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Tinto Maps #17 - 6th of September 2024 - Arabia

Hello everyone, and welcome to one more developer diary for map lovers! This is the second this week, after the review of Poland, Ruthenia, and the Baltic. Hurray!

Today we will be taking a look at the lands of Arabia! So let’s start, without further ado:

Countries:
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This week, we have two country maps: one without colored wastelands for clarity, and one with them under the spoiler button. You might also wonder why there isn’t a third one with the Societies of Pops for the region. Well, that’s because Project Caesar has several layers to portray the simulation of a believable world (if you remember, one of our design pillars). A couple of weeks we presented the Societies of Pops as a new type of country, but if you go back to Tinto Talks #4, the Government Overview, Johan mentioned the different types of governments, which now you know are for Settled Countries. One of them is Tribal, which we think makes for a good representation of the most complex and organized tribal societies, which have some estate-like features while keeping some other tribal features.

Therefore, the way we’ve decided that fits better to portray the simulation of the Arabian Peninsula is having a divide between those countries that are Monarchies (Mecca, Yemen, Oman, Ormus, and the Jarwanids), and those that are Tribal (the rest of them). An interesting feature of the latter is that their lands will be full of Tribesmen pops, making the Tribal estate the most important one to manage. As a final note, I’d like you to understand that this is our interpretation for the simulation of the game, although it might not be the only one (as it happened with the discussions about which European countries should be decentralized with several subjects, and which shouldn’t). The good news regarding this is that we will be open to feedback and making changes, as usual; but also, that this setup can easily be changed through the script of the game, thus making it completely moddable after the game is released; so there could potentially be mods making inner Arabia covered by Societies of Pops instead of Tribal Settled countries, if you don’t like/agree with our interpretation, or just prefer it to be different.


Dynasties:
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Among the dynasties of the region, you might find some old acquaintances, such as the Rasulids of Yemen or the Nabhani of Oman, while also having a bunch of new ones. And not a week without a bug, of course: the ‘al-Al’ prefix is an error, as those dynasties are using a locative, which is mixed with a second one, from the location; we will have that fixed, then.

Locations:
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The locations of the region, with more detailed maps under the spoiler button for three different sections (Northern and Central Arabia, Southern Arabia, and Eastern Arabia).

Provinces:
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Areas:
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Terrain:
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You might notice that most of Arabia is an arid, desertic plateau. The only exception to this is some fertile mountain valleys in Yemen, which was known as Eudaimon Arabia/Arabia Felix for a reason.

Natural Harbors:
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Cultures:
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The cultural division of the region is quite interesting, as it’s divided into several Arabic-speaking people. And for those that might wonder, yes, Socotra has its own culture, Soqotri. We still have to add some minorities here and there, though, so we will take the opportunity to do it during the map review.

Religions:
Religions.png

The religious division of Arabia is also interesting, having Sunni, Shiite, and Ibady majorities spread across the peninsula. We have yet to address the minorities, which were not ready for the Tinto Maps, so we will show what that looks like on the map, and review as well. By the way, we might do some work in the coming weeks regarding Islam, and one of the things that I think we may tweak is the coloring, as Ibadi is too similar to Shiite; so I think that this might be a good opportunity to ask for your preferences about the coloring of the different branches of the Islamic faith.

Raw Materials:
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Dates, livestock, horses, and some wheat and sand make for a healthy economy if you’re a Tribal country, I guess? Jokes aside, the desertic lands of Northern and Central Arabia have a more simple resource distribution, while Yemen and Oman, on the other hand, have quite rich resources, such as Pearls, Alum, Copper, Dyes, Silk, and Coffee (who doesn’t like a good mocha?).

Markets:
Markets.png

There are five market centers present in this region: Mecca, Al-Hajar, Al-Hasa’, Hormoz, and ‘Adan. Coupled with the resources in the previous section, the control over ‘Adan and Hormoz will be strategically relevant, as it was historically.

Population:
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This week there aren’t (almost) issues with the population of the region, so we’re able to show it to you. The entire region has around 4.5M pops, which are unevenly distributed; Yemen has 1.6M, and Mecca 776K, making for more than half of the total, while a good chunk of it belongs to the Mamluks (that control all the area around Madina.

And that’s all for this week! For the next one, I have good news: we have finished the feedback review of Anatolia, and therefore I’ll post it on Monday! That way it will make for a week without a Tinto Talks more bearable. And on Friday, there will be maps for a new region, Iran and the Caucasus! See you!
 
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Societies of Pops arent just "nomadic people", otherwise the entire Golden Horde would be a society of pops. It is a representation of political centralization.
they're represented here as settled countries. They could be represented as ABCs if SoPs is inappropriate but I don't think it is. I don't see much difference between them and the Tuareg in terms of political centralisation
 
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This has probably been answered before, but what happens to dynasty-named countries if the dynasty they are named after is overthrown or dies out? For example what happens with the country of the Jarwanids if they are overthrown by a randomly generated dynasty, something like al-Haraḍi (named after the location)? Will the country shatter into pieces, will it remain called Jawarids, will it get a dynamic new name, something like "the al-Haraḍis" in the same manner as the Jawarids (or something like these), or will it revert to the name of some non-dynasty-specific country like Bahrein or something?
It will depend on the case, as there are some hooks to get a new dynamic name.
 
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Every country name so far has been in its English localisation, for the sake of consistency with the rest of the map surely Ormus should be Hormuz?
Yes, good call.
 
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Was there ever a discussion to make some of the more nomadic tribesmen in Arabia army based countries rather than just centralised tribes?
There have been plenty of internal discussions on how to represent different polities and tribes, and it is still a matter of review.
 
