Tinto Maps #1 - 10th of May 2024 - Low Countries

[Koiodoros]

So if we go by Europa Universalis 4 map, I think the density of the Netherlands vs Italy is roughly equal to the new map.

Every province seems to be split into 3-5 locations.

But for me a location has to be more than just any city. There ought to be some political, geographical, cultural element to it.

So take Enkhuizen and Hoorn for example but you could also include Medemblik or even Volendam for similar reasons.

I would classify them as coastal Zuiderzee ports of the county of Holland which are either in the Westfriesland region or associated with it.

Alkmaar and Edam would be close to this definition, but I think they are distinguished by being famous cheese markets, similar to Gouda.

Now for a location which is missing, which would be Haarlem. Part of the region of Kennemerland, the capital of North Holland and for a while larger in population than Amsterdam.

Then Amsterdam I would probably take as the Amstel region with towns like Muiden. Generally the Gooi and the Vecht region.

Leiden is the largest town near where the old Rhine would reach the sea, making it somewhat interesting as well as being the only really large town in northern Zuid Holland. Though there is Katwijk and Noordwijk.

Den Haag and Delft are very close together, while it is possible to add Delft. They would result in rather small locations, which might get overshadowed by the locations nearby.

No idea how the mechanics will impact the enjoyment of locations, but when I think of the Netherlands I think have densely populated locations makes more sense than tons of less populated locations. But that's my personal opinion.

View attachment 1146337

View attachment 1146339

Take nikicaga map for example. It is very accurate in where locations should be, but even there it struggles fitting in Leiden in the correct place, the Hague, Rotterdam and his proposal of Gouda.

Gouda is a bit further away from the other cities in Zuid holland, giving it more breathing room, but still making it tough to include.

Giving Zeeland a second location is in my opinion the higher Priority, even though I'm pretty sure that in all of Zeeland lived less people than a collection of cities in Zuid holland that didn't make the cut.

Personally I think Delft has enough unique aspects to seperate it from the Hague. It had a unique industry of porcelain and originated the Delft School in golden age painting. Had a chamber of the VoC and functioned as a stronghold for William of Orange and capital of the Cod faction. Not to mention it was among the most populated cities of Holland for most of the time period in game. It is definitely more important than the inclusion of Geertruidenberg. It's also situated in a peaty area, opposed to the sandy ground 's-Gravenhage is situated upon. Also I think having a lot of cities in Holland makes sense, because these cities shaped the County of Holland, but also the Dutch republic itself, especially if buildings give a flat amount of burghers instead of percentage.

But maybe all of this can be properly represented by buildings in 's-Gravenhage's location. Like they said in the last tinto maps, they dont want to add any provinces that are less than 100 pixels, and I understand that. (I don't know if the mock up I drew for the feedback thread(attached to this reply) is under that limit, but if not, I think its a mostly fair representation of Holland without sacrificing gameplay)

 

[Pbhuh]

Personally I think Delft has enough unique aspects to seperate it from the Hague. It had a unique industry of porcelain and originated the Delft School in golden age painting. Had a chamber of the VoC and functioned as a stronghold for William of Orange and capital of the Cod faction. Not to mention it was among the most populated cities of Holland for most of the time period in game. It is definitely more important than the inclusion of Geertruidenberg. It's also situated in a peaty area, opposed to the sandy ground 's-Gravenhage is situated upon. Also I think having a lot of cities in Holland makes sense, because these cities shaped the County of Holland, but also the Dutch republic itself, especially if buildings give a flat amount of burghers instead of percentage.

But maybe all of this can be properly represented by buildings in 's-Gravenhage's location. Like they said in the last tinto maps, they dont want to add any provinces that are less than 100 pixels, and I understand that. (I don't know if the mock up I drew for the feedback thread(attached to this reply) is under that limit, but if not, I think its a mostly fair representation of Holland without sacrificing gameplay)

Geertruidenberg isn't important in the sense of the city but what it is representing.



It's part of the modern province of Noordbrabant and part of Holland beneath the Biesbosch and Maas. To create more interesting borders I think it is good to have. Dordrecht is above it.

So just as a map of all the regions of south holland and i think we can all agree on north holland for the most part.

And also the reason why I think Hoorn, Medemblink and Enkhuizen don't really make sense as seperate locations. They are part of the same historical region.

Meanwhile if you were to add a new location to like hoorn, you should probably pick Texel and the islands. And down south near Rotterdam you could add brielle as a location.

This would be my take on the map of the Netherlands, with yellow highlighted potential locations that could be added and their alternative names.

I wanna remind people that renaming location is possible, so it could be that there are events that rename a location to more modern large ones.

