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Welcome everyone, today I’ll talk about the Scandinavian region. Part of it was the first maps we drew for Project Caesar back in early spring of 2020. Today we will look at all parts of the Scandinavian Peninsula (including Denmark & the Kola Peninsula). Greenland & Iceland will be looked at in a separate map talk.
Countries
Scandinavia has only five location based countries at the start of the game. Denmark, who is in a bit of a crisis at the moment and their vassal Schleswig is in the south. On the peninsula proper, we have Sweden and Norway who are in a union at the moment as they share the same King. Scania was sold off to Sweden by the Danes five years before the start of the game.
There is no need to show off a Dynasty map, as Denmark does not exactly have a ruling King at the moment, and the rest is ruled by Magnus IV of the Bjälbo Dynasty.
Locations
While Scandinavia has a lot of locations, we have to remember that this is a huge area, and together with Kola & Karelia, it is the same size as France, Spain, Portugal, Italy & Benelux together.. The size of locations are smaller in the south, particularly where the population was and still is relatively bigger.
Provinces
We have tried to follow historical traditional province borders here, but some ended up too big like Småland, Lappland or Österbotten, which were cut into pieces, and some are just too tiny to matter.
Now I wish I had time to write up a history about each province here, but I’ll just add a few fun tidbits.
Satakunta, which is the Finnish name, is named in Finnish like the old regions of Svitjod, which were divided into “hundreds”. It was also refered to Björneborgs län, named after Björneborg (Pori in Finnish), a town founded by Johan III when Ulfsby was no longer accessible from the sea. The regiment from the area was the last Swedish Army Regiment that has ever won a battle inside Sweden, and their military march is a song I think every Finnish Citizen want to play repeatedly on TV during the Olympics..
Småland, which is divided into Tiohärad and Kalmar Län here, should really be referred to as Småländerna, as there were 12 small countries there.. Compared to the 3 other much larger countries of Svealand, Östra Götaland and Västra Götaland. And now why is Östra Götaland not containing Kinda?
Topograhy
It's mostly flatland.. I went by the rule that if the peaks are less than 500 meters it's flatland, and you need to have over 1,000 meters and rather uneven to be a mountain. Norway is interesting there.. We do have a lot of impassable areas in Norway, making this one of the most fun parts to play in.
Vegetation
There are some farmlands in Denmark, Scania and in Götaland, but the rest is basically a big forest.. And up north it's even worse.
Climate
Yeah, well. There is a reason I moved to Spain..
Cultures
Most of the north east is still Sami, and the Finnish tribes have not unified into the more modern Finnish culture. We decided to call the modern Meänkieli with their more ancient name of Kven. We still have Gutnish on Gotland, but the Norwegian, Danish and Swedish cultures have been becoming more monolithic already.
Religions
The Finnish are mostly Catholic, but the Sami, Tavastian, Savonia, Bjarmian and Karelians are mostly still following their old pagan beliefs. There are still some Norse people in the forests of Dalarna and Västmanland..
Raw Materials
It is mostly lumber, fish, wild game, fur and iron. We of course have the famous copper mountain as well.
Markets
Scandinavia is divided by the rich markets of Lübeck and Riga. A strong Scandinavian country will probably want to set up their own unified market.
Population
Not many people live up in the north..
I liked nice round numbers as estimates, but the team I hired for content design are mad men, and wanted the distribution to feel more organic.. For the far north of Scandinavia we know that people were semi nomadic, and that some people lived there.. But if it was 100 there, or 250 there or 20 there it's just guesswork..
And let's end with a quote from the Greatest of Poets..
Jag vill, jag skall bli frisk, det får ej prutas,
Jag måste upp, om jag i graven låg.
Lyss, hör, ni hör kanonerna vid Jutas;
Där avgörs finska härens återtåg.
Didn't mean to make you upset, I was just curious. Modelling glacial rebound and polder construction and representing deforestation and swamp drainage are all activities that don't have to exclude each other.
True, they do not exclude each other, if one has unlimited resources. But we don't and some of them are a waste of time and resources.
Despite how it feels sometimes when waiting Enrique kicking the bucket or sieges to finish, EU is not a game that literally works on geological timescales. And again, the visual size of a provinces does nothing per se in the game. Modelling it has no actual effect. Even the effect of altering the vegetation type of a location is minor, unless the location will become a major city later on or there is a crucial battle..
True, they do not exclude each other, if one has unlimited resources. But we don't and some of them are a waste of time and resources.
Despite how it feels sometimes when waiting Enrique kicking the bucket or sieges to finish, EU is not a game that literally works on geological timescales. And again, the visual size of a provinces does nothing per se in the game. Modelling it has no actual effect. Even the effect of altering the vegetation type of a location is minor, unless the location will become a major city later on or there is a crucial battle..
You are getting really pissed about this. All I did was ask a question. And I guess it's true, all the workforce that the poor indie dev pdx has is a janitor and a potted plant.
From a Dutch perspective, those are mountains… From a Sardinian perspective, I’d say hills. Someone made a suggestion to include rolling hills to make flatland-hills not so steep of a separation. That would be best.
I think it depends on what one perceives as flat or hilly from where they grew up. The picture you replied to makes no sense for my eyes to be flatland, but I can imagine if you grow up next to mountains that it’s nothing. Though there is clearly a difference between literally flat and some elevation and variety in the terrain, which imo should be implemented.
I quite like what this game is shaping up to be and i have been looking forwards to the scandinavia showcase. But i must say im quite disapointed in how northern norway has been handled. Northern Norway is almost always overlooked and an aftertought and so it is in this game. I hope you could listen to some feedback
My problems are with the locations, population. trade goods and climate
The location density isnt that bad but its still jarring to see how big the provinces up there are not only compared with the south but also with northern sweden and finland which has a higer province density. This is quite strange as the coast up to the varanger fjord has historicly had a bigger and more settled population compared to the innland areas. Even the areas inhabited by samis in Troms and Finnmark had larger populations than northern Sweden and northern and central Finnland. This is ecpecially bad when considering Nord Trøndelag which also has to big locations. Fosen could at least have been split in half and another locations could have been added in the Namdalen area or by the fjord. Its not a huge deal all in all and its the smallest problem but it is sad that northern norway is the least detailed part of the nordics on this map. I just wish slightly more detailed could be added, like one or two locations per province
Population wise it seems that the three northern provinces have only a population of 30k. This is very low. The biggest city in norway at that time was bergen and it could entirely thank the north for its sucsess as the trade of dried fish is what kept the city going. During the iron and viking age the kingdom of Hologaland was rich and powerfull, and it was from here that the secound most powerfull and influential noble family in Norway came from. The rich trader Ottar whose tales in England are one of the oldest written accounts of scandinavia from a scandinavian was from somwhere in Troms. The biggest building in Scandinavia during the viking age was built in Nordland. The oldest boat finds in Norway have also been found in Nordland and Troms. The two most valuable trade goods norway exported in the middle ages came from here: Dried fish, and furs and animals skins trough the Finn tax as well as stone, lumber, iron and walruss ivory. What im trying to say is that this was not a desolate place, it was rich and important. The climate while not the best still alows for the growing of grain and vegetables, as well as raising of livestock. There are forests there with large trees as well. The land, especially Nordland is very rugged of coars and that compared with the climate wouldnt have made this place a densly populated region on par with southern sweden or even with south eastern Norway or Trøndelag but it was still a region that was extremely important for the Norwegian crown
Northern Norway is unfortuenatly often missunderstood by both Norwegians and foreginers one might look at the modern trends of population in the country but this is very much wrong. As since the Danish took over the country become more and more centered around Oslo and Eastern Norway. The north was during this time badly neglected by the danish and already from the 1600s the area started to see a downwards trend in population. The north has today the same population as it did after ww2 despite having had a good population growth. All that extra population has migrated to the south. These trends should not be applied to the later middle ages as it seems have been done here. One might also look the fact that halogaland was goverend from Nidaros (Trondheim) and conclude that it was an unimporant region. When in fact it was the kings of Halogaland that conquered Trøndalg and Trondheim their seat of power and this arangement continued into after the middle ages. Or that the north was expected to supply the thrid lowest number of ships in the leidgang system. But as another user has said here that might have been due to Halogaland also having to defend the north and therefore had to keep most of the forces for this purpose. The crown did invest into defenses of the north, like vardøhus and even encouraged people to settle in Finnmark to strenghten their hold of the area. The north was afterall argueably the most economicly imprtant region
I also noticed that the population of the southeast seems way to high. Especially in the Oslo area. Again looking at the population of Norway in the late middle ages trough modern developments will not be accurate. Oslo itself wasnt a very big city at the time, with both Bergen and Trondheim holding more importance. It had been made a capital of course, but this had more to do with its location nearer denmark and the continent which the royals frequently engaged with. And the sourounding provinces also have populations that take too much of the total precantage of the country. Trøndelag has historicly been one of the most populous single regions of the country and it has like the north also suffered emigration and as such both Trøndelag and the north should have a larger share of the population. Maybe as high as 20% for Trøndelag and 10-15% for the north. This would be both more accurate and intresting
For trade goods its mostly just how much wilde game there is. Even today the Trondheims fjord is the northermost area where wheat is grown commercialy so maybe a province that produces wheat there as well as a couple of provicnes producing haryd grains. Other than that Fish was of course the most prevelant tradegood along the coast but perhaps a location in the north could make whales as well? And then a few locations could also produce livestcok and lumber both in the north and Trøndelag. It would again make the area more intresting and accurate
The climate is also a bit wonky. Aritc just stretches way to far South. Not only in Norway but also in Sweden and Finland. No coastal province further south than senja should be artic in Norway at least. Continental should aslo be more widespread in Trøndelag. But im not sure what climate to give those places as they arent quite warm enough to be oceanic but also arent extreme enough to be continental while not being cold enoug to be artic. The best would be to make it oceanic
All in all this game looks very promising and i like it tough i may seem very critical in this post. I just had to vent about these things
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. Yet, there are some glaring inaccuracies and lots of room for improvement. When it comes to locations some are misplaced while others are anachronistic to the game's timeframe and shouldn't therefore exist at all. Like many have already pointed out, the territories of the Finnish tribes are also inaccurate and the Sámi territories should be expanded. Perhaps the biggest issue, however, is the representation of historical state borders, which are either not represented at all or are drawn very sloppily and inaccurately. Additionally, while the borders of the provinces are fine, they seem to be stretched inaccurately such that they reach too far north, creating some issues with location placement and making it difficult to draw the eastern border accurately without awkward squishing.
