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Tinto Maps #20 - 27th of September 2024 - The Steppes

Hello, and welcome one more week to the weekly encounter for map lovers! This week it’s also directed at horse lovers because we will be looking at the Eurasian Steppes, plus the Urals! So let’s start with the maps without further ado.

Countries:
Countries.jpg

Colored Wastelands.jpg

A glorious, Golden Horde! It is at its power peak, under the reign of Uzbeg Khan, so it's a much more menacing presence for its neighbors. However, it has its some internal issues that need to be managed, as you’ll notice in some of the maps, and in the future when we talk about the content for Hordes. The Golden Horde also heads its own IO, the Tatar Yoke, as shown in a previous Tinto Maps:

Tatar Yoke.jpg

We have already corrected the Ruthenian countries that are under the Horde’s Yoke, although we still have to correct the Russian principalities, which will be done in the corresponding Tinto Maps review. We’re also aware that we need to improve a bit the coloring of the IO, to mark not only the Golden Horde as the overlord of these countries, but also that Muscovy holds the title of the Grand Principality of Vladimir, which makes it the ‘enforcer’ of the Yoke. These fixes are also planned to be done in a few weeks.

Societies of Pops:
Societies of Pops.jpg

Societies of Pops 2.jpg .jpg

A bit up to the north, we have some Societies of Pops! This means that the territory of Western Siberia won’t be empty land, but will be populated by these people, which can be interacted with.

BTW, I’m not showing this week a dynasty map because, well, only the Borgijin dynasty rules over the lands of the Golden Horde, of course!


Locations:
Locations.jpg

Locations Western Siberia.jpg

Locations 3.jpg

Locations 4.jpg

Locations 5.jpg

Tons of locations today… You might notice that the density location is in a progression from west to east, from the most densely settled areas to the less settled ones. You may also notice that we’ve followed a design of ‘settler corridors’ in Western Siberia, setting those parts of the land that were habitable, usually on river valleys.

Provinces:
Provinces.jpg

Provinces 2.jpg


Areas:
Areas.jpg


Terrain:
Climate.jpg

Topography.jpg

Vegetation.jpg

The terrain is interesting here, as there are two main ecological areas. The first is the Steppes, Flatlands with Sparse and Grasslands vegetation, with either Cold Arid or Continental climates. And then we have the Siberian Arctics Forests, which are completely different, of course. On a note, the Urals were set as Hills, as they’re a quite settleable area, but we’ll probably make a review with your feedback, and add some mountains there.

Development:
Development.jpg

The whole region is not very developed, you might notice the difference with India, from last week’s Tinto Maps.

Harbors:
Harbors.jpg

There are some harbors in the Steppe region… In the Black Sea and Caspian Sea, of course! As usual, we’re open to feedback on this matter.

Cultures:
Cultures.jpg

Plenty of cultures! One note: Although we planned to work on the religious and cultural minorities of the region during the summer, we ended up not having enough time to add them. So what we’ll be doing today is showing the rough outline of ‘cultural spheres’, and then we’ll add the minorities during the review of the region. In that sense, feedback is very well received.

With that said the only note that needs to be made in terms of the cultural design is that we divided the Tatar cultural group into some differentiated regional cultures, being Crimean, Mishary, Kazani, and Astrakhani. We’re also aware that some of the cultures, as Mari and Chuvash, might be a bit displaced, as noted in the Russian Tinto Maps, so we’ll review and correct that with your feedback.


Religions:
Religions.jpg

Regarding Religions, the matter is a bit worse, as the big Sunni blob is just because the main religion of the Golden Horde is Islam, after the conversion of Uzbeg Khan, but that’s obviously incorrect. Also, as we have been able to forecast development time on how Pagan divisions will be during this autumn, we will make a comprehensive review of the region as well, to get a good distribution of ‘Shamanist’ Paganism, Tengrism, and Sunni Islam.

Raw Materials:
Raw Materials.jpg

Raw Materials 2.jpg

Raw Materials 3.jpg

Regarding the raw materials, the Steppes have plenty of Livestock and Horses, quite logically, although there are regions with some other goods. And up to the north, the main materials are Lumber and Fur. Apart from that, I want to mention the mineral hub in the Ural Mountains, with plenty of Copper, Iron, Gold, Lead, and Coal. That makes it a very mid and late-game interesting spot, and playing as Muscovy/Russia, I’ll tell you that you definitely want to expand into that region, as it will fulfill some of your material needs by that time.

