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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.
Not really. Sure, if you think of Scandinavia as representing the pan-national movement of the 1840s, then it is anachronistic. But the Kalmar Union is totally in period, so it is hardly something you can say can’t be done. And looking at the UK using the appalation Great Britain, and the union of Castille and Aragon becoming Espania, it is not unrealistic that a true union of the Nordics would also refer to itself using the Latin term for the region - Scandinavia.
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 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.
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.
This a great post and, as a Finnish history major, I can certainly support almost all the changes proposed here and really hope they get implemented. Especially the ones concerning cultures because what was shown in the original Tinto maps post was certainly a step in the right direction but there were some severe inaccuracies mainly about the spread of Sámi, Finnish and Tavastian cultures. These problems have been discussed in many replies in this thread. However, I find Ipponen’s suggestion most comprehensive and historically accurate and really wish that the spread of cultures is fixed in a way that he proposes. I also find his version of locations in modern day Lapland excellent as they match the historical Siidas well and much better than in the original Paradox version. I find these two changes the most crucial as not implementing them would, in my opinion, break the historical immersion regarding Finland and make the region much less enjoyable to play compared to what it would be if these changes are made.
The changes about provinces and rest of the locations proposed here are also good and would increase historical accuracy and I would like to see them implemented. However, I don’t find them crucial and as something that really needs to be changed, unlike the spread of cultures and the locations in Lapland.
While I said that I support most of the changes proposed by Ipponen, there are thing that I disagree with. First, I think that the areas controlled by Sweden in Finland are better the way they were originally shown and shouldn’t be expanded. Second one is about a specific location in Karelian isthmus. I really don’t think that Koivisto/Björkö should be removed. It indeed wasn’t its own parish in 1337. However, according to Finnish historian and professor Yrjö Kaukiainen, it was a seasonal summertime marketplace from 13th until 15th century. He makes his claim based on the peculiar taxation regulations set by the crown which greatly differed from neighboring places and indicate that trade significant importance in Koivisto. From 16th century onwards Koivisto grew to be one of the most important centers of rural peasant maritime activities in all of Finland and it’s merchant navy with it’s estimated 40 sail ships being the same size as many Finnish town, despite not having town rights. (Kaukiainen, Koiviston merenkulun historia I, 1975, p. 18-39, 108-110.)
When I first read this TT there were several suggestions that came to my mind, and I was planning to make a long post about them but this post by Ipponen handled most of them so I decided that commenting on this will be enough. However I’ll make separate post down below about the possible break down of Sámi cultures, because it wasn’t handled in this post.
About Sámi culture: as Finnish culture has been split to smaller ones, i believe the Sámi culture should be split too since in 1337 there were already 12 different Sámi languages. I don't think adding that many Sámi cultures would make much sense gameplay wise which leaves us with few sensible options to split the Sámi culture. Sámi languages are divided into two linguistic groups, West Sámi languages and East Sámi languages. Western languages are divided into Southwestern languages, which consist of Southern Sámi, Ume Sámi and Gävle Sámi (dead since early 19th century), and into Central western languages, which consist of Northern Sámi, Lule Sámi and Pite Sámi. Lule Sámi and Pite Sámi form their own sub group. East Sámi languages are divided into Mainland Eastern Sámi, which consists of Inari Sámi, Skolt Sámi, Akkala Sámi (dead since 2003), Kemi Sámi (dead since 19th century) and possibly Kainuu Sámi (dead since 18th century, whether it was it's own language or just Kemi Sámi dialect is debated), and into Peninsular eastern Sámi, which consists of Kildin Sámi and Ter Sámi.
From this I find three sensible options:
1. Split the culture in two: Eastern and Western Sámi. The border between cultures should look like this:
Or if we use Ipponen's map (which I think we should) the border should look like this:
2. Split the culture into four sub-groups: Mainland Eastern Sámi, Peninsular Eastern Sámi, Central Western Sámi and Southwestern Sámi. Culture borders would look like this (I've drawn the borders from coast to coast, but this doesn't mean that Sámi culture should be everywhere on the coast of Gulf of Bothnia):
Or again with Ipponen's map:
3. A mix that would have Western Sámi, Eastern Sámi and Northern Sámi as it's the largest Sámi language
Out of these three numbers 1 and 3 are my favourites because the names in number 2 sound a bit awkward to me.
In any case to put it shortly, the borders should mainly follow modern sámi language borders as they have been quite static as far as I know. The Sámi areas in central Finland should be part of the eastern group since the Sámi language(s) spoken there has most likely been Kemi Sámi or closely related to it.
