Tinto Maps #22 - 11th of October 2024 - Mongolia, Manchuria and Eastern Siberia

[elxanrys]

Shouldn't there be some form of "nestorian" christianity in Mongolia? The Kereit dynasty that dominated the area before Temujin was famously christian and Börte (his own wife) was also christian.

Yes, in modern Kyrgyzstan also should be Nestorian cities from Karakhanid dynasty Nevaket(city)

 

[bluepotato81]

Hey guys, please change the names for the generated dynasties(ik that those will be changed, but when like a new dynasty pops up) of the jurchen nations so that they don't sound so blatantly like Korean names

adding to this post, it would be cool if you could add jurchen names for the locations and provinces in northern korea.
a lot of anachronistic names up there

1. Huju was only named in 1664
2. Ganggye was only named in 1369
3. Samsu was only named in the early Joseon Dynasty
4. Gapsan was only named in the reigns of King Gongyang, who reigned from 1389-1394
5. Musan was only named in 1438

• Onseong was only named in 1440
• Gyeongseong was only named in 1398

Now, I don't think that these names should all be changed, simply due to the fact that there didn't exist a name(that we can find right now) prior to these. But I still think some of them could be revised to a previous name from Goguryeo or Balhae(if sources exist), and some names exist for the previous versions of these locations.
And also, please change the system in which dynasty names are based on locations, especially when such locations aren't named based on the culture that inhabits them at the moment of game start.

 

[ZigTheNorweigan]

adding to this post, it would be cool if you could add jurchen names for the locations and provinces in northern korea.
a lot of anachronistic names up there
View attachment 1201893

1. Huju was only named in 1664
2. Ganggye was only named in 1369
3. Samsu was only named in the early Joseon Dynasty
4. Gapsan was only named in the reigns of King Gongyang, who reigned from 1389-1394
5. Musan was only named in 1438

View attachment 1201903

• Onseong was only named in 1440
• Gyeongseong was only named in 1398

Now, I don't think that these names should all be changed, simply due to the fact that there didn't exist a name(that we can find right now) prior to these. But I still think some of them could be revised to a previous name from Goguryeo or Balhae(if sources exist), and some names exist for the previous versions of these locations.
And also, please change the system in which dynasty names are based on locations, especially when such locations aren't named based on the culture that inhabits them at the moment of game start.

I second this. Also since the thread got locked due to an individual intentionally derailing the thread and flaming everyone lmao. I do think if there are any naming conventions beyond the first and second tier geographical subdivisions (locations and areas) such as subcontinent and beyond (I base this speculation of the fact EU4's subcontinent naming currently uses Manchuria).

If there are currently any references to Manchuria particularly denoting the general region that is Northeastern China it should probably be renamed to something more historically accurate, endonymous and also non-problematic such as Sahaliyan Ula meaning Black River in Jurchen being the name for the Amur River, another alternative could be Guandong however that may be to similar to other regions such as Guangdong in southern China. Since the devs have made it a point to use naming conventions as close to the historical range as possible and also preferring endonyms vs exonyms. I hope and have faith in the Tinto developers to implement this change at some point.

 

[MattressMayhem]

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Are there any plans to breakdown the Mongol (Khalkha) and Oirat cultures into their subgroups, in similar granular fashion as to what has been done for various other cultures? Plain “Mongolian” to blanket the different Mongol groups doesn’t feel that great. That’d be like assigning all the Turkic groups as one single “Turkish” culture.

The Mongols have many tribes/subgroups as described in the below image, and each of them have their own subgroups:


View attachment 1200622

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At this time the Oirats (who themselves were a subgroup of the Mongols) would have mainly the Choros, Torghut, Dörbet, Olots and Khoid. There would also have been the more minor Altai Uriankhai, Baatud, Bayads, Chantuu and Khoshut.

​

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Determining the farther out individual Mongol tribes can certainly be difficult, as many of the later tümens (military/civic units of 10,000 fighting men + their families) that spread across the Mongol empire were mostly unrelated. Being part of the same tümen as your tribe/clan was a special privilege.

