Tinto Maps #11 - 19th of July 2024 - Scandinavia

[Johan]

Regarding flatlands and wetlands. Why I do think that most of Finland should be flatlands, given that most of it is extremely flat, I'm certain that the mires, peatlands, swamps there should be represented too.

Taiga forest such as those in Finland are notorious for often also being extremely wet and swampy. The reasons for this vary, but in the case of Finland, the extremely flat terrain and the shallow ground (the granite bedrock being very close to the surface) traps a lot of the water of the forests by preventing proper drainage, so it results in wetlands. I did see estimates that said up to 30% of Finland's area are types of wetland environments, however, I can't find any map or comprehensive detailed summary of where this 30% is, only either vague claims or some isolated examples of famous swamps or extremely detailed surveys of individual areas.

Does somebody have any resource on Finnish mires and other wetlands, and where they are spread?

EDIT: I guess wetland forests could absolutely be used to sort of "model" some of the characteristics of the Finnish lakeland, where navigation was traditionally very hard without either getting yourself wet or travelling by boat, too, if nothing else.

I agree.. when this map was originally made, we had terrain as a monolitic value, and it was only 1-2 years later we split terrain in vegetation and topography.

 

[Johan]

I am wondering about the reasoning for the population in Bergen, Nidaros and Oslo. I understand that all population numbers are estimates since there is no accurate data for 1337 on the required level of detail. However, as far as I understand, in 1337 Bergen was the most populas city in Norway, followed by Nidaros, with Oslo as the third most populos city. The estimates I have heard is that Bergen was around twice as large as the two other cities, while Nidaros and Oslo was more or less equal in size. this was due to the exclusive trading rights which Bergen had, where foreign ships were not allowed to go further north than Bergen.

The numbers themselves are probably fine, but I would maybe consider switching the population of Bergen and Oslo

One source which says the same is "Norge under Sværreætten: 1177 - 1319" by Kåre Lunden, page 319. I tried to post a link, but the spamfilter picked it up.

That is cities though.

 

[Johan]

What is the reason for Scania being a dominion insted of being integrated?

Because the King viewed it as a seperate kingdom, and titled himself King of Norway, Sweden and Skåne.

 

[Johan]

Gellivaara is indeed strange, seems to be some weird mashup. It's Jällivaare in Finnish or Jiellevárri/várre in Sami or Jellivaara in Mieänkieli.

Actually, I found that name in a few old maps.

 

[Johan]

On this topic, what's the policy on old spelling? Because I see some variety there, like both Waestbo and Växjö.

Older is better

 

[Johan]

EDIT: I think this is the study which I had read. He also tries to explain who the Bjarmians were. I recommend reading it! (For those who are not Finns, unfortunately it's written in Finnish.)

Sadly we have nobody at the Tinto Office who speaks or can even read Finnish.. One more thing to blame the vile traitor Cronstedt for.

 

[Johan]

i would bet the answer is "we will talk about it in a later dev diary" but i have to ask


how do dominions work? is it more PU or more vassal? (thinking with eu4 brain), if i had to take a bet i would guess it is like a PU, doing its own stuff but the "main" country extracts taxes, manpower and trade from it.

Its a vassal but the ruler is the same as the overlord.

 

[Johan]

IMO Idre should be part of Jämtland since for the first half of the game’s period it was part of Norway, and changed owners to Sweden with Jämtland. Since provinces can’t be dynamic I think it’s better to have gameplay which is good for both Sweden and Norway regardless of who owns Idre, instead of making it weirdly biased towards Sweden.

no. its part of dalarna, and that will not change

 

[Johan]

The location borders here are a bit weird. Paltamo and Kajaani are basically on the very edges of the location borders, while Sotkamo might be in the Nurmes location? Hard to say without a 1-to-1 overlay.

We need better names for the "Paltamo" and "Sotkamo" locations then.

 

[Johan]

Why have you named the area Oslo that instead of Kristiania, that was the name of the city before they changed it?

Because it was called Oslo until 1624.

 

[Johan]

I disagree, historically Paltamo (sw. Paldamo) and Sotkamo were both important locations since the area was settled in the 1500s. Paltamo was even founded before Kajaani (sw. Kajana) was. I was just suggesting the location shapes to be changed slightly.

If you mean giving them names that’d be accurate in 1337, that’s harder as the area wasn’t really settled, and was used by Sami and Karelians for travel and hunting. So what is your policy on uncolonized location names? Should they have names used by the natives at the time, or names that later settlers gave them during the game’s time period?

Paltamo would be huge if it contained the southern shore as well..

Anyway, redrew them to inclue Paltamo and Sotkamo...

 

[Johan]

I think he meant that he redrew both locations to include the real life settlements lol, as that was the point of my feedback (the settlements were outside the borders of the locations)

yes, thats what I did

 

[Johan]

As a Finn who's been studying Finnish borders a lot for a map video (no idea when I'll finish it), this is the diary I've been the most excited for! Being a relatively irrelevant country in the northeastern corner of Europe, with little information about its history available in English, the current map is surprisingly well made.

Thanks for a long and good post. While we can discuss the details about exactly which location that should be used or not, I am really happy about the suggestion of using the Lappmarks for dividing the north. When I saw that post I felt like "why didn't i think of that"

 

[Johan]

This really stands out from your otherwise quite amazing post. I reckon that the current situation reflects reality much better. If Sweden should own everything south of the border, should Novgorod own everything to the north then? Sweden aboslutely did not control that much land, and giving Sweden that much would be plain ahistorical. We don't know how the colonisation is going to work, but it would seem that the actually owned locations require a little bit more than just population.

The reason why I have not made Swedish state borders much deeper inland is that from what I've read, while there were swedish & finnish settlers deeper inland, the government control was not really that far deep in yet..

And also this makes for a rather fun and different challenge playing Sweden in the first 2 centuries, where you have all of this "nice real estate" you can try to exert control over. And similar as Novgorod.

 

[Johan]

Kongsberg is currently listed with 24% higher population at the start of the game than it had in the census of 1769. At the mine's peak employment numbers in 1770 it had 4075 employees. If the current starting population is too low for it to be exploitable, something is likely terribly wrong with your whole population/employment model.

Kongsberg sølvverk – Store norske leksikon

Kongsberg sølvverk var et norsk bergverk som var i drift i 335 år, fra 1623 til 1958. Det var landets største bergverk målt i arbeidsinnsats, med anslagsvis 300 000 nedlagte årsverk pluss omfattende sesongarbeid med skogsarbeid og kjøring. Verket var viktig for staten som produsent av myntmetall.

snl.no

Folketellingen 1769 - Historisk Statistikk - Statistisk sentralbyrå

www.ssb.no

The Kongsberg population can be found on page 46:
View attachment 1168653

well, i wanted MORE than just a few thousand people working with it

 

[Johan]

I don’t follow this. If historically it peaked at a little over 4k employed shouldn’t that be what is required to achieve a historical degree of significance, with the option to expand further being avalible?

yeah, but I wanted MORE ...