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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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That is hardly equivalent to have them as landed vassals, as they were a layer of the royal administrative system, and there was a rotation in the position among different nobles.
Is that also why Hungary doesn't have Slavonia, Macho, Transylvania, etc. as vassals? In that case Croatia shouldn't be vassal either, considering its status was pretty much the same as the others'.
 
Hello all, and congratulations to the devteam for what is shaping up to be every EU player's dream! Having been playing these masterpieces for 23 years (!!!), I can hardly wait for its release.
While mostly agreeing with the way the Iberian Peninsula, particularly Portugal, is being protrayed, I'd like to make a few suggestions regarding Locations (A), Climate (B), Topography (C), Vegetation (D) and Raw Goods (E)

A) Locations:
- there seems to be some inconsistency in the names of a few locs namely Esgueira, Castelo Branco, Chão de Couce and Pinhel. Esgueira might be better represented as Ílhavo, Santa Maria da Feira or, especially, Aveiro; though Aveiro only rose to prominence in the XV century, it seems odd getting stuck with Esgueira for 400 years. Castelo Branco was elevated to a town in the XVI century, while not being wrong per se as it was known before as Casto Leucum, it is not the most correct. Pinhel you may consider changing for Almeida, a vital border garrison. Chão de Couce could perhaps be changed to Figueiró, Ansião or Sertã (birthplace of Nun'Álvares Pereira).
- the fact that Alentejo, through its location of Crato, is extending North of the Tagus is "unholy" (Alentejo meaning beyond the Tagus). That geographical space should belong either to Beira or to Estremadura, Crato town itself is quite southwards of the in game represented location. The same can be said of the Guimarães panhandle (territory of Trás-os-Montes), Avis "snake" connecting Elvas border to the outskirts of Lisbon (with potential dire strategical consequences) and Moncorvo location that links Galiza with León (cutting off Bragança and Mirand do Douro). I suggest splitting Moncorvo, creating Mirandela or Torre de Moncorvo; Avis firmly in Alentejo with Coruche breaking off of it to the west, belonging to Estremadura. Guimarães must be split to allow Braga to be represented, one of the leading cities of the nation.
- between the locs of Chaves, Guimarães and Viana, the dense forest hills of Peneda-Gerês could be represented, maybe as Terras de Bouro
- Castelo Branco and Guarda locations are too large, consider adding a third loc in between them, along a northwest-southeast split, the southeastern part being flatter and drier, the northwestern part, wet forested hills, being in the foothills of the Montejunto-Estrela mountain range (western end of the Central System of the Iberian Peninsula).
- Coimbra can be landlocked by creating Figueira da Foz/Montemor as the orography changes drastically east and northeast of Coimbra (sharp imposing hills) to its west (a vast, wide and fertile plain along Mondego valley).
- as previously suggested Torres Vedras can give off in the south Cascais/Sintra, Leiria can give off Alcobaça to its south and Algarve could be split in four locations, adding Silves between Lagos and Faro.

B) Climate:
- the locations of Guarda and Northwestern Castelo Branco should be Oceanic, as per Serra da Estrela heights. Definitely not Mediterranean. Southeastern Castelo Branco is in the rain shadow of Serra da Estrela.

C) Topography:
- even though Coimbra's hinterlands could be described as hilly, as mentioned, to its west the terrain is flat and wide, therefore it is not accurate to represent it as hills. If the location can't be broken into Coimbra/Figueira, I'd suggest sticking to flatlands.
- Lisbon, Torres Vedras and the southern part of Leiria (Alcobaça) would probably be better represented as hills. West of Lisbon and South of Torres Vedras, the terrain rises sharply creating Serra de Sintra.
- the current loc of Castelo Branco could be described as a plateau, though its western part is quite hilly. Between Guarda and Castelo Branco it would be optimal to have a mountain loc, as previously stated.
- Esgueira/Aveiro/Ílhavo could be represented as marshy, as per Ria de Aveiro. Alcácer do Sal should definitely be marshy, as the low lying Sado valley was/is prone to stagnant waters.