In situations where a certain group of Mongols cannot be determined, they could be assigned as Khalkha, the largest group, rather than a broad “Mongolian”, which is the case currently.

I think this would add nice flavour, and we can mostly determine which Mongol tribes migrated where based on the prominent families of each successor state (the ruling Borjigins often had powerful in-law tribes to intermarry with).

​

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The Middle East:
In the Persia thread (here), I was able to find most of the prominent Mongol tribes that inhabited the Ilkhanate and roughly where in the empire, such as: the Jalayirs, Suldus, Khorchins(?), Khongirads, Bayads, Keraites, Sunuds and two different groups of Oirats (which I couldn’t break down). The Moghols in Afghanistan/Pakistan also, and arguably the Hazaras as well, likely of the Besüd.

Anatolia and Khorasan had several makeshift rather than traditional tribes, amalgamated from the various Mongol tribes that shared the same tümens or minggans. These makeshift tribes could very well be assigned as Khalkha. Some of the named ones we know of are the Jauni Kurban in Khorasan and the Samagar, Jaygazan and Jawunqar in Anatolia.


View attachment 1200506
View attachment 1200973

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Eastern Europe:
So while I initially thought that the Golden Horde had only a tiny minority of Mongols, it would appear they they had atleast 19,000 Mongol troops in the right wing (East), and 22,000 Mongol troops in the left wing (West).

This would translate to:
95,000 / 114,000 Mongol pops in Eastern Golden Horde
110,000 / 132,000 Mongol pops in Western Golden Horde

"Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire" (2004):

View attachment 1201417

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Central Asia:
In Chagatai, we know of the other groups of Jalayirs, Suldus and the minor tribe of Dughlats. We can also assume that the ruling Chagatayid Borjigins had their share of the more matrilineal tribes of Khongirads and Keraites, with whom they shared kinship through many generations of marriages. There were also the Qara’unas, Negüderi, Arlat, Apardi and Yasa’uri, but they fall into the makeshift tribe category, and probably don’t count as their own cultures in this context (they would however contribute to the Mongol populations in those regions).

The Barlas tribe, which Timur would be born into, was one of these makeshift tribes. However, the commander they were named after, Barlas, was related to the Borjigins through a shared ancestor, Bodonchar Khan.

View attachment 1200532

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Mongolia:
And of course, the heartlands of the Mongols would have the whole plethora of Mongol tribes we have come to know of.

​

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China:
China would have the Sarta people in Gansu and Ningxia. While they are made up of several Central Asian peoples, they speak a Mongolic language. Other tribes also spread across China, before their expulsion by the Chinese following the Red Turban Rebellion (many of the Mongols in China would also become employed by the Ming dynasty).

​

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First time I ever hear about any of those tribes in Anatolia and there are absolutely no other sources online, did you just invent them or something?

 

[SuperLexxe]

First time I ever hear about any of those tribes in Anatolia and there are absolutely no other sources online, did you just invent them or something?

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Feel free to peruse at your leisure:

"Mongol Aristocrats and Beyliks in Anatolia. A study of Astarabadi's Bazm va Razm" (2011)

"Hülâgû Han’dan Emîr Timur’a Anadolu Tatarları" (2022)

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[otaman1]

First time I ever hear about any of those tribes in Anatolia and there are absolutely no other sources online, did you just invent them or something?

Yep. Looked it up myself. Samagar was a Mongol general of the Ilkhanate who collaborated with the Ninth Crusade. Jaygazan and Jawunqar however yielded no results except for this forum. Either the names are spelt differently or the image below

 

[SuperLexxe]

Yep. Looked it up myself. Samagar was a Mongol general of the Ilkhanate who collaborated with the Ninth Crusade. Jaygazan and Jawunqar however yielded no results except for this forum. Either the names are spelt differently or the image below
View attachment 1201912

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There is much information out there that will not show up with a simple surface Google search, though things would be a lot easier if they did. Oftentimes you have to do a deep dive to find what you want. Until then, I would advise against speaking in absolutes.

