Copts in Egypt

[AndrejK]

Hello paradoxians.
Again, I d like to ask you to add "coptic" religion in the following provinces:

1. Alexandria
2. Minya
   
3. Asyut
4. Qasr Ibrim

Qasr Ibrim :
During Roman times the town was one of the last bastions of paganism, its six temples converting to Christianity two centuries later than the rest of Egypt. It then became one of the main Christian centers in Lower Nubia. Christianity first came to Qasr Ibrim in the 6th century, but had little effect. It wasn't until the city became part of the kingdom of Makuria, in the early 8th century, that Qasr Ibrim became a center for Christianity. This continued even through the fifteenth century when the Makurian kingdom became Islamic.[4] The city held out against Islam until the 16th century, when a unit of Bosnian soldiers, part of the Ottoman army, occupied the site. The mercenaries stayed on and eventually married into the local Nubian community, using part of the cathedral as a mosque.

Two churches remain on the site. The Taharqa Church was most likely built between 542-580 AD, this would make it one of Nubia's earliest churches. Like many of the first churches in Nubia, it would have been constructed within the walls of the already present temples.[4] Qasr Ibrim's cathedral was built later, though the date of construction in unclear. Archaeologists currently believe it was constructed in the first half of the eighth century.[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qasr_Ibrim

Minya is dubbed by the locals "Bride of Upper Egypt", in reference to its strategic location in Middle Egypt as a vital link between the north and the south of Egypt. Minya has one of the highest concentration of Christian Coptic population in Egypt (approximately 50% of total population).[1]

Asyut is a city with a large Coptic population even today, and Alexnadria should be included for historical reasons.

Except for historical reasons, other, such as gameplay, flavour and logic should also be considered.

At first the Mamluks seem to have quite an easy time there and are a dangerous foe to the Ottomans. Having them to deal with domestic problems was certainly more historically accurate.
Secondly, having the "Coptic" religion with no provinces in Egypt is just .... weird.
Therefore I demand giving changing the religion of these 4 provinces

 

[123e55]

Why cant some provinces have primary and secondary religions tho, something inspired from the tengri mechanics?

 

[Grand Historian]

Why cant some provinces have primary and secondary religions tho, something inspired from the tengri mechanics?

It'd need to be coded in first, but if there'd be something as time intensive as making a minority mechanic it'd probably be prudent on Paradox's part to do more than simply copy the binary Tengri mechanic for it.

 

[Metz]

I mean that's just a good argument to add in religious minorities in a manner similar to Dei Gratia's system.

A pie chart system.


(Also for culture and trade goods).

 

[Grand Historian]

A pie chart system.


(Also for culture and trade goods).

Pie Charts wouldn't make much sense without any numbers to base them off of.

Dev would make for excellent pops.

 

[Metz]

Pie Charts wouldn't make much sense without any numbers to base them off of.

Dev would make for excellent pops.

I meant pie charts with % on them. You could promote or suppress religions and cultures. This would help add more things to tall-playing games. The starting percentages don't have to be 100% accurate, just an approximation based on demographics of the time. Port provinces, trade centers, and high development province would have a higher fluctuation of % (though it would depend on policies and national ideas such as religious, humanist, trade, etc...).

Like this:

Regarding development, it shouldn't be done overnight. it should take a year per development level. In the game you can literally turn a backwater province into a metropolis if you have the monarch points for it in a day.

 

[Me_]

There was a guy @Chamboozer who had some good data on the demographics of the Ottoman Empire based on tax registers. I imagine those could shed a light on whether or not there were any Christian-majority areas in Egypt when Ottomans took it (which could imply there were some before as well).

 

[123e55]

A pie chart system.


(Also for culture and trade goods).

That's one of my dreams since i started playing Victoria2 to be honest. As you said we cant really have accurate percentages for every single province, but approximation is a good compromise. Gameplay before historical accuracy,right?
(p.s. that would make the conversion of provinces to a certain religion to have alot more sense).

