Tinto Maps #28 - 29th of November 2024 - North America

[AHumpierRogue]

Since there seems to be a strong majority in favor of geographic areas, I decided to draft what that could look like since I haven't seen anyone else put forward any proposals.
Please keep in mind I only followed the province map and some provincial adjustments might be desirable. (Except Kentucky Bend cause that sucks)
I tried to broadly follow geographic regions, then split that up further by cultural regions (Both native and modern american)
Ozarks in particular should not be any different from this, if geographic boundaries are whats being designed for.
View attachment 1224761

Jeez, find the Connecticut native! Unhand Long Island you thief!

Anyway, yeah this is my issue with the "geographic Areas" argument. I do not want to see these colonies be a thing assuming the colonization is area based. If it's not I don't care as much but it'd be odd to never ever have actual US states/colonies for administration purposes, IMO. If they can divorce colonies and administration from areas it's all good, but I assume they cannot/will not, since otherwise what's the point of Areas on the map?

 

[BuchiTaton]

Could there be a game rule for having endonyms vs exonyms for native americans? I understand the desire to represent them properly but the more recognized names would be good too.

Maybe we can have a togable setting option like the one for Byzantium vs Eastern Roman Empire.
It could be an Exonyms vs Endonyms for native nations tags.

 

[marcusdarmstrong]

As another American here I'll strongly vote for geographic borders: American state borders are anachronistic and, worse, are merely one unlikely outcome we happen to be stuck with. The whole point of playing an alternative history game is to play with what other options could have existed... And specifically in the case of West Virginia the differentiation is extremely jarring, given that that's a polity that does not exist for the entire timeline of the game.

Jeez, find the Connecticut native! Unhand Long Island you thief!

Anyway, yeah this is my issue with the "geographic Areas" argument. I do not want to see these colonies be a thing assuming the colonization is area based. If it's not I don't care as much but it'd be odd to never ever have actual US states/colonies for administration purposes, IMO. If they can divorce colonies and administration from areas it's all good, but I assume they cannot/will not, since otherwise what's the point of Areas on the map?

On the contrary: I'd argue it would be odd to see the modern state borders appear! The number of games in which the British happen to colonize and coalesce around the exact existing set of borders should be vanishingly small in comparison to alternate outcomes. Consider the prior map of colonial border disputes: in that context even the situations in which British colonization did dominate the modern US east coast is likely to have dozens of permutations that don't align at all with modern borders.

 

[Kaiserum]

Just improved those harbors.

Have you changed the port of Cartagena? It has been an important port since the Carthaginians founded the city. In the map you showed the location of Murcia had access to the sea when it shouldn't have it, and even if that stays that part of coast is a lagoon where no port can be made so it shouldn't have a better natural harbor than Cartagena.

 

[Genabab]

I made a post about population a few days ago, but now that its the weekend I sat myself down and reviewed some notes from the book 1491 and made a post on the reddit about my thoughts on America. I was advised to put it here. so I'll copy paste it minus the part about population to not be redundant.

EU5 is coming at a time where the historical study of pre-Columbian America is undergoing a revolution. While it is nice that you have added states in the Pueblo region and in Cahokia, (which I should add, has significant religious flavour potential) The rest of the continent is barren. It is reserved entirely to sops. And even then, much of it is missing. I believe that California, the Pacific North West, East Coast, pretty much all of America have a desperate need for playable states.

[Population section goes here]

The Case for states:

In order to show that we need states in the region, we need to find proof of states historically. Thankfully, we have a decent amount of evidence for this. Namely the emergence of the Hopewell Culture. Active in the 2nd Century, the Hopewell established trade networks connecting most of North America and (possibly) agriculture to the North. Mann states "Hopewell villages, unlike their more egalitarian neighbours, were stratified, with powerful priestly rulers commanding a mass of commoners. Archeologists have found no proof of large scale warfare, and thus suggest that Hopewell did not achieve its dominance by conquest. Instead the vehicle for transformation may have been Hopewell religion. If so, the adoption of Algonquian in Northeast would mark an era of spiritual ferment and heady conversion, much like when Islam rose and spread Arabic throughout the Middle East."

