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Tinto Talks #63 - 14th of May 2025

Hello, and welcome to another Tinto Talks, the happy Wednesdays where we talk about Europa Universalis V!

Today, we will be taking a look at three of the religions born in India: Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism, which in the game are part of the Dharmic religion group:
Dharmic.jpg

As usual, take all UI, 2D and 3D art as WIP.

So let’s start by taking a look at the religious divide of India at the start of the game, in 1337:
Indian Religions.jpg

We now have an interesting feature when in the religious map mode, as by hovering over a certain religion in the religious breakdown, you can check the religious spread and heatmap of that said religion. So let’s check Hinduism and Jainism, as both are present in 1337:
Hinduism spread.jpg

Jainism spread.jpg

You also have these tooltips with the most important characteristics and the flavour of each religion, as we saw in previous Tinto Talks.



Hinduism

Hinduism1.jpg

Hindu Panel.jpg

The first thing to talk about is the Hindu branches, which appear as an icon and action in the panel:
Hindu Branch1.jpg

There are four branches in Hinduism, and each one is represented through an International Organization. Here you can see all:
Hindu Branches.jpg

When you click on a Hindu IO, each has its own panel:
Hindu Branch3.jpg

In ‘Agenda’ (which is a common building block for different religions), you have a religious law set for each branch, that defines its mechanics:
Hindu Laws.jpg

This is the one for Vaishnavism:
Hindu Laws2.jpg

Vaishnavism2.jpg

Don't you love nested tooltips? Because we do!

It allows the country to activate as many as 3 Avatars of the god Vishnu, depending on having access to one of its holy sites:
Activate Avatar.jpg

And each avatar has different modifiers attached to it:
Narasimha.jpg

Captura de pantalla 2025-05-14 125751.jpg

Matsya.jpg

Shaivism:
Shaivism.jpg

Self Control.jpg

You can gain or lose Self Control by performing these actions, and also some random events:
Self Control Actions.jpg

Perform Yoga.jpg

Indulge in Feasts.jpg

Discard Wordly Possesions.jpg

Indulge in Bloodbath.jpg

Shaktism:
Shaktism.jpg

This only allows you to have 1 Avatar active at any time of 10 possible, 5 in peace times and 5 in war times. By declaring war or stopping being at war makes you change from an avatar of one category to an avatar of the other. These avatars are randomly assigned, but you can change/reroll them using the Change Avatar action. The main difference with Vaishnavism is that you don’t need to have access to a holy site:
Avatar.jpg

Change Avatar.jpg

Change Avatar2.jpg

Candi.jpg

And Smartism:
Smartism.jpg

In Smartism, you want to have all 5 gods favored equally, or otherwise they will give you negative modifiers. You can favor one over the others, though, to get more benefits from that one, at the cost of getting these negative modifiers from the others:
Smartism.jpg

Smartism2.jpg

Favor God.jpg

Favor God2.jpg

Ganesa.jpg



Jainism
Jainism.jpg

Santara is the only country that starts with Jainism as its state religion.

Jainism starts with interesting features, as seen in the previous tooltip, of which the disallowance to declare wars without a Casus Belli might be the most striking one, as portraying the peaceful and self-defensive nature of this religion. On top of that, they also have a kind of similar behavior to Shaivism, with the addition of the Karma mechanics on top of it:
Jainism panel.jpg

Karma1.jpg

Karma2.jpg



Sikhism

Sikhism is a religion that is not present at the start of the game, but it will be able to appear after 1509 in a country that is either Hindu or Muslim, with locations of the other religion. If that happens, the following event will trigger:
Sikhism starting event.png

That will not only enable the religion and convert some pops, but will also create a unique building, the Gurgaddi, to serve as the seat of a newly created building-based country led by the Guru himself. The second option of the event allows you to convert to the newly created religion, while the third option allows you to continue playing as the newly created Sikh country.
Sikhism event b.png

Sikhism event c.png

Gurgaddi.png

Sikhism.png

The new country will have a unique government reform, with a unique heir selection making it so that basically only the gurus are able to be the rulers of it.
Guru Leadership.png

When Sikhism appears, it will also create a new IO, and the first guru will cement its bases. There will be further events for each of the historical Sikh gurus, and each subsequent guru that appears will add to that IO, configuring the religion with further teachings.
Guru teachings.png

Teachings policies.png

All Guru Teachings 1.png

All Guru Teachings 2.png


A final common feature for all of them are Holy Sites. There are several different holy sites for all religions and (and branches, in the case of Hinduism):
Vaishnavism Holy Sites.jpg

Holy Sites.jpg

These are examples of holy sites associated with the Vaishnavism branch of Hinduism.