Kajana should beOsterbotnia not Savolax. Olonets location even now (after 700 yearsof game) majority Karelian. In game it is purely Russian. I don'tthink it is good idea to have that junk land in White Karelia. I wasimportat area in Karelia, and there Elias Lönnrot collectedKalevala.
First of all let me express my appreciation for the great work that has already been done and the historical accuracy that this game strives for. Especially the fact that community feedback is actually being implemented in this game is amazing and I hope you will be able to make the greatest grand strategy game yet.
I do however have a list of notes and revision suggestions mostly for Finland. Many people have already given such suggestions and given much more detailed suggestions on things such as on proper location names than I feasibly could, but I think all of these are very important for gameplay in the region. Many of the things I suggest I have already seen being mentioned by others, but not all.
1.
The treaty of Nöteborg famously is the first border agreement of its kind and was made in 1323. So it is quite strange to me that the easternmost border of Sweden does not follow the specified treaty. It is indeed true that the northern border of the treaty is vague and wasn't enforced nor was it controlled by either Sweden or Novgorod. But southernmost part wasn't as vague. In the 16th century there was dispute of what was actually agreed upon and we have all plausible versions. The disagreements are on the northern part of the peace treaty, not the southern part.
Thus the southern border should follow this map as shown in the source I provided. The specific list of border points, that can be found below, was clear up to Lake Saimaa after which the actual agreed upon course was quite unclear and is still a subject of debate among scholars.
list of border points according to three different versions of the treaty.
Result of said border points. The southern part of the border was pretty clear and PC should follow this
2.
I am quite perplexed by the sea tile size and especially the differences in size and the lack of any clear rule set that would determine their size. Now sure, maybe there is a logical explanation for this, but I mean just look at this:
Why does the White sea have around 6 times more density in sea tiles than the Gulf of Bothnia? It's not like the Gulf of Bothnia has particularly low traffic during the course of the game even though right not it has quite a low population. Later on it will be a important area known for it's ship building, trade with Stockholm and it's sailors. I'm not saying the White sea is unimportant, but I am saying that the Baltic sea had way more traffic and certainly way more naval combat than the White sea ever did.
And no, the White sea is not the outlier. Though it has a lot of density I'd say the perplexing part is the lack of density in the Baltic sea. Compared to all other coastal areas the size of the Coastal sea tiles are very large. Compared to how important the Baltic sea was in terms of trade and naval combat I really can not see a clear explanation for this other than that this areas coastal tiles have not been brought up to date with the other areas. Since this map is apparently one of the oldest.
I suggest that the coastal sea tile sizes of the Baltic Sea should be at least around the same size as the ones on the Norwegian coast
3.
I think other people have explained this better than I could, but the landscape of Finland is nothing if not "the land of a thousand lakes". 10% of all Finnish territory is covered by lakes, with a land area of 304 000 km^2 and a fresh water area of 34 500 km^2. Other people have specified what exactly should be added, but on that I just have to say: add a lot more lakes.
4.
Marshes. Where did they go? Around 1/3 of Finland is swamps according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. I was very surprised when the map had none. Here I guess this can also be explained by the fact that the game has developed and maybe swamps weren't a thing when Finland was made.
This map shows the swamps in Finland, with 0(red) meaning entirely drained and the vegetation has changed and 5(green) meaning the swamp is in its natural state Source
5.
There's way too many Swedes in Finland. Oh, and also in Project Caesar there might be too many Swedes in Finland.
Better post about this:
(I don't have much to add, just had to make the joke. Sorry)
6.
The Finnish archipelago sea has around 40 000 islands of which 257 are larger than a square kilometer. It's still the largest archipelago in Europe and should be depicted by more than just a couple little islands. In my opinion the island chain should go up to Åland.
I decided to expand a bit on Killerrabbits map in Hordaland.
