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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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Since the game starts midway through the Luso-Castillan war, will Portugal and Castille start at war? Also will there be events for Portugal regarding its end or the conflict between Afonso IV and Pedro I (Ines de Castro being a very important charater in Portugese history)? I also assume that the Portuguese war of independence between Beatriz of Castille and João de Avis will be coded into the game. Will this be done through a disaster system like in EU4? I would love to events regarding the Ferdinand war between Castille and Portugal as the disaster ramps up and lead it to end in a war between nation with a PU war goal.
 
I might be wrong but in history classes they taught us that during the middle ages the bastion of the "catalan" was in fact the kingdom of Valencia. As far as I know the aragonese golden age revolved around this place rather than the catalan bits in the north. Valencia became the first merchant and cultural node in the mediterranean until the XV century and important books as "Tirant lo Blanc" and others were written there. Catalonia got its piece during the development of the cloth industry far down the line becoming the new "cultural authority" . I wonder if this things will be represented in the game maybe changing the name to valencian market during this time period... Also valencians will be a bit pissed of as catalonians have been trying to rewrite history in its favor, anyways if i'm not mistaken there's a lot of evidence around this subject and the valencian heritage in the "catalonian culture".

Funny that you first admit that you may be wrong and then accuse others of rewriting history. But yes you're indeed wrong and thus you're the one rewriting history in your post. Most of the pissed Valencians are blaveristas which are no different than catalan nationalists regarding distorting stuff on their own, including pretending Valencian amd Catalan are different languages.

Anyway, the Valencian golden age happened in the 1400s. Prior to that the crown of Aragon in the 1200s and 1300s was centered in Catalonia, mostly because of its population. As you can accurately see in the population map in here, on its own it already had about 50% of the total demographic weight of Aragon before the black death. However the black death affected it much harder than Valencia, leading to its economic collapse and substitution of economic center by Valencia. And yes, Catalonia only returned to prominence in the late 1700s thanks to clothing industry and access to America. But its first golden age was in this period, allowing it among other things, to provide for most of the settlers that would expand catalan language to the Balearics and to Valencia itself.
 
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Funny that you first admit that you may be wrong and then accuse others of rewriting history. But yes you're indeed wrong and thus you're the one rewriting history in your post. Most of the pissed Valencians are blaveristas which are no different than catalan nationalists regarding distorting stuff on their own, including pretending Valencian amd Catalan are different languages.

Anyway, the Valencian golden age happened in the 1400s. Prior to that the crown of Aragon in the 1200s and 1300s was centered in Catalonia, mostly because of its population. As you can accurately see in the population map in here, on its own it already had about 50% of the total demographic weight of Aragon before the black death. However the black death affected it much harder than Valencia, leading to its economic collapse and substitution of economic center by Valencia. And yes, Catalonia only returned to prominence in the late 1700s thanks to clothing industry and access to America. But its first golden age was in this period, allowing it among other things, to provide for most of the settlers that would expand catalan language to the Balearics and to Valencia itself.
I’m from València and can emphatically confirm (especially on the Blaver front) you are correct, and he is most definitely wrong.
 
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First things first, so let me congratulate Project Caesar and @Pavía for Tinto Maps talks. They truly are important. As this shows my home region, I believe theres space to improvements in Portugal

This is my personal opinion, but comparing Castilla with Portugal we see a disparaty in locations and provinces, and its easy to understand what I'm saying: in castille most of the provinces are given to the most important city, and in that province there are locations. In Portugal you have areas and in that areas important cities. By saying these just compare the provinces number and sizes of Portugal and Castille. (And i believe that this is also one reason why Lisboa market doenst work: too few locations and goods). I see that you've used the medieval administrative division of the XIV century. But if that if that is the criterium than provices of Castilla should be only its ''kingdoms'': Galicia, Asturias, Vizcaya, Castilla, Leon, Toledo, Murcia, Jaen, Cordoba, Sevilla.


So my first sugestion is to split Alentejo, Beira and Extremadura provinces in: Portalegre, Évora, Beja, Setúbal, Lisboa, Ribatejo, Beira Interior, Beira Litoral



Locations sugestion for provinces:

Portalegre: Portalegre, Nisa, Castelo de Vide, Avis, Crato/Alter do Chão,Elvas.