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[bluepotato81]

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There is much information out there that will not show up with a simple surface Google search, though things would be a lot easier if they did. Oftentimes you have to do a deep dive to find what you want. Until then, I would advise against speaking in absolutes.

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I completely agree. There's a ton of information hidden in non-English sites, articles, books, etc that just isn't accessible through a simple google search,

 

[SuperLexxe]

I completely agree. There's a ton of information hidden in non-English sites, articles, books, etc that just isn't accessible through a simple google search,

One trick I learned from someone on the forums is to go through the literature list that many books or papers include at the bottom of pages/chapters. Although you might hit a wall if you need to have university access or pay for it, etc.

So far maybe 30% of the things I've wanted to take a look at hit a wall in that regard (and Internet Archive, which often has the books for free, is down at the moment).

 

[ValhallArchitect]

I understand your point better, but I'm still not sure if implementing the spirit of your suggestion should result in there being no large wastelands.

To me the main issue with the wastelands is that they make it feel like there are islands of inhabitable regions which is not particularly accurate, but at the same time I really don't think a 100-pop locality far from a large navigable river does anything for the game, I still would prefer for such remote places to not be interactable insofar as there is no good argument as to how a state could leverage resources in those places.

Yes, I agree with that. I understand that some regions could be represented as wastelands. I just feel that the current design is really weird with this extreme high density of tiny locations with huge wastelands around, which often do not coincide with mountain ranges.

This approach was slightly different in MEIOU, if you have played it. Siberia was largely covered with wastelands representing « impassable » forests, but the provinces did not form pockets surrounded by huge wastelands. Rather, they were represented following the river routes as « chains » of locations

 

[Reimond77]

Pil'vo appears to have already been suggested.

When I searched for information about the minorities of Evenks, Ulchi and Oroks on Sakhalin, I found that Pal-vo and Pil-vo are two different settlements. The first one was in the depths of the island, and the second one was on the shore, but it is not known exactly where the Pil-vo was, now it does not exist, perhaps it was not a permanent settlement. Now I want to make a large map showing all the temporary camps, what they were doing, what minorities there might have been and what approximate population there might have been, and even the distribution zones of nomadic clans. The information will be relevant by the 18th and 19th century. There will be just over 100 settlements there. I will try to make a map in time for the Japanese developer's diary, Sakhalin should be there again.

 

[Bounty1wersal]

When is the game coming out?

 

[JacceDON]

When is the game coming out?

It's already out bro, haven't you heard?!

 

[otaman1]

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There is much information out there that will not show up with a simple surface Google search, though things would be a lot easier if they did. Oftentimes you have to do a deep dive to find what you want. Until then, I would advise against speaking in absolutes.

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Yeah I know. That's why I said the names are either spelt differently. Now I'm even more curious for the source material and the original language.

 

[Linbot#6018]

Suggestions on Manchuria and the Jurchens (part 1):

Basics:

Something that stands out to me is the issue of transliterating Manchu words. Right now the game uses a mix of a few different systems, Möllendorff (e.g. "Jecen"), Hu (e.g. "Jusheli"), and Abkai (e.g. "Hvlan").

The difference between these three systems is illustrated by the following sentence (which means "I love tinto studios' maps even though here I always quarrel with many other people")

Möllendorff:
'bi tinto bithei booi i nirugan cihalambi uthai uba de urui mujakū gūwa niyalma i temšekini'

Hu:
'bi tinto bithei booi i nirugan chihalambi uthai uba de urui muzhakuu guuwa niyalma i temshekini'

Abkai:
'bi tinto bithei booi i nirugan qihalambi uthai uba de urui gvwa mujakv niyalma i temxekini'

The relevant differences are c/ch/q, j/zh, ū/uu/v, and š/sh/x

My main concern is that one of these three be used consistently. The third one (q, j, v, x) exists for the purpose of maintaining a 1:1 correspondence between latin characters and the Manchu script, and not containing diacritics that might make it inconvenient to type, but I subjectively don't really like it, the typical person playing the game is liable to not know what x and v are for, and misinterpret the latter as a consonant. So I think either Möllendorff or Hu, should be used. Möllendorff (c, j, ū, š) is the standard used in Western academic publications, but Hu (ch, zh, uu, sh) is also used partly because it conveys the phonetic value of sh/š and ch/c better to untrained English speakers, although it's really meant to mimic pinyin, which comes out in how it has zh instead of j, so for that sound Hu is actually less convenient for English speakers. Personally I would go with Möllendorff, but Hu would be alright too. Henceforth in this post I will use Möllendorff.