A stratified society, highly hierarchical ruled by a priestly class spreading its faith throughout the American East? That sure sounds like a state to me! And one that emerged in the 2nd Century! True, Hopewell was gone by the 6th Century.. But, it left its mark with agricultural settled communities dotting the East Coast.

As various historians have noted (Mann lists a few in 1491), there is a strong case for a large number of North American settled urban states. But the arrival of European disease wiped many out. '"That's one reason whites think of Indians as nomadic hunters," Russel Thornton, an anthropologist at the University of California at LA said to me. "Everything else, all the heavily populated urbanized societies, was wiped out.'

All that is well and good. But what should be the states in America at game start?

Well I for one would emphasise the Iroquious, but no doubt that point has been made here before. That being said, I want to look more at the West Coast. Namely, the Pacific North-West!

The PNW is 100% an area that should have full-states operating. The PNW became a hotbed of settled/sedentary societies due to the richness of the region. With fishing becoming one especially prevalent mode of food production in the area.

The PNW developed highly advanced economies, based on a model of something known as "Potlatch". Which has been compared to modern ideas of a Gift Economy. The richness and success of the PNW region led to a sky-high population density, with there being estimates that the population of the Pacific North-West pre-contact reaching 1,000,000! (Of course there is debate on the number, but it still shows us just how massive the PNW was)

The following:
Tlingit
Haida
Tsimshian
Heiltsuk
Kwakwaka'wakw
And the salish
There are probably, almost definitely, more.

The PNW is just one area however. I also feel that the Caddo, with a population in the hundreds of thousands, should have a state. The Ais people of Florida with a pre-contact population also in the hundres of thousands ought to have a state.

Trade:

One important thing to hammer out is trade. As surprising as it may seem, pan-American trade was a regular occurrence in the region.

"By 1000 AD, trade relationships had covered the continent for more than a thousand years; mother-of-pearl from the Gulf of Mexico had been found in Manitoba and Lake superior copper in Louisiana" (Mann 2006, Pg.25). As such markets in North America could have deeper conenctions with other markets in Central and southern America, allowing for the arrival of goods like pearl and copper.

Technology and Colonisation

One of the things that made colonisation in EU4 so lopsided was technology. 2k stacks could wipe out an army 4 times it size due to technology differences. Now, I won't say that technological differences made no difference. Cannons did certainly intimidate the native population for instance. But they did often find ways of managing it, adapting to these new weapons. A famous case is the Aztec reaction to cavalry. At first they were caught off guard, but as the days went on Aztec warriors found ways to incapacitate cavalry by tripping horses with slings that made them unable to move.

Natives in North America also often had a one up on the colonists, mainly during first arrivals.

"Over time, the Wampanoag, like other native societies in coastal New England had learned how to manage the European presence. They encouraged trade but would only allow their visitors to stay ashore for brief periods." (Mann 2006, Pg.32). The image this paints is not one of helpless natives who are at the mercy of guns, but of those in a position above the colonists.

 

[afrieder]

I’d suggest using Paumanok instead of Montauk for the province representing modern day Long Island in New York. The latter is a tribe name while the former is a native name for the island that has the benefit of also being a very poetic way of describing the island even now.

Source: The Richmond Hill Historical Society (original link is archived so I can't post it but here's a screenshot)

 

[Sigismund der Münzreiche]

Not a new revelation iirc

It was suspected but not confirmed so far

 

[Ulpia Batavorum]

Don't know if this has been mentioned yet but I think representing the Mississippian culture with just Cahokia is ignoring the fact that people like the Casqui all the way south to at least the Natchez should also be part of this culture and be settled (not SoPs) as well.

 

[MTGian]

A major difference between the borders in Europe and the rest of the old world often not following geographical boundaries and the American colonial borders is that the European non-geographical borders are already historical in 1337. These distinctions already existed then and hence are not out of place.
On the other hand, the colonial borders on the other hand depend on arbitrary decisions that would not be taken for 200 or more years.

