Tinto Maps #12 - 26th of July 2024 - Germany

[Pavía]

View attachment 1168153
Carniola divides Goriska on two parts

Already noted, we'll review it.

 

[Oboe]

OH BABY THAT IS ONE FAIR VERONA

 

[ShinsukeNakamura]

Is Western Pomeranian considered a Slavic or Germanic culture? If the former, then it should not be separate from Polabian (and should simply be called Polabian). If it is Germanic, then its area of occurrence in 1337 is too large and too compact. German colonization of Mecklenburg was still ongoing and many Slavic names are still recorded from that period.

The island of Rugia should definitely be considered Polabian - a few years before the starting date it had a native dynasty, whose members had clearly Slavic names. The names of the nobility from this and later periods are largely Slavic (the Slavic nobility and residents of large centers were the first to undergo voluntary Germanization.
I will write more about Polabians later - I need to collect the sources available to me to propose Polabian names and locations.

I will write more about the Polabians later - I need to collect the sources available to me to propose Polabian names and locations.I am very happy that the culture in the Dannenberg province is Polabian - the Slavic language has survived for a very long time in these areas, which were later called Wendland (Wend = Slav) - the last person speaking Polabian died in 1756, so not that long ago.

A question for the devs - will there be any countries with Polabian primary culture available on the launch date and will there be any Polabian formables?

 

[ibvfteh]

Hello, and welcome to another new Tinto Maps! I’m back to duty, after the review of Italy that we posted last Thursday, and Johan taking care of Scandinavia last Friday. Today we will be taking a look at Germany! This region comprises the modern territories of Czechia, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. However, for most of the timeline in Project Caesar, it was better known as the Holy Roman Empire. This organization once was a feudal empire elevated from the Kingdom of the Germans, but by 1337 was mostly disaggregated into a multitude of temporal and ecclesiastical jurisdictions, with only a tenuous feudal relationship with their Emperor.

Let’s start diving deep into this nightmare, then…

Countries:
View attachment 1167612
I’m showing here a bit more of what the region is, so you can have a clear depiction of how it looks compared to the neighboring regions we’ve previously shown (and so that the Reddit guy who is patchworking the world map has an easier day ). What I can say about this when the map speaks for itself… The lands of Germany are highly fractured among different principalities, making for an extremely complex political situation. The Emperor in 1337 was Louis IV von Wittelsbach of Upper Bavaria… Because, yes, Bavaria is also divided. He is married to Margaret of Avesnes, daughter of Count William of Hainaut, Holland, and Zelland, while his son Louis is the Margrave of Brandenburg. But probably the strongest power of the period is the Kingdom of Bohemia, whose king John also Duke Luxembourg and rules over both lands in a personal union, while also being overlord of the Margraviate of Moravia, ruler by his son Charles, and the Silesian principalities. The third contender probably is the Duchy of Austria, ruled by Albert II von Habsburg. He also rules over some lands in the formed Duchies of Swabia and Carinthia. There are also plenty of medium and small countries all over the region, with very different forms of government, which will probably make this HRE a very replayable experience…

Dynasties:
View attachment 1167613
The dynastical map of the HRE gives a nice picture of the situation explained in the previous one. The von Wittelsbach, de Luxembourg (John of Bohemia is considered of French culture, therefore it uses the French toponymic article ‘de’; if he would change to the German culture, then it would be the ‘von Luxembourg’ dynasty), and von Habsburg cover much of the map; you may note that the Wittelsbach rule over five different countries (Upper Bavaria, Lower Bavaria, the Palatinate of the Rhine, and Brandenburg); while the House of Luxembourg also control the Archbishopric of Trier through Balduin, uncle of King John. Other important dynasties, although in a secondary position, are the Welfen, von Mecklenburg, and Gryf, present in multiple countries to the north; the Askanier, who happen to control half of Upper Saxony, while the rest is in the hands of the von Wettin; and the von Görz, who rule over the Duchy of Tirol and the County of Gorizia.