Such as Sloten being replaced by Drachten over time when the region is more developed with all the peat gathering. Or perhaps Texel/Den Helder and Jever becoming Wilhelmshaven.

 

[Sir_Niclas]

I was wondering if you plan to do city-specific Events. To stay with this sector of the map for example the silting of the Zwin channel of Brugges. So historic events which changed drasticly changed the role of a specific city. I have in mind that the owner of a province with specific cities get events when certain conditions are met, regardless who that owner might be at that point in history.

 

[Koiodoros]

Geertruidenberg isn't important in the sense of the city but what it is representing.

View attachment 1146435

It's part of the modern province of Noordbrabant and part of Holland beneath the Biesbosch and Maas. To create more interesting borders I think it is good to have. Dordrecht is above it.

So just as a map of all the regions of south holland and i think we can all agree on north holland for the most part.View attachment 1146437
And also the reason why I think Hoorn, Medemblink and Enkhuizen don't really make sense as seperate locations. They are part of the same historical region.

Meanwhile if you were to add a new location to like hoorn, you should probably pick Texel and the islands. And down south near Rotterdam you could add brielle as a location.

View attachment 1146446

This would be my take on the map of the Netherlands, with yellow highlighted potential locations that could be added and their alternative names.

I wanna remind people that renaming location is possible, so it could be that there are events that rename a location to more modern large ones.

Such as Sloten being replaced by Drachten over time when the region is more developed with all the peat gathering. Or perhaps Texel/Den Helder and Jever becoming Wilhelmshaven.

Yes I definitely agree about North Holland being perfect with the addition of Haarlem.

As for Geertruidenberg, I know what it represents. However, this region of Holland would only go over to Brabant after Napoleon conquered the Netherlands in 1807, so for the purposes of the game I'd fully incorporate it as a Hollandic region. Geertruidenberg also seems to have the Island of Dordrecht included in its borders. In 1420 it was sieged down by Dordrecht and lost its dominant trade position, only becoming relevant for its strategical defensive location. Afterwards that area was dominated by Dordrecht. So to make space I would allocate that area to Dordrecht instead.

The addition to Alblasserwaard to Dordrecht is a modern convention and so is the inclusion of Leiden in the Bulb Region. The sandy ground of the Bulb Region is probably better represented in the Hague area. This might annoy people that want to see a coastal Leiden, but I think most of Leiden's shipfaring was done through the Haarlemmermeer (I would argue Deventer is an even bigger victim of this). The Haaglanden and Groene Hart regions are both modern conventions as well, thus basing the map on it, is entirely self imposed. Thus if it isn't ahistorical, I think stretching Gouda's influence to Alblasserwaard and Leiden to Alphen aan den Rijn, to include a city like Delft, is entirely worth it. Especially since your version of Leiden likely being smaller than the area I allocated to Delft.

Like I said, I only argue for the addition of Delft because it hits my personal criteria for a location, only being questionable in size.

 

[MTGian]

But for me a location has to be more than just any city. There ought to be some political, geographical, cultural element to it.

Enkhuizen has plenty of interesting stuff in its history.

Enkhuizen was the center of the herring industry (an important part of the Dutch economy) after the 16th century. This was due to southern waters becoming unsafe during the revolt, new fishing grounds that were more accessible from Enkhuizen, and Baltic/Northwest Germany becoming the largest foreign markets for herring. Enkhuizen was also a major part of the VOC (both the establishment and as a trade port - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_India_Company). It was one of the most important ports in Holland.

I don't think there is any debate about the history of Delft or Haarlem.

That said, when it comes to the standard of "it needs to have something interesting in its history", that is subjective. There is no right answer. How do you decide where the line is for a city to have a rich enough history that it gets its own location?

Which brings me back to Italy. If Italy has the highest concentration of locations in the world, then it makes sense to use that as the standard. The Low Countries are the place in Europe that should have a similar concentration of locations to Italy. If Holland is below the Italy standard, then I would add Haarlem, Delft, and Enkhuizen to get the two closer to parity. When you look at the maps, it looks like you could add Delft as a Rho or Treviglio sized location. And Hoorn is actually on the larger size relative to the other Holland locations, so it could be easily split.

BUT maybe that is because there is a significant difference in the zoom between the two regions. Maybe The Hague and Rotterdam are already the size of Rho or Treviglio. If that is the case, then I wouldn't split them to create a new standard for smallest location to squeeze Delft in there.

 

[Henk12310]

Geertruidenberg isn't important in the sense of the city but what it is representing.