Liaodong:

Unfortunately it's a bit awkward that the peninsular part is cut off. I would prefer to work with the region as a unit. If one of the devs could post the rest of it that would be greatly appreciated, although to be fair we get the rest of it anyways on friday so I can't be too bothered.

Culture:

I could complain that I might want the "Jurchen" culture to be renamed. Essentially the issue here is that I am going to be doing this entire post in Manchu, which is technically a descendant language of Jurchen. In the Qing dynasty, the medieval Jurchens were called "Jurcit", although this is actually a loan from Mongol, the actual word does have a direct descendant in Manchu, which is "Jušen", although this had shifted to mean "Jurchen (i.e. non-Manchu) serf" (thus necessitating re-acquiring the word from Mongol for its original context). Because this nation didn't have a literary tradition until Nurhaci decreed that the language would be written in the Mongolian alphabet in 1599, the only surviving evidence of the language's medieval form is from what was written about it by other cultures, and as a result we know very few medieval Jurchen words, and none of them, including the word "Jurchen", are directly attested, it's a reconstruction based on renderings in Chinese and Khitan texts. It's also an anglicisation, in Möllendorff this would be spelled "Jurcen".

However, I also recognise that the word "Jurchen" is recognisable in its own right as the distinctive English word for this ethnic group, and likely to be kept. It's also not really objectionable since it is in fact a pretty faithful rendering of the original ethnonym, though if I had total control over the universe I might change it to "Jurcen".

Anyways what immediately what stands out to me about the map itself is that Liaodong (that is to say, the part of Manchuria south of the on-map Jurchen tags which is directly controlled by Yuan) appears to be monoethnically Jurchen.

It's also a bit weird how the Jurchen region extends very far west into the Rehe area (the region north of Beijing and west of Liaodong). As far as I know, the large populations of Manchu that today live in the Rehe area came to Rehe during the Qing dynasty when many Manchu migrated out of Manchuria in accompaniment with the expansion of their empire. The region west of the on-map Jurchen states should be largely ethnically Mongol. There was an old secondary capital of the Jurchen Jin dynasty in what is today Ningcheng county, Chifeng, Inner Mongolia (the name of this city was, confusingly, "Beijing", since it was located to the north of the primary Jin capital, Nanjing, that is to say, the city we now call Beijing). However, this city was totally destroyed by the Mongols, so I don't think there should be any Jurchens there.

Here are some excerpts from the book Empire's Twilight: Northeast Asia Under the Mongols:

Spoiler

On the basis of these, I contend that:

1. Liaodong (i.e. the part of Manchuria south of the Jurchen states) should be majority Chinese. I understand that the Han in-game are broken up into many cultures, so I would personally recommend that a special "Liaodong" culture be created (it shouldn't be called "Northeastern/Dongbei" as that name only came into widespread use since the Qing dynasty), which would be used specifically for Chinese from Manchuria, who have been ruled for centuries by foreign dynasties and would have differences from Chinese south of the Great Wall. Importantly, the present-day dialect map of Northeastern China should be entirely ignored, as most of the Northeast's present-day population is descended from migrant farmers who moved there during the Qing dynasty from Zhili and Shandong, which is the reason why present-day Northeasterners speak dialects related to those found around Beijing and on the Shandong peninsula.

2. This same region should have some Jurchen pops, but not too many. They should mostly be concentrated around the city of Liaoyang, a Jin dynasty former capital, and in the region south of it.

4. There should be 30-40 thousand Koreans in Shenyang, which probably would make them the majority in that location. Additional Koreans should exist nearby.