D) Vegetation:
- it is not correct to represent the central locs of Beira as being grasslands.
- if any location in Portugal should have forest, especially in the in game ages, it wouldn't be Chão de Couce, but rather Guarda/Viseu (Montejunto-Estrela and Caramulo) and Northeastern Minho (Peneda-Gerês), corresponding to in game current locs of Viseu, Guarda and somewhere between Viana, Chaves and northern Guimarães. Serra de Sintra, west of Lisbon, could also be represented as forest.
- Lisbon, west Coimbra, Porto and the whole of Minho that isn't wooded/forested should be represented as farmland. If I'm not mistaken, the richest soils in Portugal (terra rossa) lie directly north of Lisbon, and farms (hortas) surrounded Lisbon until the late XIX century.

E) Raw Goods:
- Torres Vedras, wheat rather than olives. Zona Saloia supplying cereal to Lisbon.
- Santarém, flat farmland supplying wood? Much rather livestock, or cereal, definetely not much wood in Santarém. The same can be said for Porto, which could be better shown with medicaments or even fish.
- Coimbra could have medicaments, on account of harboring the country's general studies, a centre of learning since D. Afonso Henriques and the monks of Santa Cruz. D. Afonso Henriques himself was treated by the same monks after the disaster at Badajoz.
- Elvas loc could have stone as for the quarries of marble at Vila Viçosa, tho legumes is not wrong.
- Beja and Moura should be wheat all the way, wine was a minor production compared to the manpower devoted to cereal production in Alentejo. The same for Ourique.
- Avis (especially it's western part, campina do Tejo/Tagus and Sorraia flatlands) and Crato (coudelaria real de Alter do Chão/royal "horse center") could produce horses.
- Salt in Aveiro/Esgueira, if not, livestock (Marinhoa breed, they graze on the salty marshy soil south of Aveiro).
- Salt in Faro, fruits in Silves/interior of Algarve.
- Castelo Branco, especially it's southeastern part is olives all the way. I'd say livestock would be restricted to Penamcor area/northern part of Castelo Branco.
- Northern Minho (Viana) could have wine as main production (Vinho Verde).
- Serra da Estrela (Guarda/Castelo Branco/Viseu) and Gerês (Northern Guimarães/West Chaves) regions had (have, even if now much less) quite a few oak trees that would come in handy some one hundred years later...

My apologies for this huge "biblical" post, keep up with your amazing work!
Best wishes from old Aeminium
 
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  • As others have noted, giving Olivença its own location would be funny, if not for the meme alone.
In fairness that is the only change in borders that happened in Portugal during the game's timeframe, so for that reason alone (and the fact that it seems big enough to be a location) it should be included.
 
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I agree, Portugal was rarely attacked from the Minho and Trás-os-Montes due to its difficult terrain.

The Serra da Estrela mountain range should be in, not a single army in history has passed through it, they have always gone around it. Historically there really only two good "invasion" routes of Portugal, the one south of the Serra da Estrala, which follow the Tejo river and the other is through the flatlands of Alentejo.

A little detail about Trás-os-Montes, it literally means "Behind-the-Mountains" (from a southern perspective), and historically it has always been quite isolated because of this. So it would be nice to also show it on the map :)
Three main routes of invasion, I'd argue.
Minho, which almost always held fast, owing to its many rivers, strong fortified border and plentiful population.
Beira Alta, North of Serra da Estrela, towards Mondego, Coimbra, Leiria, Lisbon route (the one where Aljubarrota took place); hence the Praça de Almeida.
Alentejo, the main one, no discussion there!
Beira Baixa, south of Serra da Estrela, was seldom used, particularly after the middle ages, as it had very little population to support an invading army, and the terrain was quite abrupt and wooded, especially as it progresses to the west towards the Tejo line.
 
