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Tinto Maps #19 - 20th of September 2024 - India

Hello everyone, and welcome once again to another Tinto Maps! Today we will be taking a look at India! Yup, a whole subcontinent… Exciting!

Let me say a foreword before I start sharing with you some beautiful maps. Some of you may wonder why we decided to make the entire Indian subcontinent in just one DD, instead of spreading it a bit. There are two reasons for that. The first is the political situation: the Sultanate of Delhi is at its zenith, under Muhammad bin Tughlaq. You will soon see that it rules over more than half of the region, approximately; so splitting that polity into several DDs would have felt weird.

The other is that we felt that a more cohesive approach made sense in this region, as it’s sooo diverse compared to others, that the way we approached it, both for its setup and content, was from the generic to the particular; therefore, we think that it will also help us more when we tackle the review of the region. Speaking of that, don’t worry much about the time available to prepare suggestions; you may already know that we have a backlog of several regions, and therefore weeks, before we hit the Indian review, so you will have plenty of time to research and prepare them. In any case, as it’s a massive task (we know it firsthand), we’ll let you know a bit in advance when we plan to start the in-depth review of it, so you have time to wrap it up.

As a final say, I just want to mention that an old acquaintance of the community, @Trin Tragula , now Design Lead in CK3, helped us to map a big chunk of it. Thanks, mate! And now, maps!

Countries:
Countries.jpg

Colored Wastelands.png

As I just mentioned, the Sultanate of Delhi is at its zenith, under Muhammad bin Tughlaq, extending through the Indo-Gangetic Plain, including Bengal, and to the south, throughout the Deccan. There we have its toughest contender, Vijayanagar, a county that is a bulwark of Hinduism. Other important countries around it are Orissa and Sindh, but much smaller countries generally surround Delhi. You might wonder how it would be possible to stop Delhi from completely controlling the region, then. For this, two things are affecting its capability to achieve it. The first is the base game mechanics: ruling over so many different cultures and religions with low control will be hard. The second is a Situation that involves the Fall of the Sultanate; if Delhi wants to succeed, it will have to fight back against rebellions, which involves the potential independence of the Bengalese countries or newborn ones such as the Bahmanis, and the multiple Indian states around it, which are ready to take over it.

Dynasties:
Dynasties.jpg


Locations:
Locations.jpg

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Locations 4.jpg
Yes, we are making some adjustments to the coloring of the mapmodes!

Provinces:
Provinces.jpg

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Provinces 3.jpg

Provinces 4.jpg

Areas:
Areas.jpg

The bug is still there, yes… The area that is to the southwest is Malabar.

Terrain:
Climate.jpg

Topography.jpg

Vegetation.jpg

Here we have a new type of topography: Atolls. We added it some months ago, as we worked on finishing the map of the Pacific Ocean, and it will be the last one added to the game.

Development:
Development.jpg

A new map mode is born! Here you have the development of India. The most developed place is Delhi, which is part of the fertile Gangetic Plain.

Harbors:
Harbors.jpg


Cultures:
Cultures.jpg

Cultures 2.jpg

Cultures 3.jpg
Not an entirely new map, but a glorious one. We chose it to be the one to present how the different cultures could be present in the game for a reason.

Religions:
Religions.jpg

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Religions 3.jpg
India is the birthplace of numerous religions, and that needs to be reflected in the religious map. The main religion is Hinduism, but don’t be deceived by its homogeneous look, as it will be quite deep feature-wise. We also have Buddhism, which is at a low point, after some centuries of prosecutions. Mahayana is a majority in Sindh, although that's not completely exact, as an earlier form of Buddhism was practiced there; we’re also not 100% convinced about it being a majority, as some sources and accounts set the Islamization of the region to be completed under the Ghaznavids, in the 11th and 12th century, while others delay it until the 14th century - we followed the later approach, but we're very open to feedback in this specific matter. Another form of Buddhism is Theravada, which is the most practiced religion in Sailan. Some interesting minorities present in the region are Jains (yellow stripes), Nestorians (the pink stripe in Malabar, which portrays the ‘Saint Thomas Christians’), Jews (which have their own separate culture, ‘Kochini’), and several Animist confessions, of which we’ve already split Satsana Phi, the traditional religion of Tai people, and Sanamahism, the religion of Meitei people. Oh, although it’s not strictly part of the region, the light blue stripes to the north is Bön religion.