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I added 3 New Locations. Sveio, Kvam and Sotra. I also expanded on Ullesvang and renamed it Hardanger. Bergen was also Expanded and Voss shrinked. I also think a new sea tile (Narrows) would be neat to better simulate a potential naval invasion of Bergen. I based the Location borders on making sure the pixel count is good (Why Bergen Owns Osterøy) And Settlement Locations. ( Take the naming and exact location borders with a grain of salt as i am not an expert on Hordaland nor a Historian) Map i used
This a great post and, as a Finnish history major, I can certainly support almost all the changes proposed here and really hope they get implemented. Especially the ones concerning cultures because what was shown in the original Tinto maps post was certainly a step in the right direction but there were some severe inaccuracies mainly about the spread of Sámi, Finnish and Tavastian cultures. These problems have been discussed in many replies in this thread. However, I find Ipponen’s suggestion most comprehensive and historically accurate and really wish that the spread of cultures is fixed in a way that he proposes. I also find his version of locations in modern day Lapland excellent as they match the historical Siidas well and much better than in the original Paradox version. I find these two changes the most crucial as not implementing them would, in my opinion, break the historical immersion regarding Finland and make the region much less enjoyable to play compared to what it would be if these changes are made.
The changes about provinces and rest of the locations proposed here are also good and would increase historical accuracy and I would like to see them implemented. However, I don’t find them crucial and as something that really needs to be changed, unlike the spread of cultures and the locations in Lapland.
While I said that I support most of the changes proposed by Ipponen, there are thing that I disagree with. First, I think that the areas controlled by Sweden in Finland are better the way they were originally shown and shouldn’t be expanded.
Second one is about a specific location in Karelian isthmus. I really don’t think that Koivisto/Björkö should be removed. It indeed wasn’t its own parish in 1337. However, according to Finnish historian and professor Yrjö Kaukiainen, it was a seasonal summertime marketplace from 13th until 15th century. He makes his claim based on the peculiar taxation regulations set by the crown which greatly differed from neighboring places and indicate that trade significant importance in Koivisto. From 16th century onwards Koivisto grew to be one of the most important centers of rural peasant maritime activities in all of Finland and it’s merchant navy with it’s estimated 40 sail ships being the same size as many Finnish town, despite not having town rights. (Kaukiainen, Koiviston merenkulun historia I, 1975, p. 18-39, 108-110.)
I agree with this. The only reason I didn't have Koivisto on my map was because I wanted to preserve the historical borders of Viipuri, and if Koivisto were to be carved out of these borders it would end up being pretty small and possibly make the location density in the Karelian isthmus too high for Paradox. Personally I wouldn't mind this. Many wars were fought in the area, so a slightly higher location density would just make combat more interesting.
The reason why I wanted to preserve the historical shape of Viipuri, with the parish reaching all the way down to Koivisto, was because a state border could've plausibly been drawn there. Kyösti Julku suspects in his book Suomen itärajan synty that before the Treaty of Nöteborg the Swedish sphere of interest reached as far as Viipuri, with the pre-Nöteborg border closely matching the territory of the later Viipuri parish. One of the reasons he believes that Viipuri was already within Swedish control at the time is that the treaty of Nöteborg makes no mention of Viipuri as one of the areas being ceded from Novgorod to Sweden. For the control reaching all the way down to Koivisto, he bases his reasoning on the development of how Novgorod guaranteed the protection of German and Gutnish traders in the area. In 1270, Koivisto was part of Novgorod according to the traders, but it seems the situation was unstable. Interestingly the issue of protection near Koivisto was not brought up later. Instead, Swedish control over trade in the area increased, evidenced by the fact that in 1285 King Magnus of Sweden forbade Gutnish traders from selling weapons to the Karelians. If Sweden did not have control in the area, they couldn't have given such instructions.
When Novgorod became part of Moscow, Moscow demanded the return of the three parishes Sweden received in the Treaty of Nöteborg, Savilahti (Savonia), Jääski and Äyräpää. If Moscow had received what they demanded and if Julku's theory is to be believed, this would mean that the border could've been redrawn such that Viipuri and Koivisto would've remained part of Sweden. If the theory isn't true, Julku still suspects the border between Viipuri and Äyräpää to be quite old, though the earliest border point lists are only known from the 15th century. Sweden would've certainly tried to preserve as much land as possible in a hypothetical renegotation of the border, so if at the time the parish borders were the same as in the 15th century, they could've used them as reasons to keep Koivisto.
Perhaps to balance out the density some locations could be merged, but I'd like to preserve the locations I currently have, especially Kivennapa/Kivinebb. Not only does the existence Kivennapa force units to go through two locations to reach Viipuri when approaching from the south, I think it's also a good way to represent the so-called Riitamaa, literally Dispute Land. Riitamaa was a disputed territory in the area of Kivennapa outlined by two branches of the border river Siestarjoki (Sestroretsk). Before the Treaty of Teusina in 1595, Swedes and Russians had differing views on which branch of the river the border followed, as they both wanted the fertile Riitamaa for themselves. This of course lead to skirmishes and even contributed to wars. Sources: https://kivennapaseura.fi/?page_id=2573 and https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suuri_Venäjän_sota.
