They are legendary only by decision of the devs. I confess I don’t know much about the Malians in terms of campaigns, but as for Ethiopias, the devs could have placed King Kaleb’s Aksumite expedition in Yemen, where we would have Ethiopians + Byzantines vs Saracens + Persians, for example, or the conquests of Amda-Seyon I against other Ethiopians and Somalis, or even, since I mentioned the latter, the devastating wars between Imam Ahmad Gragn and the Solomonic Dynasty, where we could even have both sides of the conflict being represented in campaigns. There’s no shortage of options.
I feel your pain, I would also like there to be more information about the African kingdoms, or at least more accessible information to the lay public like us. In my post in the other discussion (Splitting civs - #111 by SoleFrog1297715) the first link I brought (only one person accessed it; was it you?) explained why this happened. I would prefer not to have to summarize it, but as this context seems necessary now, here is the tl;dr of the factors that lead to our situation:
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(1) Oral and often secret traditions of Africans taking precedence over written sources
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(2) textual, visual and architectural sources, both African and foreign, mostly not surviving to our time due to various reasons
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(3) attempt by colonial powers to erase the history of these people to justify their exploitation of them
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(4) current instability of several former colonies and distrust of important members (holders of oral traditions, for example) towards the West
= (10) lack of knowledge/appeal to academic eyes in the recent past (archaeology, for example, is very little or almost non-existent in many areas) and especially to the eyes of the layman, whose interest generally gravitates around images.
Yet there has been progress on the part of scholars in discovering new things about these people and on the part of the media in sharing them (albeit slowly and/or accompanied by political agendas).
Well, I know you’re interested in the late antique period, but except for you, it doesn’t seem like a problem for the majority here on the forum for civs to be from after 1000 AD. At least from what I’ve seen so far.
What exactly are you referring to?
I have suggested here on the forum (in addition to other commenters as well) 6 civs — Kanembu/Kanuri, Nubians, Somalis, Shona, Kongo and Benin/Yoruba — and only two, the Bantu, would have direct conflicts with the Portuguese (in addition to others of course: Yaka, Mbundu and perhaps Nziku/Tyo for Kongo and maravi and other Karanga for Shona). The rest would have conflicts with other peoples in the region: Benin/Yoruba against the Igbo, Ijebu, Itsekiri, Ekiti etc; Kanembu against the Sao, Bulala, Wadai, Hausa, Tubu, Tuareg etc; Nubians against Arabs and Beja; Somalis against Ethiopians (where yeah Portuguese and Turks could appear, but at most as a handful of allies.)
I think that with at least three of these six civs we will be able to represent these other African states in campaigns without much repetition, but for that to happen they need to be introduced first. Isn’t this what we would expect if the game was, for example, “Asiocentric” and had only two civs (Franks and Byzantines) to represent all of Europe?
What do you mean here? Africans had their own medieval weapons (spears, javelins, axes, shields, swords, bows and arrows, armor, etc) like the rest of the world.
Are you referring to gunpowder weapons? Well, I’ve read some papers arguing that gunpowder were not decisive or revolutionary in warfare in Africa during this period (these articles were written by experts from each region, not about the entire continent as a whole; and they are already on my list). That is, at first, they were useful due to the surprise factor, but they soon proved to be inferior to the bow and arrow due to the longer reload time and lower accuracy, only more or less in the 18th century replacing the bow and becoming essential to an army. So there would be no historical inaccuracy in making scenarios with few gunpowder units or even introducing African civs with little to no specific bonuses for gunpowder units.
Well, have you taken a look at the list of sources I’ve put together on African history? I admit: I am not an expert, my list is not exhaustive and I recognize the cumbersome task of having to read specialized books and articles to sometimes obtain information that might already be common knowledge. But, due to the factors I explained above, there is no alternative other than falling straight into the texts. I know there are books and articles talking about these peoples warfare on the web if you look hard enough.
For example, I summarized it in this comment (Am I the only one who think African DLC won't be that good? And want the next DLC to focus East Asia? - #134 by SoleFrog1297715) some aspects of the Swahili war. There’s more in the article too if you want to check it out.
As for Shona, wasn’t it you I responded to these days showing some screenshots and links to a Mutapa Gatsi Rusere or Mutapa Matope campaign proposed by @Akoskaaa10? It may not be extremely detailed like other European accounts, but I think it’s enough for the game, having place names, specific characters and a clear script to follow.
Why do you want specifically non-Christian or non-Muslim kingdoms?
I would be more than happy to deliver everything ready here on the forum for anyone who wanted to create concepts and scenarios about these people, but I’m just a guy with no training in the area searching, cataloging and gathering sources alone and for pure pleasure about an entire continent, but alas I simply won’t be fast enough 