And that’s all for today! We will continue taking a look at the Indian content this Friday, with a Tinto Flavour for the Sultanate of Delhi, and on Monday, with the Tinto Maps Feedback for the region of India. And next Wednesday, @SaintDaveUK will be hosting the Tinto Talks, with the topic being Unit Graphics. Cheers!
 
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Are you sure you are not underestimating the extent of Buddhism in India? It's clear that by this date it was a minority, but there were still some schools and temples in the Ganges region (such as the Nalanda). It had declined sharply, but it had not disappeared. Some minorities here and there would represent the situation better, I think.

Also, why Tibetan Buddhism and not Vajrayana?
 
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Screenshot_20250515_121815_Chrome.jpg

Self control mechanics seem really powerful, especially because of that +10% monthly research progress which is not a problem for Jainism considering that there is only 1 country at game start and not many followers but for Shaivism seems too good when compared to other Hindu branches.
My suggestion to make it more even to other branches is to not use multiples of 5 for actions and events that take or give you self control, so that it's more difficult to reach 0
 
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Exactly that, yes.
Any particular reason why? I think the most accurate thing would be to have them as completely separate religions, like the different branches of christianity. Historically, that is what they were, until around the 1800s when movements to unify them started. This makes it seem like only the rich and powerful cared about the "branch" of hinduism and the common people were just "hindu" but this is not the case at all. People converted to specific branches of hinduism during the Bhakti Movement, and identified strongly with them. Even today the rural parts of my state are dominated by a longstanding rivlary between the Smartas and Lingayats (local Shaivite sect). Is there a logistical reason why we can't have hinduism as 4 different religions, that just have a higher tolerence of heretics than abrahamic religions, where there was maybe more friction between the branches?
 
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Wow this a a beefy set of mechanics, playing dharmic nations will be pretty interesting! Thanks for the dev diary on this, and especially for representing the different branches of hinduism (tho i think they should be completely different religions, not just IOs).

Could we get a list of the Holy sites for the Avatars? I'm asking because seeing "bangalore" for Matsya is a bit weird since there is no connection between them. There's no major Matsya temple in Bangalore, and Bangalore doesn't really feature in Matsya's legend. I would say that Chennai would be a better site for that since they have the Matsya Narayana Temple and are on the coast (Matsya was a fish, and is part of our Flood Myth).

As for the others, the Srikurmam temple in Srikakulam, (northern Andhra), somewhere in Karnataka for Varaha (he's the boar on the vijayanagar flag, to see the regional importance), the deccan for Narasimha, the Malabar for Parashurama, Ayodhya (North-Eastern Doab) for Rama, Dvaraka (coast of Gujarat) or Mathura( South-Western Doab) for Krishna, the Mahabodhi temple complex in Bodh Gaya (Bihar, between the Doab and Bengal), and somewhere in the Himalayas for Kalki would be the best options imo.

However, the biggest Vaishnava temples, especially in this time frame, are at Somnath, Puri and Badrinath. But they don't really focus on any one avatar, rather Vishnu as a whole. Maybe you can say Somnath is close enough to Dvaraka, and Puri is close enough to Srikakulam, and the Badrinath is himalayas enough for Kalki, idk
 
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For Smartism, what exactly do you mean by favouring gods? Do you do it by just pressing the button to favour a god? Or are there certain actions associated with certain deities that we would have to balance? The latter would be more interesting I think. Like certain cabinet actions could be "tied" to certain gods, being at war could favour Shakti while being at peace would favour Shiva, relative spending in the government expenses tab could also come into this, with stability spending favouring Vishnu, diplo spending favouring Ganesha, etc. As a Smarta myself, that is generally how people view the pantheon, with every action in the world coming under the "sphere" of one of those gods, and praying to the right one for the right thing, but also appeasing them by just putting effort into it.
 
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I myself am not Sikh but my wife is so I was trying to discuss this with her but it is very difficult when she has no interest in strategy games haha.