View attachment 1146435

It's part of the modern province of Noordbrabant and part of Holland beneath the Biesbosch and Maas. To create more interesting borders I think it is good to have. Dordrecht is above it.

So just as a map of all the regions of south holland and i think we can all agree on north holland for the most part.View attachment 1146437
And also the reason why I think Hoorn, Medemblink and Enkhuizen don't really make sense as seperate locations. They are part of the same historical region.

Meanwhile if you were to add a new location to like hoorn, you should probably pick Texel and the islands. And down south near Rotterdam you could add brielle as a location.

View attachment 1146446

This would be my take on the map of the Netherlands, with yellow highlighted potential locations that could be added and their alternative names.

I wanna remind people that renaming location is possible, so it could be that there are events that rename a location to more modern large ones.

Such as Sloten being replaced by Drachten over time when the region is more developed with all the peat gathering. Or perhaps Texel/Den Helder and Jever becoming Wilhelmshaven.

Wouldn’t Heerenveen work better as a Sloten replacement later in the game? Heerenveen was literally build to be a town for peat gathering, its name even means ‘the lord’s peat’

 

[Pbhuh]

Wouldn’t Heerenveen work better as a Sloten replacement later in the game? Heerenveen was literally build to be a town for peat gathering, its name even means ‘the lord’s peat’

That would work too, I just picked one option here, but you are right. Heerenveen would also work, I think both have strong arguments for them.

 

[TINY_BEAR123]

It's probably for balancing but the region around Turnhout would mainly produce wool. The ground in this area is apart from a claylayer deep below(that would only become relevant in the industrial era) is nearly all sand (lilsebergen as an example where this yellow sand is clearly exposed) what made it awfull for plant cultivation. This region mainly produced wool since sheep could easily graze the area (having livestock here was also popular because it was believed this region had healing powers for livestock. this was probably because the sandy soil allowed many herbs to grow). The wool industry was so domint here that it changed the local ecosystem from forest to heatherland(pretty much grassland). the only truly native woods that remained were the hunting grouds of the brabantian nobles such as "Grotenhout". It's only in the industrial era that the econemy here diverstfied to include clay, white sand, wool, wood and others. Thanks for including Kemptenland!

 

[Ollfardh]

It's probably for balancing but the region around Turnhout would mainly produce wool. The ground in this area is apart from a claylayer deep below(that would only become relevant in the industrial era) is nearly all sand (lilsebergen as an example where this yellow sand is clearly exposed) what made it awfull for plant cultivation. This region mainly produced wool since sheep could easily graze the area (having livestock here was also popular because it was believed this region had healing powers for livestock. this was probably because the sandy soil allowed many herbs to grow). The wool industry was so domint here that it changed the local ecosystem from forest to heatherland(pretty much grassland). the only truly native woods that remained were the hunting grouds of the brabantian nobles such as "Grotenhout". It's only in the industrial era that the econemy here diverstfied to include clay, white sand, wool, wood and others. Thanks for including Kemptenland!

If they made Lier a seperate province in Kempenland so Mechelen can become a vasal without Brabant losing a province there (as suggested on the previous page), I think Lier would be the better place for wool because of the entire Sheep Heads saga. Or both might be an option as well, as we don't really know how "strong" wool is.

 

[CursedRacer850]

Roermond is not placed correctly it looks like its in modern Germany

 

[dengeabi]

Locations
If location is not same with the name of central town, I would name:
Zwolle > Salland
Enschede > Twente
Nijmegen > Batavia

Although Enschede became more important after 1500's. Oldenzaal makes more sense to me in 1337.

Topography/Polders
Please do not make even more locations in the Lowlands, by looking at the requests on this forum thread, there are already many locations, and I fear that it will be quite difficult to rule the Netherlands in game. Considering that in 1337 it was mostly a wasteland of marshes.

But i think it might be a good event/tech idea, if you study a certain tech, you can build mills and dikes to utilize more marshes into polders, except once you cured the land it is permanently altered the topography into farmlands.

 

[Mingmung]

Locations
If location is not same with the name of central town, I would name:
Zwolle > Salland
Enschede > Twente
Nijmegen > Batavia

Although Enschede became more important after 1500's. Oldenzaal makes more sense to me in 1337.

Topography/Polders
Please do not make even more locations in the Lowlands, by looking at the requests on this forum thread, there are already many locations, and I fear that it will be quite difficult to rule the Netherlands in game. Considering that in 1337 it was mostly a wasteland of marshes.

But i think it might be a good event/tech idea, if you study a certain tech, you can build mills and dikes to utilize more marshes into polders, except once you cured the land it is permanently altered the topography into farmlands.