HRE:
View attachment 1167615
We obviously have to repost the HRE IO map again here. The purple stripes mark the imperial territory, while the different types of members use different colors. We currently have these divisions in the IO: the Emperor (1, dark blue), Prince-Electors (4, light blue), Archbishop-Electors (3, medium blue), Free Imperial Cities (23, light green), Imperial Peasant Republics (2, orange), Imperial Prelates (44, white), and Regular Members (280, dark green). So, yeah, that make for a total of 357 countries that are part of the HRE. And before you ask: No, we won’t talk about its mechanics today, that will happen in future Tinto Talks.

Locations:
View attachment 1167616

Spoiler: Detailed Locations Maps

View attachment 1167617
View attachment 1167618
View attachment 1167619
View attachment 1167620

Germany has the highest density of locations in the world, as we wanted to portray the historical fragmentation of the HRE at the most detailed level of any Paradox GSG. There are a couple of things that we are aware of and we want to rework: the location connections (as in some places they are not obvious at all, and we want to make warfare in the HRE not impossible); and the transition between the German locations and those at their east, making it smoother (something that we will be doing in the review of Poland, Hungary and this region [e.g. for Bohemia]). A final comment: if you click on the spoiler button, you may be able to see 4 more detailed maps of the region.

Provinces:
View attachment 1167621
Map of provinces. As usual, suggestions are welcomed.

Areas:
View attachment 1167622
Areas. We are currently not happy with the area borders (or at least, one of our German content designers isn't, and let me note it while preparing the DD... ), as they reflect more modern areas so we will be looking into an alternative setup for them with your feedback. They also currently use their German names, which will change to English ones to be in line with other areas, as usual.

Terrain:
View attachment 1167623
View attachment 1167624
View attachment 1167625
Terrain mapmodes. The region is quite forested, in comparison to other parts of Europe.

Culture:
View attachment 1167626
Let’s open the Pandora box and take a look at the cultures! The German cultures have come through a couple of reworks, until we’ve found a spot in which we’re kind of happy (or, at least, our German content designers do not complain!). The German cultures are very linguistically related, as we thought that it would be the best starting point for 1337. Please let us know about your thoughts on them.

Religion:
View attachment 1167629
Boring religion map this week, as the region is overwhelmingly Catholic. There are Ashkenazi Jews in a bunch of places (a quick account: they’re present in 204 locations all over Central and Eastern Europe), and you may also see the Waldesians we added in the review of Italy last week.

Raw Materials:
View attachment 1167630
Raw materials! Plenty of!

Markets:
View attachment 1167632
The main market centers of the region are Cologne, Lúbeck, and Prague. We have reviewed them a couple of times, and this is the configuration that makes for a good setup historical and gameplay-wise. And you may also see Bruges, which has been reinstated as the main market of the Low Countries, after some tweaks.

Country and Location Population:
View attachment 1167633

Spoiler: Detailed Population Maps

View attachment 1167634
View attachment 1167635
View attachment 1167636

The population of the HRE is… Fragmented. In that regard, Bohemia starts in a very strong position, with a strong competitor to its south (Austria) and north (Brandenburg).

And that’s it for today! I hope that we didn’t drive you into madness with this map… Next week we will take to a very different region, the Maghreb! See you then!

Oberösterreich is in German but Lower Austria is in English

 

[Polesie Admiral]

will there be event or something to represent the partition succession of the wittelsbach lands even further(Straubing,Ingolstadt,Palatinate-Neuburg,Palatinate-Simmern etc)?

 

[FleetingRain]

We have a flexible approach to location size, with a lower limit of around 100 pixels; and then a rule of thumb that a location can be more than 3 times the size of a neighboring one, to ensure that there's a smooth-enough transition from a more-dense to less-dense regions.

I already mentioned in another post that for provinces, the accepted threshold is usually 3-10 locations, with the standard usually being 4-6, although they're also flexible limits.

Just to be sure, how big is 100 pixels in km²? Something like Andorra size?

Asking this all because I'm doing a Brazil map and want to make sure I'm not going overboard nor overly conservative with the locations.

 

[Pavía]

I’ll start with my suggestions for vegetation, since raw materials (I’m covering all of modern Germany) will take a while to post!