Évora: Évora, Estremoz, Monsaraz, Montemor-o-Novo.

Beja: Beja, Moura, Serpa, Mértola, Ourique

Setúbal: Setúbal, Alcácer do Sal, Sines/Santiago do Cacém, Odemira.

Algarve: Aljezúr, Lagos, Silves, Faro, Tavira, Alcoutim

Ribatejo: Santarém, Abrantes, Tomar, Coruche

Lisboa: Lisboa, Cascais, Torres Vedras, Alcobaça, Leiria

Beira Litoral: Coimbra, Esgueira, Lamego, Viseu, Tondela/Besteiros

Beira Interior: Castelo Branco, Guarda, Covilhã, Pinhel/Riba Coa, Trancoso, Sabugal

(if needed i can try and do some maps on Paint)


Olivenza in my opinion is a location of Badajoz province that was in Portuguese Realm. It was a important city in Portugal until the very end. I say that it should be in the Badajoz province because its in the left side of the Guadiana river, and it was necessary to built a important bridge to connect the city with Elvas and the Realm. Although there are cities today on that side of the margin (Mourão, Moura, Serpa), they are further south, and Portugal never had a complete control of the margin because it lacked control of Alconchel


With this said, I'd also split Badajoz location in Badajoz and Alburquerque (occuppied by the portuguese for nearly 100 if i recall, even improving the fort/castillo de Luna) and Jerez de los Caballeros in Jerez and Alconchel


Raw goods (will put some sources):
Portalegre - Wool
Nisa - Clay/Livestock
Castelo de Vide -Livestock
Avis – Wheat
Crato/Alter do Chão: Horses (https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coudelaria_de_Alter) Yes, the foundation was only in 1748. So you could also replace with livestock
Elvas - Wheat
Évora -Wheat
Estremoz – Marble (Anticlinal de Estremoz – (http://home.dgeo.uevora.pt/~lopes/Artigos/artigo06.pdf) - One of the most important places in the World for marble production
Monsaraz – Wine/Wheat
Montemor-o-Novo – Olives/Livestock
Beja - Wheat
Moura – Olives/Wheat
Serpa – Livestock/Wheat
Mértola – copper (https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mina_de_São_Domingos) There are others mines in the region, former mines and new mines
Ourique- Wheat/Livestock
Setúbal - Fish
Alcácer do Sal – Salt (https://atlas.cimal.pt/drupal/?q=pt-pt/node/152)
Sines/Santiago do Cacém - Sand
Odemira – Iron
Aljezúr - Fish
Lagos - Fish
Silves - Fruits
Faro Fish
Tavira - Salt (https://cm-castromarim.pt/site/conteudo/salinicultura-de-castro-marim)
Alcoutim – Tin (https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parque_Mineiro_da_Cova_dos_Mouros)
Santarém - Legumes
Abrantes - Lumber
Tomar - Fiber crops
Coruche – Horses (https://www.cavalosorraia.pt/a-raca)
Lisboa - Fish
Cascais - Fish
Torres Vedras - Fruits
Alcobaça - Fruits
Leiria - Sand
Coimbra - Rice
Esgueira - Salt (https://salinasaveiro.com/passado/)
Lamego - Wine
Viseu – Lumber?
Tondela/Besteiros - Lumber
Castelo Branco – Fiber crops
Guarda - Wool
Covilhã - wool
Pinhel/Riba Coa - Livestock
Trancoso - Wine
Sabugal – Fruits


Regarding vegetagion:

Alentejo, Beira Baixa and Spanish Extremadura have a special and unique ecossystem: Montado/Dehesa. This is a agrosilvapasturil manmade landscape. Sparse trees, mostly Quercus spp, that produce acorns, cork, lumber, and permits the use of the soil for grains production, livestock creation, wine, fruits, legumes production, olives. Sparse with some Woods also, because in the hills its not that sparse, (https://montadodesobroecortica.pt/o-montado/o-territorio/) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehesa)
A map of distribution in Portugal: https://www.researchgate.net/figure...lentejo-region-Source-COS-2015_fig3_338108420
Portugal is a very treed country. Grassland in Beira region e far from true. It should be Woods and Forest mostly:

Regarding terrain: With this map what I want to show is 2 things: Covilhã should be moutains terrain and the terrain away from the coastline is very hilly. Its always up and down. True flatlands are not common.