Raw Materials:
Raw Materials.jpg

Raw Materials 2.jpg

Raw Materials 3.jpg

Raw Materials 4.jpg
India was for some time in the period the wealthiest region of the world, one of the main reasons being that it’s incredibly rich in very different types of resources, including some of the expensive ones. That will make for a very interesting economic gameplay.

Markets:
Markets India.png

There are several market centers in India that we think portray well the situation in 1337: Kabul (yes, it’s in Afghanistan, but it’s one for the area of Kashmir), Delhi, Khambat, Calicut, Pulicat, Varanasi, and Chittagong.

Population:
Population.jpg

Population 2.jpg

Population 3.jpg

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Population 5.jpg

Population 10.jpg

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India has a big population. To be precise, around 95M pops. Delhi is the second largest country in the world in population, with 41M pops, which makes it a behemoth, with very serious governance challenges. I’m also showing this week the progress we’re making with the coloring of the population mapmode; the stripes on several locations mark that they’re overpopulated, as they have more pops living on them than the pop capacity available (something that may be reviewed, as balancing very densely populated regions such as India or China is really challenging).

And that’s all for today! We hope you enjoyed this massive Tinto Maps. Next week we will be taking a look at the Steppe. Which one, you might wonder? Well, the one ruled by the Golden Horde, from Ukraine in the west to Mongolia in the east. Cheers!
 
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I'd definitely argue there should be more Muslim pops in Bengal and Sindh. I'll make a more detailed post with my sources, but there are at least several locations in the Bengal area that should be majority Muslim by this time such as Chittagong (Chatga), which should also have a significant Arab-Persian minority.
Not...really? Islam didn't become dominant in Eastern Bengal till the Mughal-era forest clearings (see Eaton - I've become an Eaton Shill at this point).
No idea about Sindh though I did post an interesting article.
 
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A couple of questions:
1.) will the Saurashtrians in Southern India be there? Will they be classified as Gujarti or their own people? They were originally from Saurashtra.
2.) How will the many tribal religions of India be repersented. I saw that you mentioned Satsana Phi and Sanamahism, what about Donyi-Polo/Sedism, Sari Dharam, Kiratism, Sarnaism, Koyapunem?
 
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I have to agree with others that think the new translucent map filter presentations can be more difficult to read, especially with the terrain map modes that consist of varying shades of greens, and sometimes tans that can blend in with the map background color. Solid colors help the player make out detail much more easily in map modes that give focused information that changes on a location-basis across large areas, changes that need to be defined as clearly as possible. I'd highly recommend reverting those special map modes like Terrain, Development, and even Locations, reserving the translucent presentation as a aesthetic choice for mapmodes that aren't so functionally granular.

Just my two cents, the rest looks great! Looking forward to the feedback.
 
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Wait what...Baro Bhuiyans is a province?????
The Baro-Bhuyans (or Baro-Bhuyan Raj; also Baro-Bhuians and Baro-Bhuiyans) were confederacies of soldier-landowners in Assam and Bengal in the late Middle Ages and the early modern period.
How do you make a confederacy a province? Also there were two distinct groups called Baro-Bhuiyans, one in Bengal and one in Assam as the quote indicates. Silly name. I'll update my Bengal master-post with rgos and provinces tonight.
 
