• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

Tinto Maps #4 - 31th of May 2024 - Poland, Ruthenia, Baltic

Hello everyone, and welcome to the fourth Tinto Maps! The feedback that we've received so far has been great, and there will be news soon regarding the map fixes that we've already done.

This week we are showing you Poland, Lithuania, Ruthenia, and the Baltic region. Let’s check it with no further ado:

Countries
Countries.jpg

A bigger picture of what’s going on in this region today, as we hadn’t shown it entirely before. To the west, the Kingdom of Poland is ruled by Casimir III of the House of Piast. It is not a completely unified kingdom, as there are several powerful vassals under him, most of them also Piasts themselves.

To the east, the Duchy of Lithuania is ruled by Gediminas, who has greatly expanded the influence of the country into Russian lands (side note: Gediminas entitled himself in his diplomatic correspondence ‘king’, but was considered by the Pope ‘king or duke’, and the title of Grand Duke wouldn’t be formally adopted until later [most likely replicating the Russian title ‘Grand Prince’]. That’s why Lithuania starts as a Duchy, although it will have an event that would make it possible to adopt the dynamic country name of ‘Grand Duchy’).

To the south, the principalities of Kyiv and Galicia-Volhynia have recently fallen under foreign influence, the first ruled by Theodor, brother of Gediminas of Lithuania; and the second by Yuri II, also from the Piast dynasty.

To the north, the Teutonic and Livonian Orders, which conquered the lands of Prussia and Livonia a century ago, are at war against Poland and Lithuania, after a long-established rivalry.

Also, a side note: we will talk about Moldavia in the Tinto Maps devoted to the Carpathian region, as it’s currently in a ‘placeholder’ spot.


Diplomacy.jpg

A new map mode, the Diplomatic one! The game starts with an ongoing war between Poland, Lithuania, and their respective vassals, on one side, and the Teutonic and Livonian Orders, and Bohemia and its vassals, on the other.

Locations
Locations.jpg

Here you have the locations of Poland, Lithuania, Ruthenia, and the Baltic region. Some issues that have already been reported by our Polish coworkers are the inconsistencies in the location naming in Polish (we’ll use proper Polish letters more thoroughly), and we’ve also started to review both the Polish and Baltic locations based on the early feedback you gave us. Oh, also, the Vistula and Curonian Lagoons missing is a bug, we’ll properly re-add them while doing the map review.

Provinces
Province.jpg

Any suggestions for provincial naming are pretty welcome, as in the last DD!

Terrain
Climate.jpg

Topography.jpg

Vegetation.jpg


Cultures
Cultures.jpg

The Baltic lands have an interesting mix of different cultures. ‘Western Baltic’ culture represents the people speaking a West Baltic language (Old Prussians, Yotvingians, Curonians, etc.), while ‘Prussian’ is the culture of the German settlers of that area; on that style, we have a ‘Baltic German’ culture in the lands of Livonia and Estonia that also got settled by German-speaking people. The divide between Polish, Ruthenian, and Aukstaitian might be too deep, so we will most likely add a bit more mixed situation in the borders between these cultures.

Religions
Religions.jpg

A region with a more interesting religious setup! Apart from the Catholic-Orthodox divide, you can also see the Romuva religion, which was a hot topic in 1337 (shall the Dukes of Lithuania convert to Catholicism, or stay Pagan?). Red stripes to the north are other Animist populations. Also, disregard the Sunni region to the southeast, as we have to review all the pops of the Pontic Steppes, as well.

Raw Goods
Raw Goods.jpg

From the distribution of the materials, maybe a couple of things might catch your eye. The first is that there’s an Amber good present on the shores of the Baltic Sea. The second is that the Tatra Mountains, in Slovakia, have a bunch of precious metals, which makes them a very interesting area to exploit and develop.

Population
Pops.jpg

Pops 2.png

The population of the region is divided into country and location views. Two notes: The total population of Estonia is not 711K people, that’s the total for its owner, Denmark. Second, we’ve read your feedback regarding the population map mode, and we’ll take a look at how to improve the visualization of the data, making it better for you.

EDIT: Markets
Markets.jpg

And that’s all for today! The region that we'll show next week is Italy! Cheers!
 
  • 211Love
  • 157Like
  • 10
  • 5
  • 4
  • 1Haha
Reactions:
It has been brought up in an earlier thread, but I'll repeat it here. Järva being part of Denmark seems like a bit of an odd choice.

Järva (Jarva) was judged by the Pope to belong to the Danish king, and was given up by the Livonian Order in the treaty of Stensby in 1238 (alongside the areas marked as Danish). However, the Danish king gave Järva (Gervien) back to the Livonian order in the same treaty (as penance for his soul) on the condition that they would not build any fortifications there without the acceptance of the Danish king. In ecclestical terms it did however remain under the archbishopric of Lund.

