The Spice(s) must flow - Why a grouped spice system is the best option

[Paulatim]

Grouped Goods with Ranges​

Good	Starting Regions
Seasoning	Worldwide
Aromatic Spice	SE Asia, India, Indonesia, a small amount in Polynesia and NE America (+Central America if including vanilla)
Piquant Spice	India, Indonesia, West Africa, Central America
Fine Spice (If used over uniques)	Maluku Isles, Banda Isles, Smaller amounts in centers of Saffron production.

I am for removing Seasonings altogether and/or including them in the medicaments (what do they represent anyway other than some herbs and spices...).

I propose including vanilla in cocoa (or making it its own thing, but I am sceptical in the need for that, the price and importance of vanilla skyrocketed only in the very late historical timeframe of PC).

I think it is good to split saffron from the fine spices and making it its own good, in a way not treating it as a spice at all (given its unique nature as not distant but very pricey good).

Final opinion, 4 goods in total and enhancement of medicaments.

 

[LordThanatos]

I take issue with this one because it's such simplistic way to look at the grand scheme, and makes the Portuguese look like buffoons.

I agree that they failed to capitalize on parts of the trade because it was a military enterprise a it's core.

It was a hostile environment, as it was proven over and over again with the Maneluks the Ottomans and several regional powers

War of the League of the Indies - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Huge amounts if money was invested back into the armadas, and even so Portugal made bank.

Take into account the predation of Corsairs in the Atlantic, the attempts by other European power to ocuppy Brazil, the constant drain that it was north africa, whatever western african enterprises were going, east africa was mostly hostile sultanates, the Arabian peninsula India and east Asia.

In the 16th century.

It's easy to forget the big picture.

Apologies, but the source I linked is not about the various factors making the Spice trade costly or difficult, such as piracy or Ottoman trade, it's about the actual bureaucratic mismanagement and corruption from the Portuguese Crown and Estado and the lesser - but still present - mismanagement from the later Dutch VOC. It's about both countries attempts and failures at monopoly when faced with the pre-existing trade infrastructure in East Asia and that neither ever got close to the control they sought.

I'm not disputing that they made money, or even that they made a lot of money, it's that they really could have made even more had they had overcome these hurdles - especially given how badly the Crown needed the revenue. In fact, just further above the parts of my message you're quoting, you'll find my argument for why the spice trade was important partly because it helped Portugal and other spice-trading nations go from Feudal to Early Modern states. More than that, I definitely am not calling them buffoons. Managing a trade empire of that size is an accomplishment - even if they did make some mistakes.

As ever, I'd recommend reading the source in full. Of course my sentence-long summary of a point I'm making is simplistic. I'm not going to write out and plagiarize the entire 152 page Master's thesis.

 

[Paulatim]

Northern vs Southern Europe in a nutshell

 

[fraughtGYRE]

And what about renaming Medicaments to Herbs, this way Herbs would cover both Medicaments mechanics and basic cheap local herbs and seasoning everywhere.
Then:

• Aromatic Spice can be called Flavours, include Saffron, and represent more rare and expensive herbs, that are still presented worldwide but in far lower quantities than Herbs.
• Piquant Spice - Peppers - deserve its category.
• Fine Spice can become just Spices and be present only at Spices Islands.

This way the goods' names would be short and contain only 1 word. And only 2 items would be added compared to the current number of goods.

And concerning the idea with the building converting raw spices into one produced product, I would call it seasoning. If this idea will be implemented.

GOOD & DESCRIPTION	REGIONS & QUANTITY
Herbs: Medicaments + Some Regional Herbs & Spices (incl. Mustard, Anise, Allspice etc.)	Worldwide; not so rare; instead of Medicaments - demanded by pops, armies, navies etc.
Flavours: Aromatic Spices + Rare Expensive Regional Herbs & Spices (incl. Ginger, Cardamon, Cinnamon, Vanilla, Saffron)	Worldwide; extremely rare in Europe
Peppers: Actually all kinds of peppers	India, Indonesia, West Africa, Americas
Spices: Cloves, Nutmeg, Mace	Maluku & Banda Isles
(optional) Seasoning: Produced good from Flavours, Peppers or Spices	Produced in a building via different production methods; then distributed to pops

One issue here with herbs is that medicaments might not all be plant based. Things like mercury, sulfuric acid, or kaolin were all used for their supposed medical applications.

