Tinto Maps #3 - 24th of May 2024 - France

[tommassi]

hey, might have been asked before but, does Papal Avignon have a control building in it from the start or is it REALLY low control, just curious

The Pope was actually in Avignon in 1337. So the question would rather be the opposite: what about Italy.

 

[Nikicaga]

The Pope was actually in Avignon in 1337. So the question would rather be the opposite: what about Italy.

The pope having basically no control over his Italian possessions is entirely accurate for 1337. It was not until Cardinal Albornoz' campaigns in 1350s and 1360s that papal rule was enforced

 

[Killjoy177]

The Pope was actually in Avignon in 1337. So the question would rather be the opposite: what about Italy.

fr? Well that makes my devious scheming potentially more devious; I was asking because I was thinking about potential multiplayer shenanigans and how it might be fun to see if you could joining the 100 years on England sizes and pop out a French vassal... but... if the Pope is in Avignon the vassal part might be optional

 

[Titaïoli]

Saint-Etienne was a small town at the time (the main town of the Forez being Montbrison), but there was coal extracted there since the 12th century. Ironmongering was also an important local industry, and it seems to already have been a thing in 1337 since nails from Saint-Etienne were used in the Palace of the Popes of Avignon. If there's no specific reason for the sand, it could have either iron or coal instead? It would of course become famous for weapons too, but that seems to have come later, after the hundred years war but before the italian wars.

First of all I am sorry that I add a message to such an old thread, but what I wanted to say also relates to Saint-Étienne and I had to thank Labstein for this very good analysis which seems to have been heard by the devs. Indeed in the Tinto Maps for Germany published on the 26th of July, we could see things had been changed for the better. I saw this post for the first time a few days ago (I'm only now catching up on Tinto Talks and Tinto Maps) and was firstly surprised that Saint-Étienne was its own location, and such a big one too, as in my mind, it really wasn't a major population center in 1337. I only noticed later that it originally wasn't included in the nation of Forez which I believe it has pretty much always been a part of. That has also been corrected since.

One of the best resources we have to get information about the Forez in my opinion is l'Armorial de Guillaume Revel (in French), a modern document based on the works of Guillaume Revel in the 15th century. It can be downloaded as a PDF from this page and includes a map on page 29 of the frontiers of the Forez and shows all the settlements Guillaume Revel covered in the 15th century. This time I want to thank the devs for following the actual borders so accurately, as can be seen in the Tinto Maps post for Germany (on the left is the map from l'Armorial, on the right from the post) :

We can see that the location of Saint-Étienne has been made smaller (since the Tinto Maps for France that you are reading this in) and the Forez went from 2 to 5 provinces which I am fully in favor of. The province Saint-Étienne is in has also been changed to be Lyonnais which makes complete sense although it could perhaps be cut in half. Nevertheless it's much better than being put with the Vivarais which we are separated from by bigger mountains than with Lyon. We can also see that Saint-Étienne is not talked about in l'Armorial, but that's probably because it didn't have a castle and was administered from the neighboring city of Saint-Priest (today, Saint-Priest-en-Jarez, not Saint-Priest near Lyon) which also isn't in the document. Valbenoîte was an abbey which I think was located on the mandement of La Tour-en-Jarez, which is actually where I'm from. Today La Tour-en-Jarez is a village but historical sources such as the Petite Monographie de La Tour-en-Jarez of F. Chaux (very tough book to get your hands on but I own a copy) indicate it was a major commercial and judicial center, and it's kind of what I'm getting from what is written about it in l'Armorial. The same could probably be said for Saint-Priest. There were also other important cities in the area at the time such as Saint-Galmier (not on the map), Saint-Rambert, Saint-Chamond (sometimes Saint-Ennemond) but this last one seemingly was right where the border dispute with the archbishop of Lyon was, and it might have always stayed under the control of Lyon (I'm not too sure). It's all a little complicated because cities tend to depend on one another, sometimes they were basically bought by merchants and also they may appear more or less powerful depending on what you account for (military potential, population, judiciary power, importance of the church, size...).

Anyway all this to say that despite Saint-Étienne probably not being the biggest settlement in the area in 1337, it is absolutely the population center that grew the most over the centuries in the area (according to Wikipedia, which I know we shouldn't really use, the control of Saint-Priest didn't really hinder its growth, despite lasting until 1793) and was very relevant starting from the end of the 15th century I would say, as Labstein had mentionned. I think it makes sense to have it be the name of the location, and if it wasn't that, I wouldn't know what to name it. And if you have Saint-Étienne, you need to make the raw good coal (the intense exploitation of which came much later I think) or iron (which is what it has been changed to by the time of the Germany Tinto Maps). I am guessing the original sand good came from the fact that the vast majority of buildings in the historical center of Saint-Étienne, still today, are made out of sandstone because it is the stone that is found nearby, but I don't believe much sand was exported at all. Iron makes a lot more sense considering the very many ironworkers that the city used to host and the weapons industry that developed overtime. Perhaps there could be an event or something allowing the raw good to become coal at some point? But I'm unsure if the time period where it got more important than iron will be in project caesar.

I was going to propose making the terrain hills but that's actually what it's always been shown as, and I was a bit surprised by the choice of woods for the vegetation before I realised the Massif du Pilat is basically a huge forest.

So in the end I've written an enormous message to not actually suggest much (although perhaps some things I've said will lead to changes if the devs think they are necessary) and mostly praise the changes that have been done in the area between May and July, but now that I've spent hours writing all this I am not going to delete it. Sorry again for reviving this old post.