I am interested in your perspective on the Gurguddi being playable, I know that in EU5 you do not play as a person you play as the 'spirit of the nation' but my wife expressed concern about having control over the Gurus. I think perhaps it would be best that you do not have the option to play as the Gurguddi but it is still there as a bbc.

Secondly, with regards to Guru Gobind Singh Ji and the Khalsa, making the Khalsa an option to choose seems weird given how important the Khalsa is in Sikhi. Also we have not seen what is coded for the Khalsa so I think perhaps maybe reserving judgement until we know more is wise.
Yeah the playing of the Guru is definitely weird, I just gave them the example of the Gurguddi since it seemed like a better replacement to the Guru election. If the Guru really is the head of state there's going to be serious issues starting after 1708. In 1708 Guru Granth Sahib Ji got the Gurguddi and I feel like its going to be weird having the head of state the Guru after that point. Also, if the Gurus are going to be heads of state its going to be really hard representing the Martyrdom of Guru Angad Dev Ji and Guru Teg Bahuder Ji, both extremely important event which pushed Sikhi towards militarism. Another issue is weather every Sikh nation is going to have the Guru as the head of state. If so will there be a union between nations or something?

As for respect that could also be an issue. There's a reason why there are not many items of media i.e. movies, tv shows, video games, which represent any of the Gurus. The SGPC, a Sikh institution which controls all of the Gurdwaras in the world, banned showing the personification of the Gurus in any movies, and this could extend to video games. If Paradox really wanted to have the Gurus in the game they should not be heads of state and their depictions should be painted instead of animated. Also, the Gurus wouldn't be conquering half of the world and then forcefully converting it to Sikh, so doing it as a player with a Guru as the head of state would feel pretty weird. Historically the only wars sanctioned by the Gurus are Dharm Yudh (Righteous Movement / War for Religion). This is a concept created by Guru Hargobind Sahib Ji and this type of war was only supposed to be done in the protection of Sikhi or the protection of another faith, it also had strict rules to how it could be conducted. So historically speaking having the Gurus conquer the entirety of India and making it all Sikh would be wrong.

A better system could be one where a leader of the nation is chosen to rule for life, kind of like the sortition government reform in EU4 but the leader is chosen by the people instead of a lottery. The historical bases of this is how Nawab Kapur Singh Ji was chosen to be Nawab of the Sikhs. During a Sarbat Khalsa (A congregation of Sikhs which forms in Amritsar to make communal decisions which affect all Sikhs) Nawab Kapur Singh Ji was offered the position of Nawab by the people there. This system could be called the Misl Confederacy with the Jathedar as the leader of the state. However, it is important to note that although Nawab Kapur Singh was elected, his successors were chosen. Another system they could use is the Sikh Monarchy like Maharaja Ranjit Singh Ji's rule. The Akal Takht (Seat of Authority for Sikhs) could also be added in this case to show that the emperor is still under the Khalsa. Like in real life when the Akal Takht punished the Maharaja for breaking the rules of the religion.

Looking back at it, I do agree that the Khalsa should stay separate. Historically, Guru Gobind Singh Ji gave the Khalsa the authority to rule over their own affairs, and this is how the Khalsa functioned after the Joti-Jot of Guru Gobind Singh Ji.
 
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Yeah the playing of the Guru is definitely weird, I just gave them the example of the Gurguddi since it seemed like a better replacement to the Guru election. If the Guru really is the head of state there's going to be serious issues starting after 1708. In 1708 Guru Granth Sahib Ji got the Gurguddi and I feel like its going to be weird having the head of state the Guru after that point. Also, if the Gurus are going to be heads of state its going to be really hard representing the Martyrdom of Guru Angad Dev Ji and Guru Teg Bahuder Ji, both extremely important event which pushed Sikhi towards militarism. Another issue is weather every Sikh nation is going to have the Guru as the head of state. If so will there be a union between nations or something?

As for respect that could also be an issue. There's a reason why there are not many items of media i.e. movies, tv shows, video games, which represent any of the Gurus. The SGPC, a Sikh institution which controls all of the Gurdwaras in the world, banned showing the personification of the Gurus in any movies, and this could extend to video games. If Paradox really wanted to have the Gurus in the game they should not be heads of state and their depictions should be painted instead of animated. Also, the Gurus wouldn't be conquering half of the world and then forcefully converting it to Sikh, so doing it as a player with a Guru as the head of state would feel pretty weird. Historically the only wars sanctioned by the Gurus are Dharm Yudh (Righteous Movement / War for Religion). This is a concept created by Guru Hargobind Sahib Ji and this type of war was only supposed to be done in the protection of Sikhi or the protection of another faith, it also had strict rules to how it could be conducted. So historically speaking having the Gurus conquer the entirety of India and making it all Sikh would be wrong.

