000 AD, trade relationships had covered the continent for more than a thousand years; mother-of-pearl from the Gulf of Mexico had been found in Manitoba and Lake superior copper in Louisiana" (Mann 2006, Pg.25). As such markets in North America could have deeper conenctions with other markets in Central and southern America, allowing for the arrival of goods like pearl and copper.

Technology and Colonisation

One of the things that made colonisation in EU4 so lopsided was technology. 2k stacks could wipe out an army 4 times it size due to technology differences. Now, I won't say that technological differences made no difference. Cannons did certainly intimidate the native population for instance. But they did often find ways of managing it, adapting to these new weapons. A famous case is the Aztec reaction to cavalry. At first they were caught off guard, but as the days went on Aztec warriors found ways to incapacitate cavalry by tripping horses with slings that made them unable to move.

Natives in North America also often had a one up on the colonists, mainly during first arrivals.

"Over time, the Wampanoag, like other native societies in coastal New England had learned how to manage the European presence. They encouraged trade but would only allow their visitors to stay ashore for brief periods." (Mann 2006, Pg.32). The image this paints is not one of helpless natives who are at the mercy of guns, but of those in a position above the colonists.

Firstly, the last point about natives being "above" the colonists is gigamegacope. Take a walk in America and tell me the Natives were above the colonists in some regard. There's more to tech than just military, though IMO European military tech was vastly superior just based on cavalry, gunpowder, and steel armor(not going to do much against steel with a flint blade). Administrative, agricultural, and "industry"-related tech was also pretty important for the economic growth factor, the colonies were able to grow quite quickly after all. Iron plows and oxen should not be underestimated as an advantage in tech all of its own. Now, I also completely agree that natives were not helpless but this isn't the 1960's anymore, no one is arguing that. Natives fought hard and used the advantages they could but ultimately were still brought down.

On Population, this may be controversial but sometimes I think modern population estimates are a bit dubious. I worry that, since there's no one to really gainsay them, archaeologists and historians just put forth and champion these insanely large numbers of people in certain regions to make their fields seem bigger and enhance the tragedy of losing these places. When the numbers don't matter you can just sort of blow it up to whatever desired size for effect.

To be clear, I'd still have more population than Paradox currently has, it is currently very low IMO. Just wouldn't go too far is all.

 

[Rjalowe44]

Thanks for posting the zoomed in map. Here are some dynamic names for the Nova Scotia/Acadia area.

English/French:
Wetewa'toquik -> Halifax
Kjipuktuk -> Dartmouth (if this clashes with a British location, then "Chebucto")/Chibouctou
Weljuik -> Sheet Harbour
Wikipoq -> Sherbrooke
Canso -> Canso/Chedabouctou
Aspotogan -> Chester
Ese'katik -> Lunenburg
Okumkikiak -> Queens County
Nisiamk -> Shelburne
Matinawamek -> Barrington
Chebogue -> Yarmouth/Cap Fourchu
We'kwayik -> Digby/Meteghan
Nme'juaqwek -> Annapolis Royale/Port Royal
Nictaux -> Kings County/Grand Pre
Jijkwtuk -> Wolfville
Kennetook -> Hants/Pisiguit
Cobequid -> Colchester
Chignecto -> Cumberland
Kekwapskuk -> Truro
Qospemk -> Inverness
Apaqtukwatek -> Richmond
Askataliank -> Louisbourg
Sipuk -> Sydney/Baie des Espagnols


@Rjalowe44 Feel free to hop in and make any suggestions or changes to this.

I'd probably do "Kjipuktuk -> Halifax" (Have that name where Wetewa'toquik currently is on the map and make that the natural harbour) "Punamu'kwati'jk -> Dartmouth" (Have that name where Kjipuktuk currently is on the map) and "Kamsok -> Canso/Chedabouctou" as those are the official translations from Parks Canada.

"Okumkikiak -> Liverpool" and "Nictaux -> Kingston" would make more sense to me, just to have a town name instead of a county name. Grand Pre I'd have as a dynamic name with Wolfville as it's located very close to Wolfville.

"Kennetook -> Windsor/Pisiguit" as Windsor was/is a more significant town.

I'd take the "e" off of Annapolis Royal, as that was the English name following the capture of Port Royal from the French (Named after Queen Anne).

"Cobequid -> Truro" makes more sense, it's located at the tip of the Minas Basin. The "Kekwapskuk" location on the map historically and currently has little to no population, I would consider just turning that into a wasteland/impassable area.

"Apaqtukwatek -> Santo Pedro (Portuguese establishment)/Saint-Pierre (French Takeover)/St Peters (English Takeover/modern name)/Arichat (Something fun for Basque localization)"

"Ingonish -> Aspy Bay" again some fun Basque localization.

I don't know much about the rest of the province, but all of these suggestions look great! I plan on doing some more digging over the next month. Might be interesting to incorporate some Basque dynamic names in this region as well, since Cape Breton and Newfoundland were historically important in the Basque fishing industry.

 

[Adrianople]

A good compromise (in the New World and Old, I suppose) for the shape of areas is to have areas/states fitting national subdivisions while the locations would be better aligned to fit geography. That way those who want their Canadian Provinces and US states aligning with reality while also allowing for historical partitions and borders (think the US-Canadian border in prior to 1817 or the Jay Treaty). There is a way to strike the happy medium that many may not realise they want.

 

[viola]

I'm convinced that the majority of pro-geography people just want the new world to be a blank slate for their own enjoyment, history be damned.

Carving the US states as they existed in the early 19th century into a map depicting the 14th century state of things, as if the creation of those states were a historical inevitability even before the Hundred Years War started, seems a much more "history be damned" thing to do.
It's strange that this needs repeating, but you have to consider that for all we know there could be no England at all by the time the Americas are discovered in a game of Project Caesar. Maybe the Hundred Years War goes really bad for them and France conquers the Isles, the English languages dies out and turns into another French dialect, the Anglo-French empire opts to colonize the Caribbean and Brazil leaving North America to the Swedes and the Dutch, and now those American states on the map look really dumb.

 

[marcusdarmstrong]

A good compromise (in the New World and Old, I suppose) for the shape of areas is to have areas/states fitting national subdivisions while the locations would be better aligned to fit geography. That way those who want their Canadian Provinces and US states aligning with reality while also allowing for historical partitions and borders (think the US-Canadian border in prior to 1817 or the Jay Treaty). There is a way to strike the happy medium that many may not realise they want.

I'd think the opposite would make more sense? Aligning areas and provinces based on practical geographic boundaries/known settlement patterns makes sense for them in serving their purpose as a game mechanic for colonization, while allowing construction of arbitrary polity borders to align with our current version of history sounds like something that would be achievable by specifically transferring individual locations from one colony to another.

I'd argue that:
1. It's very troublesome in-game to be faced with "I'd like to colonize the chesapeake bay" and end up with the utterly indefensible Maryland Panhandle, rather than the coastal terrain across the Potomac.

2. The process of the state needing to manually (re-)designate locations between colonies to establish the modern borders is a much more realistic model of how these borders were established in the first place.

 

[Gearanomaly]

We did some clean-up on the very early design, which had colonial goods, but apparently some were overlooked...

To be entirely clear: what we want on the setup is the raw materials present and exploitable in 1337, while those goods introduced post-Columbian Exchange will appear in the region in a different way (which will be dynamic, not static). On a side note regarding minerals, as we usually put in the map those exploited during the game's timeframe (1337-1837).

Ciwat in Louisiana should be Salt then. Avery Island (the biggest of the coastal slat domes) there was not only it mined within the timeframe, but used by the natives from before PC starts