I would be fine with hiding modern-ish (not straight lines, but closer to them) borders on the location-level, cutting through provinces. That way, the borders that came about in our history can be reconstructed, if one so wishes. But the proper provinces should follow geographical features or the borders of tribal lands (which would be the equivalent of the Ems not being the German-Dutch border). Similarly, some modern borders can be hidden in location borders in Europe, rather than strictly following province boundaries.

I think the issue is that the US borders aren't particularly "natural". The European borders usually go along rivers or other natural obstacles. So what I think many people agree with is something like this:
1. If the borders look natural enough, use historical province/state borders.
2. If they're too straight and out of place, make up or use alternative borders which abide more to the natural barriers.

I would be fine with a hybrid approach. The place where I take issue is if you can't recreate something that at least resembles the historical borders. That doesn't seem fair to those who do want to recreate something that resembles our own history. That is especially true if other countries were afforded that respect.

The default should be consistency and the ability to follow something that resembles history.

 

[sjsr99]

Some general comments regarding the language setup:

Even if Hokan and Penutian are valid linguistic families, they are still far too deep to be represented in-game even at the level of language family, and certainly not at the level of language. Yes, that means a lot of language isolates, but that's an accurate reflection of the linguistic diversity of California.

"Yutonahua" is a perplexing choice of name, since both the Numic (Yuta) and Nahuan languages have clearly been separated from it. In any case, it should be split into multiple languages, all in the Uto-Aztecan family along with Nahuatl, Takic, and the Numic languages.

Wakashan consists of two distinct dialect continua, Kwakiutlan and Nootkan, which should be separate languages in the Wakashan family.

Salishan is also far too diverse to be a single language. At least the division between Interior and Coast Salishan should be represented; a four-way split between Nuxalk, Central Salishan, Tsamosan, and Interior Salishan would be even better.

The current Dene grouping should also be elevated to the level of family, with at least Tlingit and Eyak as separate languages. The "Na-dené" exclave in northern Mexico appears to be an oversight.

Dorset and Beothuk should have their own languages rather than Cree.

Sauk-Fox-Kickapoo should be a single language (perhaps called Meskwaki) separate from Shawnee and including Mascouten.

The remnant "Iroquoian" language can be merged with Wendat.

Ofo and Biloxi (Taneks) should have their own Mosopelea language.

The Tunica language needs to be separated from Natchez, and Chitimacha separated from Atakapa.

The Florida region in general needs a thorough revamp; the Calusa culture can at least be split into Tocobaga, Calusa, Tequesta, Mayaimi, Ais, and Mayaca, and a separate Ais language should be added. Timucua can be split into multiple cultures as well.

Following up on this, the southern Florida cultures did not speak Timucua. Granberry (prominent linguist in this area) suggests the Calusa, Mayaimi, and Tequesta all spoke related languages, with Calusa itself being the "best" documented of the bunch. Best really deserves to be in quotes there. Although it is unclassified as a language, no prominent scholar that I am aware of classifies it with Timucua, as Timucua itself is a bit of a controversial language insofar as its classification. Granberry suggests a relationship with the Chibchan languages of Central and South America, while Broadwell (another very prominent Timucua linguist) favors a relationship with Muskogean.

The cultural genesis that was the formation of the Seminole in the 17-1800s, as well as the (re)moval of many indigenous peoples to Cuba by the Spanish unfortunately obfuscates a lot of details of the pre-Columbian history of Florida. Yet there's a lot of work being done to understand it better, fortunately.

As for the game, I think Timucua should remain in North-Central Florida, with the southern peoples speaking one or more of their own languages.

 

[PoultryLaser]

I've seen a few folks advocating for locations and societies in the Pacific Northwest. I'd like to support the inclusion of a specific location in Oregon, Wyam (AKA: Celilo Falls).