A better system could be one where a leader of the nation is chosen to rule for life, kind of like the sortition government reform in EU4 but the leader is chosen by the people instead of a lottery. The historical bases of this is how Nawab Kapur Singh Ji was chosen to be Nawab of the Sikhs. During a Sarbat Khalsa (A congregation of Sikhs which forms in Amritsar to make communal decisions which affect all Sikhs) Nawab Kapur Singh Ji was offered the position of Nawab by the people there. This system could be called the Misl Confederacy with the Jathedar as the leader of the state. However, it is important to note that although Nawab Kapur Singh was elected, his successors were chosen. Another system they could use is the Sikh Monarchy like Maharaja Ranjit Singh Ji's rule. The Akal Takht (Seat of Authority for Sikhs) could also be added in this case to show that the emperor is still under the Khalsa. Like in real life when the Akal Takht punished the Maharaja for breaking the rules of the religion.

Looking back at it, I do agree that the Khalsa should stay separate. Historically, Guru Gobind Singh Ji gave the Khalsa the authority to rule over their own affairs, and this is how the Khalsa functioned after the Joti-Jot of Guru Gobind Singh Ji.
My understanding is that the Gurguddi will lead the Sikh IO and all Sikh countries will be in that IO but will have their own heads of state. I agree with the Guru Grant Sahib Ji being an issue to represent as a head of state, I don't really see any good way around it.

I really do think the safest thing would be to make the Gurguddi non-playable and pretty heavily scripted so that Sikhi follows its historical path. I think a big challenge is that if the player is playing as the Mughals or another dominant nation in India and chooses not to oppress Sikhs then either you make Sikhs rebel for no reason which seems a bit silly or you make them not rebel at all which just completely changes the trajectory of Sikhi to the point of unrecognisability. Obviously if this is not the player this can all just be scripted but throwing the player in the works does really confuse things. On the other hand though, giving the player the option to kill any of the Gurus feels very wrong too.
 
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If possible, can you please think about making Sikhism spwanable from the 1337 start date itself? The conditions for the formation of Sikhism (Hindu-Muslim interaction) are present in 1337 and while I do understand the need to be historically accurate, role players like me who want to convert the subcontinent to Sikhism would have to wait a long time till 1507 just to play with the religion we want to play with. Thank you for all you do!
 
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@Pavía have a question, what happened with the discovery of India by the Portuguese, because Portugal only became the world's first superpower through the trade of experiences, how would that work? Another question is that Portugal made several trading posts in India, will it have a limitation on annexing territories outside the continent like in the EU4?
 
4. Why are some names have weird spellings eg Krishna and not krsna
Kṛṣṇa is the IAST transliteration, since the Sanskrit is कृष्ण with a vocalic r - it functions like a vowel, and not a consonant as is typical. In modern North Indian languages this is pronounced by adding an /i/ after the r, hence the modern spelling.

Though on that point - it should be kūrma, not kurma.
 
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The game has a game rule with 4 settings for country religious conversion:
  • Dynamic rules (default)
  • Inside Religion Group only
  • Present in Country
  • Any religion
Here you have an example of converting to another religion, and what are the rules for the Default setting:
View attachment 1298678
That variety in game rules is great, so playing as Sweden depending on the game rule I can expand on the remains of the Norse religion and make it my main religion :)
Just sad that I didn't see any remaining Norse followers in Norway, Iceland or Greenland on the religious maps, but with the "Any religion" game rule or by inviting the Norse Swedes, these countries might also be able to slowly convert back to Norse.
I hope that the Norse religion will have some interesting flavour :)
 
Posted a thread on the forums, quoting it here for greater notice. I believe some of these points can prove useful.


I saw some of the India related previews, and thought that I can contribute something to the game.

Firstly, I must make it clear that I'm overall really pleased with the work that has gone into this, especially into India. Most of it is really historically accurate and feels authentic, I know some aspects are still a bit blatantly off, such as the simplified caste system, but the developers have explained that it is more akin to estate system, and had to be streamlined for gaming aspects, which is fine.