In my opinion, fixing these issues would require redrawing a considerable amount of the current map. As me and many others would love to see the map with a similar amount of detail, quality and accuracy as the central European countries, I decided to use this golden opportunity to draw my own proposal for a reworked Finland using the best resources I could find. The rework proposal also includes Västerbotten and Swedish Lapland because those overlap Finland in some places. The sources and resources are listed in the sections where they are used.
Historical province and state borders
I used these borders as the outline for everything else. Red lines represent province borders while black lines represent historical state borders, though in a some places province and state borders overlap. As a base I used the modern and 1920-1940 location maps of Finland from Wikipedia. The resulting eastern border matches the eastern border of the Grand Duchy of Finland, which was demarcated in 1833 according to the old de facto situation. Before the demarcation the border was officially undefined. My Map of Finland thread has a more detailed explanation of it.
The province borders are drawn according to maps from the Counties of Finland Wikipedia article and this map of Finnish parishes in 1635. For the borders of Västerbotten I used a modern map of Swedish municipalities as the historical Västerbotten border seems to still be visible in their shape.
The historical state borders represented are the 1323 Treaty of Nöteborg, 1595 Treaty of Teusina, 1617 Treaty of Stolbovo, 1721 Treaty of Nystad,1743 Treaty of Åbo and 1809 Treaty of Fredrikshamn borders. Out of these the Treaty of Nöteborg border cannot unfortunately be drawn objectively, as the precise course of the northern part of the border is debated by historians. The only part known for sure is the section south of Pihlajavesi in southern Savonia. However, most interpretations agree on the course of the border through Savonia. The main disagreements appear in northern Tavastia and Ostrobothnia. According to some interpretations the border goes through northern Tavastia while others place the border at the eastern border of northern Tavastia. The end point of the border seems to range from near Kalajoki to north of Raahe depending on the interpretation. As the border didn't have much practical significance in the north, I decided to draw the border such that it doesn't cut through any provinces or locations in an awkward way. In Ostrobothnia it runs through the river Pyhäjoki, which is close to many interpretations of the border without making the locations in the area too big or small.
The Treaty of Nöteborg borer from Siitti to Petajoki. The straight line connecting Suonnejoki – Kolimakoski and Petajoki represent absolutely certain border points. The dashed line represents the probable course of the border. The map also depicts the Pielavesi – Pyhäjärvi – Pyhäjoki border. From Suomen itärajan synty (Kyösti Julku, 1987).
Various interpretations of the Nöteborg border. From Suomen historian kartasto (Pertti Haappala, 2007).
Power dynamics in the region of Inari and the Arctic Ocean. The thick solid line represents the Treaty of Teusina border. The thin dashed line represents a boundary between Sweden and Russia marked with stone posts. The thin like represents, from the sea until Rajapää, the border of the siidas of Näätämö and Paatsjoki. From Rajapää to Tupolinvaara the border of Eastern Inari and Paatsjoki and after that the border of Western Inari and Suonikylä. From Inarin rajahistoria II (Voitto Valio Viinanen, 2006).
Treaty of Nystad (1721) and Treaty of Åbo (1743)
Provinces
Province borders have been redrawn to be more precise and accurate. The southern provinces hae also been repositioned accurately such that Kajana isn't part of Savolax for instance. Satakunta has been renamed to Satakunda as that's the old Swedish name for it.
Österbotten has been reorganized based on more historical divisions. Instead of Österbotten and Inner Österbotten, the county is divided into North and South Österbotten and Kajanaland. A north-south divide has more historical basis than an outer-inner divide, as seen in maps in Wikipedia. To avoid making Norra Österbotten too big, Kajanaland is made into its own province, with its central location being Kajana. While Kajanaland wouldn't become an independent county until 1991, the area has been referred to as a county (län) historically and in 1650-1681 the area was the center of the Finland's governor-general Per Brahe's fiefdom Kajana friherreskap (Kajaanin vapaaherttuakunta). A sense of local identity has existed there for long enough that already in 1918 there was a petition to make Kajanaland its on county.
Karelia and Far Karelia have had their borders adjusted to be more historical and they have been renamed to Viborg and Kexholm respectively. I have a more detailed explanation for them in my post on the Russia TT, but the gist of it is that this is how Karelia was divided both before and after the county of Kexholm was conquered by Sweden in the 1610-1617 Ingrian war.
In the north Västerbotten has been extended to encompass its historical areas east of the Torne river and areas upstream of it. South, North and East Lapplands have been replaced by the historical Lappmarks, which were originally created by the Birkarls as a way of organizing taxation of Sámi siidas in Lapland. When the responsibility of Sámi taxation was transferred directly to the crown in the 16th century, Lappmarks became administrative divisions of Sweden. They can be seen on maps from as recently as the 18th century as a way of dividing Lapland. I figured that a division based on Lappmarks instead of a division with arbitraty names would be more historical. For granularity's sake I decided to include all the Lappmarks apart from the southernmost one Åsele Lappmark as it seems it was closely associated with Ume Lappmark historically. It would probably make sense to group some of the Lappmarks together though. I'd prefer if they still retained the names, with combined Ume and Pite Lappmark just being called either Ume or Pite Lappmark.
In my opinion Torne Lappmark could be represented in one of two ways. Either the way it is with the northern parts of Swedish Lapland or it could be given the southern siidas of Finnmark along Utsjoki like it was historically. The problem with this would be that from the Norwegian perspective these siidas were part of Norway's Finnmark, but so was Enare, as this border area was taxed by both Sweden and Norway at once until the modern border was defined in the 1751 Treaty of Strömstad. The situation is really up for debate.
Another thing to note is that Kemi Lappmark is given the southern siidas of Kemijärvi, Kuolajärvi, Kitka and Maanselkä. The parish of Kuusamo was established there in the year 1675 as a result of Finns migrating there and eventually the area was given to Österbotten. I decided to keep the siidas part of Kemi Lappmark regardless partly to balance out the location count in the provinces and also because the area wouldn't be part of Österbotten for the whole first half of the game.
There was also a general map of Sweden that displayed the Lappmarks but I can't find it unfortunately.
The Lappmarks and their siidas. From southwest to northeast: Ångermanland/Åsele Lappmark, Ume Lappmark, Pite Lappmark, Torne Lappmark, Kemi Lappmark. From Wikipedia.
Sámi taxation in the medieval and early modern periods. From Wikipedia.
Areas
The northern provinces are part of Norrland and the southern ones are part of Finland according to the historical division of Sweden into lands. This appears to be how Sweden is divided currently in the game from the little hints I have seen. A case could be made for making Lappland into its own area due to the cultural and administrative differences compared to the rest of the provinces.
Locations
Location borders have been completely redrawn mostly according to historical parish borders. Some locations have been moved, renamed, added and removed. I tried to design the locations for Swedish Lapland too, but couldn't do so in a satisfactory way. The main maps used are the map of Finnish parishes in 1635 and a map of Finnish municipalites in 1935, which I used to figure out how some big parishes should be likely divided. Detailed explanations and names in different languages below:
- Added Nådendal between Nystad and Åbo, as it was one of the six medieval cities of Finland, the other ones being Åbo, Ulvsby, Borgå, Viborg and Raumo.
- Salo has been renamed to Uskela, as during the timeframe of the game Salo was part of Uskela.
Swedish
Finnish
Nystad
Uusikaupunki
Nådendal
Naantali
Pöytis
Pöytyä
Uskela
Uskela
Åbo
Turku
- The only change I made is giving Kotka to Viborg in the form of Pyttis as thats more historically accurate.
Swedish
Finnish
Borgå
Porvoo
Ekenäs
Tammisaari
Helsinge
Helsinki
Kyrkslätt
Kirkkonummi
- Ulfsby's location was inaccurate so it has been replaced by Tavastkyro. In real life its so close to Björneborg that it makes no sense to make it its own location, especially as Björneborg was practically its successor.
- Orivesi is renamed to Ruovesi because based on the parish map.
- Sastmola has been removed due to lack of space.
- Tammerfors has been replaced by the older Birkala as Tammerfors was only established in 1779. I chose Birkala because the current region of Pirkanmaa/Birkaland was named after the parish.
- Kumo has been added due to it being the old administrative center of Satakunda before Björneborg in 1558.
Swedish
Finnish
Birkala
Pirkkala
Björneborg
Pori
Hvittis
Huittinen
Kumo
Kokemäki
Raumo
Rauma
Ruovesi
Ruovesi
Sastamala
Sastamala
Tavastkyro
Hämeenkyrö
- Liljendal has been removed as it is part of Nyland not Tavastland.
- Lahti was merely a village of Hollola during the timeframe of the game, so it has been renamed.