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I'd say 40-60% from Black Death. There are many other diseases that kill of pops, famine and war is not exactly kind to population numbers either.

Luckily, humans tend to enjoy making babies, and pre 18th century adult women gave birth to 4-6 children on average. Even with a high rate of child birth, populations tend to rise over time with those numbers, even with the Four Horsemen paying semi-regular visits.
There's probably going to be a TT on this, but I wonder how random the Black Death will be?

Since it happens so soon after the start of the game, I expect players to treat the post Black Death numbers as the "real start" of the game, from which you then start to grow.
Considering how much effort goes into researching historical population numbers, it would be a waste if you ended up with populations that are vastly different from history just 10 years into the game, if the Black Death has a lot of randomness to it.
 
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Three main routes of invasion, I'd argue.
Minho, which almost always held fast, owing to its many rivers, strong fortified border and plentiful population.
Beira Alta, North of Serra da Estrela, towards Mondego, Coimbra, Leiria, Lisbon route (the one where Aljubarrota took place); hence the Praça de Almeida.
Alentejo, the main one, no discussion there!
Beira Baixa, south of Serra da Estrela, was seldom used, particularly after the middle ages, as it had very little population to support an invading army, and the terrain was quite abrupt and wooded, especially as it progresses to the west towards the Tejo line.
True, thank you for the correction
 
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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, 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:
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!
For cultures, something like what (I think it's this mod) Beyond Typus does would work better. Have Andalusian be the Christian culture in the south, and Andalusi be the Muslim culture. As the provinces get converted, they switch to the culture corresponding to that faith. It makes a lot more sense than having Castile as a massive blob.
 
I thought about mentioning this in my reply only because Avis was strangely snakey but I hadn't noticed it made Lisbon stand 2 locations away from the frontier.
Yeah, the two "snakes", Avis and Crato... I'm yet to understand the rationale about Crato extending North of the Tagus, almost to Serra da Estrela.
By the way, your map edit looks a lot like what I had in mind!
Porto's "finger" towards Trás-os-Montes might as well be the wealthy town of Amarante.
 
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#1
Sierra de la Demanda Mountains between Calahorra and Ágreda locations and River Queiles.

Val river and then Queiles river flow eastwards from Ágreda to Tarazona. The Sierra de la Demanda mountains in their most eastern side are between Calahorra and Ágreda, and produce a natural barrier between these two locations. My point here is just aesthetic, since I believe the connection of Calahorra and Ágreda locations should still exist but representing a bit more of the actual mountains. The Moncayo mountain wasteland should also increase it’s size.

View attachment 1134890
In green the increased wasteland size.



#6
Province belonging of Logroño and Calahorra locations.

Historically, the term of La Rioja first appeared in the Eleventh Century to refer to the region that actually is Rioja Alta, which corresponds to Logroño location in the map. After some time, Rioja also ended being referred for Rioja Baja, which corresponds to Calahorra location in the map. The sources about province split between Burgos and Soria Provinces are correct for the Eighteen Century, but in reality the Ebro river and valley has a big impact and as Logroño (Rioja Alta) is mainly dependant to Burgos Province due to Castile, I would put also Calahorra to Burgos Province for a 1337 time and the rest of the game. They both are in general better connected to Burgos than to Soria, even from Calahorra, and its natural connections are along the Ebro valley to Rioja Alta and then Burgos. Moreover, taken into account wastelands added in feedback #1.

Other options are to include both locations (Logroño and Calahorra) into Navarra or make a new province named La Rioja having Logroño, Calahorra and Laguardia. Although, I think it’s more accurate to use the first option to make both part of Burgos, as shown here in this sketch.

View attachment 1134895
Calahorra location included in Burgos province together with Logroño location, instead of in Soria province.


#7
Name of the location of Logroño.

