Lords of Africa
While the Christians and Muslims of the European world worked through their petty squabbles, the peoples south of the Sahara flourished. The Shara desert has always acted as a great sand sea seperating the greedy powers of the north from the humble West Africans. Now is as good a time as any to show the true power of these great people. Whether you continue the legacy of the Ghana Empire, dominate as a powerful lamane of the Serer, form an empire from the decendants of Oduduwa, or become a conduit of the spirits, any story is possible.
In "Lords of Africa" the region of West Africa has been largely overhauled. Some features include:
Redesigned religions and a new faith: Most of the religions have had their tenets and doctrines updated to be more reflective of their real world counterpart. The Vodun faith has been added as a part of the Niger Delta religion family along with Orisa.
Redesigned cultures with new unique traditions: Almost every culture has had their traditions and ethoses updated with some having unique traditions such as Niger Cultivators, which is available to any culture on the Niger River, and Abusua Clans for the Akan which makes it easier to form confederations and alliances.
New Special Buildings: Several new special buildings have been added such as the Sahelian Trading Posts, the Chadic Salt Mines, and the Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove.
Improved Terrain: Many provinces have had their terrain updated to reflect the real terrain of the region such as much of the southern dryland terrain now being plains and most provinces on the Niger River being floodplains.
Improved De Jure Titles: Many of the de jure titles have been condensed and shifted around to improve gameplay and visual appeal.
Improved Historicity: Each start date is more accurate to the real time period of the region.
Important Notes:
Researching the history of West Africa is esspecially difficult as almost all of its history was only orally recorded (a natoriously volatile method). As such it was hard to find any information for the region before 1000 CE.
As for gender roles in West Africa. In the vanilla game, many of the cultures and religions have equal doctrines. However, as far as I could tell, all but a few cultures/faiths was male dominated. The Akans were the only exception. These people trace lineage matrilineally and it seems only men "ruled," though women still held a considerable amount of political power even being able to denounce and depose male rulers. This gave me an idea to make a new government that would have female ruling regents and matrilineal family titles but patrilineal landed titles but, with how administrative governments are implemented, I couldn’t take the mechanics I wanted from it to create a government that was significantly different from tribal or feudal. As such I simbly just made the Akom faith female dominated to ensure dynasties are only matrilineal. My research into the Bori religion had hints that women had a more prominent role in politics with their being records of a female clergy class even during Muslim rule.
As for martial traditions. The only instance I found of female warriors was a regiment of the Dahomey Kingdom which existed between the 1600s to the 1800s and was only created because they didn’t have enough male soldiers. As such all martial traditions are male only.
While I understand this game is about alternative history, I do think that the start dates should reflect real history as close as possible. Believe me when I say: in almost all of my campaigns I go for equal dominance and martial custom and you are free to do that too.
With all that being said, thank you for downloading the mod and I plan to make an expansion for this mod that turns the region of West Africa into a struggle region. I have never made a struggle so it’s probably going to take me a while.
Chinese Translation Submod:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3403925213
Revisions:
Old revisions of this mod are available below. Click the link to download.