To note is that I have a background in history, and that is the only reason why I was able to spot a few of these issues, so kudos to the developers, they've really done a stellar job. Now to the corrections and additions;

  1. Saqiah should be called Arhatta or Araghatta for Indian States, and should also be available to Egypt, Iraq and Iran as well.
The Saqiyah, or the Persian Wheel is made available to the Indian states, giving them an irrigation bonus. The problem is that the earliest records of the 'Persian Wheel' in India predate those of Persia itself. The Arab Caliphates had this sophisticated Waterwheel before the Indians, and used it in Egypt and most prolifically in Mesopotamia, what is now Iraq. But no evidence of it comes from Iran before the 12th century. In India on the other hand, evidence of ungeared water wheel comes from the anicent period (Ancient Egyptians also had this), and geared water wheel comes from around the 9th century. The idea that geared water wheel was introducted to India from the Persianate lands by the Delhi Sultanate comes from Irfan Habib, an emminent Indian historian since he noted first mention of Water Wheel in a 14th century Persian text, which off handedly referred to it. However, other historians pointed that Arahatta and other names for water wheel are mentioned in prior Indian texts, however, Habib dismissed those as examples of ungeared water wheels. By gearing in Water Wheel, it is meant that there exists a chain connecting the pots attached to the spokes. This allowed the continuous movement and allowed it to be worked by animals rather than to be manually worked by labourers. However, recent studies by S. R. Sharma (Society and Culture in Rajasthan C. 700-900 ) have cited epigraphic depictions showing a gearing mechanism in the water wheels from the 9th century, and also period texts talking about perpetual motion of the water wheels. Meenasri Yadav (History of Agriculture in India upto 1200, edited by L Gopal and Srivastava) and Puspa Niyogi and Kumkum Bandhopadhyay (History of Ancient India Vol 7 edited by Dilip K Chakrabarti) have cited the 10th century Jain Mahapurana referring to the Water Wheel being worked by two bullocks, showing definitive proof of gearing mechanism in Indian Arahattas in the 10th century (900s CE). Meenasri Yadav also cites an earlier text Kasyapa Krisi Sukti, a Sanskrit farming manual written around 800 CE, this text categorizes Water Wheels into two; an inferior human powered one, and a superior animal powered one. Thus centuries prior to the Delhi Sultanate or even the first evidence of it in Iran. It is most likely that the interaction with the Arabs introduced this technology to India, just as Arabs took Maths, Medicine and Metallurgy from India, this probably was what Indian learnt from the Arabs.

2. Marwari Horse Myth

There is a prevailing myth that Marwar region (Western Rajasthan) produced great horses, but this is unfounded in any medieval or early modern source, in fact most of the sources from this period state that Marwar had poor horses. The Marwari Rajputs often rode to battle and then dismounted to fight, much like the English, since they had poor horses. For the 14th century, the regions of India that were noted to have good horse by Badauni in his Tarikh i Ferozshahi were Punjab and Haryana region and Central Rajasthan (the term used for it is Siwalikh, the Persian adoption of the word Savalakh, the name of the Chauhan Kingdom of Ajmer, this however has misled some historians into thinking that Badauni meant Shivalik mountain ranges, but the Delhi Sultanate accounts associate the cities of Nagaur, Narena, Ajmer and Mandawar, again not to be confused with Mandore in Marwar, all located in Rajasthan with Siwalikh). The other sources of good horses given by other sources such as Al Idrisi (12th century) mentions Gujarat having good horses and Abul Fazl (late 16th to early 17th century) mentions Kutch, located in Gujarat, Punjab, Mewat (modern day Haryana, Eastern Rajasthan and Western UP) and the Subah of Ajmer (basically Rajasthan) as having good horses.

So good horses in North India should be restricted to the regions of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan (excluding Western Rajasthan, the Marwar region) and Western Gujarat. I beleive modern day Marwari horses are either the descendants of Siwalikh horses or the Kutchi horses.

3. EU4 Rajput Regiments should be Cavalry

This issue is from the EU4, and since it is connected to the earlier point, I thought add this as well. Rajputs by and large were mounted warriors, in fact a Rajput was a soldier who held an estate and came with his own horses and even a small retinue if he was rich enough. The Rajput was akin to the Man at Arms or Knight, that is to say that he is an estate holder and a mounted warrior. There were however, some Rajput groups from Marwar in Rajasthan and some parts of Gujarat and Sindh who were not well mounted, and so often dismounted to fight. These however, were hindered by their region's paucity of good horses or just their financial conditon. Rajput States like Mewar boased powerful and large cavalry contingents. So the Rajput Regiments should primarily be a Mounted unique regiment.