- Joutsa has been replaced by the more historical Sysmä. In 1571 Joutsa only had three farms.
- Jyväskylä has been removed due to being part of Laukas during the timeframe of the game.
- Forssa has been replaced by Sääksmäki due to being a mere village until 1847.
- I replaced Somero with Portas and removed Itis due to them not appearing on the parish map, but apparently they were historical parishes, so those changes could be undone.
- Viitasaari was changed to its older name Viitasalo.
- Rautalampi, Padasjoki and Loppis were added to fill in space.
Swedish
Finnish
Hollola
Hollola
Janakkala
Janakkala
Jämsä
Jämsä
Laukas
Laukaa
Loppis
Loppi
Padasjoki
Padasjoki
Portas
Porras
Rautalampi
Rautalampi
Saarijärvi
Saarijärvi
Sysmä
Sysmä
Sääksmäki
Sääksmäki
Tavastehus
Hämeenlinna
Uusikylä
Uusikylä
Viitasalo
Viitasalo
- Storkyro and Lappo were pushed west to more historical locations. This combined with Satakunda being further south caused the location sizes to be a little awkward, so I added Lappfjärd, Ilmola and Lappajärvi to make it better and to help the southeastern parishes follow historical parish borders.
Swedish
Finnish
Ilmola
Ilmajoki
Karleby
Kokkola
Kaustby
Kaustinen
Korsholm
Mustasaari
Lappajärvi
Lappajärvi
Lappfjärd
Lapväärtti
Lappo
Lapua
Närpes
Närpiö
Pedersöre
Pietarsaari
Storkyro
Isokyrö
Vörå
Vöyri
- I slightly very lowered the province density in northern Ostrobothnia and Lapland because I don't want to divide the historical Sámi siidas in ahistorical ways, partly because I think a Sámi taxation flavor feature would be cool in a DLC.
- Replaced Kuivaniemi with the more historical and significant Ijo, which is also the river that runs through Pudasjärvi and Taivalkoski.
- Simo was removed as Kemi was moved into its historical location. The same fate was met by Ranua with Rovaniemi.
- Brahestad was named after Per Brahe in 1649, so it has been replaced by the older Pyhäjoki.
- Added Kalajoki and Haapajärvi due to the split caused by the Treaty of Nöteborg border.
Swedish
Finnish
Haapajärvi
Haapajärvi
Ijo
Ii
Kalajoki
Kalajoki
Kemi
Kemi
Pudasjärvi
Pudasjärvi
Pyhäjoki
Pyhäjoki
Rovaniemi
Rovaniemi
Siikalatva
Siikalatva
Taivalkoski
Taivalkoski
Uleåborg
Oulu
Utajärvi
Utajärvi
- Kajana is broken off from Savolax to be the center of Kajanaland.
- Suomussalmi has been renamed to Hyrynsalmi as Suomussalmi was originally part of Hyrynsalmi.
- Kuhmo has been renamed to Kuhmoniemi, as Kuhmoniemi was its name before 1937.
Swedish
Finnish
Russian
Hyrynsalmi
Hyrynsalmi
Khyuryunsalmi (Хюрюнсалми)
Kajana
Kajaani
Kayani or Kayaani (Ка́яни or Ка́яани) (This one has interesting etymology, as apparently the Finnish word comes from Russian. Unfortunately I don't know what the most appropriate Russian name would be, so I just put the modern one here.)
Kuhmoniemi
Kuhmoniemi
Kukhmoniyemi (Кухмониеми)
Paldamo
Paltamo
Paltamo (Палтамо)
Sotkamo
Sotkamo
Sotkamo (Соткамо)
- The locations of Torneå have been redrawn mostly based on this map of Västerbotten in 1796. Torneå and its related parishes are placed east of the Swedish-Finnish border so that the eastern parts of the province would have something. Byske has been removed for space reasons and for not being a historical parish.
- I'm not sure if Degerfors should be called Vindeln or not, Degerfors was used in the map.
- Finnish Lapland has been completely redrawn according to the historical Sámi siidas, as this political situation existed for pretty much the whole game in the north and for most of the game in the south.
- Öst-Enare or Eastern Enare was originally given to Russia in the Treaty of Teusina, while Western Enare was given to Sweden. Over time, however, Eastern Enare was absorbed by Western Enare, resulting in a border situation similar to today. The village doesn't have an official name, but Voitto Valio Viinanen dubbed it Paatsjoenniska. He also referred to it as Itä-Inari (East Inari), so I decided to name it Öst-Enare to be more neutral.
- Enontekiö was historically divided between Rounala in the west and Suondavara in the east. However, the center of Rounala was on the Swedish side of the current border, while the mountain Suondavara was named after is in Finland. Because of that I decided to give all of Enontekiö to Suondavara, while Rounala would be on the Swedish side. If Suondavara were to be split the western part should be called Kilpisjärvi and not Käsivarren. Käsivarsi means arm and comes from the fact that after a border was drawn between Sweden and Finland the resulting panhandle of Enontekiö kinda looks like an arm. The name makes absolutely no sense in-game, but it made me laugh when I first saw it.
- The northeastern corner of Öst-Enare could be made a little different due to the historical Näätämö siida. Unfortunately I don't quite understand the border situation here so I ignored it to be safe. The region of Sød-Varanger is anachronistic in general, as Russo-Norwegian Fellesdistrikt was only divided in 1826.
The Sámi names are taken from a map from this blog post. I have no idea where the map is originally from. Russian translations would also make sense, considering the area was taxed by Russia too during the middle ages.
Swedish
Finnish
Sámi
Norwegian
Enare
Inari
Anár
–
Kemijärvi
Kemijärvi
Giemajávri
–
Kemikylä
Kemikylä
Giemagilli
–
Kitka
Kitka
Giiggajávri
–
Kittilä
Kittilä
Gihttel
–
Kuolajärvi
Kuolajärvi
Guollejávri
–
Maanselkä
Maanselkä
Másealgi
–
Peltojärvi
Peltojärvi
Bealdojávri
–
Sodankylä
Sodankylä
Soađegilli
–
Sombio
Sompio
Soabbat
–
Suondavara
Suonttavaara
Suovditvárri
–
Utsjoki
Utsjoki
Ohcejohka
Utsjok
Öst-Enare?
Itä-Inari
–
Øst-Enare?
The borders of Inari and its bordering siidas in Kemi Lappmark. Dashed lines represent assumed borders. From Inarin rajahistoria II (Voitto Valio Viinanen, 2006).
Map of Rounala and Suonttavaara siidas from suonttavaara.se.
Starting Borders of Sweden
I made a case for giving Sweden the whole area of the Treaty of Nöteborg in my Map of Finland thread.
Cultures (excluding Swedish)
This map is in no way perfect as I made it pretty quickly as a sort of sketch, but it's a lot better than the current culture setup. Like people have already pointed out, the Sámi should at this time inhabit the inner parts of Finland where the Finnish tribes don't have permanent settlement. At least the southern Sámi should probably be tribesmen with very low population, who will assimilate and be pushed north as the Finnish tribes colonize the inland areas. With the Sámi culture being so monolithic, it could be split into smaller ones, though I have no idea what Sámi language/culture the people in the south were part of.
If its possible, the main colonizing force should be the Savonians, who thanks to slash-and-burn agriculture were able to move a lot more than the other Finnish tribes. If you look at a map of modern Finnish dialects, the inland and eastern areas are dominated by Savonian dialects. This would be kinda interesting with how small the Savonians are at the start.
As a basis I used a map of Finnish tribes in the 13th century, combined with a map of modern dialects and a settlement map depicting the situation in the 1540s. For Savonia, I used info from savonhistoria.fi. Determining the core areas of the tribes was easy, but a lot of people here seemed to think that there should also be some pops in the erämaa the tribes exploited, where permanent settlement was sparse or nonexistent. For a few locations I went to Wikipedia on a case by case basis to see who exploited what. Unfortunately things get a little confusing when the division between the Kven/Bothnians and the Tavastians is kinda artificial. For the Savonian and Karelian erämaa I didn't find good sources so I just filled in their respective counties with sparse minorities.
With the Karelians I wasn't sure how far west they should reach, so I used county borders because I have a faint memory of reading that the county border was based on an old tribe border. Karelian culture is a little confusing here beceause over the centuries the Karelians on the Swedish side and the Karelians on the Russian side would develop into separate groups with Russian Karelians having their own language. If cultural drift was a feature in the game, I have no idea what the different Karelian groups would be called. Maybe Karelian and East Karelian? An additional problem is names. If locations have dynamic names in Karelian, then it would mean that a Karelian country with its core territory in Finnish Karelian would end up calling everything by their Eastern Karelian name.
WESTERN DIALECTS:
Lounaismurteet = Southwest dialects
Hämäläismureet = Tavastian dialects
Etelä-, Keski- ja Pohjois-Pohjanmaan murteet = South, Middle and North Ostrobothnian dialects
Peräpohjolan murteet = Peräpohjola dialects
Lappo:
Permanent settlement began to spread to the Lappo river valley in the early 14th century. They came especially from Sastamala in Satakunta. The area was also exploited my Lapps.
Lappajärvi:
Exploited by people from Satakunta and Kyrö in the middle ages. The area was permanently settled in the 1530s by Swedes and Savonians.
Jämsä:
By the end of the iron age Jämsä was the northern was the northernmost center of permanent settlement in Päijänne Tavastia.
Rautalampi:
The region of Rautalampi was Tavastian wilderness in prehistoric times. Permanent settlement was sparse or temporary. According to historian K. J. Jalkanen, the original inhabitants of Rautalampi were Lapps AKA Sámi. Tavastians started moving into the area in the latter half of the Medieval Ages and the last Sámi had left by the beginning of the Modern era.
