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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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Very good. Thanks for showing the map of Iberia.
 
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My notes regarding Aragón:

Regarding locations
  • Ejea de los Caballeros would be better named "Cinco Villas". It is the name of the shire itself, and whilst Ejea is the main city nowadayw, it was not always the case. Until modern times Sos or Uncastillo were also highly relevant.
  • The Barbastro/Ainsa/Fraga area split is a bit weird. Barbastro should not go so much into the north, since you enter a different terrain. For example, in https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo:Sobrecollidas_d'o_Reino_d'Aragón.svg you can see medieval Aragon tax district and in https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anexo:Comarcas_de_Aragón#/media/Archivo:Comarcas_de_Aragón.png the modern shire division. Aínsa should extend more to the East, until Benabarre and Barbastro should in change take the northern part of Fraga. Othewise it does not fit the valleys and historical connection between the areas. Note even today the N-260 goes East-West instead of North-south
  • Tarazona would be better be split between Tarazona and Borja. I may be biased here, but for me it makes a lot of sense: you can't otherwise properly represent historical events like the War of the Two Peters in which Castille ocuppied Tarazona but not Borja. Also, the valleys there are north-South, so Tarazona should cover the Queiles River, with Borja covering the Huecha River.
The rest is quite ok and I congratulate you on following Daroca's Community historical borders rather than modern division. I had however expected a bit more granularity

Religion
  • The sunni minority in Ejea is quite surprising. While I know a few references to muslim exaricos in the XII century, it seems to be a clear minority there with Ejea, El Frago, Castiliscar etc being mainly repopulated by Christians.
  • The opposite happens around Belchite. The area of current Belchite/Calanda/Híjar was way more populated during muslim times and got heavily hit by the morisco expulsion in the XVII century, with whole villages being abandonded because their entire population was expelled. The muslim patch should go into Alcañiz (which is lots of time mentioned as a Christian foundation in older textbooks, althought it has been refuted in modern scholarship.
  • Maybe we can get a muslim minority in Barbastro to cover Naval? The local muslim population was highly important economically (in ceramics and saltworks).
Economic:
  • Iron in Jaca is wrong and unnecesary. There were some iron mines aroung southern Ribagorza (where wool is indicated). If you exchange wool and iron between Benabarre and Jaca you have the same gameplay but quite more historically realism (wool was a heavy economic activity in Jacetania for centuries).
  • I guess lumber in Sariñena want to represent the Monegros, but there is a lot or urban legends regarding that. Lumber was produced actually more to the north (Ainsa for example) and shipped down in nabatas using the river Gallego. If you exchange trade goods between Ainsa and Sariñena you also improve realism regarding lumber.
  • Doing the last swap would put coal in Sariñena. Which may have sense in game play but not geologically. There were however mines of coal in Mequinenza (under Fraga location in the map). So I would suggest having lumber in Ainsa, Dyes in Sariñena and Coal in Fraga (even though Dyes were not local in Aragon, as far as I know).
  • Wine in Belchite is again weird. The vineyard there are in Cariñena, which was part of the Comunidad de Aldeas de Daroca. Belchite is in turn, more of a cereal area. It will be better to swap those two to.
  • Spice in Zaragoza is a even more weird... Was it meant to represent regaliz? Zaragoza was known for its orchards so fruits may be more realistic. (I feel we lack a vegetables resource to model orchards). It may still be necesary for gameplay purposes to boost a bit Zaragoza.
  • I would put wine in Barbastro (it is still a vineryard area) and remove wine from Tudela (which is another orchard area that could be given fruits or the more orchard resource)
  • Zuera having lumber is unusuall since it is a more agricultural land. I would however prefer salt to represent Remolinos salt mines that were a major economic element for a couple of millenia.
I want to go to other parts of Spain after I have a coffee.
Great feedback, we'll go on detail over it!
 
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How come the locations in Catalonia are in Catalan but the locations in València are in Spanish?
Naming inconsistency, we'll review that.
 
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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.

Hello Pavia,

If you are ever stuck on vegetation types and climate borders I can highly recommend the global 'Bioregion' project by One Earth.
They have a global navigator detailing the major biomes of regions, detailing what sort of vegetation can be found where.
Most pages also include a passage on land usage (e.g. clearing of forests for cash crops etc.)