Markets:
Markets.jpg

Markets! Big region, with lots of markets, although you may noticed that we changed the coloring of the locations that have 0% market access, which is the case in several areas. In any case, the market centers are Kaffa, Astrakhan, Saray-Jük, Kunya Urgench, Samarkand, Almaty, and Chimgi Tura. BTW, these names are much easier to notice in the game’s UI, as they’re beside the market centers:

Markets 2.jpg


Population:
Population.jpg

This week we’re showing only the country population mapmode, as there are some location numbers here and there which are failing, due to the already known issue with our pop editor (and which are on the way to be fixed). In any case, the whole population of the region is around 6.5-7M, of which around 6.3M are part of the Golden Horde. As I said, it’s a menacing country…

And that’s all for today! This is going to be my last Tinto Maps in a while, as I’ll be on vacation for 3 weeks during October (you might have noticed that I didn’t have any during summer), so one of the Content Designers in the team, @Roger Corominas , will step in and be in charge of the next 4 Tinto Maps. It’s in good hands, as Roger is an Experienced CD, who has been working and focused on Project Caesar for more than 3 years, at this point (this is why you might not know him from EU4, as other CDs in our team). In any case, he will be starting with the regions of Xinjiang, mostly ruled by the Chagatai Khanate, and Tibet.

I’ll keep reading and answering you during next week, and then I’ll be back in a month from now. See you!
 
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There has been some internal discussion regarding this feedback, and yes, we plan to make some adjustments.
That's great to hear. The location, market, and dev maps are the most problematic ones to me personally. In addition to what Ibvfteh said, there's also the problem in the dev mapmode where it is no longer a clean gradient, but same dev provinces get grouped up and form blobs. On higher density maps I reckon it'd be difficult to see the actual dev color certain cities have
 
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@Pavía are there Jewish cultures and religions in Crimea like the Crimean Karaites and the Rabbinic Krymchaks? Will there be anything for their and Lipka tatars' migration into Lithuania? And how would you design the Cossacks both in the Don Kuban and Zaporozhia?
 
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I don't know if it's been said before, but I'm not really a fan of how provinces/areas expand into wastelands. I feel like it makes the map harder to understand, due to having that mixture of interactable locations alongside wastelands which block all interactions. It also feels a bit odd when certain names expand across huge areas, for example "Upper Egypt" going all the way north-west, or "Laila" (a little town in central Arabia) covering the entire Rub' al Khali down to the Omani coast.

Here's an example of what I mean in this map, Dudinka covers a huge area, but the actual locations you can interact with are only (roughly) within the highlighted area. When looking at the province mapmode, it's extremely difficult to tell what parts are the 'actual' province.
Provinces 2~2.jpg


I'm not sure what would be the best way to do it, as I don't know the limitations of the game or what other people might want, but I would want the wastelands to be either greyed out (like in other mapmodes, or the area mapmode in EU4) or made into their own provinces/areas (separate from normal locations). Maybe even a mixture of both, since it could have the opposite problem in places with lots of small, messy, wastelands.
 
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Alright then, I have been waiting for this! Here's the continuation of all the Genoese(also some Venetian amd Pisan) colonies, trading outposts, forts, etc...

First of all I wanna start with something that I forgot to mention in my previous post and that's the fact that the Genoese possession around the Balck Sea were not ruled directly by the republic from Italy but by a colonial goverment based in Caffa referred as "Gazaria" which I think should be rapresented as tag in P.C. due to its similar nature and organization to the Venetian colonies, from what I could find it seems that the colony(which behaved more like an autonomous region) officially controlled only the cities of the Crimean peninsula but de facto had control of the majority of the Genoese possessions in the Black sea(modern day Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova and Romania) besides the ones in Constantinople(which of course had its own administration due to its importance) and maybe Anatolia ( couldn't find much but probably controlled directly by Genoa due to their relatively close distance from Costantinople), so from now on when I refer to something belonging to Genoa I'm most likely talking of Gazaria.
Today's/Native name/Genoese/Italian a.k.a. Tuscan(usually coincides with the Genoese one)

-In 1337 Genoa still controls or used to control:

-Abkhazia and Ajara(Georgia):
I decided to put this section here instead of the Iranian Tinto maps because I couldn't find much information about it