 

[AndrejK]

So it seems it is more accurate to not represent a minority at all and male Egypt completely homogeneous than to give tyem presence in tye province where their concentration is highest

 

[AirikrStrife]

I think the events for easier conversation is what we get to represent the minorities in this case

 

[Grand Historian]

So it seems it is more accurate to not represent a minority at all and male Egypt completely homogeneous than to give tyem presence in tye province where their concentration is highest

Statistically speaking, yes, it's perfectly accurate. Copts barely made up 10% of the Egyptian population after the mob violence of the mid-late 1300s, and weren't concentrated in any one area enough to constitute a majority of an ingame province.

 

[AndrejK]

How many provinces will Egypt have in the new patch? 23?
Were Copts a significant part of the population in Egypt? Did they interact with foreign countries?
Where was their concentration highest? Today I would say Ushminayn, but before I am not sure.
Upper Egypt accounts for over half the Coptic population of Egypt, although most of the rest in Cairo and Alexandria are people who came from that area.
The Coptic minority were significant in the area from Ushminayn to Qus, although it may be difficult to find a province where they have made 52% +,I still somehow beloeve they shhould be represented, similar to how Zoroastrians are in Iran: at least one province
Will the Mamluks get more difficult gameplay with this one province? No. They can give it to the dhimmi estate, or just convert it straight away.

 

[AndrejK]

Will there be at least Shia on Upper Egypt (Aswan governorate) ?

 

[Five_X]

After the uprisings and anti-Christian violence of the 14th century - and likely far before then, even, according to recent scholarship - the Copts were a minority in just about everywhere in Egypt, and it wasn't until near the end of the game's time period that they began to play any notable role again in Egyptian politics and society.

 

[Vigilum]

After the uprisings and anti-Christian violence of the 14th century - and likely far before then, even, according to recent scholarship - the Copts were a minority in just about everywhere in Egypt, and it wasn't until near the end of the game's time period that they began to play any notable role again in Egyptian politics and society.

Religion and culture in provinces have never been there to represent the majority. It has ALWAYS been to represent influence, or the major culture in the most important city. This is why provinces like Yazd are primarily Zoroastrian, and the "Turkish" Aegean sea coast is Turkish, or Theodoro is "Gothic" despite being a mishmash of cultures. Manchus (and the other Evenki/Tungus people Manchus represent) are Tengri and not whatever their religion is closer to. There are other examples.

This why Alexandria should be Coptic to many people. Because of their influence within the city and it's importance to the religion and region to be honest. Many could be part of this minority as well and feel under represented, while areas that have even less of a reason to be what they are are that for little to no reason other than "it cool and important minority" than when they use the same argument, they are shut down completely with hypocritical logic.

They may not play a notable role, but they are still important enough to represent. They are an area of pain for the Mamelukes, and are important bargaining chips for many of their christian neighbors. They may not influence the political scene of the city, but they still have a larger importance.

 

[Five_X]

Coptic influence was minimal at best, though, until the 19th century. I understand that you want Copts to be more represented in EU4, but to represent them much more than they are currently would be inaccurate, and using "but other groups are over-represented in [province]" is a bad argument. Paradox has stated that, while in the past they had such policy as giving smaller cultures and states more territory and influence than they had in history, this is no longer the case. To remove Theodoro and Zoroastrian Yazd would make a lot of people angry, so they won't do that, but they're not going to add much more along those lines. I'm personally against Yazd being Zoroastrian - the Zoroastrian influence there existed, but was not quite as notable as in Baku, which remained effectively if not nominally (as Baku was in those times not of especial importance) in control of that area until the 19th century.

When I saw that the coming DLC would update Egypt, I too considered the situation of the Copts, and was preparing to make a post of my own in support of more Coptic provinces in Egypt. However, before I dove in I made sure to investigate some scholarly research, two chief pieces of which I've linked below.

While the Copts were certainly an active minority group, this was mostly within their own community; in addition, in no place did the Copts have a considerable amount of influence or even self-reliance, and were mostly rural. Any particular resistance to Mamluk rule was broken in the 14th century, and afterwards the Coptic community primarily focused on keeping their faith alive, rather than agitating against the conditions in which they lived. Despite the relative size of their population, the Copts were ultimately not much more influential than the Armenians or Jews in this period, if at all. As much as I would like to see more representation for Copts, there's nothing of relevance to EU4 that could reasonably justify them having a province of their own.

Regular existing Muslim events already act as a catch-all for minorities within the current system; perhaps you could argue for a handful of events related to the Copts - and if you wrote them and explained the background to them, it wouldn't surprise me if they were implemented - but not a province.

