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Tinto Maps #14 - 9th of August 2024 - Western Africa

Hello, and welcome one more week to Tinto Maps, the day of the week for map nerds lovers! This week we will be taking a look at Western Africa! These lands were named historically in different ways, although probably the most widespread naming was Guinea, which also names the Gulf that makes for the southern limit of the region, with the Atlantic Ocean being to the west, the Sahara desert to the north, and the lands around Lake Chad making for the approximate eastern border.

With these regions, we’re also leaving the ‘Easy Mode Map-Making’ of Project Caesar, as getting comprehensive sources of information for 1337 for most of Sub-Saharan Africa is challenging, as the traditional historical record was oral, in contrast with the written records usual in Eurasia. In any case, we did our best to depict the rich history and geography of the region and its diversity, which is stunning. Let’s start, then!

Countries:
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The most important country, and one of the world's great powers, is the Empire of Mali, which in 1337 is at its zenit, still ruled by the infamous Mansa Mūsā. It controls not only the core lands of the Mandé-speaking peoples, but also holds the overlordship over Jolof, most of the fertile Niger river basin, and some of the most important Saharan outposts. To its south-east, the Mossi are organized in several polities (Ougadagou, Gwiriko, Yatenga, Boussouma, Tenkodogo, and Liptako). South into the coast, Kong, Dagbon, Bonoman, and Mankessim are polities ruled by the Dyula, the Dagbani, and the Akan (the last two). To the east, Fada N’gourma, Borgu, and Mamprugu connect with the lands of the Hausa, which rule from several city-states: Kebbi, Gobir, Zafara, Katsina, Daura, Kano, Rano, and Zazzau. Further to the east, the Empire of Kanem rules the lands around Lake Chad from its capital in Njimi, and over some of the Saharan corridors, making it the region's second wealthiest country. And finally, further to the south, there are the lands of the Nupe, the Yoruba (Oyo, Ife, Ijebu, Owo), the Edo (Benin), and the Igbo (Nri).

Dynasties:
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The dynasties of the region are a mix of well-known ones, such as the Keita of Mali, the Ndiaye of Jolof, or the Sayfawa of Kanem, and randomly generated ones for the rest of the polities, as we don’t have good enough sources on who was ruling over most of them in 1337.

Locations:
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The locations of Western Africa. We’ve tried our best to find suitable locations, correct naming, etc., although I’m sure there might be plenty of feedback to apply.

Provinces:
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Areas:
Areas.png


Terrain:
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This week we have proper Terrain mapmodes at the release of the Tinto Maps… Not much to say about them, though, as the climate and vegetation are pretty straightforward, being divided into Arid and Tropical; while the vegetation goes from desert and sparse beside the Sahara, to increasingly more forested terrain, until reaching the tropical jungles by the coast. The topography is not very fragmented, with the Guinean Highlands and the Adamawa Plateau being the most important landmarks.

Natural Harbors:
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A new map mode this week, coming from the latest Tinto Talks! There are some decent natural harbors in the region, with Banana Islands (where Freetown would be founded), Elmina, and Calabar being the best ones.

Cultures:
Cultures.png

A beautiful map this week… I may repeat that we tried our best to approach the region, taking into account that this was the first African region we completed, around 3 years ago. When we review it, we may add some more diversity, as we have now some more tools than the ones we had back in time, but we think that it’s way best to read your feedback first, to make sure we are on the same page.

Religions:
Religion.png

Take this map as very WIP. The Sunni-Animism division is kind of accurate, with the expected division for 1337 (Islam would later on advance more to the South, but we think this is the best for this date). What we have yet to do is to divide the ‘Animism’ population into some of the regional variants; we already have plenty of data, but we also want to read your feedback on this first.

Raw Materials:
Raw Materials.png

The goods of the region are quite diverse and very dependent on the geography. In the Saharan lands, there are plenty of locations with resources such as Salt, Copper, or Alum (regarding this resource, the lands to the north of Lake Chad make for the densest Alum hub in the world for 1337, something the historical sources talk about). Livestock is king in the Sahelian lands, while there are plenty of agricultural goods in the Niger river basin. The region is also full of luxury goods, of which Gold is the most relevant, as being the biggest supply of this metal to the Mediterranean and Europe in the Late Middle Ages, while also having others such as Ivory, Gems, or Spices (which in this region are portraying some goods such as kola nuts, or malagueta pepper). Finally, the coasts of the Gulf of Guinea have plenty of Fish. Maybe the only type of good that is not very abundant in the region is metals, as having some Iron, Tin, etc., but not much in comparison with other regions.

Markets:
Markets.png

Markets of the region, have an interesting distribution. The most important ones in 1337 are Niani, Kano, and Njimi, which are also connected to the Northern African markets, making it possible to get plenty of wealth by exporting well-demanded goods throughout the Sahara (for instance, exporting Gold or Alum for good money is a very viable strategy ATM). Later on, after the Age of Discovery, the coastal markets may get connected to other markets, making them more relevant, and maybe switching the power balance of the region from the North to the South, as historically happened (but take it as a ‘maybe’, not for granted, OFC!).