Though I haven't been able to identify the borders of Riitamaa myself on a modern map, it seems to be closely associated with Kivennapa, which is why I think having Kivennapa in the game with its historical borders would be great.
About Sámi culture: as Finnish culture has been split to smaller ones, i believe the Sámi culture should be split too since in 1337 there were already 12 different Sámi languages. I don't think adding that many Sámi cultures would make much sense gameplay wise which leaves us with few sensible options to split the Sámi culture. Sámi languages are divided into two linguistic groups, West Sámi languages and East Sámi languages. Western languages are divided into Southwestern languages, which consist of Southern Sámi, Ume Sámi and Gävle Sámi (dead since early 19th century), and into Central western languages, which consist of Northern Sámi, Lule Sámi and Pite Sámi. Lule Sámi and Pite Sámi form their own sub group. East Sámi languages are divided into Mainland Eastern Sámi, which consists of Inari Sámi, Skolt Sámi, Akkala Sámi (dead since 2003), Kemi Sámi (dead since 19th century) and possibly Kainuu Sámi (dead since 18th century, whether it was it's own language or just Kemi Sámi dialect is debated), and into Peninsular eastern Sámi, which consists of Kildin Sámi and Ter Sámi.
From this I find three sensible options:
1. Split the culture in two: Eastern and Western Sámi. The border between cultures should look like this:View attachment 1167603
Or if we use Ipponen's map (which I think we should) the border should look like this: View attachment 1167604
2. Split the culture into four sub-groups: Mainland Eastern Sámi, Peninsular Eastern Sámi, Central Western Sámi and Southwestern Sámi. Culture borders would look like this (I've drawn the borders from coast to coast, but this doesn't mean that Sámi culture should be everywhere on the coast of Gulf of Bothnia):View attachment 1167637
Or again with Ipponen's map: View attachment 1167639
Out of these three numbers 1 and 3 are my favourites because the names in number 2 sound a bit awkward to me.
In any case to put it shortly, the borders should mainly follow modern sámi language borders as they have been quite static as far as I know. The Sámi areas in central Finland should be part of the eastern group since the Sámi language(s) spoken there has most likely been Kemi Sámi or closely related to it.
It's kind of a bummer that the Sámi groupings have such bland names. The tribes in Finland and the Baltics have proper names like Tavastian, Karelian, Estonian, Latgalian, Samogitian and Aukstaitian, while the Sámi languages and language groups are just [Geographical description] Sámi apart from the Skolts. Skolt is such a cool name and I wish the other Sámi groups similar interesting names.
This is obviously not meant to be an in game map, but provocation for someone else to make a better one. As a base I used jat85's map and OpenTopoMap, of course they did not line up perfectly. Did an edge detect for the latter and drew over that some of the largest islands or groups of islands. So there's not all of them, not because I would not want them but because I think PDX has some minimum size for islands, even when they're not a single location.
Red and yellow are today's Åland, green is mostly today's Parainen. I don't know how the administrative divisions went in 1337. Red ones should obviously by Åland. Green ones either added to the mainland locations, or made into a new location. Parainen could be it's name as the name has been known from 12th century. Originally Finnish, according to wiki Swedes became a majority in 14th century. Swedish name Pargas. Whether the yellow ones should be part of Åland or Parainen or their own location, I don't know.
I separated the yellows from the reds inspired by the maps in this. The story, without a map, in English wiki. I've also heard the story with no mention of Ramstedt and the Japanese spotting the fakery by themselves, I guess both like to stress their own role.
EDIT: Apparently also Åland was under the bishopry of Åbo, perhaps that should be reflected in the game provinces.
I think Parainen is a good choice for the archipelago location. Apparently it has even been called the capital of the Turku Archipelago. I was thinking about what resource the location could have, and apparently Parainen has a long history of limestone mining, dating back to the 17th century and possibly even the 14th century. Limestone burning has apparently also been a common source of livelihood for coastal peasants. I wonder what in-game resource would represent limestone the best. Just stone? It seems lime is often burned in so called lime kilns to make quicklime, which doesn't seem to be used for construction or anything I'd suspect plain stone to be used for. It could also be that the I'm exaggerating importance of limestone mining in the area.
There have been many great posts about the Finnish map. I have been doing some research, too, and I think I have something to add.
