Tinto Maps #30 - 20th of December 2024 - South America

[Pavía]

As we all thought, you had the Mata Atlantica in mind when you made those weird wastelands in Brazil.

I'm at work and honestly I have no definite sources to show so what I'll say will feel vibes-based, but: this is a terrible approach imo. Those areas had native populations, and most of them were perfectly colonizable by the Portuguese; many of those places weren't colonized until the XIX century not because of, say, Brazilian malaria killing the whites, but rather due to a mix of 1) Crown restrictions on colonization (east/south of Minas Gerais being the biggest victim), 2) the ferocity of the local natives after they learned of the settlers' cruelty (this was not an absolute deterrent ofc), and 3) the country just being so damn big and rich there were other easier areas to exploit. But the colonizers knew about those "empty" areas, they would cross them in travels and expeditions; they just did not settle them. I've made a map showing this in my suggestion thread:

Most areas in black are NOT in the Mata Atlântica region. Most of them are in the middle of the country because, again, it's too damn big. The frontier was simply enormous, we never had that many people (to this day the country is "sparsely" populated, only 23.8 people/km²). That, aligned with political/strategic issues (avoiding new smuggling lines from Minas Gerais, not colonizing the South beyond Tordesillas, why bother with Goias when Minas Gerais already has gold) brought us this colonization pattern. Even the Amazon got settled relatively soon (but of course, only near the rivers; the map is misleading in that).

For reference, this is how my location map looked last time I updated my thread:

Spoiler: yeah I know I should overlay this over the Tinto map but this is just for illustrating the post

View attachment 1233688

I do strongly believe this is a better approach. We do not need that many wastelands, the eastern wastelands should be restricted to the Serra do Mar/mar de morros (PT-BR only). What I would be more liberal with is the Amazon, however, precisely because we did not get much/any settlements far from the rivers until much later on (and for this, I have this Native Vegetation map which could be used as a reference, although limited to 1500).

And that's only about the locations. I have no idea about cultures and tradegoods and whatnot lmao.

Great feedback, thanks!

 

[FFLS]

I would like to see another name for the chimu dinasty as chan chan is a city, i vote to use "Naymlap" or just "Chimor"

Also at least add as a sop or as a nation the Yarowilca or Yaros of Wanuku or Huanuco province they had very impressive structures build in this era

also i would love to know why they speak the aymara language, which source did you use for that?

 

[EnchantedF.d.S.]

Incredibly, it managed to be even worse than what I was expecting
This map isn't just completely incompatible with the centuries of Portuguese colonization that came afterwards, it's also horrible in representing the variety of Native life in Brazil. What's the point in having so many locations in the Amazon river (which is a good thing) if none of its tributaries have locations? None of these rivers that still bustle with indigenous life to this day? Many of them were explored before the end date of the game.
But as a native of Rio, I honestly can't even understand what went on. Two locations, and they're split so weirdly that it makes no sense at all. Before the end of the game Rio would become the capital of the Portuguese Empire. Here it is an immense location that somehow stretches north into completely different territory. Why name it Goitacá, when they were present mainly in the north? Rio would famously be the scene of confrontation between the Temiminós and the Tamoios, where are they?
Most of the wasteland in today's Rio state was settled by various Native groups and were intensively settled with sugar plantations. I mean, for God's sake you can't even do the Caminho Real in this map!
The locations are horrible. Some areas of Brazil are better, but there seems to be no logic as to which indigenous groups get represented and which get lumped into the incomprehensible wastelands. I wasn't expecting much, but this?
Most of these wastelands were settled! Most were settled. Even in the Amazon, even in places where there wasn't white presence, there were Natives there! The Mata Atlântica is simply ridiculous. Sure, some areas did take more than a while to get deforested, but there are so many important farms and even some villages that are currently wasteland that I... I honestly don't know what to feel.
Not a single part of the Mata Atlântica should be a wasteland, except for these areas in higher ground that truly made communication difficult. Not a single area should be a wasteland. There's no logic to deeming any of it a wasteland; even when they were not developed, people still lived and crossed these lands! My good God, this map is quite simply horrible. The cultural map, at least for Rio, is horrible too. Where are the many tupis of Rio? I mean, some around Angra are represented, but what about the more than fifty Temiminó villages that were found on Paranapuã, modern Ilha do Governador, alone? Tamoios, temiminós? Where are the Puris, the Coroados?
This map makes me very sad. It's clear that a very different standard on what is a wasteland was applied to Brazil, and it's a standard that makes no sense at all. I do know that getting proper representation of Amazonian people would be nearly impossible, but seeing even the areas that would be intensively settled by the Portuguese being given the short stick was definitely not something I was expecting.
Also, there are so many at-the-very-least-SoPs missing in Brazil... This is a tragedy.
I will try to make a feedback for Rio. I hope others can help me with the rest of Brazil.