So my sugestions:
Portalegre: Portalegre, Nisa, Castelo de Vide,- Hills; Avis, Crato/Alter do Chão,Elvas-Flatlands
Évora: Évora, Montemor-o-Novo, Monsaraz – Flatlands: Estremoz-Hills
Beja: Beja, Moura, Serpa: Flatlands; Mértola, Ourique-Hills
Setúbal: Setúbal, Alcácer do Sal, Sines/Santiago do Cacém- Flatlands Odemira: Hills
Algarve: Aljezúr, Silves, Alcoutim – Hills; Lagos, Faro- Flatlands; Tavira-Marsh
Ribatejo: Coruche: Farmlands; Santarém, Abrantes, Tomar: Hills
Lisboa: Lisboa, Cascais, Torres Vedras, Alcobaça: Hills; Leiria:Flatlands
Beira Litoral: Coimbra-Farmlands; Esgueira-Marsh, Lamego, Viseu, Tondela/Besteiros: Hills
Beira Interior: Castelo Branco-Flatlands; Covilhã: Mountains; , Pinhel/Riba Coa, Guarda: Plateau; Trancoso, Sabugal: Hills

Olivenza and Alburquerque: Flatlands

I'm not looking into Minho and Trás os Montes because above Douro I really cant tell much

Hope that this will help
This is a great post and very detailed, but I would like to give just two small suggestions regarding both Tavira and Alcoutim locations. Regarding Tavira my suggestion is that it can have either a march or hill terrain, the first because its right on the shores of the Ria Formosa and the latter because its located in hilly terrain (etymologicaly the name comes from the arabic "Tabira" or "the hidden", as the town was hard to spot from the coast). Regarding Alcoutim, I would maintain everything except the main location itself, as "Castro Marim" was more strategicaly important, with its castle serving as both the stronghold of firstly the Order of Christ and later the Order of Santiago. It was also the main defense against incursions coming from the Castillian side of the guadiana.
 
First of all great work! I cannot imagine all the effort behind every one of these posts.
And after reading all the comments i thought i suggest some changes to the Catalonia region (with much inspiration from coments of

kemwolf, Cagallo and AlphaSonic)​

As they said, it would be great adding the location of Montblanc, that can be either Mountains or Hills, (the good of wine fits fine!), and the change of name from Flix to La Granadella

Second; i think it would be nice separating Barcelona along the Litoral Mountain range, not only decreasing a lot of its in-map population but also representing the Litoral Depresion. A province in the actual vallés area would be nice. But since i understand Barcelona's importance in the overall map i added the town of Sant Cugat del Vallés to its borders in order to be seen better and have more population , the added province coud be named Terraça (modern day Terrassa) since it was the biggest city arround the period, and its goods could be either wheat or clay.

Third, i think manresa and vic locations are way too big , while baleguer and solsona are weird. The way i think this could be improved is by adding more locations and fusing some, i split manresa, getting manresa and berga, and vic becoming vic and ripoll suggested goods; (manresa keeping the salpeter from montserrat, berga with livestock, vic with timber and ripoll keeping the furs)
While balaguer has been split and incorporated to the nearby locations cervera and solsona the latter renamed to Urgell to better represent the new area (and keeping the trade goods of the locations)

Finally afer looking into implementing all those changes i realized that perhaps three provinces are too little, so i created a new one that could be called catalan plateau although i am not keen on the name.

1716047020248.png


This is the map representing all my later suggestions and adding the mountain range of Les Guilleries between Vic and Girona.

After saying all of that, i thank you first for letting us the comunity give suggestions and second for having the patience to listen to us ( since there are some posts that seem weirdly angry)

Thank you for all your hard work!