While it is mostly regional, I think it can be a great asset on locations where you find next to no information.

E.g. Here is the link for the Iberian peninsula

Edit: I've had no luck finding a WCS/WFS url for in GIS unfortunately, and so far I've had no successful communication with them about it either.

1715954381708.png
1715954010283.png
 
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Old_Sealand said:
How many releasable nations Iberia has?

Very glad to hear this! Iberia being difficult to Balkanize was a major issue throughout much of EU4's lifetime, and it's still less granular than much of Europe.
 
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Nice! Sources on mercury production are hard to find past the obvious Idrija and Almadén, though... o_O

Climate being Mediterranean on the Atlantic coast and not Mediterranean on most of the Mediterranean coast looks very weird lol
It is however true, most of Portugal has mediterranean climate (western coasts have such climate) and south-eastern Iberia is semi arid, although in game it is all under arid
 
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I’d love if certain mountain passes are impassable during winter. Napoleon had to to wait till May to cross the alps. Trade lines above the Gotthard were completely closed during winter. Still to this day, many mountain passes, such as the Gotthard and Klausenpass are closed during from November till May.
 
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Ciudad Real was named Villa Real until 1420, after the town supported Juan II in a weird attempt of coup. It would be dope if the name changed in-game if the location sided with the winner of a civil war.

I love to see the Alamadén mine represented properly. Will it have the real production output? If I remember correctly, it amounted for a freaking 30% of mercury world production.

And I don't feel that the name of Cold Arid is correct. I would never say that the climate of La Mancha or Valencia is Cold Arid. Maybe use Arid Mediterranean?
1. True, fixing.
2. Yes, as much as 30% of the world's production before the 19th century.
3. There's more Cold Arid across the world, like in the Central Asian steppes.
 
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Thanks for the feedback, we'll consider most of it, including the Galician pops, although one minor comment/correction: El Bierzo and Sanabria were part of the Kingdom of León, not of Galicia, which is clear after the 12th century when their merinos were under the jurisdiction of the Merino Mayor de León. ;)
Thanks a lot!

Yeah, I'm definitely not trying to steal El Bierzo and Sanabria at all, I didn't say any of that in bad faith!
 
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Woud it be possible that the Map of the Pops is paintet in a colour so you can directly see in which provinces there are more or less pops than somwhere else? It woud just be faster to just scan the Map for bright Colours and after that you can look the number up.
It is per country, but I'm taking the screenshot without any country selected.
 
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Hopefully, the fact that not many territories changed hands in Iberia for over 100 years from 1337 can be modeled.

1337
1337 IBERIA.jpg


1482
1715954517513.png
 
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Does this mean that at game start Portugal and Castile will start at war?
It may also start in a truce; we haven't made a final decision about this.
 
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Could it be possible to see a map of the Canary Archipelago, Madeira and the Azores? I know these locations are technically not in Iberia but they have a really strong relationship with the Iberian countries from the conquest and colonization to this day.

Also, I'm curious over the number of locations in the Canary Archipelago.

Would be possible a location for Olivenca, with the size of Gibraltar, in between Castille and Portugal?
 
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Cold Arid for the eastern mediterranean (Mallroca, Catalonia, Valencian Community etc) feels so wrong. Im from the Spanish levante and it certainly is not cold arid like central castile. Its very much mild warm mediterranean.
 
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Oh yeah, I forgot Mallorca had lands in mainland France at the time. That’s definitely going to be one of my first campaigns!

On that note, it feels a bit weird Ibiza and Formentera are merged. I would either make Formentera a seperate island or just remove it from the map.
 
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"Villa" means "Town" in Spanish, and "Ciudad" means "City". That suggests the town was granted City Rights in reward for supporting Juan, and named accordingly. Not a Spanish history expert so could be wrong, but that's how it reads to me.
Yeap, that is the reason. The king granted city status after the support. It is also important to say that, like the name says (Ciudad Real means literally Royal City), it was a city of the realengo (don't remember the English translation. The city belonged to the Crown). It was completely surrounded by the Order of Calatrava because the village was founded to counterweight the power of the Order, so it was very favored by the Kingdom. For example, the Chancillería of the Inquisition was located there.
 
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