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Tinto Maps #2 - 17th of May 2024 - Iberia

Hello everybody, and welcome to the second post of Tinto Maps! We’re really pleased about the great reception that the first one had last week, and also about the great feedback that we received. Just so you know, we have more than 70 action points from it that we will be implementing soon in the game.

Today we will be unveiling the map of Iberia in this super-secret project! So let’s start showing maps without further ado:

Countries:
Countries.jpg

The situation in 1337 shows a strong Crown of Castile under the rule of Alfonso XI, who has overcome the problems of his troublesome minority. To the east, we have the Crown of Aragon (it’s named that way, even if it currently doesn’t appear like that on the map), which is fighting for hegemony over the Mediterranean. An offspring of it is the Kingdom of Mallorca, ruled by a cadet branch of Aragon since half a century ago, that also has a couple of northern possessions centered on Perpignan and Montpellier. To the north, the Kingdom of Navarra is ruled by a French dynasty, its titular queen Jeanne, a member of the Capetian dynasty, being married to Philippe, Lord of Évreux. To the west, Portugal has a tense relationship with Castile, with a war being fought during 1336. To the south, the Nasrid dynasty holds power in Granada, backed by the Marinids of Morocco, who have a foothold in the peninsula centered around Algeciras and Ronda. And yes, Andorra is a starting country.

Locations:
Locations.jpg

Note: We are aware that there are some locations that could be added here and there, as this was one of the first maps that we created, and we weren’t completely sure about the location density we would like to have in the game. Some examples of possible locations that we’d like to add during a review would be Alicante, Tarifa, Alcobaça, Tordesillas, Monzón, or Montblanc. Also, you might notice that Zaragoza is named 'Saragossa'; this is not final, it's because we're using it as our testing location for the dynamic location naming system, as it has different names in Spanish (Zaragoza), Catalan (Saragossa), English (Saragossa), French (Saragosse), or Arabic (Saraqusṭa).

Provinces:
Provinces.jpg

Although it looks a bit like the modern provincial borders, take into account that those are based on the provincial reform of Francisco Javier de Burgos, which were also inspired by the cities/provinces that were accountable for the ‘Servicio de Millones’ during the reign of Philip II. Also, please, don't focus on the province names, the language inconsistency is because we were also using them as a testing ground.

Terrain:
Climate.jpg

Topograhpy.jpg

Vegetation.jpg

Iberia has one of the most complex terrain feature distributions in the entire world. We've also discussed this week that we're not very happy about the Vegetation distribution, which we'll be reworking, so feedback on this topic is especially very well received.

Cultures:
Cultures.jpg

Quite standard cultural distribution here, based on the different languages of Iberia (Asturleonese was still a language back in that time, although close to being opaqued by Castilian, after one century of joint ruling). The Andalusi represent not only the Muslim inhabitants of Granada and the Strait of Gibraltar but also the Mudéjar communities spread throughout much of the territory.

Religions:
Religion.jpg

The Sunni populations present here match the Andalusi pops of the previous map. Although it’s not shown in the map mode, there’s another important religious community in Iberia, the Sephardic Jews, who inhabit several cities and towns.

Raw Goods:
Raw Goods.jpg

This is also a map mode that we'll be revisiting next week, and feedback is also very welcomed. A curiosity: for the first time in a Paradox GSG, there is the Mercury resource in Almadén.

Markets:
Markets.jpg

This is the current distribution of markets, please take into account that it is based on the current gameplay status of the system and that it won’t necessarily be its final status. We tested in previous iterations having market centers in Lisbon and Burgos, but they weren’t working as we wanted; thus why we only have market centers in Sevilla and Barcelona. As the markets are dynamic, it might be possible to create new market centers, so a Portugal player might want to create a new market in Lisbon after some years (although having access to the market of Sevilla is juicy if you get enough merchant capacity on it).

Pops:
Pops.jpg


And that’s all for today! Next week we will be traveling to France! See you then!
 
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Iberia has one of the most complex terrain feature distributions in the entire world. We've also discussed this week that we're not very happy about the Vegetation distribution, which we'll be reworking, so feedback on this topic is especially very well received.
Speaking of vegetation, both Iberia and Low Countries that we have seen previously, faced same problem not so long after 1337. Deforestation. Already at the end on XVI century Spain, Portugal and Netherlands imported a lot of lumber from Central and Eastern Europe, tall trees that were used for ships masts were almost exclusively imported. Also it led to a loss of farmlands in central Iberia on a huge scale. So can we expect deforestation and its consequences being addressed in the game via events for example?
 
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I find the religion mapmode hard to read. It should just be colored with a gradient like the others. I can't understand at a glimpse why the angled lines don't correspond to any province, why they seem to cross between provinces, or why they seem to just stop at some random shape someplace. It is not an intuitive graphic.
 
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We got that initially, but it got completely messed up when we added the Chinese and Indian pops...
Perhaps clicking a location repeatedly in the pop map-mode could switch between colouring the owner's country, and colouring the superregion or continent it belongs to (or whichever map subdivision is most appropriate)?
 