Here’s the map:
View attachment 1168146
I’ve colored in the vegetation types based on this vegetation map I made:
View attachment 1168115
Sources I used to make the map and comments:
Landscape Map from the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation
This map is useful because it has descriptions (and names) for all the different landscapes/regions in Germany. While this obviously depicts the current state, I’d argue that land use in general did not change that much in Germany between 1337 and today, aside from the effects of industrialization and urbanization. That is to say that the regions that are suitable for agriculture today, were also used for agriculture during the time period.
I individually researched the history of many different regions on the map, specifically the important agricultural regions and forests.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Soil Suitability for farming, low inputs, rain-fed. I imported the data to use with the game’s projection and applied color to the scale which results in this map:

View attachment 1168123
Combining historical importance of agriculture and soil suitability for farming results in the farmlands on the map.

For forests, I did individual research, as mentioned. Most of the forests that people would categorize as forest in in-game terms today actually only became that way in the 20th century. Before that, most woodland in Germany was under heavy use and some of today’s thick forests like the Black Forest were only 10% forested at times (the most extreme example might be the Teutoburg Forest which wasn't a forest at all). While the absolute minimum was probably somewhere around the 18th century (it depends on the region), we actually start the game at the end of a period of massive deforestation, caused by significant population growth and expansion of agricultural area to feed that population. Many of the new settlements founded in this period were abandoned after the Black Death (we’re talking about tens of thousands of villages in total) and forest cover increased for a while, but this changed again when proto-Industrial growth in early modern Germany led to increased fuel demand. Laws regarding use of forests and forestry were ubiquitous, of course, and during the entire course of the game, there was basically no forest in Germany that could be compared to the great ancient forests in other parts of the world - it was almost entirely woodlands that were in use economically.

Some comments on aspects of vegetation that are quite wrong in the posted map:
-In general there is too much woods/forest and not enough farmland, in my opinion. We’re talking about a highly developed region at the start of the game already, some areas had dense populations that supplied many settlers who moved to the East.
-Switzerland’s fertile region is misrepresented. Rather than extending along the Swiss Plateau, there are farmlands locations in the Jura Mountains, while locations with concentrated agriculture like Zurich don’t have farmlands vegetation
-The fertile stretch of land along the Rhine from the Palatinate to Wiesbaden is missing (other than the random farmlands on Mainz), this is part of the Upper Rhine Plain extending from Alsace. The part around Freiburg is impossible to represent with the way these locations are drawn, because they include both the Black Forest and the fertile farmland along the Rhine. See this map for a visualization of the whole plain. If locations are added or borders are adjusted, the geography here should probably be taken into account.
-The Middle Rhine Basin south-west of Koblenz with its fertile soil and microclimate - basically the Mayen location - is not farmlands and while I’m sure many others will point this out or have already done so, this location should probably be named Coblenz instead. There is another small location with super fertile farmland, the Nördlinger Ries (an impact crater) in the Donauwörth location which isn't represented.
-The plains along the Lower Rhine and the Ruhr (Kölner Bucht, Jülicher Börde, Soester Börde) are not farmland for some reason. All of this was intensively farmed and the soil in this region is generally very fertile. It’s also a population center.
-The stretch of fertile farmland around the Harz (part of the large Central European Loess Zone stretching from Belgium to Ukraine), including the Calenberger Börde, Magdeburger Börde, Leipziger Bucht and Thüringer Becken, isn’t represented at all, other than one farmlands on Hannover. While this region’s modern importance is much lower than during the game's timespan due to it mostly having been part of communist East Germany, it has historically had the highest population density in Germany and is geologically quite blessed, having very fertile farmland surrounded by resource rich mountains.
-Some of the most famous and fertile farming regions in Germany, the Wetterau north of Frankfurt, the Kraichgau north of Stuttgart, the Dungau in eastern Bavaria and Mainfranken around Würzburg are not represented as farmlands at all.
-For some reason Bohemia & Moravia have no farmland? As pointed out in the OP, it was an important region with a high population, and it certainly had some developed and fertile farmland!

Considering the fact that there will probably be a lot of location suggestions for the HRE, I'll refrain from making an extensive topography suggestion post this time around. I will instead make it once the eventual Feedback map drops.

In any case, I think there is room for A LOT of topographic changes, as some delineations are off (NW-Germany), some elevated regions are underrepresented (Swabian Jura / Bavarian foothills), other flatlands are underrepresented (Southern Bohemia), some mountainous locations are out of place (Salzburg), while some mountainous regions are too flat (Hillein-Kirchdorf).

There are many, many more suggestions I'd like to make, but again, I'll delay that till the feedback map drops in a few months.
In the meantime, I'll just post my usual DEM and TRI maps, first row with Location overlay, second row without.

This map is imo another demonstration why I feel Low/Rolling hills would be a valuable addition to the topography categories. Dinant to be considered flatlands feels very wrong, but is understandably not grouped together with the hills of the Eifel region.

Important note for the plateau's on my TRI map in somewhat hilly regions: there is wiggle room here to choose between hills or plateau's. (e.g. SW-Bohemia)
This is because low, rolling hills on a region of >500 metres are considered 'plateau', as the relative impact of those hills is relatively minor in relation to those same differences on flatlands.

Current Tinto design with Location overlay	Topographic categorisation according to TRI classification	Linear DEM Topography (0-1500 m)	DEM with exaggerated lower topography (0-1500 m)
View attachment 1168132	View attachment 1168133	View attachment 1168137	View attachment 1168138
View attachment 1168139	View attachment 1168140	View attachment 1168142	View attachment 1168143

Thank you guys for these long and well-informed posts! As usual, it's a pleasure to read your feedback.

 

[Dongerino]

Negative. Opava was divided from Moravia somewhere at the start of the game but it was not added to Silesia, It was its own thing. It was integrated into Silesia only during 17th century.

Well, it's too small to be its own thing and if it was integrated into Silesia in the 17th century, that still makes it more ingame time being a part of Silesia than Moravia, doesn't it?

 

[Pavía]

Questions here.

Will Switzerland be scripted to form?

And if you do form Switzerland. Will it be a country tag or an international organization?

Oh, yes, Switzerland. We're considering making the Swiss Confederation an IO, at least in its initial stage of formation, yes!

 

[Pavía]

It just feels wrong that the location of Prague has only population of 22k while other locations especially Brno(122k !!!) has so much more pops in Bohemia and Moravia. I know that Prague hasn't been built up by Charles IV. yet but still. How can Brno have so much more pops?! My only qualification to doubt these numbers is that I live in Prague and study in Brno so basically none... I'm just flabbergasted that's all.

We'll review it, as usual.

 

[MebKohu]

Any plans for the imperial circles in 1500?

 

[Znikii]

1. We'll check.
2. We'll check.
3. It might be, although we have to review this.
4. For the Imperial Crown? No, that's handled through mechanics.

Will share later today that might help.

Not the imperial crown, sry wasnt clear enough. I meant between themselvea, since alot of those dynasties had close or distant marriges and relatives....

 

[Pavía]

Something I'll always ask when it comes to the HRE, do we have partition inheritance? A big part of the HRE being the HRE is small states partitioning upon succession and getting even smaller, only the electors (and later Austria) had the right to primogeniture.

Yes, we have it!

 

[Bohemian_warlord]

Well, it's too small to be its own thing and if it was integrated into Silesia in the 17th century, that still makes it more ingame time being a part of Silesia than Moravia, doesn't it?

No, it was de jure its own thing, but de facto tied to Moravia at the start of the game. 1648-1337=311

