Incredibly, it managed to be even worse than what I was expecting
This map isn't just completely incompatible with the centuries of Portuguese colonization that came afterwards, it's also horrible in representing the variety of Native life in Brazil. What's the point in having so many locations in the Amazon river (which is a good thing) if none of its tributaries have locations? None of these rivers that still bustle with indigenous life to this day? Many of them were explored before the end date of the game.
But as a native of Rio, I honestly can't even understand what went on. Two locations, and they're split so weirdly that it makes no sense at all. Before the end of the game Rio would become the capital of the Portuguese Empire. Here it is an immense location that somehow stretches north into completely different territory. Why name it Goitacá, when they were present mainly in the north? Rio would famously be the scene of confrontation between the Temiminós and the Tamoios, where are they?
Most of the wasteland in today's Rio state was settled by various Native groups and were intensively settled with sugar plantations. I mean, for God's sake you can't even do the Caminho Real in this map!
The locations are horrible. Some areas of Brazil are better, but there seems to be no logic as to which indigenous groups get represented and which get lumped into the incomprehensible wastelands. I wasn't expecting much, but this?
Most of these wastelands were settled! Most were settled. Even in the Amazon, even in places where there wasn't white presence, there were Natives there! The Mata Atlântica is simply ridiculous. Sure, some areas did take more than a while to get deforested, but there are so many important farms and even some villages that are currently wasteland that I... I honestly don't know what to feel.
Not a single part of the Mata Atlântica should be a wasteland, except for these areas in higher ground that truly made communication difficult. Not a single area should be a wasteland. There's no logic to deeming any of it a wasteland; even when they were not developed, people still lived and crossed these lands! My good God, this map is quite simply horrible. The cultural map, at least for Rio, is horrible too. Where are the many tupis of Rio? I mean, some around Angra are represented, but what about the more than fifty Temiminó villages that were found on Paranapuã, modern Ilha do Governador, alone? Tamoios, temiminós? Where are the Puris, the Coroados?
This map makes me very sad. It's clear that a very different standard on what is a wasteland was applied to Brazil, and it's a standard that makes no sense at all. I do know that getting proper representation of Amazonian people would be nearly impossible, but seeing even the areas that would be intensively settled by the Portuguese being given the short stick was definitely not something I was expecting.
Also, there are so many at-the-very-least-SoPs missing in Brazil... This is a tragedy.
I will try to make a feedback for Rio. I hope others can help me with the rest of Brazil.