5. There should also be a smaller number of Mongols, representing the Mongol military units garrisoned in this region. The nobility of Liaodong should be mostly ethnically Mongol and Korean.

6. In general, Liaodong is still recovering from the devastation of the Mongol conquest. Population shouldn't be too high, and development shouldn't be very high, although the contrast between it and China proper should probably be a bit less stark. Liaodong should be more developed than the Jurchen heartland to its north, but less developed than China proper.

7. I don't see any reason to believe that there were any Khitans left in this region by the 14th century

Coastline:
The coastline at the Liao river delta has advanced significantly in the recent past. This map illustrates the historical coastline (Ming Liaodong is depicted), which I think remained relatively constant during the whole time period of the game.

Locations:
It's a bit hard to do work on this without the southern half of the region, but I think more locations could be added. I hold the belief that the game's Chinese geography should fundamentally represent the geography of the Ming dynasty, as Yuan only lasted for the first few decades of the game. The main issue is that many recognisable places in the Northeast were founded after, sometimes long after, the Yuan dynasty, because Manchuria was sparsely populated until the late Qing era. Also, many places do not have Manchu names I could find easily, in these cases, I provide a Manjuricised version of the Chinese name (the conversion from Chinese to Manchu is regular and predictable, but I could understand objections to this method, so each of these is marked with a leading asterisk).

First of all, I want the borders to be moved a bit to enable the creation of accurate borders for Ming-era Liaodong (it should be noted that the western borders of the region only came to where they are in the map above after Mongolian incursions during the mid-15th century, but the border is quite recognisable and should be represented).

The matter of Xifeng
The main impact of this is the restriction of the Kaiyuan location to its western half. The eastern half could become a new location. It is currently called Xīfēng 西丰 County, but this was only created in 1905. A Manchu word that is probably 'Gehun' was used for this area at least as far back as the time of Nurhaci. Therefore the the location should be called Gehun in Manchu. Also, this location should be the capital of Hada.

The matter of "Qinhe"
This name is not given tone marks for some reason even though it is obviously Chinese. I therefore conclude that it is a typo for Qīnghé 清河, the name of a river, and a fort during the Ming dynasty.

Possible new locations
1. Gehun. Could possibly also be called Hada
2. Xīpíng 西平 (Manchu would be*Siping) - the Dalinghe location seems quite large, this is a new location created out of the eastern half and named after a Ming fortress
3. Ānshān 鞍山 (Manchu would be *Anšan) - this was not a very important settlement until modern times, but on the other hand, its name is first recorded in 1330 so it's not technically anachronistic
4. Yùnāsīniúlù 韵阿司牛录 (Manchu would be *Ioinasynilio) - located in modern Liaozhong district. This town was founded in the early Qing dynasty
5. Fèngjí 奉集 (Manchu would be *Fengji) - located in modern Sujiatun district. Named after a Ming era fortress close to Shenyang.
6. Sōngshān 松山 (Manchu would be *Sungšan) - located in modern Taihe district. Another Ming era fortress, next to Jinzhou.
7. Qiántún 前屯 (Manchu would be *Ciyantun) - located in modern Xingcheng district. Another Ming era fortress, next to Ningyuan.
8. Bēixī 杯溪 (Manchu would be *Behi) - Modern Benxi. Benxi is named after Benxi Lake, which was apparently formerly known as Beixi (though I'm not sure how old that name is exactly other than that the name changed sometime before 1906), so I have named this location such. This location exists to break up
9. Qīnghé 清河 (Manchu would be *Cingho)
I accidentally put 9 on the map twice, the northern one is the correct one. Ignore the southern one for now, I will come back to it later.