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I hope you will forgive me for asking a more generic map question. The Tinto talk this week told us about certain types of sea-zones potentially freezing in winter. Is there any chance we could get an up to date map showing the types of sea-zones for all the sea-zones in the different regions already covered. That way we can provide feedback on potential issues. As an example of the type of issues I mean, I can mention the Straits of Dover which in the original French Tinto Map is given as a Narrow, which is one of the types of sea-zones that can freeze. However, this has never happened even during the mini ice age and would be extremely unlikely to ever happen given the distance across and the tidal currents.

It would also be great if you could tell us if we should mention such issues in the relevant Tinto Map or in the Winter Tinto talk.
 
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I'd suggest fixing Hormuz,since the island portrayed in pdx games isn't actually hormuz itself,rather the relatively large island of Qeshm,which wasn't really important back then as a settlement.The best solution is to enlarge hormuz a bit(about the size of average clickable pacific island) and make Qeshm a separate location
 

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Yes, and my post is all about explaining why the doctrinal, structural and theological differences between the Shi'is are large enough to justify being different religions. As well as the fact that the different communities were (and to some extent still are) hostile to each other. Quite frankly, the difference between an Isma'ili and Twelver, I feel, is as large as the differences between Catholics and Orthodox.
You've got a point, indeed, but we yet have to put out the internal work to flesh out Shiism, as we've not yet shared all the possible religious features we have in the game. So I'll just ask for some patience regarding this. ;)
 
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There have been plenty of internal discussions on how to represent different polities and tribes, and it is still a matter of review.
Given that "country type" and "government type" are two separate cathegories, sure there is a possibility to have "tribal government ABCs", no? Just like how a settled country can be tribal, monarchy or republic too, an ABCs could be tribal, monarchy and republic aswell, technically
 
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I hope you will forgive me for asking a more generic map question. The Tinto talk this week told us about certain types of sea-zones potentially freezing in winter. Is there any chance we could get an up to date map showing the types of sea-zones for all the sea-zones in the different regions already covered. That way we can provide feedback on potential issues. As an example of the type of issues I mean, I can mention the Straits of Dover which in the original French Tinto Map is given as a Narrow, which is one of the types of sea-zones that can freeze. However, this has never happened even during the mini ice age and would be extremely unlikely to ever happen given the distance across and the tidal currents.

It would also be great if you could tell us if we should mention such issues in the relevant Tinto Map or in the Winter Tinto talk.
It's not a bad idea, but it's too soon for that yet, as we have some pending planned work regarding sea zones polishing all across the world.
 
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Given that "country type" and "government type" are two separate cathegories, sure there is a possibility to have "tribal government ABCs", no? Just like how a settled country can be tribal, monarchy or republic too, an ABCs could be tribal, monarchy and republic aswell, technically
That's technically possible, but I can't yet talk about that. ;)
 
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Two questions

1.Considering the spelling of "Hormoz" is the country's primary culture Persian?

2.Next week is Iran and i'm curious if Tajik or any eastern Persian culture will be represented separately?imo it shouldn't be since Tajik back then simply ment Persian and was used for them wether they were from Isfahan or Bukhara
 
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Echoing this. If we have Christianity granular enough to include Krjstani and Bogomilism in the Balkans I see no reason not to do the same for Shi’ite, at least splitting it into Twelver, Isma’ili, and Zaydi.
I agree with splitting Shias, but Krstjani/Bogomils are a pretty bad example considering that they’re probably the single most “out there” sect of Christianity in the game.
 
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Tribes being ABC would work imo. Even SOP wouldn't be that far fetched but since they will probably only ai i don't really want that.


However if they are going to be ABC they should be bit less agressive compare to central asia hordes in order to prevent them wander to europe or india to settle
 
I hope you will forgive me for asking a more generic map question. The Tinto talk this week told us about certain types of sea-zones potentially freezing in winter. Is there any chance we could get an up to date map showing the types of sea-zones for all the sea-zones in the different regions already covered. That way we can provide feedback on potential issues. As an example of the type of issues I mean, I can mention the Straits of Dover which in the original French Tinto Map is given as a Narrow, which is one of the types of sea-zones that can freeze. However, this has never happened even during the mini ice age and would be extremely unlikely to ever happen given the distance across and the tidal currents.

It would also be great if you could tell us if we should mention such issues in the relevant Tinto Map or in the Winter Tinto talk.
It is unlikely for the Straits of Dover to freeze in anyway because it is almost entirely Oceanic in climate, which is characterized by rather mild winters actually. It rarely gets severely cold there even during a little ice age
 
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I hope you will forgive me for asking a more generic map question. The Tinto talk this week told us about certain types of sea-zones potentially freezing in winter. Is there any chance we could get an up to date map showing the types of sea-zones for all the sea-zones in the different regions already covered. That way we can provide feedback on potential issues. As an example of the type of issues I mean, I can mention the Straits of Dover which in the original French Tinto Map is given as a Narrow, which is one of the types of sea-zones that can freeze. However, this has never happened even during the mini ice age and would be extremely unlikely to ever happen given the distance across and the tidal currents.

It would also be great if you could tell us if we should mention such issues in the relevant Tinto Map or in the Winter Tinto talk.
While this very off topic I would say that that could also be represented via climate instead, oceanic climate has very mild winters so that may allow the channel to not freeze without needing any further changes
 
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It is unlikely for the Straits of Dover to freeze in anyway because it is almost entirely Oceanic in climate, which is characterized by rather mild winters actually. It rarely gets severely cold there even during a little ice age
I completely agree, though during the mini ice-age it did get cold enough for the Thames to freeze and festivals were held on the ice, but the Straits of Dover would be extremely unlikely to freeze, let alone to an extend that they would become traversable.
 
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