A Danish translation of the treaty (original is in Latin) is available here (the website is run by the university of Aarhus): https://danmarkshistorien.dk/vis/materiale/stensbytraktaten-7-juni-1238/

Surely Johan or another Scandinavian can make sense of it if you don't have any Danes at Tinto :)

There also seems to be some other issues with the Teutonic order and Riga as well, but since Johan has previously stated that the four Rigas is a bug I assume that is part of what you are looking into already.
 
  • 5Like
  • 1
  • 1
Reactions:
A location like Drohobych historically produced salt and was famous for it.

Also, the name of the province of Galicia should be changed to Halych, or something else, since Halychyna is a term that unites several local provinces.
 
  • 1Like
  • 1
Reactions:
Dude, I'm a Ukrainian, nobody talks about propaganda or politics, just look at the historical records...
Just got to ignore him. Guy went through my post history to "respectfully disagree" with all them because I mentioned in my post that Kyiv wasn't latinized that way until recently :D
 
  • 6Like
  • 2Haha
Reactions:
It feels odd for everywhere to be split so granularly with regards to culture and for 'Ruthenian' to just be a single block. Volyn at least should be more granular than that, and it doesn't look like there are Rusyns to the north of the Carpathians, though there should be some?
 
  • 4Like
Reactions:
Kyiv should be called "Kyuev" or "Kiev" as it was the pronounciation of the time. Also Vinnitsa should be called "Vinnichya" for "Вѣничя" also pronounciation of the time. There are a lot of anachronistic names in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus they should use "List of Russian Cities, Far and Near" as a reference for names in Kievan Rus.
I mean, if you really wanna nitpick the oldest depiction of the name on an English map is apparently "Kyou" or "Kyovia".

So, I would vote for "Kyou" to upset everyone.
 
  • 12Like
  • 3
  • 1Haha
Reactions:
Devs, you excellently presented Central-Eastern Europe.

I think that Lower Silesia should be more divided at the start of the game.

My opinion is based on a publication written by scholars from the University of Wroclaw.

Przemysław Wiszewski, Stanisław Rosik, 2013. The long formation of the Region Silesia (c.1000-1526)/ed. Przemysław Wiszewski: [transl. by Katarzyna Hussar].

I also have one question. Will the Sudety Mountains be included in the later version of the map?
 
  • 3Like
Reactions:
Silesia at the start of the game was in the final phase of German settlement, when free Germans came in large numbers to create settlements under German law in an area that had previously been under Slavic Polish rule.
First of all, I have no idea what you mean by "the final phase of German settlement", but the real final phase started under Frederic the Great.
Second of all, German law meant that the cities received privilleges and city council autonomy based on those received by Magdeburg in 1035. City RECEIVING Magdeburg rights, not being "created under German law" wasn't even directly related to any recent settlement efforts - for examples look at Minsk, Kyiv, Kraków, Poznań, Vilnius, Trakai, Grodno, Sandomierz. And especially in Silesia, which was already the most urbanized part of Poland during the feudal fragmentation, Magdeburg rights were not always the first set of privilleges received by the cities like Wrocław
 
  • 3Like
Reactions:
I would like the “Caesar Project” to have an achievement “The Minsk empire”, such as the capture of all of China for the releaseble principality of Minsk or, conversely, the capture of Minsk for the Chinese Ming Empire. The city and the empire in Slavic languages have a funny similarity of the stem in the adjectives of these words — [Minsk]-
 
  • 8Like
  • 1Love
Reactions:
Almost the whole HRE? Sounds like the worst possible thread to follow! :p Anatolia might be a contender...
I am ready to sign a form stating that I will behave during the Anatolia thread :p
 
  • 7Haha
  • 1Like
Reactions:
I suggest to rename Ruthenian to Rus'.
This term seems to me more neutral and will not cause protest from either side, since historically both Ukrainians and Russians are the heirs of Rus' culture
 
  • 13Like
  • 2
Reactions:
The maps here look mostly good, except terrain maps

I don't agree with how small Polesie Marshlands are. From what I know they should extend from Brest-Litovsk on the west to Mogilev on north-east and Kyiv on south-east.

There is no Kampinos Forest (pristine at the time) nor Biebrza Marshes nor Holy Cross Mountains (Hills) nor Vistula Fens(Marshland). Pomerania terrain should have some marshlands that were at the time in process of being drained (Original Marienburg Castle foundations were constructed using oaken stakes).
 
Last edited:
  • 5Like
  • 1
Reactions:
I am biased because I love Galicia-Volhynia, but I believe that having it as a, albeit lighter, yellow makes it look like it is related to the Golden Horde rather than Poland, other Ruthenians, or its own color.
 
