Now, I'm new at this, so there's a chance I'm missing something, but I just can't wrap my head around this. On several occasions, I've seen people say that you can't build boats unless you're a Westernized country (or you just cheat like I did). Flat what. I feel like they're forgetting something important here. Plus, there's the issue I encountered while trying to play the Incan Empire, in which I would set a tech slider as far as it would go, only to be told that I wouldn't reach level 1 until around the year 5,000 (thank you, invest command, buggy though you are). Unless there's something wrong with my game, or this is addressed in an expansion I don't have, I don't see the point in even letting you play these countries if its not going to let you do anything but be conquered. I don't think this can be explained away as being "historically realistic", either— especially in a game so clearly designed to let you rape history.
Dunno what version you're playing, but you totally can build ships as any non-western culture, although your lower tech rates means the Latin cultures will outgun you badly after a few centuries (Polynesia never six-deckers, after all). It's also totally possible to play the native Americans, although extremely difficult. There are plenty of player accounts of doing so.
In the latest version of the game countries under steppe horde government will be unable to build ships. As said, the low tech-rates of non-latin countries are intended. You can undo this penalty during the course of the game by westernizing, though you may have to go through the process several times.
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