4. Mewar Independence

Sticking to the Rajputs, Mewar in the current map is shown as a vassal of Delhi, now this is both true and false. RV Somani (History of Mewar from the Earliest Times) has discussed at length as to when Rana Hammir Singh Sisodiya freed all of Mewar from the Sultanate overlordship. From the inscriptional evidence, we can state that Chittor, the capital of Mewar was under the Songara Chauhans, under Vanavira Chauhan, who was a vassal of the Delhi Sultanate. Meanwhile Hammir Sisodiya controlled Western Mewar, the hilly area of Kelwara and Jhilwara (modern day Northern part of the Rajsamand district in Rajasthan). As per Somani, Hammir reconquered Chittor (Central Mewar) around the year 1338. So we can show Western Mewar around Kumbhalgarh (then known as Machhindrapura), Kelwara and Jhilwara as under the Sisodiyas, free from the Delhi Sultanate, and Chittor and the plains region of Mewar as under Songara Chauhans, being vassals under Dehli. The Mewar starting missions could be about Hammir's struggle to free all of Mewar. We know that Mewar would take Ajmer, Mandalgarh and Jahazpur during Hammir's son's reign (1364-1382). The last inscription referring to Songara Chauhan rule in Mewar comes 1337 CE, meanwhile the first surviving inscription referring to Sisodiya rule in Mewar comes from 1366 CE. There is another Songara inscription from 1338 CE from Pali district, and later also there are Songara inscriptions from 1380s from the same district. On the basis of this shiift from Mewar to Pali, RV Somani has ascertained the period between 1337 and 1338 as the time when Hammir freed all of Mewar. Songara's would rule Pali till Hammir's grandsom Lakha Sisodiya captured the region in around 1390s.

5. Vijayanagar as Hindu Bastion Myth

Now this is a bit controversial, the idea that Vijyanagar was a Hindu bastion to preserve some sort of purity in the Hindu traditions and culture is largely a myth. Vijayanagar architecture shows clear Sultanate influneces, and in fact they even employed Turkish horse archers by the thousands to improve their battlefield performance against the Bahamanis. Philip Wagoner, Cynthia Talbot and Richard Eaton have all shown that even Vijayanagar Royalty took titles such Sultan, and wore Persian hats, the Kulla, though called Kullai in native parlence. Far from Hindu isolationists, despite being Hindu, the Vijayanagar Emperors proactively courted commercial relations with Persia and Arabia, in fact their military was largely dependent on this trade since South India could breed no good horses, and they were reliant on Muslim merchants to supply them at least till the arrival of the Portuguese.

6. Terminology with Samanta System and Nayaka Systems

The Samanta system as depicted is good, but could be improved. The gradations were Samanta (Vassal), then Mahasamanta (Great Vassal), and then Mahasamantadhipati/ Mahasamanta-adhipati (Chief of Great Vassals). Next we come to Nayakas, now the term Nayaka is very generic, it basically means Leader or Commander, and was used very widely to designate a diverse variety of grades and functions in India, a bit like the early uses of Constables and Captains in Europe. Dandanayakas (pronounced The-an-da Nayaka) or Mandalikas were the district or divisional commanders in all Hindu States in this period. However, mere Nayakas basically just meant captains or petty constables, commanding a company sized troop. Amara Nayakas were those Nayakas who were given estates to maintain this force. This Amara-Nayaka, the Nayakas with estates, was what was unique to the Vijayangara system. The Amaranayaka had to provide a fixed quota of troops, and was not merely a feudal landed retainer, but rather an officer who had to meet a fixed quota to hold his land.

7. Purabiya Regiments

The Eastern Rajputs from clans such as the Bundelas (from Bundelkhand earlier called Jejauti, North Eastern MP), Bachgotias (Sultanpur and Jaunpur in modern Eastern UP), Baghelas (Bagelkhand, Northern MP, West Bundelkhand) and Ujjainiyas from Bhojpur (Western Bihar) dominated the infantry in the Sultanate armies. Dirk Kolff (Naukar, Rajput, and Sepoy) has specifically noted their centrality as excellent infantry soldiers for the Sultanate and Mughal armies, espeically once musket became widespread with the coming of the Mughals. Later even Mewar, a Western Rajput Kingdom, under Rana Sanga allied with the Purabiyas of Malwa to conquer the Malwa Sultanate. I hope these very prominent soldiers are represented in the North Indian military roster.
 