Savolax:
The oldest inhabitants of Savonia were Lapps.
Idensalmi:
Permanent settlement dates back to the 16th century.
Perho (old name I had for Kaustby):
People from Sääksmäki likely fished and hunted in Perho in the medieval times. The first inhabitants of Perho are mentioned in 1566. They appeared to be Savonians.
Haapajärvi:
Exploited by people from Tavastia and Satakunta. The area was settled permanently in the 1540s by Savonians.
Siikalatva:
People started settling inland from the Bothnian coast in the mid 16th century. People also arrived from Savonia.
Utujärvi:
People began to move inland along the Oulu River during medieval times. Permanent settlement came to Muhos in the 15th century and Utajärvi in the 16th century. People arrived from the Bothnian coast and Savonia. The original inhabitans were Lapps.
Kajanaland:
The area was exploited by Southern Finns and Karelians from Ladoga and White Karelia. Lappish people began moving north in the early 16th century.
Pudasjärvi:
Exploited by coastal inhabitants. People used the Ii river to travel across Finland and Karelia.
Suojärvi:
First families inhabiting Suojärvi were mentioned in 1550-1570.
Thank you for reading my post! I began working on this immediately after the TT and wanted to get it out as soon as possible when the devs hopefully still read it. I hope you'll consider at least some of my feedback. I want to help the game's quality to be as high as possible, especially because I love the idea of games like this being an almost educational tool. With the devs taking feedback at such an early stage this is the perfect opportunity for this game to be the most accurate Paradox game so far, at least in terms of the map.
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. Yet, there are some glaring inaccuracies and lots of room for improvement. When it comes to locations some are misplaced while others are anachronistic to the game's timeframe and shouldn't therefore exist at all. Like many have already pointed out, the territories of the Finnish tribes are also inaccurate and the Sámi territories should be expanded. Perhaps the biggest issue, however, is the representation of historical state borders, which are either not represented at all or are drawn very sloppily and inaccurately. Additionally, while the borders of the provinces are fine, they seem to be stretched inaccurately such that they reach too far north, creating some issues with location placement and making it difficult to draw the eastern border accurately without awkward squishing.
In my opinion, fixing these issues would require redrawing a considerable amount of the current map. As me and many others would love to see the map with a similar amount of detail, quality and accuracy as the central European countries, I decided to use this golden opportunity to draw my own proposal for a reworked Finland using the best resources I could find. The rework proposal also includes Västerbotten and Swedish Lapland because those overlap Finland in some places. The sources and resources are listed in the sections where they are used.
Historical province and state borders View attachment 1166556View attachment 1166653
I used these borders as the outline for everything else. Red lines represent province borders while black lines represent state borders, though in a some places province and state borders overlap. As a base I used the modern and 1920-1940 location maps of Finland from Wikipedia. The resulting eastern border matches the eastern border of the Grand Duchy of Finland, which was demarcated in 1833 according to the old de facto situation. Before the demarcation the border was officially undefined. My Map of Finland thread has a more detailed explanation of it.
The province borders are drawn according to maps from the Counties of Finland Wikipedia article and this map of Finnish parishes in 1635. For the borders of Västerbotten I used a modern map of Swedish municipalities as the historical Västerbotten border seems to still be visible in their shape. View attachment 1166592View attachment 1166594
The historical state borders represented are the 1323 Treaty of Nöteborg, 1595 Treaty of Teusina, 1617 Treaty of Stolbovo, 1721 Treaty of Nystad,1743 Treaty of Åbo and 1809 Treaty of Fredrikshamn borders. Out of these the Treaty of Nöteborg border cannot unfortunately be drawn objectively, as the precise course of the northern part of the border is debated by historians. The only part known for sure is the section south of Pihlajavesi in southern Savonia. However, most interpretations agree on the course of the border through Savonia. The main disagreements appear in northern Tavastia and Ostrobothnia. According to some interpretations the border goes through northern Tavastia while others place the border at the eastern border of northern Tavastia. The end point of the border seems to range from near Kalajoki to north of Raahe depending on the interpretation. As the border didn't have much practical significance in the north, I decided to draw the border such that it doesn't cut through any provinces or locations in an awkward way. In Ostrobothnia it runs through the river Pyhäjoki, which is close to many interpretations of the border without making the locations in the area too big or small.
View attachment 1166584
The Treaty of Nöteborg borer from Siitti to Petajoki. The straight line connecting Suonnejoki – Kolimakoski and Petajoki represent absolutely certain border points. The dashed line represents the probable course of the border. The map also depicts the Pielavesi – Pyhäjärvi – Pyhäjoki border. From Suomen itärajan synty (Kyösti Julku, 1987).
View attachment 1166588
Various interpretations of the Nöteborg border. From Suomen historian kartasto (Pertti Haappala, 2007).
View attachment 1166597
Power dynamics in the region of Inari and the Arctic Ocean. The thick solid line represents the Treaty of Teusina border. The thin dashed line represents a boundary between Sweden and Russia marked with stone posts. The thin like represents, from the sea until Rajapää, the border of the siidas of Näätämö and Paatsjoki. From Rajapää to Tupolinvaara the border of Eastern Inari and Paatsjoki and after that the border of Western Inari and Suonikylä. From Inarin rajahistoria II (Voitto Valio Viinanen, 2006).
Provinces View attachment 1166607
Province borders have been redrawn to be more precise and accurate. The southern provinces hae also been repositioned accurately such that Kajana isn't part of Savolax for instance. Satakunta has been renamed to Satakunda as that's the old Swedish name for it.
Österbotten has been reorganized based on more historical divisions. Instead of Österbotten and Inner Österbotten, the county is divided into North and South Österbotten and Kajanaland. A north-south divide has more historical basis than an outer-inner divide, as seen in maps in Wikipedia. To avoid making Norra Österbotten too big, Kajanaland is made into its own province, with its central location being Kajana. While Kajanaland wouldn't become an independent county until 1991, the area has been referred to as a county (län) historically and in 1650-1681 the area was the center of the Finland's governor-general Per Brahe's fiefdom Kajana friherreskap (Kajaanin vapaaherttuakunta). A sense of local identity has existed there for long enough that already in 1918 there was a petition to make Kajanaland its on county.
Karelia and Far Karelia have had their borders adjusted to be more historical and they have been renamed to Viborg and Kexholm respectively. I have a more detailed explanation for them in my post on the Russia TT, but the gist of it is that this is how Karelia was divided both before and after the county of Kexholm was conquered by Sweden in the 1610-1617 Ingrian war.
In the north Västerbotten has been extended to encompass its historical areas east of the Torne river and areas upstream of it. South, North and East Lapplands have been replaced by the historical Lappmarks, which were originally created by the Birkarls as a way of organizing taxation of Sámi siidas in Lapland. When the responsibility of Sámi taxation was transferred directly to the crown in the 16th century, Lappmarks became administrative divisions of Sweden. They can be seen on maps from as recently as the 18th century as a way of dividing Lapland. I figured that a division based on Lappmarks instead of a division with arbitraty names would be more historical. For granularity's sake I decided to include all the Lappmarks apart from the southernmost one Åsele Lappmark as it seems it was closely associated with Ume Lappmark historically. It would probably make sense to group them together though. I'd prefer if they still retained the names, with combined Ume and Pite Lappmark just being called either Ume or Pite Lappmark.
In my opinion Torne Lappmark could be represented in one of two ways. Either the way it is with the northern parts of Swedish Lapland or it could be given the southern siidas of Finnmark along Utsjoki like it was historically. The problem with this would be that from the Norwegian perspective these siidas were part of Norway's Finnmark, but so was Enare, as this border area was taxed by both Sweden and Norway at once until the modern border was defined in the 1751 Treaty of Strömstad. The situation is really up for debate.
Another thing to note is that Kemi Lappmark is given the southern siidas of Kemijärvi, Kuolajärvi, Kitka and Maanselkä. The parish of Kuusamo was established there in the year 1675 as a result of Finns migrating there and eventually the area was given to Österbotten. I decided to keep the siidas part of Kemi Lappmark regardless partly to balance out the location count in the provinces and also because the area wouldn't be part of Österbotten for the whole first half of the game.
There was also a general map of Sweden that displayed the Lappmarks but I can't find it unfortunately.
View attachment 1166638
The Lappmarks and their siidas. From southwest to northeast: Ångermanland/Åsele Lappmark, Ume Lappmark, Pite Lappmark, Torne Lappmark, Kemi Lappmark. From Wikipedia.
Areas View attachment 1166650
The northern provinces are part of Norrland and the southern ones are part of Finland according to the historical division of Sweden into lands. This appears to be how Sweden is divided currently in the game from the little hints I have seen. A case could be made for making Lappland into its own area due to the cultural and administrative differences compared to the rest of the provinces.
Locations View attachment 1166719View attachment 1166753
Location borders have been completely redrawn mostly according to historical parish borders. Some locations have been moved, renamed, added and removed. I tried to design the locations for Swedish Lapland too, but couldn't do so in a satisfactory way. The main maps used are the map of Finnish parishes in 1635 and a map of Finnish municipalites in 1935, which I used to figure out how some big parishes should be likely divided. Detailed explanations and names in different languages below:
View attachment 1166667View attachment 1166665
- Ulfsby's location was inaccurate so it has been replaced by Tavastkyro. In real life its so close to Björneborg that it makes no sense to make it its own location, especially as Björneborg was practically its successor.
- Orivesi is renamed to Ruovesi because based on the parish map.