There has been a feedback-thread already

Thanks for Feedback! Here's some of the changes (4th June 2024)

There has been lots of changes due to feeback, like splitting guns to fireams and cannons. Adding Dhimmi as an estate etc.. But we thought it would be prudent to show off some more prominent recent ones here. Yes, it is now diplomatic...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

 

[electric angel]

While there proably are many reasons too choose the modern capital of the dutch province of zeeland middelburg as the city of the zeeland location. i like too play devils advocate.

if you looks at the history of that delta its nearby city of vlissingen is is far more of a location that would be representative then middelburg. making it short the city of middelburg is the administrative hub for the island while the city of vlissingen is the industrial hub. Several importaint battles have taken place at the city of vlissingen such battle for the schelde (the southern sea arm) too open up antwerp in the 2nd worldwar, but more importaintly for the time periode the fall of the city too the ''water guezen'' becoming the first city in the netherlands too be caputured by the rebels from the spanish empire (not counting the settlment of den brille). The city is also marked as being home too a seawall that was part of napoleons deffence of the city of antwerp.

For the game too reflect middelburg isnt wrong as many a scientist and theologians came from there. However this gives me pauze as the city of vlissingen is home too many admirals essential too dutch history. most importaintly the dutch admiral micheal de ruyter who is likely 1 off if not the only true dutch national hero that isnt a king.
---
Also zeeland is dotted with fishing villiages not saltpanning villiages. i couldnt find a single place that did salt production

 

[Sulphurologist]

First off, you should post your suggestions in the newer Feedback thread here.

While there proably are many reasons too choose the modern capital of the dutch province of zeeland middelburg as the city of the zeeland location. i like too play devils advocate.

if you looks at the history of that delta its nearby city of vlissingen is is far more of a location that would be representative then middelburg. making it short the city of middelburg is the administrative hub for the island while the city of vlissingen is the industrial hub. Several importaint battles have taken place at the city of vlissingen such battle for the schelde (the southern sea arm) too open up antwerp in the 2nd worldwar, but more importaintly for the time periode the fall of the city too the ''water guezen'' becoming the first city in the netherlands too be caputured by the rebels from the spanish empire (not counting the settlment of den brille). The city is also marked as being home too a seawall that was part of napoleons deffence of the city of antwerp.

For the game too reflect middelburg isnt wrong as many a scientist and theologians came from there. However this gives me pauze as the city of vlissingen is home too many admirals essential too dutch history. most importaintly the dutch admiral micheal de ruyter who is likely 1 off if not the only true dutch national hero that isnt a king.
---
Also zeeland is dotted with fishing villiages not saltpanning villiages. i couldnt find a single place that did salt production

It is a strategically important port town, to which I agree, but that doesn't make something a capital.
So, you suggest that some battles from World War 2, a capturing by rebels, and defensive infrastructure by Napoleon are a reason to promote something to a capital?
To cite Guicciardini (here, or here):

"Vlissingen is the second city of Walcheren. It is located to the southwest about one [Florentine] mile, across Flanders. Around the year 1400 it was nothing else than an access way to Flanders, as the chronicles mention. But later it became bigger and stronger and about 40 years ago [ca. 1525] it was strengthened with city walls and gates.

This was written in 1567, before the Dutch revolt, after which Vlissingen declined into poverty for a while.

Salt in Zeeland was extracted from peat (Ashes from peat were boiled with sea water, read the annex here).
Peat extraction was forbidden in places near dikes and infrastructure though, so not a lot of places remained on the island of Walcheren.

 

[Augustus Tungrorum]

Thanks, great map

Some detail questions (from local knowledge)

What's the naming convention? Brugge and Ghent don't seem to follow the same one?

For Bruges: shouldn't it include the western part of today's zeeuws Vlaanderen (location Hulst), which included its port access for most of the game period? I'd also make it swamp.

On the other side of Flanders: Maasmechelen is a 20th century name. Since there's already a Mechelen, maybe name it Tongeren, which is a Roman town in that location?

Zeeland only one location, with the much smaller (even if complete) Zeeuws Vlaanderen separate seems quite unequal, I'd either not have zeeuws Vlaanderen (adding the remainder to sint niklaas) or walcheren (the main island of Zeeland) separate from the rest of the county. With the size of next-door Breda, probably first?

I also don't like the culture map

Regarding Maasmechelen >> Tongeren, I agree

 

[Lavilledieu]

Is there a possibility to switch the county of Horne with the Imperial Abbey of Thorn? Although a little smaller, it would be cool to have an imperial abbey of nuns on the map. There will be few, if any, tags in Europe that will be lead solely by females. Aside from that, it would be a cool alternative to yet another traditional HRE state.