Tinto Maps #25 - 8th of November 2024 - South East Asia

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Lan Na and Ayutthaya/Sukhothai should still have mostly Mon and Lawa populations in the 14th century:

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Screenshot from Wikipedia, Ayutthaya Kingdom

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Screenshots from The Northern Tai Polity of Lan Na (Babai-Dadian) Between the Late 13th to Mid-16th Centuries, Volker Grabowsky

The Lawa people formed a significant population as far north as Möng Yawng (Müang Yòng) in Myanmar, and possibly further, as shown by the rebellion mentioned in the last screenshot.

The Lawa people's language could fit into the Palaungic language and name list which I suggested in this post. (also, if a dev is reading this as I'm posting it, I edited out some small errors the Shan name list recently, so it would be best to redo the list if they might have already been put into a text file. I promise not to edit it again though!)

There would also be some Mon/Monic remnants in the Isan region:

Nyah Kur people - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Kuy people could also be moved further south/east, around southern Laos and northeastern Cambodia, their migration to the current position seems to have happened mostly after the 16th century according to this Wiki article:

Tboung Khmum Kingdom - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Also, regarding the Tboung Khmum kingdom which that article is about, its actual status as a full kingdom seems to be exaggerated and possibly based on a lot of assumptions, there's basically just a single chronicle which mentions a king who was called "Kuy", but it's hard to say without access to the Thai scholarly sources. I think it's fine to keep as a Society of Pops, because even if it existed as a full kingdom we have no way of knowing if it had been established in 1337. The Lao chronicles about the early 1300s even mention other states in the area, including a possibly Cham kingdom or group of city states, which I'll talk about more in another post later.

 

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Country suggestions

I've put together some more country suggestions for the region, after reading through enough sources to feel confident about it. I'll split the post into 3 rough sections, Burma, Thailand, and Laos, to keep it easier to keep track of (and write).

With current locations for reference:

Generally speaking, the 'mandala' political organization of kingdoms can be split into 3 main zones:
1. The "inner core", land ruled directly by the king and his governors.
2. The "outer core", polities ruled by immediate family members (siblings, children, etc) of the king.
3. The "vassal states", polities ruled by local hereditary dynasties.

For the sake of gameplay and mapmaking, I decided to represent the "outer core" as directly owned land rather than vassal states or appanages, except for some unique cases where the area was particularly independent/rebellious in 1337. The "outer core" could be viewed as their own distinct kingdoms, with their own courts and own mandalas, but they were much more fluid arrangements, meaning that it would be difficult to keep track of and represent every arrangement in 1337, and developing a system of gameplay where princes and kingdoms are constantly reassigned and moving just doesn't seem like a good addition unless it's given heavy unique content. It would also run the risk of weakening the kingdoms which have more available sources (i.e. more knowledge about their royal family means more chances to split them), which could just mess up the balance of the region. I have my own thoughts about how the mandala system can be represented fully, and I'll make a separate post on it soon.

Another simplification I made was reducing the amount of polities represented in some places (e.g Laos, central Burma) because if I included every single one it would simply not fit on the map, and again could run the risk of messing up the balance of the region by splitting areas too much. In these cases, I limited it to just the places which had a known ruler name, and/or were significantly independent in reliable sources.

These are not hard rules at all, just helpful guidelines I made for myself to keep things consistent, each region is unique so I'll elaborate on specific decisions and include sources for more/less countries in their specific sections.

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1. Burma

I've already made posts on the Shan states, but there are a couple minor changes here to be more consistent with other regions. To fit my general criteria, I have updated my original post on the Shan states, and details can be found there. Many of the countries I previously suggested are now gone, as they would not serve any real purpose to representing the historical reality.

I've also suggested a lot more tags in central Burma, representing the many vassals of the Pinya kingdom. Pinya control didn't extend further than 150km of the capital, and a lot of these vassals were essentially left to fend for themselves. For example, Thayet was invaded by Launggyet in the 1330s and Pinya did nothing about it. All of these states would become completely independent in the 1360s when Pinya collapsed due to invasions by Möng Mao.

Pinya had many vassals, which you can see on their Wikipedia page, I only included vassals outside of the core region, and of those only the ones which have the name of a ruler in 1337. Sagaing only had a single vassal, Tagaung.

New states and their rulers:

Spoiler

Tagaung
Ruler: Thado Hsinlauk
Heir: Thado Hsinhtein

Pagan
Ruler: Uzana II

Taungdwin
Ruler: Thihapate I
Heir: Thihapate II

Yamethin
Ruler: Thihapate
Heir: Thilawa

Thayet
Ruler: Min Shin Saw

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2. Thailand

A lot of the changes here are from 2 main sources, "The Northern Tai Polity of Lan Na (Babai-Dadian) Between the Late 13th to Mid-16th Centuries" by Volker Grabowsky, and "King Lödaiya of Sukhodaya and his contemporaries" by A.B Griswold + Prasert na Nagara. The Ram Khamhaeng inscription is also useful to add some context about some former or current countries, the list of countries is at the bottom of it.

