No its 90 million/438 million which is ~20.5%.
I’d like to say though, I completely agree with you that Asia should be the major focus. Indeed I very strongly assert that a considerably greater weight of prioritisation should be given to Asia than Africa. I only disagree on some things.
Firstly, the population figures I was putting forward weren’t quoted directly from any single source. I calculated those figures early last year by averaging out the numbers from a large array of estimates (I also linked a few online sources in my early comment). The estimate you linked from Wikipedia for example is from the University of Groningen, but that’s just one estimate. You have to average out a large array to get accurate figures.
I’ve calculated averages before and came to 15% for Europe and 12% for Africa in 1000 CE and 18% for Europe and 11% for Africa in 1500 CE for example. I think those are also around the number I came to for the whole period average, however I only now have the figures for 1000 CE and 1500 CE so I can’t be sure. I’ll just say that I think sensible numbers for the whole period on average would be maybe 15 to 20% for Europe and ~11% for Africa, so that is a bit off from what I stated earlier which is my bad. That’s just a rough average based on the average estimates for 1000 CE + 1500 CE though so take it with a pinch of salt. It also doesn’t mean that Europe didn’t have higher percentage populations at certain points, just that at others it had less than the whole period’s average (eg: soon after Black Death, or more localised events like the early 14th century crisis in England) I’d just say that I think your focus on
is flawed because the game is set throughout the whole period c.400-c.1600 CE, so only an average over that whole period is relevant. The best thing to do if you’re interested would be to compile averages from a wide array of sources for all the centuries/half centuries from c.400 - c.1600 CE and then average these out to create a whole-period average.
If you’re interested, these are the full average figures I came to for 1000 CE and 1500 CE, when I looked into this early last year.
These figures are pre-Dynasties of India btw, so the civ count % numbers would be different now, and it also depends on how you classify a civ (eg: are Byzantines regionally Middle Eastern or European?)
Regardless, though Europe is clearly overepresented by a lot whilst Africa is underepresented.
Of course Asia is even more underepresented (by a huge amount!), so I completely agree with you that the primary focus should be on Asia, especially due to it being incredibly underepresented but also because the military history is interesting and would make for unique gameplay.
As a historian with a particular interest in African medieval history though, I believe the same is true for Africa.
In my opinion, the military systems, tactics, weapons etc… of medieval African military systems were incredibly interesting and diverse, (as were those in Asia and Europe). I must say that a number of powerful military empires of medieval Africa are currently not in the game and I would love to have them added in the future. But I’m sure we’d agree on that by the sounds of it and also agree that a greater weight of prioritisation should be given to Asia than to Africa.
All I would disagree with you on is that Europe in the medieval period was likely not so vastly more populated than Africa as you state (though it was more populated), and also I must assert that warfare across the regions of Africa was highly developed in many ways, being very unique, interesting and “dynamic”.