Population:
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Population of the region. We’ve improved a bit our tracking of the population data, to avoid further problems like the one we had with Germany. I can tell you that the total population of Western Africa is around 5.6M people, which is divided into 2.2M for the Sahel, and 3.3M for the coast of Guinea. You may very well notice that the hegemonic power here may be Mali, with around 700k people, but also that there are many more people not living under the rule of a polity, than living under it, which will make for interesting gameplay on how to deal with it (more about this in a later Tinto Talks, soon…).

And, speaking of that, I have the sad news that next Friday there is a bank holiday here in Spain, so there won’t be a Tinto Maps. The next one will be on Friday 23rd, and we will be taking a look at Eastern Africa! Until then, you may still stay tuned, as we will be replying to feedback, as usual, and we may have some informal maps incoming. Cheers!
 
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By the way, I'd also love to see a dynamic religion mechanics allowing a syncretic catholic-yoruba-tupi faith to pop up in Brazil.
With all due respect that kind of melting pot should not be possible for Abrahamic religions since their core belief is in direct opposition to polytheistic religions
 
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Indeed, we're entering Hard Mode map making south of the Sahara. @Pavía I'm curious do you have any particularly interesting anecdotes of the lengths the teams went to or the compromises they made to represent the poorly-documented regions of Africa?

Aside from that, two immediate thoughts:
  • Is the province density shown on this dev diary expected to be final? Considering the wast size of this region it seems low compared to areas like the Maghreb or Russia.
  • "Bantoid" is a high-level linguistic grouping, and really should be broken up into smaller parts. Especially if going by the 'culture = language' approach most of the other maps have done.
Good question... Nubia, Ethiopia, and the Horn of Africa for sure, and I have to figure out if the Swahili Coast will come next week too, or in another Tinto Maps.
I hope the Swahili Coast is separate, because including everything from Nubia to Mozambique would make for a very large and diverse area to cover in a single map. I suggest splitting it into the Horn of Africa (Nubia, Ethiopia, Somalia) and East Africa proper (Swahili coast, Great Lakes, inland regions east of the Rift Valley, maybe Madagascar).

It's a bit hard to comment without fully understanding the design policy behind the distinction of settled country vs. tribe vs. "grey territory". I understand there are also non-territorial countries that will be represented, but we haven't seen them and don't know much about it.

For starters, from a simple glance, I feel like the Yoruba should be better represented in terms of their cities.
I agree. With non-urbanized semi-nomadic groups Tinto might be cooking something secret, but for solidly urbanized non-state cultures like the Yoruba it would make much more sense to have each city represented on the map as a conventional tag. Maybe with a variant of a 'confederation' IO if the devs want to show some sort of unity.
That would be really cool to have, although we are not yet sure if we'll have the technology available to properly portray them in-game.
I pray to the video game gods you manage to make this technology work, because being able to make terrain dynamic in a game with a 500 year timeline would allow SO MUCH to be done.
 
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The location of Gambia should be renamed to Banjul for the natives and Bathrust in english and Jufureh is Jillifree in english, you could also make a province based around the modern state of Gambia
 
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We wanted to portray Mali at its zenith in 1337, but after the game starts, it can break into several polities, we've already made sure to cover that; the player may also very well release vassal subject as a means to rule the periphery of the Empire, while the control over the core lands is slowly being increased.

Honestly this brushes against one of the core issues EUIV and Imperator have with the distinction between "Core" and "Vassal" Territory - (especially I:R; it's rather weird seeing the Roman Empire Blob rather than expand its network of 'Friends and Allies'); arguably, most empires in this period should be predominantly vassal swarms, pivoting into more centralised empires only later.

(This also is part of why losing a war feels so bad - if your country is annexed, it's game over. If you're vassalised, on the other hand, it's just an alternative state of affairs).
 
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With all due respect that kind of melting pot should not be possible for Abrahamic religions since their core belief is in direct opposition to polytheistic religions
It already happened. Umbanda is precisely such a melting pot, borrowing elements from Catholicism such as Saints and theirs hagiographies. But I'd agree with you that such a syncretic religion is not an Abrahamic one any longer. Although Max Weber would say that Catholicism is barely monotheistic it self, but lets not delve into this ;)
 
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It already happened. Umbanda is precisely such a melting pot, borrowing elements from Catholicism such as Saints and theirs hagiographies. But I'd agree with you that such a syncretic religion is not an Abrahamic one any longer. Although Max Weber would say that Catholicism is barely monotheistic it self, but lets not delve into this ;)
Not sure the last part was needed but thanks for the example
 
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English wikipedia, citing Africa from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Century, says Niani had way more than just 37k population like on your map:

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Also, Niani’s exact location is up for debate:


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I also agree with others that the population of Mali Empire as a whole is too low. While I’m not asking for French population density, it shouldn’t be so sparse either. It should probably be in the millions, but much less than 10-15 million which seems excessive to me. Naturally, this then means increasing the population of the rest of the region, which seems fine by me.
 