Boleti
 
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A couple of notes on Portugal:
It’s weird that Braga is not a location on the map instead of Guimarães or Barcelos. It was a very important and very old catholic city. Guimarães has relevance from having the castle from which the first king of Portugal was based, but barcelos I’m not so sure. In Algarve, Silves was arguably more important city than Lagos, since it had city status long before during the reconquista, had a castle and its river was historically navigable, although not in the modern day. It’s also weird that the location has hills terrain when the south of Portugal is notably flatter than the north. There are some hills in algarve but they are on the more eastern side. The coastline does have cliffs, but I wouldn’t describe that as “hills”.
I don’t have any references On vegetation in medieval Portugal, but be mindful that it was much more heavily vegetated than it is currently (as is the case for most of Europe).
Bonus curiosity: I don’t know much about goods in Portugal back in the day, but I know chestnuts were a very important part of people’s diets in tras os monte, Lamego, etc. They were the main wide spread carb in the region.
 
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I have a small question regarding location names (again). Will we be able to rename rivers and such, regarding the played tag? I'm asking this because some rivers are called different names based on the local culture, as the best example is the tagus river, called "Tejo" in portuguese, "Tajo" in castillian an "Tacho" in aragonese. Other examples happen with rivers like the Douro and Guadiana, which was called in portuguese "Odiana" up to the 15th century. If its a possibility, can this last example be applied to other rivers which have the arabic root word for river "wadi", mostly in other iberian rivers like the Guadalquivir?
 
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Where is the County of Pallars Sobira, I've seen multiple maps including it during this time frame and the Wikipedia article says it was conquered in the 1500s. Was it too small to add to the game? Seems like it would take up the northern half of the location of Talarn. Urgell was also politically distinct from what I recall, although it was ruled by the Aragonese dynasty. Empúries as well is not present. Are they considered simply parts of the Aragonese crown, or too irrelevant to add as countries? I would like to know, as Pallars especially appears on many maps I see of the time period. I've attached a map of 1444 that lists it. I haven't been able to posts links here in the past, but the Catalan Wikipedia along with some sources from the royal Spanish library I believe have information about Pallars specifically.View attachment 1716049541221.png
 
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Because to put it simply, it is NOT a Mediterranean climate.

For starters, Csb is not even found anywhere in the Mediterranean, it's found in the Atlantic Coast of Europe, the American Pacific Northwest, southern coast of Australia, and central Chile. Basically, Western-facing oceanic coastal areas at temperate latitudes.
And neither does it host Mediterranean biomes, but Oceanic ones.
I agree with your point that Santiago de Compostela and the rest of Galicia should be a 'Oceanic' climate, as the precipitation numbers are too high and the biome is not Mediterranean. But I do not agree that ALL regions in the Csb climate zone should automatically be excluded from the 'Mediterranean' climate.

The Csa and Csb climates often do exist in close proximity such as in California, South-Western Australia, South Africa, Chile and indeed (although Csb is admittedly quite rare) in the Mediterranean. Kütahya in western Turkey is an example of a Csb climate in the Mediterranean. Some places in the aforementioned regions are Csb, have low precipitation numbers and a Mediterranean biome. Examples are Cape Town, San Jose in California and Albany in Western Australia. I think most people would agree with classifying these places within the 'Mediterranean' climate. There would therefore be differences in classification within a Köppen climate zone (in this case Csb). So I think we should take a closer look at the climates of Northern Portugal and Spain to see whether or not they should be included in the Mediterranean climate or the Oceanic climate.

As the main argument for including Santiago de Compostela within the Oceanic climate was the large amount of rain and the differing biome, I looked at the precipitation numbers and the biomes for Iberia.
Screenshot 2024-05-18 at 17.41.29.png
Screenshot 2024-05-18 at 17.35.56.png


The climate map used for Iberia corresponds neatly with one Köppen map of Europe as seen in 1A and 1B. The extent of the arid climate, however, depends on the exact formula used as seen in 1D, which has quite a bit more regions within the temperate climate. However none of these maps correspond to the precipitation map (1E) nor the biome map (1C), which includes red, brown and orange regions within the Mediterranean biome. Especially the coast of Portugal receives quite a bit less rain compared to the northern regions. Places like Nazaré and Figueira da Foz both have a Csb climate (651 mm/year 15.0 ˚C average temp and 724 mm/year 15.4 ˚C average temp respectively). They are more comparable to Montpellier (639 mm/year 15.5 ˚C average temp) than to Santiago de Compostela (1526 mm/year and 14.1 ˚C average temp). Both Montpellier and the Portugese cities are also within the Mediterranean biome (1C). Montpellier is included in the Mediterranean climate so why should these Portugese cities not be included? Similar arguments can be made for reducing the amount of Oceanic climate in northern Spain as you yourself have already pointed out.