O knížectví Opavském a jeho povinnosti k Moravě.
Knížectví Opavské i s tím knížetem od starodávna ku pomoci tohoto Markrabství vždy jest bývalo a býti má a v jiná knížectví nesluší; neb jest to knížectví vysazeno z Moravy a vyňato, jakožto i k biskupství Moravskému sluší. Než což se práva dotyče, v tom své vlastní vysazení má a soud svůj: ani kníže ani kdo z toho knížectví má neb může sem k tomu právu pohnán býti, ale tam se souditi má. Než to z práva jest, že když tam páni a zemané več uhoditi nemohou a strany toho žádají anebo že se jim samým zdá, tehdy spíší pře oboje na cedulích a k tomu listy, jsú-li jaké stranám potřebné v svúj list zavrúce zapečetí a s tím sudího vypraví na sněm panský sem do Moravy, žádajíc a prosíc p. hejtmana, úředníkův a pánův za naučení a ortel. Páni to ohlédajíc a rozvážíc na tom jim nález svůj psaný pošlí pod pečetí páně hejtmanovú a úředníkův z Olomúce neb Brna, kdež se to jedná, pře sobě napsané zachovajíc a listův, ač jsú které, přípisy nechají; než listy jim zase dají, též v svém listu zapečetěné pošlí a ty tam před právem mají otevřeny býti a stranám čten ortel. A strany jsou povinny tomu nálezu dosti učiniti bez dalšího odvolání a zde v zemi též od nálezu pisaři jako jiní dáti mají. Také kníže Opavské můž zde v právě seděti; neb se nalézá, že jsou páni dopouštěli při sobě v soudě knížatóm Opavským sedati.

from "Kniha drnovská" by Ctibor Drnovský z Drnovic (1535)

 

[Domina Arberiae]

Controversial opinion: The religious mapmode in this section is the best mapmode.

 

[Pavía]

There's something that I've been curious about for a long time and now that a tinto maps about HRE/Germany is here, a good place to ask.

1. Are there multiple ways to dismantle the HRE? Like the Emperor losing multiple war in a row against non-HRE nations
2. Is the unification of the HRE into one nation an exclusive feature to the HRE Emperor while other nations of german culture only get the option to become Germany? Or is the formation of Germany impossible as long as the HRE exist?
3. When you form Germany, will it become one nation or is it going to be a Federation? If it becomes a federation, will it create a new IO?

We will talk more about the HRE in a Tinto Talks in the future.

 

[Em Ay Ef]

Despite feedback for France this:

is still a flatlands, so good luck on getting accurate Karkonosze.

While at the same time, the Chilterns are hills.

 

[Malatesta]

Hello, and welcome to another new Tinto Maps! I’m back to duty, after the review of Italy that we posted last Thursday, and Johan taking care of Scandinavia last Friday. Today we will be taking a look at Germany! This region comprises the modern territories of Czechia, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. However, for most of the timeline in Project Caesar, it was better known as the Holy Roman Empire. This organization once was a feudal empire elevated from the Kingdom of the Germans, but by 1337 was mostly disaggregated into a multitude of temporal and ecclesiastical jurisdictions, with only a tenuous feudal relationship with their Emperor.

Let’s start diving deep into this nightmare, then…

Countries:
View attachment 1167612
I’m showing here a bit more of what the region is, so you can have a clear depiction of how it looks compared to the neighboring regions we’ve previously shown (and so that the Reddit guy who is patchworking the world map has an easier day ). What I can say about this when the map speaks for itself… The lands of Germany are highly fractured among different principalities, making for an extremely complex political situation. The Emperor in 1337 was Louis IV von Wittelsbach of Upper Bavaria… Because, yes, Bavaria is also divided. He is married to Margaret of Avesnes, daughter of Count William of Hainaut, Holland, and Zelland, while his son Louis is the Margrave of Brandenburg. But probably the strongest power of the period is the Kingdom of Bohemia, whose king John also Duke Luxembourg and rules over both lands in a personal union, while also being overlord of the Margraviate of Moravia, ruler by his son Charles, and the Silesian principalities. The third contender probably is the Duchy of Austria, ruled by Albert II von Habsburg. He also rules over some lands in the formed Duchies of Swabia and Carinthia. There are also plenty of medium and small countries all over the region, with very different forms of government, which will probably make this HRE a very replayable experience…