Batumi/Lo Vati/Lo Bati(definitely the most important possession in the area, unfortunately I coudn't determine if they directly owned the city or if they had a trading post)
Sukhumi/Savastopoli(they didn't directly own it but they had a trading post and a catholic bishopric)
Anacopia/Nikoxia/Nikosia(used to be a Genoese colony it's not clear if they still control in in 1337)
Pitsunda/Pezonda(in the 13th century it used to be a Genoese colony for a brief period)
Gudauta/Cavo di Buxo(situated between Anacopia and Pitsunda, not in the game atm but it seems they had some sort of presence in the town)
Gagra/Chacari(not in the game but it was a major trading settlement for both Genoese and Venetians, most likely a Genoese trading post)
Alakhadzi/Santa Sofia(not much know, probably similar to Gagra but smaller)

-Crimean peninsula:
Feodosia/Caffa(built on the ruins of the ancient city of Theodosia it was the Genoese capital of Gazaria and the balck sea at large, at the time it had one of Europe's biggest slave market, it also had a catholic diocese and Ibn Battuta even described it as a grat city with a great fortress and a great harbour of which the majority of inhabitants were Genoese Christians and it was the biggest city in the region before the plague hit it)
Sevastopol/Sarsona/Chersoneso(in the past the city with the best harbour in the black sea was de facto controlled by Genoa but in 1337 the city was officially and thr facto owned by the Principality of Theodoro which was a vassal of Trebizond, the presence that Genoa has is unclear since thet were in conflict with Venice who also wanted to control its great harbour which caused the town to go in decline, Gazaria should probably have a core on the location)
Sudak/Soldaia(it was previously owned by Genoa but in 1337 it was under Venetian control)
Staryj krym/Surcati(never owned by Genoa but they had a trading post to commerce with Crimeans)
Kerč̣/Cerchio/Vosporo(important harbour to control the sea of Azov)
Chimmero(couldn't find much about it exept that it was a Genoese controlled settlement south of Kerč based on the ancient city of Kimmerikon)

Although not in Crimea another important outpost Genoa had at the time was the castle of Ginestra located in the Odessa of today, in 1337 it was used to protect the Genoese city of Maurocastro(today's Bilhorod-Dnistrovs'kyj) together with other forts along the Dniester river from the Mongols, I didn't say this in the Balkan tinto maps because although close Odessa is not part of it.

-Taman Peninsula and north sea of Azov:
Azov/Tana(rebuilt by the Venetians on the ruins of the ancient city of Tanais south of the river Don it was the second most important city and harbour in the region after Caffa due to the concessions of the khan of the golden horde, by 1337 the city was both a colony of the Venetian and Genoese who divided in 2 quraters, I think a goid way to rapresent this would be to have the Genoese control the location since they control the strait that leads to the city and have a Venetian trading outpost in it, another important fact about Tana is the Pisan port that was situated outside the city on the opposite side of the Don river which has worse natural harbour)
Slavyansk-na-Kubani/Copa/Coparia(like many other settlement in the region it was directly owned by De Ghisolfi family which ruled on behalf of the Gazaria colony)
Anapa/Mapa/Anapa(strategically important but it had a sandy harbour)
Novorossiysk/Batario(called Susaco in the game derived by the english refugees, has a great port also owned by the De Ghisolfi in 1337)
Khosta/Costa(a district of the modern city of Sochi owned by the Genoese in 1337)
Adler/Layso(same as Khosta)
Yeysk/Bacinaci/Balzimachi(a minor Genoese colony and port used to load up bigger cargo ships through smaller boats due to bad quality of its harbour)
Taganrog/Cobardi(same as Yeysk)

I found some more minor coastal settlements and ports in the area but they were all too very small and irrelevant to write down but if anything they show that by 1337 Genoa had great control of the north-east coast of the sea of Azov going from the nowdays city of Berdiansk to the town of Dolzhanskaya


-Settlements that in 1337 were controlled by Trebizond or their vassal Theodoro but that Genoa(Gazaria) will own in the future:

Balaklava/Cembalo
Alupka(I found no translation)
Yalta/Caulita
Alušta/Lusta
Tmutarakan/Matrega(modern Taman)

And that's it, I've taken the vast majority of these information from old Genoese papers kept in the city archives like the "Liber Gazarie" that describes their possesions and even how they ran their colonies including their government and traded goods in the region.
Hi! Some thoughts:
1. I'd consider Gazaria more an administrative division (such as a lieutenancy) than as a separate ruling body, as there was not a 'ruler' different to that of the Republic.
2. Thanks for the detailed list! Some of these are considered more a holding, while others are more a merchant outpost; the first ones make for Genoa to own the location, while the other are represented through an extraterritorial building, the 'Fondaco'. We'll review the existing ones taking into account this feedback, nonetheless.
3. By the way, we have already added some content regarding the Liber Gazarie in the game.
 