The biome and precipitation maps (1C and 1E) mostly overlap, which is why I would suggest taking these factors as leading for deciding the border between the Oceanic and Mediterranean/(Semi-)Arid climates, rather than the köppen climate borders (Cs vs Cf), which can be, as you have shown, quite misleading. This is seen in 2A and 2B, where I have overlapped the precipitation map with the locations maps (apologies for the bad editing, the maps did not quite fit).

Sources:
Wikipedia for the climate data
The ecoregions.appspot.co for 1C
Trasobares, Antoni & Palahi, Marc & Marey-Perez, Manuel & Diaz-Balteiro, Luis. (2014). Computer-based tools for supporting forest management in Spain. m/ for the biomes for 1E and 1F
File:Köppen-Geiger Climate Classification Map of the European Union.png for 1A
File:Köppen climate types of Iberia.png for 1D
 
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So my first sugestion is to split Alentejo, Beira and Extremadura provinces in: Portalegre, Évora, Beja, Setúbal, Lisboa, Ribatejo, Beira Interior, Beira Litoral

From what we have seen until now, provinces and their size doesn't seem to either benefit or harm a country, so splitting the provinces doesn't seem crucial (there might be something I missed from the previous Tinto Talks, so point it out if that is the case!).

That said, I agree with splitting Beira into Beira Litoral/Beira Interior, though I'd split Alentejo only in 2, into Alto Alentejo/Baixo Alentejo. I'd leave Extremadura as is, but without Alcácer do Sal, as Ribatejo seems like it would be a bit too small.
 
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You said that you would like to add new locations in Iberia, with Tarifa (my hometown) being one of the possibilities. I think it should be a separate location from Algeciras. Tarifa has been an important port and strategic place for the control of the Strait for Carthaginians, Romans, Muslims and Castile/Spain. It was conquered by the Kingdom of Castile in the year 1292 and, although there were attempts to reconquer it by Muslim forces, it remained in Castilian hands. On the other hand, Algeciras was not conquered until 1344, reconquered by the Kingdom of Granada in 1369 and was razed to the ground ten years later. The city of Algeciras was not repopulated until 1704 when Anglo-Dutch troops captured Gibraltar.
If it were eventually added, the resources (fish), climate (Mediterranean) and terrain (hills) should be the same as Algeciras. For the possible new location of Tarifa, as well as for the already existing locations of Algeciras and Gibraltar, the vegetation should be changed to woods, since the current region that encompasses said cities, even today, is a forested area, populated with cork oaks (the largest cork oak forest in Spain) and other species of the Quercus genus, pines (Pinus pinea) or wild olive trees (Olea oleaster). For that reason, I don't think Algeciras should be classified as sparse nor Gibraltar as grassland.

On another note, I also wanted to comment on some things about the location of Cádiz. In my opinion, it should be divided into two: one location around the Bay of Cádiz, the location of Cádiz itself, and another in the interior, corresponding to the current region of La Janda. Both areas are geographically different. The Bay of Cádiz is characterized by its flat lands and marshes, while La Janda alternates hills with plains. The resources produced by Cádiz should be either fish or salt. La Janda, whose name could be Medina Sidonia, after the most important city in that area, would have livestock, wheat or even fishing as resources, depending on whether the location had a coast or not.

zCadiz.png

(My approx. proposals for the possible locations of Tarifa in green (split from Algeciras) and Medina Sidonia in pink (split from Cádiz))

Another point that I think should be reviewed is the resources produced by Jerez de la Frontera and Sanlúcar de Barrameda. The area of Jerez has been used since Roman times for wine production. Since the 12th century these wines were already exported to England, where they were known as Sherry. This sherry wine trade increased after the Reconquista. As for Sanlúcar de Barrameda, wine production and fishing have been sectors with greater weight in the local economy and trade than salt production.

As for the terrain of Arcos de la Frontera, this location should be hills and forest, since it is part of the Sierra de Cádiz, with most of its towns nestled between the mountains.