- Sastmola has been removed due to lack of space.
- Tammerfors has been replaced by the older Birkala as Tammerfors was only established in 1779. I chose Birkala because the current region of Pirkanmaa/Birkaland was named after the parish.
- Kumo has been added due to it being the old administrative center of Satakunda before Björneborg in 1558.
Swedish
Finnish
Birkala
Pirkkala
Björneborg
Pori
Hvittis
Huittinen
Kumo
Kokemäki
Raumo
Rauma
Ruovesi
Ruovesi
Sastamala
Sastamala
Tavastkyro
Hämeenkyrö
View attachment 1166668View attachment 1166669
- Liljendal has been removed as it is part of Nyland not Tavastland.
- Lahti was merely a village of Hollola during the timeframe of the game, so it has been renamed.
- Joutsa has been replaced by the more historical Sysmä. In 1571 Joutsa only had three farms.
- Jyväskylä has been removed due to being part of Laukas during the timeframe of the game.
- Forssa has been replaced by Sääksmäki due to being a mere village until 1847.
- I replaced Somero with Portas and removed Itis due to them not appearing on the parish map, but apparently they were historical parishes, so those changes could be undone.
- Viitasaari was changed to its older name Viitasalo.
- Rautalampi, Padasjoki and Loppis were added to fill in space.
Swedish
Finnish
Hollola
Hollola
Janakkala
Janakkala
Jämsä
Jämsä
Laukas
Laukaa
Loppis
Loppi
Padasjoki
Padasjoki
Portas
Porras
Rautalampi
Rautalampi
Saarijärvi
Saarijärvi
Sysmä
Sysmä
Sääksmäki
Sääksmäki
Tavastehus
Hämeenlinna
Uusikylä
Uusikylä
Viitasalo
Viitasalo
View attachment 1166674View attachment 1166673
- Storkyro and Lappo were pushed west to more historical locations. This combined with Satakunda being further south caused the location sizes to be a little awkward, so I added Lappfjärd, Ilmola and Lappajärvi to make it better and to help the southeastern parishes follow historical parish borders.
Swedish
Finnish
Ilmola
Ilmajoki
Karleby
Kokkola
Kaustby
Kaustinen
Korsholm
Mustasaari
Lappajärvi
Lappajärvi
Lappfjärd
Lapväärtti
Lappo
Lapua
Närpes
Närpiö
Pedersöre
Pietarsaari
Storkyro
Isokyrö
Vörå
Vöyri
View attachment 1166678View attachment 1166679
- I slightly very lowered the province density in northern Ostrobothnia and Lapland because I don't want to divide the historical Sámi siidas in ahistorical ways, partly because I think a Sámi taxation flavor feature would be cool in a DLC.
- Replaced Kuivaniemi with the more historical and significant Ijo, which is also the river that runs through Pudasjärvi and Taivalkoski.
- Simo was removed as Kemi was moved into its historical location. The same fate was met by Ranua with Rovaniemi.
- Brahestad was named after Per Brahe in 1649, so it has been replaced by the older Pyhäjoki.
- Added Kalajoki and Haapajärvi due to the split caused by the Treaty of Nöteborg border.
Swedish
Finnish
Haapajärvi
Haapajärvi
Ijo
Ii
Kalajoki
Kalajoki
Kemi
Kemi
Pudasjärvi
Pudasjärvi
Pyhäjoki
Pyhäjoki
Rovaniemi
Rovaniemi
Siikalatva
Siikalatva
Taivalkoski
Taivalkoski
Uleåborg
Oulu
Utajärvi
Utajärvi
View attachment 1166682View attachment 1166683
- Kajana is broken off from Savolax to be the center of Kajanaland.
- Suomussalmi has been renamed to Hyrynsalmi as Suomussalmi was originally part of Hyrynsalmi.
- Kuhmo has been renamed to Kuhmoniemi, as Kuhmoniemi was its name before 1937.
Swedish
Finnish
Russian
Hyrynsalmi
Hyrynsalmi
Khyuryunsalmi (Хюрюнсалми)
Kajana
Kajaani
Kayani or Kayaani (Ка́яни or Ка́яани) (This one has interesting etymology, as apparently the Finnish word comes from Russian. Unfortunately I don't know what the most appropriate Russian name would be, so I just put the modern one here.)
Kuhmoniemi
Kuhmoniemi
Kukhmoniyemi (Кухмониеми)
Paldamo
Paltamo
Paltamo (Палтамо)
Sotkamo
Sotkamo
Sotkamo (Соткамо)
View attachment 1166700View attachment 1166692
- The locations of Torneå have been redrawn mostly based on this map of Västerbotten in 1796. Torneå and its related parishes are placed east of the Swedish-Finnish border so that the eastern parts of the province would have something. Byske has been removed for space reasons and for not being a historical parish.
- I'm not sure if Degerfors should be called Vindeln or not, Degerfors was used in the map.
View attachment 1166708View attachment 1166709
- Finnish Lapland has been completely redrawn according to the historical Sámi siidas, as this political situation existed for pretty much the whole game in the north and for most of the game in the south.
- Öst-Enare or Eastern Enare was originally given to Russia in the Treaty of Teusina, while Western Enare was given to Sweden. Over time, however, Eastern Enare was absorbed by Western Enare, resulting in a border situation similar to today. The village doesn't have an official name, but Voitto Valio Viinanen dubbed it Paatsjoenniska. He also referred to it as Itä-Inari (East Inari), so I decided to name it Öst-Enare to be more neutral.
- Enontekiö was historically divided between Rounala in the west and Suondavara in the east. However, the center of Rounala was on the Swedish side of the current border, while the mountain Suondavara was named after is in Finland. Because of that I decided to give all of Enontekiö to Suondavara, while Rounala would be on the Swedish side. If Suondavara were to be split the western part should be called Kilpisjärvi and not Käsivarren. Käsivarsi means arm and comes from the fact that after a border was drawn between Sweden and Finland the resulting panhandle of Enontekiö kinda looks like an arm. The name makes absolutely no sense in-game, but it made me laugh when I first saw it.
- The northeastern corner of Öst-Enare could be made a little different due to the historical Näätämö siida. Unfortunately I don't quite understand the border situation here so I ignored it to be safe. The region of Sød-Varanger is anachronistic in general, as Russo-Norwegian Fellesdistrikt was only divided in 1826.
The Sámi names are taken from a map from this blog post. I have no idea where the map is originally from. Russian translations would also make sense, considering the area was taxed by Russia too during the middle ages.
View attachment 1166714
The borders of Inari and its bordering siidas in Kemi Lappmark. Dashed lines represent assumed borders. From Inarin rajahistoria II (Voitto Valio Viinanen, 2006).
Starting Borders of Sweden View attachment 1166730
I made a case for giving Sweden the whole area of the Treaty of Nöteborg in my Map of Finland thread.
Cultures (excluding Swedish) View attachment 1166731
This map is in no way perfect as I made it pretty quickly as a sort of sketch, but it's a lot better than the current culture setup. Like people have already pointed out, the Sámi should at this time inhabit the inner parts of Finland where the Finnish tribes don't have permanent settlement. At least the southern Sámi should probably be tribesmen with very low population, who will assimilate and be pushed north as the Finnish tribes colonize the inland areas. With the Sámi culture being so monolithic, it could be split into smaller ones, though I have no idea what Sámi language/culture the people in the south were part of.
If its possible, the main colonizing force should be the Savonians, who thanks to slash-and-burn agriculture were able to move a lot more than the other Finnish tribes. If you look at a map of modern Finnish dialects, the inland and eastern areas are dominated by Savonian dialects. This would be kinda interesting with how small the Savonians are at the start.
As a basis I used a map of Finnish tribes in the 13th century, combined with a map of modern dialects and a settlement map depicting the situation in the 1540s. For Savonia, I used info from savonhistoria.fi. Determining the core areas of the tribes was easy, but a lot of people here seemed to think that there should also be some pops in the erämaa the tribes exploited, where permanent settlement was sparse or nonexistent. For a few locations I went to Wikipedia on a case by case basis to see who exploited what. Unfortunately things get a little confusing when the division between the Kven/Bothnians and the Tavastians is kinda artificial. For the Savonian and Karelian erämaa I didn't find good sources so I just filled in their respective counties with sparse minorities.
With the Karelians I wasn't sure how far west they should reach, so I used county borders because I have a faint memory of reading that the county border was based on an old tribe border. Karelian culture is a little confusing here beceause over the centuries the Karelians on the Swedish side and the Karelians on the Russian side would develop into separate groups with Russian Karelians having their own language. If cultural drift was a feature in the game, I have no idea what the different Karelian groups would be called. Maybe Karelian and East Karelian? An additional problem is names. If locations have dynamic names in Karelian, then it would mean that a Karelian country with its core territory in Finnish Karelian would end up calling everything by their Eastern Karelian name.
Lappo:
Permanent settlement began to spread to the Lappo river valley in the early 14th century. They came especially from Sastamala in Satakunta. The area was also exploited my Lapps.
Lappajärvi:
Exploited by people from Satakunta and Kyrö in the middle ages. The area was permanently settled in the 1530s by Swedes and Savonians.
Jämsä:
By the end of the iron age Jämsä was the northern was the northernmost center of permanent settlement in Päijänne Tavastia.
Rautalampi:
The region of Rautalampi was Tavastian wilderness in prehistoric times. Permanent settlement was sparse or temporary. According to historian K. J. Jalkanen, the original inhabitants of Rautalampi were Lapps AKA Sámi. Tavastians started moving into the area in the latter half of the Medieval Ages and the last Sámi had left by the beginning of the Modern era.