The name (or capital, I don’t know exactly how locations work) of the location of Logroño should be Nájera, more important than the first by this time of 1337, as can be seen in the bibliography [1] in the map of page 89, of number of windmills by location, being Nájera win by a lot in number against Logroño, that only has three. Logroño is my born city, but to be realistic at 1337 Nájera had more relevance mainly because of the Kings of Navarra, until the end of Fifteen Century, by when Logroño being a walled city was unsuccessfully sieged by the French in 1521. Apart from this, any of the following two options could be ideal only if they fit and/or are going to be used in other parts of the world:​
  • Name the location Nájera, and plan an event in the Fifteen Century that this location is renamed to Logroño. Could also work for many other locations in the world.​
  • But even better this other option; name Logroño to Rioja Alta, Calahorra to Rioja Baja, and Laguardia to Rioja Alavesa.​
If either of the two options are too much, just leave it as Logroño, since in about 100 years and for the rest of the game Logroño will overthrow Nájera as the main city in this location.

View attachment 1134896
Rioja (or Rioga) term has its first references in Logroño location around eleventh century, 200 year prior to the game start.
Don't you think Rioja Baja should have its own location (Alfaro) while keeping Calahorra? I know they are technically considered the same comarca, but historically Calahorra was conquered by the Christians way earlier, whilst Alfaro was conquered later (in the 1119 capture of Tudela). It kind felt more natural for me to have:
  • an Alfaro location with the Alhama valley and the bit from Rioja that goes into Tudela. This one should for example being the first contested area in any conflict with Navarra.
  • Another location for Calahorra, also encompassing Arnedo, the Cidacos river and the Cameros area. For me this should include the western half of the proposed area for Agreda, leaving Agreda as just the contact point between Castille and Aragon in the Queiles river
  • Logroño location should also lose a bit of land to the Calahorra part but keep its Logroño focus, since there was attempts to poblate the area since the XII century. It was a river crossing key for access to Pamplona and likely to be a trade route for game purposes (St. Jacobs way?) and I think it is worth having such crossing detailed
  • Briviesca to be transformed into either Santo Domingo or Najera and cover Upper La Rioja. This one is tricky since in the early middle Ages the separation between Old Castille / Rioja / Najera fluctuated (with, for example, Belorado sometimes being considered la Rioja). But Burgos seems too small for its historic Alfoz and the Briviesca location seemed to try to model something like the contact area with La Rioja
It is just four-five locations for Rioja (depending on whether Briviesca is kept o converted into Santo Domingo) compared with the three locations in the Map by Pavía. But it allows for many potential developments in a tristate border between Castille, Navarre and Aragon. I'm not good with graphic design but tried to do a basic sketch. I've also included my earlier proposal for Borja and your comment about the Moncayo:


1716035855093.png

My general idea is that a one early target for both Navarra and Aragon should be trying to consolidate the river systems flowing into Tudela , by unifying Tudela/6-Tarazona/4-Alfaro/5-Agreda. The area had a bishopship (initially in Tarazona, moving it to Tudela was a XVIII century thing), some potential infrastructure (irrigation systems) and until the morisco expansion a network or alquerias of farming value. The mountain passes also create a chokepoint to Soria. If either of those countries gets that, they unlock what was a regional center. The population values and raw goods in Tudela were promising

Contesting Laguardia and Logroño is a different goal, that involves only Castille and Navarra. The area will be crossed by trade from France (tolls and organic development as per Johan posts) so it will be interesting to control. But note that Aragon trade is likely to go through Jaca and then using the old roman/medieval road (exact itinerary is discussed by scholars) towards Zaragoza and then to the ports. Navarra had a different Pyrenees crossing in Roncesvalles, and its road should go to Pamplona and then cross by either Logroño or Laguardia to Castille.

Getting a maximal Navarra that gets again Calahorra and Najera and the whole Rioja is a third goal, only regarding Navarra (in case you can and want to recreate the historically maximal borders of Pamplona), but separate from the other two ideas. Note that for example Calahorra was a different diocesis than Tarazona and having that frontier between 3 and 4 allows that.