Looking up the definition for medicaments in English actually opposes these two items:

Medicament. A substance used as a medicine: "The pharmacy is lined with jars painted with the names of the herbs and medicaments they contained"

 

[Paulatim]

One issue here with herbs is that medicaments might not all be plant based. Things like mercury, sulfuric acid, or kaolin were all used for their supposed medical applications.

Looking up the definition for medicaments in English actually opposes these two items:

And yet Mercury and Suflur are already their own thing opposed to medicaments. I cannot see any problem with that, since the basis for peasants' healing were actually herbs. A building for fancy medicines for burghers and nobles might have multiple production methods including mercury, sulfur, cloves, saffron, peppers...

 

[Kotyk-durkotyk]

One issue here with herbs is that medicaments might not all be plant based. Things like mercury, sulfuric acid, or kaolin were all used for their supposed medical applications.

Looking up the definition for medicaments in English actually opposes these two items:

Mercury is a separate raw good in the game. As well as some other chemicals.

And you are technically right, but for probably 99% of pops (especially commoners) the most relevant medicaments were always herbs/plants. And as long as it's still a game, I would see it as an acceptable approximation.

 

[Paulatim]

I reviewed a bit some tinto maps, and I noticed that spices are a widespread raw material only on the western indian coast/southern India. Inodnesia is much poorer than it seems, with the exeption of sumatra and maluku, while one of the hotspots for spices is clearly sichuan. At the same time, quite a few medicaments locations, possibly referring to turmeric and other herbs and roots.

I feel like the developers had precious and expensive spices in their mind already when assigning the spices raw material, which would advocate for the removal of "seasonings" as low-value spices category and possibly the assignment of some spices to the medicaments raw material.

I have issues making sense of quite a few spices locations in northern China, Korea and central Japan though.

 

[LordThanatos]

I have issues making sense of quite a few spices locations in northern China, Korea and central Japan though.

That seems highly likely to be Ginger, which grows in all three.

I've not yet gotten around to that area for an in-depth review, so it's always possible that ginger hadn't yet been cultivated there, I didn't see any obvious start-of-cultivation dates when I did a brief search. That said, currently I am aware of only a two locations on the goods maps where there are spices where there should definitively be no spices: Macedon and Madagascar.

 

[Paulatim]

That seems highly likely to be Ginger, which grows in all three.

I've not yet gotten around to that area for an in-depth review, so it's always possible that ginger hadn't yet been cultivated there, I didn't see any obvious start-of-cultivation dates when I did a brief search. That said, currently I am aware of only a two locations on the goods maps where there are spices where there should definitively be no spices: Macedon and Madagascar.

Macedon is most probably saffron, while Madagascar has a native species of pepper; I don't know how much the production will be relevant anyway, since the population for sub-saharan Africa was not given.

So assuming (my) favourite system applies, most saffron will come from Iran, with important productions in Turkey and Kashmir and a bunch of single locations around europe; peppers will be mostly produced in Indian western coast, with less important productions in Western Africa, Madagascar, the rest of India, Sumatra, Sichuan, Japan, Korea and Northern China, and around the Gulf of Mexico for chili of course; Aromatics would be basically produced in Sri Lanka and Malabar, including maybe some locations in Vietnam/South China for chinese cinnamon and Indonesia for something else (I rekon Nepal for cardamom, not sure); finally cloves only in 3 locations in Maluku islands, maybe 4 if Banda Islands are included.

 

[LordThanatos]

Macedon is most probably saffron, while Madagascar has a native species of pepper; I don't know how much the production will be relevant anyway, since the population for sub-saharan Africa was not given.

The saffron good in Macedon represents the center of production in Kozani, where saffron bulbs were only imported in the 17th century after the decline in European production in the 5th century.

(Edit: In case it's misunderstood, Saffron has, by the 14th century been reintroduced in several places in Europe through contact with the Muslims in Iberia, and possibly by returning crusaders. It just hasn't reached Kozani, yet. Spain, France, Austria and (Within a hundred years of the startdate) England should all have some level of Saffron production)

As for the Madagascan spices, the pepper you're probably referring to is Aframomum corrorima, but it grows across Eastern and Central Africa, and yet if it is meant to portray that, it is not shown in any location but Madagascar for some reason. It's also an odd pepper to portray, seeing as it's never really been a major good for trade. Rather, I believe there was a misunderstanding of a paper about cloves and the Austronesian trade network, and Paradox believed that cloves were grown on the island much earlier than they were.

 

[Paulatim]

The saffron good in Macedon represents the center of production in Kozani, where saffron bulbs were only imported in the 17th century after the decline in European production in the 5th century.

As for the Madagascan spices, the pepper you're probably referring to is Aframomum corrorima, but it grows across Eastern and Central Africa, and yet if it is meant to portray that, it is not shown in any location but Madagascar for some reason. It's also an odd pepper to portray, seeing as it's never really been a major good for trade. Rather, I believe there was a misunderstanding of a paper about cloves and the Austronesian trade network, and Paradox believed that cloves were grown on the island much earlier than they were.

It seems like they might be mistakes then. Regarding the cororima pepper, it might be left as raw goods anyway, given the expected low population and difficulties to develop to properly exploit it as a resource.

 

[fraughtGYRE]

As for the Madagascan spices, the pepper you're probably referring to is Aframomum corrorima, but it grows across Eastern and Central Africa, and yet if it is meant to portray that, it is not shown in any location but Madagascar for some reason. It's also an odd pepper to portray, seeing as it's never really been a major good for trade. Rather, I believe there was a misunderstanding of a paper about cloves and the Austronesian trade network, and Paradox believed that cloves were grown on the island much earlier than they were.

I'm not entirely convinced that Madagascan spices have the complete lack of notability that is being ascribed, for a few reasons

1. There are a lot of historical references to "Madagascar cardamom" and "grand/great cardamom". These have confusing descriptions and origins, but it certainly seems possible that these spices originated at least in part from Madagascar (probably angustifolium rather than corrorima)
   • This might be because access to Madagascan Aframomum was better than access to Central or Eastern African sources because of the position along the Cape route to India. (Hooper, J. (2017). Feeding Globalization: Madagascar and the Provisioning Trade, 1600–1800. Ohio University Press.)
   • Madagascar (anfustifolium?) is acknowledged , alongside West Africa (melegueta?) as producing "inferior cardamom" before the French conquest (Crawfurd, J. (1868). On the History and Migration of Cultivated Plants Used as Condiments. Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London, 6, 188. https://doi.org/10.2307/3014258)
2. There seems to have been some awareness of Madagascar as a spice-growing region prior to (and thus perhaps inspiring?) the introduction of cloves, and later vanilla.
3. A local species of black pepper, Piper borbonense, also grows there, though only harvested as a wild crop. Has not been of interest through the 20th century but may have been of note for pirates and convoys in the region.

I think Madagascar can lose a few spice RGOs but I'd like to see the PC team's sources and judge if there is reason for keeping a few around. Also, is access to trade a major judge of where "Spices" RGOs should be? Or would the game systems for actual trade be a better restriction? If all spices produced in a certain region are kept local because of the trade system, that might be better representation than not having them at all.

Edit: also, is cultivation a necessary step, or are wild-harvested spices still acceptable as RGOs or other production methods?

 

[LordThanatos]

There are a lot of historical references to "Madagascar cardamom" and "grand/great cardamom". These have confusing descriptions and origins, but it certainly seems possible that these spices originated at least in part from Madagascar (probably angustifolium rather than corrorima)

• This might be because access to Madagascan Aframomum was better than access to Central or Eastern African sources because of the position along the Cape route to India. (Hooper, J. (2017). Feeding Globalization: Madagascar and the Provisioning Trade, 1600–1800. Ohio University Press.)
• Madagascar (anfustifolium?) is acknowledged , alongside West Africa (melegueta?) as producing "inferior cardamom" before the French conquest (Crawfurd, J. (1868). On the History and Migration of Cultivated Plants Used as Condiments. Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London, 6, 188. https://doi.org/10.2307/3014258)

The first source may be overemphasising the importance of Madagascar as a stopover for the Cape route in this time (Source) as for the second, I don't see that really speaking to the importance of the spice. If enough of it was picked up by passing ships to trade elsewhere, we should find it in the logs of those ships, or in the logs of the locations they were sold. So far, I have found nothing.