Savolax:
The oldest inhabitants of Savonia were Lapps.
Idensalmi:
Permanent settlement dates back to the 16th century.
Perho (old name I had for Kaustby):
People from Sääksmäki likely fished and hunted in Perho in the medieval times. The first inhabitants of Perho are mentioned in 1566. They appeared to be Savonians.
Haapajärvi:
Exploited by people from Tavastia and Satakunta. The area was settled permanently in the 1540s by Savonians.
Siikalatva:
People started settling inland from the Bothnian coast in the mid 16th century. People also arrived from Savonia.
Utujärvi:
People began to move inland along the Oulu River during medieval times. Permanent settlement came to Muhos in the 15th century and Utajärvi in the 16th century. People arrived from the Bothnian coast and Savonia. The original inhabitans were Lapps.
Kajanaland:
The area was exploited by Southern Finns and Karelians from Ladoga and White Karelia. Lappish people began moving north in the early 16th century.
Pudasjärvi:
Exploited by coastal inhabitants. People used the Ii river to travel across Finland and Karelia.
Suojärvi:
First families inhabiting Suojärvi were mentioned in 1550-1570.
Thank you for reading my post! I began working on this immediately after the TT and wanted to get it out as soon as possible when the devs hopefully still read it. I hope you'll consider at least some of my feedback. I want to help the game's quality to be as high as possible, especially because I love the idea of games like this being an almost educational tool. With the devs taking feedback at such an early stage this is the perfect opportunity for this game to be the most accurate Paradox game so far, at least in terms of the map.
You are getting really pissed about this. All I did was ask a question. And I guess it's true, all the workforce that the poor indie dev pdx has is a janitor and a potted plant.
Insinuating that I'm pissed about this is actually annoying.
I just pointed out that your question has some issues and implementing it would gain us nothing. Yeah, paradox likely has some resources to through around, but do you also want to invest those resources when running the game?
Anyway, your question is answered. It will not happen.
How did you come to 188,229 then? I get the following:
Konghälla: 12033
Uddevalla: 10033
Strømstad: 10033
Halden: 3033
Borg: 14033
Moss: 12033
Trøgstad: 4033
Ski: 11033
Oslo: 23472
Bragernes: 13033
Sande: 11033
Skien: 21727
Grenland: 9033
Total: 154,562
That's including Skien/Grenland which, some of which at least comes in addition to the 60 ships. Grenland should probably not contriubte a whole lot, as it is rather misplaced.
This is the same area as you've shown on your map (excluding grenland), and what you're quoting in gulatingsloven give the same number for the region. This is more a discussion of synonyms than it is about accuracy.
It absolutely becomes a matter of accuracy when you risk overestimating by over 20% of the total (using my total of 154k) amount due to "a discussion of synonyms".
What the *exact* proportions should be I am unsure of. But right now, eastern norway has close to half the population of Norway (almost 190k from viken region, another 30k+ in inland), a percentage it wouldn't have for centuries.
Again, almost 190k seems quite a bit off compared to what is shown in the screenshots from Johan. Also, 30k+ for the inland regions sounds quite low considering the areas it doesn't include (Ringerike, Romerike, Hedmarken, Opplanda+++)
P.S. Kongsberg should ideally be removed entirely as a location, and most of it's pops be killed off as the city did not exist until long into the game's timeframe.
How did you come to 188,229 then? I get the following:
Konghälla: 12033
Uddevalla: 10033
Strømstad: 10033
Halden: 3033
Borg: 14033
Moss: 12033
Trøgstad: 4033
Ski: 11033
Oslo: 23472
Bragernes: 13033
Sande: 11033
Skien: 21727
Grenland: 9033
Total: 154,562
That's including Skien/Grenland which, some of which at least comes in addition to the 60 ships. Grenland should probably not contriubte a whole lot, as it is rather misplaced.
Went back to double check, I realised I accidentially added some locations just outside to Borgarting when I summed up population in Project Caesar. Must have included Eidsvoll location at least by accident, and likely Kongsberg and... maybe one other? Which if you look at, adds up to that margin. Sadly, a quick mistake to do when looking at the grey maps, though embarassing. So yeah, I'll go fix that, and double check the other numbers. Good shout. The percentage of skipreide population doesn't change too much with this though, as Borgarting then is still at over 40% of the population of norway's skipreide.
It has no impact on the leidang numbers themselves which were the more important part. It still outnumber other regions with similar military duties twice over or more. If we for example remove Skien and Grenland, to make the comparison for sure doesn't include any grenlendingskip which remain a question and then assume that they had no part in the other 60 ships , it is still overrepresented compared to other regions. This is while some other regions don't have the numbers to field what they are requested to legally. Can also compare Trøndelag, which is much much lower in population yet would be expected to field 80 ships.
The issue of borgarting being skewed with a higher population seems to not be changed.
It absolutely becomes a matter of accuracy when you risk overestimating by over 20% of the total (using my total of 154k) amount due to "a discussion of synonyms".
The synonym was specifically in reference to the focus on sønnafjelske as a term that was clear in context from the source table. It was a table of skipreide and titled as such, it refers to the skipreide that are sønnafjellske which were the skipreide of borgarting, which is viken. These 3 terms meant the same thing in context, though I used borgarting exclusively in the post when writing. Neither the source nor I claimed to discuss eastern norway outside Borgarting. What the region were was clear the entire time. That remains a discussion of synonyms.
This is a seperate point from whether I added up borgarting correctly in project caesar (which is a matter of accuracy!), so I don't understand why you'd conflate the two. It was not the topic of what either of us talked about nor what was referenced here. I think it would have been better if you said the borgarting figure was a bit high if that was the concern, because I read your first response several times and I was struggling to find what was the contradiction, and why you declared the source wrong when it agreed with what you posted. Any number thats specifically discussing combined pops of multiple provinces Project Caesar is likely to be user error rather than anything else after all.
Again, almost 190k seems quite a bit off compared to what is shown in the screenshots from Johan. Also, 30k+ for the inland regions sounds quite low considering the areas it doesn't include (Ringerike, Romerike, Hedmarken, Opplanda+++)
P.S. Kongsberg should ideally be removed entirely as a location, and most of it's pops be killed off as the city did not exist until long into the game's timeframe.
Already said above but shift borgarting lower and inlands higher, though I assume if you read that above you guessed that already. Overall, eastern norway retain almost half the overall population, which goes against the 1600s estimates, and Borgarting remains overly populated compared to its duties in comparison to every other skipreide region by a large margin.
If kongsberg is overpopulated, that is probably a good candidate to shift for the pops needed in say, Naumadal region.
I'll go edit the original post's numbers and add an asterisk for grenlandsskip being an unknown factor, as it should be highlighted more. Is there any other concerns you can think of?
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 Swedish state in Finland was built on the back of the church's organisation, and it makes sense to limit Swedish control to whatever the church was actually able tax, which is pretty close to what they already have on the map. Your proposed setup would also enable very ahistorically quick colonisation of the interior. There were reasons why they focused on the Bay of Bothnia before even worrying about inner Tavastia and Savolax, and Kajanaland.
I would also recommend we'd not fuss over historical borders too much because what eventually came to be was due to Sweden giving zero fucks about respecting the border. Basically immediately after the 1323 treaty, the Swedish crown and church began work on bringing the entire Bay of Bothnia under their control, albeit that would still take over 200 years for the crown to actually control it.
What if Novgorod undertook similar measures, or had succeeded in the ones they did? Encouraging Karelians to settle into northern Savolax, and then later claiming they own the land, just like Sweden did historically. Actually managed to establish themselves in Uleå in the 1370s and repel the Swedes, further pressing their claims and interpretation of the border even in Västerbotten? Novgorodian and later Muscovite interpretations put the border at the Bygde sten in Bygdeå or Bjuröklubb. It's also clear that Swedish institutions were not yet established north of Skellefteå in the 1330s.
Let us not deny the game plausible alternate histories by taking the 1323 border too literally. I find that is the main point of all historians who ever studied the border. It was not a border anywhere else but in the south, where it was necessary for trade and taxation.
Your setup would also greatly hamper whatever gameplay Tinto has planned for the tribes.
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. Yet, there are some glaring inaccuracies and lots of room for improvement. When it comes to locations some are misplaced while others are anachronistic to the game's timeframe and shouldn't therefore exist at all. Like many have already pointed out, the territories of the Finnish tribes are also inaccurate and the Sámi territories should be expanded. Perhaps the biggest issue, however, is the representation of historical state borders, which are either not represented at all or are drawn very sloppily and inaccurately. Additionally, while the borders of the provinces are fine, they seem to be stretched inaccurately such that they reach too far north, creating some issues with location placement and making it difficult to draw the eastern border accurately without awkward squishing.
In my opinion, fixing these issues would require redrawing a considerable amount of the current map. As me and many others would love to see the map with a similar amount of detail, quality and accuracy as the central European countries, I decided to use this golden opportunity to draw my own proposal for a reworked Finland using the best resources I could find. The rework proposal also includes Västerbotten and Swedish Lapland because those overlap Finland in some places. The sources and resources are listed in the sections where they are used.
Historical province and state borders View attachment 1166556View attachment 1166653
I used these borders as the outline for everything else. Red lines represent province borders while black lines represent state borders, though in a some places province and state borders overlap. As a base I used the modern and 1920-1940 location maps of Finland from Wikipedia. The resulting eastern border matches the eastern border of the Grand Duchy of Finland, which was demarcated in 1833 according to the old de facto situation. Before the demarcation the border was officially undefined. My Map of Finland thread has a more detailed explanation of it.