 

[Pavía]

Not exactly related to the map, but is the unique style of Inca inheritance represented in some way? I think it's quite significant, since it was a major incentive for their rulers to go out and conquer other lands.

Yes!

 

[Pavía]

Also let me ask something else: was there any criteria in drawing the locations? I was cheeky and used the municipalities' borders themselves and imo it worked, but I don't know if you have super accurate maps for yours or just draw blobs that looked "good enough".

We use a mix of geographical, administrative, and cultural layers for regions such as Pre-Colonial Brazil.

 

[ArVass]

I know I'm not going to be neither the first nor the last person to say this, but I think the Xingu civilization should definitely be represented and not be a wasteland.
Same for the Amazon, which probably should be trespassable land (if not settleable, at least as a corridor) stretching from the Andes and the Peruvian Amazon all the way to the Delta.

Also, I see no Yanomami, only Sikuani around where they approximately should be; Wikipedia claims that Sikuani is regarded as a derogatory name for Guahibo, although with a [citation needed].

 

[Pavía]

I have a question, arawak is the name of a culture/linguistic branch, not really a specific culture.
The few provinces with arawak culture are supposed to represent minor arawaks cultures while the major arawak cultures are named?

Yes, although I've already talked with my team, and we'll likely make it a bit more consistent when we review the region.

 

[matfer13]

What do you mean?

When religions were first mentioned Johan said that there was an Andean religious group

 

[mosthiert]

Love most of it, but unfortunately do have an issue with the Mata Atlântica thing. It used to be very dense, but by the age of absolutism most of the impassable area was not only explored but held large centers of population. Minas Gerais is mostly impassable, but in the 1700s it was one of if not the most developed region of Brazil, due to the large amounts of gold discovered in the region. I understand that it's supposed to represent how it was in the 1300s, but unless there is a way to clear impassable regions and turn them colonizable, I don't think it's the best solution. The place where São Paulo is is impassable, and the city was founded in 1554! Historically, areas of Cerrado and Caatinga were seen and much more inhospitable and had much less infrastructure, and they are traversible and colonizable in game (not that I don't want them to be, they are great the way you made them!)

The only other thing is that I think the Marajoara should be represented as a country, since they were known to be mound builders and it seems they had defined social hierarchy, but I get that, since there's very little information about them, making them an SoP might be the better solution.

Either way, I think the map's looking gorgeous, and I really like everything about the game so far!

 

[dw70676]

I get if you want to keep it a surprise, but will Tinto Flavor function more like Tinto Maps in the sense that it is centered on flavor in one region at a time, or more like Tinto Talks, in the sense that it goes over flavor one mechanic at a time?

 

[donbg]

I really don't understand the depiction of the Mata Atlantica as a wasteland if what you want is to portray 1337. If you actually wanted to portray the colonial period around the 1500s, then making all of that wasteland makes a little bit more sense since there was a massive erasure of the local peoples due to disease and warfare and the Europeans had trouble venturing into those regions early on. But that would still be inaccurate and I am not sure where you get this setup from in 1337.

These areas that you have made into wastelands were inhabited by groups of indigenous people in the same way as other parts of Brazil or other regions of the world be. You've made, for instance, a huge part of the araucaria forest into a wasteland https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floresta_ombrófila_mista when not only was that region inhabited and traversable, but is theorised to have been man-made, with much of its extent deliberately encouraged by indigenous peoples. I don't understand why a region that was engineered by people is considered a wasteland.

The same applies to other parts of the Mata Atlântica. You've made regions that were inhabited by the Botocudos (https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botocudos) into wasteland, you've made regions that were inhabited by Jê and Tupi-Guarani peoples in significant numbers and later during the time period of the game became colonial settlements into wasteland. Nowhere else in the world do you see regions that were first inhabited by agriculturalists who had chieftaincies and waged war against each other, and then were settled by huge numbers of colonialists turned into wasteland.