Renamings and Manchu namings
From what I can find, Tieling's name originates during the early Ming dynasty. If the developers have the time, they could make an event that changes its name to Tieling, and have the location start the game named Yínzhōu 银州 (Manchu *In Jeo)
Manchu name of Fushun is Fu Šun
Manchu name of Shenyang is Simiyan
Manchu name of Kaiyuan is Keyen
Manchu name of Kuandian is Kuwandiyan
Manchu name of Haizhou would be *Hai Jeo
Manchu name of Dalinghe would be *Dailing Ho
Manchu name of Jinzhou would be *Gin Jeo
Manchu name of Yizhou would be *I Jeo
Manchu name of Guangning would be *Guwang Ning
Manchu name of Qinhe would be *Cin Ho
Manchu name of Tieling would be *Tiyeiling
Manchu name of Xincheng would be *Sinceng
Manchu name of Ningchang would be *Ningcang
Manchu name of Tongliao would be *Tungliyoo
Manchu name of Fuxin would be *Fusin
Manchu name of Wangning would be *Wangning

Tomorrow I will work on central Manchuria, the Jurchen heartland

 

[ValhallArchitect]

Did they? What's Lamutk supposed to be?

Lamut is Evens. It’s a European exonym, just like Evenks were named Tungus or like Ostyaks was used by Russians to include a number of different people, some of which were indifferently , khantis, mansis…
https://www.britannica.com/place/Arctic/North-central-and-northeastern-Siberian-groups
-sk suffix clearly indicates a Russian origin name, although I’m a bit surprised as I thought they tried not to take this approach since EU4. It makes sense somehow though in that it was the commonly known name to Russian (lamutsk) English (lamut) and French (lamoutes) at the time

 

[BluppDaBlupp]

Suggestion on natural harbours

There is a natural harbour missing from the map. The Avacha bay is one of the largest natural harbours in the world located on the Kamchatka Peninsula. It was not very relevant in history because of its remote location, but the natural harbur is still there and Kamchatka's capital Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky is built around it. You can even see the Avacha Gulf it is in on the map. If there are natural harbours in the game on the northern coast of siberia, then this one has to be there too and it should be a better harbour.

From Wikipedia on the Avacha Bay:

The Avacha Bay is unique in that it is among the largest bays in the world able to fit any ship in the world. It is an internal part of the Avacha Gulf. It's total area is 215 square kilometers, and it is up to 26 meters deep. The main rivers flowing into the bay are the Avacha and Paratunka. It is the home base of the Russian Pacific fleet.

It is the main transport gateway to the Kamchatka region. The bay freezes in the winter.

From Wikipedia on Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky:

Across Avacha Bay from the city in Vilyuchinsk is Russia's largest submarine base, the Rybachiy Nuclear Submarine Base, established during the Soviet period and still used by the Russian Navy.

During the warmer months cruise ships regularly stop there for the day.

 

[freeloquats]

Suggestions on Manchuria and the Jurchens (part 1):

View attachment 1202169

Basics:

Something that stands out to me is the issue of transliterating Manchu words. Right now the game uses a mix of a few different systems, Möllendorff (e.g. "Jecen"), Hu (e.g. "Jusheli"), and Abkai (e.g. "Hvlan").

The difference between these three systems is illustrated by the following sentence (which means "I love tinto studios' maps even though here I always quarrel with many other people")

Möllendorff:
'bi tinto bithei booi i nirugan cihalambi uthai uba de urui mujakū gūwa niyalma i temšekini'

Hu:
'bi tinto bithei booi i nirugan chihalambi uthai uba de urui muzhakuu guuwa niyalma i temshekini'

Abkai:
'bi tinto bithei booi i nirugan qihalambi uthai uba de urui gvwa mujakv niyalma i temxekini'

The relevant differences are c/ch/q, j/zh, ū/uu/v, and š/sh/x

My main concern is that one of these three be used consistently. The third one (q, j, v, x) exists for the purpose of maintaining a 1:1 correspondence between latin characters and the Manchu script, and not containing diacritics that might make it inconvenient to type, but I subjectively don't really like it, the typical person playing the game is liable to not know what x and v are for, and misinterpret the latter as a consonant. So I think either Möllendorff or Hu, should be used. Möllendorff (c, j, ū, š) is the standard used in Western academic publications, but Hu (ch, zh, uu, sh) is also used partly because it conveys the phonetic value of sh/š and ch/c better to untrained English speakers, although it's really meant to mimic pinyin, which comes out in how it has zh instead of j, so for that sound Hu is actually less convenient for English speakers. Personally I would go with Möllendorff, but Hu would be alright too. Henceforth in this post I will use Möllendorff.