Could either Hinduism or Theravada have their map color changed? They're far too similar right now. My vote goes for Hinduism as it's also a bit tough to see the yellow stripes of Jain on it sometimes.
I would recommend changing Theravada instead of Hinduism, Saffron is the prime color to represent Hinduism. Theravada has several great colors to represent it (Yes including Saffron and Orange as well, like it is now) However i'm a big fan of Theravada being Lapis Lazuli Blue, considering the value it had within the religion and region of SEA
 
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Speaking of fixing colors, is a color-coded map of location population in the works?

Also could we get a political map close-up of the southern tip of the continent?

The "Adam's Bridge" between Sri Lanka and the mainland is only a meter below the surface, which hampers large ship navigation. Will this be represented?

Any Societies of Pops in the Burma or Tibet highlands? Or is that for a later tinto maps?
 
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Not a fan of the blobby darkened borders à la CK3 over clean location borders. :(



Kudos for adding the Cochin Jews! :)

Please add the Parsis, one of the oldest ethno-religious cultures of the world which still exists today:
Encyclopedia Universalis (in French)
Wikipedia (in English)
EDIT: I read you added them already, neat!
 
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Not really... It's better if you give us direct feedback on why they look more difficult, and what may we do to improve them
The thick, slightly off-color borders on the location map cause visual clutter and make the name itself feel constricted, while combined with the lack of a solid thin black border makes the map feel blurry,
Kabul and Balkh were important cities where trade across Hindukush happened while Kafiristan and Chitral were extremely isolated areas with very little development even to this day.
Kabul and Balkh were recently destroyed by the mongols, but yeah that doesn't explain them being LESS developed then Kafiristan.
 
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Thanks for the map breakdown of Indian.
 
Any ETA on when rivers work well enough, since they clearly don't yet?

Was it given a low priority, or is there a snag somewhere and should we adjust our expectations? Or is there a third option I'm missing?
 
Not...really? Islam didn't become dominant in Eastern Bengal till the Mughal-era forest clearings (see Eaton - I've become an Eaton Shill at this point).
No idea about Sindh though I did post an interesting article.
dominant is a strong word, what is wanted is the green stripes (visibility on the map) which i believe at least 10% of the pops living that location.
 
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Locations:
Yes, we are making some adjustments to the coloring of the mapmodes!

I don't think that's working too well now. The thick shapeless edging isn't very attractive, and there's a lack of contrast in the border areas as a result so that the actual location boundaries are barely visible (practical result will be some occasional mis-clicking). The overall effect is not an improvement, to my eyes.
 
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It's not easy, and its initial iteration, the situations for the Fall of Delhi and the Red Turbans Rebellion, coupled with the core game mechanic, made them extremely punishing (something we're finetuning through constant playtesting and iterating).
Can we have a game option to randomise how hard the situations will be for the player?

Going into a game, and doing the same cookie cutter opening is boring. But imagine you get a high roll opening! You can develop like crazy or expand. Or imagine you get a super low roll, and have to struggle insanely hard just to not collapse.

I feel like EU4 was at its best when strategic decisions had to be made, but after 1500 hours, every decision has already been made and figured out in a past game.

I think there is room to expand the game design for a low or high roll situation.
 
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Sorry if I've been a bit too aggressive, lol. But there's a fundamental misconception here - Early Assamese language and culture arose in Assam itself. If this was say CK3, there'd still be some leeway - but by 1337 Early Assamese was well established in the Brahmaputra Valley. Only the Ahoms were yet to arrive; besides that, all the "ingredients", once could say, were in place. And the cultures of North Bengal had certainly little in common with either the Early or the Modern Assamese culture.
I 100% agree with you on the Assamese already being in the Brahmaputra Valley. They’ve been there since the 4th century. I disagree on the Kamtapuris and Rajbanshis having little in common with the early Assamese though, The Kamptapuri languages only diverged from Assamese in the 13th century, so not to far from the start date. They’d perhaps still be somewhat mutually intelligible by 1337 if I’m not mistaken. I still support adding a separate culture for them though, as they will only continue to diverge into the future.
 
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