And on a final note, I'd like to point out that Pedroche's main resource to this day has been livestock, and that the locations in the north of the province of Córdoba, located in Sierra Morena (Pedroche, Fuente Obejuna, El Carpio and the north of Córdoba), should be hills.

I hope that this feedback can be useful to you when you review the Iberian region.
 
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Hey, Galician here! First of all, a big thank you to @Pavía and the rest of the Paradox team working on this project. You can tell that you have done a lot of research and work on the Iberian Peninsula, and as a huge fan of the EU and the CK series, you have got me so excited about this new super-secret project!

That said, I do have a few suggestions for your consideration regarding Galicia. Firstly, I would like to link to a really nice project that maps the Kingdom of Galicia (https://reino(dot)mazarelos(dot)gal/). It's a collaborative project by some history students that uses primary sources (cartographies, maps, books) to show some parts of the Galician kingdom. The website is in Galician though.

From a geographical point of view, I see that you have made an effort to fit the seven old Galician provinces into four. In that sense, great work! In reality, at it very beginning, the Kingdom of Galicia (as well as many other parts of Spain) didn't really work on the basis of provinces, but rather on the basis of jurisdictions, so the task was very difficult. At the same time, Galicia, unlike other parts of Spain, has a fairly dispersed population. This also means that it can be justified to add more locations or provinces than other parts of Spain. If I remember correctly, half of all Spanish population centres are in Galicia alone (the second one being Asturias)! (https://www(dot)newtral(dot)es/nucleos-unipersonales-espana/20230822/)

Prior to the seven old provinces that functioned roughly from 1550 to 1833, there are references to the use of only five provinces in the period from 1480 to 1550. These were Santiago, Betanzos, Mondoñedo, Lugo and Ourense. If you cannot add the seven provinces, it would be great if you could at least create a fifth for Mondoñedo. I will leave you below with a suggestion on how you could redesign Galicia. Even if not for the first release of the game, at least in case you were to make a DLC.
Map of Galicia - Reshaped locations and provinces.jpg

So on the map you can see that I have made a few changes. Please note that for most of the locations I am using comarcas, merging them together at times and making some minor personal adjustments (I suggest you visit this website for cartography: https://eirexe(dot)es/o-territorio-no-antiguo-reximen/):

PROVINCE OF MONDOÑEDO:
I divided Mondoñedo into two locations, Viveiro and Mondoñedo, and separated it from the province of Lugo to form its own province.​
  1. Viveiro (Vivero) would include roughly the comarca of Mariña Occidental.​
  2. Mondoñedo (Mondoñedo) would include both Mariña Central and Mariña Oriental.​
PROVINCE OF BETANZOS:
I have kept the merger of the provinces of A Coruña and Betanzos, under the name of Betanzos, and I have added a new location: Pontedeume.​
  1. Ferrol (Ferrol) would include the comarca of Ferrol and Ortegal.​
  2. Pontedeume (Pontedeume) would include the comarca of Eume.​
  3. Betanzos (Betanzos) would include the comarca of Betanzos.​
  4. A Coruña (La Coruña) would include the comarcas of A Coruña and part of Bergantiños.​
PROVINCE OF LUGO:
I have slightly changed the shapes of the locations and added another one, Lalín. Also, the province of Mondoñedo is now separate from the province of Lugo.​
  1. Navia de Suarna becomes the location of Sarria (Sarria), which includes the comarcas of A Fonsagrada, Os Ancares and Sarria. I doubted between Sarria and Samos, but Sarria has had more importance since the Middle Ages until now.​
  2. Vilalba (Villalba) would include the comarca of A Terrachá.​
  3. Lugo (Lugo) would include the comarcas of Lugo, Terra da Ulloa and Meira.​
  4. Monforte de Lemos (Monforte de Lemos) would include the comarca of Terra de Lemos.​
  5. Lalín (Lalín) would comprise the comarcas of Chantada and Deza.​
PROVINCE OF OURENSE:
I have added a new town, Ribadavia, and deleted another, Viana, while slightly changing the boundaries.​
  1. The new location of Ribadavia (Ribadavia) follows the borders of the comarcas of Ribadavia and O Carballiño. I believe that Ribadavia has more presence in the medieval period, but both O Carballiño and Ribadavia are good towns to use.​
  2. Ourense (Orense) would now include the comarca of Ourense, Allariz, Quiroga, Trives and Terra Caldelas.​
  3. Monterrei (Monterrey) would include the comarcas of Verín and Viana.​
  4. Xinzo de Limia (Ginzo de Limia) would comprise the municipalities of A Limia, Baixa Limia and Celanova.​
  5. O Barco de Valdeorras (El Barco de Valdeorras) would include the comarca of Valdeorras (there is an important reason for this - between 1822 and 1833 Valdeorras was incorporated into the province of Bierzo).​
PROVINCE OF SANTIAGO:
I have deleted the location of Finisterre and created three new locations: Melide, Cambados and Baiona. I also changed the boundaries.​
  1. The new location of Melide (Mellid) includes the comarcas of Melide, Arzúa and Ordes. I doubted between Melide and Arzúa for the naming, but Melide had a bigger role in the medieval ages, especially during the Revolta Irmandiña.​
  2. Santiago de Compostela (Santiago de Compostela) now includes the comarcas of Santiago, O Sar, Xallas, A Barcala, Fisterra, Muros, Soneira and Bergantiños.​
  3. Pontevedra (Pontevedra) now includes the municipalities of O Morrazo, Pontevedra, Caldas and Tabeirós.​
  4. The new location of Cambados (Cambados) includes the comarcas of O Salnés, Noia and Barbanza. I had doubts about whether to include Cambados or Vilagarcía de Arousa among other towns, but Cambados was more important in the Middle Ages and Vilagarcía has only recently become large.​
  5. The new location of Baiona (Bayona), which covers most of the comarca of Vigo. Like Cambados, Baiona was more important during the Middle Ages and Modern Era, and Vigo only became more important after the French Revolution and the beginning of the Modern Age. This is also where one of Colombus' ships came from after he discovered America.​
  6. Tui (Tuy) is now only the comarca of Baixo Miño, O Condado and A Paradante, as well as some towns in the comarca of Vigo.​