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Great work, although the lack of chiefdoms makes me think I'm not going to enjoy next weeks TT lol, there's too much empty space, these weren't all stateless societies or kingdoms, but somewhere in between. I'll do a proper deep dive at a later date, although the culture map looks really good, Bantoid just needs to be broken down.
Btw, if you haven't already, I really recommend reading Vansina's Oral tradition as history, it's essential to understand oral tradition if you encounter it and want to qualify the information it gives.

Mali
Something that could work here would be to have a mechanic unlocked by being on the extreme end of the centralised/decentralised slider that unlocks a a subject tab where you manage your relations with your provinces/releasables, so a step before releasing them as a vassal, and their relations good/bad give out modifiers. If it's between the status quo or having a type of vassal, I'd prefer having a type of vassal as there was a lot of emphasis placed by the mansas on internal diplomacy, and it'd make Mali gameplay more fun and challenging, and their collapse more satisfying.

Wagadu/Ghana and Mema should 100% be normal vassals, they didn't have a farin/governor and their provinces were led only by local leaders (they allied Sundiata Keita in the initial war and were rewarded). This would also provide fun gameplay for anyone wanting to remake the Ghana Empire

I'm sceptical in Jolof being one big vassal, I've seen it discussed as Mali losing their Wolof province, but also Jolof conquered a lot in the succeeding years, and the Jolof Empire was more of a confederacy of the Wolof Jolof, Cayor, Baol, Waalo, and the Serer Sine and Saloum


Nigeria
Katsina's dynasty was Korau (although a couple of people say something else) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Katsina (cool flavour for Zazzau)

There's so many for Yorubaland that could be added, and the added granularity benefits this.

Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edem and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akpakip_Oro, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Ugu


Forest region
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Ardra, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahanta_people

Cameroon
The Sao civilisation is missing, it's necessary to show the rise of Kotoko which was one of the composites. You could also have the Tikar fondoms (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tikar_people).
 
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Thanks for another map! Could we get a representation of the island of Príncipe (in São Tomé and Príncipe)? This archipelago was one of the first experiences with colonization europeans ever had, and a significant sugar production region in the early modern age
 
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There are too many livestock locations south of the Sahel. While it's not impossible to raise domesticated mammals in sub-Saharan Africa, the Tsetse fly and the Nagana they carry devastate especially cattle, making animal husbandry not economically feasible before the advent of modern medicine and pest control. The effects of Nagana, or sleeping sickness as it's called when humans contract it, should honestly be one of the major defining features of west Africa, seeing how the lack of draft animals forced a lot more humans onto the fields compared to equally productive agriculture in places like India or Southeast Asia. Additionally non-West Africans struggled with sleeping sickness until it's cure was invented in 1916 - contributing to the relative lack of white settlers in the colonies of West Africa.

It's also being debated if the lack of non-human labour in this part of the world lead to the prevalence of slavery, laying the foundation for the devastating triangle trade. The reasoning being that the impossibility of improving agricultural wealth by material means (livestock for ploughing, fertilizing and transporting), and the consensual acquisition of labour only getting you so far, elites resorted to the "cheapest" and "easiest" way of increasing their wealth and power - slavery.

I can't really speak on the gameplay implications of the Tsetse, since we don't know how the disease system works yet. But I hope sleeping sickness and Nagana are being considered since they shaped the material conditions of the polities of West Africa and how the rest of the world interacted with them even to this day.
 
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Another major issue that this region has is that its rivers are very steep at their exit point into the sea, making ship-borne travel into the inland via the coast very difficult. This is one of the reasons why west Africa was so isolated from the rest of the world: less ships = less trade = less cultural and technological exchange. Given that the rivers system in PC is still WIP, this is not currently an issue, but it is something to think about when building the system and applying it to the region (i.e. via some kind of debuff to proximity calcs when moving from rivers to the sea etc.).

This is particularly important in the light of the upcoming rework to rivers as conduits for proximity/trade/control. Inland Africa should feel isolated; perhaps a river feature such as rapids could be implemented to slow down the spread of proximity?
 
Hey @Pavía I do have a question.

When you folks are doing these Tinto Maps and are using sources (and ask people to point out other sources), do you also look at the previous/later years for the details that could be used by other PDX Teams (for example for folks responsible for Victoria 3 or CK3)?
We may take a look at CK3, and we've even shared common sources and information about some regions. But in general terms, both teams prefer to not dig much into each other's setup, as the gameplay of the games is different, and we also want the players to feel that they are different (even if they may cover a common century, the one that goes from 1337 to 1453). Also, take into account that their earliest scenario is 1066 (1178 after Roads to Power is released), so that's a 250-150 difference compared with our 1337 starting date.
 
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I don't have anything to contribute for this region but I gotta say you guys *really* need to change how wastelands and empty provinces look like. You can't say what is empty and what is wasteland from the Countries mapmode, you can't say what is colonizable and what is a corridor in the Dinasties mapmode, and some corridors aren't even clear in the Locations mapmode. It's lowkey frustrating, and I hope this is improved until release.
It will be, yes.
 
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