Here are the scholarly sources I read before making my argument:
http://mamluk.uchicago.edu/MSR_X-2_2006-OSullivan.pdf
https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=osu1068350208&disposition=inline

If you want to make a strong case for better representation of certain Christian groups in Muslim-ruled territories, I'd recommend making a post about the Armenians. Their provinces even in the updated map don't represent the actual prevalence of Armenians in eastern Anatolia despite the contrary being fairly well-known today.

 

[BrokenSky]

Coptic influence was minimal at best, though, until the 19th century. I understand that you want Copts to be more represented in EU4, but to represent them much more than they are currently would be inaccurate, and using "but other groups are over-represented in [province]" is a bad argument. Paradox has stated that, while in the past they had such policy as giving smaller cultures and states more territory and influence than they had in history, this is no longer the case. To remove Theodoro and Zoroastrian Yazd would make a lot of people angry, so they won't do that, but they're not going to add much more along those lines. I'm personally against Yazd being Zoroastrian - the Zoroastrian influence there existed, but was not quite as notable as in Baku, which remained effectively if not nominally (as Baku was in those times not of especial importance) in control of that area until the 19th century.

When I saw that the coming DLC would update Egypt, I too considered the situation of the Copts, and was preparing to make a post of my own in support of more Coptic provinces in Egypt. However, before I dove in I made sure to investigate some scholarly research, two chief pieces of which I've linked below.

While the Copts were certainly an active minority group, this was mostly within their own community; in addition, in no place did the Copts have a considerable amount of influence or even self-reliance, and were mostly rural. Any particular resistance to Mamluk rule was broken in the 14th century, and afterwards the Coptic community primarily focused on keeping their faith alive, rather than agitating against the conditions in which they lived. Despite the relative size of their population, the Copts were ultimately not much more influential than the Armenians or Jews in this period, if at all. As much as I would like to see more representation for Copts, there's nothing of relevance to EU4 that could reasonably justify them having a province of their own.

Regular existing Muslim events already act as a catch-all for minorities within the current system; perhaps you could argue for a handful of events related to the Copts - and if you wrote them and explained the background to them, it wouldn't surprise me if they were implemented - but not a province.

Here are the scholarly sources I read before making my argument:
http://mamluk.uchicago.edu/MSR_X-2_2006-OSullivan.pdf
https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=osu1068350208&disposition=inline

If you want to make a strong case for better representation of certain Christian groups in Muslim-ruled territories, I'd recommend making a post about the Armenians. Their provinces even in the updated map don't represent the actual prevalence of Armenians in eastern Anatolia despite the contrary being fairly well-known today.

But might they have been if they were ruled by (non-coptic) Christians? An outcome which can happen quite easily in EUIV?

 

[Five_X]

But might they have been if they were ruled by (non-coptic) Christians? An outcome which can happen quite easily in EUIV?

I fail to understand the intent behind this post. Are you arguing for a Coptic-religion province in Egypt to exist in 1444 based on the possibility of Egypt being conquered in the game by a Christian country? Or are you arguing for events related to Copts in such a case? Either way, there isn't any existing precedent for this in the game.

 

[BrokenSky]

I fail to understand the intent behind this post. Are you arguing for a Coptic-religion province in Egypt to exist in 1444 based on the possibility of Egypt being conquered in the game by a Christian country? Or are you arguing for events related to Copts in such a case? Either way, there isn't any existing precedent for this in the game.

Mostly I'm saying that just because they were more inward focused when ruled by Muslims, they might have acted differently under circumstances which might happen in game which are different from this. Gameplay wise this could mean events or modifiers or a deeper religious minority system.

Regarding precedent, perhaps it should be the case in other areas too?

 

[Five_X]

That, I'm afraid, is something for modders to take care of. As much as I'd like Paradox to, there isn't a whole lot you can expect for them to support in terms of alt-history stuff.

 

[Undead Martyr]

Maybe an event to convert provinces like Alexandria to Coptic if owned and cored by a Christian nation, or an event to give extra missionary strength ("coopt the copts") at the cost of say unrest or something? In general religious and ethnic minorities were often favored to create support for colonial administrations.