A fourth goal will regard only Aragon and would be for Tarazona diocesis to expand to its maximal historical borders by including Soria and maybe Almazan. This may be the continuation of Aragon's ambitions if it succeeds in #1.

So it opens options: if Navarra gets #1, you can end with Tudela as regional center and Navarra starting to recover agains Castille. Thats kind of what Sancho VII seems to be trying a bit before Project Caesar start. If Aragon gets #1, Tarazona will develop as the main regional center. If Castille prevents both, the avoid their neighbours snowballing as historically
 
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Will we be able to rename locations and/or provinces too? One of my favorite parts of one certain game is ability to rename *provinces* to something more interesting or i.e. rename colonial provinces to something more nique
 
Another question for the team
1- Are there going to be military orders, maybe as part of the estates? (having some control over an area or territory)

militares_ord.gif


2- Is there going to be possible to expell non-asimilated pops?
 
Hello all, and congratulations to the devteam for what is shaping up to be every EU player's dream! Having been playing these masterpieces for 23 years (!!!), I can hardly wait for its release.
While mostly agreeing with the way the Iberian Peninsula, particularly Portugal, is being protrayed, I'd like to make a few suggestions regarding Locations (A), Climate (B), Topography (C), Vegetation (D) and Raw Goods (E)

A) Locations:
- there seems to be some inconsistency in the names of a few locs namely Esgueira, Castelo Branco, Chão de Couce and Pinhel. Esgueira might be better represented as Ílhavo, Santa Maria da Feira or, especially, Aveiro; though Aveiro only rose to prominence in the XV century, it seems odd getting stuck with Esgueira for 400 years. Castelo Branco was elevated to a town in the XVI century, while not being wrong per se as it was known before as Casto Leucum, it is not the most correct. Pinhel you may consider changing for Almeida, a vital border garrison. Chão de Couce could perhaps be changed to Figueiró, Ansião or Sertã (birthplace of Nun'Álvares Pereira).
- the fact that Alentejo, through its location of Crato, is extending North of the Tagus is "unholy" (Alentejo meaning beyond the Tagus). That geographical space should belong either to Beira or to Estremadura, Crato town itself is quite southwards of the in game represented location. The same can be said of the Guimarães panhandle (territory of Trás-os-Montes), Avis "snake" connecting Elvas border to the outskirts of Lisbon (with potential dire strategical consequences) and Moncorvo location that links Galiza with León (cutting off Bragança and Mirand do Douro). I suggest splitting Moncorvo, creating Mirandela or Torre de Moncorvo; Avis firmly in Alentejo with Coruche breaking off of it to the west, belonging to Estremadura. Guimarães must be split to allow Braga to be represented, one of the leading cities of the nation.
- between the locs of Chaves, Guimarães and Viana, the dense forest hills of Peneda-Gerês could be represented, maybe as Terras de Bouro
- Castelo Branco and Guarda locations are too large, consider adding a third loc in between them, along a northwest-southeast split, the southeastern part being flatter and drier, the northwestern part, wet forested hills, being in the foothills of the Montejunto-Estrela mountain range (western end of the Central System of the Iberian Peninsula).
- Coimbra can be landlocked by creating Figueira da Foz/Montemor as the orography changes drastically east and northeast of Coimbra (sharp imposing hills) to its west (a vast, wide and fertile plain along Mondego valley).
- as previously suggested Torres Vedras can give off in the south Cascais/Sintra, Leiria can give off Alcobaça to its south and Algarve could be split in four locations, adding Silves between Lagos and Faro.

B) Climate:
- the locations of Guarda and Northwestern Castelo Branco should be Oceanic, as per Serra da Estrela heights. Definitely not Mediterranean. Southeastern Castelo Branco is in the rain shadow of Serra da Estrela.