Lan Na:

Spoiler

From "The Northern Tai Polity of Lan Na", it's stated that Lan Na should have Möng Nai (Müang Nai) and Kengtung (Chiang Tung) as subjects. They were both ruled by the same dynasty as Lan Na, but they were much more independent than the states ruled by other family members, and it's explicitly mentioned on page 34 that they fell into category 3 of the simplified zones - vassal states.

On page 9 you can find a table including many of the other vassal states in the northeast. These were mostly ruled by close family members, so they would fall into category 2, the "outer core", and I wouldn't include them as countries without special mechanics.

Chiang Saen would be the most important of those category 2 polities, it was one of the main power centers of the kingdom in 1337, and could possibly be considered the capital. Chiang Saen was ruled by Kham Fu, and Chiang Mai was ruled by his son Pha Yu. Pha Yu inherited the throne of Chiang Saen in 1340, then fully moved the capital to Chiang Mai - this is partly why I didn't think it would make sense to represent category 2 polities as separate countries, they were functionally core regions from a gameplay perspective.

Sukhothai and Ayutthaya:

Spoiler

Sukhothai had already collapsed after the death of Ram Khamhaeng, but the way it's currently represented really underestimates just how much it had lost by 1337. Some of the areas were reconquered by future rulers, which may lead to some confusion.

"King Lödaiya of Sukhothai" goes into details about the reign of Loe Thai (the current ruler), the transliteration system in the book is a bit different from the common type, so I've helped put them into the more common spelling. Original names from the source will be in brackets.

Chapter 2 of the book (pp. 26-47) goes into details about Sukhothai, and the predecessor kingdoms of Ayutthaya, Suphanburi and Lopburi. By 1337, the following events would have occured:

To the north:
- Pua/Nan became independent in 1320.
- Pua (Blua) location annexed by Phayao (Bayāv). This would likely be the date in the 14th century when the name of the country changed from Pua to Nan, so that should be corrected.
- Phrae (Brè) became independent, then may have been subjugated by Lan Na or by Nan, I can't really tell from the wording so I kept them independent on my map.

To the east:
- The upper Sak valley was 'unlikely to have been kept for long' into Loe Thai's reign. The previous state in the upper Sak was Lambachai, mentioned in the Ram Kamhaeng inscription, so this is what I represented. (see map on page 335 https://www.persee.fr/doc/befeo_0336-1519_2021_num_107_1_6377)

To the south:
- Suphannaphum (Subarnapurī) broke away soon after Loe Thai's accession. With that, all areas south of it too.
- Phraek (Brèk / Jayanāda) broke away around the same time.
- In 1331, Suphannaphum expanded to include Phraek (Jayanāda), Ratchaburi (Rājapurī), Phetchaburi (Bejrapurī), Tavoy, Tenasserim, and the Malay peninsula. By the time of the union into Ayutthaya, these were all annexed except for Tavoy, Tenasserim, and the Malay peninsula.
- Royal marriage between Suphannaphum and Lavo, Prince U Thong would be the heir to both, and on his accession he would form Ayutthaya. (Note that this seems to be just one semi-legendary interpretation of U Thong's life, but it is the version from native Thai chronicles, so it's the one I think would be best)

To the west:
- Lan Na (Chiang Mai) seized the principality of Tak in 1321
- Cities further down the Ping river soon became independent, which cut off the route to Mueang Chot and Martaban, making them independent too. Those cities were mentioned before as Khanthi (Gandī), Phra Bang (Brah Paṅ), and (Traitriṅsa). To simplify, I have merged them all into Phra Bang, since they wouldn't all fit on the map.

Also note, the two states Suphannaphum and Lavo should have consistent names with each other, so either both should have the older names (Suphannaphum and Lavo) or both should have their newer names (Suphanburi and Lopburi).

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3. Laos

A translation of the traditional Lao chronicles can be found in "History of Laos" by Maha Sila Viravong. Chapter V goes into great detail on Fa Ngum's life (1316-1393), including all of the polities he conquered and the leaders he encountered (pp. 26-35). A similar account can be found on his Thai Wikipedia page, if you translate it, but I didn't think it would be a good idea to rely on that.

The story takes place only about 12-16 years after 1337, so I think it's safe to assume that most of the information would still apply, and having the same rulers would still be reasonable (unless we know from another source that there was a different ruler in 1337).

There are probably 30-40 muang mentioned in the section, but I've vastly simplified it to only those significant countries mentioned in other primary sources. Additionally, half of the locations of these muang are completely unknown, so trying to include them wouldn't be doing much good. It would also likely leave the Lao states too vulnerable to immediate conquest, which didn't really happen historically.

Countries and their rulers:

Spoiler

The original source uses a different transliteration system from the common type, so I've changed the spelling to the more common version where possible. I'll include the original in brackets.

Note that "Phragna" means king or ruler, like Phraya in Thai, but it's common for all sorts of titles to be 'properly' included in Tai ruler names. Some others are Thao, Chao, Khun, etc.

