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Tinto Maps #18 - 13th of September 2024 - Persia & Caucasus

Hello everyone, and welcome to one more Tinto Maps! Today we will be taking a look at Persia and the Caucasus! These are regions that encompass several modern-day countries and regions (Iraq, Iran, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Transoxiana, etc.), but for the sake of simplicity, we decided to name this DD this. Let’s start, without further ado!

Countries:
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Colored Wastelands.png

The region is quite interesting in 1337, as there are plenty of countries to play with. The Ilkhanate is still alive, but in name only, the real power being hosted by the Jalayirids, who are overlords of some of their neighbors (the Chobanids, and the Eretnids). Other countries, such as Gurgan, the Kartids, and Muzaffarids are also struggling to get the hegemony over the region. Meanwhile, the strongest power in the Caucasus is the Kingdom of Georgia, although the region is also quite fragmented among different polities.

Ilkhanate.png

And speaking of the Ilkhanate, you may have wondered why isn’t it a unified tag… Well, it’s because we consider that it is clearly in decadence, having lost any grasp of authority over the provinces, so the best way of portraying it is through an International Organization. What we can see in this mapmode is that there are two pretenders to get the power, the Jalayarids and Gurgan, with the other countries still being formally part of it. I won’t talk more today about how it works and its features, but I’ll just say that there are two clear fates for the Ilkhanate: being dissolved, as historically happened, or being restored in full power as a unified country.

Dynasties:
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Not much to say today about the dynasties, as they’re akin to the country names, in most cases. Well, you might wonder which one is the yellow one, ruling over Gurgan… That country is ruled by the Borgijin, heirs of Genghis Khan. Now you get the full picture of their rule over the Ilkhanate being challenged by the Jalayirids, I think…

Locations:
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Provinces:
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Areas:
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Terrain:
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We’re back to a region with lots of different climates, topography, and vegetation. This will make it very unique, gameplay and looking-wise.

Harbors:
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You might notice that there are ports in the Caspian Sea… Because, well, it’s considered a sea in our game, so there can be ships and navies over it.

Cultures:
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There's quite a lot of cultural division throughout the region... The Caucasus is, well, the Caucasus, divided among lots of different people. Then we have the Iraqi and Kurdish in Iraq, Persian and a number of other cultures in Iran, Baloch in Balochistan, Afghan in Afghanistan, and Khorasani, Turkmen, Khorezm, Hazara, and Tajiks, among others, in Khorasan and Transoxiana.

Religions:
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Another interesting religious situation. Orthodox is the main religion in Georgia, and Miaphysitism in Armenia, with other confessions spread here and there throughout the Caucasus (Khabzeism, and three 'Pagan' confessions, Karachay-Balkar, Vainakh, and Lezgin). Then Iraq is divided among Sunni, to the north, and Shiism, to the south. And Iran is in an interesting situation, having a Sunni majority, but with some important Shiite pockets here and there. And Zoroastrianism, of course. It was not trivial to properly portray them, as we don't have good data for the 14th century. So what we did was some calculations, between sources that tell that there was still a majority as late as the 11th century, and the religion becoming severely reduced by the 16th century. Therefore, we decided to go with 20% of the population as a general rule of thumb; however, we're quite open to feedback over this matter.

Raw Materials:
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This region is full of rich resources, in stark contrast to the one we showed last week, Arabia. There are a couple of bugs on this mapmode that you might spot, I think.

Markets:
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This region has several markets: Tabriz, Baghdad, Esfahan, Hormuz, Nishapur, and Zaranj., This will make for regionally fragmented-but-integrated economies (that is, good market access everyhwere, but with regionally diverging economies).

Population:
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The total population of the region is around 9M, taking into account all the different areas that we’re showing today. That is divided into about 4.5M in Iran, 2M in Iraq, 1.5M in the Caucasus, and around 1.5M in Transoxiana.