C) Topography:
- even though Coimbra's hinterlands could be described as hilly, as mentioned, to its west the terrain is flat and wide, therefore it is not accurate to represent it as hills. If the location can't be broken into Coimbra/Figueira, I'd suggest sticking to flatlands.
- Lisbon, Torres Vedras and the southern part of Leiria (Alcobaça) would probably be better represented as hills. West of Lisbon and South of Torres Vedras, the terrain rises sharply creating Serra de Sintra.
- the current loc of Castelo Branco could be described as a plateau, though its western part is quite hilly. Between Guarda and Castelo Branco it would be optimal to have a mountain loc, as previously stated.
- Esgueira/Aveiro/Ílhavo could be represented as marshy, as per Ria de Aveiro. Alcácer do Sal should definitely be marshy, as the low lying Sado valley was/is prone to stagnant waters.

D) Vegetation:
- it is not correct to represent the central locs of Beira as being grasslands.
- if any location in Portugal should have forest, especially in the in game ages, it wouldn't be Chão de Couce, but rather Guarda/Viseu (Montejunto-Estrela and Caramulo) and Northeastern Minho (Peneda-Gerês), corresponding to in game current locs of Viseu, Guarda and somewhere between Viana, Chaves and northern Guimarães. Serra de Sintra, west of Lisbon, could also be represented as forest.
- Lisbon, west Coimbra, Porto and the whole of Minho that isn't wooded/forested should be represented as farmland. If I'm not mistaken, the richest soils in Portugal (terra rossa) lie directly north of Lisbon, and farms (hortas) surrounded Lisbon until the late XIX century.

E) Raw Goods:
- Torres Vedras, wheat rather than olives. Zona Saloia supplying cereal to Lisbon.
- Santarém, flat farmland supplying wood? Much rather livestock, or cereal, definetely not much wood in Santarém. The same can be said for Porto, which could be better shown with medicaments or even fish.
- Coimbra could have medicaments, on account of harboring the country's general studies, a centre of learning since D. Afonso Henriques and the monks of Santa Cruz. D. Afonso Henriques himself was treated by the same monks after the disaster at Badajoz.
- Elvas loc could have stone as for the quarries of marble at Vila Viçosa, tho legumes is not wrong.
- Beja and Moura should be wheat all the way, wine was a minor production compared to the manpower devoted to cereal production in Alentejo. The same for Ourique.
- Avis (especially it's western part, campina do Tejo/Tagus and Sorraia flatlands) and Crato (coudelaria real de Alter do Chão/royal "horse center") could produce horses.
- Salt in Aveiro/Esgueira, if not, livestock (Marinhoa breed, they graze on the salty marshy soil south of Aveiro).
- Salt in Faro, fruits in Silves/interior of Algarve.
- Castelo Branco, especially it's southeastern part is olives all the way. I'd say livestock would be restricted to Penamcor area/northern part of Castelo Branco.
- Northern Minho (Viana) could have wine as main production (Vinho Verde).
- Serra da Estrela (Guarda/Castelo Branco/Viseu) and Gerês (Northern Guimarães/West Chaves) regions had (have, even if now much less) quite a few oak trees that would come in handy some one hundred years later...

My apologies for this huge "biblical" post, keep up with your amazing work!
Best wishes from old Aeminium
Fantastic feedback post well done!
 
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Will we be able to rename locations and/or provinces too? One of my favorite parts of one certain game is ability to rename *provinces* to something more interesting or i.e. rename colonial provinces to something more nique
Renaming provinces is your favorite part of the game?

Anyway Pavia confirmed that it is

Passed the feedback to the team. And about the second question, yes, it's currently possible to rename locations.
 
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, 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:
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!
Hello guys!
I think you should set up a marble province in Lugo, you would diversify production in Galicia and you would represent the important marble quarry of O Incio, which was still active at the time of the game.
Thanks for your efforts!
 