The province borders are drawn according to maps from the Counties of Finland Wikipedia article and this map of Finnish parishes in 1635. For the borders of Västerbotten I used a modern map of Swedish municipalities as the historical Västerbotten border seems to still be visible in their shape. View attachment 1166592View attachment 1166594
The historical state borders represented are the 1323 Treaty of Nöteborg, 1595 Treaty of Teusina, 1617 Treaty of Stolbovo, 1721 Treaty of Nystad,1743 Treaty of Åbo and 1809 Treaty of Fredrikshamn borders. Out of these the Treaty of Nöteborg border cannot unfortunately be drawn objectively, as the precise course of the northern part of the border is debated by historians. The only part known for sure is the section south of Pihlajavesi in southern Savonia. However, most interpretations agree on the course of the border through Savonia. The main disagreements appear in northern Tavastia and Ostrobothnia. According to some interpretations the border goes through northern Tavastia while others place the border at the eastern border of northern Tavastia. The end point of the border seems to range from near Kalajoki to north of Raahe depending on the interpretation. As the border didn't have much practical significance in the north, I decided to draw the border such that it doesn't cut through any provinces or locations in an awkward way. In Ostrobothnia it runs through the river Pyhäjoki, which is close to many interpretations of the border without making the locations in the area too big or small.
View attachment 1166584
The Treaty of Nöteborg borer from Siitti to Petajoki. The straight line connecting Suonnejoki – Kolimakoski and Petajoki represent absolutely certain border points. The dashed line represents the probable course of the border. The map also depicts the Pielavesi – Pyhäjärvi – Pyhäjoki border. From Suomen itärajan synty (Kyösti Julku, 1987).
View attachment 1166588
Various interpretations of the Nöteborg border. From Suomen historian kartasto (Pertti Haappala, 2007).
View attachment 1166597
Power dynamics in the region of Inari and the Arctic Ocean. The thick solid line represents the Treaty of Teusina border. The thin dashed line represents a boundary between Sweden and Russia marked with stone posts. The thin like represents, from the sea until Rajapää, the border of the siidas of Näätämö and Paatsjoki. From Rajapää to Tupolinvaara the border of Eastern Inari and Paatsjoki and after that the border of Western Inari and Suonikylä. From Inarin rajahistoria II (Voitto Valio Viinanen, 2006).
Provinces View attachment 1166607
Province borders have been redrawn to be more precise and accurate. The southern provinces hae also been repositioned accurately such that Kajana isn't part of Savolax for instance. Satakunta has been renamed to Satakunda as that's the old Swedish name for it.
Österbotten has been reorganized based on more historical divisions. Instead of Österbotten and Inner Österbotten, the county is divided into North and South Österbotten and Kajanaland. A north-south divide has more historical basis than an outer-inner divide, as seen in maps in Wikipedia. To avoid making Norra Österbotten too big, Kajanaland is made into its own province, with its central location being Kajana. While Kajanaland wouldn't become an independent county until 1991, the area has been referred to as a county (län) historically and in 1650-1681 the area was the center of the Finland's governor-general Per Brahe's fiefdom Kajana friherreskap (Kajaanin vapaaherttuakunta). A sense of local identity has existed there for long enough that already in 1918 there was a petition to make Kajanaland its on county.
Karelia and Far Karelia have had their borders adjusted to be more historical and they have been renamed to Viborg and Kexholm respectively. I have a more detailed explanation for them in my post on the Russia TT, but the gist of it is that this is how Karelia was divided both before and after the county of Kexholm was conquered by Sweden in the 1610-1617 Ingrian war.
In the north Västerbotten has been extended to encompass its historical areas east of the Torne river and areas upstream of it. South, North and East Lapplands have been replaced by the historical Lappmarks, which were originally created by the Birkarls as a way of organizing taxation of Sámi siidas in Lapland. When the responsibility of Sámi taxation was transferred directly to the crown in the 16th century, Lappmarks became administrative divisions of Sweden. They can be seen on maps from as recently as the 18th century as a way of dividing Lapland. I figured that a division based on Lappmarks instead of a division with arbitraty names would be more historical. For granularity's sake I decided to include all the Lappmarks apart from the southernmost one Åsele Lappmark as it seems it was closely associated with Ume Lappmark historically. It would probably make sense to group them together though. I'd prefer if they still retained the names, with combined Ume and Pite Lappmark just being called either Ume or Pite Lappmark.
In my opinion Torne Lappmark could be represented in one of two ways. Either the way it is with the northern parts of Swedish Lapland or it could be given the southern siidas of Finnmark along Utsjoki like it was historically. The problem with this would be that from the Norwegian perspective these siidas were part of Norway's Finnmark, but so was Enare, as this border area was taxed by both Sweden and Norway at once until the modern border was defined in the 1751 Treaty of Strömstad. The situation is really up for debate.
Another thing to note is that Kemi Lappmark is given the southern siidas of Kemijärvi, Kuolajärvi, Kitka and Maanselkä. The parish of Kuusamo was established there in the year 1675 as a result of Finns migrating there and eventually the area was given to Österbotten. I decided to keep the siidas part of Kemi Lappmark regardless partly to balance out the location count in the provinces and also because the area wouldn't be part of Österbotten for the whole first half of the game.
There was also a general map of Sweden that displayed the Lappmarks but I can't find it unfortunately.
View attachment 1166638
The Lappmarks and their siidas. From southwest to northeast: Ångermanland/Åsele Lappmark, Ume Lappmark, Pite Lappmark, Torne Lappmark, Kemi Lappmark. From Wikipedia.
Areas View attachment 1166650
The northern provinces are part of Norrland and the southern ones are part of Finland according to the historical division of Sweden into lands. This appears to be how Sweden is divided currently in the game from the little hints I have seen. A case could be made for making Lappland into its own area due to the cultural and administrative differences compared to the rest of the provinces.
Locations View attachment 1166719View attachment 1166753
Location borders have been completely redrawn mostly according to historical parish borders. Some locations have been moved, renamed, added and removed. I tried to design the locations for Swedish Lapland too, but couldn't do so in a satisfactory way. The main maps used are the map of Finnish parishes in 1635 and a map of Finnish municipalites in 1935, which I used to figure out how some big parishes should be likely divided. Detailed explanations and names in different languages below:
View attachment 1166667View attachment 1166665
- Ulfsby's location was inaccurate so it has been replaced by Tavastkyro. In real life its so close to Björneborg that it makes no sense to make it its own location, especially as Björneborg was practically its successor.
- Orivesi is renamed to Ruovesi because based on the parish map.
- Sastmola has been removed due to lack of space.
- Tammerfors has been replaced by the older Birkala as Tammerfors was only established in 1779. I chose Birkala because the current region of Pirkanmaa/Birkaland was named after the parish.
- Kumo has been added due to it being the old administrative center of Satakunda before Björneborg in 1558.
Swedish
Finnish
Birkala
Pirkkala
Björneborg
Pori
Hvittis
Huittinen
Kumo
Kokemäki
Raumo
Rauma
Ruovesi
Ruovesi
Sastamala
Sastamala
Tavastkyro
Hämeenkyrö
View attachment 1166668View attachment 1166669
- Liljendal has been removed as it is part of Nyland not Tavastland.
- Lahti was merely a village of Hollola during the timeframe of the game, so it has been renamed.
- Joutsa has been replaced by the more historical Sysmä. In 1571 Joutsa only had three farms.
- Jyväskylä has been removed due to being part of Laukas during the timeframe of the game.
- Forssa has been replaced by Sääksmäki due to being a mere village until 1847.
- I replaced Somero with Portas and removed Itis due to them not appearing on the parish map, but apparently they were historical parishes, so those changes could be undone.
- Viitasaari was changed to its older name Viitasalo.
- Rautalampi, Padasjoki and Loppis were added to fill in space.
Swedish
Finnish
Hollola
Hollola
Janakkala
Janakkala
Jämsä
Jämsä
Laukas
Laukaa
Loppis
Loppi
Padasjoki
Padasjoki
Portas
Porras
Rautalampi
Rautalampi
Saarijärvi
Saarijärvi
Sysmä
Sysmä
Sääksmäki
Sääksmäki
Tavastehus
Hämeenlinna
Uusikylä
Uusikylä
Viitasalo
Viitasalo
View attachment 1166674View attachment 1166673
- Storkyro and Lappo were pushed west to more historical locations. This combined with Satakunda being further south caused the location sizes to be a little awkward, so I added Lappfjärd, Ilmola and Lappajärvi to make it better and to help the southeastern parishes follow historical parish borders.
Swedish
Finnish
Ilmola
Ilmajoki
Karleby
Kokkola
Kaustby
Kaustinen
Korsholm
Mustasaari
Lappajärvi
Lappajärvi
Lappfjärd
Lapväärtti
Lappo
Lapua
Närpes
Närpiö
Pedersöre
Pietarsaari
Storkyro
Isokyrö
Vörå
Vöyri
View attachment 1166678View attachment 1166679
- I slightly very lowered the province density in northern Ostrobothnia and Lapland because I don't want to divide the historical Sámi siidas in ahistorical ways, partly because I think a Sámi taxation flavor feature would be cool in a DLC.
- Replaced Kuivaniemi with the more historical and significant Ijo, which is also the river that runs through Pudasjärvi and Taivalkoski.
- Simo was removed as Kemi was moved into its historical location. The same fate was met by Ranua with Rovaniemi.
- Brahestad was named after Per Brahe in 1649, so it has been replaced by the older Pyhäjoki.
- Added Kalajoki and Haapajärvi due to the split caused by the Treaty of Nöteborg border.