And that’s all for today! Next Friday we will be taking a look at India! Yes, in its entirety; we think that it is the best way to do it, although we’ll talk more about it next week. Another change, only for next week: the DD will be published at 10:00 instead of the regular 15:00, as I won’t be available in the afternoon to reply. Letting you know so there’s a proper wow-pole-run, yes. See you!
 

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Maybe a bit unrelated (and maybe already answered but if not) but can you give custom colours for International Organization mapmode? Instead of it looking as if they're just glorified subject types, where it's same colour regardless of what sort of IO it is?
It would be great to have something like an external border of the hre, like many maps portray it.
 
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Will I need maritime presence in the adjacent markets if I already own all the land locations?
Not needed, but it would potentially be a boost.
 
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Looking great!

I've been working on a map using various English sources and with suggestions from people to find the narrative for the start date, at April 1st 1337

Here's a link to the thread: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/the-ilkhanate-in-april-1st-1337.1700322/



And below is a very rough estimation of the borders that have resulted from said thread:

View attachment 1187142



And with the new map:

View attachment 1187282


You guys did an incredible job! Also I totally agree with the Jalayrids being purple!!
 
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@Pavía Will there eventually be a population map mode with color and gradient? Also, why is there basically no farmland in this region especially around the Tigris and Euphrates? It seems like farmland is too common in Europe and too rare outside of Europe.
We already have it, per country, although we're still working to improve it.
 
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Is there any plan to include the Yazidis/Yezidis interspersed among the Kurdish population either as a religion or as both a religious and cultural group? This is the time period where the Yazidi faith began gaining structure similar to what it is today.
 
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Is there any plan to include the Yazidis/Yezidis interspersed among the Kurdish population either as a religion or as both a religious and cultural group? This is the time period where the Yazidi faith began gaining structure similar to what it is today.
They are already in the game as a religion man, they around those purple stripes around Kurdistan.
 
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Why Shouldn’t the Great Wall of Gorgan Be Part of Project Tinto?

Here’s Why It Could Work

I think it would be awesome to see the Great Wall of Gorgan represented in Project Tinto! In Crusader Kings 3 (CK3), this incredible wall southeast of the Caspian Sea adds some great flavor and comes with unique modifiers:
  • +1 Fort Level
  • +25% Hostile Raid Time
  • +25% Garrison Size
  • -10% Building Construction Cost
If some folks think the wall would be too old to upgrade in the game, it could be treated like Hadrian's Wall in CK3, which gives a -10% Building Construction Gold Cost. This would reflect its state as a historic fortification — still solid, but not necessarily upgradable.

Plus, ancient cities' ruins often provided the materials needed to build new ones. For example, the Madinat as-Salam (City of Peace), built by Caliph Al-Mansur in 762 AD, was constructed using materials from the nearby ruins of Seleukeia Megale. So, even if the Great Wall of Gorgan is ancient, it could still be put to use!

Historically speaking, ancient structures often got a second life through reuse, which is a point in favor of adding the Great Wall of Gorgan to the game. For instance:

  • The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus (one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World) was partially dismantled in the 15th century by the Knights of St. John to fortify Bodrum Castle in modern-day Turkey. They took its marble and stones to build up the castle walls!
  • The Temple of Serapis in Pozzuoli, Italy, originally a grand Roman temple, had its stones and columns reused for local buildings in the Middle Ages. Bits and pieces of this ancient temple ended up in medieval churches and houses.
  • The Great Mosque of Cordoba in Spain, initially constructed using Roman and Visigothic ruins during the Umayyad rule, shows a mix of reused materials. When the Christians took over in the 13th century, they converted it into a cathedral, keeping both Islamic and Christian elements together. Talk about reusing and repurposing!
  • The Church of St. Donatus in Zadar, Croatia, built in the 9th century, was also constructed using parts of the nearby Roman forum ruins. Its walls are literally filled with Roman columns and stones. Reusing older structures was clearly a thing!
So why not apply a similar logic to Project Tinto?

Even if it’s old, the wall could still have some practical value. Maybe we could give it some cool modifiers like in CK3!

What do you all think? Would love to hear your thoughts!
 