Again, I see no reason that Madagascar alone should be shown to have these spices, if that is what they are meant to depict, when they are well known in East and Central Africa, too. Because someone in the 19th century mentioned that they were there doesn't really show that the island should get preferential treatment in showing its section of the distribution.

There seems to have been some awareness of Madagascar as a spice-growing region prior to (and thus perhaps inspiring?) the introduction of cloves, and later vanilla.

I'd be interested to read that. I've seen nothing mentioning Madagascar as a region particularly known for growing spices before the introduction of spices from elsewhere.

I'd like to see the PC team's sources and judge if there is reason for keeping a few around.

This is definitely my thought as well, in general even beyond just this region. I don't think it's necessary with somewhere like India or Indonesia, but if they could mention what the spices are meant to be when they appear, that would be helpful.

Also, is access to trade a major judge of where "Spices" RGOs should be? Or would the game systems for actual trade be a better restriction? If all spices produced in a certain region are kept local because of the trade system, that might be better representation than not having them at all.

I don't think putting a spice good would be a good representation of the fact that an area trades in that good being produced elsewhere. The game has a trade system, clearly, and that would be far more accurate to represent that sort of dynamic.

Edit: also, is cultivation a necessary step, or are wild-harvested spices still acceptable as RGOs or other production methods?

My thoughts immediately go to something like the Brazil nut, which even today is predominantly harvested from the wild. If a good is important enough, and is actually harvested, I imagine cultivation is unnecessary.

 

[fraughtGYRE]

The first source may be overemphasising the importance of Madagascar as a stopover for the Cape route in this time (Source) as for the second, I don't see that really speaking to the importance of the spice. If enough of it was picked up by passing ships to trade elsewhere, we should find it in the logs of those ships, or in the logs of the locations they were sold. So far, I have found nothing.

Feeding Globalization does say that the Portuguese sourced spices from Madagascar in the 16th century, before being supplanted by superior sources elsewhere (basically mirroring West African melegueta). My reading from the source is a bit stunted but I should be getting a copy soon, fingers crossed.

 

[fraughtGYRE]

Found a copy, here's a relevant quote:

In an effort to gain support from the Portuguese crown for further
expeditions, Albuquerque asserted that the ginger in Madagascar was
superior to that of India.33 Another Portuguese official later reinforced
Albuquerque’s contentions, promising “that, if a caravel is brought to
these parts [Madagascar and the Comoros] in the monsoon, great service
will be done to Your Highness and that much gain will come to
you.”34 In Madagascar, officials believed, the Portuguese could purchase
“things which made them imagine they had reached India.” Once there,
they would find that the “good people” on the island sold a type of
pepper, as well as scented wood and wild cinnamon, in return for iron
goods and cloth.35

So ginger and "a kind of pepper, as well as ... wild cinnamon" are all reported as sourced from Madagascar. I'll see if I can get into the sourced material for the claims.

Edit: may as well discuss why I'm interested in pushing this so tenaciously. For me, games like EU4 (and presumably PC) have a big attraction around "what if", especially if it is plausible or has some historical merit. To that end, the idea that Madagascar might have become an important producer of spices is fascinating. How would it impact Europeans, would they still want to reach India and Indonesia? What about Madagascar, would native states have developed more rapidly to take advantage of the economic boons? In the wider region, would we have seen competitors like Kilwa take more of an interest in Madagascar? For me, these are really interesting questions, and since Madagascar did become an important spice producer outside of PC timeline, my interest is in what would have happened if this occurred earlier. I think from the sources its clear that spices of potential commercial interest did exist in Madagascar, however minor they might have been. So I want the option to take that minor point that was largely irrelevant IRL and make it important, change history around this one aspect. Honestly, I don't even need spice RGOs to be on the starting map, but an option to promote Madagascan spices in some fashion (either to swap RGOs or as a building) would be really fun. And I appreciate the discussion too lol.