Liaodong:

View attachment 1202291

Unfortunately it's a bit awkward that the peninsular part is cut off. I would prefer to work with the region as a unit. If one of the devs could post the rest of it that would be greatly appreciated, although to be fair we get the rest of it anyways on friday so I can't be too bothered.

Culture:

View attachment 1202238

I could complain that I might want the "Jurchen" culture to be renamed. Essentially the issue here is that I am going to be doing this entire post in Manchu, which is technically a descendant language of Jurchen. In the Qing dynasty, the medieval Jurchens were called "Jurcit", although this is actually a loan from Mongol, the actual word does have a direct descendant in Manchu, which is "Jušen", although this had shifted to mean "Jurchen (i.e. non-Manchu) serf" (thus necessitating re-acquiring the word from Mongol for its original context). Because this nation didn't have a literary tradition until Nurhaci decreed that the language would be written in the Mongolian alphabet in 1599, the only surviving evidence of the language's medieval form is from what was written about it by other cultures, and as a result we know very few medieval Jurchen words, and none of them, including the word "Jurchen", are directly attested, it's a reconstruction based on renderings in Chinese and Khitan texts. It's also an anglicisation, in Möllendorff this would be spelled "Jurcen".

However, I also recognise that the word "Jurchen" is recognisable in its own right as the distinctive English word for this ethnic group, and likely to be kept. It's also not really objectionable since it is in fact a pretty faithful rendering of the original ethnonym, though if I had total control over the universe I might change it to "Jurcen".

Anyways what immediately what stands out to me about the map itself is that Liaodong (that is to say, the part of Manchuria south of the on-map Jurchen tags which is directly controlled by Yuan) appears to be monoethnically Jurchen.

It's also a bit weird how the Jurchen region extends very far west into the Rehe area (the region north of Beijing and west of Liaodong). As far as I know, the large populations of Manchu that today live in the Rehe area came to Rehe during the Qing dynasty when many Manchu migrated out of Manchuria in accompaniment with the expansion of their empire. The region west of the on-map Jurchen states should be largely ethnically Mongol. There was an old secondary capital of the Jurchen Jin dynasty in what is today Ningcheng county, Chifeng, Inner Mongolia (the name of this city was, confusingly, "Beijing", since it was located to the north of the primary Jin capital, Nanjing, that is to say, the city we now call Beijing). However, this city was totally destroyed by the Mongols, so I don't think there should be any Jurchens there.

Here are some excerpts from the book Empire's Twilight: Northeast Asia Under the Mongols:

Spoiler

View attachment 1202274
View attachment 1202253
View attachment 1202258
View attachment 1202259
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On the basis of these, I contend that:

1. Liaodong (i.e. the part of Manchuria south of the Jurchen states) should be majority Chinese. I understand that the Han in-game are broken up into many cultures, so I would personally recommend that a special "Liaodong" culture be created (it shouldn't be called "Northeastern/Dongbei" as that name only came into widespread use since the Qing dynasty), which would be used specifically for Chinese from Manchuria, who have been ruled for centuries by foreign dynasties and would have differences from Chinese south of the Great Wall. Importantly, the present-day dialect map of Northeastern China should be entirely ignored, as most of the Northeast's present-day population is descended from migrant farmers who moved there during the Qing dynasty from Zhili and Shandong, which is the reason why present-day Northeasterners speak dialects related to those found around Beijing and on the Shandong peninsula.

2. This same region should have some Jurchen pops, but not too many. They should mostly be concentrated around the city of Liaoyang and in the region south of it, a Jin dynasty former capital.

4. There should be 30-40 thousand Koreans in Shenyang, which probably would make them the majority in that location. Additional Koreans should exist nearby.