Until it was flooded by the construction of a dam, Wyam existed in various forms for something like 15,000 years, making it the longest continuously inhabited settlement in North America. It was a major trade center with artifacts from as far away as Alaska found there, and it was documented by Lewis and Clark. Additionally, the area became a significant hub on the Oregon Trail when American settlers founded the town of The Dalles nearby.

 

[Bonqurito]

Some natural harbour suggestions:

Québec, QC
Duluth, MN
Charleston, SC
Jacksonville, FL
St. Augustine, FL
Cape Canaveral, FL
Norfolk, VA
New Bedford, MA
Providence, RI
Corpus Christi, TX
Wilmington, DL
Washington D.C

And some questions:
1. Is Philadelphia a coastal location? It would also be cool if it was.
2. Will PC have a canal building system?
3. How does the AI handle shipbuilding when they own locations in the Great Lakes? Do they have a strategy, like if they were to own the entire great lakes region and have no enemy fleets there, would they still build warships there?

 

[Mmklop_]

Some natural harbour suggestions:

Québec, QC
Duluth, MN
Charleston, SC
Jacksonville, FL
St. Augustine, FL
Cape Canaveral, FL
Norfolk, VA
New Bedford, MA
Providence, RI
Corpus Christi, TX
Wilmington, DL
Washington D.C

And some questions:
1. Is Philadelphia a coastal location? It would also be cool if it was.
2. Will PC have a canal building system?
3. How does the AI handle shipbuilding when they own locations in the Great Lakes? Do they have a strategy, like if they were to own the entire great lakes region and have no enemy fleets there, would they still build warships there?

I want to add
Houston/Galveston TX,
Port Arthur, TX,
Gulfport, Mississippi,
Pensacola, FL,
Panama City, FL,
Arlington, Virginia,
and Rhode Island
as places that should probably be natural harbors of some kind, going specifically off of geography.
Texas in particular has some world class natural harbors.
Also, it's weird to me to see New Orleans being such a low level? It should definitely at least be on a similar level to NYC, in terms of geography

EDIT:
I want to add
Detroit, Michigan,
Toledo, Ohio
Erie, Pennsylvania
Rochester, NY,
Toronto, Ontario,
St. Catharines, Ontario
and Hamilton, Ontario

as natural harbors on the great lakes. Granted most of them aren't amazing but they are still there

 

[viola]

The border could have been drawn a million different ways throughout hundreds of years of history, so should the game not represent how it actually ended up?

It definitely should not, because the game starts in 1337 and the US states were still figuring out their exact shape by the late 18th century or well after that. There's an excellent chance that no such a thing as the United States ever even comes close to be created in the game, so having US states in a game that starts in the 14th century is exceptionally silly.

Now, if you can find me some historical traces of the modern US state borders being enforced or followed in pre-contact America, or at least a pan-European conference in the 1500s that commonly agreed for all eternity what the current shape of Ohio should be, then go ahead and show us, otherwise those borders make as much sense as using Sykes-Picot borders for the Middle East or current post-colonial borders for Africa.

But I guarantee you that among the millions of people who will actually play the finished game, the representation of history such as the first settlements on the east coast, the american frontier, the relationship of colonies to the motherland, the american revolution, the louisiana purchase, the expansion into former buffer territory, and yes, recreating historical borders, will garner way more interest than actually playing as native americans in 1337.

No, actually this is shit even for most colonizers, because in this way all European colonizers of North America are going to be forced into the way the British decided to name and divide the land even if they're Poles, Swedes, Moroccans or just Spanish settlers who gobbled up North America as well, and stuff like the Louisiana Purchase, the American Revolution and so on are so removed from the start date that they'll only ever be represented as generic events for an America that the game has no way of knowing what it's gonna look like in the 1700s. The British might be in charge of the "Thirteen Colonies" as much as France, Spain, the Ottomans or bloody China or Japan for that matter, so the American colonies seeking independence are not going to be modeled specifically out of the US case. This isn't the Victoria 3 time period, US state borders are an inappropriate way to divide the land considering all the possible ways things could go, and that's even if we want to consider the many potential colonizers alone.