Swedish
Finnish
Haapajärvi
Haapajärvi
Ijo
Ii
Kalajoki
Kalajoki
Kemi
Kemi
Pudasjärvi
Pudasjärvi
Pyhäjoki
Pyhäjoki
Rovaniemi
Rovaniemi
Siikalatva
Siikalatva
Taivalkoski
Taivalkoski
Uleåborg
Oulu
Utajärvi
Utajärvi
View attachment 1166682View attachment 1166683
- Kajana is broken off from Savolax to be the center of Kajanaland.
- Suomussalmi has been renamed to Hyrynsalmi as Suomussalmi was originally part of Hyrynsalmi.
- Kuhmo has been renamed to Kuhmoniemi, as Kuhmoniemi was its name before 1937.
Swedish
Finnish
Russian
Hyrynsalmi
Hyrynsalmi
Khyuryunsalmi (Хюрюнсалми)
Kajana
Kajaani
Kayani or Kayaani (Ка́яни or Ка́яани) (This one has interesting etymology, as apparently the Finnish word comes from Russian. Unfortunately I don't know what the most appropriate Russian name would be, so I just put the modern one here.)
Kuhmoniemi
Kuhmoniemi
Kukhmoniyemi (Кухмониеми)
Paldamo
Paltamo
Paltamo (Палтамо)
Sotkamo
Sotkamo
Sotkamo (Соткамо)
View attachment 1166700View attachment 1166692
- The locations of Torneå have been redrawn mostly based on this map of Västerbotten in 1796. Torneå and its related parishes are placed east of the Swedish-Finnish border so that the eastern parts of the province would have something. Byske has been removed for space reasons and for not being a historical parish.
- I'm not sure if Degerfors should be called Vindeln or not, Degerfors was used in the map.
View attachment 1166708View attachment 1166709
- Finnish Lapland has been completely redrawn according to the historical Sámi siidas, as this political situation existed for pretty much the whole game in the north and for most of the game in the south.
- Öst-Enare or Eastern Enare was originally given to Russia in the Treaty of Teusina, while Western Enare was given to Sweden. Over time, however, Eastern Enare was absorbed by Western Enare, resulting in a border situation similar to today. The village doesn't have an official name, but Voitto Valio Viinanen dubbed it Paatsjoenniska. He also referred to it as Itä-Inari (East Inari), so I decided to name it Öst-Enare to be more neutral.
- Enontekiö was historically divided between Rounala in the west and Suondavara in the east. However, the center of Rounala was on the Swedish side of the current border, while the mountain Suondavara was named after is in Finland. Because of that I decided to give all of Enontekiö to Suondavara, while Rounala would be on the Swedish side. If Suondavara were to be split the western part should be called Kilpisjärvi and not Käsivarren. Käsivarsi means arm and comes from the fact that after a border was drawn between Sweden and Finland the resulting panhandle of Enontekiö kinda looks like an arm. The name makes absolutely no sense in-game, but it made me laugh when I first saw it.
- The northeastern corner of Öst-Enare could be made a little different due to the historical Näätämö siida. Unfortunately I don't quite understand the border situation here so I ignored it to be safe. The region of Sød-Varanger is anachronistic in general, as Russo-Norwegian Fellesdistrikt was only divided in 1826.
The Sámi names are taken from a map from this blog post. I have no idea where the map is originally from. Russian translations would also make sense, considering the area was taxed by Russia too during the middle ages.
View attachment 1166714
The borders of Inari and its bordering siidas in Kemi Lappmark. Dashed lines represent assumed borders. From Inarin rajahistoria II (Voitto Valio Viinanen, 2006).
Starting Borders of Sweden View attachment 1166730
I made a case for giving Sweden the whole area of the Treaty of Nöteborg in my Map of Finland thread.
Cultures (excluding Swedish) View attachment 1166731
This map is in no way perfect as I made it pretty quickly as a sort of sketch, but it's a lot better than the current culture setup. Like people have already pointed out, the Sámi should at this time inhabit the inner parts of Finland where the Finnish tribes don't have permanent settlement. At least the southern Sámi should probably be tribesmen with very low population, who will assimilate and be pushed north as the Finnish tribes colonize the inland areas. With the Sámi culture being so monolithic, it could be split into smaller ones, though I have no idea what Sámi language/culture the people in the south were part of.
If its possible, the main colonizing force should be the Savonians, who thanks to slash-and-burn agriculture were able to move a lot more than the other Finnish tribes. If you look at a map of modern Finnish dialects, the inland and eastern areas are dominated by Savonian dialects. This would be kinda interesting with how small the Savonians are at the start.
As a basis I used a map of Finnish tribes in the 13th century, combined with a map of modern dialects and a settlement map depicting the situation in the 1540s. For Savonia, I used info from savonhistoria.fi. Determining the core areas of the tribes was easy, but a lot of people here seemed to think that there should also be some pops in the erämaa the tribes exploited, where permanent settlement was sparse or nonexistent. For a few locations I went to Wikipedia on a case by case basis to see who exploited what. Unfortunately things get a little confusing when the division between the Kven/Bothnians and the Tavastians is kinda artificial. For the Savonian and Karelian erämaa I didn't find good sources so I just filled in their respective counties with sparse minorities.
With the Karelians I wasn't sure how far west they should reach, so I used county borders because I have a faint memory of reading that the county border was based on an old tribe border. Karelian culture is a little confusing here beceause over the centuries the Karelians on the Swedish side and the Karelians on the Russian side would develop into separate groups with Russian Karelians having their own language. If cultural drift was a feature in the game, I have no idea what the different Karelian groups would be called. Maybe Karelian and East Karelian? An additional problem is names. If locations have dynamic names in Karelian, then it would mean that a Karelian country with its core territory in Finnish Karelian would end up calling everything by their Eastern Karelian name.
Lappo:
Permanent settlement began to spread to the Lappo river valley in the early 14th century. They came especially from Sastamala in Satakunta. The area was also exploited my Lapps.
Lappajärvi:
Exploited by people from Satakunta and Kyrö in the middle ages. The area was permanently settled in the 1530s by Swedes and Savonians.
Jämsä:
By the end of the iron age Jämsä was the northern was the northernmost center of permanent settlement in Päijänne Tavastia.
Rautalampi:
The region of Rautalampi was Tavastian wilderness in prehistoric times. Permanent settlement was sparse or temporary. According to historian K. J. Jalkanen, the original inhabitants of Rautalampi were Lapps AKA Sámi. Tavastians started moving into the area in the latter half of the Medieval Ages and the last Sámi had left by the beginning of the Modern era.
Savolax:
The oldest inhabitants of Savonia were Lapps.
Idensalmi:
Permanent settlement dates back to the 16th century.
Perho (old name I had for Kaustby):
People from Sääksmäki likely fished and hunted in Perho in the medieval times. The first inhabitants of Perho are mentioned in 1566. They appeared to be Savonians.
Haapajärvi:
Exploited by people from Tavastia and Satakunta. The area was settled permanently in the 1540s by Savonians.
Siikalatva:
People started settling inland from the Bothnian coast in the mid 16th century. People also arrived from Savonia.
Utujärvi:
People began to move inland along the Oulu River during medieval times. Permanent settlement came to Muhos in the 15th century and Utajärvi in the 16th century. People arrived from the Bothnian coast and Savonia. The original inhabitans were Lapps.
Kajanaland:
The area was exploited by Southern Finns and Karelians from Ladoga and White Karelia. Lappish people began moving north in the early 16th century.
Pudasjärvi:
Exploited by coastal inhabitants. People used the Ii river to travel across Finland and Karelia.
Suojärvi:
First families inhabiting Suojärvi were mentioned in 1550-1570.
Thank you for reading my post! I began working on this immediately after the TT and wanted to get it out as soon as possible when the devs hopefully still read it. I hope you'll consider at least some of my feedback. I want to help the game's quality to be as high as possible, especially because I love the idea of games like this being an almost educational tool. With the devs taking feedback at such an early stage this is the perfect opportunity for this game to be the most accurate Paradox game so far, at least in terms of the map.
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"
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.
You're missing the case system. Place-names in the nominative case (which is where you will almost exclusively find the -r ending) are of course going to be rare in written text because places are typically being referred to rather than simply named, especially in texts like this. Comparing the number of hits in old texts really doesn't mean much.
The 1347 text in particular has "Olafuer", "Erlingr" and "aadr" in the nominative case, so this form is clearly still present. That's expected as this stage of Norwegian still has all four cases. The most I think you can say is that -r is starting to shift towards -er, as you can see in "Olafuer".
The shift to where cases disappeared in Norwegian almost entirely (there are still some remnants left) happened quite quickly. It gained a lot of traction after the black death, and the transition into early modern Norwegian is considered to be completed by 1536. I therefore don't see any good reason to keep the -r in the game.
So about the Sami population in Norway.
I belive there should be a minority Sami population from "Sør Trøndelag" and northwards up to and naturally including "Finnmark"
There is quite the debate about when the Sami migrated into Trøndelag, but there are traces back to around the year 1000.
Some even claim it happend 500 years earlier.
But the numbers are low and not known so it depends on your policy.
I can try and dig up some Norwegian sources, but its sparse...
From a Dutch perspective, those are mountains… From a Sardinian perspective, I’d say hills. Someone made a suggestion to include rolling hills to make flatland-hills not so steep of a separation. That would be best.
I think it depends on what one perceives as flat or hilly from where they grew up. The picture you replied to makes no sense for my eyes to be flatland, but I can imagine if you grow up next to mountains that it’s nothing. Though there is clearly a difference between literally flat and some elevation and variety in the terrain, which imo should be implemented.
