Not all countries will be playable at launch (Potential first DLC?)

[Wizzington]

While I am also fine with this, I can and would play an African nation (and there absolutely should be several of those in 1836), and getting away from the "this is not what this era was about" mindset is part of why this decision is exciting to me.

There will for sure be a number of playable African nations on release such as Sokoto, the Ethiopian and Somalian states, etc. We haven't finalized which will and will not be playable at this stage, but we're trying to root it as much in historical research around the level of centralization in those states as we can.

 

[Wizzington]

as I understand it, "decentralized" are not uncivs, they are literally blank map spaces in vicky 2, which can be colonized. What I'm missing is does the game have uncivs? @Wizzington ? you confirmed that sokoto will be playable from the start, will the gameplay as sokoto be the same as a european country or different?

Any country that was an 'unciv' in V2 is likely what we call an 'unrecognized nation' in V3 (basically a state of not being recognized as a potential equal by the European Great Powers which is penalizing mainly in terms of diplomacy and being seen as a legitimate target of conquest by recognized countries).

Those countries generally start with a lower level of technology (the degree to which will vary based on historical research - there are of course differences in the starting technology level of recognized powers too) and might have laws that make it difficult to industrialize but they don't have anything like '-25% to GDP due to being unrecognized'.