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I trhink the proper plural ethnonym for Bashkortostan is Bashkir and not Bashkoristani. In addition did you guys add those society of pops off this map i posted a few months ago in the Russia thread?


If so im really glad that our feedback including mine has had some genuine impact.

Although i am wondering if they could be portrayed as normal statelets in the game since they were not necessarily a SOP its just that most of the sources regarding them come from the 1400's but they very well could have still existed prior to that. Nonetheless nice to see them implemented in the game in some way
 
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Skärmavbild 2024-09-27 kl. 15.18.23 (2).png


Like I'm all for accurate mapping, but these micoscopic pixel-perfect corridors are perhaps a little... excessive?

Doesn't bother me too much, but it's interesting. Definitely a different approach from previous PDX games.
 
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Hi! Some thoughts:
1. I'd consider Gazaria more an administrative division (such as a lieutenancy) than as a separate ruling body, as there was not a 'ruler' different to that of the Republic.
2. Thanks for the detailed list! Some of these are considered more a holding, while others are more a merchant outpost; the first ones make for Genoa to own the location, while the other are represented through an extraterritorial building, the 'Fondaco'. We'll review the existing ones taking into account this feedback, nonetheless.
3. By the way, we have already added some content regarding the Liber Gazarie in the game.
Great! Happy to hear that you guys take my posys in consideration, regarding Gazaria I still feel like they could be a tag though maybe not at the start but through an event especially since after the Genoese took their colonies after the GH occupied them thy reformed the colony and gave them a similar government inspired by some of the Venetian colonies with consuls a council etc...or maybe it could be rapresented as an autonomous part of the country kinda like Wales or the Pale, please take it into consideration again.
 
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Hello, and welcome one more week to the weekly encounter for map lovers! This week it’s also directed at horse lovers because we will be looking at the Eurasian Steppes, plus the Urals! So let’s start with the maps without further ado.

Countries:
View attachment 1193513
View attachment 1194073
A glorious, Golden Horde! It is at its power peak, under the reign of Uzbeg Khan, so it's a much more menacing presence for its neighbors. However, it has its some internal issues that need to be managed, as you’ll notice in some of the maps, and in the future when we talk about the content for Hordes. The Golden Horde also heads its own IO, the Tatar Yoke, as shown in a previous Tinto Maps:

View attachment 1194074
We have already corrected the Ruthenian countries that are under the Horde’s Yoke, although we still have to correct the Russian principalities, which will be done in the corresponding Tinto Maps review. We’re also aware that we need to improve a bit the coloring of the IO, to mark not only the Golden Horde as the overlord of these countries, but also that Muscovy holds the title of the Grand Principality of Vladimir, which makes it the ‘enforcer’ of the Yoke. These fixes are also planned to be done in a few weeks.

Societies of Pops:
View attachment 1193514
A bit up to the north, we have some Societies of Pops! This means that the territory of Western Siberia won’t be empty land, but will be populated by these people, which can be interacted with.

BTW, I’m not showing this week a dynasty map because, well, only the Borgijin dynasty rules over the lands of the Golden Horde, of course!


Locations:
View attachment 1194075
View attachment 1194076

Tons of locations today… You might notice that the density location is in a progression from west to east, from the most densely settled areas to the less settled ones. You may also notice that we’ve followed a design of ‘settler corridors’ in Western Siberia, setting those parts of the land that were habitable, usually on river valleys.

Provinces:
View attachment 1194081
View attachment 1194082

Areas:
View attachment 1194083

Terrain:
View attachment 1194084
View attachment 1194085
View attachment 1194086
The terrain is interesting here, as there are two main ecological areas. The first is the Steppes, Flatlands with Sparse and Grasslands vegetation, with either Cold Arid or Continental climates. And then we have the Siberian Arctics Forests, which are completely different, of course. On a note, the Urals were set as Hills, as they’re a quite settleable area, but we’ll probably make a review with your feedback, and add some mountains there.

Development:
View attachment 1194087
The whole region is not very developed, you might notice the difference with India, from last week’s Tinto Maps.

Harbors:
View attachment 1194088
There are some harbors in the Steppe region… In the Black Sea and Caspian Sea, of course! As usual, we’re open to feedback on this matter.

Cultures:
View attachment 1194089
Plenty of cultures! One note: Although we planned to work on the religious and cultural minorities of the region during the summer, we ended up not having enough time to add them. So what we’ll be doing today is showing the rough outline of ‘cultural spheres’, and then we’ll add the minorities during the review of the region. In that sense, feedback is very well received.