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@Pavía I suppose you may be still deciding on it but that doesn't sound much right , you should either add the article "the" before the name of the dinasty(Sultanate of the Chobanids) or do like you did for empires and put the the title after the dinasty name in singular(Chobanid Sultanate);
View attachment 1187281
Personally I prefer the second option(at least for some arabs/muslims), it's shorter and rolls of the tongue better, Ottoman Beylik, Eretnid Sultanate, Safavid Empire...
2nd option is also the more accurate naming system for France and its sister republics during the revolutionary wars
 
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Great job guys, but on the cultural map I noticed a small inaccuracy: Lezgins also live in all the northern regions of Shirvan, Sheki and partly in the east of Georgia. And as a Lezgin, I’m very interested in how you implemented our paganism, I’m looking forward to the chance to play, thanks for your work.
 
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@Pavía I suppose you may be still deciding on it but that doesn't sound much right , you should either add the article "the" before the name of the dinasty(Sultanate of the Chobanids) or do like you did for empires and put the the title after the dinasty name in singular(Chobanid Sultanate);
View attachment 1187281
Personally I prefer the second option(at least for some arabs/muslims), it's shorter and rolls of the tongue better, Ottoman Beylik, Eretnid Sultanate, Safavid Empire...



Not to mention that at this time the Chobanids weren't in Iran, or atleast not their future leader, Hasan Kucek. He was at Karahisar, somewhere in Anatolia. He would form an army and march East to fight the Jalayirids in late 1337 / early 1338. Many Chobanid members served the Jalayirids, but defected upon the battle mentioned below.

The Chobanids would support their own Chinggisid claimant to the Ilkhanate after taking over the Imperial heartland in 1338, after defeating the Jalayirids at Alataq, near Van, in July 1338. They would not have called themselves a Sultanate. The Jalayirids would, but much much later, when the dream of a unified Ilkhanate was gone.


 
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i agree , its a repeat the same oman and yemen issue once more here ignoring that the area should be colonizable not a dead wasteland . and here we talking about nomadic peoples who would have no issue in those areas who are mostly grasslands or aride and perfect for turkik life style.

the game stretch to the 1800s for heaven's sakes , why you have to butcher the land like this ? why you didnt do it with finland and north sweden who were given the option to be colonized? please dont treat regions in such manner , imperator and ck3 had wider corridors than this too .
remind you that you gave some 20 fishermans on greenland provinces but here you are locking so much land behind this "wasteland" logic that honestly should not be this agressive

View attachment 1187258
Welcome to another episode of "For some unknown reason pdx hates x region and always butchers it" in Tinto Maps.
 
for the Ilkhanate, is it akin to the HRE? being dissolved , or restored...
and there are a lot more deserts and wastelands than i thought, especially in central asia. northeaster, Persia , and area baluchistan/pakistan

edit : yes there are 3 wasteland with resources on them.
 
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I already delved into why the Shi'i religions should be split last week, so I'll just list out the diversity we're missing out on here: In Tabaristan alone we have Isma'ilis in the Gilan region, Zaydis in the city of Lahijan, and Twelvers in the Mazandaran region. The Sarbadars are Twelvers who follow a unique model of government that was a mixture of republican and theocratic rule. And then scattered throughout Khorasan are pockets of Nizari Isma'ilis, with the Nizari Imam himself in hiding, but will eventually return in the 15th century. Plus, a few decades from the start date we'll also see the rise of the Hurufi movement, a mystic sect that venerates the esoteric meaning behind numbers and letters, which would eventually give rise to the Bektashi Order.

I think the figure of 20% for Zoroastrians is way too high, and furthermore it just highlights a more significant minority that is completely absent from this version of Iran at the moment: the Church of the East! The Nestorians used to be huge in Iran, never a majority of the population but still a major community. It was only Timur's conquests and subsequent massacres of the Iranian Christian population that reduced them to their meager population sizes today. If anything, it should be the Nestorians who get the 20% figure, while Zoroastrians could get 5-10%.
Nestorianism was limited to Assyrians which lived in western Azerbaijan,no way it was as high as 20% of the Iranian plateau itself.Zoroastrianism being around that makes sense as there are a ton of rural areas(although it should be a bit less,say 10-15%).
 