Muang Kabong (Muong Kabong)
Ruler: Phragna Nanthasen
Located in Thakhek. The ruler may have also been Phragna Pad Bo. On the Thai Wikipedia page they seem to be brothers.

Muang Phuan (Muong Phuan)
Ruler: Chao Kham Phong
The ruler mentioned in the book is Chet Chuang (Ched Chuong), but this is actually the name of the dynasty and founder of Muang Phuan. Thai Wikipedia has a list of rulers of Muang Phuan, where Chao Kham Phong was the 23rd ruler, ruling until 1895 B.E (Buddhist Era, converts to 1352 C.E)

Sip Song Chau Tai
Ruler: unknown
This is a grouping of the many muang which existed in the north, conquered by Fa Ngum between his interactions with Vietnam and Chiang Hung (Xieng Hung). The name I chose is the one of the later confederation, but there might be a better option for a name, like the Nguu Hong or Cobra kingdom from Chinese and Vietnamese sources.

Xieng Thong
Ruler: Souvanna Khampong
Both of the names of the city, Muang Sua and Xieng Thong, were used in 1337. I would change it to Xieng Thong as that lasted longer after the start date.
The source also mentions Muang Leuak (Muong Leuak) to the west of the capital city, ruled by Thao U-Long, but he was a close family member so I didn't include the country per my own rule about representing immediate family members across the whole region.

Vientiane
Ruler: Thao Xieng Mung
The source also mentions Vieng Kham (near Thoulakhom), ruled by his son Phragna Phao. Again, I didn't include it due to the immediate family rule.

The empty areas south of my drawn countries should likely belong to the Khmer. There are some mentions of of states here in the Lao chronicles, but even if they existed the region is mentioned elsewhere as still being under the influence of the Khmer.

 

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Location suggestions for Laos and Thailand

Some of these were necessary for me to suggest to help with political borders, others are just name changes or some density increases in central Thailand. Names come from either the historical names mentioned on the modern settlement's Wikipedia pages, and a few others are from the sources linked in my last post on country suggestions.

I think Thailand could definitely do with more locations as it's one of the more heavily populated regions in-game, and I'm guessing would be one the more popular areas for players too.

I noticed that a lot of the original Thai locations on the map mispelled "mueang" as "mueng", which is something that should be corrected as it completely changes the pronunciation of the word in the usual transliteration system. The 'Wikipedia standard' is "mueang", I've also seen "müang" and "meuang", but never "mueng" except for one very old document where it seemed like a mistake. For Lao locations it should be "muang", and "möng" for Shan locations.

 

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A couple comments on the new culture setup, there probably won't be updates until after the actual review so this is kinda just a reference which I'll repost later.

Firstly, I'd actually reconsider the way Tai Nüa and Tai Long (?) are split. In some of my original posts I did say this would be one way of doing it, but I think there are some important reasons to do it a different way which I mistakenly didn't consider at the time.
1. Exact internal categorization and its history is a more recent field, so having a split in this way is pretty speculative. Having a single 'Shan' culture would avoid the issue of speculation, and also wouldn't be inaccurate in a different way because proto-Shan/old-Shan (the ancestor language of modern Tai varieties in western Yunnan, Myanmar, and Assam) is usually agreed to have been spoken around the 10th-15th centuries.
2. It could lead to some inconsistencies with other cultures in the region which haven't been internally split. For example, northern and southern Burmese dialects.
3. Having a unique Ahom dialect would be good for flavour reasons, as their ruler names are often spelled in a specific way it would be easy to create a name list. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahom_dynasty#Swargadeo_dynastic_lineage

Basically, I think it would make most sense in-game to have a single 'Shan' or 'Tai' culture (there isn't really a good endonym other than 'Tai' unfortunately. 'Tai Yai' is a Thai exonym and 'Tai Long' is restrictive to a certain subgroup) and go back to having an Ahom culture. This also matches with a proposal by the scholar Pittayawat Pittayaporn in 2020 in this video, where the historical split looks like this:

Also, while minorities might have not been done yet, I want to note that the Kadu population in northern Burma was very significant in the time period, probably larger than the Tai population who were more recent migrants, so they would be a notably important culture to include.

 

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I've added a simplified version of my location map for Burma and Yunnan, focusing on only names and location borders instead of adding loads of new locations.

I figured that I might as well do it because it doesn't take very long on my end. My intention in my original post was to correct mistakes, add new names, and fix awkward boundaries, but with it seeming like the devs are shorter on time, and from the previews no changes have been made to locations yet, this should hopefully make the process easier by showing the parts which are actually important.

To find the information about each name and location, go to the original post and Ctrl+F search for the name under the spoiler.

This version of the map only adds a single location which was necessary to include. Gengma/Küngma, split from Mengding/Möng Ting (in China near the modern border), since the original location included the capitals of 2 separate countries.

Tbh, I do actually kind of prefer this version, and it's probably what I'd use if I was developing the game map myself, but I'll keep the old map up for reference and because it has all the actual details and possible new additions if those are wanted.