5. There should also be a smaller number of Mongols, representing the Mongol military units garrisoned in this region. The nobility of Liaodong should be mostly ethnically Mongol and Korean.

6. In general, Liaodong is still recovering from the devastation of the Mongol conquest. Population shouldn't be too high, and development shouldn't be very high, although the contrast between it and China proper should probably be a bit less stark. Liaodong should be more developed than the Jurchen heartland to its north, but less developed than China proper.

7. I don't see any reason to believe that there were any Khitans left in this region by the 14th century

Coastline:
The coastline at the Liao river delta has advanced significantly in the recent past. This map illustrates the historical coastline (Ming Liaodong is depicted), which I think remained relatively constant during the whole time period of the game.

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Locations:
It's a bit hard to do work on this without the southern half of the region, but I think more locations could be added. I hold the belief that the game's Chinese geography should fundamentally represent the geography of the Ming dynasty, as Yuan only lasted for the first few decades of the game. The main issue is that many recognisable places in the Northeast were founded after, sometimes long after, the Yuan dynasty, because Manchuria was sparsely populated until the late Qing era. Also, many places do not have Manchu names I could find easily, in these cases, I provide a Manjuricised version of the Chinese name (the conversion from Chinese to Manchu is regular and predictable, but I could understand objections to this method, so each of these is marked with a leading asterisk).

First of all, I want the borders to be moved a bit to enable the creation of accurate borders for Ming-era Liaodong (it should be noted that the western borders of the region only came to where they are in the map above after Mongolian incursions during the mid-15th century, but the border is quite recognisable and should be represented). The main impact of this is the restriction of the Kaiyuan location to its western half. The eastern half could become a new location. It is currently called Xīfēng 西丰 County, but this was only created in 1905 and I could not find any information about what it was called before that. The best name I could think of would be Hada, the name of the local Manchu tribe (though many sources said this region was part of the Yehe tribe's territory, they also said it was the western border even though it is in the south of the Yehe tribe's proper territory, so it might be that these sources confuse the Haixi Confederacy with the Yehe tribe).

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Possible new locations
1. Xīfēng 西丰 (Manchu would be *Sifeng, but my suggestion is to name it Hada instead)
2. Xīpíng 西平 (Manchu would be*Siping) - the Dalinghe location seems quite large, this is a new location created out of the eastern half and named after a fortress
3. Ānshān 鞍山 (Manchu would be *Anšan) - this was not a very important settlement until modern times, but on the other hand, its name is first recorded in 1330 so it's not technically anachronistic

I also considered breaking up Shenyang, but the locations I could come up with didn't feel very well supported.

Renamings and Manchu namings
From what I can find, Tieling's name originates during the early Ming dynasty. If the developers have the time, they could make an event that changes its name to Tieling, and have the location start the game named Yínzhōu 银州 (Manchu *In Jeo)
Manchu name of Fushun is Fu Šun
Manchu name of Shenyang is Mukden
Manchu name of Kuandian is Kuwandiyan
Manchu name of Haizhou would be *Hai Jeo
Manchu name of Dalinghe would be *Dailing Ho
Manchu name of Jinzhou would be *Gin Jeo
Manchu name of Yizhou would be *I Jeo
Manchu name of Guangning would be *Guwang Ning
Manchu name of Qinhe would be *Cin Ho
Manchu name of Tieling would be *Tiyeiling
Manchu name of Kaiyuan would be *Kaiyuwan
Manchu name of Xincheng would be *Sinceng
Manchu name of Ningchang would be *Ningcang
Manchu name of Tongliao would be *Tungliyoo
Manchu name of Fuxin would be *Fusin
Manchu name of Wangning would be *Wangning

Tomorrow I will work on central Manchuria, the Jurchen heartland

This is great, and you should make it a standalone post instead of having it buried at the end of a long thread.

 

[Ekyman]

This is great, and you should make it a standalone post instead of having it buried at the end of a long thread.

The whole point of this thread is to consolidate suggestion posts in one long thread.

 

[Redride' s OG]

do culture groups still exist like in eu4?