Dynasties:
View attachment 1167613
The dynastical map of the HRE gives a nice picture of the situation explained in the previous one. The von Wittelsbach, de Luxembourg (John of Bohemia is considered of French culture, therefore it uses the French toponymic article ‘de’; if he would change to the German culture, then it would be the ‘von Luxembourg’ dynasty), and von Habsburg cover much of the map; you may note that the Wittelsbach rule over five different countries (Upper Bavaria, Lower Bavaria, the Palatinate of the Rhine, and Brandenburg); while the House of Luxembourg also control the Archbishopric of Trier through Balduin, uncle of King John. Other important dynasties, although in a secondary position, are the Welfen, von Mecklenburg, and Gryf, present in multiple countries to the north; the Askanier, who happen to control half of Upper Saxony, while the rest is in the hands of the von Wettin; and the von Görz, who rule over the Duchy of Tirol and the County of Gorizia.

HRE:
View attachment 1167615
We obviously have to repost the HRE IO map again here. The purple stripes mark the imperial territory, while the different types of members use different colors. We currently have these divisions in the IO: the Emperor (1, dark blue), Prince-Electors (4, light blue), Archbishop-Electors (3, medium blue), Free Imperial Cities (23, light green), Imperial Peasant Republics (2, orange), Imperial Prelates (44, white), and Regular Members (280, dark green). So, yeah, that make for a total of 357 countries that are part of the HRE. And before you ask: No, we won’t talk about its mechanics today, that will happen in future Tinto Talks.

Locations:
View attachment 1167616

Spoiler: Detailed Locations Maps

View attachment 1167617
View attachment 1167618
View attachment 1167619
View attachment 1167620

Germany has the highest density of locations in the world, as we wanted to portray the historical fragmentation of the HRE at the most detailed level of any Paradox GSG. There are a couple of things that we are aware of and we want to rework: the location connections (as in some places they are not obvious at all, and we want to make warfare in the HRE not impossible); and the transition between the German locations and those at their east, making it smoother (something that we will be doing in the review of Poland, Hungary and this region [e.g. for Bohemia]). A final comment: if you click on the spoiler button, you may be able to see 4 more detailed maps of the region.

Provinces:
View attachment 1167621
Map of provinces. As usual, suggestions are welcomed.

Areas:
View attachment 1167622
Areas. We are currently not happy with the area borders (or at least, one of our German content designers isn't, and let me note it while preparing the DD... ), as they reflect more modern areas so we will be looking into an alternative setup for them with your feedback. They also currently use their German names, which will change to English ones to be in line with other areas, as usual.

Terrain:
View attachment 1167623
View attachment 1167624
View attachment 1167625
Terrain mapmodes. The region is quite forested, in comparison to other parts of Europe.

Culture:
View attachment 1167626
Let’s open the Pandora box and take a look at the cultures! The German cultures have come through a couple of reworks, until we’ve found a spot in which we’re kind of happy (or, at least, our German content designers do not complain!). The German cultures are very linguistically related, as we thought that it would be the best starting point for 1337. Please let us know about your thoughts on them.

Religion:
View attachment 1167629
Boring religion map this week, as the region is overwhelmingly Catholic. There are Ashkenazi Jews in a bunch of places (a quick account: they’re present in 204 locations all over Central and Eastern Europe), and you may also see the Waldesians we added in the review of Italy last week.

Raw Materials:
View attachment 1167630
Raw materials! Plenty of!

Markets:
View attachment 1167632
The main market centers of the region are Cologne, Lúbeck, and Prague. We have reviewed them a couple of times, and this is the configuration that makes for a good setup historical and gameplay-wise. And you may also see Bruges, which has been reinstated as the main market of the Low Countries, after some tweaks.

Country and Location Population:
View attachment 1167633

Spoiler: Detailed Population Maps

View attachment 1167634
View attachment 1167635
View attachment 1167636

The population of the HRE is… Fragmented. In that regard, Bohemia starts in a very strong position, with a strong competitor to its south (Austria) and north (Brandenburg).

And that’s it for today! I hope that we didn’t drive you into madness with this map… Next week we will take to a very different region, the Maghreb! See you then!

Maghreb…and Canary Islands?

 

[JJZ99]

Where is Hohenzollern btw? I cant find them on the map. Did they exist by this time?

 

[Duc]

Looking at these maps, I have seen the face of God.