With that said the only note that needs to be made in terms of the cultural design is that we divided the Tatar cultural group into some differentiated regional cultures, being Crimean, Mishary, Kazani, and Astrakhani. We’re also aware that some of the cultures, as Mari and Chuvash, might be a bit displaced, as noted in the Russian Tinto Maps, so we’ll review and correct that with your feedback.


Religions:
View attachment 1194092
Regarding Religions, the matter is a bit worse, as the big Sunni blob is just because the main religion of the Golden Horde is Islam, after the conversion of Uzbeg Khan, but that’s obviously incorrect. Also, as we have been able to forecast development time on how Pagan divisions will be during this autumn, we will make a comprehensive review of the region as well, to get a good distribution of ‘Shamanist’ Paganism, Tengrism, and Sunni Islam.

Raw Materials:
View attachment 1194093
View attachment 1194094
View attachment 1194095
Regarding the raw materials, the Steppes have plenty of Livestock and Horses, quite logically, although there are regions with some other goods. And up to the north, the main materials are Lumber and Fur. Apart from that, I want to mention the mineral hub in the Ural Mountains, with plenty of Copper, Iron, Gold, Lead, and Coal. That makes it a very mid and late-game interesting spot, and playing as Muscovy/Russia, I’ll tell you that you definitely want to expand into that region, as it will fulfill some of your material needs by that time.

Markets:
View attachment 1194096
Markets! Big region, with lots of markets, although you may noticed that we changed the coloring of the locations that have 0% market access, which is the case in several areas. In any case, the market centers are Kaffa, Astrakhan, Saray-Jük, Kunya Urgench, Samarkand, Almaty, and Chimgi Tura. BTW, these names are much easier to notice in the game’s UI, as they’re beside the market centers:

View attachment 1194101

Population:
View attachment 1194103
This week we’re showing only the country population mapmode, as there are some location numbers here and there which are failing, due to the already known issue with our pop editor (and which are on the way to be fixed). In any case, the whole population of the region is around 6.5-7M, of which around 6.3M are part of the Golden Horde. As I said, it’s a menacing country…

And that’s all for today! This is going to be my last Tinto Maps in a while, as I’ll be on vacation for 3 weeks during October (you might have noticed that I didn’t have any during summer), so one of the Content Designers in the team, @roger.corominas, will step in and be in charge of the next 4 Tinto Maps. It’s in good hands, as Roger is an Experienced CD, who has been working and focused on Project Caesar for more than 3 years, at this point (this is why you might not know him from EU4, as other CDs in our team). In any case, he will be starting with the regions of Xinjiang, mostly ruled by the Chagatai Khanate, and Tibet.

I’ll keep reading and answering you during next week, and then I’ll be back in a month from now. See you!
Why Bashkir people are the only Turkik people in the region to be a SoP? They were almost equal to the Kazani people in terms of hierarchy in the Golden Horde.
 
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@Pavía I would really love your input on the tread I recently created about cultures.

It highlights the wrongness of the unspecified "consistency" you have said about in Polish TM. For example, now Crimean culture doesn't look so consistent with the West. Should it be split up more? Nor does Uzbek, Muscovite.
Just going quickly over the question, 'Crimean' is already a regional split of the 'Tatar' culture, and in general terms, we think it's consistent with the overall design. There are some issues that you point out that aren't really that way (e.g., Greek culture is split, not unified; for Castilian, there aren't any possible regional divides for 1337, as up into the 1230s, it would have been the same size as French and German cultures, but in 1337, there hasn't been enough diverging to make, let's say, 'Andalusian Castilian' a different culture).

In any case, we look into the specificities of each region in each Tinto Maps, to make for the best possible cultural design.
 
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Pavia, I have a couple tangential questions:

1) There's a limit of 3-10 locations per province. Is there such a limit for provinces per area, and for provinces per region?
2) Actually, are there even Regions in this game? If yes, what are they used for?
2) Location sizes have a range of 1/3 to 3x the size of the location's neighbours. Does the same apply to provinces and areas?
3) In an earlier DD, Johan said areas have 25-75 locations. Is that a hard limit you previously estipulated (similar to provinces' 3-10), or just the min and max values your current setup has? That is, is it fair game to suggest areas with even lower/higher density?
 
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There is a location next to Azok (azov?) with invisible name. Please make it shorter.
What is it, anyway?
Staroshcherbinovskaya... I think this is one of the cases in which we've used a later Russian settlement, as it was founded in the 18th century.
 
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