 

[Kotyk-durkotyk]

I have just noticed the level of detail and diversity (7 materials) of the luxury goods in the game. So looks like the devs have developed a system to balance the demand for the luxury goods. Even though most of them are probably input for Jewelry production and Gold and Silver can be largely used for other purposes:

I am just curious why did not the devs use the very same approach to the spices.

With the similar approach we can safely have ~5 main types of seasonings that would cover all regions (Saffron, Peppers, Ginger, Cloves, Vanilla, optionally Cinnamon).
And if needed, Spices would be an end product like Jewelry.

 

[LordThanatos]

I have just noticed the level of detail and diversity (7 materials) of the luxury goods in the game. So looks like the devs have developed a system to balance the demand for the luxury goods. Even though most of them are probably input for Jewelry production and Gold and Silver can be largely used for other purposes:
View attachment 1224876

I am just curious why did not the devs use the very same approach to the spices.

With the similar approach we can safely have ~5 main types of seasonings that would cover all regions (Saffron, Peppers, Ginger, Cloves, Vanilla, optionally Cinnamon).
And if needed, Spices would be an end product like Jewelry.

It's definitely an odd choice, especially given that even EU4 had more granular spices than PC looks to have at the moment (Though only marginally) I'm pretty interested to see the production methods that use spices already, though. I was surprised not to see them in the brewery.

 

[Linbot#6018]

I think personally, at least thematically speaking, I would definitely want the spice goods in the game to all be named after specific individual spices rather than having more accurate (but also more boring) names like "aromatic spice". The main downside is mostly that if this is implemented it might be tricky to communicate it to the post-release community that it works this way.

Personally I think we could easily aim to just have as many distinct spice goods as people feel comfortable with (probably based on how valuable they were historically), and fold any ones that don't make the list into their closest equivalents.

 

[Paulatim]

Personally I think we could easily aim to just have as many distinct spice goods as people feel comfortable with (probably based on how valuable they were historically), and fold any ones that don't make the list into their closest equivalents.

The developers explicitly said that having many spices led to problems in the balancing, but of course as crazy as we are we would love to see as much granularity as possible. Representing each single spice might also create interesting market niches, where the more efficient you are at exploiting yours, the more likely you are at trying to get a monopoly on the other spices as well.

I am just curious why did not the devs use the very same approach to the spices.

With the similar approach we can safely have ~5 main types of seasonings that would cover all regions (Saffron, Peppers, Ginger, Cloves, Vanilla, optionally Cinnamon).
And if needed, Spices would be an end product like Jewelry.

This system might actually work, as now you could have a building (Spice warehouse..?) with many different production methods for "spices" (the actual good required by people to beh happy): the more valuable and rare the spice, the less of that is required to make one unit of spice. It might be an elegant solution to this problem honestly, and the raw spices might also have different uses (so saffron might also be necessary for some textile production as a dye for example).

 

[coconutboat]

I think personally, at least thematically speaking, I would definitely want the spice goods in the game to all be named after specific individual spices rather than having more accurate (but also more boring) names like "aromatic spice". The main downside is mostly that if this is implemented it might be tricky to communicate it to the post-release community that it works this way.

Personally I think we could easily aim to just have as many distinct spice goods as people feel comfortable with (probably based on how valuable they were historically), and fold any ones that don't make the list into their closest equivalents.

Come to think of it, having individual spices be separated instead of grouped is the historically accurate way to go, because these spices originated in different places and have different uses (although sometimes similar uses). However, the devs have said that it's bad for the balance so that's fine I guess, it will be one of the flaw EU5 has but I will still play it and will love it more than EU4 because of the new locations system and more granularity alone. Maybe they'll find the answer to it in EU6 fingers crossed.

By the way, I hope someone would make a mod that expands more livestock trade goods. Make it chicken, cow, pig, sausage, egg, milk, butter, cheese, chicken tenders, blood sausage, yummy