Hello everybody, and welcome to the second post of Tinto Maps! We’re really pleased about the great reception that the first one had last week, and also about the great feedback that we received. Just so you know, we have more than 70 action points from it that we will be implementing soon in the game.

Today we will be unveiling the map of Iberia in this super-secret project! So let’s start showing maps without further ado:

Countries:
View attachment 1134319
The situation in 1337 shows a strong Crown of Castile under the rule of Alfonso XI, who has overcome the problems of his troublesome minority. To the east, we have the Crown of Aragon (it’s named that way, even if it currently doesn’t appear like that on the map), which is fighting for hegemony over the Mediterranean. An offspring of it is the Kingdom of Mallorca, ruled by a cadet branch of Aragon since half a century ago, that also has a couple of northern possessions centered on Perpignan and Montpellier. To the north, the Kingdom of Navarra is ruled by a French dynasty, its titular queen Jeanne, a member of the Capetian dynasty, being married to Philippe, Lord of Évreux. To the west, Portugal has a tense relationship with Castile, with a war being fought during 1336. To the south, the Nasrid dynasty holds power in Granada, backed by the Marinids of Morocco, who have a foothold in the peninsula centered around Algeciras and Ronda. And yes, Andorra is a starting country.

Locations:
View attachment 1134322
Note: We are aware that there are some locations that could be added here and there, as this was one of the first maps that we created, and we weren’t completely sure about the location density we would like to have in the game. Some examples of possible locations that we’d like to add during a review would be Alicante, Tarifa, Alcobaça, Tordesillas, Fraga, or Montblanc. Also, you might notice that Zaragoza is named 'Saragossa'; this is not final, it's because we're using it as our testing location for the dynamic location naming system, as it has different names in Spanish (Zaragoza), Catalan (Saragossa), English (Saragossa), French (Saragosse), or Arabic (Saraqusṭa).

Provinces:
View attachment 1134324
Although it looks a bit like the modern provincial borders, take into account that those are based on the provincial reform of Francisco Javier de Burgos, which were also inspired by the cities/provinces that were accountable for the ‘Servicio de Millones’ during the reign of Philip II. Also, please, don't focus on the province names, the language inconsistency is because we were also using them as a testing ground.

Terrain:
View attachment 1134325
View attachment 1134326
View attachment 1134378
Iberia has one of the most complex terrain feature distributions in the entire world. We've also discussed this week that we're not very happy about the Vegetation distribution, which we'll be reworking, so feedback on this topic is especially very well received.

Cultures:
View attachment 1134456
Quite standard cultural distribution here, based on the different languages of Iberia (Asturleonese was still a language back in that time, although close to being opaqued by Castilian, after one century of joint ruling). The Andalusi represent not only the Muslim inhabitants of Granada and the Strait of Gibraltar but also the Mudéjar communities spread throughout much of the territory.

Religions:
View attachment 1134335
The Sunni populations present here match the Andalusi pops of the previous map. Although it’s not shown in the map mode, there’s another important religious community in Iberia, the Sephardic Jews, who inhabit several cities and towns.

Raw Goods:
View attachment 1134336
This is also a map mode that we'll be revisiting next week, and feedback is also very welcomed. A curiosity: for the first time in a Paradox GSG, there is the Mercury resource in Almadén.

Markets:
View attachment 1134381
This is the current distribution of markets, please take into account that it is based on the current gameplay status of the system and that it won’t necessarily be its final status. We tested in previous iterations having market centers in Lisbon and Burgos, but they weren’t working as we wanted; thus why we only have market centers in Sevilla and Barcelona. As the markets are dynamic, it might be possible to create new market centers, so a Portugal player might want to create a new market in Lisbon after some years (although having access to the market of Sevilla is juicy if you get enough merchant capacity on it).

Pops:
View attachment 1134340

And that’s all for today! Next week we will be traveling to France! See you then!
 
What is next week's Tinto Maps? You told us about Iberia last week, so I think you can this time too. By the way if I had to choose between Monaco (random city state), Liechtenstein (generic HRE minor that got lucky), Couto Misto (three farming villages populated by fifty people and three goats) and San Marino (oldest extant republic in the world, also Roman style consuls) I would choose San Marino. Hope you keep this in mind!
 
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I guess the amount of people playing in Latin must be low to have a latin-localized game.

Also, if we get them Caesaraugusta somebody may start asking for Salduie
It's not about the game language localization, the dynamic location naming system changes the names of provinces/cities depending on who controls it. For example in Imperator the city of Syracuse has different names if controlled by Romans, Greeks or Carthage. And I bet that Roman Empire will be a formable country and as such should have its latin names.
 
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Maybe split the "spices" trade good up some? Like how Eu4 introduced Cloves as its own good a couple uears ago.

I'd love to fight entire wars over the control of a specific spice tbh. 500k dead in a deathwar over Saffron.
 