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because the people called themselves azeri
Persians call themselves Irani (ایرانی) not Persian (Our name in Western Literature) and yet that is our name on the map.
 
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I'll write some of my opinions on this as a native of the area, I'll try to provide some sources as well. I'll preface this by saying that I'm very optimistic about this game and have been surprised by the depth of the research the team has done in each of these maps so far, and the idea of releasing these maps to the community is itself very commendable.

(Note: I've removed my hyperlinks and put the sources in the attached .txt file as it wouldn't let me post otherwise. Words in [ ] indicate a source.)

Political:

Gorgan's snake line towards the Sarygamysh lake is odd. That area is not even a fertile valley, it's desert like the rest. I think it's better left as colonizable land. Others have commented on this better than me.

The dynasty name for Gilan is "Bandar-e Anzali" which is a city, might've been an error. Or if their dynasty is randomly generated, then Bandar-e Anzali should definitely not be a possible dynasty name. The real historical dynasties of that area (that have been consolidated into one Gilan tag) would be Ispahbudan, Nasirwandan (Naservandan), Kiyaiyan (Kar-Kiya), Ishaqwandan (Eshaqvandan), Tajaspids, etc

Geography:

The southern Caspian coast climate seems wrong, it's generally wetter and more temperate. [Rainfall] [Koppen Classification]. As for topography, I would prefer if the Kojur and Chalus locations were formed as north-south provinces where the northern one is a plain and southern one mountain, but since the northern flat strip of land in that area is only 3km wide I understand the simplification.

I'm not sure why the vegetation in Southern Iraq and Khuzestan is "Desert" as that area is one of the most productive in the region. If this is to represent the collapse of irrigation as a consequence of the Mongols then I hope there's a way to restore it or change vegetation coverage. Not entirely sure about Iraq but Khuzestan for example accounts for 11% of Iran's rice and 12% of its wheat production. [This source] in general might come in very handy for that, especially location goods production.

The location of Gorgan should probably not have 26,000 people. It was fully destroyed after the Mongol invasion and that area in general was not repopulated on a serious scale until the 20th century due to the collapse of the Gorgan Wall. [19th Century Journal, Page 616]

Cultural:

I'm not sure about Mongol culture in the Gorgan location either. That area was never settled by Mongols directly, should probably be a mix of Turkmen and Khorasani. Mazandarani culture should also expand east as far as the Gorgan location, replacing Khorasani.

Speaking of which, I don't think Khorasani culture has any special distinctions from the other Persian sub-ethnicities other than having existed in EU4 to be a separate culture. Either split all Persian sub-ethnicities into their own groups (Yazdi, Kermani, Isfahani, etc) or absorb Khorasani into Persian. One argument could be made that Khorasanis are an intermediate between eastern Persians (Tajik) and the western ones but a similar argument could also be made for Hamedanis' relation to Lurs and Kurds and their Fahlavi heritage, etc. Same for every sub-group really.

The modern Tehran region (southern Alborz) is too Persian, while Ray would have been, the rural area to its north (including the town of Tehran) would have hadCaspian (Mazandarani) influences. There are several sources for this one: [1] [2] [3] [4] (easier to find the relevant bits by searching mazandaran, caspian or people / language). There's also an underrepresentation of [Tat people], which I imagine are represented by Adhari. As for that, Adhari should probably extend further east into the southern Alborz region.

Speaking of Adhari, Shirvan probably shouldn't be Adhari. The [modern Iranian speakers] (other than Talysh) of that region speak a language that developed from Persian and most medieval sources signal towards the same. In this case I think it's reasonable to create a new "Shirvani" culture for that purpose, since as far as I know their distinction from the rest of the Persians already started in the late Sassanid period. Generally it should be a mix of Shirvani (more in the east), Turkic (Azeri, more in the west) and the local Caucasian peoples (more in the north).
 

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