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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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The eastern Vepsian bit should be Bjarmian and Bjarmian bit should be Karelian instead. Western Vepsian should be moved to the west.
Mari, Erzya and Moksha are misplaced.
Mansi should have a majority in the region where they are divided by Siberian Tatars
Also, why Bashkir SOP is named Bashkortostani people instead of just Bashkir people?
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What are the majority and minority culture in Theodoro? I can't understand them from the culture map. Maybe for next times, a zoomed culture map would be better too
Majority Gothic, minority Pontic. We'll make sure to add more detailed cultural maps when we do the review and add the minorities. ;)
 
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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).
There hasn't been enough diverging to make in Ruthenian as was made clear by dialectal research, but in Polish Tinto Talks it was changed.
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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?
1. Not yet, but we'll take note of them.
2. Not currently.
3. We already have a design implemented for the Cossacks, although it's too early to talk about it.
 
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Dear @Pavía , thank you for such a detailed improvement of the Altai region. However, I have some suggestions, as is known, the province of Barnaul with the city of the same name is known for its silver smelter when the magnate Akinfiy Demidov found deposits of this ore in the Altai Mountains. A huge amount of silver of the entire empire was mined and smelted here. I hope there will be an event with the arrival of the Demidovs to the Urals and Altai, as well as a change in goods in the province of Barnaul to silver.
 
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@Pavía do you confirm that is one SoP per culture, but the name of the SoP does not coincide with the relative culture, right?

I'm asking bc I want to know if they are new cultures not shown or just different names. Thanks
 
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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.
Okay thanks. Then:
1) no need to call it Staro-scherbinovskaya because it means Old- and there is no Novo- on the map. Minus 5 letters is a boon for readability.
2) Shcherbinovskaya may be changed into Shcherbinovka (unless it clashes with another Shcherbinovka somewhere else) because a) it's shorter, b) that's what the locals call the place.
 
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View attachment 1194146

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.
Yeah, those are probably too much and may be corrected.
 
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I would rename "Surgut" area to Yugra. While it's a bit too east and doesn't cover all of Yugra, Surgut was not founded until the late 16th century while Yugra was very much in use to describe the homelands of the Khanty and Mansi by this time (there are several references to the "Yugra County" in the Novgorod First Chronicle).

I would also rename "Vorkuta" area to "Pechora". It's much longer than the Vorkuta and its basin covers most of the area.
 
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Could you please post a zoomed in political and cultural map mode of the Crimean Peninsular? Its kind of hard to see what's going on there.
Sure:
Crimea 1.jpg

Crimea 2.jpg

Crimea 3.jpg
 
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