Also, I'd be very glad if you didn't try to decide for everyone here what we're supposed to prefer to play and such.
There's been this thing going since EU4 where, since that game pretty much failed in creating any interesting way to make North American natives fun to play, some people on the forums have become insanely vitriolic toward any attempt at improving native gameplay, to the point that it feels like if they were in charge they'd just erase the entire population of the Americas and represent them as geographical obstacles to the Europeans.
If we're so quick to cry anti-americanism, maybe I would avoid that kind of attitude toward natives and their history, we don't need to get in that direction.

 

[Idhrendur]

Doing the North America map post during the USA's most-traveled holiday is certainly a choice. Though I'm sure it was quite accidental. Anyways, I'm a native of California Central Coast (roughly Monterey through Ventura) and most decidedly have feedback, though most has been covered by others so I'll generally emphasize their points.

Coastal California south of the Bay Area should absolutely be Mediterranean! And more of the Mojave desert should be arid or cold arid, rather than Mediterranean. (Perhaps the Mojave should be cold arid, while the Sonora should be arid, with Joshua tree national park being the border between the two.)

This is the first and biggest thing. You could perhaps make the Big Sur area oceanic, but south and inland from there are absolutely Mediterranean. They're famously so.
As well, the Big Sur area should also be woods, you should also consider Montaña de Oro and the strips between those two and the southern Los Padres forest that's already present on the map.

The climate for the sea provinces is about right. That's where the California Current stops hugging the coast so tight, making SoCal beaches quite pleasant compared to Central Coast ones (though I can't speak to Santa Barbara's beaches from experience, they might not be quite so hypothermia inducing as the San Luis Obispo ones).

Biggest thing that stands out to me is that there's no Diné/Navajo? I might be missing them, but they appear to have been merged with the Hopi, which doesn't seem correct

For the Southern California region, I have some rough suggestions:
View attachment 1223679

Spoiler: Chumash Province (4+ Locations)

• Pismu
  • San Luis Obispo
  • Chumash; Fish
• Mikiw (or Kalawašaq/Lumpo'o)
  • La Purísima Mission; Mission Santa Inez
  • Chumash; Fish
• Syuxtun
  • Santa Barbara
  • Chumash; Fur (otters)
• Humaliwo
  • Malibu; Mission San Buenaventura
  • Chumash; Fish
• Tataviam location could go here, or in Tovaangar, or in Mojave
  • The Santa Clarita Valley
  • Tataviam culture: Fruit, Fiber crops?
  • For an actual village name, could go Tochonanga, Chaguayanga, or Mapipinga
  • There should be a gap in the wasteland between Hometwoli and Tataviam to represent the Tejon Pass
• Limuw (probably too small)
  • The Northern Channel Islands
  • Chumash; Pearls (abalone)

Spoiler: Tovaangar Province (4+ Locations)

• Pasheeknga
  • The San Fernando Valley; Mission San Fernando Rey de España
  • Tongva; Lumber? (Noted to have many oaks); said to be marshy, forested
• Yaanga
  • Los Angeles; San Gabriel Mission
  • Tongva; fiber crops? said to be marshy, forested
• Puvunga
  • A sacred spring site for the Tongva, Acjachemen, and Chumash
  • Long Beach Area
  • Tongva; Fish
• Kuukamonga
  • Santa Ana Basin Area
  • Tongva; Wild Game
• Pimuu'nga (probably too small)
  • The Southern Channel Islands
  • Tongva; Pearls (Abalone)

Spoiler: Avii Hanupach (San Jacinto Mountains) Province (4 Locations)

• Putuidem
  • Southern Orange County; Mission San Juan Capistrano
  • Acjachemen; Wild Game
• Qée'ish
  • Northern San Diego County; Mission San Luis Rey de Francia
  • Payómkawichum; Wild Game
• Kosa'aay
  • San Diego area
  • Kumeyaay; Fish? Wild Game?
• Séc-he
  • The Coachella Valley area
  • Taxliswet; Fruit or Fiber Crops (both uses of the California Palm)

Spoiler: Ha 'ša ai (Laguna Salada) Province (3 Locations)

• 'Iitekat
  • Tecate; Tijuana Area
  • Kumeyaay; Fish?
• Jhlumúk or Pa-tai
  • Ensenada
  • Kumeyaay; Fish
• Awkwaala (TYPO: should be Akwa'ala)
  • Misión San Vicente Ferrer
  • Paipai; Wild Game?