Not to mention that the Mata Atlântica is not untraversable. There is a huge history of constant movement of traders, peoples and mercenaries - both indigenous and colonisers later on, throughout its entirety. And of settlements, as I've mentioned. The very very difficult regions to pass are the Serra do Mar mountain chain for the most part. Having the forest exist in 1337 is not a reason to make it a wasteland.

I would suggest abandoning your current design policy for Brazil. It is ahistorical, repeats colonialist narratives that Brazil was supposedly 'abandoned' before Europeans and isn't in line with your design policy for wastelands in other parts of the world. I would suggest adopting the wastelands seen in one of the threads:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/building-a-feedback-to-brazil.1702933/page-7

Another thread about Brazilian locations

There's already a thread on Brazil, but I was doing my own thing before Braziler posted his thread and I wouldn't want to derail it, so here it is. I started doing this map because I very much disliked the few bits we'd seen of Brazil (the...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

Example of a book on the topic I've read, sadly in Portuguese: A Ferro e Fogo: A História e a Devastação da Mata Atlântica Brasileira

 

[Pavía]

When religions were first mentioned Johan said that there was an Andean religious group
View attachment 1233704

Ah! This has changed, and become a bit more complex. We may think of giving an update on this, in the near future.

 

[Pavía]

I get if you want to keep it a surprise, but will Tinto Flavor function more like Tinto Maps in the sense that it is centered on flavor in one region at a time, or more like Tinto Talks, in the sense that it goes over flavor one mechanic at a time?

Country-centered, usually, although sometimes we'll take a wider scope.

 

[Conde de Montanelas]

I'm from Brazil and I have a few doubts:

1) the territory named "Upaon Açu", shouldn't it be an island? I was born there and locals refer to the island itself as "Island of São Luís" or "Upaon Açu Island";
2) whether it remains the same or turned into an island, Upaon Açu has (nowadays at least) the Itaqui Port, which is the deepest port in Brazil and an inportant one. Shouldn't the Natural Harbors map be a bit brighter for it?
3) a side note: near the end of the 1500s, the french took the island from the portuguese. Their records say that there were about 12k natives living there at the time. Might be something that could be added to the Population Map.

The French didn't take São Luís do Maranhão from the Portuguese, the French founded the settlement (hence São Luís, from Saint Louis Roi de France).
The Portuguese were the ones who took it, later on.

 

[Trefoldigheden]

I like the current state of the Atlantic Forest. Not sure listening to the Brazilian community alone is a great idea - they seem to prefer chopping down their forest hehe (joke/fact)

 

[Kronos_Abiectus]

The Amazon River, even nowadays, is long and large, and pose a great deal of effort in building bridges across its margins. The first bridge in the Amazon river that is closest to its mouth is the Rio Negro Bridge (Black River Bridge) that connects the city of Manaus with the southern shore of the river. Most of the transport between its shores is done by ferry boat.
On a historical perspective, europeans used the river to access the interior of the Amazon Forest in search of gold, plants and other exotics. The indigenous people who lived by the shores of the river were the first to be affected by the europeans, either being slaved or killed or succumbing to diseases.
I think that the river should be navigable to a certain extent.

 

[Polesie Admiral]

Country-centered, usually, although sometimes we'll take a wider scope.

What will be the first country you'll cover its flavor?

 

[RouteVenus]

Can you post a zoomed out religion map?

 

[LordOfAnts]

I know I'm not going to be neither the first nor the last person to say this, but I think the Xingu civilization should definitely be represented and not be a wasteland.
Same for the Amazon, which probably should be trespassable land (if not settleable, at least as a corridor) stretching from the Andes and the Peruvian Amazon all the way to the Delta.

Also, I see no Yanomami, only Sikuani around where they approximately should be; Wikipedia claims that Sikuani is regarded as a derogatory name for Guahibo, although with a [citation needed].

The Kuikuro (main Xingu group at the time) are represented as a SoP.
I would argue that they should be represented as a settled country, not just a SoP though, with the other Xingu groups being represented as SoP. Will study this further and bring sources in the following days.

 

[FFLS]

Kuikoro?? ok this is EPIC....