Firstly, some have noted that there are not very many lakes in the Finnish map at the moment, and I agree that there should be many more. In the Italian map, for example, lakes as small as 57 km2 have been added, so I think there should be room fore more representation of this aspect of the Finnish geography. I have made a map of Finnish lakes with an area larger than 100 km2, color-coded so that in case of the cut-off point being lower, the map can still be used. Red lakes have an area in excess of 1000 km2, orange ones with an excess of 500 km2, yellow with more than 250 km2, teal with more than 150 km2. The rest are coloured blue. I have drawn the lakes to avoid very narrow isthmuses...
I mostly agree with this, I have small additional changes to Torakka's names. Personallly I would change Halikko to Sauvo/Sagu, which is in the red dot of my screenshot. While Halikko was important settlement and appears in many old maritime maps, I think that Sauvo was more influential as it had more old manors owned by swedish nobility. Diocese of Turku also owned some land in there and its bishops wage was also collected from there. Or it could be changed also to Paimio, Pemar in swedish, as it seems it was important enough, so Olaus Magnus put it in his Carta Marina, as seen in my second screenshot. But no matter what its name will be, it should produce sturdy grains.
I would also suggest Isokyrö/Storkyro having raw resource of iron in it, as it had important Vittinki iron mine. Nice news article about the mine.
In my last post I mentioned ojamo mine in Lohja, but if locations are adjusted like jat85 suggested, then the mine would be in Sjundeå/Siuntio, which is neighbouring town.
Edit:
More about raw materials. It seems, that Åland had several lead mines but gameplaywise I don't think that would be good resource there. Pernaja, which is close to Porvoo had couple lead mines, so I think that location of Porvoo/Bårgo could have lead as raw material. Finland also had copper mines, and I think that gameplaywise Korsholm (Mustasaari in finnish) could have copper as raw material, as it had coppermine and is far enough from other mines to spread them little for gameplay purposes. There could be at least one location with medicaments, maybe in Lappland, as for example Rhodiola rosea, which was used as medicine, grows there. Also Finland should have more sturdy grains all around. Maybe even remove wheat if there is not something that needs it, and cannot use sturdy grains. There was wheat in Finland, but very little compared to rye, barley and oat.
Later edit: added some more sources, in finnish unfortunately.
Not because it is something that strictly happened in history but because regional formables provide gameplay goals. I expect most regions to have at least one formable, which will be the most plausible or interesting alternative available. I think this is a case where strict historicity takes the backseat to gameplay.
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 View attachment 1165159
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.
View attachment 1165164
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 View attachment 1165169
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 View attachment 1165173
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 View attachment 1165174
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.
Cultures View attachment 1165177
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.
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 View attachment 1165180
It is mostly lumber, fish, wild game, fur and iron. We of course have the famous copper mountain as well.
Markets View attachment 1165181
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.
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.
Loved that you knew about history of Satakunta, but wanted to throw my 5 cents into this:
Björneborg wasn't founded until 1558, although after that it became more important in that area than Ulvsby that predated it in the area.
I liked that you still kept Ulvsby in the map, but now it's location is kinda off now so I don't know how to feel about that (basically same location as Björneborg).
If you want old style names, Sastamala could also be called Sastamall as it was called so in a letter in 1300.
Norway is such a fun country to try out. Three different concentrations of population.. Viken, Tröndelag and the West Coast.. and connecting them by land is not really easily feasible.. Winters are long and harsh, and the raw materials of fish, lumber and wild game , while useful, are not as valuable as spices or gold.. There is a Silver Mine in Kongsberg (theoretically it should not be open yet, but..), but population levels are so low, that its hard to really exploit it..
Not really. Sure, if you think of Scandinavia as representing the pan-national movement of the 1840s, then it is anachronistic. But the Kalmar Union is totally in period, so it is hardly something you can say can’t be done. And looking at the UK using the appalation Great Britain, and the union of Castille and Aragon becoming Espania, it is not unrealistic that a true union of the Nordics would also refer to itself using the Latin term for the region - Scandinavia.
Why would it be called Kalmar Union over literally anything else? In our fictional timeline, there will be no coronation in Kalmar. Scandinavia is a good alt history name for a country that encompasses Scandinavia.
I doubt that many people referred to that entity much at all. It was three countries under the same monarch, not a unified one. In most cases you either refer to the relevant country or the monarch, not the nebulous "union". The Kalmar Union is more the concept of this personal union, not a country.
If the three kingdoms would've actually been united as a country, a geographical term would've been chosen as the proper name.