Also, I think Kuksu stretches too far south; the Tongva, Payomkawichum, and Acjachemem seemed to share a faith that included Chinigchinix/Quaoar; and the Chumash, Kumeyaay and Tongva all used Datura in their religious practices - I've seen the term "Datura Cult" before used in reference to this, but I'm not sure if that terminology has changed

I can confirm the proposed Chumash province division here is great! Especially using the native names instead of the Spanish names. I would aim to include the Channel Islands as proposed here, and look at fur as goods there as an alternative. The otters were hunted near to extinction for their fur, though that was largely European work. I'm not sure to what extent the Chumash peoples cared about trading the furs, and they definitely traded the abalone (which I think the Europeans did less so).

As proposed here, the division of the Chumash province is absolutely needed, as there are significant geographical and cultural divisions throughout it.

Others have also repeated these points.

I did see a suggestion of a natural harbor in in Chumash territory. Do look up Morro Bay, but I could see that being rejected as a candidate as even with a modern seawall it's pretty minor and small for a harbor (though some of that's due to modern agriculture on the Los Osos Creek causing it to silt up, it may have been better in the past).

---

As for the question of geographic or colonial borders, the west should definitely continue to have the geography-based ones. The modern state borders are very much a consequence of USA policy and dates to the 19th century.

 

[Linbot#6018]

I think the issue is that the US borders aren't particularly "natural". The European borders usually go along rivers or other natural obstacles. So what I think many people agree with is something like this:
1. If the borders look natural enough, use historical province/state borders.
2. If they're too straight and out of place, make up or use alternative borders which abide more to the natural barriers.

I think this is a bit of a weird way to put it. In my opinion, European borders don't really follow geographical features any more than American borders do. American borders, especially in the East, follow natural boundaries all the time, like Kentucky's northern border being the Ohio river, Virginia and North Carolina's western borders being the Appalachians, Lousiana's eastern border following the Mississippi, It's just that when European borders stray away from natural features, they still look "rugged" (which is because the European borders were created after the settlements they partition) which lends them the false appearance of looking more natural, while American borders follow straight lines, which makes them feel out of place. But realistically speaking, those are both equally arbitrary. Like, if you look at Russia's borders with Ukraine and Belarus, that border doesn't follow any natural features whatsoever. It is based entirely on the ethnic zones that happened to exist in the early 20th century (which have since changed). The same can be said of the French-Belgian border, the Dutch-Belgian border, the Lithuanian-Belarusian border, the Romanian-Hungarian border, etc. But at the same time, there aren't really any European countries with egregiously unworkable borders (except maybe Kaliningrad and Gibraltar), and the same applies to the United States, there aren't any US states with borders that are actively un-geographical, at least in the East. The border between Virginia and North Carolina doesn't follow any geographical features, but it's also a reasonable border because it's situated in a plain that slopes in the same direction it does, and both of those states are bounded on each of their other three sides by geographical borders: rivers, mountains, and the ocean.

That being said, I still generally agree with the geographical borders argument, because these borders didn't exist for most of the time period.

 

[nyetflix2]

I think somebody's mentioned this by now, but that development map needs a rework I think. Just marking all areas that are outside the rule of landed tags as zero development doesn't make sense, and reminds me of how EU4 pretends that uncolonized provinces can't have participate in trade. Especially when your own criteria for SoPs, which cover roughly a third of the continent, include agricultural development and urbanism.