Another great update as always Tinto. I did want to throw out a suggestion for something I think might've slipped through the cracks when it comes to France’s cultural setup in EU5.
The game’s already done a fantastic job with France’s regional diversity—Champagne, Lorraine, Burgundy, Franc-Comtois, all beautifully fleshed out. But I feel like there’s one super interesting cultural-linguistic region that’s missing from the mix: the Croissant.

Croissant_(zone_de_transition_linguistique).png


For those who don’t know, the Croissant is this fascinating transitional zone between the Langue d’oc and Langue d’oïl regions, covering parts of Marche County and Bourbonnais. It’s been a cultural frontier since at least the 1200s, acting as this unique melting pot where French and Occitan blended in a stable, diglossic way.

Even though French administration rolled in early (around 1245), the locals held onto their Occitan roots way longer than places like Poitou or Angoumois, which got hit hard by the Hundred Years’ War and assimilated faster. The Croissant isn’t just some linguistic quirk—it’s a legit hybrid identity that wasn’t fully Langue d’oc or Langue d’oïl.
We’re talking:

Unique word choices and stress patterns that set it apart.​
A dash of Francoprovençal flavor, especially in the Bourbonnais Mountains.​
A cultural vibe that’s equal parts resistance and adaptation.​

EU5 shines when it leans into these kinds of cultural nuances that spill over political borders. Adding the Croissant would:
Create a historically accurate bridge between French and Occitan zones.
Highlight a 700-year saga of assimilation and stubborn local pride.
If regions like Champagne and Burgundy get their own spotlight, I think the Croissant—sitting at the crossroads of two major language families—deserves a nod too. It’d add such a cool layer of depth and flavor to France’s cultural map..​


Langues_d'oïl_et_Croissant.png




So, what do you think, devs? Any chance we could see the Croissant make it into EU5 to boost the game’s historical richness? Let’s chat about it!
#AddCroissantCulture
how-to-make-croissant-dough-4.jpg
 
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Another great update as always Tinto. I did want to throw out a suggestion for something I think might've slipped through the cracks when it comes to France’s cultural setup in EU5.
The game’s already done a fantastic job with France’s regional diversity—Champagne, Lorraine, Burgundy, Franc-Comtois, all beautifully fleshed out. But I feel like there’s one super interesting cultural-linguistic region that’s missing from the mix: the Croissant.

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For those who don’t know, the Croissant is this fascinating transitional zone between the Langue d’oc and Langue d’oïl regions, covering parts of Marche County and Bourbonnais. It’s been a cultural frontier since at least the 1200s, acting as this unique melting pot where French and Occitan blended in a stable, diglossic way.

Even though French administration rolled in early (around 1245), the locals held onto their Occitan roots way longer than places like Poitou or Angoumois, which got hit hard by the Hundred Years’ War and assimilated faster. The Croissant isn’t just some linguistic quirk—it’s a legit hybrid identity that wasn’t fully Langue d’oc or Langue d’oïl.
We’re talking:

Unique word choices and stress patterns that set it apart.​
A dash of Francoprovençal flavor, especially in the Bourbonnais Mountains.​
A cultural vibe that’s equal parts resistance and adaptation.​

EU5 shines when it leans into these kinds of cultural nuances that spill over political borders. Adding the Croissant would:
Create a historically accurate bridge between French and Occitan zones.​
Highlight a 700-year saga of assimilation and stubborn local pride.​
If regions like Champagne and Burgundy get their own spotlight, I think the Croissant—sitting at the crossroads of two major language families—deserves a nod too. It’d add such a cool layer of depth and flavor to France’s cultural map..​


View attachment 1300138



So, what do you think, devs? Any chance we could see the Croissant make it into EU5 to boost the game’s historical richness? Let’s chat about it!
#AddCroissantCulture
View attachment 1300148
Aside from the obvious puns, perhaps even fun achievements with it (make Croissant the dominant culture in France?) It'd be nice to add some extra variation into the French lands, make it a real culture pot like in Central Europe.
 
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