Another thing I would like to suggest, outside Galicia now, is to redesign the locations of Ponferrada and Villafranca del Bierzo so that they correspond to the 1822-1833 boundaries of the province of Bierzo. The are also cultural reasons. As some have commented, Galician is spoken in the Bierzo and in the Portelas. In order to better reflect this, you might want to reshape the locations of Ponferrada and Villafranca del Bierzo a little. Originally the Bierzo, with its capital in Ponferrada, was a single administrative unit from the Middle Ages until it became a province in 1822-1833, but I agree that splitting it in two would make for a more interesting game. My recommendation would be to make Ponferrada Asturian-Leonese with a Galician minority, while Villafranca del Bierzo and Puebla de Sanabria would instead be Galician with an Asturian-Leonese minority.

Now on culture, in the 1350s, Galician and Portuguese were basically the same language. From the 15th century, however, they began to diverge and by the 16th and 17th centuries they were already two separate languages. It is true that even in the 11th century, when Old Galician-Portuguese was still a common and shared language, there were already regional differences. It is true that in the 17th and 18th centuries Portuguese underwent a major phonetic change, mainly concentrated in the Portuguese spoken Lisbon-Coimbra area. However, until the 20th century, Galicians and northern Portuguese (from Valença do Minho to Oporto) could easily speak and understand each other, and it wasn't until the standardisation of the Portuguese language nation-wide that the northern Portuguese dialect began to disappear.

It is true that texts from the 13th and 14th centuries already show a gap in orthography and even phonetics between the Galician-Portuguese of Santiago or Tui and that of Lisbon and Coimbra, but Porto still acted as a bridge between the two. At the same time, history could have been very different if both Galicia and Portugal had been under the same country, or if Galicia had ended up as an independent country. It is a really tricky area to classify Portuguese and Galician. I don't think it was a mistake to separate them at such an early stage, but perhaps to better reflect the growing cultures that were beginning to emerge, you could make many Galician people minorities in the north of Portugal and Portuguese minorities in the south of Galicia.