So I would give the unsettled locations belonging to sedentary Mississippian and Puebloan + Hohokam cultures some development, about on par with their state neighbors. I'd also give the agricultural societies that aren't Mississippian (namely many of the Iroquoian and Algonquian groups) a bit less than that (given that they didn't develop true urbanism like the Mississippians, and agriculture was a more recent arrival AFAIK) but certainly not zero. There's a case to be made that the PNW should get a bit too based on their aquaculture.

Obviously, development here should be noticeably less than Mesoamerica or the Central Andes, much less the core regions of Eurasia, but zero development is just a bad choice IMO and is even a step back from EU4. I think classifying hunter-gatherer societies without SoPs as zero development would be more defensible as a general rule, though there might still be some exceptions here and there.

 

[AntarcticRanger]

Genga, California - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

I feel like Genga should be an additional location, as i feel like there should be some location covering the lower Santa Anna river in Orange County

Mapping the Tongva villages of L.A.'s past

The original people of Los Angeles, the Tongva, defined their world as Tovaangar.

www.latimes.com

Here's a map i found with a lot of other villages.

 

[sukipanda]

3 things - for one, You have effectively reversed the locations of the Puyallup and Suquamish in your map labelling, the Suquamish were allied with the Duwamish who occupied the location you labelled as Puyallup whereas the Puyallup occupied the border of the locations while the Nisqually occupied the rest of the location you labelled Puyallup. Furthermore, the tribes along the pacific coast were similarly settled and complex to those along the east coast to atleast warrant some representation as societies of Pops, and third, the Terrain along the west coast is wildly inaccurate due to the provinces borders being based around mountain peaks, precluding proper representation of the impassibility of Cascades and pacific coast mountain ranges, including wastelands between some of the provinces would make for a marked improvement in terrain representation.

Also, if you're gonna make this much of the world represented as Societies of Pops, they better be playable on day one, even if it's rudimentary.

 

[MTGian]

It definitely should not, because the game starts in 1337 and the US states were still figuring out their exact shape by the late 18th century or well after that. There's an excellent chance that no such a thing as the United States ever even comes close to be created in the game, so having US states in a game that starts in the 14th century is exceptionally silly.

Now, if you can find me some historical traces of the modern US state borders being enforced or followed in pre-contact America, or at least a pan-European conference in the 1500s that commonly agreed for all eternity what the current shape of Ohio should be, then go ahead and show us, otherwise those borders make as much sense as using Sykes-Picot borders for the Middle East or current post-colonial borders for Africa.


No, actually this is shit even for most colonizers, because in this way all European colonizers of North America are going to be forced into the way the British decided to name and divide the land even if they're Poles, Swedes, Moroccans or just Spanish settlers who gobbled up North America as well, and stuff like the Louisiana Purchase, the American Revolution and so on are so removed from the start date that they'll only ever be represented as generic events for an America that the game has no way of knowing what it's gonna look like in the 1700s. The British might be in charge of the "Thirteen Colonies" as much as France, Spain, the Ottomans or bloody China or Japan for that matter, so the American colonies seeking independence are not going to be modeled specifically out of the US case. This isn't the Victoria 3 time period, US state borders are an inappropriate way to divide the land considering all the possible ways things could go, and that's even if we want to consider the many potential colonizers alone.

Also, I'd be very glad if you didn't try to decide for everyone here what we're supposed to prefer to play and such.
There's been this thing going since EU4 where, since that game pretty much failed in creating any interesting way to make North American natives fun to play, some people on the forums have become insanely vitriolic toward any attempt at improving native gameplay, to the point that it feels like if they were in charge they'd just erase the entire population of the Americas and represent them as geographical obstacles to the Europeans.
If we're so quick to cry anti-americanism, maybe I would avoid that kind of attitude toward natives and their history, we don't need to get in that direction.

I can understand the argument that colonial borders should not be forced into alignment of historical colonial borders. This is an alternate history. The borders could have ended up differently. That makes sense.

The problem comes in when you extend that to say that the colonial borders couldn't align with those of history. So, a player could not recreate what historically happened. That doesn't make sense. Especially when it is compared with how other countries were treated.