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Don't you think Rioja Baja should have its own location (Alfaro) while keeping Calahorra? I know they are technically considered the same comarca, but historically Calahorra was conquered by the Christians way earlier, whilst Alfaro was conquered later (in the 1119 capture of Tudela). It kind felt more natural for me to have:
  • an Alfaro location with the Alhama valley and the bit from Rioja that goes into Tudela. This one should for example being the first contested area in any conflict with Navarra.
  • Another location for Calahorra, also encompassing Arnedo, the Cidacos river and the Cameros area. For me this should include the western half of the proposed area for Agreda, leaving Agreda as just the contact point between Castille and Aragon in the Queiles river
  • Logroño location should also lose a bit of land to the Calahorra part but keep its Logroño focus, since there was attempts to poblate the area since the XII century. It was a river crossing key for access to Pamplona and likely to be a trade route for game purposes (St. Jacobs way?) and I think it is worth having such crossing detailed
  • Briviesca to be transformed into either Santo Domingo or Najera and cover Upper La Rioja. This one is tricky since in the early middle Ages the separation between Old Castille / Rioja / Najera fluctuated (with, for example, Belorado sometimes being considered la Rioja). But Burgos seems to small for its historic Alfoz and the Briviesca location seemed to try to model something like the contact area with La Rioja
It is just four-five locations for Rioja (depending on whether Briviesca is kept o converted into Santo Domingo) compared with the three locations in the Map by Pavía. But allows for many potential developments in a tristate border between Castille, Navarre and Aragon. I'm not good with graphic design but tried to do a basic sketch. I've also included my earlier proposal for Borja and your comment about the Moncayo:


View attachment 1135035
My general idea is that a one earlier target for both Navarra and Aragon should be trying to consolidate the river systems flowing into Tudela , by unifying Tudela/6-Tarazona/4-Alfaro/5-Agreda. The area had a bishopship (initially in Tarazona, moving it to Tudela was a XVIII century thing), some potential infrastructure (irrigation systems) and until the morisco expansion a network or alquerias of farming value. The mountain passes also create a chokepoint to Soria. If either of those countries gets that, they unlock what was a regional center. The population values and raw goods in Tudela were promising

Contesting Laguardia and Logroño is a different goal, that involves only Castille and Navarra. The area will be crossed by trade from France (tolls and organic development as per Johan posts) so it will be interesting to control. But note that Aragon trade is likely to go through Jaca and then using the old roman/medieval road (exact itinerary is discussed by scholars) towards Zaragoza and the to the ports. Navarra had a differend Pyrinees crossing in Roncesvalles, and its road should go to Pamplona and then cross by either Logroño or Laguardia to Castille.

Getting a maximal Navarra that gets again Calahorra and Najera and the whole Rioja is a third goal, only regarding Navarra (in case you can and want to recreate the historically maximal borders of Pamplona), but separate of the other two ideas. Note that for example Calahorra was a different diocesis than Tarazona and having that frontier between 3 and 4 allows that.

A fourth goal will regard only Aragon and would be for Tarazona diocesis to expand to its maximal historical borders by including Soria and maybe Almazan. This may be the continuation of Aragon's ambitions if it succeeds in #1.

So it opens options: if Navarra gets #1, you can end with Tudela as regional center and Navarra starting to recover agains Castille. Thats kind of what Sancho VII seems to be trying a bit before Project Caesar start. If Aragon gets #1, Tarazona will develop as the main regional center. If Castille prevents both, the avoid their neighbours snowballing as historically
I cannot write and sketch it better than you did. Agree with everything, from my knowledge and what I could refresh, it's historical accurate and logical. Very well explained and thought too.

The reason I didn't add more locations than those already existing is because I didn't know how much smaller they can get, but considering that Laguardia is small enough right now, all those you draw are perfectly to pair with it too. I support everything you write, Zaragoza. The number 1 should definitely be Nájera and not Santo Domingo, being the first one, the most important of the two in 1337. This is good material for the devs and up to them if they want to go that small, but regarding how small is Laguardia it makes sense.

In English is Way of St. James and you are right, it was a big influence in Logroño, since it was the point (and is) where this route crosses the Ebro river. Also commercial and military strategic for the same reason.
 
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