Politically, I would like to point out that Galicia was very much controlled by the Church and the local nobility in the 13th and 15th centuries, so I hope you can really increase the autonomy of the region in that sense, through the estates. It was also quite rich, thanks to St Jaime's Way (Camino de Santiago), which brought a lot of money into the cities. Finally, I think others have made this comment, but the population density of the Iberian Peninsula does not really make much sense. Galicia has been one of the most densely populated regions since the Middle Ages, and when the first census was taken in Spain, it was by far the most densely populated region.

If you have made it this far, thank you for reading and I hope you agree with my suggestions. And please, allow me to congratulate the team on the amazing work once again! I really believe that Galicia must be one of the most difficult areas to map correctly, and so far it looks really promising. :)
 
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Addressing the question of location density, and although from a historical point of view I can totally get on board with the six traditional provinces of mainland Portugal - currently represented in game, I would like to stress that, as it stands now, Portugal (~15% of the Peninsula's land area) has 38 locations. The combined number of locations of Castille, Granada/Morocco, Navarra and Aragon (including Perpiñan, not counting the Balearic Islands) is 259.

Right now I think we might have some room for improvement. Just counting the 17 Galician locations, given an area of 29 thousand sq kms, considering Portugal's mainland is roughly 3 times the size of Galiza, at ~89 thousand sq kms, I'd venture the guess that we are some 10 to 12 locations short of the target...
 
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you cannot represent the heterodox nature of islam in anatolia, different approaches to sufism between anatolia and syria egypt with a mega sunni bloc. without ashari, maturidi without hanbali, maliki, şafii, hanafi and without shias branches there can be no confessionalization with the rise of safavis or organically. i dont care how low your hand goes when standing or how high your butt goes when you sajda, i just want age of reformation be not reserved to only europoors as islam went through a confessionalization process aswell
True there should he Sufism mechanic. The Twelvers (Safavids) and Ottomans especially went very heavy into Sufism (Islamic Mysticism).

I doubt that mechanic would be ingame at start, probably a dlc for Turks/Persians/Levant.
 
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From what we have seen until now, provinces and their size doesn't seem to either benefit or harm a country, so splitting the provinces doesn't seem crucial (there might be something I missed from the previous Tinto Talks, so point it out if that is the case!).

That said, I agree with splitting Beira into Beira Litoral/Beira Interior, though I'd split Alentejo only in 2, into Alto Alentejo/Baixo Alentejo. I'd leave Extremadura as is, but without Alcácer do Sal, as Ribatejo seems like it would be a bit too small.
Ribatejo, right now, is too small because it has two finger-like projections of Alentejo cutting deep into its territory. Either way, I dont see the need to detach it from Estremadura, unless there's some advantage in having more provinces that we are not aware of. But in that case, priority should be given, as you very well said, to splitting Beira and Alentejo.

Alcácer can be considered either as Alentejo or Estremadura (Estremadura reached as far south as Sines). "Ribatejo" doesn't have a coastline, other than marshy, very shallow waters in the Mar da Palha.
 
Alcácer can be considered either as Alentejo or Estremadura (Estremadura reached as far south as Sines). "Ribatejo" doesn't have a coastline, other than marshy, very shallow waters in the Mar da Palha.

I just noticed I typed it as EXtremadura, I'll go revoke my citizenship. :D

I added a province map to my original feedback post and ended up splitting Beira in three to make them all have more or less the same size, as Beira Interior would have too many locations compared to provinces around. Estremadura had always had a fickle definition, I gave Alcácer do Sal to Baixo Alentejo just because it both looks better and still leaves Estremadura with a good ammount of locations.
 
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Very detailed posts, our CD Team will take a detailed look at them as well, thank you very much!
I've edited my original feedback post, with some more locations to fix the odd shapes and to split up some of the larger locations. I also added a province map, because I had forgotten to take a look at it.
 
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I assume someone has mentioned this already, but some small critiques:

Catalan should be in parts of Murcia at this point: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idioma_catalán_en_la_Región_de_Murcia

There should be a minority of Asturleonese in Cantabria, considering they exist there to this day, though they've mixed and declined significantly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asturleonese_language#/media/File:Linguistic_map_of_asturian_es.svg

There should be a Galician minority in a bit of Extramuda: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fala_language

I'm also wondering if minorities that were never majorities anywhere would be included, like Jews, Roma, and the now extinct Cagots

Additionally, the part of the border that sticks out near Barrancos in Portugal is hilly.
 
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