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I see "Salpeter" as a resource. Wasn´t that harvested from animal shacks? How can this be a resource available only in one location.
There are natural deposits of saltpeter, but yes, it was mostly made artificially from manure and feces, which means that you could make it pretty much anywhere and production wasn't concentrated in specific locations.
It's in a strange spot as a raw material.
What is next week's Tinto Maps? You told us about Iberia last week, so I think you can this time too.
They also told us this week.
In the forest map i would add a couple changes based on maps of forest density, although this is admittedly unreliable, since modern maps don't necessarily correspond to the 14th century reality, although one would assume the 14th century was more forested than today, and so are my suggestions.
It's usually the exact opposite. Any region that had significant population growth up to the famines, floods and plagues of the 14th century will have seen massive clearance of forests in order to create more farmland to feed the growing population. Once that population declined, many settlements were abandoned, but during proto-industrial expansion in the following centuries, deforestation became even worse, as wood was used as a fuel for basically everything.
That changed in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries when forest cover grew a lot (less and less need for wood as a resource) and a lot of forests became protected. I know that it least in Germany, if you look at a forest map, almost all the dark green areas are modern man-made protected forests that had been cleared during the time period.
Maybe split the "spices" trade good up some? Like how Eu4 introduced Cloves as its own good a couple uears ago.

I'd love to fight entire wars over the control of a specific spice tbh. 500k dead in a deathwar over Saffron.
They had that, but since there is goods substitution in the game, all the spices were treated the same anyway, so it was pointless to have them as separate goods.
 
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Speaking of vegetation, both Iberia and Low Countries that we have seen previously, faced same problem not so long after 1337. Deforestation. Already at the end on XVI century Spain, Portugal and Netherlands imported a lot of lumber from Central and Eastern Europe, tall trees that were used for ships masts were almost exclusively imported. Also it led to a loss of farmlands in central Iberia on a huge scale. So can we expect deforestation and its consequences being addressed in the game via events for example?
Partially related to this note, since the 13th century, Portugal had been planting a large monocultures of Pine trees, most notably in the region of Leiria, whom they would deliberately and extensively use for shipbuilding, and they were exceptionally careful to always reforest all the terrain that had been previously logged. They even had an important court position exclusively devoted to supervising this industry, the "Grand Steward of the Royal Pine Forests".
 
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Partially related to this note, since the 13th century, Portugal had been planting a large monocultures of Pine trees, most notably in the region of Leiria, whom they would deliberately and extensively use for shipbuilding, and they were exceptionally careful to always reforest all the terrain that had been previously logged. They even had an important court position exclusively devoted to supervising this industry, the "Grand Steward of the Royal Pine Forests".
Yeah that's a theme in other places as well, native deciduous forests had been cleared and fast-growing conifers were planted to deal with the demand for wood.
There are many records of regulations and forestation efforts to curb deforestation, but sometimes they didn't work, because people just needed the fuel.

Considering how that's something that people in the time period dealt with from Portugal to Poland, it does seem worth representing in the game through mechanic, events or similar.
 
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Andorra is a playable nation, will Luxembourg, Monaco, Liechtenstein and San Marino be playable as well?

Last week's map showed Luxembourg as playable, as it was much bigger back then.

Liechtenstein didn't exist until the early 1700s, when it was created from two smaller states in the area.

Neither San Marino nor Monaco showed up on the political map of the HRE Johan posted earlier in the week.
 
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I love seeing the maps, they are really pretty!
As for the population map problem, maybe you could change the colours more on lower population levels compared to higher levels. This is something my favourite map of all time does: the World Population Density Map or Luminocity3d.

I am feeling a bit conflicted about the geographical mapmodes such as climate, topography and vegetation. While I love that they are much more detailed than in previous games, I do feel that they really are not detailed enough, especially if they will be more impactful to gameplay! There is for example no distinction between tropical and monsoon or savannah climates, nor between desert and steppe climates. (While three of the eight climates which are included, are temperate.)

Will 'cold-arid', if it corresponds to the köppen climate of BSk (and BWk) differentiate enough between a subtropical arid climate such as in Spain and a continental arid climate such as in Kazakhstan? These are big differences: will Spain lose its soft Mediterranean winters or Kazakhstan lose the frigid Central-Asian winters?

Why has been chosen for an oceanic climate for the north of Portugal and Galicia, while in reality it is a Mediterranean climate (Csb)? (It seems too big an oversight for it to be coincidental)

Vegetation, while being lovely as a (fixed?) mapmode, would in my opinion make more sense as a function of Temperature + Precipitation + Soil (an unexplored part of the geography!) + Human Activity.

Will trade goods be fixed to the locations and will one location only produce one tradegood, as in let's say EU4? In my opinion this will disincentivize tall gameplay as it disallows change to the production of trade goods (for example as a result of the columbian exchange, or as part of an economic campaign to specifically produce one good, for example livestock in Friesland). I am also afraid it could make territorial conquest too effective compared to domestic economic stimulation, as the production of products from those places can never be quenched which makes territorial expansion necessary for a true monopoly.
Especially since Project Caesar will cover the timeframe which covers the start of 'capitalistic exploitation', I would love, rather than a geographically determined economy, to see a more hands on approach towards economic development from the player! (This could also be fun in the New World ;))

A final question: Will there be a transition in climate form the Medieval Warm Period towards the Little Ice Age?

Thank you for taking the time to read all the replies! I always look forward to the tinto talks/maps. :)
 
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