  • 3Like
  • 3
Reactions:
First of all, I have no idea what you mean by "the final phase of German settlement", but the real final phase started under Frederic the Great.
Second of all, German law meant that the cities received privilleges and city council autonomy based on those received by Magdeburg in 1035. City RECEIVING Magdeburg rights, not being "created under German law" wasn't even directly related to any recent settlement efforts - for examples look at Minsk, Kyiv, Kraków, Poznań, Vilnius, Trakai, Grodno, Sandomierz. And especially in Silesia, which was already the most urbanized part of Poland during the feudal fragmentation, Magdeburg rights were not always the first set of privilleges received by the cities like Wrocław
I explained it before, the final phase of the Ostsiedlung which is considered to have ended in the 14th century. What happened after is a different chapter of history. Goldberg and Löwenberg were the first towns founded with Magdeburg rights and those were certainly related to German settlement.
 
  • 1
Reactions:
Cool. It seems that you have fixed the two Riga things by renaming the theocracy one. I’m not sure what is Rgl. in short for. Hope to know it.

There seems to be toooooo many cultures in Prussia and Baltic. It would help us if you could list them.
 
Culture colors are scripted, they're usually similar to country colors when possible.
Considering that they’re presented in cultural map mode, I suggest to make relevant cultures in similar colors.

The colors of Bohemian and Moravian are too different from each other… and probably it’s as designed because Moravian is similar to the color of Slovakian.

Can the scripted color of culture change within the game?
 
I Think there should be a mechanic that once all Russian sub culture are united, they will become a new Russian culture instead of fractured culture like Muscovite or Novgorodian, or there should be a chain of event that once the Rus land are united there will be a faster transition from those culture mentioned merged into one Russian culture, I hope I can get a feedback here, thank you
Russian identity(nationality) was invented in 1920, before that 'rus' term meant 'orthodox' for slavs. Nationalities which you can find in historical books are malorussians and velikorussians. For medieval times they were identified as slavs.

"Великоро́ссы (великоро́сы, великору́сы, великору́ссы, великороссия́не) — этноним, использовавшийся в отношении русских в качестве их самоопределения либо внешнего представления и переживший ряд трансформаций на протяжении XVIII — начала XX века." = "Velikorossy" (also Velikorosy, Velikorusy, Velikorussy, Velikorossiyane) is an ethnonym that was used to refer to Russians, either as a form of self-identification or external designation. This term underwent several transformations from the 18th to the early 20th century.

rus`an and russian are totally different things

It makes no sense for (lands current days owned mainly by Ukraine and Russia) cultures to unite in one group russians. So when you unite slavic culture groups, you should form velikorrussians or malorussians as they historically did until 1920.
 
Last edited:
  • 9
  • 2
Reactions:
Multiple location and province names in Ukraine should probably change:
Khmelnytskyi - Bohdan Khmelnytskyi lived in the 17th century(this city has his name today), medieval name of the town was Ploskiriv.
Towns on the border between Polish and Ukrainian cultures(the population there was always mixed till after WW2 when the population exchange happened) have their Ukrainian naming convention:
Chełm > Cholm, Przemyśl > Peremyshl, Lubaczów > Lubachiv
These are just a few examples, there are many more questions here about the naming convention, but I hope during development this will be reviewed.

Also, what is the rationale for using Galicia–Volhynia instead of the Kingdom of Rus(or word from Latin medieval sources 'Ruthenia'), which was the actual name used for self-identifying and was called so by other courts? Even after Yuriy II was killed and Cazimir III of Poland inherited his throne, Cazimir changed his title to be:
'Casimir by the grace of God king of Poland and Rus(Ruthenia) ...'

There is a problem with using words like 'Rus', 'Ruthenia', and 'Rusyn'. The issue is that Ruthenian is just a Latin word for Rus, and the people of Rus(who are called Ruthenians on your map) called themselves 'Rusyn'. Ukrainians(I'm not educated about Belarusians) till the mid 19 century and the rise of distinct political, and not only ethnic identity, self-identified as Rusyns.
Anyway, I realize there is a lot to unpack and that the use of these words can be confusing for the outsider. Still, I would greatly appreciate it if you guys invested time to bring these cultural naming conventions to a single сommon denominator in this region.

Excited for the game.
 
  • 6Like
  • 4
  • 2
Reactions:
Hi, i have a question about the war betwen poland and teutonic order beacuse if i remember correctly war ended in 1333 and couple of silesian duchies like for example księstwo jaworskie were on polish side, and is this war like a consequenses of failed event chain if there is such?
 
Last edited:
  • 8Like
Reactions: